Weekend Thread - 9/12-11/12

[Eric Prime]

 

[cookie]

 

[filmlover]

13 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Empire of Light was the smallest crowd I've seen for an opening night/new release while here in NYC. It was the 7pm show at the premiere AMC and it basically looked like a bus stop. These numbers are going to be tragic

It's expanding to 600-700 theaters in two weeks according to Deadline. Could scale back though.

 

11 minutes ago, Eric Dielman said:

So...the Christmas box office. Place your bets.

 

Avatar: 850M
Puss in Boots: 130M

I Wanna Dance: 75M

Babylon: 35M

About where I'm at too as well (although I could see Babylon slightly overperforming since sales are looking decent near me so far). I thought after Strange World bombed Puss in Boots would match Sing 2's performance last year (or the first Puss in Boots' total), but it honestly feels like the Super Mario Bros Movie (which was supposed to open this Christmas at one point) has a lot more buzz despite being four months away than this does two weeks before release. My hopes for the Whitney movie are fading by the day.

[Cooper Legion]

Just now, cookie said:

 

Set to overtake is a bit much, SW will be ahead 1.5M ish after the weekend off of a bigger 7day. Menu could squeak it out with better holds over xmas though.

[JustLurking]

2 minutes ago, Legion By Night said:

Set to overtake is a bit much, SW will be ahead 1.5M ish after the weekend off of a bigger 7day. Menu could squeak it out with better holds over xmas though.

Strange World is going to d+ on christmas eve so it won't really be that hard to close that gap over the holidays for Menu.

[Cooper Legion]

Great hold for Adam, lol

[Eric Prime]

Just now, JustLurking said:

Strange World is going to d+ on christmas eve so it won't really be that hard to close that gap over the holidays for Menu.

It's not going on Christmas Eve. There's been no announcement for that made by Disney in any of their press releases and Daddy Iger doesn't do the whole "straight to Disney+" thing.

[JustLurking]

Just now, Eric Dielman said:

It's not going on Christmas Eve. There's been no announcement for that made by Disney in any of their press releases and Daddy Iger doesn't do the whole "straight to Disney+" thing.

Wait what, hasn't there? I could've sworn I saw this somewhere, I guess it was bullshit then. MB.

[filmlover]

1 minute ago, Legion By Night said:

Great hold for Adam, lol

"We had the best hold of all movies on a weekend where nothing exciting came out. A big hit! Here's to the fans who made it happen." - Dwayne Johnson tomorrow afternoon

[Maggie]

5 minutes ago, filmlover said:

My hopes for the Whitney movie are fading by the day.

Oh no! I want it to do good. She's an icon and the movie looks good.

[Cooper Legion]

Just now, filmlover said:

"We had the best hold of all movies on a weekend where nothing exciting came out. A big hit! Here's to the fans who made it happen." - Dwayne Johnson tomorrow afternoon

People just tryna get one last glimpse of the Snyderverse while they can 

[cookie]

1 minute ago, JustLurking said:

Wait what, hasn't there? I could've sworn I saw this somewhere, I guess it was bullshit then. MB.

Deadline postulated about it a couple of weeks back (which is probably where the "news" came from) but there was never any announcement from Disney.

[GOGODanca]

1 minute ago, filmlover said:

"We had the best hold of all movies on a weekend where nothing exciting came out. A big hit! Here's to the fans who made it happen." - Dwayne Johnson tomorrow afternoon

"Just talked to our financiers and due to our incredible performance this weekend, our profit margin has risen to a $61-83m range"

[GOGODanca]

https://deadline.com/2022/12/box-office-avatar-way-of-water-wakanda-forever-second-lowest-1235195382/

 

 

[Eric Prime]

Felt like the Whitney movie would cross 100M easily a while back, but Sony’s really not pushing this as much as they should. Even if the movie turns out bad, which is probably the case, nobody’s gonna care. Even the worst of these biopics succeed on the novelty of hearing the songs you love and the performances you remember recreated on the big screen in surround sound. Like Elvis had a Cannes premiere, tie-in songs by Doja Cat and Eminem, constant advertisements on TV and social media, a 20/20 TV special about the movie, and so on. I Wanna Dance has had two trailers, a poster, and that’s about it. Feels weird to do so little for a movie about one of the biggest female music artists in history. I doubt it's that awful where they still can't sell the movie just on nostalgia.

[cookie]

 

Oof.

[Eric Prime]

 

[filmlover]

2 minutes ago, Eric Dielman said:

Felt like the Whitney movie would cross 100M easily a while back, but Sony’s really not pushing this as much as they should. Even if the movie turns out bad, which is probably the case, nobody’s gonna care. Even the worst of these biopics succeed on the novelty of hearing the songs you love and the performances you remember recreated on the big screen in surround sound. Like Elvis had a Cannes premiere, tie-in songs by Doja Cat and Eminem, constant advertisements on TV and social media, a 20/20 TV special about the movie, and so on. I Wanna Dance has had two trailers, a poster, and that’s about it. Feels weird to do so little for a movie about one of the biggest female music artists in history. I doubt it's that awful where they still can't sell the movie just on nostalgia.

Honestly, I mentioned it before, but I think the overall lack of enthusiasm surrounding the movie is because Whitney still looms pretty large in pop culture in general. Her premature death was "only" over a decade ago, and since then we've had documentaries, music that wasn't released before, even a Lifetime biopic, and more. That's a lot of content to pump out in a short amount of time. Also probably doesn't help that she led a really difficult life that doesn't make for the most uplifting of biopics and endured a downward spiral that played out in front of the whole world, all of which wasn't that long ago (and that her demons were also often mocked in the media/pop culture and weren't taken especially seriously until it was too late), and even if the movie (maybe, maybe not) doesn't depict the infamous Diane Sawyer interview ("Crack is whack!") or Being Bobby Brown or the embarrassing live performances that had many questioning the state of her well-being, a lot of people probably just don't want to feel bad about it all over again.

[Eric Prime]

Just now, filmlover said:

Honestly, I mentioned it before, but I think the overall lack of enthusiasm surrounding the movie is because Whitney still looms pretty large in pop culture in general. Her premature death was "only" over a decade ago, and since then we've had documentaries, music that wasn't released before, even a Lifetime biopic, and more. That's a lot of content to pump out in a short amount of time. Also probably doesn't help that she led a really difficult life that doesn't make for the most uplifting of biopics and endured a downward spiral that played out in front of the whole world, all of which wasn't that long ago (and that her demons were also often mocked in the media/pop culture and weren't taken especially seriously until it was too late), and even if the movie (maybe, maybe not) doesn't depict the infamous Diane Sawyer interview ("Crack is whack!") or Being Bobby Brown or the embarrassing live performances that had many questioning the state of her well-being, a lot of people probably just don't want to feel bad about it all over again.

Do agree with most of this, but I also think the other big issue is that the biggest of these biopics typically had the person or people associated with them still being huge A-listers who were pushing the movie whenever they could. Ice Cube and Dr. Dre are still major players in Hollywood and music and were on the front lines pushing Straight Outta Compton. Elton John was also self-promoting his own movie like crazy and Priscilla Presley’s one of the major reasons Elvis is still a big name today. Queen was also an important part of the production and promotion for Bohemian Rhapsody and Adam Lambert’s helped make Queen popular and hip for today’s generations. There’s nobody on their level doing the same for Whitney so it's harder for it to be pushed and promoted out there IMO.

[Eric Prime]