RRA

Everybody knows neither have a thing on THE TOXIC AVENGER.

Must. Avoid. Obvious. Jesus. Joke.

This exactly is why I'm waiting for stateside and foreign totals to peter out before declaring victory or death. I mean hell SS dropped 41% Friday to Saturday? AOU dropped 33%. Yet one of those 2 still finished over 400 million stateside and a billion Plus global. Worry not about 2nd weekend or week drops or whatever and worry more about the final totals. That WB insider told THR that it needs 750-800 million in theaters to break even. But WB will call it a win if it comes "close" so....700 million? (*shrug*)

This forgets FAST & FURIOUS aka part IV surprising folks by opening as big as it did...and remember Rocky Maivia didn't show up until part V...which also was marketed as the all-star team-up movie of characters from the previous movies.

Interesting. This is why I'm not eyeballing the drops, but waiting for final returns from overseas and stateside before declaring victory or dead.

That's what the trailers came off to me.

Which is weird because Rock became A-list partly because of the F&F movies.

Summer 2016, the summer of Spielberg-ian nostalgia in STRANGER THINGS and now this.

How about I quote from the actual THR article itself? This is the paragraph I've been talking about tonight: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693 Seems pretty clear cut they're talking about theatrical release and not talking about DVD and T-shirts and whatever stuff.

Umm, yeah? That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking theatrical because these studios live and die on theatrical #s in public for their stockholders. Perception is reality. DVD and cable and stuff, that's supposed to be the "pure gravy" to be enjoyed on top of the theatrical profits. Or put it another way: Look what happened after BVS underperformed in theaters. Charles Roven got canned from producing several DC movies. Zack Snyder demoted from "DC Godfather" to just director of JUSTICE LEAGUE and under heavy WB exec supervision (according to Kris Tapley at Variety), oh and Geoff Johns got a sweet promotion. I'm assuming BVS has or will break even and finally make a profit on Blu-Ray/DVD and future TV. WB understood that long term BVS will be in the black, yet they made those demotions I mentioned above and announced "course correction" decisions to appease disgruntled fans anyway. Think about it, why? Because BVS actually lost money in theaters, which it wasn't supposed to do. It was suppose to make a billion dollars in theaters, make AVENGERS money and kick off more movies that make craploads of money. The latter is TBD, but the former it absolutely did not do.

I would argue no because let's be honest, that extended cut was marketed/catered towards the hardcore fanbase as most such "director's cuts" tend to be because they believe those people would gladly fork over money to see this movie not once but several times and then buy this extended cut months later on Blu-Ray. (Data recently backed up by big sales.) Same way Tolkein heads back in the day watched LOTR in theaters, then bought those Extended Edition DVD sets.

I'm just going off the number given in that THR piece, and reverse engineering effectively in my speculation. Nothing more. Let's say that official budget is legit for the sake of discussion. Add that 170 million ad budget # you tossed out for average blockbusters. 175+170 = 345 million. Double that, it would need 690 million. That's still what, 60-11 million short of the "break even" range cited in that THR piece?

These numbers refer to theatrical release. They NEVER add TV/PPV/DVD/whatever auxillary money to theatrical grosses. Or put it another way, WB just inked a deal with NBC Universal a major deal (apparently in the 8 figures) involving the Harry Potter movies (past and future) where NBCU cable channels like say SyFy Channel can exclusively air those HP movies, among other things. Is this big paycheck going to be added for all the HP films' box office? Of course not.

You're assuming that "official" budget is the actual budget. Faraci had reported that it was "much much higher" than was reported. Or put it another way, BVS' "official" budget was $250 million, but THR reported at the time they heard it was really $325 million...and remember that was before the marketing budget ($150 something million) kicked in. Deadline reported BVS needed to cross $930 million to break even. So let's say BVS "alleged" budget plus marketing together, that's 475 million. Usually your box office has to double your budget to break even, so 475x2=950 million. Not exact, but putting those reported facts above and put them into context you could understand then why Deadline reported that goalpost # and it's pretty believable. SS cost a hell lot more than $175 million. Even if you add in the ad budget (which might've been 9 figures I'm guessing) to that official budget, that still wouldn't explain why it needs to hit 750-800 million to break even. So the real budget was $225 million, add 100 million, that's 325 million. 150 million less than BVS...thus needing to make 150 or so million less to break even.

I'm not going to write off SS or not because of weekday/2nd weekend drops. Instead I'm going to wait and see this complete it's global run. Because let's remember that THR article where 750-800 million was casually tossed around as the # it needed to break even. Sure no China release is an obstacle, but that didn't stop DEADPOOL. Of course DEADPOOL also didn't have to do the numbers it did to be a hit because of its budget, but it made those numbers anyway.

Itll be considered fine at the very least just because it's not as steep as BVS' drop.

I saw Rob Liefeld telling off DC stans on his Twitter feed that SS would not outgross DP domestically.

I find that unlikely. I say 60%.

Any predix for next weekend SS drops?

I think Paramount now has learned that despite their best efforts and great hopes, the rebooted Star Trek is running like the original Trek film series did where they have a steady reliably fanbase. Not major moneymakers (barring something that did get some mainstream cross-over success like THE VOYAGE HOME), but dependable grossers. Paramount had hoped the new movies would reach out to non-Trek mainstream audiences and become a major blockbuster series like TRANSFORMERS has been for them, and as part of that strategy they've given this rebooted series big blockbuster-worthy budgets. If you've already noticed the problem here: the original Trek movies (barring the big/waaaaay overbudget THE MOTION PICTURE) were modest budget affairs, basically glorified TV episodes. (And I don't mean that as a knock.) Those movies didn't make "alot" but with those budgets, most of them made a profit. Now the reboot series with their budgets, the more you spend the more you have to make back to break even/make profit.

Better question: what "lessons" will WB learn from SS (whether it's a hit or a failure) and apply to WW in post?

I posted this elsewhere but I'm rehashing here: Fri-to-Sat drop % for some recent comic book movies: SS: 41% Apocalypse: 22% BVS: 37.9% Deadpool: 10% Civil War: 18.9% Fant4stic: 24% Ant-Man: 14% AOU 33% GOTG: 18% Winter Soldier: 6.1%

I will give SS this: If I gave BVS a mediocre grade, afterwards the more I thought about it the more I despised it conceptually. With SS, that isn't the case. A lot of elements in SS together could've made for a winner chicken dinner movie, it just a swing and a miss. BVS struck out, then charged the mound and got tossed from the game.