Weekend Numbers: Fantastic Beasts 75M, Strange 17.6M, Trolls 17.5M, Arrival 11.8M, Edge of 17 4.8M, Bleed 2.35M, Billy Lynn 930k

[Jonwo]

14 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

 

I've been to the Florida one a few times. 

It's incredible. Has turned Universal Studios' fortunes around completely. 

 

In terms of theme park immersion it's on its own.

Its exciting as the bar has been raised with Universal and Disney constantly trying to out-do each other. 

Pandora: Avatar opens at Disney next year. That looks absurd in its ambition. 

 

I imagine Universal will be adding a FB section to the park, WB already has added a costume exhibition to the Warner Bros Studio Tour Hollywood and I imagine they'll keep some of the FB sets for the WB Studio Tour London once the films are done. 

 

I am sort of surprised that Warner Bros Studio Tour London doesn't do temporary exhibits like WB Studio Tour Hollywood for other WB properties, I'm sure the DC Universe exhibit would attract visitors unless they solely focused on making it Potter only. 

[Noctis]

4 minutes ago, Nutella of Arabia said:

 

Maybe if I get the screener. Doing some traveling with the family over the next few weeks and have a few other movies to catch up on first (if I get the chance).

 

[wildphantom]

2 minutes ago, Jonwo said:

 

I imagine Universal will be adding a FB section to the park, WB already has added a costume exhibition to the Warner Bros Studio Tour Hollywood and I imagine they'll keep some of the FB sets for the WB Studio Tour London once the films are done. 

 

I am sort of surprised that Warner Bros Studio Tour London doesn't do temporary exhibits like WB Studio Tour Hollywood for other WB properties, I'm sure the DC Universe exhibit would attract visitors unless they solely focused on making it Potter only. 

 

The rumour is they've plans to put a FB attraction in place of the Dragon Challenge rollercoaster in Florida. 

[ohmigod12345]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

Yeah, if it's not children that's surprising to me. Most of my friends bought their own copies of Harry Potter when they were kids, and still have them. I'm sure there are adults who still haven't read them, but it's hard to imagine them being the main market for new books.

Ugh, people: 

 

the wizarding world brand has always been adolescent and adult targeted. That's something I've said over and over again. Yet people deflect my comments in favor of patronizing it and attempting to drag it back to the children's table. 

 

The J.K. Rowling fantasy brand is quite strong and dark in its imagery and thematics and not child friendly. I could see younger audiences enjoying the creepy but charming initial first two films, but the series is not for children much beyond that. I don't think I've ever seen a more child unfriendly four quadrant IP than Potter, and that's not a bad thing. 

 

Fantastic beasts is not at all what id call a kid friendly film. Despite some people's attempts to deflect this statement, the film is quite dark, intense, scary, and thematically heavy in ways that most blockbuster films from Star Wars, Marvel, even DC to an extent, aren't.

 

 I've also always pointed out that Warner bros has hardly ever marketed this brand to children. There are no toys to speak of, or at least not many. Most of the merchandise for the film's have been adult oriented clothing and wallets and fashion accessories sold through hot topic, and TV Spots were only ever aired during The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and the World Series baseball games. 

 

The Wizarding World brand has more than proven that, with some exceptions, it serves more or less a darker, more adult palette than other franchises. But for some reason, people just get really angry when you mention this. Why? Like...

Edited November 19, 2016 by ohmigod12345

[Noctis]

Can someone PLEASE tell me how Saturday compares to Friday for FB?

[wildphantom]

2 minutes ago, ohmigod12345 said:

Ugh, people: 

 

the wizarding world brand has always been adolescent and adult targeted. That's something I've said over and over again. Yet people deflect my comments in favor of patronizing it and attempting to drag it back to the children's table. 

 

The J.K. Rowling fantasy brand is quite strong and dark in its imagery and thematics and not child friendly. I could see younger audiences enjoying the creepy but charming initial first two films, but the series is not for children much beyond that. I don't think I've ever seen a more child unfriendly four quadrant IP than Potter, and that's not a bad thing. 

 

Fantastic beasts is not at all what id call a kid friendly film. Despite some people's attempts to deflect this statement, the film is quite dark, intense, scary, and thematically heavy in ways that most blockbuster films from Star Wars, Marvel, even DC to an extent, aren't.

 

 I've also always pointed out that Warner bros has hardly ever marketed this brand to children. There are no toys to speak of, or at least not many. Most of the merchandise for the film's have been adult oriented clothing and wallets and fashion accessories sold through hot topic, and TV Spots were only ever aired during The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and the World Series baseball games. 

 

The Wizarding World brand has more than proven that, with some exceptions, it serves more or less a darker, more palette than other franchises. But for some reason, people just get really angry when you mention this. Why? Like...

 

I'd agree with this. It's no more for kids than Star Wars is. 

It requires much more from audiences in terms of following its narrative. 

 

I think the kiddie perception comes from people that haven't really read the books or watched the movies and see children as the main characters. 

 

It's a franchise for everyone. 

[grim22]

27 minutes ago, Nutella of Arabia said:

 

Yes, it was fantastic.  Better than THE HOBBIT (which I liked as well). 

 

 

 

I'm late to the conversation, but Lee's gold standard of presentation is on the outer edge of current technology. No theater is equipped to do it... even the Arclight Dome had to borrow a projector from Christie (I think) to pull it off. 

 

So the 120/4K/3D version is basically a proof of concept deal. As to why Sony ditched the other variations, my guess is the mediocre response from Toronto. 

 

 

The Billy Lynn stock on HSX is hilarious. Before NYFF, it was trading at almost 50$ per share, now it is in the single digits, will most likely end at 5$ at the end.

[kswiston]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

If you adjust by exchange rates only, then yes, only DH2 would still have made $1B. If you adjust both domestic and foreign grosses by ticket price inflation as well, then the only film that drops out of the $1B club from that time period is The Hobbit.

 

See table below. Exchange rates current as of November 18, adjusted figures are in bold:

 

If you're interested, a more complete post on exchange rate/ticket price adjustment is here. List of ticket prices being used for adjustment is here.

 

Thanks!

 

Of course if we start adjusting for ticket price, a lot of older films join the $1B club.

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, ohmigod12345 said:

the wizarding world brand has always been adolescent and adult targeted. That's something I've said over and over again. Yet people deflect my comments in favor of patronizing it and attempting to drag it back to the children's table. 

 

What? I wasn't patronizing it, and I'm pretty sure @James wasn't either. I was saying that most of my friends already had the books. That's because we were kids when the books came out. Not because the books are just for kids.

 

As for why I'd expect purchases of new books to be for children as well, I meant to imply that most adults who would be interested would also already own the books by now. Kids = new people (literally) = new market. Obviously that's not true for new books specifically targeted to adults, but the Harry Potter books are not new and I presume that they remain as accessible to today's children as they were to my generation.

 

Finally, I was talking about the books only, not the "wizarding world brand" in general.

[TimmyRiggins]

It is true that FB is quite dark, which surprised me, I did not expect that level of "sophistication" for a blockbuster, but it's impressive imo how J.K & Yates navigate between this and the delightful, lighter & fun tone of Newt searching for his beasts, it doesn't feel disjointed tonally speaking. Quite the wide appeal this has. 

[kswiston]

I haven't seen Fantastic Beasts, but Harry Potter gave up on its light, family friendly tone in the last couple of movies. Even before that, they were playing up the more young adult angle present in the back half of the book series. The Columbus movies were children's films. Deathly Hallows, not so much. 

[James]

19 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

What? I wasn't patronizing it, and I'm pretty sure @James wasn't either. I was saying that most of my friends already had the books. That's because we were kids when the books came out. Not because the books are just for kids.

 

As for why I'd expect purchases of new books to be for children as well, I meant to imply that most adults who would be interested would also already own the books by now. Kids = new people (literally) = new market. Obviously that's not true for new books specifically targeted to adults, but the Harry Potter books are not new and I presume that they remain as accessible to today's children as they were to my generation.

 

Finally, I was talking about the books only, not the "wizarding world brand" in general.

Agree. But I remain to my point that a lot of the new readers are kids. I personally know two brothers, 15 and 10 who just started reading them because a new edition was recently published here. 

Also, I just thought of something else. Maybe books are borrowed less from libraries because most homes already have them? It's a stretch, but just think about the fact that in these 18-19 years since they were published, over 500 million copies have been sold. 110m for the first book alone. To that add the fact that e-books are getting stronger and stronger the HP books have been in the Amazon ebook bestseller list all year. I think SS is in Top 5 even now. I don't think people truly appreciate how much does numbers mean. Think of The Hobbit and LOTR and Da Vinci Code or Fifty Shades. All literary phenomenons and the first HP book alone outsold each of them. 

Edited November 19, 2016 by James

[ohmigod12345]

14 minutes ago, kswiston said:

I haven't seen Fantastic Beasts, but Harry Potter gave up on its light, family friendly tone in the last couple of movies. Even before that, they were playing up the more young adult angle present in the back half of the book series. The Columbus movies were children's films. Deathly Hallows, not so much. 

The books and films follow a teen oriented coming of age narrative, the first two films are more child accessible. Beyond that they're not very child oriented at all

[miketheavenger]

Finally saw Dr. Strange today and even though I have a few issues with the movie it was a blast. The visuals were truly magical, the 3D was better than for many other movies and a lot (not all) of the humor worked well. Marvel has done it again and this is definitely one of their better films.

[RobinHood26]

42 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

 

The rumour is they've plans to put a FB attraction in place of the Dragon Challenge rollercoaster in Florida. 

 

Not gonna happen 0% chance. That's hogsmade The other park , USF, next door has diagon alley (jk made them put it in the other park because she said they would make no sense being together) FB breaks the themeing and timeline. It can't have an entrance in hogsmede or next to the castle. 

 

universal is building a 3rd themepark opening like 2021. Expect FB to have a full land there. 3 parks, 3 different Harry Potter lands. 

[ohmigod12345]

Also, on the subject of box office:

 

why are people getting down on it? The numbers really line up with WB's initial predictions, and it's done much better than most potters at many international locations. The OD amount is above at least one Potter film and all signs I've heard point to this having some impressive legs, as most everyone I've talked to is seeing it at some later date. The pre-sales for the tickets show that. If this has excellent legs throughout the weekend this could still do 80+ mil undoubtedly. And there's absolutely no question that 750+ mil WW will happen. Which means this film is a success. And with such good critical and audience reception, this film is going to get its sequels. 

[James]

3 minutes ago, Jay Hollywood said:

 

Not gonna happen 0% chance. That's hogsmade The other park , USF, next door has diagon alley (jk made them put it in the other park because she said they would make no sense being together) FB breaks the themeing and timeline. It can't have an entrance in hogsmede or next to the castle. 

 

universal is building a 3rd themepark opening like 2021. Expect FB to have a full land there. 3 parks, 3 different Harry Potter lands. 

Omg, didn't know that! Gosh, I love how dedicated she is

[RobinHood26]

4 minutes ago, James said:

Omg, didn't know that! Gosh, I love how dedicated she is

 

Yeah, she supposable came in a week before the first HP land opened and made them repaint a rock because she said they got the color tone wrong. Universal just nodds and says yes yes whatever she says.

 

Congrats on her liking your tweet and you loving the movie too btw. 

Edited November 19, 2016 by Jay Hollywood

[kswiston]

12 minutes ago, ohmigod12345 said:

The books and films follow a teen oriented coming of age narrative, the first two films are more child accessible. Beyond that they're not very child oriented at all

 

I was mostly commenting on this surprise at darker themes in Fantastic Beasts, or the thought that the franchise should be pulling in family business like it was Trolls or Moana. The last couple of HP films were already pretty dark and not young kid friendly. I don't think I would show them to a 5-6 year old for instance. 

Edited November 19, 2016 by kswiston

[James]

Just now, Jay Hollywood said:

 

Yeah, she came in a week before the first HP land opened and made repainted a rock because she said they got the color tone wrong. Universal just nodds and says yes yes whatever she says.

 

Congrats on her liking your tweet and you loving the movie too btw. 

Thanks.