ROGUE ONE WEEKEND THREAD | Actuals R1 155.09m, Moana 12.7m, OCP 8.58m, CB 7.1m, FB 5.07m

[MJL]

Because @MovieMan89 hasn't backed down, I have a present for him!

 

[Dementeleus]

20 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

If we're back to strictly box office events @Grand Moff Tele, I'm waiting for the explanation on T2. 

 

You have the explanation, you just choose not to accept it.  

[MovieMan89]

Just now, Porthos said:

 

No, it was an event, period.   But being R rated cut its raw box office potential.  

 

I know you know that an R rated film, even today, can't get the same box office as a PG-13 film.

 

If you weren't around back then, I don't know what to tell you.  It was an event.  It had jaw dropping, industry revolutionizing effects.  It was the subject of massive media attention. It was talked about all across the country.

 

But it was also rated R.  And back then that mattered a lot more than it does today (and we both know it still matters).

Thank you, this was a much more convincing argument to me for why it was a box office event than "because it was #1 of '91 and had a pop culture impact!"

 

So maybe when we're dealing with R rated films, the same rules don't totally apply. 

[Porthos]

3 minutes ago, AABATTERY said:

Disney is doing a terrible job removing the Vader scene from YouTube. Or is it all a marketing stunt .

[MovieMan89]

I think Passion and Matrix Reloaded should be called events as well given their R rating. Admittedly that was unfair for me to ignore that important factor. 

[Dementeleus]

Using estimated admissions (or adjusted numbers) is like saying Mickey Mantle wasn't a great baseball player because he didn't have as many home runs as Sammy Sosa. 

[MovieMan89]

Just now, Grand Moff Tele said:

Using estimated admissions (or adjusted numbers) is like saying Mickey Mantle wasn't a great baseball player because he didn't have as many home runs as Sammy Sosa. 

But what else are we supposed to do when discussing all time box office? Unadjusted numbers are often a horrible indication of success on the all time scale. 

[cannastop]

9 minutes ago, Porthos said:

But it was also rated R.  And back then that mattered a lot more than it does today (and we both know it still matters).

I was under the impression that R-rated blockbusters were more common in the past than they are now.

[TalismanRing]

Just now, MovieMan89 said:

But what else are we supposed to do when discussing all time box office? Unadjusted numbers are often a horrible indication of success on the all time scale. 

 

They're a good source but they also require context which is more complex than just plugging in and comparing numbers.

 

 

[John Marston]

1 minute ago, cannastop said:

I was under the impression that R-rated blockbusters were more common in the past than they are now.

 

 

Yeah. Back then you had plenty of R rated movies in the top ten of the year 

[Dementeleus]

8 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

But what else are we supposed to do when discussing all time box office? Unadjusted numbers are often a horrible indication of success on the all time scale. 

 

At a bare minimum, an acknowledgement that movies were released in different box office eras. 

 

But bringing this all back on topic, this started because you don't think 500m is a very significant milestone for a blockbuster. 

 

Yet, as recently as a week or so ago, you were saying that 400-450m would be a very solid target for R1 and shouldn't be construed as "bad" or disappointing at all.  

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I was under the impression that R-rated blockbusters were more common in the past than they are now.

 

More common?  Sure.  As high of a box office gross?  No, I wouldn't say so.

[EmpireCity]

I will say this, I think there is a difference between an event film and a phenomenon.  

 

Event films in my definition are something that is huge and highly anticipated for months by the general public with lots of media hype.  The Force Awakens, Batman (89), The Dark Knight, Jurassic Park, Avengers, Civil War, Toy Story 3, Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad, Jurassic World, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, etc....

 

Then you have phenomenon films.  Something that does crazy business and becomes a cultural impact going forward.  Something like The Sixth Sense, Frozen, Star Wars (original), The Matrix, Deadpool, American Sniper, Back to the Future, Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc...

 

You can have a category that is between them.  Something that was anticipated, but performed well beyond expectations.  Titanic, Skyfall, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Forrest Gump, Shrek 2, 

[redfirebird2008]

12 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

 

So maybe when we're dealing with R rated films, the same rules don't totally apply. 

 

This is common sense. Figured you already knew that. 

[MJL]

8 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

I think Passion and Matrix Reloaded should be called events as well given their R rating. Admittedly that was unfair for me to ignore that important factor. 

 

So, Passion is an event....what about Blazing Saddles and Beverly Hills Cop?

[cannastop]

3 minutes ago, EmpireCity said:

I will say this, I think there is a difference between an event film and a phenomenon.  

 

Event films in my definition are something that is huge and highly anticipated for months by the general public with lots of media hype.  The Force Awakens, Batman (89), The Dark Knight, Jurassic Park, Avengers, Civil War, Toy Story 3, Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad, Jurassic World, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, etc....

 

Then you have phenomenon films.  Something that does crazy business and becomes a cultural impact going forward.  Something like The Sixth Sense, Frozen, Star Wars (original), The Matrix, Deadpool, American Sniper, Back to the Future, Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc...

 

You can have a category that is between them.  Something that was anticipated, but performed well beyond expectations.  Titanic, Skyfall, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Forrest Gump, Shrek 2, 

Why on earth is Titanic not in the second category?

 

Spoiler

And why isn't Zootopia at least in the third one? 

 

[redfirebird2008]

On what planet is Deadpool more of a phenomenon than either The Avengers or TDK? American Sniper more of a phenomenon than Jurassic Park? Huh? Empire, you're gonna need to offer more of an explanation for these selections. Titanic is the biggest box office phenomenon since Gone With The Wind. It certainly should not be lumped in with movies like Skyfall or Iron Man. 

[JonathanLB]

3 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

And you know as well as I do that comparing the movie viewing environment now to those decades ago is silly.

 

You have your own idiosyncratic defintion of 'event'.  That's fine.  But the entertainment industry would disagree heavily that there's only one or two movie events in a decade rather than two or three events a year.

 

 

I know this is an older post now, but I wanted to say I agree with what you had written here and earlier as well. There are 2-4 event movies per year, it's not a super rare occurrence, just fairly rare. My friend Bernie and actually now days my friend Florian both conform to this idea of an "event movie," which is what makes non-regular moviegoers hit up the multiplexes. Bernie is CFO of a biotech company and he's kind of a boring dude when it comes to his spontaneity. He literally PLANS his moviegoing in December for the entire next year! I have never heard of that before. He watches everything with his brother-in-law, and they just circle every Marvel movie on the calendar, a Star Wars movie, and maybe one or two other things (like Star Trek, let's say, or something along those lines). A guy like Bernie could probably be convinced to add some out-of-the-blue blockbuster to the list but it's not likely. To him, any Marvel movie is an event, even if it's not a $400M grosser. My friend Florian is a police officer and works tons of OT, so he doesn't have much time at all. He's also incredibly cheap. He may be worse than Bernie and only see 2-3 movies all year in theaters, of which Star Wars would be one. He actually saw TFA 3 times, which is amazing as I don't think he watched another movie the entire year lol. Even that only happened because of me, another group of friends, and his girlfriend, so he felt somehow obligated to see it 3 times with different groups. I hate his girlfriend, and she hates me, plus all of his other friends hate his GF too, so that kind of led to his viewing count being crazy by his standards.

 

An event movie to me is anything I go see in IMAX more or less, though there are some that I wouldn't term as events, but in general since I have Movie Pass I just go to a regular 2D showing of anything, except I make exceptions for things like Civil War, Doctor Strange, and Rogue One. I'm not saying I would personally call Doctor Strange an "event movie," but I'm just giving you an idea of the gray area between the black and white. 

 

I feel like some people are massively misusing the term, which is funny, mainly for their own bias. To say that any Star Wars movie isn't an event is laughable (except the animated Clone Wars movie, I'll give you that! LOL), or that somehow an event movie is determined AFTER the fact is also kind of ridiculous to suggest. It's ludicrous, really. You don't decide it's a Big Game in a basketball season when the score is 110-108 Golden State over the Cavs. That's not how it works. Cavs vs. Golden State IS a big game, no matter what happens during the game, that's irrelevant. People are looking forward to the game because these are two enormously talented, successful teams and they face off against each other. A Star Wars movie is a huge event going into it, so it can't ever magically become "not an event" no matter what happens during the opening or after that. It could, however, impact the next movie. If the Warriors suck all season long, and don't perform up to expectations, then next year obviously their games are not "big games" anymore now are they? Same with a movie franchise. A Star Wars movie is a big event until one of them massively underperforms and in effect kills some of the brand loyalty and event status to such an extent that the next movie opens with little fanfare besides the die-hards. 

 

There's a big gap between a true popular culture phenomenon and an event movie. Event movies are just part of summer blockbuster season and usually come around once during the holidays maybe twice too. The Harry Potter movies, LOTR movies, those are big event movies. They are what the studios call "tentpoles" as you well know. The rest of the schedule is built around those tentpoles. That doesn't mean they're culture-defining movies that change the way movies are made and marketed. Heck, you wouldn't know that for YEARS. By that logic you could make some asinine argument like Avatar isn't REALLY an event movie, because people forgot about it quickly (anecdotal, and not based on facts, more so gut feeling / personal opinion), or that Avatar ushered in the wave of 3D movies but since most people got tired of 3D movies quickly and the 3D was bad, somehow that means Avatar wasn't REALLY that influential. All of those kinds of arguments are silly. You don't call a movie an event in retrospect, you deem it an event going forward and looking at in on the calendar. When you see Rogue One had more anticipation than any other movie this year, you know that's an event movie.

 

 

[Dementeleus]

We can come with whatever names we want for all of these things. All I know is that at this point in time, 500m for *any* movie is massive and a huge accomplishment. I don't have problem with also saying that achievement doesn't automatically place a movie on some sort of special iconic status. We won't know that until much later.

 

At some point in time, 500m will become the new 400m, the same way 400m is now

the new 300m. 

 

But today is not that day. 

[Porthos]

15 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

 

Yeah. Back then you had plenty of R rated movies in the top ten of the year 

 

Depends on the year.  1987?  Absolutely.  Other years, you might get two or three.  Then again, the Great Migration to PG-13 hadn't happened yet, and many of those films if they were released today would be PG-13, which raises the amount of people who can see films.

 

And even then, if you start scanning the amount of money Top Ten films brought in from, oh, 1985 to 1994, it is striking how many were under $100m back then.  Even adjusting for inflation the spreads in the Top Ten each year can be striking.

 

Here's 1987 adj:

 

1	Three Men and a Baby	BV	$359,069,500	1,813	$22,866,900	1,006	11/25
2	Fatal Attraction	Par.	$341,651,200	1,401	$16,741,600	758	9/18
3	Beverly Hills Cop II	Par.	$338,377,500	2,326	$58,020,700	2,326	5/20
4	Good Morning, Vietnam	BV	$259,650,900	1,598	$427,900	4	12/25
5	Moonstruck	MGM	$168,998,100	1,178	$281,000	7	12/18
6	The Untouchables	Par.	$167,951,100	1,501	$22,071,300	1,012	6/5
7	The Secret of My Success	Uni.	$147,528,000	1,346	$17,102,100	1,336	4/10
8	Stakeout	BV	$144,615,500	1,364	$11,385,500	951	8/7
9	Lethal Weapon	WB	$143,589,100	1,420	$15,039,900	1,256	3/6
10	The Witches of Eastwick	WB	$140,416,800	1,337	$20,818,700	1,103	6/12

 

That's 140 ADJUSTED for Witches of Eastwick!

 

Or 1989 adj:

 

1	Batman	WB	$542,039,300	2,201	$87,812,800	2,194	6/23
2	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Par.	$425,476,000	2,327	$63,664,200	2,327	5/24
3	Lethal Weapon 2	WB	$319,359,400	1,830	$44,218,500	1,803	7/7
4	Look Who's Talking	TriS	$299,994,300	1,651	$26,258,900	1,208	10/13
5	Honey, I Shrunk the Kids	BV	$283,510,100	1,498	$30,933,000	1,371	6/23
6	Back to the Future Part II	Uni.	$252,710,200	2,107	$60,367,900	1,865	11/22
7	Ghostbusters II	Col.	$243,974,800	2,410	$63,919,800	2,410	6/16
8	Driving Miss Daisy	WB	$217,093,500	1,668	$159,900	3	12/15
9	Parenthood	Uni.	$216,358,400	1,399	$22,786,000	1,262	8/2
10	Dead Poets Society	BV	$207,898,100	1,109	$738,400	8	6/2

 

 

Again, look at the spread.  Saying that there are 'a lot' of R rated films in the Top Ten might be true (though not for 1989), but the SPREAD is amazing.  

Edited December 19, 2016 by Porthos