MightyDargon

I don't know exactly how many "little" kids got to see Barbie considering it was pitched as a somewhat hard PG-13 but it wasn't exactly inaccessible either. I very much doubt many kids would have been interested in that script if it didn't feature the Barbie character and was sold solely as an original IP. Which kind of makes the point that kids basically need to already be invested to care and "generic movie" doesn't work with that age.

Then why was Stranger Things primary demo people who weren't alive in the 80s? That went out of its way to feel 80s. Ironically Mario felt more self-consciously "80s" than Mayhem did (at least in soundtrack). But Mayhem was very clearly a nostalgia push to "reintroduce" an IP in a way that Mario clearly wasn't. Rise of the TMNT only ran a season and a half on Nicktoons. Mutant Mayhem was clearly pushed to reintroduce the TMNT and it felt like it was a pitch based on the brand loyalty of older audiences, not younger, because today's actual kids didn't have much invested in TMNT.

Older gens did not drive Mario. It was little kids. If you want to see what a nostalgia play driven by "kids of yesteryear" looks like look at Mutant Mayhem's box office instead.

Aquaman's "core" target audience will still probably show (although Iron Claw and Minus One will take a chunk out of even that). The reason Aquaman 1 was a super blockbuster was because it appealed to women and other groups far outside the core. Most of those groups will avoid this sequel for anything else that looks remotely appealing. If other studios actually were scared of it we would have another Avatar 2 situation.

The idea that Mario is somehow "not popular" with kids despite the boatloads of merch, multiple system sellers, and Lego sets is...hoo boy. See, I can buy Switch owners being majority 20-40 because those people actually have money and little kids DON'T. People on this site seem to think that kids can get every single thing they want out of cash strapped parents despite all evidence to the contrary.

No, it most certainly does NOT struggle. Did you see the Switch sales figures?!? Mario was/is hugely popular among kids long before the movie came out. Mario Odyssey was a bestseller. MARIO was the draw of Mario and the core was little kids AND families still cared. Migration/Wish/etc. had no "core".

Casuals that would otherwise go to Aquaman by default will go to TCP. I realize those aren't Aquaman's core but so few people care about a superhero movie that's already dead that it will get hurt by ANY competition.

Those were in IP that kids actually care enough about to see at the theatre though. Kids are less likely to show up now just because "a Disney movie" exists.

They very clearly do care when Hollywood gives them stuff to care about (Mario). But the "casual audience" that would show up for anything is dead. Unless if inflation somehow reverses I doubt their "habits" or whatever would change.

Migration in particular stands out as a "what's the draw" movie. The concept/character art seems like it should be debuting on Netflix/Peacock. Throw in the fact that Mario's just on Peacock and you can pretty easily extrapolate what happened.

Too early to say but I expect a post Xmas collapse and Color Purple to mainly exploit that. I don't think Aquaman is going over Black Adam.

The real problem is families don't want to go to default movies anymore because it's too costly. You need juicy IP even for them (Mario) to get them in the door. Just "movie about cute talking animal" won't get them to dump like 50 bucks on family tickets. Because of that teens are easier to target with buzzier animation since (some) of them actually have money.

What would it take for Hollywood to actually start losing screens to foreign films? Most of the wide releases save Iron Claw look like turds and I'd rather see Heron or Minus One again. I STILL don't have Poor Things and I'm sick of this junk eating up real estate.

Most of the fanbase WANTS to forget Kang considering how poorly Quantumania went over. Also I don't seem to recall Thanos debuting by jobbing out to Ant Man. Marvel couldn't have debuted Kang worse if they had intentionally botched.

No one wants "depth" we want smashy and UNICRON. Enough timey wimey ball bullshit, give us GALACTUS and SILVER SURFER

Honestly, Majors getting fired is a good thing. Kang should be dumped as well, it should have been pretty obvious from Quantumania that this storyline would have killed the MCU if Kang had been treated as the primary storyline.

Yeah, I'm sure Sony is really chomping at the bit to sell superhero rights that actually still make them boatloads of cash and give them Playstation exclusives.

If Purple gets crud reviews it'll have a good first week then bomb. Would be a fitting coda to a terrible year overall for WBD.

Absolutely nobody cares about The Marvels anymore. Further posts on it are just ragebait. Wish failing to get 100 mil is more interesting.

Why do we assume the focus audience approach even works anymore? After all it got us THE GREATEST SUPERHERO MOVIE SINCE THE DARK KNIGHT.

Dude, Wonka is already getting more screens at launch than Godzilla or Heron got. It doesn't need Avatar level screens and it can coexist with them rather than dominating the market. Its international launch is "good but not super blockbuster level". It wouldn't benefit the marketplace at all to yank movies for it. Especially since nobody care about Wish.

Y'know, if Dune 2 outgrosses this, I will NEVER let the DCU posters have any peace. You know who you are.

Why? Wonka ain't Avatar and it shouldn't have every screen.

Oppenheimer doing well as it did was a surprise. A lot of the earlier discussion was MI vs Barbie and people didn't know which of those would open higher. Oppenheimer was seen as something that would be lucky to do about 200 mil or so.

This wasn't a bad year overall but a horrible year for WB. Only Barbie worked. Literally everything else bombed. If Barbie wasn't the top film we'd be making "when does Zaslav get a helicopter flight" jokes. And I say this because Zaslav can't capitalize off Barbie since no sequel has been greenlit and the cast hasn't been resigned AND the entire DC brand is in the toilet AND the animation community literally hates them because of Coyote vs. Acme's fate.