Weekend Thread - 3/17-19 | Weekend Est. - Shazam II $30.5M, Scream VI $17.5M, Creed III $15.4M, LXV $5.8M, #AintMan $4.1M

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

1 minute ago, GOGODanca said:

This means nothing, the biggest movie of the pandemic is probably the most hated online atleast on the circles that love TSS like reddit/twitter

 

Well obviously it means little to nothing. That was largely my point. Although there are few films that intersect quite as badly as positive/beloved online reception and negative real world reception like TSS. Maybe Scott Pilgrim.

 

Not sure what you're referring to as "the biggest movie of the pandemic" since in my head that's, what, Tenet or Spiderman No Way Home? And I've never thought of either of those as being hated online.

 

If anything I think No Way Home continues to get the same very easy ride that Force Awakens did and it's going to take over a decade for people to realise it was all hype and no trousers.

[filmlover]

One thing Flash does have going against it (aside from the questionable current state of the DCEU and, well, how it addresses the Ezra of it all) is that it's opening in the middle of a packed June. This is what that month looks like:

 

6/2: Spider-Man, The Boogeyman

6/9: Transformers, Strays

6/16: Flash, Elemental, The Blackening

6/23: No Hard Feelings, Asteroid City (wide expansion, limited on 6/16)

6/30: Indiana Jones, Ruby Gillman, Harold & the Purple Crayon (though this is likely moving now following Ruby's announcement)

 

And that's not even including May holdovers that will still be around (The Little Mermaid, Fast X, Guardians to an extent). It's like March on steroids with how packed the month is lol, though Spidey and Indy are perhaps the only ones that aren't wild cards as to how well they do. Will be interesting to see what become a hit and which ones end up a casualty.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

3 minutes ago, TigerPaw said:

Everyone I know...pirated TSS.. So not really comparable.

 

I caught it in a half-filled theater in IMAX opening weekend. It was glorious.

 

 

 

Pirating = 0 Money. So it's completely comparable.

 

Plus the issue with TSS was not people who comment on forums and their friends. It was that it had absolutely no cultural penetration beyond that kind of group. Hence the similarity with Scott Pilgrim. It was made exclusively for the noisiest and most visible demographic, but in such a ways that virtually outright alienated almost everyone else.

[GOGODanca]

3 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

 

Well obviously it means little to nothing. That was largely my point. Although there are few films that intersect quite as badly as positive/beloved online reception and negative real world reception like TSS. Maybe Scott Pilgrim.

 

Not sure what you're referring to as "the biggest movie of the pandemic" since in my head that's, what, Tenet or Spiderman No Way Home? And I've never thought of either of those as being hated online.

 

If anything I think No Way Home continues to get the same very easy ride that Force Awakens did and it's going to take over a decade for people to realise it was all hype and no trousers.

I was referring to avatar but i guess thats not really pandemic era so thats my bad

 

Regardless my point is i don't know if the casual viewer loved TSS as much as hardcore fans did, it might be another Shazam where people thought it was fine but left no real impression or obsession, also doesn't help that covid, day and date, no batman, joker or will smith and the reception of first one.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

1 minute ago, GOGODanca said:

I was referring to avatar but i guess thats not really pandemic era so thats my bad

 

Regardless my point is i don't know if the casual viewer loved TSS as much as hardcore fans did, it might be another Shazam where people thought it was fine but left no real impression or obsession, also doesn't help that covid, day and date, no batman, joker or will smith and the reception of first one.

 

Oh I think that Joker was 100% the biggest factor. Joker is historically an even bigger box office draw than I think people give him credit for.

 

Will Smith too.

 

But even so that second weekend was outright rejection from a casual audience. Deadpool showed the way to go in terms of the enormous advertising and heterogenous-appeal work an R-rated superhero movie has to do to still maintain a mainstream sized audience - it has to pull out the demographic stops in every other way (and hoodwink some parents of kids who are probably too young to see it helps too). James Gunn decided to literally ignore all of that in TSS: included alienating "wacky"/"goofy" characters (note how little Colossus was in the marketing for Deadpool), a pile of toilet humour in the trailer and no guerrilla or clever marketing campaign.

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, cdsacken said:

superhero fatigue is real. Flash will underperform too. Hell I think every single one will. Yikes all of them doing awful

 

 

yeah Flash is being way over predicted. A 300m+ budget, a miscast and uncharismatic lead actor, loads of competition etc. People are trying to create fake hype with Keaton’s Batman and Supergirl but the average person doesn’t care about those things. Now if it were Bale’s Batman and Superman was In it, that would be a different story 

[CaptNathanBrittles]

How the hell did TSS have a larger budget than SS when it didn't have Will Smith!

 

I can't imagine TSS grossing less than BIRDS OF PREY during normal times but I would say $400m was the limit on this movie during the best of times. $185m budget was insane!

[Grebacio]

56 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

I think if GotG underperforms, that’s when we know for sure if superhero fatigue is real. AM3 and Shazam were always doomed, barring some miraculous WOM or something. 

Presales shows Ant Man wasn't doomed. It was tracking to a 125M 3 day OW

[grim22]

5 minutes ago, CaptNathanBrittles said:

How the hell did TSS have a larger budget than SS when it didn't have Will Smith!

 

I can't imagine TSS grossing less than BIRDS OF PREY during normal times but I would say $400m was the limit on this movie during the best of times. $185m budget was insane!

No theatrical backend. The day and date release meant that all participants were paid their backend as part of the budget. It's why the Nancy Meyers movie cost 130M at Netflix but will likely be 70M or so at WB.

[TMP]

4 minutes ago, grim22 said:

No theatrical backend. The day and date release meant that all participants were paid their backend as part of the budget. It's why the Nancy Meyers movie cost 130M at Netflix but will likely be 70M or so at WB.

none of the 2021 wb budgets had back-end baked in

[PlatnumRoyce]

18 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

 

yeah Flash is being way over predicted. A 300m+ budget, a miscast and uncharismatic lead actor, loads of competition etc. People are trying to create fake hype with Keaton’s Batman and Supergirl but the average person doesn’t care about those things. Now if it were Bale’s Batman and Superman was In it, that would be a different story 

Morning consult's Batman poll really do show Keaton and Bale share the crown as the Batman normal people care about, they're just have different age splits for said interest. given that younger people buy tickets to movies like the Flash, you might give an edge to Bale but there's an obvious legacy sequel hook for Keaton. 

https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2022/04/19151216/2204052_crosstabs_MC_ENTERTAINMENT_THE_BATMAN_Adults.pdf

[PlatnumRoyce]

40 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

Pirating = 0 Money. So it's completely comparable.

 

Plus the issue with TSS was not people who comment on forums and their friends. It was that it had absolutely no cultural penetration beyond that kind of group. Hence the similarity with Scott Pilgrim. It was made exclusively for the noisiest and most visible demographic, but in such a ways that virtually outright alienated almost everyone else.

On the other hand, it was very successful for HBOMax based on limited streaming data (best performing film before The Batman, which blew it out of the water) and the fact they hired Gunn to run DC implies internal metrics were presumably strong enough to at least not dissuade them. 

[CaptNathanBrittles]

11 minutes ago, grim22 said:

No theatrical backend. The day and date release meant that all participants were paid their backend as part of the budget. It's why the Nancy Meyers movie cost 130M at Netflix but will likely be 70M or so at WB.

 

I'm not just talking Will Smith's salary. Did no one at WB say "Okay, Will Smith is not in this movie, we'll have to adjust the budget accordingly because we are going to lose a large chunk of the audience without him."

[Coneilg93]

41 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

On the other hand, it was very successful for HBOMax based on limited streaming data (best performing film before The Batman, which blew it out of the water) and the fact they hired Gunn to run DC implies internal metrics were presumably strong enough to at least not dissuade them. 

Gunn will be under the gun ( no pun intended) in rebooting Batman again for the DCU while going up against Reeves's already established Batverse ( The Penguin HBO series and The Batman Part 2 ) especially if its successful. Going to be interesting to see how that will play out. 

[AJG]

50 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

On the other hand, it was very successful for HBOMax based on limited streaming data (best performing film before The Batman, which blew it out of the water) and the fact they hired Gunn to run DC implies internal metrics were presumably strong enough to at least not dissuade them. 

 

I'm pretty sure WW84 was the best performing movie on Max during that day-and-date business.

 

Peacemaker is certainly the best performing Max Original Show (only meaningful competition was a reboot of Pretty Little Liars, and the now cancelled Gossip Girl reboot tho).

[excel1]

Of course superhero fatigue is real. THE BATMAN opening to $130m was absurdly low and everyone knows it. Had someone told us all in 2019 that THE BATMAN would open to $130m, finish at like $370m and total about $800m global, everyone would have said that was on the very low end of its potential. 

 

What is also real is the curiosity-nostalgia combo factor, like we saw with NWH and TGM. It is seemingly working in favor of FLASH atm. AQUABRO 2....no idea at this point.

 

One thing is for sure with D.C...those "Superman Legacy" (get a better fucking title, WTF is that?) trailers better be DAMN good because there's very little brand equity there. BATMAN on his own is a much bigger brand and we saw how far that carried his film.

Edited March 18, 2023 by excel1

[TheFlatLannister]

4 hours ago, CJohn said:

Finally a strong hold for Quantumania. Maybe it passes the 2nd movie DOM after all.

All recent Marvel films have had surprisingly great late legs. That's why it always baffles me that Disney dropped MoM on D+ after 47 days 

[Eric the Ape]

2 hours ago, MovieMan89 said:

Flash sounds like it could be something based on reactions, but I’m hesitant to believe Miller controversy + everyone knowing this era do DCEU is over still won’t hurt it. 

Isn't the whole point of the movie resetting everything and being the piece that transitions to the new DCU? I think that would make fans invested. Plus nostalgia makes people's monkey brains go crazy.

[TheFlatLannister]

2 hours ago, stuart360 said:

Not a big comic book fan here but am i right in saying that WB a while ago basically annouced they were rebooting the DCU, rendering films like Shazam and Aquaman 2 pretty much obsolete?.

 

If i'm right, why would they annouce that so early?. I really quite liked Aquaman, and the sequel is probably going to flop because of it.

I don't think Aquaman will flop with a December release, but yeah the drop off is going to be huge. Probably around $600-700M WW if the film really does stink like insiders have been hinting at. 

[Eric the Ape]

1 hour ago, John Marston said:

People are trying to create fake hype with Keaton’s Batman and Supergirl but the average person doesn’t care about those things.

Why do you always say people don't care about Keaton as Batman? Like...that was huge news. It trended like crazy. The 1989 movie is still considered a classic. Batman Returns has devoted fans. I'm not that crazy for Keaton's Batman like others, but that's a performance and character people really, really, really like.