Weekend Thread (6/11-13) | Friday #s - ln the Flops 5M, Peter Floppit 2 4M

[charlie Jatinder]

8 minutes ago, Legion of Lokis said:

Man, if only Luca was coming out next weekend. Even with PA it would be a big shot in the arm.

The buzz seems like awfully low on Twitter. But then so was Soul. The trailers are such a delight. Hopefully China, Korea, Russia and Middle East do justice to film.

[WrathOfHan]

I'm not convinced ITH would've done much better pre-pandemic without the HBO Max release. This feels like another Mary Poppins Returns where we overestimated its appeal on paper. Yes, Lin Manuel Miranda is very popular from Hamilton. Yes, Jon M. Chu is fresh off Crazy Rich Asians, a big box office success. However, ITH is based off a musical that only lasted three years on Broadway and isn't in the public consciousness or popularity of a show like Rent or Dear Evan Hansen. The jury is still out on how the latter performs in a few months (I expect more than ITH at least lol), and obviously Rent's adaptation was bogged by a weak reception. I was expecting 150M+ pre-pandemic and even over 110-120M this summer, but the underperformance (if not bomb considering WB spent 50M to acquire it in addition to the 55M budget) isn't entirely shocking.

[charlie Jatinder]

12 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

Really? Seemed like it would've opened around $20 mil with PA. Really don't see an opening higher than Creulla for that.

Huh?

 

It was easy $50M+ opener IMO.

[wildphantom]

You put your movies out there for free on opening day, you get what you deserve. Sad for Miranda and the whole production as it’s clearly been an ecstatically received movie. What a waste. What a way to showcase the magic of the movies. 

It may well have decent legs to a degree, but it’ll only wind up with a third of what it might have done total imo. 
 

Premium Access is also a joke. Yet at least that charges something to make the movie out to be something special. 

[Eric Duncan]

10 minutes ago, The Panda said:

I think where it’s hurt the most is in the legs.

 

Musicals seem to attract a lot of “marginal audiences” who’ll go see it based on word of mouth (which leads to leggier performances) and repeat viewings. Neither of those will happen as much when it’s available to view for free through streaming, as:

 

1. Marginal/On the Fence first time viewers will not have as strong of a preference to see it in theaters as compared to say a Godzilla fan, especially since the WoM won’t be based on the spectacle of the experience. So, these viewers probably opt to see it on streaming rather than go to the theater. 

 

2. Musicals seem to get quite a bit of repeat viewings from fans. After seeing a movie once in theaters, I’d suspect if it’s easily available to stream most viewers would save the money and watch the repeat viewings at home.

 

A musical like ITH priority probably had the majority of its theatrical audiences come from on the fence viewers and repeat viewers (both of which would usually help a movie develop strong legs but also both of which would be more inclined to choose a streaming option over a theater one).

 

tl;dr ITH is one of the HBO movies that probably gets screwed the most in terms of BO revenue.

Agreed on legs. Same day SVOD movies’s legs pale in comparison to same day/17-day PVOD movies. But openings don’t seem so impacted by Max IMO and it doesn’t seem like it would have been that huge pre-pandemic in hindsight

[Krissykins]

18 minutes ago, Legion of Lokis said:

Man, if only Luca was coming out next weekend. Even with PA it would be a big shot in the arm.

Never heard of it. 

15 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

This pretty much encapsulates it:

 

Imagine that being your takeaway from In The Heights lol. Critics and audience scores through the roof, yet I think you can always find some cold takes on Twitter lol

[Legion Again]

11 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

This info from Deadline right here shows that non-fans aren't showing up. A third of the box office coming from PLFs is more than most CBMs see:

 

 

Legs 😬

[Eric Duncan]

14 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Paramount supremacy is here. Embrace the new box office gods.

 

 

What would be the Paramount equivalent of Mickey’s Law? Popeye’s Law? Spongebob’s Law? Halpert’s Law?

[Legion Again]

2 minutes ago, Eric is Full of Pride said:

What would be the Paramount equivalent of Mickey’s Law? Popeye’s Law? Spongebob’s Law? Halpert’s Law?

In truth these are two sides of the same coin, unified under the Iron Law.   
 

Or perhaps the Stark Law.

[grey ghost]

I dunno. People who love Latino-themed musicals seems kind of niche in hindsight.

 

Unless we're talking Westside Story which is based on an American classic.

[lorddemaxus]

I think people are overestimating how much HBO Max will affect legs. Most of the HBO Max releases had mediocre/bad legs because they had mediocre/bad word of mouth. GvK had normal legs.

[WrathOfHan]

6 minutes ago, Eric is Full of Pride said:

What would be the Paramount equivalent of Mickey’s Law? Popeye’s Law? Spongebob’s Law? Halpert’s Law?

Call it the Blunt-Golding Law when Snake Eyes over performs  

[grey ghost]

Was Birds of Prey flopping a sign of superhero fatigue?

 

Or did it commit the cardinal sin of alienating it's target audience. 

[The Panda]

I just don’t get what’s unclear that different movies have different audiences, and those different audiences have different preferences about when and how to watch the film.

 

1. Younger audiences have been more prone to go to theaters this year (benefits horror and franchise stuff, probably hurts mid-budget “adult” targeted movies)

 

2. Movies with large built in fanbases are more likely to show up OW, even with streaming available (but maybe not the WoM/on the fence/marginal viewers in later weekends, leading to worse than normal legs)

 

3. People that see a movie later in its runtime to give a movie legs likely aren’t as anxious to see the film and would be more likely to choose streaming over theaters when given the option (or they’re repeat viewers and the same argument applies)
 

4. Musicals and mid-budget films, even pre-pandemic, rarely had large openings and usually relied on WoM and repeat viewings to develop long legs and have high grosses. 
 

The argument that the HBO Max deal isn’t effecting BO of films (or even that it’s effecting them all the same) seems really silly to me. Seems more like an argument somebody would make to confirm their prior beliefs about how a movie would do.

 

Clearly, ITH is not opening well at the BO. It’s also possible it still wouldn’t have done that well without Max. But to write off the possibility of Max effecting ITH differently than the past few movies released (which targeted very different audiences) doesn’t make too much sense.

[The Panda]

10 minutes ago, Eric is Full of Pride said:

Agreed on legs. Same day SVOD movies’s legs pale in comparison to same day/17-day PVOD movies. But openings don’t seem so impacted by Max IMO and it doesn’t seem like it would have been that huge pre-pandemic in hindsight

Perhaps so. But it’s also hard to know how large pre-pandemic openings would have been for the prior films we mentioned (I’d suspect they’d also be much larger).

 

My guess would be a mid-20m OW which could set it up nicely for a mid to high 100m DOM BO in a pre-pandemic world based on the legs of comparable movies. But that’s just a guess.

[cax16]

We live in the streaming age now and stuff like this will continue to be released on streaming, so the complaints about it are just boring at this point(especially for this year). 
 

This movie will probably benefit much more from streaming cause WB can spin Max viewership number against it’s bad box office numbers. It will probably get more exposure being on max as well cause it seems like there isn’t as big of an audience for this as some had hoped. 

 

 

[Krissykins]

1 minute ago, lorddemaxus said:

I think people are overestimating how much HBO Max will affect legs. Most of the HBO Max releases had mediocre/bad legs because they had mediocre/bad word of mouth. GvK had normal legs.

Disagree about mediocre/bad WOM on most of them. 
 

Wonder Woman 1984 2.8x 

The Little Things 3.23x

Judas and the Black Messiah 2.7x 

Those Who Wish Me Dead 2.57x 

Tom & Jerry 3.3x 

The Conjuring 3 ?

Mortal Kombat 1.8x

Godzilla Vs Kong 3.16x 

 

I’d only describe MK’s legs as outright “bad”.  But it is extremely fanboy driven. 

[Legion Again]

If this goes 13M OW (12M FSS) it could end up below 50M although I’d guess around Tenet numbers.

[Maggie]

28 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Paramount supremacy is here. Embrace the new box office gods.

 

 

Par made some good decisions selling crap like Without Remorse, Infinte etc. I doubt Snake Eyes will light the BO on fire tho. And there's the risky TG2...

[Eric Duncan]

8 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Call it the Blunt-Golding Law when Snake Eyes over performs  

IM ON A NEW LEVEL