Weekend Thread: Thursday Night Preview - The Grudge $1.8M w/ an F Cinemascore LMAO

[nghtvsn]

Wow an F Cinemascore. 

 

Worse than the Countdown? If anything it makes me want to see it more just to see if it's really that terrible. I'll have to fit it in somehow. 

[Krissykins]

Deadline still haven’t done a proper update. Must still be on holiday. 

[Avatanic]

5 hours ago, DAJK said:

JJ ruined Star Wars, hopefully he doesn’t get the chance to ruin another property

I'm sorry, but it's RJ who ruined the saga ...before TLJ everything was ok, not perfect, even Rogue One had good numbers and WOM, and then came the TLJ....the reactions ??? A downfall ....

[Valonqar]

LOL people who still deny that seeds of disaster where in TFA. That movie was the cause of ST downfall, TLJ was just a symptom. There were worrying signs everywhere (catastrophic China drop in the second week, some major character toys not selling well already) but that was swept under the rug amid OMG 2 Billion WW hype and merch sales that were pulled by handful of popular characters thus offsetting peg warmers. All those problems came out in the open with TLJ since there was no 2 Billion hype to hide rough spots.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Valonqar

[pepsa]

17 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

LOL people who still deny that seeds of disaster where in TFA. That movie was the cause of ST downfall, TLJ was just a symptom. There were worrying signs everywhere (catastrophic China drop in the second week, some major character toys not selling well already) but that was swept under the rug amid OMG 2 Billion WW hype and merch sales that were pulled by handful of popular characters thus offsetting peg warmers. All those problems came out in the open with TLJ since there was no 2 Billion hype to hide rough spots.

Everything came to the open when TLJ said harsh second week drop, let me show you what a real harsh second week drop is...

61.3% drop vs a 91.3% so the drop was 4 times worse

 

I do agree TFA already started the bad trend in Asia but not -91.3% bad

For ref:

A $220m weekend would go down to a:

$19.1m second weekend.

Edited January 4, 2020 by pepsa

[Valonqar]

1 minute ago, pepsa said:

Everything came to the open when TLJ said harsh second week drop, let me show you what is a real harsh second week drop is...

61.3% drop vs a 91.3% so the drop was 4 times worse

 

I do agree TFA already started the bad trend in Asia but not -91.3% bad

Yes, but my point is that bad trends existed during TFA run yet they were blind spots due to overwhelming success. So nobody looked into those problems to fix them while they could. 

[Justin4125]

41 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

LOL people who still deny that seeds of disaster where in TFA. That movie was the cause of ST downfall, TLJ was just a symptom. There were worrying signs everywhere (catastrophic China drop in the second week, some major character toys not selling well already) but that was swept under the rug amid OMG 2 Billion WW hype and merch sales that were pulled by handful of popular characters thus offsetting peg warmers. All those problems came out in the open with TLJ since there was no 2 Billion hype to hide rough spots.

Dude you have to be kidding me. SW merch exploded in 2015 and into 2016. Just look at Disney's consumer products division. Most industry pundits cited SW as contributing to the global boon in merch/licensing revenue in 2016 (which was up almost 5% y-o-y following TFA)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/294132/consumer-product-revenue-of-the-walt-disney-company-by-segment/

 

Sure, some of the new character toys did not sell as well as OG characters, but is this not to be expected? The new characters would need to build momentum, the same thing happened in the prequel series where the top movie tie-in merch sales came from ROTS, not TPM. Had TLJ been received differently, momentum would have continued. TFA was just a single film that provided a proof of concept, it required that subsequent films would make audiences more attached to central characters, not less

 

I was working in equity research at a mid-market investment bank at the time and one of my college friends worked at Allen & Co, a renowned bank focused on media and entertainment. We discussed Disney all the time (it was (and still is) the talk of the street) and the massive upswing in multimedia sales from Star Wars was a key driver in Disney's value proposition (and its ability to lead not only studio entertainment and home vid sales, but consumer products as well (it dominates movie tie-in business like it does theatrical, but that's old news for Disney as it was doing so even before it became the theatrical powerhouse it is today).

 

A lot of people who are citing declining merch forget that its declining from the sky high levels post-TFA. The "seeds of destruction" are only visible in hindsight. Its easy to look back and trace how things audiences didn't like in TLJ could be found in TFA. Of course they can! But from TFA alone there was absolutely no reason to forecast such a significant decline in SW merch sales and hype, except if you wisely noted that TFA was perhaps a lightning in a bottle break-out and that it would be difficult for any subsequent film to match that level of success (first movies in SW trilogies have always benefited from general audience curiousity, which naturally dissipates over time). Yes, the divisive reactions to TLJ, Solo and TROS have knocked down theatrical/home vid/merch/parks sales from SW, more so than one would expect from a decline in GA curiosity, but again, such a blow to the franchise was simply not a base case from the perspective of 2015/2016.

 

Also a 61% second weekend drop in China is FAR from disastrous. TFA pulled a 2.4x multiple in China, what about that forecasted doom in your eyes? We've had massive franchise films pull 2.0x multiples without at all damaging their respective franchise's drawing power in China (Ultron did even less than 2x that same year). 

 

Again, hindsight bias is very tricky. Every time I backtest an investment strategy look-ahead bias is one of the primary things I'm trying to eliminate. You could look at the prequels and argue that the elements audiences reacted poorly to were also present in the OG trilogy. Subtle narrative choices, as well as those in characterization and tone, can have massive ramifications on how an audience receives a film. TLJ, for all its problems, was still a sequel to TFA. You can erasily trace many similaries, even aspects that audiences disliked in TLJ, to TFA, and yet, had TLJ made some slightly different choices, we might not be having this discussion at all

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Justin4125

[Eric S'ennui]

Moderation

 

NOPE. We already talked about "what ruined Star Wars" for weeks now. We don't need to continue on longer. If you really think it's necessary to talk about this (it isn't by the way), go to the Fanboy Wars thread. Anybody else who continues this will get repercussions.

[LegendaryBen]

Apparently, audiences still have a grudge against The Grudge (pun intended).

[baumer]

27 minutes ago, Eric Laurence said:

Moderation

 

NOPE. We already talked about "what ruined Star Wars" for weeks now. We don't need to continue on longer. If you really think it's necessary to talk about this (it isn't by the way), go to the Fanboy Wars thread. Anybody else who continues this will get repercussions.

Thank you! 

I will be ruling with an iron fist now.

[JohnnyGossamer]

Do we have revised Friday numbers yet? Or, still just that midday Deadline update?

[Eric S'ennui]

Just now, JohnnyGossamer said:

Do we have revised Friday numbers yet? Or, still just that midday Deadline update?

 

[Deep Wang]

1 minute ago, baumer said:

Thank you! 

I will be ruling with an iron fist now.

 

Damnit B!  You missed a perfect opportunity for a Star Wars related pun!

[Krissykins]

Big (compared to the other early numbers) increase for Uncut Gems, +55%. It added locations I think

Edited January 4, 2020 by Krissykins

[JohnnyGossamer]

Uncut Gems holding and performing well. Chances it gets any Oscar noms outside of potentially Sandler? Editing? Picture? Screenplay? Score?

[TalismanRing]

11 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Big (compared to the other early numbers) increase for Uncut Gems, +55%. It added locations I think

+338

[WrathOfHan]

REDEMPTION FOR MOTHER!

[a2k]

		Movie	Distr	Gross	%YD	%LW	Thr	Per Thr	Total Gross	D
1	(1)	Star Wars: The Rise of Sk…	Walt Disney	$11,001,000	+19%	-58%	4,406	$2,497	$428,058,441	15
-	(4)	Frozen II	Walt Disney	$3,927,000	+15%	-34%	3,175	$1,237	$442,512,364	43
-	(5)	Spies in Disguise	20th Century…	$3,571,000	+22%	-23%	3,502	$1,020	$40,216,961	10
-	(7)	Uncut Gems	A24	$2,525,000	+54%	-24%	2,348	$1,075	$32,530,474	22
-	(9)	Cats	Universal	$860,000	+2%	-49%	2,902	$296	$22,950,935	15
-	(11)	Ford v. Ferrari	20th Century…	$565,000	+43%	-7%	730	$774	$108,834,840	50
-	(10)	Richard Jewell	Warner Bros.	$560,000	+13%	-47%	1,870	$299	$20,039,186	22
-	(13)	Queen & Slim	Universal	$370,000	+38%	-36%	625	$592	$41,864,770	38
-	(-)	1917	Universal	$190,000	+30%	+5%	11	$17,273	$1,879,867	10
-	(-)	Jojo Rabbit	Fox Searchlight	$107,000	+56%	+35%	209	$512	$21,341,814	78
-	(-)	A Hidden Life	Fox Searchlight	$78,000	+62%	+16%	149	$523	$1,090,829	22
-	(-)	Black Christmas	Universal	$67,000	-30%	-78%	440	$152	$10,248,415	22
-	(-)	Playing with Fire	Paramount Pi…	$50,000	+24%	-11%	156	$321	$44,305,231	57
-	(-)	Maleficent: Mistress of Evil	Walt Disney	$48,000	+27%	-19%	148	$324	$113,440,166	78
-	(-)	Just Mercy	Warner Bros.	$21,000	+24%	-43%	4	$5,250	$346,072	10

Edited January 4, 2020 by a2k

[Zakiyyah6]

2 hours ago, Krissykins said:

I would say the trailers have both been really effective actually. 
 

If you haven’t seen it, you can’t call it trash. 

If the trailers were really effective the movie would have garnered better Thursday numbers. I said that the film looked like trash and I'm sticking with that opinion. If you want to waste your money "giving it a chance" then have at it.

[NamakFiskKa]

7 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

If the prequels didn't ruin Star Wars then no other film will. The sequel trilogy was in a promising spot until December 2017 happened. That's when we figured out that Lucasfilm had no plan. 

 

Coz after seeing the last Star Wars movie i can confidently say Prequels >> Sequels