Super Bowl/Valentine's Weekend Thread | Nile 1.1M Previews, Marry Me 525K

[Krissykins]

3 hours ago, poweranimals said:

Why did everything go up but NWH went down?

Probably because it’s not really a date film.
 

Sing 2 dropped hard because babysitters were hired no doubt.

[EmpireCity]

1 hour ago, dudalb said:

By now it should be clear that theaters have a permanent loss of customers that are not coming back, covid or not covid.

 

Too early to say this.  

[dudalb]

Just now, EmpireCity said:

 

Too early to say this.  

 

I disagree. I think the move toward streaming is something there is no going back from.

I think theaters will suffer the biggest permanent drop in ticket sales since the early 1950's, when Televsion did huge damage to theatrical sales.

Things are never going to go back to normal if my normal you mean per Covid. SOmething with as big a impact as Covid has  always makes permanent changes.

I think streaming would have taken a big bite of the theatrical audience anyway, but Covid just acclerated the process.

 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

3 minutes ago, dudalb said:

 

I disagree. I think the move toward streaming is something there is no going back from.

I think theaters will suffer the biggest permanent drop in ticket sales since the early 1950's, when Televsion did huge damage to theatrical sales.

Things are never going to go back to normal if my normal you mean per Covid. SOmething with as big a impact as Covid has  always makes permanent changes.

I think streaming would have taken a big bite of the theatrical audience anyway, but Covid just acclerated the process.

 

At least wait until Elvis and Downton Abbey release. The David O. Russell film in the fall will also be a good test

 

I do generally agree that COVID accelerated declining trends but literally weeks/months before the pandemic, we had hits like Little Women, 1917, Knives Out. And that summer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Hell, The Way Back with Affleck opened to 8m the week national lockdown commenced. 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

27 minutes ago, dudalb said:

 

I disagree. I think the move toward streaming is something there is no going back from.

I think theaters will suffer the biggest permanent drop in ticket sales since the early 1950's, when Televsion did huge damage to theatrical sales.

Things are never going to go back to normal if my normal you mean per Covid. SOmething with as big a impact as Covid has  always makes permanent changes.

I think streaming would have taken a big bite of the theatrical audience anyway, but Covid just acclerated the process.

 

 

I agree. Might be wrong, but I think big tentpole movies (i.e. superhero cape flicks, star wars, avatar, dinos, lotr, etc) will be fine, but most others won't. I think multiplex days are counted. I can see drive ins surviving by being niche and movie theaters surviving by providing a true premium experience to the above tentpole movies (for example Batman is coming out and they make the lobby and theater look like Gotham, Strange comes out they make it look and feel like the Sanctum Santorum, etc).

 

My personal anecdote I used to go to the movie theaters 2+ times a week before covid and I recently cancelled my AMC sub because I had only been going for the big movies and passing on the rest.

 

26 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

At least wait until Elvis and Downton Abbey release. The David O. Russell film in the fall will also be a good test

 

I do generally agree that COVID accelerated declining trends but literally weeks/months before the pandemic, we had hits like Little Women, 1917, Knives Out. And that summer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Hell, The Way Back with Affleck opened to 8m the week national lockdown commenced. 

 

Would those be a hit today though? 2 years, with covid on top of that, is a long time. People's behaviors have changed. That's not to say they can't change back, but I'm not sure they'll be changed back. Plus streamers are spending an exorbitant amount of money. KO2 is going straight to Netflix. A new Predator movie is going straight to Hulu. Peter Pan is going straight to Disney+ and so on.

[dudalb]

33 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

At least wait until Elvis and Downton Abbey release. The David O. Russell film in the fall will also be a good test

 

I do generally agree that COVID accelerated declining trends but literally weeks/months before the pandemic, we had hits like Little Women, 1917, Knives Out. And that summer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Hell, The Way Back with Affleck opened to 8m the week national lockdown commenced. 

I think we have to look in terms not in what a studio's individual films do, but the final overall total is.

Even during the great drop in attendence in the early 50's, there were films that were big hits, But theaters lost a good deal of the audience to television, and they never came back.

And fewer films are being released to theaters. That has to tell you something.

I just think there will be a permanent drop in theatrical attendence. How big remains to be seen.

I am not happy about this at all, but I have to face facts.

ANyway, even before Covid, business anylyst were predicting that the theater chains had overexpanded..at least in the US,,and  there would be a lot of empty screens, that would still cost a lot in overhead.

[Torontofan]

I mean people will only watch movies that are worth seeing in theaters like Spiderman No Way Home. 

 

 

[dudalb]

10 minutes ago, AnotherDayAnotherDollar said:

 

I agree. Might be wrong, but I think big tentpole movies (i.e. superhero cape flicks, star wars, avatar, dinos, lotr, etc) will be fine, but most others won't. I think multiplex days are counted. I can see drive ins surviving by being niche and movie theaters surviving by providing a true premium experience to the above tentpole movies (for example Batman is coming out and they make the lobby and theater look like Gotham, Strange comes out they make it look and feel like the Sanctum Santorum, etc).

 

My personal anecdote I used to go to the movie theaters 2+ times a week before covid and I recently cancelled my AMC sub because I had only been going for the big movies and passing on the rest.

 

 

Would those be a hit today though? 2 years, with covid on top of that, is a long time. People's behaviors have changed. That's not to say they can't change back, but I'm not sure they'll be changed back. Plus streamers are spending an exorbitant amount of money. KO2 is going straight to Netflix. A new Predator movie is going straight to Hulu. Peter Pan is going straight to Disney+ and so on.

Problem is people don't know much about Hollywood history, and forget how in just a few years from 1948 to 1952 Television reaching it's maturity took a huge , devastating share of the audience away. In  a way, having to sell off their theater chains becuase of an anti trust decision was a blessing in disguise for the major studios, they would have had to pay an awful lot of overhead on empty theaters if they had hung on to the theaters.

I think streaming has reached the level of maturity that Television did in the late 40's and early 50's.

Another factor is that they are losing audiences above the age of 30. People who don't have a limitless appetire for CGI driven blockbusters and horror movies are being left out in the cold,and the product they want to see is moving to streaming.

Covid, and not just in terms of theater attendance, is a world changing event, and things are just not going to go back to the way things were before, no matter how much people might wish for that to happen.

[dudalb]

7 minutes ago, Torontofan said:

I mean people will only watch movies that are worth seeing in theaters like Spiderman No Way Home. 

 

 

I liked NWH a lot, but still I wish we had more choices when it came to theatrical movies.

It's not that I hate CBM's or other big budget SFX driven blockbusters, it's just I don;'t like the way they are driving other movies out of theaters.

[Torontofan]

2019 was a critical year, it was a year dominated by the mega blockbusters. 

 

As long there is must see product in theaters people will go to see it. 

[dudalb]

14 minutes ago, Torontofan said:

2019 was a critical year, it was a year dominated by the mega blockbusters. 

 

As long there is must see product in theaters people will go to see it. 

Problem is it's not that easy to produce must see product. A lot of must see movies prove to be pretty missable.

And depending on blockbusters alone  can lead to disaster. Look at the late 60's where most of the major studios went to the edge when expensive blockbusters flopped. That opened the gate to the coroporate takeover of the studios.

And 2019 was pre Covid and before streaming really took off. The last three years have changed everything. There is no going back to the way things were.

I just wiah I could go out and see a movie that was not depndenet on CGI once in a while.

Edited February 16, 2022 by dudalb

[Pinacolada]

3 hours ago, dudalb said:

I liked NWH a lot, but still I wish we had more choices when it came to theatrical movies.

It's not that I hate CBM's or other big budget SFX driven blockbusters, it's just I don;'t like the way they are driving other movies out of theaters.

People always say this, but THERE ARE plenty more choices you could go see in theaters. Go see Nightmare Alley. Go see Licorice Pizza. Go see West Side Story. Go see House of Gucci. Go see The Last Duel. Go see Jackass Forever. Etc.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Pinacolada

[PDC1987]

The Scream franchise just went from $38 million to $80 million domestically film to film, pre-COVID to during COVID. The poorly reviewed, available for free on Peacock Marry Me still just did nearly $11 million in 4 days. Theaters are bouncing back, and going to the movies will be a standard activity again soon enough.

[EmpireCity]

4 hours ago, dudalb said:

Problem is it's not that easy to produce must see product. A lot of must see movies prove to be pretty missable.

And depending on blockbusters alone  can lead to disaster. Look at the late 60's where most of the major studios went to the edge when expensive blockbusters flopped. That opened the gate to the coroporate takeover of the studios.

And 2019 was pre Covid and before streaming really took off. The last three years have changed everything. There is no going back to the way things were.

I just wiah I could go out and see a movie that was not depndenet on CGI once in a while.

 

It's going to be fun to revisit this post in 8-12 months.  

[CloneWars]

2 hours ago, PDC1987 said:

The Scream franchise just went from $38 million to $80 million domestically film to film, pre-COVID to during COVID. The poorly reviewed, available for free on Peacock Marry Me still just did nearly $11 million in 4 days. Theaters are bouncing back, and going to the movies will be a standard activity again soon enough.

A date night movie making $11m during Valentine's weekend is peanuts. Sure, if say it opened a week later, it would be an okay opening, and come on no one has Peacock. 

[CloneWars]

1 hour ago, EmpireCity said:

 

It's going to be fun to revisit this post in 8-12 months.  

He's right. Moviegoing habits have changed. NWH made bank last year, but only one other film managed to break $200m domestic. Grosses will be better overall this year, but it's not going to be enough. The writing has been on the wall for some time.

[EmpireCity]

1 minute ago, CloneWars said:

He's right. Moviegoing habits have changed. NWH made bank last year, but only one other film managed to break $200m domestic. Grosses will be better overall this year, but it's not going to be enough. The writing has been on the wall for some time.

 

Wrong.  He's dead wrong.  

[Pinacolada]

23 minutes ago, CloneWars said:

A date night movie making $11m during Valentine's weekend is peanuts. Sure, if say it opened a week later, it would be an okay opening, and come on no one has Peacock. 

I think the estimated number for Halloween Kills was 1.4m viewers. I'd say Marry Me got around 1 million, maybe a bit less (Peacock subscriptions have definitely grown since, especially with the Olympics)

 

That's a lot of potential money being left on the table 

[Krissykins]

2 hours ago, CloneWars said:

A date night movie making $11m during Valentine's weekend is peanuts. Sure, if say it opened a week later, it would be an okay opening, and come on no one has Peacock. 

People seem to forget: streaming debut = piracy. They don’t have to have Peacock, unfortunately. 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

5 hours ago, CloneWars said:

A date night movie making $11m during Valentine's weekend is peanuts. Sure, if say it opened a week later, it would be an okay opening, and come on no one has Peacock. 

This doesn’t tell the full story. It’s strange how some of you will immediately discredit any film that isn’t an IP.

 

Yeah, 11m during VDay is peanuts but the point is that post-COVID during shaky marketplace, a film with shattered demographic is performing almost on par with last pre-COVID date night releases 

 

Feb 14-16 2020

The Photograph- 12.1m

 

Feb 15-17 2019

Isn’t It Romantic- 14.2m (20.4m 5day)

 

PDC’s point that theater activity is returning wasn’t as asinine as you proclaimed. Marry Me did what it would have done pre-COVID (of course not great but that’s not the point).. that sentiment cannot be said about.. any adult-aiming film last year? Regardless if it’s a date night film. Scream was up greatly from 4 which furthers evidence the current horror crowd is loyal and unwavering. 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by BestPicturePlutoNash