Celedhring

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.

Thanks for sharing this, I love these "stars being nice to fans when there aren't any cameras around" stories.

The trailer looks like Sonic wants to give Mario a good challenge as to whom has the worst movie of the two. Paramount should have invested in a time machine and release this in the 1990s. Both Carrey and Sonic were big, and the CGI would actually look good.

We used to have more, but most of them have closed down throughout the years. The recession made them financial black holes (huge expenses to build/maintain, audiences not willing to pay the premium prices).

€30m requires slightly better legs than IW, which did just a little under 3x over here. But it would be cool if the SH genre broke the glass ceiling they historically have had here (they do well, just not hugely well). I just caught a professor at the uni I work for discussing the movie with one of the employees at the cafeteria, which is pretty telling since this a pretty uptight conservative place.

I really need a better source for historic Spanish BO data. I'm always translating back to euros from BOM and I end up introducing misadjustments even when taking exchange rates of that year into account. What do you use?

AEG has taken the OW record for Spain too, with €10.2m (previous was Breaking Dawn Part 2 with €9.2m). That's a huge number, and I'm really curious about legs from here on out. No CBM has ever gone past €25m in this market, and IW made "just" €22m.

So CM has managed to get #1 49 days after release. This has inspired me to make a "latest day as #1" ranking (2002-). Setting a cut-off point at 30 days after release, I get: 1- My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on 147 days after release (that run was just incredible) 2 - Avatar, 77 days after release 3 - Frozen, 73 days after release 4 - PotC: Curse of the Black Pearl, 63 days after release 5 - Jumanji, 51 days after release 6 - Captain Marvel, 49 days after release 6 - American Sniper, 49 days after release 8 - Hidden Figures, 47 days after release 8 - Passion of the Christ. 47 days after release 10 - Black Panther, 41 days after release 11 - The Force Awakens, 38 days after release 12 - The Revenant, 35 days after release 13 -Paranormal activity, 33 days after release 14 - Return of the King, 30 days after release 15 - Zero Dark Thirty, 30 days after release What other films would make the ranking? I probably missed some superleggy film, or platform release that went wide like one month later. Incidentally Titanic last confirmed day at #1 was April 2nd, 1998, after 107 days of release. But BOM weekday data has lots of holes for that era, so I can't say for sure that was the last (the reason for picking 2002- films, besides limiting the frame).

I still can't wrap my head around that CM number. Easter weekend or not, it still vastly outperformed all other holdovers in the top 10. The Endgame hype is insane.

Double features with Endgame will keep it afloat. Black Panther remained mostly flat last year, although it didn't have such a monster pre-Avengers frame like CM is having. After next weekend we should expect CM to keep posting "normal" 30%-40% drops. 420s should be locked.

The only reason I would want to see Batman & Robin again is if I was massively drunk. And even then I would hope to be drunk enough to pass out and miss the screening.

It's such a pity though. Some of those movies are wonderful and they deserve to be seen more - and not in a snotty "watch this thing that will bore you just because critics say it's great" way, the movies are very enjoyable and emotional, but for some reason they just don't catch on. I guess stop-motion just doesn't appeal to the GA, can't really chalk it all to poor distribution/marketing. Kubo is one of my favorite animated movies ever.

Heh, you're right. I looked at the wrong dates for last years' Easters. Dumbo might be able to finish not too far behind Jungle Book, then. Somebody slap me.

Shazam has bomber over here, unsurprisingly (it was dumped by WB), and it will struggle to reach €5m (for sake of comparison, Aquaman did nearly €14m in Spain). Conversely, Dumbo is doing great; it's fallen less than 20%. Easter Holidays will cut off legs (moviegoing slows considerably as people travel), but it's poised to gross in the middle €10s. It has already surpassed Cinderella, although it won't match Jungle Book or BATB.

Us is really well filmed and scripted though - one of those excruciatingly planned films where everything on screen eventually is there for a reason. It's a much more confident film than Get Out, and despite its controversial storytelling (it really asks a lot from the audience in regard of suspension of disbelief) it really makes me feel Peele is far more than a "lightning in a bottle" kind of filmmaker. Really looking forward to his body of work.

Must be the one with the girl at the bus stop that's afraid a double is going to replace her? That is a brilliant one. You can borrow concepts and still be original, though. There are dozens of doppelganger stories out there.

The marketing here was awful, I tell you. It had DUMP written all over it. The film is called "Shazam: Trainee superhero" (in Spanish) over here. When they make up these awful localised titles (rest assured, Captain Marvel wasn't "Captain Marvel: Kickass blonde" nor Aquaman was "Aquaman: Khal Drogo learns to swim") is always a sure tell of absolute lack of confidence in the movie.

It seems to be doing pretty badly over here (no #s yet, just anecdotal evidence of empty screenings). The marketing made it feel like a dumped film nobody should care about, and people seem to have got the message. Which is a pity. It's strange, since even though Spain is not a big superhero market (Marvel films do well, but not nearly as well as in other places) it is a huge family market, and this looked like a way to scratch the family and superhero itches in one go. Then again, Warner Spain (which are extreme tightwads) probably chose not to try to risk their marketing euros selling a complete unknown character. It's a fun film, deserved better.

What are the PC issues? The racist crows and children going on an acid trip? Actually, is there a version of the "pink elephants on parade" scene in Burton's version? Now that's something I might wanna see.

I think you're being slightly unfair. Yes, they are cynically double and triple dipping on remakes, but current Disney has produced some remarkable original animated films too (Frozen, Zootopia) that have no doubt garnered enough appreciation to get their own remakes in due time.

Us has one of the better scripts (as in, purely from a craftmanship aspect, not going into whether the story itself is compelling or not) I have ever seen in a horror movie. The way it sets things up and reuses them later, hides details, etc... is amazing. I really want to watch it again because I feel there's barely a wasted moment. Even what feels like throwaway stuff becomes key later on. I'm in love with it. Happy that it's making so much money, we need more successful original films.