Celedhring

No, I presume he quit/didn't stand for reelection by the time the events of the new flick come around. He survived the second movie. Poor Eckhart, his career seems pretty done atm.

It has grown 15% DOM and 25% WW, that seems really healthy. Moreso when you take into account that FFH had less starpower than Homecoming due to lack of RDJ. Yes, other Marvel sagas have grown more %-wise throughout their sequels (Cap, Thor), but they didn't start so close to the ceiling as Spidey did. It won't reach 400 DOM which is why some people might be slightly down on the film, but all in all it's a great performance.

What's the board's consensus on OUATIH's final DOM? My crummy napkin math says high 130s. I would love it to beat Inglorious Basterd's adjusted (145M) but that seems a bridge too far?

Stuber is one of these films where I watched the trailer and thought "why is this a movie?"

The musical is essentially a bunch of disconnected dance/song numbers with a really thin frame story. Even ignoring the furry weirdness I really don't see this working as a film.

Yep, they even bring back Claire Danes' character (the future wife of John Connor) in Salvation.

I'm going to have to agree here. The whole story and concept for the villain is flat-out ridiculous and danced circles around my suspension of disbelief (and my suspension of disbelief is very high). Also all the "weighty" moments of the film (Spidey trying to fill Iron Man's very large and heavy shoes) just felt perfunctory and not taken seriously. That said, the cast made it watchable. Enjoyed the teen comedy bits more than the actual superhero stuff, which is weird.

They are opening a Spiderman ride over at Disneyland Paris, too. I think the ancillary benefits of keeping Spidey popular outweigh other considerations - since as others pointed out Sony wasn't just going to sell them back the character, he's far too valuable. We'll see what happens when Sony and Disney have to come beack to the table to extend the deal. IIRC it's supposed to run out once they release a third solo Spidey movie, right? I do wonder if Sony would be tempted to pull back in order to be able to mix Spidey with their own fledging shared universe, though.

Great weekend for Aladdin. Unless Toy Story 4 obliterates it next weekend it should reach 300m rather comfortably. I'm seeing 304-306m right now. Nice to have a Memorial Day success story once again after the past few years.

I'm not the least surprised that a WWI-set film didn't connect with Asian audiencies, to be honest. Plus the Marvel brand is stronger overall at this point. We'll see how well the 1980s setting sells outside the West - I think many people not in Europe/US will shrug at that, but it's not as "marked" as a film set in the 1910s. Also the DC brand is in a much better place after Aquaman, too.

Looks like the Monsterverse will die soon. GvK will imho be another sub-200 DOM, sub 500-WW grosser. As fun as monster mashes can be, I honestly don't think you can build a blockbuster saga around them. You need strong human protagonists for the GA to relate to so they come back film after film. MCU's greatest asset, imho, has been its ability to build those likeable characters. WB, on the other hand, have failed miserably - or they simply haven't cared - to build those characters across the 3 Monsterverse films. I know, I know, Transformers, but heck, in that saga at least the creatures could talk. The human element is important even in SFX-driven extravaganzas.

I'll go and say that I wasn't expecting much and Solo actually pleasantly surprised me. It was an unecessary movie, and a lot of the fanservice-y thing was really dull and felt like writers just going through a checklist (Han meets chewie! Han wins the Falcon! Han does the Kessel Run!) but they added enough interesting stuff (mainly, Clarke's and Harrelson's characters) that made the film not a complete waste. Can totally see why it bombed though, I'd have skipped it if I wasn't such a Star Wars fan.

I was thinking just that. It will be a down year for Marvel, plus no Star Wars or Avatar. The drop in BO can be really bad. Of course there's always breakouts, but right now I'm not seeing anything reaching 500m DOM. Heck, we might even end up without a 400m film either (but I assume something will break out and reach that figure at least). Heck, I might go and make my first club once the release schedule becomes clearer.

If you take out what they get from Marvel/Lucasfilm, in the live action side of things Disney has been dropping more bombs than a B-52 this decade. They seemingly can't get anything to work outside those remakes, so it's not surprising they are tripling down on them.

I can't see where the next 300m+ opener is going to come from (let alone snatching the record) until we accrue quite a few more years of inflation. EG is far from being a "new normal" of any kind regarding blockbusters. That said, my personal and completely unscientific benchmark for "blockbusterness" is whatever figure makes you almost certain to land in the Top 5 of a given year (obviously some years will be stronger than others), and it's true that 300m doesn't seem to cut it anymore (it won't this year and it hasn't since 2014). The new benchmark since to be around 350-400.