Has Following the Box Office Lost Its Appeal and Luster?

[Eric is Quiet]

3 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

At least don't lie in such a bald faced way

 

 

 

 

 

I mean he's right. Lost City's opening was nice, but nothing to brag about, especially when it will likely miss 100M, another instance of the sad state of affairs of people refusing to see anything that doesn't have a "2" next to it, or isn't based on something they're nostalgic over.

 

And yes, to some of you saying that there are other hits, I will give you those, though I still feel No Time to Die underperformed domestically (note I said domestically). But like...it's still a big issue to me that only the big, established franchises (I guess outside of Dune) are still the only hits we have. There's still the issues of studio comedies being extinct, awards hopefuls and dramas being ignored by the masses when we always had a few populist hits, said populist awards hits are now considered too inaccessible or even mocked for not being dumb fun, and other non-franchise fare/auteur-driven/star-driven pieces gone forever. Those are fun sprinkles and films I love to root for. And they're barely able to survive, no matter how "well" Dog or Lost City are doing. If you guys don't see the issue here, fine. But I don't really think what I'm saying is invalid.

[john2000]

2 minutes ago, Thanos Legion said:

Yeah I dunno what John is talking about there, I don’t think LC was particularly impressive. Uncharted either really. They both beat my long range expectations but they aren’t beating pre-pandemic expectations by a notable % or anything imo, which is what it takes to get me really excited.

Yeah i edited, my bad i meant forum users in general

[AniNate]

On the other hand, last weekend this year the box office was $18 million, this year it's $108 million.

[john2000]

7 minutes ago, Eric Says Trans Rights said:

I mean he's right. Lost City's opening was nice, but nothing to brag about, especially when it will likely miss 100M, another instance of the sad state of affairs of people refusing to see anything that doesn't have a "2" next to it, or isn't based on something they're nostalgic over.

 

And yes, to some of you saying that there are other hits, I will give you those, though I still feel No Time to Die underperformed domestically (note I said domestically). But like...it's still a big issue to me that only the big, established franchises (I guess outside of Dune) are still the only hits we have. There's still the issues of studio comedies being extinct, awards hopefuls and dramas being ignored by the masses when we always had a few populist hits, said populist awards hits are now considered too inaccessible or even mocked for not being dumb fun, and other non-franchise fare/auteur-driven/star-driven pieces gone forever. Those are fun sprinkles and films I love to root for. And they're barely able to survive, no matter how "well" Dog or Lost City are doing. If you guys don't see the issue here, fine. But I don't really think what I'm saying is invalid.

You forget the fact that moviegoing  cost money, most people arent willing to pay so that they can see a drama or a comedy even though they may be willing to see it , using other methods. At the same time , if the marketing for this kinds of movies isnt good then the audience will have no idea of their existence.Take for example Northman , the marketing sucks  i very much doubt that the avg moviegoer  knows what it is or when its coming.

Edited April 18, 2022 by john2000

[MrPink]

Legitimately expected Uncharted to do like 200-250m at most because I expected the movie to be shit so I think getting close to 400m is genuinely pretty impressive. 

 

Pre Pandemic I think I would have tagged it similar to Tomb Raider with a different split. So it still beat my expectations pretty handily despite perhaps being aided by a dead market for its first couple weeks. Yes it's an IP, but man I don't understand the legs on that one and I feel like i'm the resident Uncharted dude here

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by MrPink

[JustLurking]

The fact that the examples being brought are for the most part either mild successes, other franchises or even honestly not particularly good performances as counterpoint of the BO not being boring sort of proves the point that, yeah, it's kind of boring.

 

It's not that surprise breakout hits aren't surprising anymore because of tracking, they aren't surprising because they really aren't there much. If all that truly succeeds are franchises and one single franchise is completely dominating the market, the market is stale, there isn't much spinning it around. Yeah, there are some positive runs here and there, but "real" runaway breakout runs from original movies are pretty much dead (atleast for DOM), and that inevitably takes fun away. People won't be blown away by the nth spiderman or avengers the same way no matter how well they do.

[ZeeSoh]

1 hour ago, Eric Says Trans Rights said:

No offense, but let me ask you, and everybody else here who are acting like people like me are the problem: let's propose a different scenario. Let's say the biggest movie franchise was Transformers, or some other maligned franchise you hate. Let's say that there were 3 or 4 Transformers movies per year, each one was making billions of dollars, and they were the only franchise making billions of dollars, while everything else was tanking left and right.

 

Charlie, and everybody else for that matter, would you be saying the same thing still? This is a legit query, because it feels like the MCU stans are the people who are doing this whole "things are better than ever! You're just getting older" mantra to everybody here. And I think you, and other people here for that matter, would magically be on our side if Marvel wasn't top dog. I think that's a really, really gigantic sign that when only one group of people are happy, that yes indeed, the box office has lost its appeal and luster and that it was better back in the olden days, and that maybe, just maybe, there is a problem with the box office at this point. Just a little food for thought.

I agree with your point that people tend to lose interest if their favourite genre/franchise/type of movie is not getting made or doing well. 
 

However as others have pointed out, it’s not just MCU doing well. 
- DC just had a hit in Batman. In their upcoming slate Aquaman is sure to be a big hit as well. Black Adam has rock and that too will do decent at least. Sony has Venom and the animated Spiderverse movies doing great. 

You have Avatar movies coming up. Star Wars movies will make huge buck when they start going again. Jurassic Park movies are doing very well and so is the Furious franchise. 
We will see where Animation stands when Lightyear and Minions come out but Sing 2 did well enough. 
Movies like Uncharted, Dune, Bond have also done well (and would have done even better if not for covid). 
 

It is the mid and low budget movies that are suffering right now. But I think it will improve as Covid subsides and time goes on. For evidence just check how many standalone movies we had in 2019 that did well (US, Once Upon A Time, Glass, Good Boys, Knives Out, Ford v Ferrari, Hustlers, Rocketman and so many more). 

[TomCruiseTop]

42 minutes ago, AniNate said:

On the other hand, last weekend this year the box office was $18 million, this year it's $108 million.

This time next year it will be 1.08 Billies as Avatar 2 enters its 4th month solid at #1

[Brainbug]

6 minutes ago, JamesCameronScholar said:

This time next year it will be 1.08 Billies as Avatar 2 enters its 4th month solid at #1

 

So this is why America will have a hard recession in 2023, everyone spends all their money on Avatar 2?

[Menor the Destroyer]

For me it's irrelevant whether a hit is much of a surprise or not, I just like to see big numbers. Endgame's opening was expected to be huge but still the most fun I have had on the forum because of how massive the numbers were. 

[TomCruiseTop]

13 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

So this is why America will have a hard recession in 2023, everyone spends all their money on Avatar 2?

Bingo. Also that 1.08 billies will have an inflation adjusted value of $6.

[AniNate]

16 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

For me it's irrelevant whether a hit is much of a surprise or not, I just like to see big numbers. Endgame's opening was expected to be huge but still the most fun I have had on the forum because of how massive the numbers were. 

 

 

I like when good movies make big numbers, even if it is expected

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

I just want to see non MCU movies put up wild, unexpected numbers. That's all. Once you know weeks/months ahead of time they're not because presales and marketplace, that's a level of excitement gone

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

3 hours ago, john2000 said:

You forget the fact that moviegoing  cost money, most people arent willing to pay so that they can see a drama or a comedy even though they may be willing to see it , using other methods. At the same time , if the marketing for this kinds of movies isnt good then the audience will have no idea of their existence.Take for example Northman , the marketing sucks  i very much doubt that the avg moviegoer  knows what it is or when its coming.

Northman marketing does not suck. Ads are attached to NBA playoff games, NHL games, and weekly NBC sitcoms. The first trailer has 21m views which is staggering for an original film. You don't have to cape for sequels and IPs this hard to create complete and utter fabrications. 

 

Have you even considered how a lot of marketing has to rely on social media since studios cannot afford extremely lavish spending dollars on smaller movies? 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

3 hours ago, ZeeSoh said:

I agree with your point that people tend to lose interest if their favourite genre/franchise/type of movie is not getting made or doing well. 
 

However as others have pointed out, it’s not just MCU doing well. 
- DC just had a hit in Batman. In their upcoming slate Aquaman is sure to be a big hit as well. Black Adam has rock and that too will do decent at least. Sony has Venom and the animated Spiderverse movies doing great. 

You have Avatar movies coming up. Star Wars movies will make huge buck when they start going again. Jurassic Park movies are doing very well and so is the Furious franchise. 
We will see where Animation stands when Lightyear and Minions come out but Sing 2 did well enough. 
Movies like Uncharted, Dune, Bond have also done well (and would have done even better if not for covid). 
 

It is the mid and low budget movies that are suffering right now. But I think it will improve as Covid subsides and time goes on. For evidence just check how many standalone movies we had in 2019 that did well (US, Once Upon A Time, Glass, Good Boys, Knives Out, Ford v Ferrari, Hustlers, Rocketman and so many more). 

Venom is basically a MCU film at this point. It's a Marvel IP.

 

And Batman was a hit but still did weaker than every post IW MCU film except last years and Ant-Man 2. I mean, DC's crown jewel should not have done more than, like, 50m better than Thor 3 did in 2017 (And if you account for inflation since, Ragnarok is probably closer to 330m now)

[Flamengo81]

10 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

And Batman was a hit but still did weaker than every post IW MCU film except last years and Ant-Man 2

That would leave only Endgame and NWH (need to say more?), Captain Marvel (boosted by Endgame) and Far From Home as comparisons. The Batman being a reboot in an isolated universe and grossing 375M is not detrimental to it not surpass any of those.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Just now, Flamengo81 said:

That would leave only Endgame and NWH (need to say more?), Captain Marvel (boosted by Endgame) and Far From Home as comparisons. The Batman being a reboot in an isolated universe and grossing 375M is not detrimental to it not surpass any of those.

It's still a Batman movie. Even as a reboot, the reviews were good and Pattinson is great casting. Yeah, it improves potential for sequel but I think 400m could/should(?) have been achievable. And it's going to finish under 800m worldwide, no?

[Menor the Destroyer]

Batman well below the character's potential, but so were Homecoming and FFH despite generally good reception to Holland, good reviews, and good audience scores (and the character's appearance in several huge crossovers). Sometimes you just need an extra hook to get people really excited about the character again. 

[Flamengo81]

9 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

It's still a Batman movie. Even as a reboot, the reviews were good and Pattinson is great casting. Yeah, it improves potential for sequel but I think 400m could/should(?) have been achievable. And it's going to finish under 800m worldwide, no?

Pattinson is indeed a great casting, but it arguably did more damage to the box office than helped it. Many people mostly the GA really disliked his casting because of all the "Twilight boy" stigma that he has (had?). For sure he now has proved almost everyone wrong, but this will only play a big part in the sequel and this for sure hurted this one. Also we don't know the impact of the HBO Max 45 days release yet. I personally think this won't affect much of the late legs, but we don't know how many people waited to see it home because of that stupid early announcement, I think that is a factor that is still a question mark. Also we cannot ignore the damage that BvS and Justice League did to Batman brand, every character or franchise suffers from badly received previous movies and needs to get the goodwill back, the was the same thing with TDK trilogy after Batman & Robin. I think 375M domestic and 775M worldwide without Russia and with China and South Korea really damaged is still pretty solid given that this movie also had all the other things going against it, I also think the sequels have A LOT of room to grow from now on, specially with the expanded universe with HBO Max.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

2 minutes ago, Flamengo81 said:

Pattinson is indeed a great casting, but it arguably did more damage to the box office than helped it.

No it didn't lol