THE BATMAN WEEKEND THREAD | 134M OW DOM, 258.2M WW | Biggest WB opening since BvS. First non Disney-affiliated 100M OW since 2018

[Porthos]

22 minutes ago, BruiseCruise said:

Was the first avatar even relying on kids/families? It felt more like a 4 quad explosion like titanic was 

 

It was exactly 4 quad explosion.  Of course kids/families are a part of 4 quad by definition, but it absolutely was a 4 quad movie.

 

To this day, I still recall in wonder that there were generic ads deep into its run latching on to the whole Avatar craze boasting about how Avatar was must see theatrical experience thanks to its revolutionary 3D tech.  That is, the ad was about seeing a film in 3D and not really about Avatar at all.

 

Have to remember that 3D still had an awful stigma at the time, that was only just getting rust shaken off with films like Beowulf (2007).  Once Avatar appeared on the scenes, it was a true WOM monster as while it's OW was very good for the time (this was before the idea of having mega blockbusters at Xmas), it just kept going and going and going and going as word of mouth of this must-see film in 3D just spread and spread and spread.

 

Ironically enough, we've now come to a time where 3D is viewed at with disdain in the eye of the GA in the DOM market once again.  Not for the same quite the reasons as before (before its stigma was that it was either for cheap schlock [bad 60s movies] or for cheap thrills [cheap jump scares from horror flicks]), but I don't think it's too arguable that the GA in the DOM market has moved on from the 3D experience.

 

Will Cameron bring it back? At least for his films? Hard to bet against him as he has a exceedingly strong track record to point to.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Porthos

[Joyous Legion]

13 minutes ago, Fox20 said:

What are people using as subject for the great WOM, it is good but not anything that wild that will take it "over 3"

 

Shang Chi had great WOM  and no competition and still struggled to get close to 3, let alone that Batman goes to streaming in 45 days.

 

 

Yeah, SC is a great calendar comp with better WoM and a lower ow. It pulled a true FSS multi of 3.24x.   Assuming 131.6M for Batman (roughly 31.5 sun) that would take it to 378M for 2.87x. So realistically I’d say 2.5-2.8x probably the range.

[grim22]

1 minute ago, Porthos said:

 

It was exactly 4 quad explosion.  Of course kids/families are a part of 4 quad by definition, but it absolutely was a 4 quad movie.

 

To this day, I still recall in wonder that there were generic ads deep into its run boasting about how Avatar was must see theatrical experience thanks to its revolutionary 3D tech.  That is, the ad was about seeing a film in 3D and not really about Avatar at all.

 

Have to remember that 3D still had an awful stigma at the time, that was only just getting rust shaken off with films like Beowulf (2007).  Once Avatar appeared on the scenes, it was a true WOM monster as while it's OW was very good for the time (this was before the idea of having mega blockbusters at Xmas), it just kept going and going and going and going as word of mouth of this must-see film in 3D just spread and spread and spread.

 

Ironically enough, we've now come to a time where 3D is viewed at with disdain in the eye of the GA in the DOM once again.  Not for the same quite the reasons as before (before its stigma was that it was either for cheap schlock [bad 60s movies] or for cheap thrills [cheap jump scares from horror flicks]), but I don't think it's too arguable that the GA in the DOM has moved on from the 3D experience.

 

Will Cameron bring it back?  Hard to bet against him as he has a exceedingly strong track record to point to.

 

3D became such a huge thing for a while there - Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland both did great thanks to awful 3D conversions and started the immediate 3D backlash.

 

Cameron at least sensibly realized audiences are still not ready for any High Frame Rate and apparently ditched it for the Avatar sequels. Leaving that to Ang Lee to keep trying on that with audiences still not caring.

[tawasal]

43 minutes ago, Avatree said:

its a complete shame that Disney has abandoned cinemas for Pixar films. From Toy Story 2 up to Toy Story 4 (which is like 18 films or so) I saw every Pixar film in the cinema; whereas I'm probably never gonna watch any pixar film on streaming cause watching movies at home is garbage (soul / onward / turning red, etc).

 

if these movies were at the bare minimum a simultaneous release, i'd watch them all...

 

 

Are they actually planning on releasing future Pixar movies only on D+?

[Fielding]

So much for the death of the DC brand.

[grey ghost]

It's silly to make Avatar predictions before the trailer.

 

Everything hinges on the trailer.

[XXR & Friends]

1 hour ago, Brainbug said:

With the great WOM it seems to get, a multiplier over 3 seems very likely imo.

 

Doesn't seem very likely to me. NWH just crossed 3x with better WOM, more family friendly/higher rewatchability and holidays. The target for The Batman should be around Captain Marvel's multiplier IMO (2.78x).

Edited March 7, 2022 by PenguinXXR

[Old Spice]

19 minutes ago, AnDr3s said:

any sunday update?

 

Yes, sir. Here's some tea from Salt Lake City, and I will be using 7:00 PM MST data as that showing of The Bat is already sold out. Ticket sales today at the Sugarhouse Cinemark are actually running 7% AHEAD of yesterday's counts (718 Sunday vs. 667 Saturday) and that's despite a paralyzing pre-dawn snowstorm that shut down most of the city during the morning. Tonight's remaining shows are all selling briskly, so it's unlikely we'll go negative for the day; absolute worst case is we end flat. All of which leads me to believe that the predicted 35% drop isn't just conservative, it's NUTS.

 

Here's a tale of WOM in three days, all recorded at 7:00 PM.

Friday: 485 tix sold

Saturday: 667 " "

Sunday: 718 " "

 

🤡 run, incoming?

[BruiseCruise]

We need EC to ignite this thread 

[JediJones]

Here is a comparison of The Batman's international opening weekend numbers from its top 10 countries to past Batman films since Batman Begins. Past numbers pulled from Box Office Mojo:

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by JediJones

[El Gato]

7 minutes ago, A Star is Orm said:

 

Yes, sir. Here's some tea from Salt Lake City, and I will be using 7:00 PM MST data as that showing of The Bat is already sold out. Ticket sales today at the Sugarhouse Cinemark are actually running 7% AHEAD of yesterday's counts (718 Sunday vs. 667 Saturday) and that's despite a paralyzing pre-dawn snowstorm that shut down most of the city during the morning. Tonight's remaining shows are all selling briskly, so it's unlikely we'll go negative for the day; absolute worst case is we end flat. All of which leads me to believe that the predicted 35% drop isn't just conservative, it's NUTS.

 

Here's a tale of WOM in three days, all recorded at 7:00 PM.

Friday: 485 tix sold

Saturday: 667 " "

Sunday: 718 " "

 

🤡 run, incoming?

Same here in LA, anecdotal evidence but my coworker was going to take her 3 daughters to see Batman but everything is sold out or close to if (only bad seats are left). Then again LA is strong movie market 

[XXR & Friends]

1 hour ago, Villain Legion said:

Subtle?   
 

Anyway, is it even much short of board expectations? It’ll be within 10% of the derby avg. not sure what the avg in @PenguinXXR’s contest is.

Contest average is just over $150.5M but the main thing to remember that is most entrants never adjusted their first guess at all, so some are 3+ weeks old where’s all the Derby guesses are only a few days old.

[Joyous Legion]

7 minutes ago, PenguinXXR said:

Contest average is just over $150.5M but the main thing to remember that is most entrants never adjusted their first guess at all, so some are 3+ weeks old where’s all the Derby guesses are only a few days old.

That’s sort of what I was hoping for since it demonstrates how expectations fell over time with the so-so sales. It is barely short of recent expectations at all, bit further from longer ago ones.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Villain Legion

[Porthos]

30 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

3D became such a huge thing for a while there - Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland both did great thanks to awful 3D conversions and started the immediate 3D backlash.

 

Cameron at least sensibly realized audiences are still not ready for any High Frame Rate and apparently ditched it for the Avatar sequels. Leaving that to Ang Lee to keep trying on that with audiences still not caring.

 

That's the current stigma for most 3D films, I'd say. Even if they're shot with 3D somewhat in mind, they're not built from the ground up to be seen in 3D.  I tend to think that outside of the folks who truly love the 3D experience, most of the GA in the States sees it as an "extra" and one not worth paying a surcharge for, even when it isn't a shoddy conversion.

 

Can see this in how 3D TV sets just cratered and imploded, despite various TV manufacturers trying REALLY HARD to get it to become a thing.

 

(NARRATOR:  It did not become a thing)

 

Avatar 2 at the very least is gonna be different in that it was built from the ground up to be seen in 3D, thus the 2D experience might be the shoddy/awful conversion.  One wild card here is that sfx has exploded in capability since 2009 and there have been some very stunning visual spectacles in the last 13 years.

 

Even if... No, strike that.  Even when James Cameron makes something visually stunning compared to what's been coming out lately, I wonder if it might be like the leap from HD to 4k rather than the leap from SD to HD. 

 

I am convinced that one* of the reasons why 4k UHDs fell flatter than studios might have hoped for (even before streaming entered the picture) is that the GA really didn't see much of a need to convert from HD to 4k after just converting from SD to HD.  Sure, it was better, but not so much better as to completely overhaul the library for the second time in a short amount of time (3D TV got hit by this phenomenon even harder).

* There's other reasons, but this was the biggie, IMO

 

Only in the last few years, much much later after they first went on sale in late 2012, have 4k TVs themselves really made it to the mainstream, IMO.

 

And I wonder if even when Avatar 2 is visually stunning will it be so visually stunning as to replicate the sense of transitioning from SD to HD as opposed to HD to 4k, to make an admittedly semi-shaky analogy.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Porthos

[ThomasNicole]

21 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

It's silly to make Avatar predictions before the trailer.

 

Everything hinges on the trailer.

Maybe not even the first trailer is enough, i remember Avatar first trailer only make people mock it more, than they did the Avatar Day showing 15 minutes for free and drop the exceptional 2nd trailer and suddenly people get excited 

 

The arguments about "oh kids don't watch it, nobody remembers it, people aren't excited" is funny because how a 14 year old movie alone will make people excited for a sequel they don't know anything about?

[grim22]

14 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

That's the current stigma for most 3D films, I'd say. Even if they're shot with 3D somewhat in mind, they're not built from the ground up to be seen in 3D.  I tend to think that outside of the folks who truly love the 3D experience, most of the GA in the States sees it as an "extra" and one not worth paying a surcharge for, even when it isn't a shoddy conversion.

 

Can see this in how 3D TV sets just cratered and imploded, despite various TV manufacturers trying REALLY HARD to get it to become a thing.

 

(NARRATOR:  It did not become a thing)

 

Avatar 2 at the very least is gonna be different in that it was built from the ground up to be seen in 3D, thus the 2D experience might be the shoddy/awful conversion.  One wild card here is that sfx has exploded in capability since 2009 and there have been some very stunning visual spectacles in the last 13 years.

 

Even if... No, strike that.  Even when James Cameron makes something visually stunning compared to what's been coming out lately, I wonder if it might be like the leap from HD to 4k rather than the leap from SD to HD. 

 

I am convinced that one* of the reasons why 4k UHDs fell flatter than studios might have hoped for (even before streaming entered the picture) is that the GA really didn't see much of a need to convert from HD to 4k after just converting from SD to HD.  Sure, it was better, but not so much better as to completely overhaul the library for the second time in a short amount of time (3D TV got hit by this phenomenon even harder).

* There's other reasons, but this was the biggie, IMO

 

Only in the last few years, much much later after they first went on sale in late 2012, have 4k TVs themselves really made it to the mainstream, IMO.

 

And I wonder if even when Avatar 2 is visually stunning will it be so visually stunning as to replicate the sense of transitioning from SD to HD as opposed to HD to 4k, to make an admittedly semi-shaky analogy.

 

You are pretty much on the money here. There was no giant leap from HD to 4K unless you were a hardcore gamer. The other issue is content - it's useless to have a 4K TV and not have 4K content to watch. Same issue for 3D, lack of content meant lack of TV sales, and the lack of TV sales fed right back into the lack of content being made. Add to that the glasses needed and it was a perfect storm of the pricing, no content and people just not wanting to look like dorks while watching TV in their own home.

[JediJones]

I don't think special effects have been all that impressive lately compared to 2000-2009. The new Star Wars movies look incredibly dull next to Lucas' prequels. Jackson's 2005 King Kong had a much better Kong and battle scenes than the current 'Monster-verse' stuff. Heck, Universal recently posted videos of the dinosaur fight from that movie on YouTube and racked up 100s of millions of hits in a couple years. Far more hits than people who actually saw the movie in theaters in 2005. While the sheer number of superhero movies has produced some with impressive effects, most of them aren't that visually exciting. Remember that cool shot from Captain Marvel? Me neither. Aquaman was one of the only superhero movies that ever had as many dazzling visual effects as Avatar. Dr. Strange is still recycling effects concepts from Inception, a 12-year-old movie. The Pirates and Transformers movies had some of the coolest effects starting in the 2000s, but those series died out due to story issues. So I have COMPLETE confidence that Avatar 2 is going to have truly dazzling, jaw-dropping effects that look much better than almost anything else we've seen since Avatar 1.

[cdsacken]

I absolutely hate 3D anything that requires glasses and looks awful without them sucks. Avatar 2 3D without them could have recaptured that spark they had the first time. Technology is not ready at that scale.

[DlAMONDZ]

47 minutes ago, Fielding said:

So much for the death of the DC brand.

Jury is still out

 

Flash and Black Adam will tell us if casuals only care about the Batman side of DC

[hw64]

1 hour ago, grim22 said:

 

3D became such a huge thing for a while there - Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland both did great thanks to awful 3D conversions and started the immediate 3D backlash.

 

Cameron at least sensibly realized audiences are still not ready for any High Frame Rate and apparently ditched it for the Avatar sequels. Leaving that to Ang Lee to keep trying on that with audiences still not caring.

 

Cameron's still doing the high framerate thing for the Avatar sequels. It's not entirely clear at the moment how the higher framerate will be utilized, but the films are being shot at 48fps at least. It's most likely going to be standard 24fps with 48fps for the action sequences.