Halloween Weekend Thread (10/28-30) | Weekend Estimates: Adam 27.7, Paradise 10, Devil 7, Smile 5, Ends 3.8

[GOGODanca]

Ticket prices keep going up and the experience of watching drama's at the theaters compared to at home isn't nearly as drastic say as TGM or Black Panther, etc so why bother for many?

[filmlover]

FWIW it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison but I think the "even specialty audiences have become more selective" mentality extends beyond just movies. It feels like every other week I see an article talking about how sluggish Broadway sales have been since reopening after COVID or the announcement of the closing of award-winning productions. Of course, movies tickets are much less expensive than Broadway ones (even though movie tickets in NYC are quite expensive too - seeing a regular show of Black Adam at AMC Empire will set you back nearly $20), but still, times are tough across all art forms.

[Flopped]

 

[DAJK]

12 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

Babylon and A Man Called Otto are going to struggle to get to 20 million. I Wanna Dance With Somebody is going to make huge bank, but I consider those musical biopics closer to a superhero movie than the movies I'm talking about tbh. Ticket To Paradise is doing pretty good and will make like 60m but we used to get like four romcoms a year that did 120+, so that's less "great" and more people lowering the bar.

 

I'm always the voice of bleakness on these boards I feel like, but since 2016 whether movies or politics I have been right often. Far too often, sadly. Shit ain't good in the world, whether art or politics or public health or anything. I admire the person who said they have an upbeat perspective, but it's hard for me to feel that way.

Honestly as long as it's good, I could see A Man Called Otto pulling a The Upside in terms of box office.

[Ozymandias]

11 hours ago, datpepper said:

 

I do feel similar to this, and I think I'd also be classified as a "young hip liberal" (well, may not hip). As great as it is to order stuff off Amazon, I miss the days of hanging out at the mall with my friends. I'm sad that Netflix killed video stores as well, I have great memories of browsing the covers of the new releases with my family and deciding on a movie to watch that night. Used to love visiting book stores and comic shops too.

 

And of course, I say this as I'm making an online order right now. I hate convenience sometimes! 😩

 

Book stores aren't dead, no?  I go to Barnes & Noble quite a bit and there still seems to be good amount of traffic in there every time.  I don't think the e-book is ever going to kill physical books in the same way that streaming might kill theaters in the future.  There is just something inherently better about reading a real book instead of a computer screen, especially if its a good quality.

 

 

[Maggie]

Just now, DAJK said:

Honestly as long as it's good, I could see A Man Called Otto pulling a The Upside in terms of box office.

Agreed.

 

About Babylon, i see way above 20M, maybe even flirting with 100M or around that area

[CJohn]

2 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

I unanimously hear from my friends, almost all of whom are liberal but not to the degree I am, that movies are too political these days. That is a real, pervasive thought that is affecting box office, I gotta agree with that guy. Now, I think it's a dumb, ahistorical way of viewing art (of course movies have been political forever, even moreso than now) - but just because I think it's stupid doesn't mean I should ignore it as reality.

I am pretty sure 50% the reason Smile, Crawdads and The Black Phone had such a tremendous legs was because they had no political stuff in them.

[Mojoguy]

2 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

I unanimously hear from my friends, almost all of whom are liberal but not to the degree I am, that movies are too political these days. That is a real, pervasive thought that is affecting box office, I gotta agree with that guy. Now, I think it's a dumb, ahistorical way of viewing art (of course movies have been political forever, even moreso than now) - but just because I think it's stupid doesn't mean I should ignore it as reality.

TGM was considered woke free for many, several of the pilots were women and POC but it is never made a big deal of.  Conservatives really got behind the movie this summer, which likely contributed to its success and pushed the movie's boxoffice into the stratosphere.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Mojoguy

[Pinacolada]

12 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

CJohn is bang on with this. Power of the Dog got million of viewers, for Christ's sake. People are watching these movies, they're just watching them at home. We can't keep pretending like things haven't just moved permanently to streaming. People will show up for big budget special effect movies and horror movies, that's it.

 

The guy responding to me talking about how people enjoy these movies I don't like may be right, but there's plenty of evidence that the kind of movies I like ALSO used to make money. It's not mutually exclusive. Many of the best movies and best runs are mid-budget adult films, and those are about to be out of theaters by 2025.

 

I'm not talking about depressing movies like Till, either. True Grit made 171m in 2010. It would make 10m today. No Country for Old Men made a solid 75m. It would barely make 5m today. Slumdog Millionaire, which is a huge crowdpleaser, made 141 m back in the day. It would be a miracle if it hit double digits total now. That's my point. It's not just Till or Tar. It's all of these movies, across all genres and degrees of crowdpleasing.

I agree with most of your post I just want to respond to this part. 

 

Did it though? Is there any actual evidence that a sizable amount of people that watched the entire movie, enough to suggest that it would have done well if those same viewers saw it theatrically, and not just some Netflix scrollers clicking on the movie, and then peacing out after 10 minutes after they realized it wasn't a movie about Benedict Cumberbatch as a Cowboy killing minorities? 

 

My point is that I don't think there's actual evidence to suggest that. Same thing with The Last Duel. A movie I love, that bombed like fuck at the box office. But when it went to streaming and VOD everyone was like "Oh it seems the audience for this just stayed at home". Even Matt Damon said it to Ben Affleck when he interviewed him for that George Clooney movie, he said something along the lines of "Oh the movie tanked in theaters, but I just saw it's Number 1 on iTunes, so there is an audience for it it's just at home".

 

And my problem with this is that a new movie being #1 on iTunes for 1 fucking week doesn't mean it recuperated that $100m+ that it lost in theaters. I don't think there was evidence for TLD that it EXPLODED on streaming and VOD. It did fine, but I don't remember it doing crazy well on HBO MAX. It may have been in the "Popular" section for like a week to two. But any new movie that's out is going to be. That doesn't mean that enough people checked it out that would equate to big box office numbers. I'd bet it probably did like maybe $15m through rentals and bluray and stuff like that. Nothing crazy. Definitely not anywhere near the amount they lost on it. I just don't think people cared. 

 

And so my point is that, and it hurts to say this bc I love movies and I love seeing movies in theaters, I just don't think people care about movies that much anymore. People get their entertainment from Youtube, twitch, tiktok, twitter, and occasionally a bad Netflix show or something. I believe that people just don't have the curiosity to seek out movies like Power of the Dog, or The Last Duel, or After Yang, or Tar, West Side Story or whatever else that could be considered in any way niche (even though The Last Duel and WSS aren't really). We know about how the average person feels about seeing movies in theaters nowadays as we discuss it every week with these BO numbers, but I don't think THAT many are seeking them out once they come out at home either

 

Anyway, I just wanted to get this in before this thread closes for the week. I really appreciate your guys' input as I feel like it can perfectly put my thoughts into words that I don't have sometimes.  See y'all next weekend, hoping Banshees can have a nice expansion

Edited October 31, 2022 by Pinacolada

[Mojoguy]

2 hours ago, GOGODanca said:

Ticket prices keep going up and the experience of watching drama's at the theaters compared to at home isn't nearly as drastic say as TGM or Black Panther, etc so why bother for many?

Yeah, Strange World is completely screwed.

[Maggie]

Very rarely a movie that bombed in theaters explodes on streaming. I would guess The Last Duel didn't do too hot on streaming either. And I seriously doubt Power of the Dog did that hot on streaming.

 

Let's look at imdb ratings. Power of the Dog has a few more people rating it (172k), but not much more. That tells me it didn't do too hot on streaming either...on par with The Last Duel (154k) which is mostly forgotten

Edited October 31, 2022 by Maggie

[Lion Roar]

34 minutes ago, Mojoguy said:

Yeah, Strange World is completely screwed.

Strange World also look like some direct to video low quality garbage

[filmlover]

I see Strange World ending up with a total in the $80M range ala Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Yet another sci-fi financial misfire from the House of Mouse.

[Eric Burnett]

44 minutes ago, Pinacolada said:

Did it though? Is there any actual evidence that a sizable amount of people that watched the entire movie, enough to suggest that it would have done well if those same viewers saw it theatrically, and not just some Netflix scrollers clicking on the movie, and then peacing out after 10 minutes after they realized it wasn't a movie about Benedict Cumberbatch as a Cowboy killing minorities? 

 

Netflix's Top 10 archive says it was watched 27.2 million hours worldwide. That would translate to about...12.95 million views globally.

 

Using Nielsen's domestic numbers of 470 million minutes viewed on its opening weekend, that gives us 3.73 million views. Ticket prices of like $12.50, or whatever the ATP of 2021 was, would be about...46M. So...yeah, I guess Clay really is onto something, because that's probably what it would have made if given a 2018 theatrical release.

[SLAM!]

”Every high school in America should show Till.” -Moviegoer At My Theater Just Now

[Ozymandias]

2 hours ago, Pinacolada said:

I agree with most of your post I just want to respond to this part. 

 

Did it though? Is there any actual evidence that a sizable amount of people that watched the entire movie, enough to suggest that it would have done well if those same viewers saw it theatrically, and not just some Netflix scrollers clicking on the movie, and then peacing out after 10 minutes after they realized it wasn't a movie about Benedict Cumberbatch as a Cowboy killing minorities? 

 

My point is that I don't think there's actual evidence to suggest that. Same thing with The Last Duel. A movie I love, that bombed like fuck at the box office. But when it went to streaming and VOD everyone was like "Oh it seems the audience for this just stayed at home". Even Matt Damon said it to Ben Affleck when he interviewed him for that George Clooney movie, he said something along the lines of "Oh the movie tanked in theaters, but I just saw it's Number 1 on iTunes, so there is an audience for it it's just at home".

 

And my problem with this is that a new movie being #1 on iTunes for 1 fucking week doesn't mean it recuperated that $100m+ that it lost in theaters. I don't think there was evidence for TLD that it EXPLODED on streaming and VOD. It did fine, but I don't remember it doing crazy well on HBO MAX. It may have been in the "Popular" section for like a week to two. But any new movie that's out is going to be. That doesn't mean that enough people checked it out that would equate to big box office numbers. I'd bet it probably did like maybe $15m through rentals and bluray and stuff like that. Nothing crazy. Definitely not anywhere near the amount they lost on it. I just don't think people cared. 

 

And so my point is that, and it hurts to say this bc I love movies and I love seeing movies in theaters, I just don't think people care about movies that much anymore. People get their entertainment from Youtube, twitch, tiktok, twitter, and occasionally a bad Netflix show or something. I believe that people just don't have the curiosity to seek out movies like Power of the Dog, or The Last Duel, or After Yang, or Tar, West Side Story or whatever else that could be considered in any way niche (even though The Last Duel and WSS aren't really). We know about how the average person feels about seeing movies in theaters nowadays as we discuss it every week with these BO numbers, but I don't think THAT many are seeking them out once they come out at home either

 

Anyway, I just wanted to get this in before this thread closes for the week. I really appreciate your guys' input as I feel like it can perfectly put my thoughts into words that I don't have sometimes.  See y'all next weekend, hoping Banshees can have a nice expansion

I believe Last Duel was in the top 10 on apple for like 3 months and when it hit streaming/VOD it was constantly in my mentions.  
 

20-25 years ago The Last Duel would’ve been 100m domestic hit.  The audience for these types of films still exist, they just don’t go to the movies anymore.  I guarantee Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is going to bomb In theaters even if it gets good reviews.  Even The Northman didn’t do all that well.  It sucks, but it is what it is.

[Cap]

I won’t lie, everyone kept talking about the power of the dog and I was like are you talking about that  Tatum movie… And then I realized different movie 😂😂

[Eric Burnett]

14 minutes ago, Cap said:

I won’t lie, everyone kept talking about the power of the dog and I was like are you talking about that  Tatum movie… And then I realized different movie 😂😂

When I first heard the title, I assumed it was a Kung Fu Panda rip-off about a cartoon dog that knows karate or something. Not what I got!

[Ezen Baklattan]

13 hours ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

I think $25 million for Tár would have always been extremely optimistic. Blanchett may be getting Blue Jasmine-level reviews, but IMO Notes on a Scandal or Carol might be better reference points for potential audience appeal. Even the power of the Weinstein machine (they even tried pretending Carol was a thriller!) only got it to $12.7 million domestic back in 2015. Todd Field’s last movie, Little Children, made less than half that.  Best Actress buzz drives internet traffic and awards podcasts, but the box office track record on Actress frontrunners is much more mixed.

 

*

 

For me, the box office for Till is completely unsurprising. It was advertised well enough, but it's about the horrific death of a real-life child due to racial violence. Even if the violence is offscreen, people of several demographics will find that subject too traumatic/intense for a trip to the movies in 2022. There was also a miniseries about Emmett Till's mother earlier this year on ABC. For many, the story is already well known and too heavy to revisit, regardless of how well done this latest iteration may be.

 

 

 

IMO the big kicker will be how The Fabelmans and (to a lesser extent) Babylon perform - they're the only contenders of that adult prestige caliber that seem like they could have potential still. Stuff like She Said and The Whale aren't going to light the box office on fire.

[Ezen Baklattan]

5 hours ago, filmlover said:

FWIW it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison but I think the "even specialty audiences have become more selective" mentality extends beyond just movies. It feels like every other week I see an article talking about how sluggish Broadway sales have been since reopening after COVID or the announcement of the closing of award-winning productions. Of course, movies tickets are much less expensive than Broadway ones (even though movie tickets in NYC are quite expensive too - seeing a regular show of Black Adam at AMC Empire will set you back nearly $20), but still, times are tough across all art forms.

Also keep in mind that ticket prices for most shows are still balooning (even cheaper options like rush/lottery are quickly approaching $50) and they're usually in much bigger venues with more people.  A big reason why touristy mainstays are roughly able to stay afloat but more prestige faire is struggling.