Christmas Weekend Thread | Avatar 95.6m, PiB 20.05m, Babylon 4.85m 4 days

[excel1]

2 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Since you said “herself”: The Other Woman and Bad Teacher.

 

It’s not often people are the sole draw when they tend to rom coms. After all,it wouldn’t be very romantic with just one actor lol.

 

She did the heavy lifting on Knight & Day too, but Tom Cruise was too busy being a certified weirdo at that time, so it flopped. 

 

You named 2 modest successes, be serious. Why wasn't The Sweetest Thing, Gambit, etc hits?

Edited December 24, 2022 by excel1

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

47 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I Wanna Dance with Somebody definitely feels like it was a victim of "wrong movie at the wrong time" because a Whitney biopic on paper should have been a big deal but nothing about this was ever able to move the needle (likely in large part, as @BoxOfficeFangrl said, too much Whitney content in the mere decade since her death). Honestly, if they wanted to give audiences a reason to celebrate her music, it might've been better to create a jukebox musical in the vein of Mamma Mia! than asking the audience that remembers watching her ascension from one of the biggest musicians ever to a collapse where she became a punchline whose depressing decline unfolded in front of the entire world to relive it all over again so soon.

 

This reminds me that there's still biopics for Michael Jackson (if folks are thinking this Whitney movie is sanitized, wait till they get a load of that if it's made) and Amy Winehouse in development. Good luck to them if they ever escape development hell, I say.

Netflic even had a "shadow" movie of Whitney's early career with the names scrubbed off earlier this year:

 

 

But there have been a million Elvis movies/miniseries and his life didn't have a happy ending, either. It's interesting to see what audiences end up being sensitive about when it comes to biopics. I wonder what a Baz Luhrmann Whitney movie would've been like (a terrible idea obviously, but a less conventional approach)... Lee Daniels' The Whitney Houston Movie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody?

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[Eric S'ennui]

5 minutes ago, ThePrinceIsOnFire said:

Someone here is delusional!

Let's remember the LONG list of Timothee's flops as a leading actor:

- Beautiful boy

- A rainy day in New York

- The King

- The French dispatch (he wasn't the main lead there, but arguably the face of the promotional tour).

- Bones and all

 

That's worse than Margot Robbie's list.

Okay. I think I was being clear I was being silly and goofy here, and I’d prefer I could be goofy and silly without people trying to start an argument.

[excel1]

6 minutes ago, ThePrinceIsOnFire said:

Someone here is delusional!

Let's remember the LONG list of Timothee's flops as a leading actor:

- Beautiful boy

- A rainy day in New York

- The King

- The French dispatch (he wasn't the main lead there, but arguably the face of the promotional tour).

- Bones and all

 

That's worse than Margot Robbie's list.

 

Meh those are artists films for TC to establish much needed artistic credibility and integrity. TC is next truly Leo IMO, good thing WB has him locked up, they just need to find him some true mainstream roles beyond DUNE.

Edited December 24, 2022 by excel1

[CaptNathanBrittles]

32 minutes ago, ThePrinceIsOnFire said:

 

 

You both should remember Scarlett Johansson, who is the youngest active actress to achieve commercial success in a non-ip non-sequel/remake/reboot role: 2014 LUCY. She can carry a movie on her shoulders, especially internationally where she is a big star. Yes Ghost in the shell was a disappointment, but without her it would have completely bombed. 

Give her the right action role and she still is a huge draw. 

 

$167m on a $115m production budget. GHOST IN THE SHELL did completely bomb!

[TwoMisfits]

13 minutes ago, JWR said:

I Wannna Dance with Somebody: The idea of a Whitney Houston movie no longer seems special years after we've had numerous specials and made for TV movies. 

 

 

Honestly, I also find the whole idea depressing.  I mean, as someone said, we know what happened after she became a star - she got chewed up and spit out and didn't recover.  That's not heartwarming Christmas feelings.

 

Whoever said they should have used all the music to make a Mama Mia equivalent had it right - that would sell, b/c we all want to relive the best memories of Whitney - her absolutely phenomenal music - without having to be dragged down by the rest.  We want to celebrate her greatness.

[Krissykins]

5 minutes ago, excel1 said:

 

You named 2 modest successes, be serious. Why wasn't The Sweetest Thing, Gambit, etc hits?

Both are $200m WW grossers.
 

Bad Teacher grossing 11x its budget isn’t “modest”, that’s a slam dunk. 

[Firepower]

10 minutes ago, PenguinHyphy said:

The Fabelmans, Babylon, Banshees, and Tar are exactly that 

I think Banshees is in much more appealing league for wide audience than, let's say, Beale Street.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Firepower

[ThePrinceIsOnFire]

1 minute ago, Eric in Boots said:

Okay. I think I was being clear I was being silly and goofy here, and I’d prefer I could be goofy and silly without people trying to start a fight

My bad, I didn't get the sarcasm! 

To be fair, this is a flop era for every young and new star...even the much beloved Florence Pugh is piling up a long list of flops. 

[Krissykins]

1 minute ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Honestly, I also find the whole idea depressing.  I mean, as someone said, we know what happened after she became a star - she got chewed up and spit out and didn't recover.  That's not heartwarming Christmas feelings.

 

Whoever said they should have used all the music to make a Mama Mia equivalent had it right - that would sell, b/c we all want to relive the best memories of Whitney - her absolutely phenomenal music - without having to be dragged down by the rest.  We want to celebrate her greatness.

The producers and creators can’t win then, because there was the whole other viewpoint of “I hope they don’t gloss over the truth”. 

[Firepower]

18 minutes ago, excel1 said:

1) What films did Cameron Diaz herself carry to success? Love her but you think she is the reason her hit films were hits...?

She could carry romcoms to at least decent box office, there's nothing in those movies besides her, so you can't say they were successful because of someone/something else, I mean romcoms where she's the only draw and which were sold with her name on poster.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Firepower

[TwoMisfits]

2 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

The producers and creators can’t win then, because there was the whole other viewpoint of “I hope they don’t gloss over the truth”. 

 

Sure they can - Mamma Mia had nothing to do with ABBA - it just used all the music.

 

People love Whitney's music.  A completely new musical about some light pithy plot which just uses the music would sell.

 

Edit to Add:  I mean, instant Rom Com plot just through song - I wanna dance with somebody, One moment in time, I will always love you, Greatest love of all, Run to you...I can keep going...

Edited December 24, 2022 by TwoMisfits

[wildphantom]

Banshees was fantastic. How in the hell was that boring prestige Oscar bait? Are you kidding me? 
 

I haven’t seen Tar or Fabelmans yet, and I cannot wait for the latter.
 

As for Babylon, I couldn’t care less about the box office as it looks like they’ve let Chazelle go crazy, kitchen sink with it. Again, does not look like cookie-cutter Oscar bait. It looks like a major filmmaker trying something wild. Whether Paramount should have given him so much money to make it is another debate, but I don’t base box office performance on quality. It’s had a mixed critical reaction sure,  but there are absolute raves from some quarters.  It looks like something to see alright! 

[ThePrinceIsOnFire]

7 minutes ago, CaptNathanBrittles said:

 

$167m on a $115m production budget. GHOST IN THE SHELL did completely bomb!

 

Well, it's actually more of a disappointment/ flop than a complete bomb. At the end of the day it probably made its budget back with home video+ digital sales/tv rights. 

Babylon has a 110m. budget and will be lucky to get 50/60 m. WW, now that's a real bomb. 

"Bombs" should be applied to movies that earn less than their nominal production budget, IMHO.  Amsterdam, The Northman, Strange World...those are true bombs. Earning more than the production budget but not enough to recoup said budget (aka less than the 2.5x  budget multiplier) makes a movie a flop/disappointment.

Edited December 24, 2022 by ThePrinceIsOnFire

[grey ghost]

Nobody wants a sanitized version of Whitney Houston's life. They want the tea.

[excel1]

7 minutes ago, Eric in Boots said:

Okay. I think I was being clear I was being silly and goofy here, and I’d prefer I could be goofy and silly without people trying to start an argument.

 

more silliness and goofiness please

[poweranimals]

15 minutes ago, excel1 said:

Controversial take but I just don't think Whitney Houston had the star power later in her career to leave a large fanbase hungry for a film for her. She had an insanely high career peak in the early 90s, but that was about it, and then torpedoed downwards as everyone knows.

Did they even market the movie? I wouldn't even have known it was coming out if not for this forum.

[filmlover]

3 minutes ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

I wonder what a Baz Luhrmann Whitney movie would've been like...

 

 

Honestly, Elvis was the perfect biopic for Baz's wild filmmaking sensibilities. For all the talk of that movie bringing back older folks to theaters I feel like it really caught on with the social media crowd who began dissecting the craziest moments ("That's the thing *zooms in* he's white!" - Underused Oscar Nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee) once it became available on the streaming. Don't see that happening with Whitney (especially if we're talking an estate-controlled biopic in which most of the participants are still very much alive like I Wanna Dance... was).

[Eric S'ennui]

4 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

Honestly, I also find the whole idea depressing.  I mean, as someone said, we know what happened after she became a star - she got chewed up and spit out and didn't recover.  That's not heartwarming Christmas feelings.

 

Whoever said they should have used all the music to make a Mama Mia equivalent had it right - that would sell, b/c we all want to relive the best memories of Whitney - her absolutely phenomenal music - without having to be dragged down by the rest.  We want to celebrate her greatness.

I mean all these music biopics emphasize the sad stuff of these artists' lives (which they should. If people don't want to acknolwedge the artists they loved had bad experiences or lives, that says a lot about them). Elvis wasn't really a breezy walk in the park, especially near the end.

[excel1]

1 minute ago, grey ghost said:

Nobody wants a sanitized version of Whitney Houston's life. They want the tea.

 

Also...they fucked up the title. Shoulda just been named WHITNEY.  Where has KEVIN COSTNER been with the promo tour?