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

[ringedmortality]

I wasn’t into video games because I was really bad at them. 

[M37]

23 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Yes, Avatar was huge but you know what else was huge in 2009? The Hangover (6th domestic), The Blind Side (8th domestic), The Proposal made 163m domestically and over 300 worldwide total, Mall Cop made 146m domestically and 183 worldwide on a 26m budget. 

And Sherlock Holmes. Please don’t remind me of Christmas 2009 - the absolute worst nightmare 

 

Did you know that Week (12/25-12/31/09) is still the second highest grossing DOM F-Th week of all time ($476.1), behind only TFA Christmas week ($490.6), once Thursday previews are removed - Endgame was “only” $466

[Lestranger]

1 hour 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.

 

Many articles has been written about the death of comedies at the box office, and it is an objective fact they collapsed at the box office. I think they were at 6% market share in 2019, down from 20% in 2008. The one factor that never seems to get mentioned is talent. 2003-2008 was the golden age of improv comedy movies. It was really an amazing moment. I remember seeing Old School, Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad all in the theaters. I have never seen people laugh that hard in my life. It was just one massive hit after another, all insanely hilarious, especially seeing it in a packed theater. That scene died out around 2008-9. The Hangover was basically a poor man's copy of that era, and that series really killed it. 

Sure, the box office is way more international now. But I have a hard time believing a comedy can't be made for like 20 million and hit 100 million at box office, just domestically. It feels like the industry soured on comedies after the Hangover died out and are not really developing any new talent within the genre. It takes a force of nature to get a movie made, and there just isn't any interest from the industry to do comedies any more. It feels more like inertia than anything else.

.

 

 

 

[titanic2187]

Regardless how they end, Both DS2 and JWD come below my expectation. I have both movies making 450m-475m, but they fall short, although still at the reasonable range. Thankfully, we have TGM that is going to overperform by at least 300m to cover the deficit. 
 

this is why I keep emphasising the important of surprise hit. Both EEAO and TBG contribute about 100m of surplus that offset the underperformance of FB3 and morbius. 
 

No every movie that we expect to be hit will hit the mark and surprise hit must be here to be smoothen the market cycle.

[grim22]

19 minutes ago, Lestranger said:

 

Many articles has been written about the death of comedies at the box office, and it is an objective fact they collapsed at the box office. I think they were at 6% market share in 2019, down from 20% in 2008. The one factor that never seems to get mentioned is talent. 2003-2008 was the golden age of improv comedy movies. It was really an amazing moment. I remember seeing Old School, Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad all in the theaters. I have never seen people laugh that hard in my life. It was just one massive hit after another, all insanely hilarious, especially seeing it in a packed theater. That scene died out around 2008-9. The Hangover was basically a poor man's copy of that era, and that series really killed it. 

Sure, the box office is way more international now. But I have a hard time believing a comedy can't be made for like 20 million and hit 100 million at box office, just domestically. It feels like the industry soured on comedies after the Hangover died out and are not really developing any new talent within the genre. It takes a force of nature to get a movie made, and there just isn't any interest from the industry to do comedies any more. It feels more like inertia than anything else.

.

 

 

 

The years a lot of potential stars lost being on SNL is definitely another factor. Previously the moment a comedy star on SNL got hot, either Lorne Michaels made a movie vehicle for them or they left to pursue a movie career. That pipeline got entirely cut off in the late 00s it feels like.

 

In recent years, Kate McKinnon came closest to genuinely breaking out as a comedy star in movies but she remained with SNL for like 6+ additional seasons after what should have been her breakout 2016. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by grim22

[Eric is Quiet]

The death of comedy movies is weird, because like...they seem like easy candidates for movies to see with a crowd. It's fun to go to comedy shows with tons of people laughing, laughter is contagious, etc. Why is that so uninteresting to people?

[Mulder]

I feel like comedy movies got this bad reputation in the early 2010s that killed them and they were never able to fully shake it.

[upriser7]

I wish there was a poll on how much % of Republicans and how much % of Democrats go to theaters often and how that % has changed over last 15-20 years. In general, I have observed lot of negativity towards Hollywood from RW media in last decade, they use it pretty well to rile up their base. Some times there is valid criticism but most of the times, they just spout some bs and people eat it up. All I am saying is I would not be surprised if most of the audience that have stopped coming to theaters now (when compared to 20 years back) are Republican leaning.

Edited June 12, 2022 by upriser7

[ringedmortality]

6 minutes ago, grim22 said:

The years a lot of potential stars lost being on SNL is definitely another factor. Previously the moment a comedy star on SNL got hot, either Lorne Michaels made a movie vehicle for them or they left to pursue a movie career. That pipeline got entirely cut off in the late 00s it feels like.

 

In recent years, Kate McKinnon came closest to genuinely breaking out as a comedy star in movies but she remained with SNL for like 6+ additional seasons after what should have been her breakout 2016. 

Doesn’t help that SNL lost its cultural relevance. They can still make the occasional star but they wouldn’t be the stars that SNL used to make. The Tina Fey era was probably the last time a relatively bankable star came out of it.

[YM!]

5 hours ago, CJohn said:

What are we expecting for Lightyear next weekend? I feel like nobody cares about it and an opening in the 60s wouldn't surprise me.

I’ve been feeling it could underperform for the past few months as hype seems to have died down for it. Reminded more of Lego Batman and Detective Pikachu in that the first trailer broke out only due to interest in the concept for memes/gifs/etc rather than genuine interest in seeing Lightyear, and add action heavy animation mostly being a hard sell sadly.

[Jiffy]

53 minutes ago, Bigscrubnus said:

You’d be shocked about how many zoomers don’t watch movies. 

This is what I'm saying. And I'd say there's a distinction between gaming (which demands user engagement/interaction and is a different experience) and having the cultural curiosity to be seeking out and consuming films regularly. The trend is definitely toward shorter form user-generated content, and Quibi's failed attempt at astro-turfing mimicry of that doesn't negate the that. Obviously it's nothing new, people were decrying the impact of TV when it came out as well, this will just be another step in that evolution, but there probably is valid concern for movie theatres to become a niche interest in the next generation or so. Hopefully not, though.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

11 minutes ago, grim22 said:

The years a lot of potential stars lost being on SNL is definitely another factor. Previously the moment a comedy star on SNL got hot, either Lorne Michaels made a movie vehicle for them or they left to pursue a movie career. That pipeline got entirely cut off in the late 00s it feels like.

 

In recent years, Kate McKinnon came closest to genuinely breaking out as a comedy star in movies but she remained with SNL for like 6+ additional seasons after what should have been her breakout 2016. 

I feel like Pete Davidson could have been a star. He kinda already is! Somehow! He was on this path. King of Staten Island was clearly established to be his Trainwreck, Knocked Up but... pandemic happened.

[grim22]

8 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I feel like comedy movies got this bad reputation in the early 2010s that killed them and they were never able to fully shake it.

 

 

[Cap]

13 minutes ago, Eric the Last Dinosaur said:

The death of comedy movies is weird, because like...they seem like easy candidates for movies to see with a crowd. It's fun to go to comedy shows with tons of people laughing, laughter is contagious, etc. Why is that so uninteresting to people?

Because peoples’ opinions of what’s funny and is not funny sometimes are radically different, and not all humor is inclusive or… Funny. So I think a lot of the broad stroke comedies of the pass just don’t play anymore. 

[ringedmortality]

1 minute ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

I feel like Pete Davidson could have been a star. He kinda already is! Somehow! He was on this path. King of Staten Island was clearly established to be his Trainwreck, Knocked Up but... pandemic happened.

King of Staten Island wasnt as good as those films though. Honestly the pandemic probably saved Pete the embarrassment of having a box office bomb.

[DAR]

SNL’s biggest issue at least right now is it’s cast is way too big for anyone to really standout.  Plus it’s not really that funny anymore.

[Mulder]

2 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

 

Literally this or just that they were cringy and unfunny.

[grey ghost]

1 hour ago, ringedmortality said:

Just to add on here. I went to high school in the mid-2010s. I was the only one to like movies, everyone else always talked about video games and/or stuff they saw on social media like Vine. I couldn’t really talk to anyone about non-CBM films, even blockbusters like the Planet of the Apes prequels. So that’s definitely been a thing for a while.

 

Jesus, I went to high school in the early 90's.

 

Back then there wasn't much internet.

 

There was one page of Entertainment Weekly where they had the box office top ten for the weekend.

 

And people crowded the theaters to watch Ving Rhames get raped by a cop.

 

And you know what? We liked it. 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

8 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I feel like comedy movies got this bad reputation in the early 2010s that killed them and they were never able to fully shake it.

Probably too many films trying to be raunchy following The Hangover and the volume of overall bad comedies like Jack and Jill lol. Got off-putting sorta how grossout comedy from The Farellys was out of fashion in early 2000s.

 

Like I said, comedy doesn't get that much of a benefit. But still.. even when there's a comedy flop, there's almost a hit immediate following it. Like Baywatch/Snatched/Rough Night/The House flopping and Girls Night hitting hard the following month. Stuber flopping July 2019 and Good Boys hitting in August 2019, etc.

 

It's also interesting that when people like Ferrell lost popularity, Kevin Hart and Melissa McCarthy gained popularity. Probably meaning, audiences grew tired of seeing the white manchild stereotype and wanted more diversity hence breakouts like the Hart/McCarthy movies, Crazy Rich Asians, etc

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

6 minutes ago, ringedmortality said:

King of Staten Island wasnt as good as those films though. Honestly the pandemic probably saved Pete the embarrassment of having a box office bomb.

Based on what? We don't know how audiences would have reacted lol. The reviews were typical Apatow level, it probably wouldn't do 120+ but I think a respectable summer hit