REVISED Weekend Estimates 6/14--6/16: Man of Steel OW $116.7M($128.7M including WM)

[Hatebox]

The Walmart issue is that a good chunk of people who used those tickets would have gone on the OW anyway.

 

I can live with them not being included in the OW figure, but it's fair that they're in the overall total.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Hatebox

[RthDeadWov]

It use to be the standard rule years ago that in US anything 10pm+ could be included in OP day anything before not (in INTL it was 12mid+, anything before not)

[DAR]

Even Fast 6 made more than that on opening weekend in India.

 

 

Good to see your still fighting the good fight, as difficult as that maybe.

[ACCA]

Yes I do, but I'm merely comparing the action, I haven't said 'A has better action than B' I've said they are both done differently, avengers has sharper action where-as MOS was pure carnage on a larger scale and didnt look as sharp, which is true. No need for all of you to get a panic attack over it.

 

You didn't say it, but from the tone of your posts you heavily implied that Man of Steel action to you wasn't better than The Avengers.

 

Man of Steel also had a lot of sharp scenes. The scenes on Krypton, and most of the scenes involving World Engine in the film, along with Zod's ships were very sharp graphically speaking.

 

The action in TA was good (especially considering it was only Whedon's second feature film) but the humour and character interaction was what pushed it to the next level. Bigger is not always better. That's why I don't want TA2 to try and outdo the action in the first film or MOS just for the sake of it. Making you care about the action is far more important. 

 

Obviously. So you're implying that people don't "care" for the action in MoS? From my opinion, MoS was a better film in MANY ways than The Avengers, but of course that's just my opinion. I was more emotionally engaged with the characters in MoS than I was with The Avengers.

 

Sorry, but for a film like The Avengers or MoS, they need to have everything right for it to be good. Character interaction, the right amount of humour, and BIG action. When you're dealing with heroes and villains on the scale of Avengers or Man of Steel, you have to go BIG with the action, or don't do it at all. For me Avengers didn't have a big enough scale to the action, as I've said before in other threads and here. Avengers also had some really bad CGI in some places which took me out of the film. The really "clean" looking and heavily airbrushed CGI I was not a fan of at all. Some of the worst parts in Avengers included Iron Man in the suit looking very plastic.

 

 

Agreed 100%. Action definitely isn't everything, lots of crap movies from the Pirates movies to Clash/Wrath of the Titans have big set pieces but lots of times, it just falls flat.

 

The action at the end of the Avengers was just the icing on the cake. I can't really think of too many movies that really connected with audiences like the Avengers. A lot of folks here don't react to movies in theatres but the Avengers really, really got people laughing and screaming.

 

Transformers 3 definitely had bigger action than the Avengers but you "feel" the action in the Avengers a lot more.

 

I think many of you are taking a leap of faith and making a BIG assumption in terms of WHY audiences liked the Avengers.

 

I am willing to bet anyone here that if you poll 100 random people on the street on if they saw the Avengers and WHY they liked it, then the vast majority would tell you they liked it because of the "team up" and "ensemble" aspect of the film. Many others would tell you they liked it because of RDJ.

 

I've talked to a lot of non-comic fans at work, and in social settings, and the topic of why they liked Avengers did come up randomly in film discussions. Keep in mind, these are NON-comic fans, who've never read comics, and barely follow superheroes. So in other words, they are perfect examples of the general audience. The people I spoke with, they all told me they liked The Avengers because of all those heroes teaming up in one film. They weren't gushing about how connected they felt to the characters, or gushing about the action. A few of the females that had repeat viewings of the film said the only reason they saw it more than once was because of how hot RDJ, Hemsworth, and Hiddleston are to them.

 

Obviously comic fans probably liked Avengers for different reasons, but I am strictly talking about non-comic fans, the audiences that made the Avengers make SO MUCH money at the box office.

 

 

Bayformers 1 was also complete and utter garbage. 

 

No, not according to the general audience. The general audience loved Transformers 1.

 

 

We should've known MOS was going to have a tiny drop on Sunday since it's the perfect Father's Day movie.

 

Plus even Green Lantern dropped a small amount on Father's Day. 

 

Please. This is a different situation. First off, Man of Steel opened MUCH bigger than GL. Secondly, Man of Steel statistically speaking didn't even drop at all. 0.1% is statistically FLAT, which is incredible given how BIG the Saturday gross was. Lastly, GL statistically speaking had a small, but noticeable drop on Sunday of over 9%.

 

 

There is a very real problem WB will face moving forward with JLA.  It's like every one wants to see a Batman/Superman team up on the big screen, but if you consider it logically for just one second it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  To push Superman's limits you have to create situations that would logically leave Batman out of the mix.  It just doesn't work.  I mean can you imagine Batman in Man of Steel?  He'd be relegated to running interference for bystanders on the streets.

 

It works to a decent degree in the Marvel flicks because there power level disparity isn't so drastic but even in The Avengers you have to really work hard to get characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow decent and meaningful screen time.  Maybe Whedon is the only guy out there can do that since he seems to be able to write ensembles better than anyone else right now.

 

I'd love a Wonder Woman flick, but I'm afraid a JLA flick is going to look ridiculous.  I hope they can nail it though because it is pretty much my dream movie.

 

In The Avengers it failed too. They powered down Thor and Loki to pathetic levels just to make the disparity seem "equal" and for the mortal heroes to seem bad-ass.

 

It did not. It made $9m from midnight shows and $12m from the Wal-Mart Thursday deal. Midnight is Friday money, not Thursday money. You've been doing this forever and you're actually trying to argue that midnight is Thursday money? Really?

 

Baumer's point is that EVERY other studio except WB is counting Thursday evening shows as Friday money. WB is doing the correct thing yes, BUT the rest of the studios are not. So simply on the matter of fairness, the Thursday money should be counted towards Friday for MOS because so many other films have had their OW numbers inflated by adding in the Thursday evening shows. Further, all the other studios don't seem to give a damn about doing it properly like WB is.

 

It's not about what's right in this case (which WB is doing, the "right" way), it's about what's fair.

[riczhang]

No, not according to the general audience. The general audience loved Transformers 1.

 

duh. Total and Utter garbage these days sell. Give the GA a hot girl and some explosions and you've got a bonafide hit on your hands. It's simple logic really. 

[ecstasy]

Despite not being as many records as people expected, I still think it's a big surprise that it performed so well domestically. Maybe it'll have some decent legs in some overseas markets. You'll never know.

 

 

I wasn't surprised. Not one bit. I just wasn't sure about the Walmart number. But I figured opening weekend would be in the 120m range.

People underestimate Superman.

[ACCA]

duh. Total and Utter garbage these days sell. Give the GA a hot girl and some explosions and you've got a bonafide hit on your hands. It's simple logic really. 

 

I found a few redeeming qualities in Transformers 1. To be honest, it was the most fun out of the three Bayformers, and it had the best graphics as well. 2 and 3 were both worse in my eyes.

 

You have to take it context sometimes; I initially didn't like the idea of Bayformers, but when I saw TF1 I enjoyed it. The main reason being, because I looked at it from the context of it being a Bay action film, not a super serious Transformers film.

[ecstasy]

duh. Total and Utter garbage these days sell. Give the GA a hot girl and some explosions and you've got a bonafide hit on your hands. It's simple logic really. 

 

Well that's not totally true. You have to have something else that speaks to the core of our beings. In this case, Transformers is one of the most unique and beloved toy in history. That was the real draw.

[Sam]

Summer vacation will help its legs everywhere. Thats the point of summer releases in June and July.

[riczhang]

Well that's not totally true. You have to have something else that speaks to the core of our beings. In this case, Transformers is one of the most unique and beloved toy in history. That was the real draw.

 

But you get my point  Quality takes a backseat to everything else these days. 

Edited June 18, 2013 by riczhang

[ecstasy]

But you get my point

 

Of course I do. Although I don't get into Transformers, I understand why it's a huge success.

[#ED]

[riczhang]

Of course I do. Although I don't get into Transformers, I understand why it's a huge success.

 

I don't get transformers either (i mean I know why it's doing so well) and it's kinda frustrating when things like that make 400 million DOM and 1.1 Billion WW when Quality Blockbusters such as Casino Royale make less than half of that (and it took Skyfall to inexplicably break out to get anywhere near Transformers DOM) And then there are the arthouse films that hardly make anything but are so full of emotion and expressiveness and etc. Things like Weekend make $1 million WW, J'Ai Tue ma Mere 33K, Amour $20 million (And it took a BP, BD, BA, BS, and BFL nomination haul), Oslo 31 August 100K, and etc. And it's frustrating and upsetting because not only is the GA lapping up dog shit (for a large part, there are good movies that do very well as well) but the people making those $200 million films can do whatever they want and have it nice and easy doing films while the people that desperately need a hit, and those who pour their heart and souls into the films are left watching their movies flop. 

 

In short. Big Budget Movies kinda suck. 

[ecstasy]

I don't get transformers either (i mean I know why it's doing so well) and it's kinda frustrating when things like that make 400 million DOM and 1.1 Billion WW when Quality Blockbusters such as Casino Royale make less than half of that (and it took Skyfall to inexplicably break out to get anywhere near Transformers DOM) And then there are the arthouse films that hardly make anything but are so full of emotion and expressiveness and etc. Things like Weekend make $1 million WW, J'Ai Tue ma Mere 33K, Amour $20 million (And it took a BP, BD, BA, BS, and BFL nomination haul), Oslo 31 August 100K, and etc. And it's frustrating and upsetting because not only is the GA lapping up dog shit (for a large part, there are good movies that do very well as well) but the people making those $200 million films can do whatever they want and have it nice and easy doing films while the people that desperately need a hit, and those who pour their heart and souls into the films are left watching their movies flop. 

 

In short. Big Budget Movies kinda suck. 

 

Here's my take. FWIW it doesn't really bother me that these movies make so much money. I'm a firm believer in people spending their money on whatever gives them pleasure. If Transformers makes them happy then more power to them.  I do agree that it is sad that some of these small films never get noticed.  It wouldn't hurt the studios to give a better effort in marketing them. However, they are putting the money where they feel they'll get the biggest return. Sometimes it's a hit (Transformers) or sometimes it's a miss (John Carter).

[Dementeleus]

Studios hate the concept of depending on execution. They always seek a fail-safe option: a movie with plenty of pre-awareness (meaning, no original films), a movie that will hit the target demo that has little critical taste (teenagers), a movie that's sequelizable and can generate a whole franchise. They hate dealing with a tricky concept that requires some essence of brilliance to pull off: they want derivative material where you can essentially plug in a journeyman and achieve the basic results needed.

[ACCA]

Studios hate the concept of depending on execution. They always seek a fail-safe option: a movie with plenty of pre-awareness (meaning, no original films), a movie that will hit the target demo that has little critical taste (teenagers), a movie that's sequelizable and can generate a whole franchise. They hate dealing with a tricky concept that requires some essence of brilliance to pull off: they want derivative material where you can essentially plug in a journeyman and achieve the basic results needed.

 

Yes, but some studios are more open-minded than others. Studios like WB and Lionsgate are more open-minded and supportive of different or more out there sort of films.

[A Marvel Fanboy]

Lol I didnt know Riczhang is so anti-big movies ...

Edited June 18, 2013 by firedeep

[Dementeleus]

Yes, but some studios are more open-minded than others. Studios like WB and Lionsgate are more open-minded and supportive of different or more out there sort of films.

 

It depends largely on the execs, and increasingly, they're no longer "film guys" who come from production and who love films; they're business guys who come out of Harvard or Yale with MBAs and neither know much about movies or movie history, nor care to learn. For them, it's the sheer bottom line... and you can't qualify "genius" or "talent" with a numeric value.

[ACCA]

It depends largely on the execs, and increasingly, they're no longer "film guys" who come from production and who love films; they're business guys who come out of Harvard or Yale with MBAs and neither know much about movies or movie history, nor care to learn. For them, it's the sheer bottom line... and you can't qualify "genius" or "talent" with a numeric value.

 

Yes, it's very unfortunate. Many things in Western society are going to crap simply because of all these business or MBA types that get into very strong positions of power.

Edited June 18, 2013 by ACCA

[riczhang]

Lol I didnt know Riczhang is so anti-big movies ...

I'm not against them. I'm lamenting the loss of quality. Spend 200 million on a good movie all you want, but when that result lands you Bayformers or Lone Ranger(totally and utterly awful) then yes I'm against big movies. I mean I'm an unashamed Potter fan, Bond fan, and Those Brilliant arthouse movies that get 9 figure budgets (Gatsby ). I like them because they have a very high quality. (yes even Quantum of Solace was good, at the very least not as bad as people make it out to be)