SHANG-CHI WEEKEND THREAD | NO SPOILERS | 75.38M 3-Day, 94.67M 4-Day. Record for Labor Day! | Tony Leung saved the theater! | Get Vaccinated and Wear a mask.

[TigerPaw]

3 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

But they have. 

 

If there is genuine feasible demand they will go for it.

It is chicken and egg IMO, demand comes from marketing and people actually knowing that the movie exists and is shown in theaters, and putting it in  theaters that has some footfall… and not those 1.5 - 2 hours drive away from the city.

 

You put up a movie without posters, or any actual marketing; and even fans of the actor does not know the movie has been released… then there is a mismatch. There is a demand but the demand is not met due to lack of marketing / awareness.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Genuine and feasible demand comes from word of mouth which is a result of good reviews and curation of studio/distributor. Parasite proved this. 
 

We see indies, speciality, art house films follow this trait every year create demand… Lady Bird, Manchester By the Sea, Three Billboards, Moonlight, etc. Why would it be inconceivable some international action film wouldn’t be able to capitalize of this?

[Cap]

50 minutes ago, Gamora said:

Don't forget Tony.

 

I do try.  But Fandom won't let me.  

 

[Arian1010]

1 hour ago, Cap said:

 

TBH, and maybe this is just a Western Trope, but none of this is shocking.  Particularly for Lady Fandom.  The cliche of "everyone women wants a Bad Boy" plays out again and again in media.  It's not even shocking for the Marvel Fandom.  Look at how Fandom is OBSESSED with Bucky and Loki, "tragic figures", "misunderstood villains", etc, yet barely acknowledge Steve and Thor, who are just "boring" and dumb brutes (or warm bodies for their Tragic Faves to fuck).  

 

There's an old fandom term called "The Woobie": A "woobie" is a name for any type of characters who make you feel extremely sorry for them. Basically, the first thing you think to say when you see the woobie is: "Aw, poor baby!" Woobification of a character is a curious, audience-driven phenomenon, sometimes divorced from the character's canonical morality. And while it's technically a YMMV trope, it's hardly tough to spot the guy the writers intend them to be, considering all the bad stuff that tends to happen to them.

 

"Lovesick Widower Villain" is literally Lady Fandom Catnip.  

 

Also, never, ever, underestimate the power of a DILF.

 

I was half-joking when I used that words because basically Wenwu was a lovesick, grieving widower and his actual role wasn't as prominent as people thought, but it was his enormous screen presence that upstaged Shang Chi and made them think he was more like a male lead than Shang Chi. And I think it's wrong to assume that majority of Marvel's Asian audience are women and fangirls who like to woobify tragic villains. From most of the reviews I've read, the East Asian audience is very much aware and acknowledges that Wenwu's character was immoral and his story was cliched. But it was Leung's acting ability that outsold the male lead (and Simu's average performance in the film combined with the early criticism about Marvel choosing him to play Shang Chi couldn't make the situation any better). Leung is a well known actor if you're exposed to Hong Kong's golden age of cinema, but he's not a drawing factor among the younger generation of audience. There was a fun post on Weibo that gained over 30 thousand likes, in which Leung's Chinese fans are so surprised that young Korean people don't know much about Leung and his talent.

It's pretty much telling that assuming East Asian people go to see Shang Chi film because of Leung is also wrong, first and foremost they are drawn to the film because of the Marvel brand and then end up loving Leung. 

 

[ThomasNicole]

There is a common sense that north american people overall can't stand with anything that come from other country or isn't in english (to me seems like a fact).

 

The problem is there, not with theaters and Hollywood themselves, is a cultural thing. Commercially i can understand why some small company will invest money in marketing and distribution of some movie knowing that most people will reject it purely based on being a foreign movie? Or spend money with lipsync without nowing if anyone will be interested?

 

It's a hard situation, we don't see songs in other languages generating great numbers on US, we don't see foreign movies grossing much money, i mean, the biggest one by far is Parasite with 53M only because this one have big promotion (good part payed from Korea) and won the Oscar, and still i remember lots of viral posts on social media of people rioting about watch a movie with subtitles.

 

So yeah, i get the frustrating feeling that many great movies simply doesn't get released in theaters, but what need to change is the culture.

[Barnack]

13 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

we don't see foreign movies grossing much money, i mean, the biggest one by far is Parasite with 53M only because this one have big promotion

Biggest one are the Mel Gibson movies I think (and by far would be appropriate here).

 

Mel Gibson did 370 millions and 51m with not only foreign but "death" language stuff and with distributor refusing to help in any way, it was a  4th wall type of deal I think for Apocalypto and a tiny independent for Passion with no one wanting to get involved on that one.

 

Miramax-Weinstein brothers was able to sell them has well, they did more adjusted that Parasite I think with some of them, like The Artist.

 

Sony produced and distributed Crouching Tiger above 120m has well.

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Barnack

[Menor the Destroyer]

Crouching Tiger did very well in the US.

[Cap]

42 minutes ago, Arian1010 said:

And I think it's wrong to assume that majority of Marvel's Asian audience are women and fangirls who like to woobify tragic villains.

That isn't what I was saying at all.  I was just saying I don't think it's shocking that Wenwu is the breakout character. 🤷‍♀️

[ThomasNicole]

13 minutes ago, Barnack said:

Biggest one are the Mel Gibson movies I think (and by far would be appropriate here).

 

Mel Gibson did 370 millions and 51m with not only foreign but "death" language stuff and with distributor refusing to help in any way, it was a  4th wall type of deal I think for Apocalypto and a tiny independent for Passion with no one wanting to get involved on that one.

 

Miramax-Weinstein brothers was able to sell them has well, they did more adjusted that Parasite I think with some of them, like The Artist.

 

Sony produced and distributed Crouching Tiger above 120m has well.

 

 

 

Well The Artist also have strong award buzz and won Best Picture so it's a similar situation, i don't know for sure how many money it did but it's like 40M back in 2011.

 

Mel Gibson is impressive but at that point he have a very solid name on US which helps a lot. And the truly impressive result (Christ) i think it have a lot to do with it's thematic alongside with Gibson name on directing /production.

 

Croushing Tiger also is impressive indeed and i didn't know it did that well on US, i'm kinda shooked to be honest.

 

But still, to me seems like very atypical situations. Overall the rejecting is very strong, there are some exceptions (like Parasite which is the recent one) but there have to be a very strong sense of convincing to movies like that have a chance. The same for songs, i can remember a few songs in other languages that succeed on states but it's rare. I didn't research that but there are other movies that pass 100M this century like Christ and Tiger? It's a very bad track to make studios invest their money in foreign movies that don't have a big star in US promoting it or that didn't have strong awards prospects.

[Borobudur]

10 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

Well The Artist also have strong award buzz and won Best Picture so it's a similar situation, i don't know for sure how many money it did but it's like 40M back in 2011.

 

Mel Gibson is impressive but at that point he have a very solid name on US which helps a lot. And the truly impressive result (Christ) i think it have a lot to do with it's thematic alongside with Gibson name on directing /production.

 

Croushing Tiger also is impressive indeed and i didn't know it did that well on US, i'm kinda shooked to be honest.

 

But still, to me seems like very atypical situations. Overall the rejecting is very strong, there are some exceptions (like Parasite which is the recent one) but there have to be a very strong sense of convincing to movies like that have a chance. The same for songs, i can remember a few songs in other languages that succeed on states but it's rare. I didn't research that but there are other movies that pass 100M this century like Christ and Tiger? It's a very bad track to make studios invest their money in foreign movies that don't have a big star in US promoting it or that didn't have strong awards prospects.

Is Demon Slayer a foreign language film? It did 50m here.

[Barnack]

8 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

Croushing Tiger also is impressive indeed and i didn't know it did that well on US, i'm kinda shooked to be honest.

 

From memory Tarantino used is name to push that one in the media pre-release and maybe they even used it in the marketing.

 

9 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

Mel Gibson is impressive but at that point he have a very solid name on US which helps a lot

He is not in either movies, Jesus being a giant IP is somewhat true but Jesus movies often do nothing in the US has well, it is the biggest subtitled movie ever in the US market I think (and for a while if not to this day the biggest R-rated movie has well).

 

But in term of being exceptional, certainly, and for all the above needed strong people pushing them certainly. And for non passionate people (like all the above are in drove) or for people that have their own product to sales like a Disney-Universal-WB today.... why anyway ?

 

Netflix could and the fact that people do not sell them for very little to netflix and them turning it into big word of mouth success (I guess it is even happening without us knowing, proving the point) is showing that it is audience driven, imo, otherwise they would big success on youtube.

[Ledmonkey96]

5 minutes ago, Borobudur said:

Is Demon Slayer a foreign language film? It did 50m here.

It was pretty evenly split between subbed and dubbed showings where i work at least 

[Barnack]

4 minutes ago, Borobudur said:

Is Demon Slayer a foreign language film? It did 50m here.

Which like for Italian dubbed movie is a bit strange choice and feel very Anglo-saxon, the rest of the non english world dub movies much more than subtitle one like the US and for an animated movie it is really strange.

 

It could be than for the rest of the world, foreign language movie is the norm and not some niche audience things and everyone, 100% of people, when they were kids watched dubbed stuff, movie, tv, cartoons, etc....

 

There is many cost to subtitle versus dubbing (and vice versa), constant spoiler or late information almost impossible to not be either the case, splashing on text on the screen when the movie is beautiful that is a bit of an insult to it and so on.

 

[ThomasNicole]

2 minutes ago, Borobudur said:

Is Demon Slayer a foreign language film? It did 50m here.

It is, i watched recently, good movie. I don't know if it have subtitles tho, i watched in japanese.

 

But it's very niche, Demon Slayer is a very huge franchise between manga, anime and movies and have a niche audience on US, which isn't small but still niche.

 

With the 5 months of hype between the massive release on Asia and lots of awards, the movie did very well on US too but i doubt anyone outside of this niche watched it. It's a similar case of some Pokémon animated movie that did very well too decades ago.

 

But see how it's always something very specific? Some hyped franchise, some award winning movie etc. There's not a big culture of watching foreign movies overall, and to me this is the big problem of why is so hard for those movies to get distribution and good numbers. Even north american smaller movies have those difficults due to lack of awareness and interest, but if it's foreign or non-english things get even more rare.

[Madhuvan]

 

 

[Barnack]

5 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

But see how it's always something very specific? Some hyped franchise, some award winning movie etc.

And even there it is really hard, most giant oversea success franchise, will try US market at some point, few work.

 

Take the millennium movies even when the book were doing twilight-hunger games type of numbers in the USA, that book store were living of them.

 

Terrible dom to overall BO ratio

Release Date	Title	Production Budget	Opening Weekend	Domestic Box Office	Worldwide Box Office
Apr 30, 2010	Luftslottet som sprängdes		$251,778	$5,427,684	$41,179,660
Dec 25, 2009	Flickan som lekte med elden		$204,471	$9,081,782	$70,697,112
May 29, 2009	Män som hatar kvinnor	$13,000,000		$12,749,992	$109,421,91

 

 

When the domestic version made 102m domestic  it was considered a flop and there were no sequel.

 

I wonder if there was no some big global shift over time, like I am not sure I can easily name popular French, Italian, Japanese, Russian or Swedish current working director in their market without an Hollywood specifically made success, while I would imagine anyone in the 70s that followed cinema even less than me currently could. In reverse South Korea got bigger, but it does seem a clear net lost.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Barnack

[Ronin46]

Well I was wrong about this movie. My guess was 9m into a 80m 4 day and its going to be low 90s I guess.

 

BO Pro had it for 52M for 3 day (maybe 65 for 4 day I guess)

BO Report had 72m for the 4 day

Deadline/Variety etc had it for 45 to 50M 3 day. 

 

Hopefully it can break 200m easily and give some confidence to the studios going forward.

[ThomasNicole]

12 minutes ago, Barnack said:

From memory Tarantino used is name to push that one in the media pre-release and maybe they even used it in the marketing.

 

He is not in either movies, Jesus being a giant IP is somewhat true but Jesus movies often do nothing in the US has well, it is the biggest subtitled movie ever in the US market I think (and for a while if not to this day the biggest R-rated movie has well).

 

But in term of being exceptional, certainly, and for all the above needed strong people pushing them certainly. And for non passionate people (like all the above are in drove) or for people that have their own product to sales like a Disney-Universal-WB today.... why anyway ?

 

Netflix could and the fact that people do not sell them for very little to netflix and them turning it into big word of mouth success (I guess it is even happening without us knowing, proving the point) is showing that it is audience driven, imo, otherwise they would big success on youtube.

I always find beautiful seeing Tarantino, Scorsese etc talking about their passion with lots of foreign movies, including brazilian ones (where i live), is very inspiring.

 

Yes, to me is essentially an audience question. But when it comes to Netflix i also think they should do a better work at make these movie visible on the platform.

 

I'm very glad Netflix is buying many movies and make accesibility to them easier, but still we have to search for them, it's difficult seeing their promoting it which is a problem, let's hope things can get better.

 

I'm a hopeful person tho, for example even if Oscars clearly doesn't have the same prestige anymore, i think cases like Parasite winning Best Picture, or Zhao winning Best Director could help awareness of other cultures getting bigger, there are many great movies every year that should be seen. Damm, even BTS phenomenon i think is a good thing to bring cultures closer, even if i dislike their music.

[charlie Jatinder]

21 minutes ago, Borobudur said:

Is Demon Slayer a foreign language film? It did 50m here.

Its not a general cinema but a strong IP with a HUGE fanbase. Almost as like MCU is from Hollywood. In markets like India, Hollywood might not mean much but MCU gets you 20M admits.

[ThomasNicole]

5 minutes ago, Barnack said:

And even there it is really hard, most giant oversea success franchise, will try US market at some point, few work.

 

Take the millennium movies even when the book were doing twilight-hunger games type of numbers in the USA, that book store were living of them.

 

Terrible dom to overall BO ratio

Release Date	Title	Production Budget	Opening Weekend	Domestic Box Office	Worldwide Box Office
Apr 30, 2010	Luftslottet som sprängdes		$251,778	$5,427,684	$41,179,660
Dec 25, 2009	Flickan som lekte med elden		$204,471	$9,081,782	$70,697,112
May 29, 2009	Män som hatar kvinnor	$13,000,000		$12,749,992	$109,421,91

 

 

When the domestic version made 102m domestic  it was considered a flop and there were no sequel.

 

I wonder if there was no some big global shift over time, like I am not sure I can easily name popular French, Italian, Japanese, Russian or Swedish current working director in their market without an Hollywood specifically made success, while I would imagine anyone in the 70s that followed cinema even less than me currently could. In reverse South Korea got bigger, but it does seem a clear net lost.

I can name a few directors but only because i study cinema. The dominance of Hollywood worldwide is probably the reason why is so hard to anyone know other type of movies (and certainly one of the reasons to China being so protective about their movie industry), and i'm sure this problem is way bigger in US since it's the home of Hollywood.

 

It is a concerning thing when you think about it deeply, but we have to hope things will get better. I think we're better know in awareness than we are 30-40 years ago, so progress is happening but maybe not fast as it should.