May 13-15 Weekend Thread | 67.4% drop for Doctor Strange 2

[DlAMONDZ]

Thought Eternals was just a blip but it looks like Marvel’s “plot armor” is slowly deteriorating right before our eyes

 

Luckily for them the competition (DC) is stuck in a perpetual cycle of ineptitude that it doesn’t even matter 

[JohnnyGossamer]

PVOD Day and Date...

Black Widow 80.4/183.5 - 2.28

Suicide Squad 26.2/55.8 - 2.13

 

Exclusive to theaters...

Shang Chi 75.3/224.5 - 2.98

Venom 90.0/213.5 - 2.37

Eternals 71.3/164.9 - 2.31

Spider-man 260.1/804.7 - 3.09

Batman 134.0/369.2 - 2.76

Morbius 39.0/72.7 - 1.86

Doctor Strange 187.4/??? - ??? 

Thor ???/??? - ???

 

I still think Strange will stabilize just enough for something like 2.0 multi. Thor will be interesting. I think he and the Guardians are at or close to peak popularity. Each of their last films (Thor 122.7/315.1-2.57 & Guardians 146.5/389.8-2.66 v. Strange 85.1/232.6-2.73) grossed considerably more than the last Strange film and Strange, Thor and Guardians would all get a post Infinity War/Endgame boost. That said, it's a Thor film and not a Guardians film so the starting point is a bit lower (315.1). Even that said, with summer days and little/no competition from a true mega-blockbuster in July and August, I'd expect a 2.5 OW DOM multi as pretty much the floor. It's hard for me to imagine it not making at least 100M =/- than Thor 3. With that, I'd be pretty shocked if Thor 4 doesn't go over 400M+ DOM.

 

Regarding legs for Marvel Studios, Sony and WB... Strange is certainly frontloaded but the other MCU hasn't been horrifically frontloaded. 2.3ish for BW and E similar to Sony's Venom. Not great but not horrible. Spider-man and Shang Chi had nice legs, especially Spider-man given the OW DOM being #2 all-time. While not quite as impressive as SC or NWH, Batman had nice legs too for sure. With all that, until we see just how frontloaded Thor 4 is, I can't really say MCU stuff getting much more frontloaded just yet especially when other superhero films outside of MCU have all been frontloaded on average up until Strange 2.

[Mulder]

I just think the GA's not digging MoM as much. NWH had really good legs during a really bad phase of the pandemic with a much bigger opening, and I think it had to do with it giving people what they wanted. If that makes for a better movie or not...that's up for debate and discussion.

[JohnnyGossamer]

1 minute ago, Mulder said:

I just think the GA's not digging MoM as much. NWH had really good legs during a really bad phase of the pandemic with a much bigger opening, and I think it had to do with it giving people what they wanted. If that makes for a better movie or not...that's up for debate and discussion.

Yup. Shang Chi played is safer than say Eternals and had really good legs (2.98) during the Delta spike too. Batman certainly played it much safer than Suicide Squad and had the better legs of the two for WB. I understand the streaming with HBOMax with Suicide Squad but it was never going to have the 2.76 of Batman. It's weirder, it's more cynical, it's much more violent, etc.

[Mulder]

Just now, JohnnyGossamer said:

Yup. Shang Chi played is safer than say Eternals and had really good legs (2.98) during the Delta spike too. Batman certainly played it much safer than Suicide Squad and had the better legs of the two for WB. I understand the streaming with HBOMax with Suicide Squad but it was never going to have the 2.76 of Batman. It's weirder, it's more cynical, it's much more violent, etc.

Yeah I think fans and film buffs can enjoy the weirder more experimental stuff, I really loved TSS despite being meh on Eternals & MoM, but the GA's really just looking for stuff that gives them what they think the trailers promise. Shang-Chi promised an MCU version of Martial Arts films and it delivered. Spider-Man: No Way Home promised a cameofest-filled tribute to the past Spider-Man films and it delivered. The Batman promised a Nolan-lite take on Batman and it delivered. 

[Brainbug]

7 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I just think the GA's not digging MoM as much. NWH had really good legs during a really bad phase of the pandemic with a much bigger opening, and I think it had to do with it giving people what they wanted. If that makes for a better movie or not...that's up for debate and discussion.

 

While i loved MoM for beeing - well, beeing as much of a Sam Raimi-"horror" movie a MCU movie could ever become - i can totally see why a big portion of the GA woundt like that.

 

Marvel movies - evn though since 2019 more films were emotionally relatively heavy - still stand for funny, entertaining and more often than not lighthearted content the whole family can enjoy. Multiverse of Madness isnt really like that for a big portion of its runtime.

[Mulder]

28 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

While i loved MoM for beeing - well, beeing as much of a Sam Raimi-"horror" movie a MCU movie could ever become - i can totally see why a big portion of the GA woundt like that.

 

Marvel movies - evn though since 2019 more films were emotionally relatively heavy - still stand for funny, entertaining and more often than not lighthearted content the whole family can enjoy. Multiverse of Madness isnt really like that for a big portion of its runtime.

Anecdotal but my dad was kind of considering seeing it with my younger brothers but decided not to after I filled him in on the stuff in it. I kind of wonder how many people had that experience.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Mulder

[Wormow]

Feige didn't interfere enough with this movie. 

[JohnnyGossamer]

Haha. Seems that way given how frontloaded it is... I'd have to imagine though it will be interesting with MCU directors Waititi, Gunn and Reed likely having a ton of leeway on what they do with Thor, Guardians and Ant-Man given each has done at least one successful or even enormously successful MCU flick already. Especially Waititi and Gunn... I imagine they'll have more freedom to essentially do in what they want... Probably about the same level Gunn had with his Suicide Squad. I mean, these obviously won't be rated R but I think you get what I mean... 

[JohnnyGossamer]

38 minutes ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

 

While i loved MoM for beeing - well, beeing as much of a Sam Raimi-"horror" movie a MCU movie could ever become - i can totally see why a big portion of the GA woundt like that.

 

Marvel movies - evn though since 2019 more films were emotionally relatively heavy - still stand for funny, entertaining and more often than not lighthearted content the whole family can enjoy. Multiverse of Madness isnt really like that for a big portion of its runtime.

What would be the last true huge movies at the box office that we were brazenly weird with the directors stamp all over the final product? Guess you could say Guardians but I'd say much more so Dead Man's Chest and At World's End?

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

People are making a lot of excuses for the big drop. And just comparing this to Doctor Strange (2016) is a bit disingenuous given how it was marketed as a multiverse movie following NWH and has an additional lead character who is the most popular female character in the entire MCU whose show was one of Disney‘s first big hits for Disney+

[Brainbug]

8 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

What would be the last true huge movies at the box office that we were brazenly weird with the directors stamp all over the final product? Guess you could say Guardians but I'd say much more so Dead Man's Chest and At World's End?

 

Huge movies since 2006 that were clearly the children of their directors (imo) and where that style of filmmaking didnt lead to bad legs:

 

Like you said, the Pirates first two sequels and the two Guardians movies. Would add Ragnarok as well since that is 100% a Taika Waititi movie.

 

The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises as true Nolan Batman films. Less "weird" and more the technical/methodical stamp of his films. 

 

Not that many actually. Most really giant movies (Avengers/Star Wars sequels/Jurassic World etc) dont have that many aspects in them that would signal that a certain director must be the one that stood behind the camera. Unlike films like DMC or AWE, where its clear as day that they are Gore Verbinski movies.

 

Avatar (2009) is very debatable as well imo. But while everyone knows its a James Cameron movie, his films actually are very different from one another (someone who doesnt know films that much would probably say Terminator 2, Titanic and Avatar are 3 films from 3 different directors), rather Cameron films each have a "style" of their own.

[M37]

2 hours ago, Taruseth said:

NWH had good later legs, the over all multi (3.09x) is closer to TLJ (2.82x) and TRoS (2.90) than TFA though (3.78x).

 

But Thor will probably only end up with a 2.3-2.4, because of Thursday slowly becoming the real opening day.

You’re correct in the math, though to me, 3.09x in a still raging pandemic - with a smaller audience pool that limits grosses especially past OW rush - is much further from 2.82/2.90 than it looks on paper. It’s only been over the last few months that films were starting to a manage a 3x consistently (Uncharted, Dog, Lost City, Batman, etc), which is also when those late legs for NWH kicked in 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Legion Again]

3 hours ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

One reason (beyond all the others weve discussed already) for Stranges frontloading could maybe be the ridiculous amount of showtimes that this movie has/had, especially on OW. When you have showings on 2 pm, 2:15 pm, 2:30 pm, 2:45 pm etc. the whole day then truly everyone who wants to see it could do so in the first 4 to 5 Days.

DS2 didn’t open high enough for this to be a factor

[Legion Again]

3.1 is pretty poor legs for Xmas but it’s hard to judge holistically given that we had the biggest spike ever by a huge margin during its first 4 weeks essentially.

[JohnnyGossamer]

4 minutes ago, ListenHunnyUrOver said:

People are making a lot of excuses for the big drop. And just comparing this to Doctor Strange (2016) is a bit disingenuous given how it was marketed as a multiverse movie following NWH and has an additional lead character who is the most popular female character in the entire MCU whose show was one of Disney‘s first big hits for Disney+

Meh. I'm not certain she's the most popular female character. I imagine pretty compelling arguments can be made for Captain Marvel and Black Widow being more popular. It's certainly not the level of Thor 3 adding Hulk and it showed in the DOM total with it jumping from 206 to 315. While different, it's not completely different than Batman having Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, Falcone and a Joker cameo. That's a lot of juice for both. Spidey was super duper juiced obviously as well with nostalgia and crossover characters. Seems pretty common nowadays. We'll see it again with the Guardians at least in some of the new Thor too. Actually, you could argue that Strange and Wanda have the least combined popularity as characters than any of the other superhero films I just mentioned.

[eddyxx]

1 hour ago, DlAMONDZ said:

Thought Eternals was just a blip but it looks like Marvel’s “plot armor” is slowly deteriorating right before our eyes

 

Luckily for them the competition (DC) is stuck in a perpetual cycle of ineptitude that it doesn’t even matter 

Uh oh you know what that means (takes a breath and shields himself from a onslaught of superhero fatigue articles)

[eddyxx]

1 hour ago, Mulder said:

Yeah I think fans and film buffs can enjoy the weirder more experimental stuff, I really loved TSS despite being meh on Eternals & MoM, but the GA's really just looking for stuff that gives them what they think the trailers promise. Shang-Chi promised an MCU version of Martial Arts films and it delivered. Spider-Man: No Way Home promised a cameofest-filled tribute to the past Spider-Man films and it delivered. The Batman promised a Nolan-lite take on Batman and it delivered. 

Nolan lite? The Batman is way more darker than Nolan’s films.

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

10 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

Meh. I'm not certain she's the most popular female character. I imagine pretty compelling arguments can be made for Captain Marvel and Black Widow being more popular. It's certainly not the level of Thor 3 adding Hulk and it showed in the DOM total with it jumping from 206 to 315. While different, it's not completely different than Batman having Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, Falcone and a Joker cameo. That's a lot of juice for both. Spidey was super duper juiced obviously as well with nostalgia and crossover characters. Seems pretty common nowadays. We'll see it again with the Guardians at least in some of the new Thor too. Actually, you could argue that Strange and Wanda have the least combined popularity as characters than any of the other superhero films I just mentioned.

Wanda is definitely the most popular female MCU character in 2022. Maybe The Marvels could propel Captain Marvel, but I’d say that Black Widow is less popular now that phase 4 isn’t focusing on her as much. 

[Brainbug]

10 minutes ago, eddyxx said:

Uh oh you know what that means (takes a breath and shields himself from a onslaught of superhero fatigue articles)

 

Remember when TASM2 opened to just over 90M in 2014 and a thousand articles popped up and declared superhero fatigue to be a thing?

 

Still funny.