Renfield | April 14, 2023 | Universal | Nicolas Hoult stars | About Dracula's henchman | NICOLAS CAGE IS DRACULA

[kayumanggi]

 

[KeepItU25071906]

Not a bad start on RT, 93%. Anyway, there are only 13 reviews

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by KeepItU25071906

[thajdikt]

20M OW possible?

[stripe]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:02 AM, thajdikt said:

20M OW possible?

 

20M would be great but I am expecting midteens opening, as BOpro suggests. Not enough tracking data for this, though

 

70M SMB

15M Renfield

10M Suzume

8M Air

8M JW4

8M D&D

7M Pope Exorcist

3M Mafia Mamma

2M Nefarius

2M Scream

 

130M+ top10

[Hatebox]

Universal seem to be taking this seriously, seen endless online marketing for the last couple of weeks.

[JustLurking]

5 hours ago, stripe said:

 

20M would be great but I am expecting midteens opening, as BOpro suggests. Not enough tracking data for this, though

 

70M SMB

15M Renfield

10M Suzume

8M Air

8M JW4

8M D&D

7M Pope Exorcist

3M Mafia Mamma

2M Nefarius

2M Scream

 

130M+ top10

very optimistic on that 10M for suzume

[JohnnyGossamer]

Seeing this Friday. Hoping to squeeze in Suzume and Pope's Exorcist too. Pope's Exorcist might have to wait until discount Tuesday though...

[Rageofthegods]

42 minutes ago, Hatebox said:

Universal seem to be taking this seriously, seen endless online marketing for the last couple of weeks.

LA is covered in billboards for it too. It'd be nice to have another 20m+ opener to keep the streak going. 

[Morieris]

Just like 65, it doesn't seem like we're getting this at my dive theater. Pity, I was willing to take a 8$ chance on it, not a 15$ one. But it's early, I'm sure they'll sadly kick out DND for it.

[Krissykins]

Variety confirmed the $65m budget. Wonder why they spent so much on this, seems risky. 
 

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/box-office-super-mario-bros-movie-nicolas-cage-renfield-projections-1235579707/

[Rageofthegods]

9 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Variety confirmed the $65m budget. Wonder why they spent so much on this, seems risky. 
 

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/box-office-super-mario-bros-movie-nicolas-cage-renfield-projections-1235579707/

From the initial announcements it sounds like they were hoping for this to be a Kingsman-ish small-scale action franchise for them rather than a horror movie, hence the elevated budget. Not sure if they'll get there - I don't think it opens to 10m but it seems to have missed its shot at a huge breakout opening - but that was seemingly the hope. 

 

Universal Monster movies are also weirdly big overseas (Drac Untold made 150m internationally!) So that was probably also part of it. 

[Krissykins]

25 minutes ago, Rageofthegods said:

From the initial announcements it sounds like they were hoping for this to be a Kingsman-ish small-scale action franchise for them rather than a horror movie, hence the elevated budget. Not sure if they'll get there - I don't think it opens to 10m but it seems to have missed its shot at a huge breakout opening - but that was seemingly the hope. 

 

Universal Monster movies are also weirdly big overseas (Drac Untold made 150m internationally!) So that was probably also part of it. 

They were moving away from the Dracula Untolds and into more The Invisible Man territory, which cost $7m to make. 
 

I’m surprised they seemingly dropped the ball on this one, by not keeping the budget in line. 

[Rageofthegods]

13 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

They were moving away from the Dracula Untolds and into more The Invisible Man territory, which cost $7m to make. 
 

I’m surprised they seemingly dropped the ball on this one, by not keeping the budget in line. 

Doesn't have to be either/or. Their strategy wasn't that they'll only make Invisible Man from here on out, it's just that they'll take pitches from anyone and let the filmmaker/producer do what they want if they like the pitch. Right now, they're developing a bigger budget Van Helsing movie with the Overlord director as well. The nice thing about that approach is they can theoretically do both Blumhouse movies and a bigger budget movie like this.

 

If this movie bombs, the lesson might be that they misjudged the audience; instead of audiences seeing it as an action-comedy with horror elements, they probably see a wacky horror-comedy with some action bits sprinkled in, and that has a fundamentally lower ceiling. The budget makes sense if you see it as Universal trying to launch a medium-scale action-comedy franchise a la Kingsman. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Rageofthegods

[Krissykins]

9 minutes ago, Rageofthegods said:

Doesn't have to be either/or. Their strategy wasn't that they'll only make Invisible Man from here on out, it's just that they'll take pitches from anyone and let the filmmaker/producer do what they want if they like the pitch. Right now, they're developing a bigger budget Van Helsing movie with the Overlord director as well. The nice thing about that approach is they can theoretically do both Blumhouse movies and a bigger budget movie like this.

 

If this movie bombs, the lesson might be that they misjudged the audience; instead of audiences seeing it as an action-comedy with horror elements, they probably see a wacky horror-comedy with some action bits sprinkled in, and that has a fundamentally lower ceiling. The budget makes sense if you see it as Universal trying to launch a medium-scale action-comedy franchise a la Kingsman. 

I just disagree with most of this. Horror comedy with Nicolas Cage isn’t having as much mainstream appeals as Kinsgman. He isn’t a draw. Expecting this to make $150-200m when they greenlit with that budget just sounds like they’ve completely misjudged it from the get go. 

[Rageofthegods]

17 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

I just disagree with most of this. Horror comedy with Nicolas Cage isn’t having as much mainstream appeals as Kinsgman. He isn’t a draw. Expecting this to make $150-200m when they greenlit with that budget just sounds like they’ve completely misjudged it from the get go. 

Not disagreeing but that seems to have been Universal's thinking. From this article:

 

"While Universal is developing a handful of high-profile monster pics including Wolfman starring Ryan Gosling and a Van Helsing pic with James Wan producing, the studio has been high on this project since getting the first draft. While the character isn’t the flashiest among its other monster IPs, insiders say the story’s mix of humor and action was something the studios was looking to have more of because so many of the other properties have a more horror element to them like Universal’s box office hit The Invisible Man."

[JustLurking]

I'm not sure why audiences would think this is wacky horror when the trailers have been making it as obvious as can be that this is a comedy. There isn't even anything scary in any of the trailers.

 

Truthfully it just looked lame from the start and the soon-to-be rotten score doesn't exactly do much to change my mind.

[CJohn]

65M budget kinda doomed this from the start. This is the type of movie that does 20-30M OS. Even with a solid 50-60M DOM run, a 65M budget still makes it look like a big flop. This shouldn't have cost no more than 30-35M like Cocaine Bear.

[KeepItU25071906]

13 hours ago, CJohn said:

65M budget kinda doomed this from the start. This is the type of movie that does 20-30M OS. Even with a solid 50-60M DOM run, a 65M budget still makes it look like a big flop. This shouldn't have cost no more than 30-35M like Cocaine Bear.

Well I don't think it will affect Comcast too much.

[Hatebox]

Woah, this really fell of a cliff with RT. It was in the 90s for ages. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Hatebox

[filmlover]

Think this is headed for a sub-$25M total at this point. Its sales for the weekend near me aren't any better than they were for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent last year.