Weekend Thread | Estimates - Barbie $53M (hit a billion!), Meg2 $30M, Oppy $28.7, TMNT - $27.95M (5-day $43M), HauntedMansion $8.97M

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

54 minutes ago, LonePirate said:

The Terminator franchise (and maybe the Alien franchise) could benefit from a complete hard reboot with a new cast of performers starting the series over from scratch.

 

Unfortunately, there are two major problems with that. First, there is not a youngish action star who could step in to fill Schwarzeneggar's shoes. Michael B. Jordan comes to mind perhaps but Hollywood has sucked at building new young stars for over a decade now and I think you need a recognizable name in role.

 

Second, in this age of social media, the hunt depicted in the original movie would be almost impossible to replicate with any plausibility in modern times. The Terminator would always know where Sarah is by searching her Instagram or Facebook or TikTok posts. I suppose the movie could be set in the 1990s or early 2000s; but I am not sure moviegoers would buy it. More creative minds than mine would be needed to solve that problem.

Alien vs. Avatar could be fun. 

[keysersoze123]

8 minutes ago, VanillaSkies said:

oh, it’s going to play right through the Fall in 70mm, isn’t it?

if BB and GT are not getting it, it should play through September unless demand is gone. 

[kayumanggi]

 

[MovieMan89]

16 hours ago, baumer said:

Slumdog was fantastic imo. But TDK is on another level imo

Agreed. Slumdog is one of the best BP winners of this century imo, and the right “second best” from that year. But nothing was remotely ion TDK tier (which goes for nearly any year). 

[LonePirate]

6 minutes ago, VanillaSkies said:

oh, it’s going to play right through the Fall in 70mm, isn’t it?

 

This is the Cinemark Dallas 70mm IMAX showing @ 11:15 am on Thursday the 17th, which is the last day you can currently buy tickets for this IMAX screen. The prime time show is sold out and the 3pm and 10:15pm showings have fewer seats available than this 11:15am showing. The IMAX 70mm version of the film will be playing until Dune arrives.

[Torontofan]

i read an article is the first big hit film of the post covid world

 

um no way home, mario, avatar, top gun lol

[MovieMan89]

17 hours ago, grim22 said:

 

Every once in a while I remember the "either die a hero" line and go to YouTube to watch that scene and inevitably end up watching the entire movie after that. It's just such a well written movie all around.

 

Just the fact that the climax hinges on whether random people we have never met before deciding whether or not to kill other random people we have never met before and there's literally nothing Batman himself can do about it is ballsy. Trusting that we will empathize with the crowd and also that a climax without a major action setpiece will satisfy the audience was a bold move for a CBM superhero movie.

That final monologue scene is more effective than any finale action set-piece ever. 

[Mojoguy]

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

It’s depressing how lame Mario’s post first month legs were tbh. There’s no way it should have petered out before 600. Hopefully the same fate isn’t in store for Barbie (I don’t think so since it’s facing a lot of nothing vs Mario facing summer). 

Mario had zero competition for 4 weeks, which is insane nowadays but it crashed hard with real competition with GOTG3 in its 5th weekend.

 

Barbie facing Blue Beetle in 5th weekend. No contest who has it easier.

 

I imagine Mario had much lower ATP than Barbie. Way more cheaper kid tickets sold, while Barbie has more teens and adults.

[Mojoguy]

10 minutes ago, kayumanggi said:

 

And maybe even with men. There was one joke that really made me laugh hard. 🤣

The Godfather scene? Truth.

[PlatnumRoyce]

59 minutes ago, MightyDargon said:

Neither franchise should be rebooted. Do something different with killer robots/aliens/AI.

To be fair, Prometheus was Scott clearly trying to do bootstrap "something different with killer robots/aliens/AI" using the Alien IP as a vehicle for funding/interest. 

Alien v. Predator really was the natural end for those franchises. It's just not a concept for infinite sequels. Alien v. Predator vs. Terminator? Just embrace the low bar of moderately large budgeted b-movie schlock. 

[ringedmortality]

Studios should just invest in making a couple of b-movies every year. One of them is bound to spin off a franchise. And it's a long-term investment on new talent.

[reddevil19]

27 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

To be fair, Prometheus was Scott clearly trying to do bootstrap "something different with killer robots/aliens/AI" using the Alien IP as a vehicle for funding/interest. 

Alien v. Predator really was the natural end for those franchises. It's just not a concept for infinite sequels. Alien v. Predator vs. Terminator? Just embrace the low bar of moderately large budgeted b-movie schlock. 

I absolutely loved Aliens: Phalanx - I remember reading that the upcoming film COULD be an adaptation. I haven't followed the development on that, but that's the kind of movie that could breathe some new life into the franchise. But for Terminator there's just nothing really new they can do with the concept. Think that one just needs to be left dead.

[dudalb]

4 minutes ago, reddevil19 said:

I absolutely loved Aliens: Phalanx - I remember reading that the upcoming film COULD be an adaptation. I haven't followed the development on that, but that's the kind of movie that could breathe some new life into the franchise. But for Terminator there's just nothing really new they can do with the concept. Think that one just needs to be left dead.

Agreed, There have tried every thing to bring the Terminator back to life since T2, and all have failed. Just admit the concept has limited shelf life. 

[MovieMan89]

53 minutes ago, Mojoguy said:

Mario had zero competition for 4 weeks, which is insane nowadays but it crashed hard with real competition with GOTG3 in its 5th weekend.

 

Barbie facing Blue Beetle in 5th weekend. No contest who has it easier.

 

I imagine Mario had much lower ATP than Barbie. Way more cheaper kid tickets sold, while Barbie has more teens and adults.

Yeah but competition doesn’t always kill movies with amazing WOM like that. I don’t think the WOM was as strong as it seemed from those first month holds. 

[kayumanggi]

The Angel Manuel Soto-directed pic is very hot with Latino and Hispanic moviegoers, natch, right now on tracking; the movie’s unaided awareness (that section of polling whereby moviegoers aren’t prompted on upcoming movies, rather name them independently when polled) is soaring above that of Sony’s Gran Turismo. True, this projection right now is lower than the $55M start of The Flash, which didn’t see a huge turnout by its cast to promote, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods‘ $30.1M, but note movies aimed at Hispanic and Latino moviegoers can overindex in their first weekends due to walk-up business. That’s what happened this weekend with The Meg 2: The Trench coming in at the top of expectations with a $30M start and a strong turnout among Hispanic and Latino crowds at 25% per Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak.

 

A $30M start for this genre title is right in the vicinity of another Hispanic/Latino conceived tentpole; that being Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel which posted a 3-day of $28.5M back in February 2019. Right now Blue Beetle‘s unaided awareness is 38% ahead of Alita‘s. Showing even more promise, Blue Beetle’s unaided is also 83% ahead of Meg 2‘s at the same point in time. Note Meg 2 notched its solid opening at the box office sans any cast interviews due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, a similar scenario that Blue Beetle is in this month.

Edited August 7, 2023 by kayumanggi

[Bob Train]

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

Yeah but competition doesn’t always kill movies with amazing WOM like that. I don’t think the WOM was as strong as it seemed from those first month holds. 

Some people don't like admitting this for some reason, but MCU movies are very skewed to the kids crowd nowadays, particularly young boys, so that could partially explain the drops. Mario held well against Fast X, TLM, though.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Bob Train

[Dragoncaine]

2 hours ago, VanillaSkies said:

oh, it’s going to play right through the Fall in 70mm, isn’t it?

If it plays through September I have to head to a wedding and can catch it in 70mm IMAX that weekend 

[Mr Terrific]

Flash $98k behind Scream VI coming off a $68k weekend. 
And they said it was dead. 
 

[MovieMan89]

1 hour ago, Bob Train said:

Some people don't like admitting this for some reason, but MCU movies are very skewed to the kids crowd nowadays, particularly young boys, so that could partially explain the drops. Mario held well against Fast X, TLM, though.

There is also the factor of Mario inherently not likely to have appealed to people who just don’t play games, which is a still a decent chunk of the casual audience. Maybe it just had a hard cap no matter what. 

[eeetooki]

7 hours ago, Noctis said:

EEAAO is an 8/10 movie that could have been a 9-9.5 if it were not for the absolutely hideous subplot with the sausage fingers. Took me the fuck out and inundated otherwise emotional scenes. Why the fuck did I need to see ketchup and mustard foaming out of their mouths? Disgusting.

 

Shame. It's when filmmakers try to be weird just for the sake of it when they could have instead made something much more engaging.

 

For me it's also around a 8/10 but being Chinese in North America definitely made EEAAO a lot more meaningful for me.