Last Christmas | Paul Feig | Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding | Universal | 11/8/2019

[MrGlass2]

13 minutes ago, Jay Beezy said:

And it’s much harder to become A-list these days because starpower doesn’t sell like it used to. Starpower is like a condiment to a movie in terms of marketing it.

True, it is not like you will be able to say that Harrington and Madden are big movie stars because (SPOILER) The Eternals will make a ton of money.

[Jay Beezy]

31 minutes ago, MrGlass2 said:

True, it is not like you will be able to say that Harrington and Madden are big movie stars because (SPOILER) The Eternals will make a ton of money.

Starpower these days is less about ability to put butts in seats than it is about leverage that is earned from certain successes. Like Ryan Reynolds solidified his starpower with Deadpool even if his other movies don’t do particularly well. *Maybe* Emilia Clarke has that from Game of Thrones, though that was TV thus the transition is likely harder and the leverage may not be that significant.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Jay Beezy

[Nova]

The A-list isn’t even about just movie stardom now a days especially since very few stars even have that kind of draw. I wouldn’t consider Clarke an A-list movie star but I would consider her an A-list actress because of people recognizing her name. With very few actors/actresses having the kind of pull to get butts into theaters, it’s become more of name recognition to be included on the A-list than anything else. At least in my eyes. For example, id consider all the Marvel actors/actresses A-listers simply because people know who they are. But that doesn’t mean people go see their other projects. 

[JB33]

The few people I know who saw this over the weekend basically had the same reaction: not amazing, just a good little romantic Christmas movie. In other words, it probably hits the spot for a lot of people but it's not so amazing that it's worthy of a breakout, which obviously it didn't.

 

What do you guys think the legs will be like?

[DAJK]

1 hour ago, JB33 said:

The few people I know who saw this over the weekend basically had the same reaction: not amazing, just a good little romantic Christmas movie. In other words, it probably hits the spot for a lot of people but it's not so amazing that it's worthy of a breakout, which obviously it didn't.

 

What do you guys think the legs will be like?

Probably pretty good, but I doubt this will go much past 40-50M. It's kind of a sweet crowd-pleaser, but it is dreadfully slow in the second act which I could see impacting WOM for some people. It's not bad, but won't be remembered by anyone beyond the holidays. 

[kylotargaryen]

43 minutes ago, DAJK said:

Probably pretty good, but I doubt this will go much past 40-50M. It's kind of a sweet crowd-pleaser, but it is dreadfully slow in the second act which I could see impacting WOM for some people. It's not bad, but won't be remembered by anyone beyond the holidays. 

40-50M dom? I can't see legging it out that much.

[DAJK]

42 minutes ago, kylotargaryen said:

40-50M dom? I can't see legging it out that much.

It's a Christmas movie opening in mid-November. I wouldn't rule out a 4 multi. 

[Nova]

9 minutes ago, DAJK said:

It's a Christmas movie opening in mid-November. I wouldn't rule out a 4 multi. 

November 8th is mid November? This movie didn’t have a good enough OW to warrant it securing enough screens to benefit from Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It’ll be knocked out of the top 5 this weekend and then by Thanksgiving weekend it’ll be border line top 10. It’s gonna need some really really impressive holds to get a 4x multi. 

[TLK]

5 minutes ago, Nova said:

November 8th is mid November? This movie didn’t have a good enough OW to warrant it securing enough screens to benefit from Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It’ll be knocked out of the top 5 this weekend and then by Thanksgiving weekend it’ll be border line top 10. It’s gonna need some really really impressive holds to get a 4x multi. 

Yep. It will hardly have any screens left by mid-December. They should've released it towards the end of November to make full use of the holidays.

[TalismanRing]

On 11/9/2019 at 9:54 PM, Nova said:

The A-list isn’t even about just movie stardom now a days especially since very few stars even have that kind of draw. I wouldn’t consider Clarke an A-list movie star but I would consider her an A-list actress because of people recognizing her name. With very few actors/actresses having the kind of pull to get butts into theaters, it’s become more of name recognition to be included on the A-list than anything else. At least in my eyes. For example, id consider all the Marvel actors/actresses A-listers simply because people know who they are. But that doesn’t mean people go see their other projects. 

Star power still exists - it just has be married to the right concept/project - and that's not a new thing.   It's why actors were curated within an inch of their screen life in the old studio system.    The difference is IP now has become even stronger -  though we've seen that even strong IP can not withstand the wrong lead or a poor script.

[The Futurist]

How bad/good is the twist of the  movie ?

[Nova]

2 hours ago, The Futurist said:

How bad/good is the twist of the  movie ?

I was gonna watch the movie but after finding out the twist, I don’t plan on watching it anymore. 

[Jay Beezy]

12 hours ago, TalismanRing said:

Star power still exists - it just has be married to the right concept/project - and that's not a new thing.   It's why actors were curated within an inch of their screen life in the old studio system.    The difference is IP now has become even stronger -  though we've seen that even strong IP can not withstand the wrong lead or a poor script.

If movies are like burgers, IP/brand names are like the buns, starpower is like the cheese, and the meat of the movie is, well, uh... what would the meat of the movie be? 😜

[Barnack]

On 11/9/2019 at 4:57 PM, dudalb said:

And the leap from TV Star to Movie Star is a lot harder then it looks.

That is true (always has been) , if Gandolfini, Hamm, Cranston didn't make it.... except Clooney & Jennifer Anniston not many stars made it past a big tv series in the last 25 year's,, it is probably for one hard to audience to not see the characters they saw you play so much all the time (i.e. it help if you can play that same characters in movies maybe).

 

I am surprised this didn't do 15-17M and didn't got better surprised, with Paul Feig and all.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Barnack

[Barnack]

On 11/9/2019 at 9:44 PM, Jay Beezy said:

 Like Ryan Reynolds solidified his starpower with Deadpool even if his other movies don’t do particularly well.

I feel like Hitman Bodyguard opening kind of proved for that to be the case, is metric must have climbed quite high for him to get that Netflix paycheck.

[Jay Beezy]

4 hours ago, Barnack said:

I feel like Hitman Bodyguard opening kind of proved for that to be the case, is metric must have climbed quite high for him to get that Netflix paycheck.

You mean proved his starpower?

[Jay Beezy]

4 hours ago, Barnack said:

That is true (always has been) , if Gandolfini, Hamm, Cranston didn't make it.... except Clooney & Jennifer Anniston not many stars made it past a big tv series in the last 25 year's,, it is probably for one hard to audience to not see the characters they saw you play so much all the time (i.e. it help if you can play that same characters in movies maybe).

I think the willingness to play the same archetype from your long running show is why Jennifer Aniston has maintained a significant star status over her costars, on top of being the most popular star on the show. As an actress in comedy, she was arguably the most favored female lead for the male comedy stars who dominated that landscape when they did, so she was willing to continue playing the Rachel archetype and use that success as leverage. Conversely, David Schwimmer seemed very eager to shake off the Ross archetype, but we weren't ready something different from him. That episode of Entourage he was in where people in Ari's agency kept pitching roles too similar to Ross and Schwimmer kept telling them to go fuck themselves certainly has a level of reality to it.

 

Other times, it is just luck. Who could have foreseen what's happened to John Krasinski in recent years?

[Ororo Munroe]

Well I can't say I'm all that surprised that this didn't open to bigger numbers, as it just didn't look particularly interesting to me. Seems Feig and company were at least partially banking on Clarke's GoT popularity and Golding's CRA buzz but the latter was the least interesting part of CRA imo and the former's popularity is much more a result of the character she played than anything else. I do think Emilia shines more in this type of role so I don't doubt that she still manages to be charming enough. 

 

[Barnack]

19 hours ago, Jay Beezy said:

You mean proved his starpower?

Kind of yes put him in the club of big paycheck (I do believe the Netflix rumors), the 20M opening Weekend for a non franchise affair is a good bar, imo.

[dudalb]

20 hours ago, Jay Beezy said:

I think the willingness to play the same archetype from your long running show is why Jennifer Aniston has maintained a significant star status over her costars, on top of being the most popular star on the show. As an actress in comedy, she was arguably the most favored female lead for the male comedy stars who dominated that landscape when they did, so she was willing to continue playing the Rachel archetype and use that success as leverage. Conversely, David Schwimmer seemed very eager to shake off the Ross archetype, but we weren't ready something different from him. That episode of Entourage he was in where people in Ari's agency kept pitching roles too similar to Ross and Schwimmer kept telling them to go fuck themselves certainly has a level of reality to it.

 

Other times, it is just luck. Who could have foreseen what's happened to John Krasinski in recent years?

Then you have actors whom audiences are eager to pay to see in a specific role, but who can't draw outside that role...Chris Hemsworth is an example;People love him as Thor but don't seem interested in him in any other role.

I remember people being shocked at seeing Schwimmer in the early episode of "Band of Brothers" where he played a Army officer who was a total Alpha Hotel to his men...and proved to be incompetent when it came to leading them in the field. Schwimmer was excellent in the role, but audineces just has problems seeing him as a very unlikable character.