Weekend Numbers | estimates | 45.2M GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE | 17.6M DUNE II | 16.8M KFP IV

[John Marston]

I will say I go to the movies less but cost is only part of it. Most stuff just doesn't look that appealing these days. Would rather stay home and watch older things I haven't yet seen, Also, getting older is definitely a factor. 10 years ago I probably would have went and saw films like Ghostbusters and Godzilla v Kong even if they got 0%  on RT but now I am just "eh"

[John Marston]

remember this movie that came out ten years ago? It actually did pretty damn good (150M domestic and 288M worldwide on an 85M budget) but the sequels sucked and they made the dumb decision to split the last book into two movies which means after the third one flopped the series had no ending! Lolz. Also the cast is pretty insane looking at it

 

 

Edited March 23 by John Marston

[emoviefan]

8 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

.

 

Speaking of poker, naturally, we talk about the movie Rounders alot. Not an Oscar winner, not a brilliant film requiring a Master's degree to like, but a fun adult movie for older people that permeated the popular  culture. Today, that movie probably doesn't get made, and if it does it gets lost on streaming with no impact. On the off chance it does get a theatrical release, it'd do 10m and disappear to VOD after two weeks with no lasting cultural impact. Those are the films I'm worried about. Not the Killers of the Flower Moon types. The Rounders type is what I'm worried about. Normal movies for adults that entertain for a couple hours without a bunch of CGI bullshit, make a solid bit of money, and become a cult classic. 

If we are talking about BO history like we did earlier. Rounders did only 22 million DOM back in 1998. Not exactly a hit and that was Matt Damon  coming off Good Will Hunting and Saving Private Ryan. I see your point but even back then these type of movies could bomb or disappoint. I guess the difference is they would keep making them and put them in theaters where as now it's a total crapshoot. 

[Cmasterclay]

7 minutes ago, John Marston said:

remember this movie that came out ten years ago? It actually did pretty damn good (150M domestic and 288M worldwide on an 85M budget) but the sequels sucked and they made the dumb decision to split the last book into two movies which means after the third one flopped the series had no ending! Lolz. Also the cast is pretty insane looking at it

 

 

What's funny is that they used to pull IP from a ton of things - books especially. The Godfather and Jaws were books. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent.....big books! They just kind of stopped pulling IP from everything except comic books for awhile, and now they finally seem to be rounding back. I'm pro-Divergent type movies.

[Cmasterclay]

1 minute ago, emoviefan said:

If we are talking about BO history like we did earlier. Rounders did only 22 million DOM back in 1998. Not exactly a hit and that was Matt Damon  coming off Good Will Hunting and Saving Private Ryan. I see your point but even back then these type of movies could bomb or disappoint. I guess the difference is they would keep making them and put them in theaters where as now it's a total crapshoot. 

That's a good point. Thing is, it was considered mostly a bomb then with that gross - and yet we just acted like Holdovers and American Fiction were massive successes when they did 2m less and disappeared into a streaming hole where pop culture permeance goes to die. It's just a different, shittier environment, like you said.

Edited March 23 by Cmasterclay

[John Marston]

17 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

I hear you. I was starting to feel quite optimistic in December, actually, as everything from platform on up was overperforming. But so far in 2024, the air is way out of the balloon. We are going to be about a billion under 2023 by September, and while I do think fall looks much better, it's an open question of whether this kind of gradual growth and improvement is going to continue. I am not buying this summer slate at all. It's clear that adult movies need both an empty market and a holiday corridor like in 2023 to really break out like they did in December, and that environment is going to be tough to replicate.

 

Reason why I'm being so pessimistic - the other day, I was talking with a bunch of coworkers about going to the movies. These are educated, professional adults in the government sector, lean white but not exclusively. They were literally laughing at the idea of seeing a movie in theaters. They treated it like I had just told them I have a horse-drawn carriage or a blacksmithing business. I tried the same convo at the more diverse crowd at poker the other night, and got the same reaction. Incredulous laughter. They did all see Oppenheimer, fwiw. This is anecdotal evidence, but the data we are getting seems to back it up - adults over 35, especially middle-class and up, are the ones that haven't come back to the movies. Theaters won't die, and young people going is actually a good sign in many ways, but yeah, problematic as it may sound, it isn't great that the audience demographic that drove business for the films I actually like and support is the one departing the movie going public.

 

Speaking of poker, naturally, we talk about the movie Rounders alot. Not an Oscar winner, not a brilliant film requiring a Master's degree to like, but a fun adult movie for older people that permeated the popular  culture. Today, that movie probably doesn't get made, and if it does it gets lost on streaming with no impact. On the off chance it does get a theatrical release, it'd do 10m and disappear to VOD after two weeks with no lasting cultural impact. Those are the films I'm worried about. Not the Killers of the Flower Moon types. The Rounders type is what I'm worried about. Normal movies for adults that entertain for a couple hours without a bunch of CGI bullshit, make a solid bit of money, and become a cult classic. 

 

 

 

The death of the home media market is definitely a huge blow. I do not think streaming has replaced it 

Edited March 23 by John Marston

[charlie Jatinder]

BIG SAT jumps all around. GB can touch 16. Dune 7.5. KFP 7.25.

[toutvabien]

4 hours ago, kayumanggi said:

 

I knew it would do better than Soul but worse than Turning Red but I was expecting it to land more in the middle... guess it's gonna end up making a little over a million in this run. Do we know if it's re-releasing elsewhere?

[cannastop]

6 minutes ago, toutvabien said:

Do we know if it's re-releasing elsewhere?

yeah all three of the movies are getting or already have released in many places around the world. I don't think they're doing much business though. I saw Turning Red in Japan barely chart at all.

[Kon]

12 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

BIG SAT jumps all around. GB can touch 16. Dune 7.5. KFP 7.25.

That would good for Ghosbusters. I didn't expect 16M to be possible. That means this weekend could reach 40M.

 

[emoviefan]

18 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

That's a good point. Thing is, it was considered mostly a bomb then with that gross - and yet we just acted like Holdovers and American Fiction were massive successes when they did 2m less and disappeared into a streaming hole where pop culture permeance goes to die. It's just a different, shittier environment, like you said.

Let's just keep being grateful we can still see movies in the theater. Not sure by this time next year that will be happening. I kid but as my family and I say we can hope by living in a strong blue  state we will be somewhat protected if you know who gets elected again.

[cannastop]

I guess since Luca is finally in theaters I can re-up this rudimentary analysis I did a while back:
 

tl:Dr I think Soul, Luca, and Turning Red would make $500 WW each based on how they performed in the few markets they could back in the day.

[NoobSaibot]

51 minutes ago, John Marston said:

I will say I go to the movies less but cost is only part of it. Most stuff just doesn't look that appealing these days. Would rather stay home and watch older things I haven't yet seen, Also, getting older is definitely a factor. 10 years ago I probably would have went and saw films like Ghostbusters and Godzilla v Kong even if they got 0%  on RT but now I am just "eh"

 

This is likewise the case for me. Unless it's a franchise I REALLY care about, I'm more likely to see some smaller film that catches my eye instead of, say, a Marvel property that has so many characters to work with.

 

However, I've almost always been this way. I do go to the movies a fair bit, and when I do it's probably for horror or because it has a unique premise. I'm okay with spending money on a film like The Holdovers or Saltburn instead of one of the larger releases because of this. I find those experiences to be more rewarding than sitting through a CGI explosion fest--not because I loathe big special effects films, but because I'm just looking for different experiences these days.

Edited March 23 by NoobSaibot

[von Kenni]

I'm not doom and gloom about the box office or industry even though arguably we are at a low point right now. As @DAJK said, it's transitory and I'm wondering where we are heading. The following underlying currents and their overall strength in molding the future box office and film industry are what I'm pondering after drinking my morning coffee (meaning that I probably forget a lot of other drivers):

 

1. Changes in the overall media and entertainment landscape in the past 10 years from the consumer side. How TikToks and other short format instant gratification formats have made us less inclined to watch movies even at home, let alone to schedule and reserve a ticket, drive and get our asses into a movie theatre and sit down for a couple of hours without using our mobile phones. How does this change (shrink) the overall potential moviegoer customer base?

 

Does the increased entertainment content supply (TV, social media, games, etc.) shrink the potential customer base in the same way?

 

2. Changes in the film and TV production side when streamers and studios are trying to push out too much content without having an adequate talent pool to do so or don't allocate enough time for production. I.e. writers don't have enough time to write (there are billions of examples of this and it's analogous to what has happened in news media, how the demand for pushing news stories and articles out in a shorter timeframe has become unsustainable), there aren't enough talented production crews and craftsmen/people to produce, or groomed directors to direct (e.g. MCU and Disney have a growing tendency to give big budget productions to inexperienced filmmakers as a norm rather than the exception). All this ends up producing mediocre results at best with a few outlier success stories. I think after the writers' strike we (hopefully) have passed the pinnacle of this and are getting back to the common sense on how you make a good movie production-wise.

 

3. The recession in creativity and underlying reasons for it. How much is it due to studios over-milking existing IPs with reboots, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs and trying to make a franchise or a universe out of everything? Then how much that is due to having the financial decision-making power in the hands of calculating "Wall Street" type of entities with public stock pressures? How this has changed and is changing?

 

How much are the representation quotas (merit and talent as secondary), political correctness (or whatever we call it), DEI, etc. flavor of the zeitgeist limiting creativity and estranging parts of the overall moviegoing audience? At least comedies and comedians are more risk-aversive due to this. Will this in part be addressed by the deterioration of Hollywood and the rise of new filmmaking epicenters?

 

4. How do theaters adjust and change? Is the play to have more pure cinematic experiences as Dune and Oppenheimer taking advantage of IMAX while people are dining in providing extra revenue for exhibitors? How can theaters lower the friction for consumers to do the all things that they need to get there? How can they make themselves more attractive? Can they make movies more as shining events?

 

5. What other big currents are there? I think that how MCU and superhero genre ate up the air from other kinds of productions for a large extent for 10 years or so makes now a void after their downfall but that will be filled eventually when the new shiny thing is found (hopefully Oppenheimer and Dune are steering that a bit). Though they exacerbated points 2. and 3. But what are more fundamental currents of change that I'm missing and what are the real extent of my previous wondering points?

 

I think 1. is the most fundamental competition and challenge for the box office and to address it 2.-4. need to be fixed, i.e. investing time and money to groom filmmakers like Nolan, Villeneuve, [insert other solid ones] and the crafts teams around them step-by-step while giving them room to fail along the way. I think market dynamics will much correct 2. and 3. but it's a bit sad to see time and time again studios taking the wrong lessons and making over and over again the same mistakes so it might take time. Overall I'm hopeful for the future of cinema as a shared experience when seeing movies like Oppenheimer and Dune in IMAX. There's always a market for that regardless of how funny TikTok videos, engaging games, or virtual reality experiences I could enjoy at home.

[KGPatt2]

3 hours ago, Maggie said:

But why did Immaculate bomb so badly this weekend?

I hadn't even heard of that movie until, like, 3 days ago. No advertising that reached me at all.

[Cmasterclay]

Watching film at home as an adult in 2024 sucks. That's a huge part of this. Obviously I didn't come to love the original Star Wars trilogy or Terminator 2 or Silence of the Lambs or Se7en because I saw them in theaters. But I did watch them transfixed in front of a TV, likely on the same channel as half my friends or at least available at Blockbuster, and it would build this cultural reverence. That's how we got cult classics and big growth from Shawshank or Rounders. Today's media environment is too siloed to produce cult classics or home video hits like that. Heck, even for me, if I watch Love Lies Bleeding when it drops on VOD, I'll probably spend a solid third of the time checking work emails, texting, or googling NBA scores. The streaming market in today's world is just not equipped to turn these films into hits outside maybe one or two a year.

 

I just don't know how to get out of the doom loop for the industry. I think @von Kenni has some great points and real perspective. Number one is certainly the biggest problem, the others I do think can adjust. Though I certainly think the false perception of "DEI" among the people who wouldn't see something like Lucy because they think it's "pushing things down our throats" is having a much larger impact on box office than any actual, tangible political correctness in films themselves.  Read the responses on Twitter whenever a video game trailer features ANY woman or person of color at all. It's thousands of responses and downvotes bashing the film. Eventually, that kind of coordinate response can't be written off as just "twitter shit" - that is really going to impact consumer habits. I'm really, really worried about the sexless, Andrew Tate and Twitter addled younger generation. I am not remotely convinced they are more liberal at all compared to folks my age. I think that's a bullshit truism that people are falling for.

Edited March 23 by Cmasterclay

[MightyDargon]

49 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

What's funny is that they used to pull IP from a ton of things - books especially. The Godfather and Jaws were books. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent.....big books! They just kind of stopped pulling IP from everything except comic books for awhile, and now they finally seem to be rounding back. I'm pro-Divergent type movies.

You're pro YA dog crap Hunger Games knockoffs?

[Cmasterclay]

2 minutes ago, MightyDargon said:

You're pro YA dog crap Hunger Games knockoffs?

Mining IP has been a thing in movies since the beginning of time, so I'm just pro mining IP from different places besides comic books and video games and nostalgia sequels. I've never seen the Divergent movies of course. 

Edited March 23 by Cmasterclay

[fmpro]

28 minutes ago, Kon said:

That would good for Ghosbusters. I didn't expect 16M to be possible. That means this weekend could reach 40M.

 

16 would mean 31,5 before sunday. Seems hard to miss. Only 8,5 to go.

Looks more like 42~ish to me

[cannastop]

To be honest I'm more worried about the exhibitors than the makers of the movies. I don't watch most movies but I do appreciate the opportunity to see anything in a cinema. But I don't know if many of the theaters can stay open...