ThePrinceIsOnFire

This is reviosinism. Just go on the box office clubs page and you will se that a big chunk of users here were expecting Wonka to be a 300 M+ Dom grosser. And that was months ago, before the massive promotion even started and some movies got delayed/pushed back.

"Mainly" being the key word here, they still had a roughly 60/40 breakdown that was reflected on BOSS's opening weekend but as the weeks went on the demo skewed more and more female so going forward we can expect the next installment (should they make another one, which seems very likely) to be more 70/30. That is worrisome imho.

On the one hand, this is a box office forum, so discussions should arise mainly from the numbers and datas; on the other hand, though, it's hard to talk about a movie's performance without looking at the context surrounding its release. Aquaman 2 is flop (as in, a movie that will generate a loss) but it was dumped with no promotion, no premiere, no international event, no merch tie-ins and came after a string of DC/superhero genre bombs that lowered expectation. So when everything is considered, it is a "success" in defying odds and performing quite decently while giving some much needed life support to the DC brand. The Little mermaid might have reached a break-even point (thought it is not sure by any means) but had arguably the biggest marketing campaign of 2023 after Barbie, with partnership with mc donalds, make up, fashion and jewelery brands. It also came after a long series of Disney live action hits/Mega hits and was expected to outgross Aladdin at least domestically thanks to the potential afro-american demo pull. It went on to earn aboout half of what Aladdin did WW and 50M less Dom, while internationally it played like Dumbo which was the lowest bar for a live action remake ever. It also tarnished the Disney live action brand as a sure fire hit machine and helped the deterioration of the disney reputation as a whole, as a big slice of the public has been increasingly upset over what has been perceived as a "woke" agenda. Likewise - and I am getting and will get a lot of hate by saying this because people are just not able to look at the bigger picture when they like something - Hunger Games BOSS has made a profit and is a success on paper, but is it really a win when it 1) earned less than half of the previous installment, collapsing especially worldwide due to being rejected by most international markets, 2) it shifted the tone and overall demo of the saga by making it exclusively fit for the girls aged 13-29 crowd, to a point where the franchise will be a hard sell for men/boys going forward? Not everything is black/white by the numbers. I will attract even more hate but I said weeks ago that Wonka might not reach 200 M dom and 600 M WW, and that would certainly be a disappointing result when looking at the bigger picture, even though Wonka is a big success if we go by the numbers alone and profit. Let's say a sequel to Barbie in 2030 earns 500 M WW out of a 100 M budget, that would be a great success on paper but when framed in the bigger picture, could it be considered as such or would it be a disappointment?

I have never called the film in that way (I don't use that kind of language, ever). The only time I talked about the quality of this movie was when I said that, judging by the reviews it got, it's not that good of a movie to grant it an A+ cinemascore, but it's a perfect fit for its target audience so that grants it the good WOM. After and Twilight are comps because they both come from YA novels that have romance at the center and that are targeted at girls. The comparison between Beverly Hills and Twilight is not appropriate, as one is an original tv show and the other is YA novel-turned film. The twilight demo still exists just as the harry potter demo still exists, both being literature before movies and both still selling copies to this day (though obviously on a different scale). The preteens and teens that read twilight and after today are also likely the ones who read the HG novel, and fit in the same demo. It doesn't mean that the demos are perfectly identical just like Wonka and the Greates Showman's demos aren't, but they do have a large common base.

I didn't see it so I'm neutral on it, I just comment on the basis of its box office results. And again, I'm not comparing the actual movie to Twilight and After for its genre/plot but for the target audience that they share, which is girls aged 13-29 who are into YA novel romance. I don't get what's ridiculous about it other than pheraps your negative opinion on Twilight/After that is clouding your judgement, when no one is comparing them on the basis of their quality or plot, just their target audience. Which, once again, is not even a comparison that I came up with, since thenumbers and countless of other sites have used them as comps.

I'm not trying to accomplish anything other than what I've written, this whole "agenda" thing is getting quite tiring, let's just stick to what is written please. That being said, if you go back in the old threads you will find plenty of posters who believed that a 10x multiplier was in sight for Wonka. Even a 300 M range prediction would be way off, just like the 225-270 range that you speak of, which is too large of portion to even make it a dicussion (a 55 M gap in between the upper and the lower end or a +- 20% is not exactly being accurate). It will end up in the 200-220 M range by the way things are going, but it's not out of the ralm of possibilities that it could miss 200.

Given that Wonka has been overestimated every single day after its opening weekend, so much that last weekend's projections went down from 33 to the actual 28 milion, i wouldn't be surprised if: 1- Night Swim goes on to win the weekend by an hair 2- Wonka fails to reach 200 M or ends up with a sub 5x multiplier (when people here where initially expecting it to make as much as 350-400 M).

This movie was aiming for the Twilight/After demo of horny teen girls (and maybe gays), and it is ultimately what made it into a slight success. I say "slight" because it went on to earn less than half of what the last HG did worldwide and sold about 1/3 of its tickets, and only made a profit due to a smartly lowered budget. I think that it did comparatively worse internationally than dom because they weren't able to sell it as a romance overseas, but rather tried to push the gore and action sequences that were typical of the other HG films, but the overall quality of the CGI (which verges on terrible) and the "been there, done that" sense of deja-vu from the promotional material actually worked against it. It doesn't help that it also got borderline terrible reviews in many countries, much worse than the mixed consensus it received in the USA.

Wonka has been costantly overestimated for its whole run so far, every single day. Even this weekend it was projected to do 33M+ 4 days and it's now at 31M+, but I'm sure it will finish under that once the actuals come in. I see people expecting it to gross atleast 200M WW more but I don't see how that is possible when the only market it has to still open in is S.Korea and its (festive) INT weekend was 39 M. I'd guess it has about 150 M more, for a total tally of about 530 M WW, give or take.

I agree that it is worrisome, hence why I'm skeptical about it. But something in Q1 has to break out unless we believe that cinemas will be completely deserted for 4 months, save for Dune (which won't be a mega hit anyway) and a couple more of decent releases. Lisa frankenstein might have a break out chance too, but it has no star power and has nothing going for the male audience. At this point it's really hard to predict what will happen but I'm pretty sure that at least one of the smaller Q1 releases will crawl to 100 M, if not for anything else then just for the pure lack of competition.

It's too early for buzz or hype for this kind of original comedy though. "No hard feelings" got to 50 M in a more crowded time of the year with more competition, and while that had Jennifer Lawrence's star power to boost it, Drive Away dolls has Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon and Qualley for the promotional tour. I'm not saying that it is likely that it will reach 100 M, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities when it's coming out in a very barren calendar. It will likely live or die with its reviews and WOM, it could go as low as 10 M total or as high as 100.

Drive-away dolls has the biggest break-out potential out of the "small" movies, IMHO. If it is any good, it has a lot going for it, as it should be appealing enough for both women (who generally turn up for female-buddies comedies) and men (who could be interested in Coen on the director chair and Qualley in the hot lesbian role) to give it a chance. Plus, comedies have been underrepresented in the last few years, so there is a potential void to fill. I wouldn't be shocked if it somehow manages to reach 100 M or at least get close to that if the reviews + WOM come out great (which I'm not quite confident about, given the release was set in "dump" territory).

The comparison to twilight and After is not mine, they were used as comps to project the opening as they share the same target audience. They are not the same kind of movie obviously, though Hunger Games BOSS cinematography is very twilight-esque.

While It just isn't that good of a movie, it's a perfect fit for its target audience (girls aged 15-30). The opening weekend probably had a more varied public who hoped to find some of the gore/action that is typical of the hunger games saga, instead they were left with a musical with a strong focus on romance that somehow favours more twilight in its atmosphere than HG. Once the good word of mouth spread amongst the teen girls it started to gain legs. It basically took a slice of the Twilight/After etc... audience and ran with it, facing no direct competition for months. If anything, it shows that there is still room for young adult sagas aimed at girls.

I agree, though the Shipwreck scene, the Giant Ursula fight and the Shark chase at the very beginning can provide a tiny bit of action to attract boys. And while The little mermaid is a female-skewing franchise (with Ariel being included in the Disney princess lines) , it certainly has more room for boys to be interested (if not for anything else, at least for the cool underwater world and animals) than Cinderella or Snow White. But then again, some products fare better in some specific markets based on a number of factors that is quite hard to predict/evaluate. For instance, I'm pretty sure that the Moana remake will be a flop here in the Italy/France region, while a Hunchback of Notre Dame remake (with a proper casting of the right Quasimodo, Phoebus and a super hot and sultry Esmeralda, without racebending and the likes) would be a mega hit; yet it's the USA market that counts the most, so we're probably never getting HOND but will have Snow White, Moana and Hercules instead, as those meet the americans' taste ...

By the standars of Disney fairytale remakes it was a huge flop internationally, as it performed on par with Dumbo in most overseas markets (though it has probably sold less tickets overall), and that was the lowest bar for non-pandemic affected remakes. In USA it didn't come too far from Aladdin's total gross (finished "just" 50 M shy) so I guess stateside it was able to meet the expectations somehow. Though to be fair executives at disney knew about the backlash over the casting and everything else ever since 2019 and still decided to go through and give it the best promotional campaign possible, which makes me think that they thought that in USA it would fare way better than Aladdin and more in the vein of Beauty and the beast, which obviously didn't happen. In fact, even though they probably couldn't expect the catastrophe that it turned out to be overseas, they must have been aware that it was in a very risky position, so for them to still invest so much money on P&A is quite telling. Snow White, on the other hand, will be dumped with no fanfare, I reckon.

Charlie Jatinder has been weirdly inaccurate with the Wonka predictions, always overestimating the gross, which is very uncharacteristic as he is usually very precise and spot on. What is happening?

But then again, Mission Impossible, much like the Bond saga, is a product placement heaven, with sponsorship deals with car, watches, suits brands, while there is no such thing in The Little Mermaid. And while movies do make their biggest share in the domestic market, Mission Impossible had deals with multiple foreign governments due to the locations being spread out basically worldwide (LM was shot in UK studios and Italy, but MI had Uk, Italy, Abu Dhabi, Norway). Deadline itself commented on both movies being disappointment, and if you go looking at imdb 2023 top movies recap they say that TLM was a box office disappointment. Only in this forum it is still being considered a good performance.

I don't understand this narrative where The little mermaid did well but Mission Impossible DR P1, which had the exact same WW gross and roughly the same budget (TLM's 250 M is a low estimate) was an epic bomb. Both were disappointments coming from 1B expectation and both didn't earn well enough to recoup their budget (Though TLM was expected to break even with ancillaries like toy sales, but it should be verified if that was actually the case since, as far as I know, the international merch sales were disastrous). They didn't totally collapse and earned well enough for the theatres chains which is a great thing in itself though.

The problem here is that "creative ambition" and "art" doesn't apply to purely commercial products like Hunger Games BOSS or Planet of the apes, which are spawns of existing IP that are living and thriving either on the built in fanbase and/or nostalgia and trying to milk what's left in the tank of their franchise, and are in no way trying to achieve something on an artistic level. We need a variety of options and mid-budgeted movies to make a comeback, but that should not come from downsizing the popular sagas into cheaper outcomes. Hence, why I specifically said that a potential Pirates of the carribean with a reduced budget and scope would be a terrible news for the industry, while an original IP at 100 M grossing 300 M would obviously be good. Hunger Games as an example is especially jarring as it is coming from a place where it is strictly connected to the main saga (being direct prequels) and has a story/setting that could have been expanded in terms of locations and effects but was reduced into a mid-budget movie for no reason other than the fear of a flop. And as it stands, it still earned about half of what the last HG made, and maybe 1/4 in terms of tickets sold. Big movies are not the only ones that matter, but these big IP are an extremely precious goldmine for the industry as a whole and should not be cheapened into smaller products with a smaller potential. They need to make better movies, focus on the writing and pacing, but still set the bar high to reach the maximum potential that the specific IP can achieve. Wonka is a whole other story as it doesn't come from a huge franchise.

I think we need to redifine what a success is, especially in the long run. All these 100-150 M budgeted movies that earn 300-400 M at Worldwide box office do make a profit (however small it might be) that could be enough for the producers, but they don't help the theatres owners/chains, who would prefer more "flops" like Mission Impossible, aiming high enough to bring a final tally of 500/600 M + WW. Keeping the budgets in check should be a priority going forward, but giving a pat on the back each and everytime a movie does the safe play by lowering its production costs (that makes reaching the breakeven point at 2.5x of its budget way easier) creates a risk- adverse environment where there is no big gamble and no big gain for the theatres. Tickets sold are at an all time- low, and for all the bad press they received, movies like Mission Impossible and Fast X are the ones that are still moving the needle for theatre business to stay alive, it's not Hunger Games or Wonka with their relatively small earnings, which only look good when applying the budget ratio. This december, just like november before it, is a disaster for the theatre business as a whole, no matter how we try to spin it. We need the big blogbusters to show up and perform well, and something like The Hunger games, taking a huge franchise with a great box office potential and downsizing it to a mid-budget production with no stars and no stakes might look like a great choice on paper and it turned out well for the producer, but is a straight up disaster for the theatres. What's next? Rebooting Pirates of the Carribean with no stars, cheap effects and restrained 100 M budget in hopes of earning 300M WW?

So, how long should we wait before we can actually call "Wonka" a flop in the USA? Asking for a friend.

As I already said, Chalamet has a built in fanbase of females aged 15-34, but it's a rather small one that doesn't translate into big box office revenues. He has a long list of flops as the lead post CBYN: - Beautiful boy - A rainy day in New York - The King - The French dispatch (he wasn't the main lead there, but arguably the face of the promotional tour). - Bones and All One might argue that these were "auteur" movies, but they still performed worse than their comps (A rainy day in new york was one of Allen's biggest flop, The French Dispatch was Anderson's biggest misfire so far etc...) Now Wonka has a built-in fanbase (much like Dune) and is a perfect fit for the Christmas season, but I don't think that Chalemet is being a key factor here at the B.O., especially considering that the movie's audience is split at about 50/50 male/female, despite musicals skewing more female usually. That is to say, Timothee is not a real draw at all for the GP despite what the internet loves to think.

No way this gets over 320M WW unless it breaks out big in Japan. In the last week it earned 20M INT and it's very hard to see it grossing more than another 20 as there will be many releases in the upcomings weeks and it's bound to lose most if its theatres. I find the 350/375 M WW predictions to be bogus, there is no way this has 100 M more in the tank. I suspect a realistic WW final tally would be at about 327 M WW, with 25 M coming from USA and 25 M coming from Int+Japan. And Frankly 327 M WW would still be way over what I expected, as I always thought that this would stop in the 275-300 M WW range.

Because its 56 M opening isn't your typical 3 days opening as in its most lucrative markets (except for the UK) it opened on a wednesday (France, Mexico, Brazil) or on a thursday (Italy, Germany, Australia). These very same markets are responding very well to Napoleon and having a steeper than epected drop for Hunger Games, and will also have Wish in the upcoming weeks, and that one is not going to flop as hard in Europe as it did in USA. It might exceed 130 M WW if it does well in Japan, otherwise it will drop pretty fast. It is not going to go over 3x multiplier of its true 3 days opening weekend (which is at about 45M WW).