Justin4125

Not the same thing at all. In general, we don't often blame leadership for film failures (box office failures more like it, since both films did reasonably well review wise). It is a part of the business that everyone accepts, the important thing is that the studio can profit overall Zaslav went OUT OF HIS WAY to attach himself to Flash, which also belongs to a much more important property (DC vs. Indy, the latter is likely a one off and not core to Disney's future film slate). If Iger had 1) stuck with a lead star with documented cases of assault and weirdness and 2) started pushing Indy hard as the best film of the franchise (or the best film ever, which is closer to the hyperbole Zaslav used to promote Flash) I think the narrative regarding Iger and Indy 5 would be very different. Finally, Iger is one of the best CEOs of any major studio. Fight me all you want, he transformed Disney into an even bigger cash cow. Zaslav should not get the same leeway that Iger does, he'll have to earn that

I am wondering this too. How does screen allocation work in China? Transformers is now kicking Flash's butt, will it really lose its screens to Flash this weekend due to previous agreements? Would love to see Transformers get closer to that 100m mark thanks to this festival

Sums up my experience exactly. Never had anything against the movie, just never really thought about it again... Still, between the general narrative against the first movie (not saying I agree with it but its there), a dip in MCU interest from peak, and the lack of avengers movies to prop it up, I think the Marvels has an uphill battle. With Black Panther 2 at 860m, I'm preparing myself to be excited about a 600m+ gross, I just don't know how much GA interest is there (I honestly think AM2 with its whole VFX underwater thing has more GA appeal despite DC's mid to bad reputation)

As someone who had been invested in DIS for years (thankfully not recently), I suggest that standard calculations don't work too well. Not only does DIS have a scary ability to recoup through home ent and all sorts of ancillaries, streaming has made the whole calculation wonky as can be. I don't think anyone knows for sure, but if it has any value on D+ (I know some people waiting for streaming and others that will see it a hundred times on D+, purely anecdotal, I'm just in the "families" demo), Disney will scrape to break even on TLM (and slightly beyond as the years wane). I'd worry more about movies like Fast X that are heavy on partnered international markets and have weak ancillaries (at least relative to DIS family fare)

You like it most, that's great. Is it the best though? Based on all the info we have, and the closest we can get to moving past individual opinions, The Flash is clearly the "least best" of the three I'm also just one person with an opinion, but I've found the Flash worse and more frustrating as time goes on haha. I wasn't the biggest Snyder fan, but he had a vision, a plan, and more visual flair than most hollywood directors put together. He did 300 on a budget of 65m and I am wondering why WB could not have given him the freedom to build his universe at reduced budgets (maybe 100m per film). Honestly, a Snyder universe running alongside the DCU would have been less confusing than whatever happened to the DCEU

I haven't seen anyone claiming it is doing great. That said, it will cross 300m domestic, and that's looking more and more impressive as big IP tentpoles around it continue to flop. DIS's ability to recoup costs on the back end through ancilliaries is unmatched (that's not necessarily a good thing lol), TLM will be fine, I don't think anyone is losing sleep over it.. Gosh I can't believe I'm defending TLM I didn't even like the movie, I just respect BO numbers and "just breaking even" is somehow becoming impressive for tentpole in this dreary world of terrible B.O. numbers

First of all, there is no way to make that counterfactual... Maybe Captain Marvel was fine because the MCU was almost untouchable at that point, but does that really mean review bombing has no effect? Narratives surrounding movies matter and we've seen the water cooler effect play out a million different ways at the box office. Regardless, there is a difference between the direct effect of review bombing and what it represents. What it represents for TLM is added baggage and many people who were turned off by its very existence = lower BO potential (in my view, again its impossible to prove a counterfactual) I am interested in the extent to which people avoided The Flash on principle. I expected to see far more people on social media discussing his transgressions and boycotting the film. I think WB played it well with not pushing Ezra on to a big press tour (despite what Anthony at deadline might think)

I really don't understand this TLM hate. The movie had FAR more baggage than the Flash and it will likely gross more domestically than Flash will WW Regarding baggage, TLM had possibly the largest review bombing compaign of any film, if people hated The Flash that much for any reason, we would have seen at least one tenth of TLM experienced. Plus, you have what feels like a third of the country boycotting the film for ideological reasons. In the wake of movies like Shazam 2 and The Flash, getting past 500m WW is nothing to scoff at in this new movie world order

I'm not sure we need an update to know that haha though I'm interested as well

I can't help but laugh every time Anthony repeats this line. The movie is bombing hard and what is the primary reason? Ezra Miller didn't do the press tour haha

No Way Home, Shang Chi, and Wakanda Forever were all phase 4 films. If those are rashes or headaches, what does that make movies like Flash or Black Adam? Sure Quantumania and Eternals were what they were, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

I don't think GA have strong feelings about franchises like that. My assumption is that GA do not "hate" the DCEU, they just couldn't really care less. Its not a brand that will get butts in seats by itself

I don't think the poster said anything about GOTG3 being the biggest, just that nothing will pass it (which suggests nothing will pass Fast X either). Also, I think they are relatively close (especially OS-china, though Fast X has a bit more in the "tank"). I tend to agree. I thought Flash would be the OS leader this summer, but outside of MI7 I don't see anything passing Guardians OS (post Indy reviews). Still holding out for Flash's legs, saw the film at a preview and while I'm more of a MCU guy, I was personally impressed (though I've learned my tastes aren't predictive of GA views)

The fact that Sony doesnt have a Disney+/HBO max probably explains why they seem pro-theatrical...... I have no doubt that if Sony had a shiny new streaming service they would have done the exact same thing as WB/Disney Seeing Matrix struggle breaks my heart a little. I didn't think the movie was bad at all, if I had to bet I'd say people will appreciate it much more in a few years than they do right now. At least its OS numbers seem respectable at the moment, Spidey + HBO max was always going to make DOM an uphill battle

Spidey has little bearing on the success of Morbius. Sony distributes, yes, but this was an MCU production, the terms of their deal make that very clear. Morbius is just plain Sony, and based on the quality of the Venom films (as much as I do enjoy them), I'm not holding my breath. I'm open to changing my mind, but it will take some good live-action Sonyverse films for me to forgive them of their past offences lol In any case, I am really excited to see what this film does in the December slot. Yes its Covid, but its also an amazing release date. Always wanted to see what Endgame could have done in the Christmas-New Years corridor (and with a barren January to look forward to)

Interesting bit of trivia. If Afterlife gets 16.5 friday, it looks like a 39m weekend. Its initial long range tracking was 45m - 65m, so a 39m weekend would be ~14.5% below the low end of tracking. That is the exact same amount Eternals underperformed the low range of its initial, long-range tracking (82m - 102m). At least BOT is consistent Since Afterlife is skewing towards families, a higher than normal SAT jump could easily screw this up

Not bad for Eternals. I wonder if Sat increases are normal (not sure how the holiday on Thursday impacts weekend business), but if it is, we're looking at around a 62% drop. Better than I expected given my perception of WOM. The sky-is-falling "Eternals failure" crowd can shout a little less loudly on BOT this weekend, though that might be asking a little too much ...

Not suprising, the MCU is the most consistent franchise ever in terms of critic and audience reviews, this is one hell of an interesting outlier. Who knows, morbid curiousity may help balance out the loss of those who are deterred by the negative reviews haha I've seen some people mention the tepid response overseas. Eternals is rated significantly higher than other recent films with mixed reviews (like V2 and WW84) in places like France, Spain and Germany (based on Allocine, Filmaffinity and Filmstarts respectively), also much better than Captain Marvel or Birds of Prey. I would say the response overseas is much better than I expected and certainly better than how people seem to be characterizing it (comparing U.S. critic/audience metrics to those in the countries I previously mentioned). Digging into the reviews (in France and in the US), I'm seeing a good number of critics who generally give Marvel films negative reviews give this one positive reviews (while MCU supporters are more mixed). I'm going to dig into the data a lot more to see if, from a statistical perspective, Eternals is appealing to a different group of critics than those who favored previous Marvel films

I would also point out that the film's performance supports the strength of the IP. The pattern of its performance (very strong in mature markets and weaker in emerging) is highly consistent with other successful adaptations of book series. With a little more digging, I'm sure I can show that the trends in its BO performance largely follow the geographic dispersion of its book sales

About being niche, when it comes to major book franchises that haven't been adapted in decades, Dune has to be one of the biggest properties out there. Sales of the Dune novel prior to the release of this movie are fairly comparable to those of other major franchises prior to their big, modern cinematic adaptations (like LOTR, which, like Dune, had an initial film adaptation around the same time). Maybe its bigger in Switzerland where I live than in the US, but lets not downplay the success of the books (and overall awareness of the property) prior to this film's release (just look at trailer views on YT, the first trailer is sitting at 37m, that's not niche awareness/interest) Also, no true star? A lot of names is right, I would argue it has one of the most stacked casts of any major theatrical release all year The film has a lot going for it and it shows, I just can't buy the niche property/no stars argument. People are hungry for big IP and strong ensembles, both of which this film delivers

Not giving GVK enough credit imo. Since GVK had a five day opening, that 3-day figure doesnt count previews (which it didnt have) plus wed+thur depressed the 3-day. GVK would have opened to 40m with a standard 3-day opening weekend, so personally I feel that's the number to beat (which Dune will do handily)

They are in the same franchise, made by the same producer/studio, based on the same comic book series and they ultimately overlap into the same movie. To criticize the saminess of MCU films is to me, a pretty lazy critique (no disrespect to you) that chooses to ignore what makes them different. If seeing all the movies was required to enjoy them, I would agree with you, but it isnt. The fact that the standalones are self-contained means those interconnected bits are just bonuses for the fans. I'd also add that they're mainly great by comparison. We're not talking about auteur filmmaking here, I think its difficult to argue that any other studio is close when it comes to consistently solid entries in a long-running, interconnected franchise. If you hate all things commercial more power to you, but I see too many fans of other blockbuster franchises lobbing comments like these against the MCU while lauding franchises that are clearly not doing it as successfully More importantly, I'm psyched to see HK perform so well, the box office is clearly rearing its head again. It wasn't as good as the original in terms of character and story, but damn Michael is as menacing as he's ever been. Also hats off once again to the trackers, you guys are the best out there

Box office is NOT back to normal. Shang Chi's decent performance by pre-covid standards does not mean the box office is magically back to normal, and arguments about what people THINK the film would have made pre-covid in order to justify why the box office is back are, all due respect, unfounded (I'm looking at you Scott Mendelson). So are arguments that Shang Chi was hardly affected but most other films were. All movies are still being hit. Aside from box office numbers, infection rates and surveys on moviegoing, studios have far more data on audience behavior than we do, if we were fully back in business the question of day+date vs theatrical exclusive would be over. This is important to keep in mind as the fall's stacked slate kicks off, let's keep our expectations realistic and not jump on the next tentpole just because it doesnt do Shang Chi numbers

Its so true. I just went back through Wan and Clint's filmographies. Wan gave WB the highest grossing DCEU movie and one of (if not the) most successful horror franchise of all time and there is an argument to be made that Clint is the adult-skewing BO king. Both directors have been (and still are) some of the most bankable and consistent directors in Hollywood, and the studio is totally bungling the release of their movies back to back. Regardless of the current circumstances, its a damn shame

I'm with you. I didn't love the movie (but I do respect it), and it didnt deserve to be dropped so unceremoniously. Marketing is all too often used as another excuse for a film's poor performance, but in this case, I'm racking my brain trying to remember the last time a movie with this budget + directorial talent had so little fanfare and pre-release buzz. This will be an example to cite in future discussions about how a failed marketing effort and release strategy can bury what might otherwise have been a (at least moderately) successful movie