A2 WEEKEND THREAD | 134.1M DOM OW | Thurs 17m / Fri 36m / Sat 45m / Sun 36m

[chaos]

Cameron - 3 out of 4  - of  all time world wide BO results .

 

Its inevitable 

[CaptNathanBrittles]

15 minutes ago, The Dark Alfred said:

 

Disagree. The HURT LOCKER was a beautifil film. It was at least original, wasn't a POCAHONTAS story. Think they got it right, AVATAR won deservedly art direction, cinematography and VSX.  I think even Jimbo happy that Bigelow got BD.

 

People talk about AVATAR being dated but those faux-documentary base scenes in THE HURT LOCKER are dated and TVish as hell.

[That One Girl]

there are 17 movies this year that will cross 100M domestic and at least 5 of them are being heavily considered for major awards at the Oscars. the Oscars are largely populist, they always have been, and the idea that they aren’t is patently absurd. even when the winners don’t gross that much it’s usually very easy to see why they would appeal to the majority of voters that, you know, actually saw them.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

Oh, and Spotlight was the best Best Picture winner for a while until Paraside. No idea what the problem with it is and I say that as someone who generally dislikes biopics.

 

All the films nominated that year were good, and Spotlight is as good as any. Very pickem-type year. Almost all would have been decent choices, sometimes it just works that way.

[JustLurking]

Just now, That One Guy said:

there are 17 movies this year that will cross 100M domestic and at least 5 of them are being heavily considered for major awards at the Oscars. the Oscars are largely populist, they always have been, and the idea that they aren’t is patently absurd. even when the winners don’t gross that much it’s usually very easy to see why they would appeal to the majority of voters that, you know, actually saw them.

Nominating popular films doesn't make you populist when the audience itself already knows they have no shot at winning.

[grey ghost]

 

Schindler's List 

Braveheart

Forrest Gump

[JohnnyGossamer]

2 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

In the last 30 years:

 

Unforgiven ***

Parasite

LOTR: ROTK*****

Schindler's List***

No Country for Old Men

Titanic*****

Argo

12 Years a Slave

The Departed

Gladiator*****

Spotlight

Hurt Locker

Shakespeare in Love***

Slumdog Millionaire

Green Book

Million Dollar Baby

A Beautiful Mind***

Birdman

The English Patient

Nomadland

The Shape of Water

The Artist

American Beauty***

CODA 

Braveheart*****

Crash

The King's Speech***

Forrest Gump*****

 

*****  = Was a blockbuster

 

*** = Wasn't a blockbuster but a very mainstream wide major release all the same 

I think more here should have your *** designation. Lotta people saw and talked about Crash, Green Book, Departed, Argo, No Country. Especially Argo and Departed. They each made 130M+ DOM.

[NCsoft]

5 minutes ago, chaos said:

Cameron - 3 out of 4  - of  all time world wide BO results .

 

Its inevitable 

I still hold out hope for this to happen, and I think it still can!

The worldwide threshold to make this happen: $2.068B

[Cap]

Technically, a blockbuster is a term for meant a movie where people lined up around the block. Since we do reserved seating now, you could argue we don’t have blockbusters anymore 

[Reddroast]

Getting back to alita now. Sorry everyone for making you wait. I went out for lunch and did the 3 episode test of an anime with my older brother.

[M37]

13 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

I know I maybe selling a hope here but neither TGM, Elvis or Where the Crawdad sings show significant sign of leggy run in their IMx during OW.

It’s difficult to parse weekends, because we don’t know what weekend pattern should/would have looked like without WOM effect. Would a 5% better Sat from WOM be obvious/noticeable?

 

But for each of those films you mentioned, it was clear in those first weekdays that there was a secondary wave building on top of the usual daily pattern (see also Smile, TTP, etc). Now as @Porthos mentioned (and I concur), weekdays for Avatwo are likely going to inflated anyway because of PLF demand being rolled forward. But looking at just Wed vs Mon (baseline) should be a good indicator of potential WOM/higher legs during the run 

[CoolioD1]

Just now, Cap said:

Technically, a blockbuster is a term for meant a movie where people lined up around the block. Since we do reserved seating now, you could argue we don’t have blockbusters anymore 

i used to stay in Aberystwyth which is a University town that had one cinema with one screen that showed a movie once a day and no reserved seating. tried to see the first deadpool there saw a line going down the street and thought "I'm good". So deadpool is a blockbuster i know at least that much.

[The Dark Alfred]

1 minute ago, Cap said:

Technically, a blockbuster is a term for meant a movie where people lined up around the block. Since we do reserved seating now, you could argue we don’t have blockbusters anymore 

 

It depends on the genre. 100m+ for a comedy or a horror gives them blockbuster status imho. The treshold for a SH film on the other hand is much higher.

[MovieMan89]

4 minutes ago, That One Guy said:

there are 17 movies this year that will cross 100M domestic and at least 5 of them are being heavily considered for major awards at the Oscars. the Oscars are largely populist, they always have been, and the idea that they aren’t is patently absurd. even when the winners don’t gross that much it’s usually very easy to see why they would appeal to the majority of voters that, you know, actually saw them.

You are looking at it through a 21st century lens if you think the Oscars are remotely populist like they used to be. You really need to consider how rare it was for awhile for a movie that wasn’t a genuine massive blockbuster with audiences to be able to win. The fact that almost all of the 90s and up until ROTK winners destroy nearly all of the winners (and even most of the nominees) since then unadjusted for inflation says it all. 
 

Not to mention, most of the 20th century “classics” were BP winners or nominees. Ask the general public how many BP winners they really remember or have even seen since ROTK and it’s gonna be BLEAK. These movies are not our cinematic staples anymore. 

[Reddroast]

Really. You have advanced tech on a crashed ship and no one has tried to get it

[cookie]

4 minutes ago, Cap said:

Technically, a blockbuster is a term for meant a movie where people lined up around the block. Since we do reserved seating now, you could argue we don’t have blockbusters anymore 

Every movie is a hidden indie gem now.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

 

29 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

I could see RRR or All Quiet win over it. Both seem very much adored, especially RRR.

India picked another movie for International Feature, but RRR has been making Top Ten lists and S.S. Rajamouli has won Best Director with some of the critics groups. So, it still may get some Oscar nominations.

 

*

 

12 minutes ago, Mekanos said:

I can't imagine Top Gun winning.

The Top Gun franchise owes a lot to Wings, the first Best Picture winner:  two guys off to battle, big aviation sequences, romantic subplot shoehorned in between the action but also gay overtones...

 

 

Back then they had a separate award for the Unique and Artistic movie, Wings was seen as the big budget spectacle. TGM winning would be a huge change from recent Academy trends, but this time last year, who had CODA even getting nominated, let alone winning?

 

*

 

5 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

That being said, seeing both Fabelmans and Banshees making less than 10m, along with plenty of flops during this fall, making me wonder if the extinction of the drama fare is upon us.

 

Drama or comedy, Yes, they generally gross less but they are part of the diversity of theatrical experience. And now our cinema business is so top-heavy and blockbuster-centric. 

Where the Crawdads Sing legged it out to $90 million. It's based on a book but only had star power behind the scenes (Reese produced it, Taylor did a song), not a guarantee for success these days. The Woman King made $67 million, Sony probably hoped for more but its domestic total isn't completely dire. And imagine if Don't Worry Darling had gotten good reviews (and had a good script), how much better the legs would've been.

 

Three Billboards is probably the outlier of McDonagh's filmography in terms of box office. Banshees of Inisherin might have made Seven Pscyopaths money in the Before Times but IMO not $50 million or anything.

 

I liked The Fabelmans but the "directors looking back on their youthful love of film" genre hasn't been much of a financial success recently. Americans aren't here for it. Universal probably should've sold it more as a family drama and coming of age story. There's a lot happening with it that mainstream audiences might like, it would’ve done well as the Regal Mystery Movie last month.

 

 

[Eric S'ennui]

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

You are looking at it through a 21st century lens if you think the Oscars are remotely populist like they used to be. You really need to consider how rare it was for awhile for a movie that wasn’t a genuine massive blockbuster with audiences to be able to win. The fact that almost all of the 90s and up until ROTK winners destroy nearly all of the winners (and even most of the nominees) since then unadjusted for inflation says it all. 
 

Not to mention, most of the 20th century “classics” were BP winners or nominees. Ask the general public how many BP winners they really remember or have even seen since ROTK and it’s gonna be BLEAK. These movies are not our cinematic staples anymore. 

Is there a law that says a movie has to make a bajillion dollars to be Best Picture-worthy? If so, that is bleak and depressing and dumb

[MovieMan89]

And do we really need to define what a blockbuster is? A movie’s profit to budget ratio really has nothing to do with it. It’s about movies being seen and consumed by a true MASS audience (at the very least 500m WW by modern standards if we have to quantify it). A movie making 200m WW on a 10k budget isn’t a blockbuster, it’s just an absurdly profitable movie. 

[CaptNathanBrittles]

3 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

You are looking at it through a 21st century lens if you think the Oscars are remotely populist like they used to be. You really need to consider how rare it was for awhile for a movie that wasn’t a genuine massive blockbuster with audiences to be able to win. The fact that almost all of the 90s and up until ROTK winners destroy nearly all of the winners (and even most of the nominees) since then unadjusted for inflation says it all. 
 

Not to mention, most of the 20th century “classics” were BP winners or nominees. Ask the general public how many BP winners they really remember or have even seen since ROTK and it’s gonna be BLEAK. These movies are not our cinematic staples anymore. 

 

Indeed! THE LAST EMPEROR was the lowest grossing Best Picture for 23 years before THE HURT LOCKER beat it. In the 11 years since 3 have grossed less than TLE! 9 if you adjust for inflation!