The Marvels | November 10, 2023 | Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

[keysersoze123]

Deadline blamed SAG strike on Marvels lackluster marketing. Did the strikes stop them from going with early fan shows or getting the reviews/reactions out early !!! 

[DInky]

4 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I don't think anyone else in this forum, myself included, is going to share that sentiment. Still, thanks for the shoutout! This coming week is going to be one of the most fun ones in this forum in quite some time. On Tuesday the 7th at 9 AM PT, the dam shall burst.

 

If you're referring to social media reactions then it's Tuesday the 7th at 9PM but if you're referring to the reviews then it's Wednesday the 8th at 9 AM.

[BadOlCatSylvester]

7 minutes ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Yeah and also the whole "If Endgame hype helped Captain Marvel, then why didn't Ant-Man 2 make $1 billion?" argument didn't work because Captain Marvel was marketed as an essential viewing for Endgame whereas Ant-Man 2 was just marketed as. . ."Paul Rudd's 'he goes big and he goes small' adventures"

I'd argue Ant-Man 2 still benefited from it, as it scored a decent increase from the first movie even if it didn't break out.

4 minutes ago, Maggie said:

The first one had good legs. I think people liked what they saw. It's strange they aren't coming back for more.

The world as a whole, and both cinema and Marvel's brand power in particular have changed significantly since the first movie's release. I'll simply leave it at that, because this thread has already pointed out why the first film was so big countless times over.

[BadOlCatSylvester]

2 minutes ago, DInky said:

 

If you're referring to social media reactions then it's Tuesday the 7th at 9PM but if you're referring to the reviews then it's Wednesday the 8th at 9 AM.

I am referring to the reactions, yes. Reading between the lines of those should give us a decent idea as to how reviews are going to turn out.

[DInky]

5 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

Deadline blamed SAG strike on Marvels lackluster marketing. Did the strikes stop them from going with early fan shows or getting the reviews/reactions out early !!! 

 

Are they really going to blame the complete collapse of a sequel to a 1.1 billion dollar film on the lack of cast promotions? That would also be admitting that actors bring enormous value to box office.

[Alexander]

Guess this will have previews between 5.8-6.4 and then open around 45M. Just terrible.

[DInky]

1 minute ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I am referring to the reactions, yes. Reading between the lines of those should give us a decent idea as to how reviews are going to turn out.

 

I'm actually happy there's only a 12-hour gap between social media reactions and reviews. We can basically skip the tired arguing over whether social media reactions are trustworthy or not.

[Maggie]

Just now, BadOlCatSylvester said:

this thread has already pointed out why the first film was so big countless times over.

Yes, there were reasons why the first one was big, but people saw it and i imagine some of them enjoyed it. If you enjoy something you want more. Take Avatar 2, the first one people gave excuses why it was so big, but most of  the same (i assume) people came back for Avatar 2. I think it's strange that people who saw the first Captain Marvel aren't coming back. That's all. Did they hate watch the first one?

[DInky]

Just now, Maggie said:

Yes, there were reasons why the first one was big, but people saw it and i imagine some of them enjoyed it. If you enjoy something you want more. Take Avatar 2, the first one people gave excuses why it was so big, but most of  the same (i assume) people came back for Avatar 2. I think it's strange that people who saw the first Captain Marvel aren't coming back. That's all. Did they hate watch the first one?

 

I was just thinking that what a lot of people predicted would happen with Avatar 2 happened with the Marvels instead.

[HummingLemon496]

4 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

I'd argue Ant-Man 2 still benefited from it, as it scored a decent increase from the first movie even if it didn't break out.

It didn't benefit from it that much. . .Ant-Man 2 was really just a typical MCU sequel increase. And that's because the movie had no real hook.. .it was just 'more shrinking adventures'. What's sad is that the third one HAD a hook and a huge OW but just collapsed because of horrid reception.

[M37]

2 hours ago, Agafin said:

Funny how the predictions gave gone so low that I almost feel like the movie might "overperform". Opening to $70m would be a massive drop from the previous entry but at this point, it would legitimately feel like a "win".

One thing I will say in Marvels favor: for as bad as AMWQ's reviews and finish for Thursday was, the IM didn't totally crash (unlike Flash), in part because it was 1) a holiday weekend and 2) there hadn't really been any popcorn-action films out for a while.  I could see Marvels getting a similar "sure, why not?" bump and hitting like a 7.5x (or even 8x), but the starting value (preview number) is looking to be low enough that even $50M OW from this point should be considered a "win"

[Zakiyyah6]

9 minutes ago, DInky said:

 

Are they really going to blame the complete collapse of a sequel to a 1.1 billion dollar film on the lack of cast promotions? That would also be admitting that actors bring enormous value to box office.

I could see the lack of actors promotion knocking say, 15% off of the opening weekend of a Marvel movie. So let's say hypothetically 100 million opening goes down to 85 million. That seems reasonable to me but this idea, this implication that Brie Larson not going on Chicken Shop Date is knocking 50% off of The Marvels opening weekend is utterly absurd to me. I know there are people who disagree with me but even if you disagree with how low I'm going percentage wise, certainly you agree that this is not a 50% drop because the actors can't promote the movie situation. Especially when we're talking about a Marvel movie.

[Sckathian]

No one in the general audience is seeing the title, posters and marketing and thinking this is a sequel to Captain Marvel 2.

 

Whoever decided the name and the team up with a B list (Ms Marvel least has a brand recognisable show) and Z tier Set of TV characters should not be managing a $250m budget simple as that.

 

This remains the heart of the issue for me. Have to wonder what Brie’s reaction was learning not only was she not the central lead but her character was also out the titles.

 

Edit: I mean I just looked and even the writer is a tv writer with very minimal credits!

Edited November 4, 2023 by Sckathian

[TwoMisfits]

2 hours ago, Agafin said:

Funny how the predictions gave gone so low that I almost feel like the movie might "overperform". Opening to $70m would be a massive drop from the previous entry but at this point, it would legitimately feel like a "win".

 

Then this thread has done its job of resetting expectations to realistic ones...$70M is still in the realistic range.  The $100M+ OW estimates from the day prior to presale open are not...

 

Realistically, this is now ALMOST certain to have a 50%+ drop for the original's OW (or under $76Mish).  So, we've reset what is likely in folks' minds so the weekend thread next weekend can be pleasant.  Now, it's just guessing if it stabilizes or continues on a "how low can it go" path...with screen sets and holiday weekend, you'd think stability and stuff evening out in the last week...but who knows with supers this year, and this one specifically, from Disney's weird release (which is possibly worse than FNAF's last week)...

[keysersoze123]

4 minutes ago, M37 said:

One thing I will say in Marvels favor: for as bad as AMWQ's reviews and finish for Thursday was, the IM didn't totally crash (unlike Flash), in part because it was 1) a holiday weekend and 2) there hadn't really been any popcorn-action films out for a while.  I could see Marvels getting a similar "sure, why not?" bump and hitting like a 7.5x (or even 8x), but the starting value (preview number) is looking to be low enough that even $50M OW from this point should be considered a "win"

Looking at MTC1 over index and veterans day holiday limiting saturday increase, I am thinking it will need 15m true friday to hit 50m as sunday drop wont be that good. That means 240K+ finish. Can Marvels do that? Definitely possible.  But the pace has to pick up. 

FYI Flash Friday was -239282/1016320 3873747.18 5639 shows.  It did less than 15m true friday. 

[DInky]

1 minute ago, Sckathian said:

No one in the general audience is seeing the title, posters and marketing and thinking this is a sequel to Captain Marvel 2.

 

Whoever decided the name and the team up with a B list (Ms Marvel least has a brand recognisable show) and Z tier Set of TV characters should not be managing a $250m budget simple as that.

 

This remains the heart of the issue for me. Have to wonder what Brie’s reaction was learning not only was she not the central lead but her character was also out the titles.

 

I don't think people are that stupid.

[Sckathian]

5 minutes ago, DInky said:

 

I don't think people are that stupid.

This isn’t about being stupid. This is about going to the supermarket for Heinz ketchup, looking at an aisle full of ketchup and buying another brand because Heinz Ketchup is now called ‘The Ketchups’ with totally new branding.

 

This is about brand recognition. Why would you expect audiences to treat this as a sequel when frankly it’s not. It’s a spin off team up movie. 
 

Why would audiences know with is Captain Marvel 2 when that’s only ever been an internal name within Marvel development?

 

You can see the results in the performance.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Sckathian

[ThomasNicole]

34 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

Deadline blamed SAG strike on Marvels lackluster marketing. Did the strikes stop them from going with early fan shows or getting the reviews/reactions out early !!! 

Seems like Marvel saw Dwayne Johnson buying ads in Deadline to say Black Adam was profitable and decided they can play this game 

[WittyUsername]

3 minutes ago, Sckathian said:

This isn’t about being stupid. This is about going to the supermarket for Heinz ketchup, looking at an aisle full of ketchup and buying another brand because Heinz Ketchup is now called ‘The Ketchups’ with totally new branding.

 

This is about brand recognition. Why would you expect audiences to treat this as a sequel when frankly it’s not. It’s a spin off team up movie. 
 

Why would audiences know with is Captain Marvel 2 when that’s only ever been an internal name within Marvel development?

 

You can see the results in the performance.

People went to TDK despite it not having ‘Batman’ in the title. 

[M37]

45 minutes ago, DInky said:

 

I feel like the people who predicted this would flop simply wished it would flop. They didn't have anything to back up their prediction other than their own bias.

I was never wishing for Marvels to "flop", but was relying on two pieces of data:

 

1) No film post-pandemic (ok, one, but exceptions happen) had grossed between $225 and $325M - they either have some "it factor" or they don't, and I didn't think Marvels had "it", so was always taking the under $225

 

2) Only one MCU film has grossed between $233M and $312M (Winter solider, by virtue of very strong legs) - there's similarly a gap between the Tier 2 Major characters and Tier 3 lesser characters ... and this film always felt to me to be solidly Tier 3, despite how much the first grossed piggypacking on the Endgame hype

 

Both of these "it factor" and Tier assessments are certainly subjective, but that's part of the art of forecasting, not bias. With all that said, my expectations were something like $70-$80M OW, and finishing between Eternals ($170M) and Shang-Chi ($225M), never whatever $40M-ish OW and lower triple digits domestic total we're likely to see here. Will agree there was no real basis (prior to presales) for that level of pessimism, but when the starting value is low, so unfortunately is the floor

 

We may look back and realize that AMWQ (and Majors's scandal?) was the final straw for the power of the MCU at the box office, and GOTG3 was more a last hurrah, a fond farewell, rather than return to form, with the baseline expectation now much lower moving forward