THE UNMARVELOUS WEEKEND THREAD | FEATURING MELTDOWNS, ARMCHAIR ANALYSIS, AND SEXISM

[Kon]

4 hours ago, Cap said:

We should also comment that for some fans the press tour IS the event. It’s just fodder for more celebrity gossip. They don’t really care about content, but they want to see their favorite actors being cute. So a HUGE part of fandom engagement never happened. No Iman, Brie, and Tenayoh doing puppy (or kitten) videos. No Hot Wings. No Lie Detector Test. No TikTok Challenge. No Instagram Cosplay Contests.  That stuff might sound stupid here, but it plays big in girl fandom spaces. 
 

I will never understand why they didn’t push this to May 4, 2024.

 

It would be another delay (increasing the costs) for the movie, while there isn't any guarantee the hype and engagement will really be generated. Marvel should know the fandom state at that point, so they shouldn't think it was worth it.

 

Honestly, I really doubt a really big engagement for these characters will be generated by the cast, since the audience doesn't so interested on the cast.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Kon

[JimmyB]

7 hours ago, filmlover said:

This would need to have Flash-style legs to miss $100M. Next weekend's drop will be bad of course with Hunger Games and Trolls arriving (even if neither is looking likely to breakout as well), but the extended Thanksgiving holiday will cushion the blow a bit and then the empty schedule will allow a few weeks of good holds due to theaters having hardly anything to drop it for (and titles that aren't looking to make much of a dent like Thanksgiving and Next Goal Wins will make their exits before it does). An Eternals-esque multiplier for $105-110M is where it ends up in all likelihood. Still crummy either way.

Give me the under 100m. Rejected comicbook movies drop hard in post covid world and it's not really an empty schedule. Wish, Napoleon, HG, Trolls, Next Goal Wins and Thanksgiving all getting wide releases.  

 

This is another thing that has happened over the past 2 years the market place can't support a bunch of new releases because not enough people are going to theaters. This happened in June and it happened in March of this year, a few movies are going to be left behind. Im going to continue to say it, looking at old comps is wrong.  Last Thanksgiving, box office was a disaster and was an empty schedule people just don't go to theaters and won't just go because it's Thanksgiving. Habits have changed.

 

Eternals had it's 2nd weekend helped by Veterans Day, The Marvels have already lost that battle. 

 

 

[TomThomas]

7 hours ago, TommyOliver said:

Disney isn't firing anyone for this. The take away will be to strap these characters to Deadpool, the X-Men, Spider-Man etc... that way they can still use the Marvels without losing all the money.

Nonsense, they'll definitely fire someone just like they did after Ant-Man: Quantomania, someone has to take a fall so the man with a baseball hat would live another day.

[Torontofan]

Napolen should easily beat Marvels domestic and WW.

 

2023 Historical figures dominate over comic books

[filmlover]

6 hours ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

The Sydney Sweeney/Glen Powell romcom that's coming out next month was doing reshoots in Australia on Friday. The SAG strike didn't just mean actors couldn't promote movies, they couldn't do any sort of reshoots or ADR. If your movie is facing narrative challenges and reshoots are impossible, maybe the movie gets hacked to bits in an attempt to salvage what's left. So not only do you have an incoherent film, but since you're not confident in it, your promotion is minimal. It can become kind of a death spiral.

 

I know The Marvels had reshoots but maybe they could have cracked the code with another round earlier this summer. I doubt it but you never know...

I will be shocked if Anyone But You isn't a miserable flop at this point. Unproven stars, terrible release date, a marketing campaign that's already off on the wrong note (why is a romcom being sold like it's a thriller?). Best case scenario for it is that it ends up another Bros or Booksmart ala a well-received comedy nobody bothers with in theaters.

[grim22]

2 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I will be shocked if Anyone But You isn't a miserable flop at this point. Unproven stars, terrible release date, a marketing campaign that's already off on the wrong note (why is a romcom being sold like it's a thriller?). Best case scenario for it is that it ends up another Bros or Booksmart ala a well-received comedy nobody bothers with in theaters.

The leads have zero chemistry in the trailer. That's the kiss of death for a romcom.

[Masketta Man]

47 minutes ago, FunkMiller said:

At some point, there's going to have to be an honest conversation had about why a movie aimed at women and based on an IP created for females (Barbie) does so incredibly well at the box office, and why a movie aimed at women, but based on an IP created for males (Marvel Comics) does so incredibly badly.

Because one movie has a lead character that acts like a sexless plastic action figure and the other one was Barbie.

[filmlover]

2 minutes ago, grim22 said:

The leads have zero chemistry in the trailer. That's the kiss of death for a romcom.

Sweeney better hope Madame Web is somehow not the dud everyone expects it to be because everyone can easily predict that the industry's chasing after the Euphoria phenomenon is going to have a very short shelf life.

 

Poor Glen though. Hopefully Twisters is a hit to break what's shaping up to be a Leading Man in Hollywood Flops phase of his career between Devotion and now this post-Top Gun.

[TwoMisfits]

For 2nd weekend drop, I'd expect a bad one.

 

It's not just that there's 3 big releases next weekend, so Marvels will probably lose 75% of their 1st weekend seats and showings plus all PLF.

 

It's that Disney had a nationwide IMAX Fandango deal for the Marvels (a 1st ever for MCU).  And while this was not a TMobile deal, which almost bakes in a "bad" 2nd weekend b/c it inflates the 1st weekend and weekdays so much, it might be close - we'll see "okay" weekdays M/T/W this week til IMAX is gone (especially T when fans could have gotten those tickets effectively "free") and then the floor will fall out for 2nd weekend.  

 

I mean, as hard as it is to believe with these results, that deal INFLATED this weekend - maybe with many who wouldn't have come (b/c that's normally a big reason to offer a deal), but also with some who just showed forward, and it's that 2nd part that will be missing in weekend #2.

[TwoMisfits]

1 hour ago, JimmyB said:

Give me the under 100m. Rejected comicbook movies drop hard in post covid world and it's not really an empty schedule. Wish, Napoleon, HG, Trolls, Next Goal Wins and Thanksgiving all getting wide releases.  

 

This is another thing that has happened over the past 2 years the market place can't support a bunch of new releases because not enough people are going to theaters. This happened in June and it happened in March of this year, a few movies are going to be left behind. Im going to continue to say it, looking at old comps is wrong.  Last Thanksgiving, box office was a disaster and was an empty schedule people just don't go to theaters and won't just go because it's Thanksgiving. Habits have changed.

 

Eternals had it's 2nd weekend helped by Veterans Day, The Marvels have already lost that battle. 

 

 

 

And we have a new NFL Amazon National Black Friday game, so folks from 3-7pm will have NFL football to entertain themselves...

 

And shopping is no longer a big thing on Black Friday b/c it's now the whole dang month, so you aren't just out and about right next to the theater with family and friends anymore.

[RamblinRed]

I agree with Porthos comments, but at the end of the day the most important factor in why The Marvels performed poorly is very simple- it is another Marvel movie that is not seen as a quality movie that needs to be seen.

 

Cinemascore is all you really need to see.

DS MoM - B+

Thor:L&T - B+

BP:WF - A

AM:Q - B

GOTG3 - A

Marvels - B

 

Marvel right now is not making good movies. It used to be an 'A' machine in 

cinemascore, but 4 of its last 6 movies have been B or B+. 

 

The 2nd biggest reason, it isn't the 2010's anymore. That was the decade of CBM movies. The 2020's doesn't look like it will be. Every genre has its apex. For CBM's it looks like the 2010's. Not that there still won't be CBM's - highly successful ones, just that they will not automatically dominate anymore. This year only 2 live action CBM's are in the Top 10 both DOM and WW and neither is in the Top 3.

 

I think both Marvel and WB need to come to terms that most CBM's are not going to be the monster hits they used to be and they better fix their budgets or they will start to become drags on the studios. It looks like GOTG3 will be the only live action CBM this year that is not a money loser for a studio. Expense control needs to become much more important and consistent for CBM's. 

 

I'd take the under $100M DOM for The Marvels right now. It is going to need around a 2.2X multiplier to get to 100, that seems unlikely even with the Holidays. Movies that don't perform die quickly - doesn't really matter if there are better options. If WoM is not strong GA doesn't go to see a movie, automatic movie going is sort of a thing of the past, the ceiling is lower now. There are alot of new movies coming out over the next couple of weeks. That hurts regardless of whether they are good or not because they all demand screen space, so Marvels could very quickly be on just 1 or 2 screens in most theaters. 

 

 

 

[M37]

7 hours ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

Because, quite simply, they had no faith in this movie at all. I've been saying that for a while. If they really cared, then you're right, they would've pushed it to next May in order to wait out the strikes and then do all the reshoots they needed to salvage the movie. That they decided to stick to this past weekend tells me they didn't think that expense would be worth it. For comparison, they didn't hesitate to push back Captain America 4 and order the necessary reshoots less than a week after the strikes ended. That says a lot.

Unfortunately, I think this is correct. To me, the biggest clue is Disney's lack of effort in securing and maximizing IMAX/PLF screens, first conceding them to Dune 2, then deciding not to move up a week and get two weeks when Dune 2 moved out of its release date.

 

For a studio that normally gets deference and primary placement, they seemed disinterested in burning capital - both literally and figuratively - to help save Marvels from what their internal tracking likely showed was going to be a weak offering, eager to put this part of the MCU story/phase behind them, before a soft reboot with the 2024 and beyond offerings

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

1 hour ago, filmlover said:

I will be shocked if Anyone But You isn't a miserable flop at this point. Unproven stars, terrible release date, a marketing campaign that's already off on the wrong note (why is a romcom being sold like it's a thriller?). Best case scenario for it is that it ends up another Bros or Booksmart ala a well-received comedy nobody bothers with in theaters.

It's so strange that Sony didn't just push Anyone But You to Valentine's Day. Right now, It Ends With Us is still slated for February 9, but it was only about halfway through filming before the strikes, so it's likely to be delayed. Maybe they think this is the year the "Christmas miracle" box office effect will fully return? Even the prestige market seems to be rebounding finally,  so you never know what might make a comeback...

[filmlover]

5 minutes ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

It's so strange that Sony didn't just push Anyone But You to Valentine's Day. Right now, It Ends With Us is still slated for February 9, but it was only about halfway through filming before the strikes, so it's likely to be delayed. Maybe they think this is the year the "Christmas miracle" box office effect will fully return? Even the prestige market seems to be rebounding finally,  so you never know what might make a comeback...

tbh it seems like they're just dumping it. Pretty easy to do so during the Christmas rush where you're stuck at the multiplex between splashier fare (Wonka, Aquaman, Migration, The Color Purple) and prestige dramas timed with awards season (Poor Things, The Iron Claw, Ferrari).

[eddyxx]

Next segment on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning is about marvel's dominance at the box office being over. Last time I remember this channel mentioning marvel was when Black Panther came out.

 

Edited to add, they went in on Disney buying up IPs and mismanaging them. Said that Star Wars has been mismanaged, Indiana Jones was a flop and 61 percent is not a good RT score.  Joe Scarborough also said that maybe marvel can't be a hit maker without RDJ. The financial analyst countered that it can be done but they actually have to make good movies

Edited November 13, 2023 by eddyxx

[eddyxx]

9 hours ago, Noctis said:

 

I cannot believe how BOM has imploded the past five years. Utterly horrific and really took a big hit on my enjoyment in following box office.

 

I miss going on BOM and comparing the stats for sequels to their predecessors by daily box office. Anything thats fun to look at was locked behind a paywall.

[DInky]

8 hours ago, Cap said:

 

Have we? *wildly gestures around*

 

Maybe I just want to believe that.

[AMC Theaters Enjoyer]

Christmas time looks to be very good for both main stream and prestige affair. The optimist in me a thinking the box office will be great (aside from Anyone But You).

[TheFlatLannister]

O/U $100M DOM doesn’t mean anything for The Marvels. The biggest concern I have is Disney will panic and drop it on Disney+ quickly which will do more harm than good. 

[judestar619]

  

9 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

O/U $100M DOM doesn’t mean anything for The Marvels. The biggest concern I have is Disney will panic and drop it on Disney+ quickly which will do more harm than good. 

They seem pretty firm in their approach of longer theatrical to D+ windows, even Indiana Jones got a super long one.

Edited November 13, 2023 by judestar619