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

[keysersoze123]

I am with Yachty. 3 movies he called out are franchise movies and relatively easier sell to GA compared to something like John Carter. So they are bigger disappointments for sure. 

[Deep Wang]

I guess I’m confused why everyone goes to John Carter and not something like Mars Needs Moms when talking about biggest bombs of all time?

[OncomingStorm93]

1 hour ago, Deep Wang said:

Mars Needs Moms

[HummingLemon496]

Just now, OncomingStorm93 said:

$39M worldwide on a $150M budget 

[Zakiyyah6]

1 hour ago, Deep Wang said:

I guess I’m confused why everyone goes to John Carter and not something like Mars Needs Moms when talking about biggest bombs of all time?

Because 99.99% of people forget that Mars Needs Moms exists.

[HummingLemon496]

One and a half years ago Doctor Strange 2 did a mind-boggling $90M in it's opening DAY. Now The Marvels will probably barely cross that in its ENTIRE total. It is absolutely insane how much shit can change so quickly. Wtf happened bruh.

 

Hell even one year ago Wakanda Forever did $181M in its opening weekend alone, which will probably be higher than any live action CBM domestic total this year except for GOTG 3 and Quantumania. Speaking of which we all shat on how trash Quantumania did but it'll be the second highest grossing live action CBM of the year in domestic. . .compare that to Marvels which is the most dead on arrival box office bomb ever that nobody wants to watch.

 

BadOlCatSylvester is up there with BobTrain and Relevation as some of the most correct users in this entire forum. He said "a year ago Marvel was a force to be reckoned with. Now they're a laughingstock." What he said was 100% accurate. Just compare how absolutely insane a B-list solo movie like MoM did to how horrible Marvels is doing

Edited November 18, 2023 by HummingLemon496

[Halberstram]

1 minute ago, HummingLemon496 said:

One and a half years ago Doctor Strange 2 did a mind-boggling $90M in it's opening DAY. Now The Marvels will probably barely cross that in its ENTIRE total. It is absolutely insane how much shit can change so quickly. Wtf happened bruh.

 

Hell even one year ago Wakanda Forever did $181M in its opening weekend alone, which will probably be higher than any live action CBM domestic total this year except for GOTG 3 and Quantumania. Speaking of which we all shat on how trash Quantumania did but it'll be the second highest grossing live action CBM of the year in domestic. . .compare that to Marvels which is the most dead on arrival box office bomb ever that nobody wants to watch.

Quality Issue. Are the heads at Marvel Studios even trying anymore? 

[HummingLemon496]

2 minutes ago, Halberstram said:

Quality Issue. Are the heads at Marvel Studios even trying anymore? 

It is a quality issue. Place GOTG 3 in May 2022 instead of May 2023 (before Doctor Strange, Thor, and Ant-Man ruined everything) and it probably opens to to $190M instead of $118M 😭

[Zakiyyah6]

COVID has shrunk movie going, so Marvel movies wouldn't have continued to sell as many tickets as they used to but Quantumania's big opening weekend showed that there was still a big audience. Unfortunately Quantumania got a Batman v Superman level reception and severely harmed the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The trust is gone. People are not going to automatically show up for any Marvel character now. Marvel has to sell the characters again. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 opening post Quantumania shows you how well-liked the Guardians were. The Marvels opening weekend shows you how unpopular the Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel character is. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Zakiyyah6

[Kon]

25 minutes ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

COVID has shrunk movie going, so Marvel movies wouldn't have continued to sell as many tickets as they used to but Quantumania's big opening weekend showed that there was still a big audience. Unfortunately Quantumania got a Batman v Superman level reception and severely harmed the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The trust is gone. People are not going to automatically show up for any Marvel character now. Marvel has to sell the characters again. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 opening post Quantumania shows you how well-liked the Guardians were. The Marvels opening weekend shows you how unpopular the Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel character is. 

The fall of MCU brand power is pretty obvious in hindsight, but it has been a pretty surprising thing for everyone.

 

Today, I was just reading a Club for The Marvels. In July/August, no one in this forum expected The Marvels would made less than $400M.

 

In fact, if someone suggested $400M WW, the idea was completely disgregarded as too low for the MCU brand and a Captain Marvel sequel.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Kon

[Zakiyyah6]

20 minutes ago, Kon said:

The fall of MCU brand power is pretty obvious in hindsight, but it has been a pretty surprising thing for everyone.

 

Today, I was just reading a Club for The Marvels. In July/August, no one in this forum expected The Marvels would made less than $400M.

 

In fact, if someone suggested $400M WW, the idea was completely disgregarded as too low for the MCU brand and a Captain Marvel sequel.

I thought any prediction under 550M was silly. 

[HummingLemon496]

2 minutes ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

I thought any prediction under 550M was silly. 

It's all fun and games until The Flash ends as the #3 highest grossing live action CBM of 2023

[Porthos]

6 hours ago, Deep Wang said:

I guess I’m confused why everyone goes to John Carter and not something like Mars Needs Moms when talking about biggest bombs of all time?

 

4 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

Because 99.99% of people forget that Mars Needs Moms exists.

 

But that's kinda Deep Wang's point here.  When someone is saying "biggest box office bomb of all time" what they really mean is "Biggest disappointing box office run from an anticipated film".  They're not actually talking about the financial losses.  I mean, not really. 

 

People like to trot out John Carter, but at least it made back its alleged production budget which a whole hell of a lot of films have failed to do. 

 

Meanwhile films like Mortal Engines couldn't even crack its "Sure, Jan" budget of "at least 100m".

 

Now did John Carter "actually" cost a hell of a lot more than $250m?  Of course.  Did John Carter "actually" take in a hell of a lot less than $250m since theaters and middlemen and whatnot getting their cuts?  Again, of course.  But a shit ton of attention has been given to the John Carters and Lone Rangers of the world and not quite as much as the Mortal Engines for various reasons that probably aren't all that important in the grand scheme of things.

 

Hell, only reason *I* remember Mortal Engines is because of the Peter Jackson connection and that it spectacularly imploded.

 

===

 

Now will The Marvels be "worse" than the others?  None of us will ever know, thanks to the magic of Hollywood Accounting.  And I'm not even being snide here because Hollywood Accounting is such an infamous joke that, famously enough, Fox/Lucasfilm tried to claim that Return of the Jedi was never profitable.  And I bring this up because it shows that the whole definition of profitable/unprofitable is... fucking impossible to define even in the best of situations.

 

And that's not even getting into "loss leader" territory like KOTFM. 

 

It is entirely possible for  KOTFM to "lose" more money than Apple/Paramount expected, "lose" more money on whatever fictional balance sheet actually exists deeeep within the bowels of Cupertino versus the similar balance sheet that exists somewhere in Burbank *AND* not be as big of a financial disappointment to the parent studios of Apple and Paramount as The Marvels might be to Disney.

 

In the end, I think that's what folks really might mean here.  They're trying to gauge the relative disappointment/expectations of the studios themselves and the entertainment industry at large. Which is another reason why people remember things like John Carter and Lone Ranger and not films like Mortal Engines and Mars Needs Moms (or The 13th Warrior or 47 Ronin or...). 

 

And since that is, by definiton, a subjective viewpoint, good luck getting an actual objective answer to the question of "what is the biggest box office bomb of all time".

 

...

 

Plus, you know, the whole idea of Recency Bias. 

 

(not to mention inflation, ticket and budget — but loooong post is long)

Edited November 18, 2023 by Porthos

[Liiviig 1998]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Porthos]

7 minutes ago, Liiviig 1998 said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I know, I saw that .  Problem is, those ranges of "net budgets" are tied into the whole notion Hollywood Accounting, which makes it incredibly hard to try to sort them by total loss. Never mind figuring out how much money various studios actually got from films theatrical runs.

 

Many/most of us are data nerds.  But as much as it might rankle us data nerds, sometimes things don't have an objective answer.  Or rather we peons don't have enough of the hard data to draw objective conclusions.  If there even is an objective answer here since one studio might not mind losing as much money on one project as another might on a different one (which is the whole subtext of the KOFTM discussion).

 

In short, I don't think there is an answer here.  Beyond a list of Usual Suspects.  A grouping of "Yep, those sure did badly alright" might be the best we can do here.  And even then, that's imperfect for various reasons.

[Porthos]

59 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Plus, you know, the whole idea of Recency Bias. 

 

(not to mention inflation, ticket and budget — but loooong post is long)

 

17 minutes ago, Porthos said:

In short, I don't think there is an answer here.  Beyond a list of Usual Suspects.  A grouping of "Yep, those sure did badly alright" might be the best we can do here.  And even then, that's imperfect for various reasons.

 

Want to highlight two things here in my first post.

 

I brought up the 1999 film, The 13th Warrior as a big box office bomb, and it's routinely listed in The Usual Suspect list.  But there's still An All Time Classic Bomb that might be forgotten here simply because of ticket/budget inflation:

 

Quote

Heaven's Gate

Grosses

DOMESTIC (100%)
$3,484,331

INTERNATIONAL (–)
–

WORLDWIDE
$3,484,331

DistributorUnited Artists
See full company information

Budget$44,000,000

 

 

On a sheer percentage basis that's a whole other level of ***YIKES***.   

 

If I punch that into an Inflation calculator I get:

 

Gross:   $13m

Budget: $164m

 

Which is YIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKEEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!

 

No wonder it caused the death of New Hollywood!!!     

Edited November 18, 2023 by Porthos

[Liiviig 1998]

41 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

Yes, I know, I saw that .  Problem is, those ranges of "net budgets" are tied into the whole notion Hollywood Accounting, which makes it incredibly hard to try to sort them by total loss. Never mind figuring out how much money various studios actually got from films theatrical runs.

 

Many/most of us are data nerds.  But as much as it might rankle us data nerds, sometimes things don't have an objective answer.  Or rather we peons don't have enough of the hard data to draw objective conclusions.  If there even is an objective answer here since one studio might not mind losing as much money on one project as another might on a different one (which is the whole subtext of the KOFTM discussion).

 

In short, I don't think there is an answer here.  Beyond a list of Usual Suspects.  A grouping of "Yep, those sure did badly alright" might be the best we can do here.  And even then, that's imperfect for various reasons.

Its data set we can use . Once again it's not perfect.  Will never know fully know what fully happens  behind the studios .

 

Know  there a lot of variables but what better data set can you suggest .

 

Once again this list is not highest stamp of objectivity . All we know the movies on this list  atleast lost considerable amount of money. It could be more or less than declared.

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, Liiviig 1998 said:

Its data set we can use . Once again it's not perfect.  Will never know fully know what fully happens  behind the studios .

 

Know  there a lot of variables but what better data set can you suggest .

 

None. 🙂  Which is kinda the point I was making here:

 

53 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Many/most of us are data nerds.  But as much as it might rankle us data nerds, sometimes things don't have an objective answer.  Or rather we peons don't have enough of the hard data to draw objective conclusions.  If there even is an objective answer here since one studio might not mind losing as much money on one project as another might on a different one (which is the whole subtext of the KOFTM discussion).

 

I think I'm saying trying to bring an objective hard and fast answer (the biggest bomb of all time) to an inherently subjective question is... A circle that isn't gonna be squared. 

 

Especially since the word "bomb" is in and of itself not a completely objective measure of financial loss but an at least somewhat subjective moniker — as seen by the KOTFM side discussion (which I'm quite sure folks are sick of so I'll just mention it in passing).

 

But if we really want to dig into this, what's "worse"?  A film that "loses" 200m but makes back 50% of its budget or a film that "loses" 150m but only makes back 10% of its budget?

 

What's "a bigger bomb"?  A film from a major studio that releases dozens of films that loses 175m dollars or a film from a mid-major studio that releases a handful of films that loses 100m dollars?

 

That's one reason I brought up Heaven's Gate.  That film got back ***TEN PERCENT OF ITS (REPORTED) BUDGET***

 

TEN

PERCENT!!!

 

There's a reason us old fogies instantly thought about Heaven's Gate as The Box Office Bomb to End All Box Office Bombs for a very long time.

 

Is that less of a bomb than, say, The Marvels?  Even if The Marvels ends up losing more than 150m dollars?  I sure as hell wouldn't say so!

 

What about The Adventures of Pluto Nash?

 

Budget:          100m (reported)

WW Box Office: 7.1m

 

That is not a typo.   Seven.  Million.

 

In the inflation calculator we get:

 

Budget:   171m

Gross:      12.1m

 

Think for a second how BOT would be reacting to a 170m film grossing 12m.  Worldwide.  Just imagine for a moment.  That's how well The Adventures of Pluto Nash did.  The Marvels may be many things, but in that league, it isn't.

 

I can keep going here, you know.  But I think I've kinda made my overall point. Or at least tried to.

[Sckathian]

4 hours ago, HummingLemon496 said:

BadOlCatSylvester is up there with BobTrain and Relevation as some of the most correct users in this entire forum. He said "a year ago Marvel was a force to be reckoned with. Now they're a laughingstock." What he said was 100% accurate. Just compare how absolutely insane a B-list solo movie like MoM did to how horrible Marvels is doing

Strange is no longer a B list he’s their A list. That’s been due to good exposure and development. This is why the next slate is going to be so rough for them, they got arrogant and just thought they could slap on the Marvel logo to get success.
 

Conceptually their current slate really poor. I don’t see how Feige and other leadership don’t take the L for The Marvels. It’s problems were foreseeable in pre production.

 

I think those users were right but one issue now is with The Marvels debacle the MCU is an even bigger joke to how it was before. These things to feed into culture and you can see the conversation change around the MCU more broadly.

[Porthos]

BTW, I kinda like to think some folks reading or lurking on this thread are just finding out about films like Heaven's Gate and The Adventures of Pluto Nash for the very first time, and are digging into the history of Truly Historic Box Office Turkeys, and all I have to say is:

 

 

coz let me tell y'alls something.  There have been some truly Studio Killing Bombs over the years! 

 

(as well as Forever Alter The Destiny of Studio Bombs as is the case of SW itself and Solo)