Elden Lord Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 1 hour ago, ZeroHour said: You know a lot of things can be true at once. Certainly Disney is aiming for their movies to make money in their theatrical runs and this summer has to be disappointing to them. It's also true that they're probably the best at padding their profits with ancillary sources of income through things like merchandise, and that softens the blow and probably gets some of these films firmly in the black, but I don't think Disney looks at their major films being saved by their toy line as a big win. It's also true that most of the budgets we've seen this summer have been blown up by covid and covid protocols, so Disney has probably not been quite as irresponsible with their budgeting as they've been made out to be. You look at something like TLM, which was originally supposed to starting shooting in March 2020 (and had major sets built) and it's safe to guess that's probably a movie that comes in at least $50 million cheaper in pre-covid times without the cost overruns of covid delays and on-set covid protocols. At the same time, even with covid costs, that $300 million Indy budget is crazy. As for Elemental, it's kind of nuts to argue its legs don't matter! This is a movie that could have easily failed to hit $100 million domestic if it didn't catch on with its target audience. No doubt Disney and Pixar are much happier to see this film hit $400-500 million worldwide than to completely sink like Lightyear did. Losing less money is still better than losing more. And yes, it's better for the Pixar brand to have a well-liked film out there that's holding up over the summer than to have a dud. Still, they won't be happy with this film losing money theatrically and it won't be surprising to see Disney look at reigning in costs at Pixar (which unfortunately will likely come at the expense of their employees so nothing to really celebrate). The Disney+ element is a big black box. Having theatrical films is an absolute necessity for that service to add new subscribers and prevent churn. Movies like Elemental are huge for that service and it's wrong to say that Star Wars and Marvel shows are more important. The biggest consistent performers for that service are Bluey and Moana, and movies like Turning Red and Luca have continued to be some of the biggest movies in streaming. But what is that worth to Disney money wise? Who knows really. The funny thing is, if they dropped Elemental directly to the service, no one would bat an eye about its budget. I mean what does a season of the Mandalorian or Secret Invasion cost? Probably at least $150 million! As I said before, Elementals "legs" right now are based on a low OW, which tends to skew things. When a movie costs $300 million to make and market, and it loses $100 million on its theatrical run, legs is what people who are emotionally invested in the movie use to try and find the positive, or people who are to be held accountable use as an excuse. Bob Iger and the bean counters at Disney are not telling the board... "Hey, it had good legs", or "it could have been worse" or " we only lost $75 million and not $100 million on this one"... that is something Iger would try to blow up the ass of the stockholders on quarterly calls, which he has done over and over lately. Right now, the holds, IMO, show that there is some positive word of mouth, and that some people that may have been on the fence are going to see it in lieu of nothing else being good in the theaters right now (everything seems to be getting negatively hammered on the internets right now). Pixar movies always have had a high adult attendance for what are viewed as kids movies, so we shall see what happens in the next couple weeks when. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumer Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Everything stabilized on Thursday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumer Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 30 minutes ago, Eric Bunny said: Moderation I have no idea what is happening here, but we're done with whatever the heck @rebelscum86 is squabbling about and this hyperbole over Elemental's box office. Please talk about the actual numbers, or you will see warning points. Why? I don't think this is part of your job as a moderator and this comes from somebody who was a moderator for 15 years. I don't know what the hell you're squabbling about but we've had a litany of conversations like this concerning superheroes animation and life in general and a myriad of other threads over the last 20 years that I've been at the forums starting in 2002. I don't know what you think your job is as a moderator but this isn't it. You can't just arbitrarily come in here tell somebody to shut up because you don't like the tone of the conversation. That's not what a moderator does. I'm going to be bringing this up with Shawn after I talk to @Cap I think you're a sub-par moderator dude... I like you as a person we have a good history but I have no idea what you're doing here is a moderator I don't think you understand what it means to be a moderator. 11 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroHour Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 9 minutes ago, Elden Lord said: As I said before, Elementals "legs" right now are based on a low OW, which tends to skew things. When a movie costs $300 million to make and market, and it loses $100 million on its theatrical run, legs is what people who are emotionally invested in the movie use to try and find the positive, or people who are to be held accountable use as an excuse. Bob Iger and the bean counters at Disney are not telling the board... "Hey, it had good legs", or "it could have been worse" or " we only lost $75 million and not $100 million on this one"... that is something Iger would try to blow up the ass of the stockholders on quarterly calls, which he has done over and over lately. Right now, the holds, IMO, show that there is some positive word of mouth, and that some people that may have been on the fence are going to see it in lieu of nothing else being good in the theaters right now (everything seems to be getting negatively hammered on the internets right now). Pixar movies always have had a high adult attendance for what are viewed as kids movies, so we shall see what happens in the next couple weeks when. The thing is there is nuance to be had in this discussion. Plenty of movies open low and don't have good legs. Losing $75 million IS better than losing $100 million. And the consequences for Pixar if this movie makes $400+ million versus less than $220 million (the run Lightyear had just last year) are certainly very different. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kon Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) 39 minutes ago, Deathlife said: She never said anything like that. That's why I asked. This is Bailey's first movie (she and her sister are both singers) and she's been very careful with her words. It's like she was coached to say as little as possible to remain completely uncontroversial. Yeah. It wasn't Bailey or Disney who compared TLM with Black Panther. I think people are mixing information with an article that makes this comparison (Baily or Disney weren't involved in this): https://www.google.com/amp/s/goat.com.au/disney/disneys-casting-of-ariel-has-turned-the-little-mermaid-into-black-panther-thank-god/%3famp Edited July 7, 2023 by Kon 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harry713 Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Based on a 2m thurs, Elemental could easily have a 9m 4th weekend... fri 2.8 (+40%) sat 3.5 (+25%) sun 2.7 (-23%) 4th wkd 9m (-25.8%) 5 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elden Lord Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 3 minutes ago, ZeroHour said: The thing is there is nuance to be had in this discussion. Plenty of movies open low and don't have good legs. Losing $75 million IS better than losing $100 million. And the consequences for Pixar if this movie makes $400+ million versus less than $220 million (the run Lightyear had just last year) are certainly very different. Everything you just listed is not nuanced though lol... It is you making statements, ie one number is better than the other, as if they are the end all be all of the conversation. Nuance discussion is that "Losing $75 million IS better than losing $100 million" to you is meaningful statement, but to a company like disney where $25 million can be a rounding error, $25 million is not something they are proclaiming victory over. See. that is nuance... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayumanggi Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroHour Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 34 minutes ago, Elden Lord said: Everything you just listed is not nuanced though lol... It is you making statements, ie one number is better than the other, as if they are the end all be all of the conversation. Nuance discussion is that "Losing $75 million IS better than losing $100 million" to you is meaningful statement, but to a company like disney where $25 million can be a rounding error, $25 million is not something they are proclaiming victory over. See. that is nuance... Well the $75 million vs $100 was your example. The financial difference for this movie having a leggy run vs not is higher than that. We're talking about a company valued over $160 billion that does not make the majority of its money in the theatrical space, so I suppose by your measure whether or not the film loses a $100 million or makes $100 million is all in rounding error territory anyway. I suspect though that you are more interested in winning arguments than having discussions and that doesn't interest me so I will leave you to it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AniNate Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Elden Lord said: As I said before, Elementals "legs" right now are based on a low OW, which tends to skew things. When a movie costs $300 million to make and market, and it loses $100 million on its theatrical run, legs is what people who are emotionally invested in the movie use to try and find the positive, or people who are to be held accountable use as an excuse. Bob Iger and the bean counters at Disney are not telling the board... "Hey, it had good legs", or "it could have been worse" or " we only lost $75 million and not $100 million on this one"... that is something Iger would try to blow up the ass of the stockholders on quarterly calls, which he has done over and over lately. Right now, the holds, IMO, show that there is some positive word of mouth, and that some people that may have been on the fence are going to see it in lieu of nothing else being good in the theaters right now (everything seems to be getting negatively hammered on the internets right now). Pixar movies always have had a high adult attendance for what are viewed as kids movies, so we shall see what happens in the next couple weeks when. Emotional investment is pretty much what this forum runs on despite the objective veneer of numbers. Anyone who is trying to diminish Elemental's performance is no less subjective than the people celebrating it. Unless there are any employees at Disney here who have in-depth knowledge of all the financials, we're all just interpreting the numbers in a way that better supports the narrative we want. Losing less money than you were before can be a legitimate selling point, "loss leader" is a commonplace business term. Also artistic appreciation really does go a lot further in the business than people think. If audiences are really vocal about saying how much they loved a movie, that truly does matter and can have an impact on decisions on how much organizational and creative changes need to be made, and there does seem to be a big difference between Elemental's situation and Lightyear's as far as that is concerned. Edited July 7, 2023 by AniNate 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathlife Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) 18 minutes ago, AniNate said: Emotional investment is pretty much what this forum runs on despite the objective veneer of numbers. Anyone who is trying to diminish Elemental's performance is no less subjective than the people celebrating it. Unless there are any employees at Disney here who have in-depth knowledge of all the financials, we're pretty much all interpreting the numbers in a way that better supports the narrative we want. Losing less money than you were before can be a legitimate selling point, "loss leader" is a commonplace business term. Also artistic appreciation really does go a lot further in the business than people think. If audiences are really vocal about saying how much they loved a movie, that truly does matter and can have an impact on decisions on how much organizational and creative changes need to be made, and there does seem to be a big difference between Elemental's situation and Lightyear's as far as that is concerned. Exactly this. Lots of talk about production budgets and profitability but we literally don't know how much these movies cost and how profitability is even calculated. I mean, WB maintain cultural and box phenomenon Batman lost them $35 million in 1989..LOLOL. Hollywood accounting is also smoke and mirrors and no one except folks inside the studios know much about this stuff. The problem now is that box office is now being reported by everyone these days and this wasn't the case back in the day. From my perspective, it's not a Disney thing or any studio specific thing, as a BO watcher, I prefer to focus on the positive. It's always fun to celebrate leggy films as a neutral BO watcher Elemental opened very low, it's likely to lose Disney money, I don't think anyone is contesting that. Disney themselves would have known from their tracking for weeks (or even months) that Elemental will lose money but they committed to a long theatrical run because of its reception. However, the movie's reception does suggest there's "rainbow behind the clouds". It's a little different from Light Year and mega bombs like Indy 5 or The Flash. Edited July 7, 2023 by Deathlife 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YM! Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 10 minutes ago, Deathlife said: Exactly this. Lots of talk about production budgets and profitability but we literally don't know how much these movies cost and how profitability is even calculated. I mean, WB maintain cultural and box phenomenon Batman lost them $35 million in 1989..LOLOL. Hollywood accounting is also smoke and mirrors and no one except folks inside the studios know much about this stuff. The problem now is that box office is now being reported by everyone these days and this wasn't the case back in the day. From my perspective, it's not a Disney thing or any studio specific thing, as a BO watcher, I prefer to focus on the positive. It's always fun to celebrate leggy films as a neutral BO watcher Elemental opened very low, it's likely to lose Disney money, I don't think anyone is contesting that. Disney themselves would have known from their tracking for weeks (or even months) that Elemental will lose money but they committed to a long theatrical run because of its reception. However, the movie's reception does suggest there's "rainbow behind the clouds". It's a little different from Light Year and mega bombs like Indy 5 or The Flash. It also helps Wish and Elio coming up. Though the budget will make it a money loser, 150/400 domestic/worldwide is pretty good for original animation and helps retrain the family audience which migrated to the Plus. If those two have stronger reception, I think both can be hits and help both the WDAS and Pixar brands. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedorito Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 2 hours ago, baumer said: Why? I don't think this is part of your job as a moderator and this comes from somebody who was a moderator for 15 years. I don't know what the hell you're squabbling about but we've had a litany of conversations like this concerning superheroes animation and life in general and a myriad of other threads over the last 20 years that I've been at the forums starting in 2002. I don't know what you think your job is as a moderator but this isn't it. You can't just arbitrarily come in here tell somebody to shut up because you don't like the tone of the conversation. That's not what a moderator does. I'm going to be bringing this up with Shawn after I talk to @Cap I think you're a sub-par moderator dude... I like you as a person we have a good history but I have no idea what you're doing here is a moderator I don't think you understand what it means to be a moderator. If people want to “squabble” about Disney as a company there’s a Walt Disney thread. They don’t need to use Elemental’s legs as a launching point to talk about Disney Channel being too risqué or being economically left/socially right. It’s clear the conversation just completely deviated from what it was originally about and was dominating this thread. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustLurking Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Elementals will be marked as a disappointment and that's about it, the way this is looking I don't see the argument for proclaiming it a huge flop either It probably will not break even theatrically but it won't be a big money loser either, and as a pixar film with great WOM and a decent box office haul it will have a strong shelf life on d+ Obviously the goal isn't to require streaming to save the film and they won't exactly be celebrating it but this isn't going to cause major panic either, they have indy for that though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MovieMan89 Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 10 hours ago, baumer said: Bingo! In 1985 when I was 13 years old, I knew who the giant director's were from a generation ago. Obviously I knew Hitchcock and Frank Capra and a few others. If you love movies it doesn't matter what generation you are, you know who the big names are from past and present. We have to remember those of us here are “niche” relative to the GA though. We all are movie fanatics or else we certainly wouldn’t care about the box office anywhere near this much haha. I think younger gens have very very little knowledge of directors though, generally speaking. So many have stopped caring about movies altogether. Just from my experience of what I’ve seen, and also working in a field that is marketing directly targeting gen z and working with a lot of them too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumer Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 27 minutes ago, Speedorito said: If people want to “squabble” about Disney as a company there’s a Walt Disney thread. They don’t need to use Elemental’s legs as a launching point to talk about Disney Channel being too risqué or being economically left/socially right. It’s clear the conversation just completely deviated from what it was originally about and was dominating this thread. Actually they can talk about whatever they want to talk about in this thread weekend threads, daily number threads they always veer off course. As long as nobody's insulting each other or making fun of one another or using profanity towards one another conversations about movies, life, cereal, Fass' dick size, pets, actresses swimming pools, Teles horrible predictions, it's all fair game here. It's been like that since the beginning of the forums. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elden Lord Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, AniNate said: Emotional investment is pretty much what this forum runs on despite the objective veneer of numbers. Anyone who is trying to diminish Elemental's performance is no less subjective than the people celebrating it. Unless there are any employees at Disney here who have in-depth knowledge of all the financials, we're all just interpreting the numbers in a way that better supports the narrative we want. Losing less money than you were before can be a legitimate selling point, "loss leader" is a commonplace business term. Also artistic appreciation really does go a lot further in the business than people think. If audiences are really vocal about saying how much they loved a movie, that truly does matter and can have an impact on decisions on how much organizational and creative changes need to be made, and there does seem to be a big difference between Elemental's situation and Lightyear's as far as that is concerned. I have no emotional investment in Elemental. This whole thing started because someone took exception to a 1 sentence statement from myself that the legs of Elemental are, at this point, about the weak opening. Diminish Elementals performance? I'm sorry.. You know what diminishes Elementals performance? Elementals numbers.. lol.. me pointing out the numbers and basing an opinion about them is not diminishing something that Elemental hasn't even done yet, as it's box office run is not over. Obviously my opinion is just that, and can be wrong, opinions are not bulletproof vests from being wrong.. In that case, can you point me to the correct.. person(s), things, objects, that I can apologize too for diminishing what Elemental has done.. whatever that may be, when it does it. If people wanna white knight and cheer for Elemental, that's fine, I am not really trying to poo poo on that,, but let's not sit here and pretend that what I am saying is something ridiculously wrong or out of touch, especially with such logic being tossed at me that Disney doesn't care about losing money.. as it lays off thousands of people, shutters hotels at it's parks, pulls content off it's streaming service in order save every penny it can on tax write-offs on the losses etc etc... Which is again what was the crux of the response tossed my way over my one sentence statement. "Losing less money than you were before can be a legitimate selling point,".. OK.. Please show me one ad or trailer for a movie in which the selling point was "We are losing less money on this movie, than we were before"... I have lurked these boards for years, albeit on an off. It has always surprised me how much, I guess willful naivety, for the lack of a better term, there is towards the cold calculations of the studios putting these films out. The studio systems are too bloated, with their money controlling too much of the creative side of the content. Too think a studio would pivot because a few people that supported a failed movie is a real thing... well I guess maybe I am just too damn cynical. Or I listen too much to the creatives that had to maneuver within the studio system when they become big enough to break away from said system and can speak plainly . Or I can see how certain studios develop their content with almost the same formula that keeps underperforming (movies and streaming) but do so to push the personal interests of the CEO, staring at you LFL... It's been my experience, that the best the fans of a failed movie could hope for is a direct to video sequel. I really don't see Pixar or Disney shifting much of anything to try and capture what Elemental has done... or will do, or might do.. when it will probably lose about $100 million, just because it failed a little less than originally thought. Again, I just might be too cynical, so if you have examples, I would love to hear them. Edited July 7, 2023 by Elden Lord 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AniNate Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 I mean I'm not expecting nor do I want any sequels to Elemental, but I don't think creative heads will roll based on this performance the way they might have if it was in fact performing as badly as Lightyear, and I'm not as pessimistic about their ability to produce new original films after this as I was before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harry713 Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Speaking of Elemental's numbers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AniNate Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 30 minutes ago, Elden Lord said: Losing less money than you were before can be a legitimate selling point,".. OK.. Please show me one ad or trailer for a movie in which the selling point was "We are losing less money on this movie, than we were before"... Also they never talk about how much profit they make in their tv ads either, so I fail to see what point you're trying to make with this willful strawman retort Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
