FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE WEEKEND THREAD | Read the first post for the rules

[TwoMisfits]

So, we haven't seen numbers, but if there was a club for FB3 OW under Morbius OW, I'd probably be in it now.

 

I don't think this movie grabbed any young female Potter fans.  My college age daughter, who used to be an absolute Potterhead, didn't even mention wanting to go to this movie (or the last one, funny enough - she read the critics on that and then the spoilers, and wisely stayed away).

 

I think this movie is both paying for the sins of the previous movie and paying for the sin of not being a sensible trilogy where you sense the stakes and the progression as a "lay" non-HP uber fan.  Having watched movie 1 and 2, except for Newt and the animals, they could have been entirely different trilogy movies.  It reminds me of the follow on Star Wars trilogy being 2 different movies...and you saw where #3 ended up there for reviews and BO compared to the 1st...

Edited April 15, 2022 by TwoMisfits

[Rogerio]

Fantastic beasts is a huge flop

But I don't want Rowling out.. I just want her oriented by a good creative team, not Yates..

She still has great ideas

 

Did you read Christmas pig? It's really awesome

[TwoMisfits]

As far as Sonic 2 having a bigger drop than expected.

 

80M $4 ticket codes probably both pulled some demand forward and pulled some "never gonna see this in theaters" (like me) in last weekend, so it was a discount-encouraged high weekend.  And that's okay, b/c again, that deal pulled in a lot of folks who'd never go, and some money is always better than no money...although it makes for slightly rougher legs.

[TalismanRing]

49 minutes ago, AJG said:

Deadline Anthony needs more time to figure out how to rationalise FB3’s low opening without upsetting his delusion that the current health of the box office is “totally fine”, “back to normal”, “exceeding pre-pandemic levels”, “ROARING TWENTIES” etc.

 

In this case, not much rationalizing needed.  At the high end maybe it might have dropped 20% OW instead of 30% but the series was already on the downward trend as regards B.O. and nothing was added to reverse course.

[YM!]

15 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

I'm still glad Lucas sold to Disney.

 

You got the biggest movie in North America, The Force Awakens. I actually like Solo and Rogue One. And The Mandalorian is a huge hit. Honestly the only thing Disney did wrong was fumble TLJ and TROS.

 

Then again Lucas made his own mistakes also.

I mean yes Lucas selling Disney allowed easily the best Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi to be made. 

[Felipe]

1 hour ago, Eric Says Trans Rights said:

I mean if you think a mid-80s RT Aud. score and a future B Cinemascore is "well-received", then okay. I'm also not sure why you're all "let's wait until the weekend is over before we say anything". We're a weekend thread. That's what we do. We predict based off historical evidence what will happen and discuss it. Sure, we might be wrong, but then what else are we going to talk about?

 

Cool. George Lucas was also set to own Star Wars forever. Warner will find a way to improve their bottom line and get rid of people they find toxic. Garbage capitalism always wins. And regardless on what we feel about the Sequel Trilogy and what they could have grossed, they all made a billion dollars. Mandalorian made billions off Baby Yoda merch. Those other Star Wars shows will make big bucks too. And I'm sure when the movies come back, they'll make tons of money too.

 

And at the end of the day, studios don't give a damn about how high-quality or interesting a film can be, but how much money they can make. And if they think they'll make more if Rowling is away from the project, then that's that. Sorry, but that's the truth.

The point is, Rowling can't be buyed. She will die having creative control over the Wizarding World.

[AJG]

 

15 minutes ago, Felipe said:

The point is, Rowling can't be buyed. She will die having creative control over the Wizarding World.

Wait a couple of years. Everyone has a price

 

[Napoleon]

The Hobbit movies were hated and still did huge. There's more to the Fantastic Beasts underperformance than just creative problems. Consumer habits are changing.

[CJohn]

Just now, Napoleon said:

The Hobbit movies were hated and still did huge. There's more to the Fantastic Beasts underperformance than just creative problems. Consumer habits are changing.

Actually The Hobbit 2 dropped but had a good critical and public reception, which is the major issue FB faces with FB2 being disliked by both the GA and critics.

[Brainbug]

Yeah i woudnt compare Fantastic Beasts to The Hobbit. The Hobbit 1 was generally mildly positively received, the second one was even better. Only the third one had more of a mixed-slightly negative reception. In the years since, reception has gotten worse id argue, but when they came out, it really wasnt all that bad.

 

Also, id argue that The Hobbit films for all their flaws were always at least entertaining and had a simple, easy-to-follow plot. The Fantastic Beasts movies are way more muddled plot-wise.

[watcher1232]

10 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

Yeah i woudnt compare Fantastic Beasts to The Hobbit. The Hobbit 1 was generally mildly positively received, the second one was even better. Only the third one had more of a mixed-slightly negative reception. In the years since, reception has gotten worse id argue, but when they came out, it really wasnt all that bad.

 

Also, id argue that The Hobbit films for all their flaws were always at least entertaining and had a simple, easy-to-follow plot. The Fantastic Beasts movies are way more muddled plot-wise.

I still see massive amounts of Hobbit defense. I think if Fantastic Beasts 1 reception had stuck, and JK Rowling's views hadn't pushed a lot of people further away, it could've been Hobbit-esque. FB1 had a Hobbit-esque defense for it and a sizable fandom, the issue is FB2 divided that fandom even further and turned off the GA.

[Rogerio]

The Hobbit movies have a lot of action and adventure.. general audience love that 

Besides, it has begun as a prequel; Fantastic beasts, as a spin off, with just a few things from Potter .. 

That makes a lot of difference

[watcher1232]

2 hours ago, CJohn said:

I watched Morbius today. It was the best Morbius movie ever made. However, it is also one of the worst big budget studio movies I have ever seen in my life. What the hell were they thinking with this shitshow. 

 

Box office thoughts:

- Fucking awful but expected for FB3. Between FB2's reception, pandemic and change of habits, nobody was gonna show up to watch this. It might open under Morbius.

- Sad for Sonic. Terrible drop incoming. 200M dead. Overall the state of theaters really showed its weakness in the last 4 weeks. I am not sure about the future.

This schtick got old last year.

[WeThrones]

The Hobbit also had serious pacing problems but it wasn't as boring and confusing as The Crimes of Grindelwald..

 

And also the plot was very simple and clear. We are small group of underdogs and our mission is to kill the dragon. So it was easy to follow and understand.

 

Maybe Star Wars PT is better comparison, because those first two movies were extremely boring. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by WeThrones

[CJohn]

10 minutes ago, watcher1232 said:

This schtick got old last year.

Great that I left it in last year then, unless you can distinguish between THEATERS ARE DEAD crazy ramblings and an actual thoughtful post about the weekend box office.

[watcher1232]

Just now, CJohn said:

Great that I left it in last year then, unless you can distinguish between THEATERS ARE DEAD crazy ramblings and an actual thoughtful post about the weekend box office.

Using a series with already declining returns pre-pandemic (besides the numerous other factors against it) and a potentially bad drop (keyword is potentially) from one movie to say theaters are in trouble or weak currently is indeed crazy, yeah.

[wildphantom]

I’m not even sure it’s worth having a debate over the larger issue of general moviegoing. It’s coming back, but just not as fast as other countries. 
 

Beasts isn’t really anything to do with this though. It’s more it’s a threequel in a series that people were pretty lukewarm on after the last one. Like I’ve said before, once families clocked on to that these new films barely cater for children, it’s taken a hit. 
 

the delayed wait for it hasn’t helped matters as it was hardly madly anticipated anyway. It’ll do ok, but the train borderline ground to a halt after CoG.  
 

as @Krissykins said….U.K. attendance post-pandemic has almost completely recovered to normalcy. That we haven’t turned up in typical droves for Beasts indicates an apathy to the series, not going to the cinema per se. 

[CJohn]

2 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

I’m not even sure it’s worth having a debate over the larger issue of general moviegoing. It’s coming back, but just not as fast as other countries. 
 

Beasts isn’t really anything to do with this though. It’s more it’s a threequel in a series that people were pretty lukewarm on after the last one. Like I’ve said before, once families clocked on to that these new films barely cater for children, it’s taken a hit. 
 

the delayed wait for it hasn’t helped matters as it was hardly madly anticipated anyway. It’ll do ok, but the train borderline ground to a halt after CoG.  
 

as @Krissykins said….U.K. attendance post-pandemic has almost completely recovered to normalcy. That we haven’t turned up in typical droves for Beasts indicates an apathy to the series, not going to the cinema per se. 

Here in Portugal we are still in the trash. October and December were solid but still both under 1 million tickets sold in total. I think April will be fine too, at least on the level of October.

[YM!]

6 minutes ago, CJohn said:

Great that I left it in last year then, unless you can distinguish between THEATERS ARE DEAD crazy ramblings and an actual thoughtful post about the weekend box office.

What?! There’s clearly no difference than pointing out while yes theaters are alive and kicking this recent slate of numbers could (as we don’t have any numbers but are rather going on history) be disappointing and hypothetically could be concerning in the future and proclaiming the death of theaters. Shame on you CJohn.

[Brainbug]

Just in April so far, one of the worst Comic book movies of all time still openend to a full Morbillion, the second movie about Sonic going really fast opened to 72M and while FB3 may struggle to hit mid-40s for the OW, Doctor Strange 2 looms over the current markeplace with an incoming 180M+ OW.

 

The debate if Theaters are dead/dying or not is kind of silly imo. Of course cinemas still need some time to adjust to post-pandemic life, but these numbers dont suggest that their days are numbered.