Weekend Thread: DHD Friday #'s (p.14) ~ The Megalogross 17M, Slenderman 4-5M, BlacKkKlansman 3.8-4M

[The Panda]

40m OW is solid for the MEG, should be able to pull in a relatively profitable WW gross.  It's definitely no Into the Storm kind of August bomb.

[The Futurist]

The Meg brand ?

[Firepower]

22 minutes ago, Shawn said:

It has the star and a well-known fan character to help it do very well, plus minimal competition, but it also has some of the pre-release indicators that plagued Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, Justice League, and Solo. If buzz improves and reviews turn out great, it could probably open higher than that current $50M ceiling. If not... *shrug*. 

With great reviews it can open to 100+. Even with terrible reviews it can't open below 50 mln because hype is too big. Comparisons with Fantastic Four are not correct because F4 didn't have big hype/much buzz, appealing actors in the lead roles and it had very negative reception from the very begining when they started filming it. The same thing with GL, JL and Solo. At worst Venom's reviews will be on Suicide Squad level, which was in the same situaton and had 135 OW. Reports about extensive reshoots and forced PG-13 don't affect BO much.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Firepower

[KJsooner]

Funny to me when people use the RT user ratings to call bad wom on a movie. JW2 turned out just fine. 

[Eric Atreides]

I believe there were some slight updates and changes made on Deadline. If it's just a repost, my apologies.

 

Below are your top 10 pics per industry estimates for the weekend of Aug. 10-12:

THUMB RANK FILM DIS. SCREENS (CHG) FRI 3-DAY (-%) TOTAL WK 1 The Meg WB 4,118 $16.5M $40M  $40M 1 2 M:I – Fallout Par/Sky 3,888 (-507) $5.3M (-46%) $18.9M (-46%) $160.8M 3 3 Christopher Robin Dis 3,602 $3.6M (-62%) $12.3M (-50%) $49.9M 2 4 Slender Man Sony 2,358 $4.8M $11.8M $11.8M 1 5 BlacKkKlansman Focus 1,512 $3.6M $9.4M $9.4M 1 6 The Spy Who Dumped Me LG 3,111 $1.86M (-63%) $5.8M (-48%) $23.7M 2 7 Mamma Mia 2 Uni 2,812 (-547) $1.7M (-40%) $5.4M (-40%) $103.4M 4 8 Equalizer 2 Sony 2,373 (-352) $1.4M (-40%) $5.1M (-41%) $89.2M 4 9 Hotel Transylvania 3 Sony 2,589 (-573) $1.4M (-40%) $4.8M (-40%)  $146.5M 5 10 Ant-Man And The Wasp Dis 1,863 (-370) $1.1M (-35%) $3.9M (-38%) $203.3M 6

[Barnack]

4 hours ago, PenguinHyphy said:

Deadline does not plant studio hit pieces because they have to have a great relationship with them in order to actually function, so I have no idea why you keep perpetuating the notion that they do that. They might not be exactly right about the number, but it has to be in that area and from a great source for them to post about it. They are into clickbait, but they are not going to run anything defamatory.  

Not sure why you think I thought it was defamatory, but who does it, who saw the top sheet and calling ?

 

Insurer company people ?

 

I am not sure how a source be great and not be exactly right, the claim is that it is from peoples that have actually seen the movie top sheet, so it is either completely right or someone lying, no ? what could be in between ?

 

The why stay a valid question.

 

Has for deadline not planting hit pieces they have a really fishy past about it.

[Mr Impossible]

1 hour ago, Pandamia! said:

40m OW is solid for the MEG, should be able to pull in a relatively profitable WW gross.  It's definitely no Into the Storm kind of August bomb.

I wouldn't label a film that made $162M on a $50M budget as a bomb...

[Barnack]

3 hours ago, baumer said:

I think Kate McKinnon is great on SNL.  Some of her stuff is downright hilarious.  I also find her unappealing and annoying as fuck in movies.  It just seems like every one of her characters is over the top in so many ways and at least right now, it looks like audiences feel the same way.  Almost every film she has been in has either tanked or underperformed in some ways.

 

Just go down the list:

 

The Spy Who Dumped Me:  Probably less than 45 mill finish

Rough Night out and out tanked with 22 mill

Office Christmas Party did okay with 54 mill

Ghostbusters did okay but not as much as most thought it would with 128 mill

Masterminds was dumped and did 17 mill

 

I know you can't put all the blame on her but some of it must be that audiences don't really care for her brand of comedy on the big screen.  For me personally she annoys the hell out of me at times and I thought she was the worst thing about Spy.

 

I'm sure she will get better roles down the line but for now, she isn't really a good actress to cast in your film.

Except maybe for Office Christmas Party of those I saw (I do not remember much), I think the issue is that she felt in her own different movie on the side in many of those, Rough Night being an extreme version of that.

 

She has yet to have a director use that right (and I imagine her achieving to reach a middle ground with the actual movie) or try to make the movie about it and make the rest of it play in that energy instead of being side-sided/looking like improve.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Barnack

[Jandrew]

I don't know what's more impressive, $40M for Meg or almost $12M for Slender Man. Meg is Statham vs a giant shark and is good summer fun, while Slender Man is easily 4 years late to the party and looks like crap.

[Webslinger]

The Meg performed far better than I ever thought it would. The comparisons with The Legend of Tarzan - a big-budget movie breaking out after looking like it was going to bomb - are apt.

[Yandereprime101189]

2 hours ago, baumer said:

 

Rough Night out and out tanked with 22 mill

 

Kinda a shame because I thought she was the best character in Rough Night. Granted, she got less screentime than the others in the film.

[Yandereprime101189]

Only thing that would make this week better is if Meg legged up to a 50 million opening weekend, even if Deadline will be like "but, but, but, our sources said it's budget was 500 million or something. Ye........yeah, take that Meg."

[DAR]

1 hour ago, Pandamia! said:

40m OW is solid for the MEG, should be able to pull in a relatively profitable WW gross.  It's definitely no Into the Storm kind of August bomb.

Jeez Into the Storm a poor man’s Geostorm 

[Impact]

I had a feeling The Meg would do well. Both times I saw the trailer (Ant Man 2 and JW2) the audience went NUTS over the trailer.

Not sure what will win next month (just going to guess Clock on the Wall right now)

[Shawn Robbins]

1 hour ago, Firepower said:

With great reviews it can open to 100+. Even with terrible reviews it can't open below 50 mln because hype is too big. Comparisons with Fantastic Four are not correct because F4 didn't have big hype/much buzz, appealing actors in the lead roles and it had very negative reception from the very begining when they started filming it. The same thing with GL, JL and Solo. At worst Venom's reviews will be on Suicide Squad level, which was in the same situaton and had 135 OW. Reports about extensive reshoots and forced PG-13 don't affect BO much.

I'm glad you've been to the future and can tell us these things with utmost certainty. What are the winning lotto numbers today? ;)

 

I would bother replying with more thought, but you already cherry-picked my original reply and basically restated the secondary argument I made in favor of the movie.

 

Our job isn't to rely strictly on absolute comparisons. It's to weigh the pros and cons, and rely on actual data more than personal opinion as much as possible. Sometimes that doesn't work as well as other times, but it's preferable to pulling numbers out of thin air, IMHO.

[baumer]

Slendeman is way better than the cinemascore. It did a lot of good things. Pretty creepy movie.

[Valonqar]

BKKK PTA is pretty weak for only 1512 theaters and that's under 3M real Friday, so I don't know what to expect going forward. I guess it continues to prove that franchise actors don't mean anything outside of their franchises. Still, it's a solid opening for 15M budget and considering that they knew it wouldn't play well in some places. Fingers crossed it shows legs since its gender breakdown has 44% women which is rather high for that type of the movie and movies embraced by women tend to be leggier. We'll see. I want Spike to get in Best Director line up and boxoffice would help.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Valonqar

[Cmasterclay]

A version of Venom that was even fresh on RT would have a Suicide Squad OW. Huge buzz, popular character, good release date, right star. As it stands, I'm predicting about 65-70 OW with a score in the teens on RT and "worst movie of the year" kinda buzz.

[AJG]

Would be fun to see Meg crash and burn on Saturday and Sunday.

 

At this rate I might actually have to go out and watch it to see what all the fuss is about and I don’t wanna do that.

[tonytr87]

The Meg is an example of when budgets should be thrown out the window. Nobody expected this to crack 30 mil, much less 40 mil and it's doing just that. This is a breakout.