Gavin Feng

I agree that marketing sucked. But Mulan also didn’t do much in marketing due to many sensitive reasons and was hurt by piracy and 3-day window pre-sale. WW84 didn’t have a situation that bad but made worse numbers. That’s what I couldn’t understand.

oh, I see what you asked. The real cost is more like $70M. But in China, real budget doesn’t matter. If studio give director $100M, and the filmmaker can finish the movie with $60M, he/she can keep the rest $40M. That’s allowed in Chinese film industry. Also, film business is more like a gamble here. Many studios would invest something they don’t really understand and bet it. They thought Lam deserved $100M, so they just gave him that much money and power without seeing any details of its development.

Of course because they trusted Lam after he directed a $570M box office blockbuster. But this time, he use too many vfx things instead of real shots he always did. And in China, it’s a director-central creative system. Studios could only trust him.

China don’t even want to see their own history-war epic. No way this kind of movies outside can do huge here.

Something I still don’t understand: Why the buzz and pre-sale were so bad for WW84. Was WW84 meant to be a billion level movie? I did expect that result because some factors I wrote, and I also knew it was not a top level IP. So it was not totally going to happen and could miss my expectation. The question is why it miss so much. If it end with something like $80-100M lifetime, I might still figure out why. But at this point, it couldn’t even catch Mulan. That’s very shocking and “unreasonable”. It feels like some kind of mysterious power kill Wonder. Will we know what the power represents? Would it do the same on other Hollywood titles? What kind of results that 2021 WB titles would have? So many things I’m looking forward to seeing. 2021 could be more uncertain but determined for the fate of Hollywood titles here.

After the disappointed numbers this weekend, there are something we can still believe or learn : For superhero movie, weak pre-sale equals box office flop. Days ago, I still thought there was chance even miracle that most audience would buy tickets after releasing. It happened on many underestimated titles and brought unexpected box office performance. But for Hollywood blockbusters especially superhero movies, most people wouldn’t see it without buy tickets in advance. Dark Phoenix proved it, and now WW84 prove it again. If we get bad pre-sale numbers, there is zero chance it could be a hit. Don’t add too many anti-type stuffs to your blockbusters. Both The Rescue and WW84 have the problem. For the local pic, I heard director Lam wasn’t very happy that some movie fans thought he could shoot nothing but action scenes. Operation Red Sea, a movie filled with action scenes only, earned nearly $600M here. But Lam decided to challenge a very emotional story he could never tell in The Rescue, proving those harmless reviews were wrong about his incredible filmmaking ability. Then, the movie got lots of negative reactions that could really hurt its box office. They tried to save it by reediting after Covid-19 caused its delay, but the materials were too bad to improve much. Now the $100M budget movie probably would end with $70M lifetime. For WW84, I can see Patty also want to tell a very emotional story that she is good at, but she use too many unnecessary pages to show the emotional depth that simply could’ve been done with few shoots and scenes, just like the first WW movie. And now, many people even fans couldn’t enjoy it.

That doesn’t matter to most audience.

Douban & Maoyan MoS - 7.1 & ~ BvS - 6.8 & 8.0 WW - 7.1 & 8.6 JL - 6.4 & 8.6 AQM - 7.6 & 9.3 Shazam - 6.3 & 7.9 WW84 - 6.7 & 8.0 so it's very close to BvS(OW*1.67 multiple) and Shazam(1.43). It looks like $35-40M lifetime after $24M opening.

even Mulan made $23M.

Shock Wave 2 will take their showtimes.

title name of chapter 16 of Mandalorian called The Rescue. It seems inevitable that the weekend belongs to The Rescue.

It doesn’t tell the exact dramatic conflict between leading character and villains until almost 100 minutes...

Many comedy-type Hollywood blockbusters are too American style, including Spider-Man: Homecoming. But those jokes in Ant-Man could even make local audience laugh. I really appreciate that business talent.

Some think piracy affected its pre-sale. Maybe it did. But how to explain Mulan, a movie that debuted a week after piracy leaked, could even do higher than WE84 in final pre-sale. And Mulan only had three days selling ticket in advance. Marketing and distribution fucked up.

many who saw midnights felt they were deceived -- not a real superhero movie, more like some kind of rom-comedy. too long with 150 mins endless talking instead of fighting. director/writers keep telling audience how to love, so narcissistic just like TENET, it's not a blockbuster people expected. They want to experience something epic, but neither of them have that.

Maoyan Movie, the co-pro of The Rescue, controlled the audience score by its own ticket platform. Not only the referee but also athlete

I don't expect it will top these titles, but it should not be far from what they made

so it's almost sure no major market hit $1 billion except DOM and CHN this year?

Warner Bros: Whatever. I have Detective Chinatown 3

average ticket price of WW84 is around ¥45 at this point. No discounts like other Hollywood titles. Aquaman was around ¥39 two days before opening.

they saw and thought good. But it doesn't feel like audience want any new Hollywood content at this point

70% of what Tenet sold at the same point.

Third WW movie, a $150M level title, will finally make $1.5 billion worldwide.

Wonder Woman 1984 - I revise down my expectation again, but it's still much higher than what pre-sale has suggested. Yes, numbers don't lie. And I insist on a basic line I think it shouldn't be crossed. No matter right or wrong, I'm going to reflect what really happed on recent Hollywood titles. So would those studios. A Little Red Flower - Far ahead of what I expected, according to pre-sale performance. It has a shot of making $25M from 6 hours previews on Dec.31. The midnights/previews records are held by Avengers: Endgame's $28.3M(mignights) and Wolf Warrior sequel's $15.2M(8pm previews).