Algebra

Naah...no one can match Spielberg at his peak. Forget The Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones films, that man made Jaws do $400m+ in the 70s, Schindler's List crossed $300m in the 90s. So many of his movies would cross $1B easy and some would cross $2B, inflation adjusted. He's by far the biggest B.O draw in history. No actor or director comes even remotely close to 1970s-2000s Spielberg. Nolan's the second biggest draw after Cameron rn but he did get a ton of help from Barbie tbf..like both those movies even have the same drops, showing the huge boost from double features

Tiktok engagement has to be organic like Barbenheimer or Mario or Minions or even TGM. Collabing with influencers won't cut it.

Yeah, 2022 and 2023 showed the power of a great marketing campgain. Not the lazy 'let's get influencers to shill on TikTok' stuff Paramount used for DR1. Also 2023 emphasises the importance of talk show hosts. Their absence has severely hindered the prospects of adult-driven movies

Emily Blunt is soo ready too. They've a great script in place as well

I wonder what happened to Paramount’s marketing this year? The same Paramount which marketed Top Gun and Smile so creatively last year, just completely missed the mark this year. Nothing memorable from any of their campaigns. Also what was the idea behind releasing the MI7 trailer just a month before release and starting the marketing just a couple of weeks before release. It really felt that they were compensating for the overshot budget by significantly cutting down on marketing. For MI8 to have a shot at a billion, they need to start early, show at Cinemacon and take it to a film festival….essentially follow the Top Gun playbook.

Yeah so much this. The 2.5x rule to Breakeven that everyone floats assumes a somewhat equal marketing budget as the production cost. If we were to assume Paramount and co put in $290m and didn't receive any Covid insurance payout, you'd think a sensible business decision would be to rein in the marketing costs and looking at how lacklustre the MI marketing was compared to Barbie (which cost $145m to market) tells you that they did exactly that. Also, some rough math wherein: Studio Revenue from B.O = 0.46*$560m = $258m + Pvod/Streaming = $155m - Budget + P&A = $400m And we have it breaking even here itself!

MI8 will be the highest grossing in the franchise beating Fallout (adjusted for China) And they’ll end the franchise there, on a high.

I remember a week back MI7 had showtimes cut and given to SOF which actually had its overall screens increase from the prior week because it was holding so well. Now that MI7 is holding better than all films in the top 10 on a week-week basis even with such few screens compared to everything else above it and with all its PLFs all practically gone, theatres might increase shows for it by taking some away from holdovers

A huge reason was Cruise insisting that crew got paid throughout the production shutdowns due to Covid, something which no publication has talked about. Here's Mcquarrie mentioning it. Also, I'm no studio insider but they have to be incredibly daft to shoot a high budget movie in the middle of the biggest global pandemic in over a century without any insurance and regardless of our opinions on Paramount, they probably aren't that crazy. I'm willing to bet a healthy insurance payout has been made to Paramount due to all their unforeseen troubles https://twitter.com/marisatomay/status/1688380914152185857?t=VqvxxdNa8Lhu6PGe9DuPiw&s=19

Some franchises live and die by their star…MI is one of them. And Paramount won’t do anything without his say. A report came out last year that they tried launching an MI spin-off and Cruise shot it to the ground. They even wanted a Days of Thunder to show and couldn’t do it because Cruise. They also had to wait 36 years for Cruise to say yes for Top Gun

The time on the franchise is definitely coming to a close and MI8 will surely be the last...and that's why MI8 will go out with a bang. MI7 was an aberration marred by so many missteps which surely will be rectified for MI8

I do think DR2 will be the biggest..I just feel that, in Asia even though they probably still liked the movie, they probably didn't feel like watching it multiple times as they did with TGM or Fallout..TGM opened lower in South Korea and Japan than MI7 and made $67m and $100m+ respectively, well above any MI film. Even Indonesia opened to franchise high numbers but fell off quick. But with the exposition out of the way and with MI8 probably being relentless action, I think DR2 will get the franchise back on the upwards trendline

And MI isn’t like the MCU or Star Wars..you don’t need to have watched the previous movie to understand the new one (this wasn’t conveyed at all in any of the press junkets cuz they only talked about the stunt and I think along with the Part 1 in the title, alienated a few people)..these movies are standalone and can easily bounce back. Also, I think a good strategy will be to take inspiration from he Top Gun marketing, starting with the trailers and then subsequent promotions. There wasn’t any emphasis on the ‘lore’ of Top Gun or the rest of the original characters…the promotions were only focused on Cruise right from the start, even the poster just had him and a jet or a bike. When the focus is just on the protagonist right from the start, it doesn’t alienate new audiences and they feel like they can get the new movie even without watching the original. And it worked! TGM’s opening weekend had like $30m coming in from the u-25 crowd which is insane for a 36 year old sequel. They should do the same with DR2…keep the focus and the attention right on Cruise starting with the posters....enough with the float heads posters which serve nothing but to make people who haven’t kept up or the people who’ve seen but forgotten the predecessors feel left out

People must’ve said the same thing after MI3 too..glad they didn’t listen. Sometimes, freak Box office results happen..add to that a WGA strike dulling promotional activity and stiff competition for shows and screens and it can lead to B.O underperformance

Even in my country, India..it's doing franchise best figures and has gotten into the all time Hollywood top 10. Although Oppenheimer has all the IMAX, it's stalled and Barbie is way behind