TOM CRUISE LOVES HIS POPCORN. MOVIES. POPCORN: THE WEEKEND THREAD | We are just waiting for Barbenheimer here

[MysteryMovieMogul]

The cultural shift away from movie theaters is happening because the middle class and lower are being paid less and less as inflation is rising. Look at how much writers and actors are getting paid in residuals from their own shows! If actors like Sean Gunn aren't making as much money, where's the rest of America getting the money to pay for a $50+ movie outing with family. Why not just spend a bit more and go out of town and make memories that'll last a lifetime rather than sit in a theater for 2-3 hours.

[interiorgatordecorator]

3 minutes ago, MrHardapple said:

I don't get it, what are you refering to?

https://deadline.com/2023/07/donald-trump-sound-of-freedom-jim-caviezel-1235437088/

[ZattMurdock]

7 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Great thread from the Nazi site that really summarizes the issue to me, and exactly what Tele and I were saying in the strike thread. Frankly I think the falling back on old, risk-averse answers is not just Hollywood rn, it is everything from politics to sports to news media. To be clear I really liked Dead Recknoning and am glad it exists, but doesn't change the reality it is a 7th movie in a franchise with an older star.

 

 

With all due respect, fellow Dr. Jones fan, I understand and respect your passion for film, I understand that you’d want to see Hollywood taking more chances, but the thread you just post it is, well, a pipe dream:

 

 

People that want the current trend of mega blockbusters dominated by superheroes, Star Wars, toys and videogame characters keep wanting to "claim" every shiny new thing that gets actual buzz at the box office as some sort of "see, people are tired of the same old thing", when reality says otherwise. @redfirebird2008 put it better than I could on the Barbie thread:

 

 

11 hours ago, redfirebird2008 said:

 

Google says 85-90% of females have owned a Barbie doll in their lives. That's insane. That is far bigger built-in audience than any of the superhero stuff that people might bring up. Even Spider-Man (bigger than Batman) does not have that type of brand saturation with boys and men.

 

These days everything at the box office is all about franchises and brand recognition. It's why Disney went on a rampage buying out everyone with established popular brands (PIXAR, Marvel, Lucasfilm). My cousin was big into Barbie dolls when she was a kid. Guessing she and others her age will be going to this movie, perhaps multiple times. 

Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible falling under expectations on their ballooned COVID related globetrotting on-location budgets doesn’t mean that if only Hollywood dared to risk more, people would come.

 

It’s idealistic to think otherwise, the truth is that just like Mario Bros, Barbie has an absolutely insane built in audience from the get go. You get the right people to spearhead the project and voila, insanely famous brand plus talented actors and competent script (sometimes not even that in Super Mario Bros case) and you have yourself a box office hit. People keep screaming superhero fatigue, without understanding that "superhero" isn’t what makes Marvel powerful, it’s the brand. It’s what WB is chasing and will likely get with their DCU, fingers crossed.

 

The type of films that you would like to see - and frankly, I want too - won’t disappear though. They will show up on Netflix, sometimes to baffling results, others like Glass Onion. The studios are chasing these risk averse trends —and make no mistake, Christopher Nolan, just like Quentin Tarantino is also a brand, that’s rarified air, but still — not because they are evil, they are evil because they don’t pay their actors and writers what they actually are worth, but that’s a different subject. They are chasing these trends that you hate because they don’t have other option. Mid budget films won’t save them, not for the kind of money they need to make.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

3 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Of course. I think No Hard Feelings is doing mostly fine tbf because I don't care about the "budget" only what it makes itself. Joy Ride committed the cardinal sin of all comedies since the beginning of talkies - no star power. Elemental, Barbie, and even the Spider-Verse films are prime examples of big swings bringing in audiences.

 

Of course some dumb cash grabs like Mario will still make money. That has been true throughout the history of movies. I think when people hear these arguments they are wrongly assuming that we think of a former Hollywood where it was only big risks and nothing else.  Obviously, that's never been true and no one is saying that. It's just about balance in the types of projects, from the size of them to the subject matter. 

Right, Elemental with the amazing Star Power of... Mamoudou Athie and Leah Lewis. I don't know how you can say Joy Ride failed because of a lack of Star Power and then, immediately, use a movie as an example with two leads more unknown than the leads in Joy Ride.

[redfirebird2008]

1 minute ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

Exactly. I wouldn't call SMB the bastion of originality, it just took the lore from the games and repackaged it in movie form. Yeah, its story was original, but that's because it was taking a page from every. single. Mario. game. ever.

Super Mario and Barbie are the latest examples, but the nostalgia trend has been going pretty strong for many years. Disney has shown how nostalgic the audience is with those live action cash grab remakes of their animated classic movies. The audience should have rejected them, but they showed up in huge numbers. We have other examples like Top Gun, Jurassic World, Force Awakens, and even the Spidey movie that brought back Tobey Maguire and others. 

[Cmasterclay]

Just now, MysteryMovieMogul said:

Right, Elemental with the amazing Star Power of... Mamoudou Athie and Leah Lewis. I don't know how you can say Joy Ride failed because of a lack of Star Power and then, immediately, use a movie as an example with two leads more unknown than the leads in Joy Ride.

Elemental is a Pixar animated movie. Joy Ride is a comedy. The point was that live action comedy has always thrived on star power more than any genre. Where did I say that was true of animated movies??

[charlie Jatinder]

44 minutes ago, Shawn said:

More pressure on legs and international now, and Oppenheimer is going to Oppenheimer next week.

people putting weight on international, without realising int dropping even more than dom

 

also would say, follow-up is actually decent, the start was just awful.

 

normally for WED OD you would have double digit drop on THU, it barely dropped. FRI jump is also on high end of mid week releases. SAT jump is excellent, will likely be close to 20M.

 

but all this means nothing when the starting point was so low. It SHOULD have done $10M+ previews on Discount day Tuesday & $13-14M+ overall because WED was quite likely to come under that.

Edited July 15, 2023 by across the Jat verse

[Cmasterclay]

1 minute ago, ZattMurdock said:

With all due respect, fellow Dr. Jones fan, I understand and respect your passion for film, I understand that you’d want to see Hollywood taking more chances, but the thread you just post it is, well, a pipe dream:

 

 

People that want the current trend of mega blockbusters dominated by superheroes, Star Wars, toys and videogame characters keep wanting to "claim" every shiny new thing that gets actual buzz at the box office as some sort of "see, people are tired of the same old thing", when reality says otherwise. @redfirebird2008 put it better than I could on the Barbie thread:

 

 

Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible falling under expectations on their ballooned COVID related globetrotting on-location budgets doesn’t mean that if only Hollywood dared to risk more, people would come.

 

It’s idealistic to think otherwise, the truth is that just like Mario Bros, Barbie has an absolutely insane built in audience from the get go. You get the right people to spearhead the project and voila, insanely famous brand plus talented actors and competent script (sometimes not even that in Super Mario Bros case) and you have yourself a box office hit. People keep screaming superhero fatigue, without understanding that "superhero" isn’t what makes Marvel powerful, it’s the brand. It’s what WB is chasing and will likely get with their DCU, fingers crossed.

 

The type of films that you would like to see - and frankly, I want too - won’t disappear though. They will show up on Netflix, sometimes to baffling results, others like Glass Onion. The studios are chasing these risk averse trends —and make no mistake, Christopher Nolan, just like Quentin Tarantino is also a brand, that’s rarified air, but still — not because they are evil, they are evil because they don’t pay their actors and writers what they actually are worth, but that’s a different subject. They are chasing these trends that you hate because they don’t have other option. Mid budget films won’t save them, not for the kind of money they need to make.

I sadly don't disagree with anything you said here, but the market is becoming unsustainable and eventually that risk will have to be taken and those investments will have to be made in theaters. It isn't going to be a one-year project. This is a ten-year plus project. Just like Star Wars didn't come out in 1967, it took 10 years of fabulous risks in New Hollywood to get there.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

Just now, ZattMurdock said:

With all due respect, fellow Dr. Jones fan, I understand and respect your passion for film, I understand that you’d want to see Hollywood taking more chances, but the thread you just post it is, well, a pipe dream:

 

 

People that want the current trend of mega blockbusters dominated by superheroes, Star Wars, toys and videogame characters keep wanting to "claim" every shiny new thing that gets actual buzz at the box office as some sort of "see, people are tired of the same old thing", when reality says otherwise. @redfirebird2008 put it better than I could on the Barbie thread:

 

 

Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible falling under expectations on their ballooned COVID related globetrotting on-location budgets doesn’t mean that if only Hollywood dared to risk more, people would come.

 

It’s idealistic to think otherwise, the truth is that just like Mario Bros, Barbie has an absolutely insane built in audience from the get go. You get the right people to spearhead the project and voila, insanely famous brand plus talented actors and competent script (sometimes not even that in Super Mario Bros case) and you have yourself a box office hit. People keep screaming superhero fatigue, without understanding that "superhero" isn’t what makes Marvel powerful, it’s the brand. It’s what WB is chasing and will likely get with their DCU, fingers crossed.

 

The type of films that you would like to see - and frankly, I want too - won’t disappear though. They will show up on Netflix, sometimes to baffling results, others like Glass Onion. The studios are chasing these risk averse trends —and make no mistake, Christopher Nolan, just like Quentin Tarantino is also a brand, that’s rarified air, but still — not because they are evil, they are evil because they don’t pay their actors and writers what they actually are worth, but that’s a different subject. They are chasing these trends that you hate because they don’t have other option. Mid budget films won’t save them, not for the kind of money they need to make.

I genuinely think everyone is overlooking the power of Marketing. But, these days, to pull off great marketing you need brand deals, influencers, late night talk show appearances, online talk show appearances, ads on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, other ad-supported streaming services. There are so many separate places people have their focus on as opposed to 20 years ago, or even 10. 

 

Whoever was in charge of marketing Barbie somehow cracked the code.

[ZattMurdock]

10 minutes ago, redfirebird2008 said:

 

But the thing is the audience is part of the problem. The biggest movies seem to be completely unoriginal properties, many of them succeeding on the jet fuel of childhood nostalgia more than anything else. 

Welp, also, this. Claiming that Barbie is ‘original’ and Hollywood taking chances because Greta is the one directing it sounds kinda hilarious if you think too hard. It’s sort of saying that WB was daring when they got Nolan to direct Batman movies, or when Sony tackled Raimi with Spider-Man films. They are all brands, Barbie, Super Mario and hell, Top Gun too.

[ringedmortality]

I do gotta say though, as a 29 year old, no one below 25 even knows who Tom Cruise is. He's just some old guy indistinguishable from any other old person they see walking around.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

2 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Elemental is a Pixar animated movie. Joy Ride is a comedy. The point was that live action comedy has always thrived on star power more than any genre. Where did I say that was true of animated movies??

My point was the risk/reward factor. Joy Ride was a risk because of the genre and lack of star power. That was specifically my point, and it failed to attract audiences. The risk did not pay off is my point.

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, titanic2187 said:

Feel so sad for Paramount this year. They have two movies, produced with the sheer amount of sincerity, DnD and now MI7, but somehow couldn't land a big impact to BO. And it is not like they didn't try to market them. They did wholeheartedly.  

 

 

I actually think D&D was fairly well marketed. It was just too niche of a thing to be the basis of a 150 million dollar movie. MI:DR strangely had a whole year of no official marketing from May 2022 to May 2023

[MysteryMovieMogul]

Barbie is going to do really well, but it's not setting anyone up for future success. Everyone in the film is a known quantity. Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrara, Kate McKinnon, Will Ferrell, etc. There needed to be one lead in the film who was a newcomer. That's the real bummer about that film to me.

[ThomasNicole]

2 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Welp, also, this. Claiming that Barbie is ‘original’ and Hollywood taking chances because Greta is the one directing it sounds kinda hilarious if you think too hard. It’s sort of saying that WB was daring when they got Nolan to direct Batman movies, or when Sony tackled Raimi with Spider-Man films. They are all brands, Barbie, Super Mario and hell, Top Gun too.

I can only remember our fella MovieMan89 making a lot of arguments putting Mario in the same area of original movies it was always fun to read 

 

Originals this year was nearly all fucked, Hollywood is just finding IP’s that they didn’t oversaturated yet and succeeding with that 

 

But i don’t worry, after the plan of Mattel doing 45 movies i laughed so hard because they really can’t understand that these franchises won’t last forever and that they will have to create new things eventually liking or not

[Cmasterclay]

Look to be clear I think movie theaters are totally fucked regardless and audiences do only watch mostly crap in theaters, but clearly the 9th superhero sequel route isn't going to save things so might as well go out swinging. It's like the movie equivalent of tanking for draft picks - probably won't work, but it's better than being the 12th seed every year. 

[ZattMurdock]

6 minutes ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

I genuinely think everyone is overlooking the power of Marketing. But, these days, to pull off great marketing you need brand deals, influencers, late night talk show appearances, online talk show appearances, ads on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, other ad-supported streaming services. There are so many separate places people have their focus on as opposed to 20 years ago, or even 10. 

 

Whoever was in charge of marketing Barbie somehow cracked the code.

Here is the secret sauce: Barbie is more present on women lives since their childhood than either Batman or Spider-Man. That’s the kind of power that very few brands have, and one that you can’t replicate. You can use marketing to elevate the brand and make it known, sure, but you don’t just create a Barbie phenomenon out of thin air. Unless you are James Cameron, which is also, well, a brand.

[kayumanggi]

 

[Eric Prime]

15 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Elemental, Barbie, and even the Spider-Verse films are prime examples of big swings bringing in audiences.

Not really? Barbie and Spider-Verse are the same as every other nostalgic toy commercial. It’s not a big swing to make a movie based on the most popular toy and superhero of all time. I guess there is Elemental, but that also feels a stretch when it’s just the usual Pixar fare that has largely been successful since 1995.

 

Not saying these movies are bad, but I don’t see the “big swing” nor do they imply audiences want more from what they are getting.

[baumer]