Avatree

1. The Dark Knight Rises (5/5) 2. Inception (4/5) 3. Batman Begins (4/5) 4. The Dark Knight (3/5) Haven't seen the others, though I'm really looking forward to watching The Prestige some time soon. DVD has been sitting on my shelf for months and I only noticed I owned it the other day, after nearly buying the blu-ray online. Also hopefully watching Interstellar in a couple of weeks' time.

It's only $0.5m off from Inception. That's pretty good.

Yeah, it definitely can do <30%, since there's so little competition. However, if you look at animated films more generally, Wreck-It Ralph is pretty rare even among original films. The only animated family film to drop less than 30% in the past few years is The Lego Movie. Most drop between 40-50%. I wouldn't expect it to drop so little. Sure, all these other films might have been facing more competition, but you can't avoid the fact that Wreck-It Ralph is an anomaly. How to Train Your Dragon, for instance, which was an original film that got amazing reception, dropped 33.7%. I'm going with a 35% drop to $36.5m, though I might raise that weekend figure if the strong midweeks continue through Thursday.

I think there are a few separate issues here, but they kind of get merged all together. There's art style, CGI/effects technology, and 3D immersion. In terms of creating an immersive 3D experience, Avatar wins it hands down for me. It's been too long for me to really remember it properly (so I don't remember the effectiveness of some of the shots posted earlier in the thread) but I do remember being completely absorbed into Pandora. It was a wonderful experience. Gravity was not as immersive for me. I don't feel its effects really held up as well as they should have, and it felt too fake. The awful script didn't help but that aside, I really wasn't blown away by the film as so many others were. Maybe my cinema screen was too small or something, but I remember being a bit bored by it at multiple points. Effects-wise I feel it's pretty average, which is fine usually - except with Gravity, that's all there was to the visual experience. As for art style, the aforementioned Life of Pi looked stunning in 3D, but that's really just down to the colour palette and the vast, open waters. The 3D itself was not particularly special, nor was the CGI (though the tiger was, admittedly, fairly convincing), but the visual design elevated it to another level. I also personally feel that Avatar looked gorgeous thanks to its design - I love the contrast of the colourful, lush natural forests against the grey, mechanical human technology. Finally, the CGI. Avatar might have been groundbreaking at the time, and the quality of the effects certainly aided the immersion factor, but looking back on it, it's not incredible. The level of detail is impressive in creating such a sense of scale, but at the end of the day, the effects are definitely 5 years old! The best film in terms of visual effects technology is, without a doubt, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The apes are utterly convincing and real, and to put such a focus on them, and have so many apes moving at one time, without making it feel cheesy, is one of the most impressive feats I've ever seen in the cinema. So, no, Avatar has not been matched in its use of 3D; but there have been better looking, and more impressive, films since.

Cool, thanks. Sorry for derailing

Agreed, it should be in the title. Just letting you know

Yeah, obviously they can only blame themselves. Seems silly though, I mean unless they had no other choice. Ecstasy: those numbers were already posted, look at post #119.

Sounds like a pretty crap deal for Paramount...

Third act in Close Encounters is great! But it's definitely love-it-or-hate-it.

Unfortunately here in the UK, there aren't very many IMAX cinemas, only 20 or so, compared to the hundreds in the US. It's not very easy to get to an IMAX - it would cost me about £60 ($100) for the travel cost + one ticket. It would take up an entire afternoon and evening, so then there's food to buy etc as well. It's really time consuming and expensive, in other words! My first IMAX film will be Episode 7. I will absolutely fork out the money and haul myself down to London to see that on opening night; and I don't see myself going to an IMAX showing any time before then. I wanted to watch Pacific Rim in IMAX, and I had the opportunity as I was in NYC for a week in summer 2013, it's just my parents didn't let me go as I'd already seen the film back home Also what's Juggernaut? Sub-40 makes sense. Even if Interstellar is particularly front-loaded due to Nolan's fans, that should have been the same for Inception, and that film managed to stay down at 32%. (It also had a $36m film opening on second weekend, that Interstellar won't be facing) edit: Sorry Tele

I actually didn't even know Empire in Leicester Square was an IMAX. Only been to Leicester Square twice though.

I thought Transformers 2 and 3 were bad enough, but I watched 4 in the cinema and it was even worse, which I was surprised by. Fortunately, even if Transformers 4 takes the crown this year, it won't ever again. It's on a steep downwards trajectory domestically, and may well earn less than $200 million in 2016 when TF5 releases. Worldwide excluding China, TF4 was down $100 million on TF3, and the next one will likely earn less in all those markets too. And even in China, it'd be a little surprising to see TF5 do as well as TF4 has done, though I'm not counting that out. TF5 should do around $900 million worldwide, which is a big jump down. It won't break a billion again. I'm actually not a huge Peter Jackson fan, by the way. I only watched the LotR trilogy for the first time last month, and although I enjoyed them more than I thought I would, I'm by no means a huge fan. I did really like the first two Hobbit films though, which is what got me to watch LotR. I can definitely see The Hobbit winning the year, I'm just not convinced that it will happen. I would certainly like it to! As for any other surprises - no, there really aren't. Interstellar was the last chance at that, and it's blown it. The only big releases yet to come, other than Hobbit and Mockingjay, are Night at the Museum 3, Penguins of Madagascar and Into the Woods. (Exodus: Gods and Kings will flop) Night at the Museum 3 would have a huge ladder to climb (last film made $400m) so it's impossible there. Penguins of Madagascar won't gross more than Madagascar 3 ($750m) as it's a spin-off and hasn't got a huge fanbase. Into the Woods being huge is unlikely, given that only one musical has made more than $600 million. 2014 has indeed been pretty poor for huge films. The only surprises that were big were Maleficent and Guardians of the Galaxy (and personally I was surprised by DotPotA, though I know a lot of sites predicted 650-700, I thought it would repeat Rise).

Yeah, the IMAX in London is massive. I'd love to see a film on it - never watched a film on an IMAX screen except for short videos in a science museum haha. This is a size chart of (nearly) all the IMAX screens in the UK, biggest one is that pink border on the outside. 85x66 feet: It looks huge!

How on earth is it not a blockbuster? It's got a $165m production budget, a huge marketing campaign, and A-list actors. Sure, Nolan was given some freedom with releasing the movie on film 2 days early, but that means nothing - it doesn't make the film "unique". How can you say "it was meant to be seen in IMAX" yet say "shall not be compared to Gravity"?

Hobbit is the only one that could do it, but the chance of that is looking slim. At the start of the year, I predicted $1.15b for Hobbit but I'm not so sure now. It should do around $1b, but honestly, the idea of it doing $65m more than An Unexpected Journey, which was a return to the beloved Middle-earth without negative reception, is a little hard to believe. Still, if it has great WoM (and it helps that Desolation was well-received), then it could theoretically beat Transformers. It is the last Middle-earth film from Peter Jackson we'll ever see, after all; that's got to stand for something, right? Anyway, only The Hobbit has even the possibility of beating Transformers. Mockingjay doesn't stand a chance, even if the overseas audience has grown substantially. I think it's interesting that this year has had a significantly lower top end ($1.1b) than previous years (2013 = $1.3b, 2012 = $1.5b, 2011 = $1.3b), yet the bottom end of the Top 10 has increased (the year is guaranteed to end with less than 2 films below $700m, which has never happened before).

Domestically they are absolutely perfect. The only difference was this idea of Disney's brand improving thanks to Frozen, though I never bought into that (and seemed to be proven right for once ). However, overseas it could prove to be a rather different picture. I can see BH6 doing well in Asia. Good stuff Isn't that quite low? Gravity only dropped 23% in its second weekend. I appreciate that it had better word of mouth but still, 52% is a big drop for an adult-aimed film, even by blockbuster standards (e.g. Inception's 32% drop)

Dawn got its name revealed exactly two years before it was scheduled to release. Given that the third one is less than two years away now, I wouldn't be surprised to see it revealed fairly soon.

They don't even need "most" users to pay a membership fee. If even 1/100 users got a small subscription they would make as much money, given how poorly advertising pays. I would certainly pay a membership fee to use BOM.

Just checked on Wayback Machine and that link did definitely used to redirect to boxofficemojo.com (as of a few days ago), so it has been actively changed to the Twitter account. Not a good sign

BOM was the best site by a million miles. BoxOffice is alright though much less usable. And IMDB is just a shithole, it has no stats of any importance whatsoever, it is displayed horribly... God, they can't do this. Not only is it a great site but I actually need it. I'm currently doing a research project that is required for me to go to the university i want to get into, and I'm doing mine in box office analysis. Needless to say, my data is coming from BOM, as no other site offers what they had. This had better just be a technical problem and a temporary redirect while they resolve problems. That wouldn't surprise me, given how inconsistent and unstable the site was, but still, I'm freaking out right now. It's promising that earlier on the site said it would be back soon - and it seems a bit odd for IMDB to not announce anything if they are shutting the site down.

Knew I was missing a film! Oops >.< JW is an interesting one. Its critical reception will be hugely influential - if it's good, it could get up to $300 million, but if it's bad then it won't do much more than $200. I guess I'll settle somewhere in the middle with $260 million.

Star Wars is guaranteed at least $400 million, that's just the floor. Although Avengers has more of a guaranteed $550+, it also doesn't have a huge amount of room for growth above that, whereas for Star Wars, the sky's the limit. It has an actual shot at slaying Avatar both domestically and globally - Star Wars is the biggest brand in moviemaking, no question of it. Everyone knows about Star Wars and everyone will watch it. Regardless of any prequel hate that might be lingering, right now - at least where I live - it is very clear that Episode 7 is the most hyped movie for the future. It has made regular news headlines, everyone knows about it. Which can't be said for many other films. My predictions: #1 - Star Wars: Episode VII - $700 million #2 - Avengers 2 - $580 million #3 - The Hunger Games 4 - $450 million #4 - Inside Out - $280 million #5 - Fast and Furious 7 - $260 million #6 - Minions - $245 million #7 - The Good Dinosaur - $240 million #8 - Mission: Impossible 5 - $235 million #9 - Fifty Shades of Grey - $220 million #10 - Tomorrowland - $215 million Star Wars - explained above Avengers - while the individual movies will continue to grow, I'm not sure that the team-up films will see much growth, if any at all. $580 is virtually identical to the first one's gross. It could do more, though it'd be surprising to significantly increase upon such a large amount. Hunger Games - I don't know why everyone is throwing huge numbers at Mockingjay Part 2. Given that there was no growth from the first movie to the second, I don't imagine there will be much of an increase by the time the final film lands. While it's true that more people will turn out for the finale, the general audience hasn't had much time to get attached to this series given that it's only 4 films and they're all releasing within 3 and a half years of each other. So it won't see as much as a boost as Deathly Hallows part 2. Inside Out - Pixar hasn't had a particularly strong past few years, but this is something original and it's directed by the man who helmed Up and Monsters Inc. If audiences connect it could bring Pixar back to where they were a few years ago. Fast 7 - this franchise has been played out now that franchise fatigue should be about to kick in. It does have Paul Walker's death going for it; it won't have a Heath Ledger-like effect but it will be similar. It's surprising how aware the public still is about his death even now, despite it being old news. It will have an effect but it'll have been 1.5 years since the death. It wouldn't surprise me if this actually grossed less than Fast 6 domestically, but I don't think that'll happen quite yet. Fast 8 will though. Minions - I can't believe how generous people are being towards this. It's a spin-off and it's competing in one of the most crowded summer ever. While animated competition only comes in the form of Inside Out (which in itself is something), there are plenty of family-orientated films releasing around that time. And it's a spin-off - it won't even get close to DM2's gross. The Good Dinosaur - kids love animal animated adventures, so this will probably be big. That being said, it has had some production issues that could hold it back from being great. MI5 - I doubt this will improve much on MI4. That itself was a big step up from MI3 in terms of box office gross, so it's unlikely to do much better. Franchise fatigue may not have as big an effect as it might usually have though, thanks to the lengthy gaps between the films (4, 6, 5, 4 years). Fifty Shades - given the number of us women who loved this book, I can only imagine that the film will break out just as much as the book did. There's a lot of excitement for the film and there's a good chance it turns into an event film, given the controversy surrounding it. Tomorrowland - this one's a bit of a potshot, but I think this film will do really well. It's almost guaranteed to be well-received - the cast and director have strong histories, and it may stand out in a summer full of sequels.