Weekend Thread: Free Guy 18.79M (34% drop!) | PAW Patrol 13M, Jungle Cruise 6.2M | Protégé 2.9M, Night House 2.87M, Legendary Flop Reminiscence 2M (Worst opening for a movie in 3K theaters!)

[Nikostar]

1 hour ago, ThomasNicole said:

I would be happy with Old numbers for Candyman.

 

Horror movies tend to not do well in presales until the last minute, i wouldn´t worry [yet]

Candyman doing 16 to 17 opening would be great so if it’s pre sales are on par with Old then that is a good sign. Expect a bump when reviews come out Monday. 

[HouseOfTheSun]

53 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Didn’t they just open The Night House to $2m? They own Searchlight. 

I mean searchlight has been overall a big addition through the pandemic for them on the streaming side. And I really don’t think they’re sweating over a 12 million dollar film not making its money back. 
 

every other studio is basically just all performances like Night House. 

[Jamiem]

 

The movie that started it all!

[HouseOfTheSun]

18 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

Don't take his bait lmao. He's just trying to start his little studio war like he does every other weekend.

we really doing this again @Free Eric

[HouseOfTheSun]

1 minute ago, Jamiem said:

 

The movie that started it all!

Will be quite the trivia piece years from now 

[CoolioD1]

26 minutes ago, Jamiem said:

 

The movie that started it all!

It's been a year can I talk about how Russell Crowe gets killed because of something the kid "learned in Fortnite"?

[Ledmonkey96]

1 hour ago, Krissykins said:

Didn’t they just open The Night House to $2m? They own Searchlight. 

Yup, as it stands Disney has 11 more movies to release this year vs WB's 6 assuming nothing changes

 

In terms of movies released Disney is at 7 so far: Nomadland, Raya, Cruella, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, Free Guy and Nighthouse

vs

WB releasing 12 movies:The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those who wish me dead, The Conjuring: Devil made me do it, Dream Horse (Never heard of it but it made 7mil so meh), In the Heights, Space Jam, Suicide Squad and now Reminesence.

Disney has 11 more movies to release this year: Shang-Chi, Eyes of Tammy Faye, The Last Duel, Ron's Gone Wrong, The French Dispatch, Antlers, Eternals, Encanto, Nightmare Alley, Westside Story and King's Men

vs

WB having 6 more movies: Malignant, Cry Macho, The Many Saints of Newark, Dune, King Richard, and Untitled Matrix film.

[AJG]

49 minutes ago, Jamiem said:

 

The movie that started it all!

 

Add this to the list of “Forgotten Films of The Pandemic”, alongside every Netflix Original Movie (remember Mank, The Prom, Hillbilly Elligy, Tigertail, Project Power, Extraction???)

[RRA]

OT but since theatrical windows are brought up: will WB’s stuff next year go to Max after the 45 days or go VOD period and then Max?

[CoolioD1]

54 minutes ago, AJG said:

 

Add this to the list of “Forgotten Films of The Pandemic”, alongside every Netflix Original Movie (remember Mank, The Prom, Hillbilly Elligy, Tigertail, Project Power, Extraction???)

that movie where a bunch of british actors played hillbillies. devil all the time.

[BK007]

5 hours ago, wildphantom said:

That’s my point though. It’s making $14 million this weekend from 3,000’ish theaters when it’s entirely for very little kids. And it’s on tv. If that doesn’t show that people want to take their kids to the movies, I don’t know what does. 
 

I appreciate that there are some people out there afraid to take their kids to the cinema, but that’s from complete misinformation sadly. And that’s up to them.  
 

Yet I don’t sign up to this seeming acceptance within even our community that people don’t in general want to take their kids to the movies.  They’d take them in bigger numbers if there was a big film for them to see that wasn’t on at home too. 
Studios have used the pandemic to trial out streaming and day and date. On the family movie front, it seems nobody wants to budge in being the first one to go exclusive and prove a big kids movie can still make a ton of money.  

I mean, seriously. If Disney had put Luca out in 4,000 theaters and not on tv/day and date/streaming, families would have gone in large numbers.  But there we go. 

 

What misinformation are you talking about?

 

Veering wildly into fake news here. Are the full pediatric ICUs in Florida a sign that people should not be worried about their kids who aren't approved to take the vaccines?

 

Movies whose target audiences are demographics that have been vaccinated & without dependents should do well if left as theatrical exclusives, but when no animated movie has topped $60m yet, there's obviously hesitation. Yes, most if not all of them have been available on streaming platforms, however if they weren't, you still wouldn't be seeing the blockbuster numbers of the past yet.

 

What the studios need to be careful about is making high tier animated movies an expectation. Things like Reminiscence and the Protege look like they belong on Netflix. Generic action movies are a staple of DTV and now streaming. Sci-fi/fantasy has always been a hard sell in the States for whatever reason and many turn out the way of Reminiscence. As someone said, in a world without a pandemic, sci-fi dropping at the end of August is a recipe for bomb level numbers no matter who is starring.

 

International audiences tend to be more forgiving but those markets are still mostly dead. Reminiscence is my kind of movie, though the ratings are crap, I'll still give it a shot if it ever comes here.

 

 

[BK007]

Also ironic that Disney is also responsible for a movie proving theatrical exclusives do well.

 

I mean, they don't deserve the credit considering all these are leftover Fox movies which I assume are contractually obligated to be exclusive releases.

 

But lame that even in these times Disney is still #1. Ugh.

[filmlover]

5 hours ago, wildphantom said:

That’s my point though. It’s making $14 million this weekend from 3,000’ish theaters when it’s entirely for very little kids. And it’s on tv. If that doesn’t show that people want to take their kids to the movies, I don’t know what does. 
 

I appreciate that there are some people out there afraid to take their kids to the cinema, but that’s from complete misinformation sadly. And that’s up to them.  
 

Yet I don’t sign up to this seeming acceptance within even our community that people don’t in general want to take their kids to the movies.  They’d take them in bigger numbers if there was a big film for them to see that wasn’t on at home too. 
Studios have used the pandemic to trial out streaming and day and date. On the family movie front, it seems nobody wants to budge in being the first one to go exclusive and prove a big kids movie can still make a ton of money.  

I mean, seriously. If Disney had put Luca out in 4,000 theaters and not on tv/day and date/streaming, families would have gone in large numbers.  But there we go. 

You're discounting the fact that these studios likely have access to internal data we don't and what they're seeing from it is "outlook: not so good" (a good bet if all the studios have begun abandoning the theatrical-exclusive releases on the remaining animated releases of the year, especially when they have to make final marketing decisions about them real soon). There's certainly a reason why Universal decided to sit on Minions 2 for another full year (FYI animated movies don't have the same kinds of contracts making them that live-action movies require, which is possibly why so many of them have ended up going straight to streaming throughout the pandemic). Will gladly be proven wrong if the data shows different in the weeks/months ahead but as of now you're argument here is holding as much weight as your "streaming (and not just plain audience apathy, as plenty of signs were pointing to) is what killed The Suicide Squad from coming anywhere close to its potential" one from two weeks ago.

[Jamiem]

2 minutes ago, BK007 said:

Also ironic that Disney is also responsible for a movie proving theatrical exclusives do well.

 

I mean, they don't deserve the credit considering all these are leftover Fox movies which I assume are contractually obligated to be exclusive releases.

Free Guy is certainly the most Disney of the 20th Century slate without going into specifics. 

[Madhuvan]

28 minutes ago, Jamiem said:

Free Guy is certainly the most Disney of the 20th Century slate without going into specifics. 

And they have marketed it as Disney movie as well. With Cruella, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise and now Free guy they certainly are performing well

[titanic2187]

8 hours ago, Lokis Legion said:

Shang will have plenty of screens to steal from other holdovers. Next weekend we’ll see something like (all numbers rough, don’t @ me with quibbles):

Free Guy 13M 3k PTA

Candyman 13M 3.7k PTA

Paw 6M 1.9k PTA

Cruise 4M 1.4K PTA

DB2 2.4M 1k PTA

Respect 2M 800 PTA

TSS 1.5M 600 PTA

Protege 1.2M 450 PTA

Night House 1M 450 PTA

Reminiscence 900k 250 PTA  

 

With those bolded in about 10,000 locations between them while pulling putrid putrid occupancies/PSAs. The stuff in the 2M-4M gross range and the 200k-800k gross range won’t exactly be doing hot business either. If anything I expect Free Guy will add some screens next weekend… and keep them on Labor Day despite Shang as just about everything else gets completely kicked to the curb.    
 

Looking at past Labor Days I think an increase for Free Guy can be in the cards, though not easy.

 

But in the past, we never have a movie  open to above 50m+ during Labour Day, despite being a holiday, no major films debut on LD and that allow holdovers to have small dip or even increase during LD, but SC is going to be big and likely be so big, to the point that all past data can no longer hold. Of course I will be happy to wrong and hoping SC actually rejuvenate box office and give out some spillover effect but at this point, -20% 3 days is what I will see for FG during LD.  

 

FG bring back some old nearly extinct box office charm of the summer comedy, hope it leg out like mini- we're millers or CRA. 

[Legion Again]

Yeah, this Labor day will be unprecedented. Free Guy might get some Shang-Chi double features though.

[charlie Jatinder]

8 minutes ago, Lokis Legion said:

Yeah, this Labor day will be unprecedented. Free Guy might get some Shang-Chi double features though.

Wouldn't BW be more suitable?

[Legion Again]

6 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Wouldn't BW be more suitable?

BW is the closest genre/franchise comp, but Free Guy will be much more in demand than BW so you might figure you can sell more tickets to Shang/Guy than Shang/Widow. Not sure how they'll play it

[Ryan Reynolds]

10 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Wouldn't BW be more suitable?

maybe but BW won't make 200m  milestone  so boost is nonexistent