Thanksgiving 5-days Weekend thread | BOSS: 42.2m, Napoleon: 32.75m, Wish: 31.6m, Trolls: 25.6m, Thanksgiving: 10.9m

[John Marston]

Just now, MovieMan89 said:

I think it would have opened way bigger in a more normal climate. Remember, MCU was still on top of the world. The OW seemed muted for sure. Agreed legs would have been trash no matter what. 

 

I think since the main audience for Marvel films are the 18-34 crowd they weren’t really as hurt as let’s say a more older appealing movie like No Time to Die 

[wildphantom]

Enjoyed Napoleon. Think it’ll hold well in Europe. 
 

Holy hell, the numbers look awful though for everything. 

[elothar]

59 minutes ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

Disney's stock has risen 15 points in the last month. The Marvels didn't move the needle at all. (Yes, I know their stock is down compared to a year ago, but it's the highest it's been since May 10 of this year.)

bc Disney+ lost less money than expected, it shows that it depends on it while Apple does not.

[elothar]

12 minutes ago, John Marston said:

The Marvels was definitely heavily trying to court the female audience not just with the female leads but the whole bubblegum poppy vibe the movie looked to have m, the singing planet and princess stuff, and throwing cats all over the marketing. Funny thing is The Hunger Games which has a male lead and a more bleak tone is doing a lot better with female audiences lol

Disney doesn't know how to court female audience tbh, it's been shown times and times again. The one place where it worked was WDAS and it's not doing great atm

[Arlborn]

20 minutes ago, Porthos said:

What qualifies as "Promoting Girl Power"?  Take something like Tank Girl:

 

 

On one level it's a standard "Rebel Against All-Powerful System" promo which wouldn't be that different if it was Tank Dude.

 

On the other hand, Tank Dude would be a radically different movie since the femininity of the main character, as well as Fighting Patriarchy*, are front and central in the marketing.  Very in your face about it.  

* Even though the term wasn't quite in as vogue at the time

 

The character is at least partially defined as being a woman.  It's a central selling point of the conflict.  In the marketing for The Marvels, on the other hand, the characters being women weren't central to the conflict and thus charges of the film selling/banking on Girl Power ring rather hollow to me.

 

The recent Birds of Prey movie would be another one where the marketing played up Playing Against Gender Expectations.

 

Is this a little subjective?  Perhaps.  But it can also be seen as a spectrum with things like Tank Girl on one end, Birds of Prey a bit more in the middle and things like the OG The Hunger Games films at the other end of the spectrum where it bleeds more into "tapping into cultural mood"/a large section of the GA resonating with Katniss.

 

Personally I didn't see the marketing for The Marvels anywhere on that spectrum of "promoting girl power". 

Yes to everything, but that also reminds me that it’s time for a Tank Girl rewatch. Is there a more awesome example of the 90’s craziness?

[MovieMan89]

11 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

I think since the main audience for Marvel films are the 18-34 crowd they weren’t really as hurt as let’s say a more older appealing movie like No Time to Die 

I just think it would have blazed past 100 OW opening in MoM’s spot, for example. NWH really was when many people who were refusing to go back to the theater caved and started going back. 

[TheFlatLannister]

2 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

Waging a culture war by......occassionally including a gay or black character in the most milquetoast way possible with no direct reference to them beyond their mere existence? I'm not a Disney guy but seems like the people getting mad at that are more of the bad guys.

I made no mention of Disney's movies in my previous statements. I'm not sure why you're putting words in my mouth...

 

My reference was more directed towards the ongoing Disney vs DeSantis war, a situation that has led to a diminished regard for Disney among far right-wing conservatives.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

25 minutes ago, jimisawesome said:

As been said a million times, Flower Moon was always an Apple loss leader to get into the Leo and Marty business.   Its to tell creatives that come to Apple we will give you a budget and not make you make theme park rides.

If Napoleon does as bad as people are predicting, and if Argyle underperforms as well, Apple's tune will probably change. Especially when their original shows aren't doing too well, either.

[MovieMan89]

Yeah KOTFM has done quite well for itself considering what we’re seeing with Napoleon. I think they major re-release for Oscar season if they’re smart and see if it pushes for 100. 

[baumer]

Well I just had to make my bi-weekly cameo appearance to come by and say that Eli Roth has knocked it out of the park with his fantastic slasher horror film, Thanksgiving. It had the DNA of an 80 slasher film but still veered far away enough from it that a modern audience would enjoy it. I saw it today with probably a quarter full theater and 90% of them were kids, meaning probably between the ages of 16 and 20.

 

Judging by their reaction they loved it, I doubt they got most of the references to other horror movies and the fact that it was a loose remake of the original My Bloody Valentine.

 

And as someone who has seen $5 horror movies right up to the mainstream ones, there are very few horror films that have made me involuntarily cover my eyes or cringe and this one did it twice to me. There are some truly uncomfortable moments in this film and some of the violence is really hard to watch.

 

And I honestly had no idea that Patrick Dempsey was in this and when I finally recognized him it shocked the hell out of me.

 

Sorry to interrupt your Marvel's and hunger Games and the failure of Disney talk but I just felt compelled to tell you how much I enjoyed this horror film.

[PlatnumRoyce]

53 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

My reference was more directed towards the ongoing Disney vs DeSantis war, a situation that has led to a diminished regard for Disney among far right-wing conservatives.

Regardless of the true level of impact this causes at the box office (tricky thing is Disney's been hurting globally so a US specific cause has limited applicability), it's really trivially easy to prove this is a real thing that impacted Disney's public opinion and it was a front page story in major papers for a sneaky long time. That long running Axios-Harris poll's results for Disney are sort of just ignored instead of treated as proof this wasn't another "nerds on social media angry in an online bubble" scenario. 

[PlatnumRoyce]

1 hour ago, MovieMan89 said:

Disney dropping the ball in films with so much representation makes it even worse. Because why is the quality control so much worse now that they’re being more inclusive? It’s almost like they don’t care as much with these films. Like fuck the first major LGBTQ rep in a mainstream animated film being in something as completely disposable as Strange World. Disney even knew it would bomb because it was so dull, they gave it no marketing. It feels like a slap in the face at best, sabotaging at worst. 

That's what I thought too but it's not what the data says. Deadline cited a healthy P&A estimate which either comes from or is corroborated by iSPOT data showing $16M in Domestic TV spending (Flower Moon recently had 15.4M. For other films released around the same time - WSS was at 21M, Wakanda Forever at 27M Devotion at 14.8 and the Menu at 10M.

For the other half of that sentence: yeah, Disney knew it was a bomb and appear to have told deadline optics was the only reason they didn't pull an Artemis Fowl and move it to D+.

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by PlatnumRoyce

[ban1o]

Maybe Disney will start adding romance to their Disney Princess films again. Because I for one am tired of their romance-less Disney princess movies. 

[ringedmortality]

7 minutes ago, ban1o said:

Maybe Disney will start adding romance to their Disney Princess films again. Because I for one am tired of their romance-less Disney princess movies. 

you guys think the lack of romance plots in movies is why something like Hunger Games is doing so well rn

[ban1o]

1 minute ago, ringedmortality said:

you guys think the lack of romance plots in movies is why something like Hunger Games is doing so well rn

honestly maybe. Like I 'm sorry if it sounds stereotypical  or sexist but young women actually do like romance in movies and there's been backlash towards the idea that 'girl power' = no romance. 

[VanillaSkies]

1 hour ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

If Napoleon does as bad as people are predicting, and if Argyle underperforms as well, Apple's tune will probably change. Especially when their original shows aren't doing too well, either.

I’m not so sure actually. 

Deadline is currently predicting a 70 million WW open for Napoleon. If it holds decently, then they release the extended version on Apple+ plus get some awards love, I think they’ll be pretty happy with that run. They may have actually figured out a good formula for them.
 

Argyle I have no idea what to think about it. I think it will need great reviews to pull in a Kingsman type audience. But it’s got lots of names, so who knows.

[DC Rich]

2 hours ago, M37 said:

Agreed 

 

But that Iowa/Nebraska game probably pulled in big ratings 😂

 

That's the Big Ten West champs. Show some respect.  I mean someone had to win it right.   

 

 

[PlatnumRoyce]

2 hours ago, jimisawesome said:

 

As been said a million times, Flower Moon was always an Apple loss leader to get into the Leo and Marty business.   Its to tell creatives that come to Apple we will give you a budget and not make you make theme park rides.

 

If the goal was to maximize box office they would have released it on Dec 25th and/or after the strike ended and not mid Oct during the actors strike.  Leo being one of the few actual stars that move the needle.

I think it was Scott Mendelson who flagged that Leo doesn't actually do a lot of press for his films and the stuff is does is somewhat limited. I haven't verified this but if Apple thought the press tour would bring significantly more attention to the film, delaying it to open against a weak slate of december films would make more sense for it as a loss leader unless they're planning a Christmas streaming date (which doesn't seem optimal)

[TheFlatLannister]

56 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

Regardless of the true level of impact this causes at the box office (tricky thing is Disney's been hurting globally so a US specific cause has limited applicability), it's really trivially easy to prove this is a real thing that impacted Disney's public opinion and it was a front page story in major papers for a sneaky long time. That long running Axios-Harris poll's results for Disney are sort of just ignored instead of treated as proof this wasn't another "nerds on social media angry in an online bubble" scenario. 

It really doesn't matter if Disney is not actively engaged in a "culture-war",  because conservatives believe they are and as a result are not taking their kids to see Disney movies. 

 

The right wing media has done their job in turning Disney into the bad guys 

[TheFlatLannister]

1 hour ago, MovieMan89 said:

Yeah KOTFM has done quite well for itself considering what we’re seeing with Napoleon. I think they major re-release for Oscar season if they’re smart and see if it pushes for 100. 

Isn't it at $65M? Adding $35M+ from a rerelease seems very optimistic