WEEKEND THREAD: No one went to the Danger Zone :( 145M JWD, 51.8M TGM, EEAAO reaches 61 DOM

[M37]

5 minutes ago, Legion and Thunder said:

To some extent I would say that the secular trend from 2002-2019 was fewer people higher prices, and covid may have accelerated that a little. But a modest admit fall in 4 years is still a modest admit fall in 4 years — not good.

And my point is, if LY, Elvis, Black Phone, Minions, and Thor L&Y all open softer than what one might expect in a vacuum/per comps - and that’s a distinct possibility IMO - then that JWD admit drop-off may be less about anything it did or didn’t do (not claiming reviews didn’t matter at all)

 

Call it a shirking audience, or just that the threshold of “worth it” has been raised, and it takes more to generate an equivalent admit total

[XXRDJisDoctorDoom]

A weekend thread with in-depth analysis and constructive discussion....
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Sacrilege!!

 

 

[M37]

Just now, ZurgXXR said:

A weekend thread with in-depth analysis and constructive discussion....
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Sacrilege!!

 

 

[Cooper Legion]

1 minute ago, M37 said:

Keep it up, @Brainbug the Dinosaur needs more fudge for 150

[Cooper Legion]

8 minutes ago, M37 said:

And my point is, if LY, Elvis, Black Phone, Minions, and Thor L&Y all open softer than what one might expect in a vacuum/per comps - and that’s a distinct possibility IMO - then that JWD admit drop-off may be less about anything it did or didn’t do (not claiming reviews didn’t matter at all)

I think that’s fair — if these all do open soft I will definitely be open to revisiting the market baseline, so to speak.   
 

LY &Minions are kids animation though, which is the one area where I already find “permanent significant covid hit” reasonably compelling. And Elvis+Phone are in a different weight class. My eyes are mostly on 100+M openers over the next 12 months or so.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Legion and Thunder

[Menor the Destroyer]

11 minutes ago, M37 said:

And my point is, if LY, Elvis, Black Phone, Minions, and Thor L&Y all open softer than what one might expect in a vacuum/per comps - and that’s a distinct possibility IMO - then that JWD admit drop-off may be less about anything it did or didn’t do (not claiming reviews didn’t matter at all)

 

Call it a shirking audience, or just that the threshold of “worth it” has been raised, and it takes more to generate an equivalent admit total

Depends on reviews/reception/buzz for me. If we consistently see blockbusters with strong buzz opening to less than what they should (does not apply to Strange or JWD really), then I will agree that Covid has shrunk the audience base for all movies. Right now, I feel like it affects mostly smaller movies. 

 

And yeah you can say comparing OWs controls for the effect of buzz, but I think with the prevalence of social media nowadays, it spreads faster than ever and can have effects much more quickly than before. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[Gopher]

It's been six years since we've had a box office weekend with five films pulling over 20 million (Star Trek Beyond opening weekend, alongside Secret Life of Pets, Lights Out, Ice Age 5 and Ghostbusters '16). Looking exceedingly likely that we'll be able to repeat that over June 24-26 (Lightyear, Jurassic, Elvis, Top Gun, Black Phone). 

[XXRDJisDoctorDoom]

2 minutes ago, Gopher said:

It's been six years since we've had a box office weekend with five films pulling over 20 million (Star Trek Beyond opening weekend, alongside Secret Life of Pets, Lights Out, Ice Age 5 and Ghostbusters '16). Looking exceedingly likely that we'll be able to repeat that over June 24-26 (Lightyear, Jurassic, Elvis, Top Gun, Black Phone). 

 

Black Phone isn't doing it unless there's a major change in the tracking. Current data (while limited) is pointing to about $1M in previews. It's not doing 20x previews. 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

There is also the lack of event novelty for non "major" IPs or general disinterest in other genres. 

 

Horror can consistently pull off event status due to the mix of franchises and high-concept original releases. But look at comedy, for example. There's no Hangovers anymore, Kevin Hart has gone to Netflix. Comedy shows they can become big deals (Ted, Crazy Rich Asians, Bros has potential) or especially when mixed with superhero like Deadpool.

 

My generation had Carrey, Sandler, and Ferrell films every year. In 2000, What Women Want made over 180million domestic. 

[Grebacio]

[M37]

16 minutes ago, M37 said:

… or just that the threshold of “worth it” has been raised, and it takes more to generate an equivalent admit total

As I stew on it, the more I think this is the better description of the underlying dynamic. Part COVID & steaming changing behaviors, part higher ATP & inflation more generally, part faster spread of WOM/review info, and not impacting equally for all genres & demos 

 

The tentpoles can weather that effect better, having built up a large enough fan base & goodwill, but the those will a lower floor really have a steeper uphill climb. Even “good” reviews/WOM may not move enough people over the “worth it” threshold

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Elvis is interesting because that's a movie that should prove what the rhythm is exactly of people casually going back to the movies, especially the adult demo. It at least should not open under 30

[cdsacken]

2 hours ago, LegendaryBen said:

I may not agree with what you said because 600 is still possible and Lightyear is more likely to kill JWD (since it will split premium screens with them) than killing TGM. It's not that 600 is a 0% chance. However, I respect your opinion. I wish the best for Lightyear and TGM. BTW, I like your profile picture.

Well thank you that was my first dog Lacy A beautiful ridiculous Shiba Inu that we took the England with us and she had her own pet passport (not kidding lol) 

 

She died a couple years ago when we moved back to America.

I really should update it but I miss that dog

[cdsacken]

2 hours ago, M37 said:

It wasn’t the competition so much as the loss of PLF, which is a one time hit to grossing potential following an enormous WOM second weekend push, run/drops should stabilize after this week. Doesn’t matter what “expectations” were when it’s making $90 in second weekend 

 

If it tracks after Sun like Aladdin - they both had ~65%/35% weekend/day split for prior week - then would expect TG2 to make ~5x this weekend’s gross for remainder of run. So expected total gross is $343 + 6x (this weekend), and a $50M weekend would suggest $643M total. Add in in $6M more for every $1M above $50 for this weekend, plus potentially an IMAX re-release, and $650 is quite possible 

Not a shit chance in hell

 

It will be lucky to sniff 600

[Mulder]

6 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

There is also the lack of event novelty for non "major" IPs or general disinterest in other genres. 

 

Horror can consistently pull off event status due to the mix of franchises and high-concept original releases. But look at comedy, for example. There's no Hangovers anymore, Kevin Hart has gone to Netflix. Comedy shows they can become big deals (Ted, Crazy Rich Asians, Bros has potential) or especially when mixed with superhero like Deadpool.

 

My generation had Carrey, Sandler, and Ferrell films every year. In 2000, What Women Want made over 180million domestic. 

The absolute death of comedies is insane to me. They've been in such a bad spot for so long now. Feels like Lost City is one of the strongest ones in like....ages box office wise.

[Ronin46]

7 minutes ago, cdsacken said:

Not a shit chance in hell

 

It will be lucky to sniff 600

 Strongly disagree. I think its 50/50 (at worst) it gets to 600.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

4 minutes ago, Mulder said:

The absolute death of comedies is insane to me. They've been in such a bad spot for so long now. Feels like Lost City is one of the strongest ones in like....ages box office wise.

It's strange. It's like they don't receive benefit of a doubt the way other genres do, especially horror. There's a dozen terrible horror movies per year, yet that's still an overall consistent genre. But whenever there's a bad comedy that stinks... the perception is very tough to shake, especially for actors. Melissa McCarthy was a huge draw and suddenly the audience stopped turning out..and frankly, it's not as if her last theatrical comedies were any worse than, like, Identity Thief. And I guess another aspect is the rise of streaming will make anything not superficially cinematic less appealing for a theatrical experience which is funny because comedies were still major hits even during the primetime days of Seinfeld or Friends on TV

[Ethan Hunt]

Saw Top Gun Maverick again. Jesus is it good

[grim22]

3 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

It's strange. It's like they don't receive benefit of a doubt the way other genres do, especially horror. There's a dozen terrible horror movies per year, yet that's still an overall consistent genre. But whenever there's a bad comedy that stinks... the perception is very tough to shake, especially for actors. Melissa McCarthy was a huge draw and suddenly the audience stopped turning out..and frankly, it's not as if her last theatrical comedies were any worse than, like, Identity Thief. And I guess another aspect is the rise of streaming will make anything not superficially cinematic less appealing for a theatrical experience which is funny because comedies were still major hits even during the primetime days of Seinfeld or Friends on TV

Also an issue for comedies is the same as for romcoms - no international appeal because a lot of jokes don't travel well, and lack of franchise potential.

 

When the home video market was doing well that didn't matter for comedies and romcoms, but the HV market collapsing and becoming streaming instead meant a big revenue source was blocked off for those genres and not replaced by anything else as OS and franchise issues remained.

[M37]

1 minute ago, Mulder said:

The absolute death of comedies is insane to me. They've been in such a bad spot for so long now. Feels like Lost City is one of the strongest ones in like....ages box office wise.

Horror and comedy were great for studios because they were cheap to produce (unless you had to pay premium  for name/talent) with chance of striking gold 

 

… but they’re also cheap for streaming that needs to constantly produce new content. Now comedy is less of its own genre, but usually folded into something else, like action/buddy comedy (Jump Street, Jumanji, etc), family, or even drama.  The guy centric crazy/raunchy comedy is mostly gone; Pitch Perfect is probably the closest thing to a comedy franchise we’ve had in like 6-7 years, or Bad Moms, unless you want to count Jackass