Weekend Numbers | actuals | 58.40M KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES | 13.70M THE FALL GUY | 4.38M CHALLENGERS | TAROT

[fmpro]

1 hour ago, vale9001 said:

I don't know about China but european numbers for Apes in Europe are weak. So if the WOM is not that good a 50M start it's not that encouraging for a 160-170M budgeted movie. 

 China looks like a weak 9 mill $ OW. Maybe 25 mill total

[grim22]

6 minutes ago, filmlover said:

 

 

That it died so quickly after its debut was entirely on the movie leaving everyone so completely disappointed. Especially following that ending. I saw it that weekend in a packed auditorium and vividly recall the overall vibe afterwards being of the "what the fuck did I just watch?!" variety and definitely not in a good way. Imagine if social media had existed back then lmao.

 

I remember watching a Leno or Conan episode back then right after the OW and they had guys in the Ape costumes for a skit and at the end Leno asked them "So what the hell was that ending about?" and everyone just made a shrug and said "it makes no sense". That's how quickly the bad word of mouth spread.

[filmscholar]

Maybe "Apes" should have gotten the opening May slot.  Well Summer is finally here.  50-55 Million? I'll take it.  Feels like 75 Million after last weekend's numbers with "Fall Guy".   Look, this is basically a soft reboot post Caesar Trilogy. "Rise" did 54 OW, "Dawn" did 72 OW and "War" did 56.  So this opening is inline with the Franchise recently. 

 

All things considered, it's going to come in a little softer than the previous entries tickets wise.   With that said, "Apes" is still a pretty known brand and commodity.  This is the 10th Film Entry.   So good for "Apes", they can build on this and the sequels should do a little better going forward.  As for "Fall Guy", I just don't see it gaining much more traction with "Furiosa", "Garfield" and "Bad Boys" on the horizon.   

Edited May 11 by filmscholar

[filmlover]

6 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

I remember watching a Leno or Conan episode back then right after the OW and they had guys in the Ape costumes for a skit and at the end Leno asked them "So what the hell was that ending about?" and everyone just made a shrug and said "it makes no sense". That's how quickly the bad word of mouth spread.

That "we obviously pulled it out of our asses" twist ending should've been the tell all for a project that was crazy rushed. It was actually filmed and released in less than 9 months, an awfully fast turnaround even today for such an expensive production. Fox must've really needed an action tentpole for that summer, I guess.

[Eric Lasagna]

It’s funny, because the Burton version’s ending is more accurate to the book. But it all comes so fast and out of nowhere that it just makes you lost and confused once it’s all over. The 1968 film’s ending is also kind of out of nowhere, but it really does hit you like a truck and works so much better thematically. Really shows what good direction and pacing does to a script.

[kayumanggi]

 

[BadOlCatSylvester]

3 minutes ago, filmlover said:

That "we obviously pulled it out of our asses" twist ending should've been the tell all for a project that was crazy rushed. It was actually filmed and released in less than 9 months, an awfully fast turnaround even today for such an expensive production. Fox must've really needed an action tentpole for that summer, I guess.

The irony of you mentioning that tidbit against the backdrop of Universal preparing to rush a brand new Jurassic movie in barely a year is immense.

[kayumanggi]

 

[excel1]

18 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

I remember watching a Leno or Conan episode back then right after the OW and they had guys in the Ape costumes for a skit and at the end Leno asked them "So what the hell was that ending about?" and everyone just made a shrug and said "it makes no sense". That's how quickly the bad word of mouth spread.

 

21 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I think the reason OW numbers exploded in the early 00s because of the internet which allowed for the wider dissemination of information, and because of the massive new construction of movie theaters in the late 90s, which gave more capacity for high grosses.

 

26 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Re: why Planet of the Apes '01 opened so massively (adjusts to over $100M today with 23 years of inflation), it was given a relentless and very expensive marketing campaign leading up to its release that made it one of the most anticipated movies of that year. It was literally everywhere. Also helped that it was the first "modern" attempt at a Planet of the Apes movie and that it had legitimate talent behind it (Burton was as much an A-list director as anyone back then, while Wahlberg getting above the title billing on a massive production like that was the official announcement that he had successfully completed the transition from silly rapper to actual movie star). 

 

That it died so quickly after its debut was entirely on the movie leaving everyone so completely disappointed. Especially following that ending. I saw it that weekend in a packed auditorium and vividly recall the overall vibe afterwards being of the "what the fuck did I just watch?!" variety and definitely not in a good way. Imagine if social media had existed back then lmao.

 

A few thoughts:

 

-Inflation doesn't tell the whole picture. A much more accurate way of thinking about openings is how big the film was relative to the record holder at the time. 2001's APES inflates to $130mish, which is big but not massive. In 2001, Apes almost broke the opening weekend record. Obviously nothing is touching Endgame any time soon (or ever), but a film of equal hype to APES 2001 is opening in the $190-200m range right now. It was hugely hyped. The media preselected Pearl Harbor as the biggest film of May/June, and had Apes as #1 for July/August. 

 

-Apes marketing was massive and extremely effective. The trailer featured the ES Postumous theme which SPIDERMAN used to great affect the following year. Wahlberg was a trendy actor while Tim Burton was still in his prime. It was decisively the 2nd most media-hyped film of the summer. 

 

- Opening weekends had actually begun really blowing ups a few years before starting 1996, it just wasn't as obvious because many of the major films were on holiday weekends or Wednesday openings back then, so the big numbers were more spread out. 2001 was the year where they all seemed to open on Friday-Sunday frame (Harbor's 3D was a bit deflated by Memorial Day) and the July 4th opener (A.I.) tanked. There were signs in1 999 and 2000 of what was to come when AUSTIN POWERS 2 randomly opened to $55m, X-MEN $52m in 2000. They were really setting the stage.

 

The ultimate answer, though, is that in 2001, studios just hit grand slam after grand slam conceptually, and it brought people out.

 

 

 

Edited May 11 by excel1

[Gavin Feng]

 

 

I wonder if this really happened in many theaters?

 

 

[filmlover]

Honestly even aside from the controversial ending the '01 Apes was viewed as an obviously inferior version of the original (despite the insistence of everyone involved that it was a "reimagining" and not a direct remake) hamstrung by other stuff like stiff performances from the "human" actors. Wahlberg gives one of the weakest lead performances ever in a blockbuster in it while Estella Warren's Razzie-winning performance assured her a quick trip to obscurity.

[CoolioD1]

Burton never really recovered from Planet of the Apes. 15 years deep into his career he didn't have a bad movie before that one.

 

It's also the least Tim Burtony movie he ever made. you could tell me some generic brett ratner type hack made it. like a planet of the apes movie with an actual Tim Burton aesthetic would've at least been something.

[AJG]

11 minutes ago, Gavin Feng said:

 

 

I wonder if this really happened in many theaters?

 

 

It’s one of those humble-brag posts.
 

The internet has allowed socially inept imbeciles to believe watching movies makes them interesting or is some kind of personality. She’s basically boasting that whilst she has the incredibly hard-earned skill of watching a movie all the way through, others do not because of the evils of TikTok and instant gratification. 

[grim22]

10 minutes ago, Gavin Feng said:

 

 

I wonder if this really happened in many theaters?

 

 

Since we are talking about 2001 summer, looked up the running time for the movies that summer and they are

 

Mummy Returns - 126min

Planet of the Apes - 119min

Rush Hour 2 - 90min

Jurassic Park 3 - 92min

The Fast and The Furious - 102min

Pearl Harbor - 182min

 

Maybe we do need movies to start losing some bloat again.

[ThomasNicole]

4 hours ago, JimmyB said:

A  "B" CinemaScore isnt shocking. The early verified audience scores were a warning sign.

 

Even the critic scores on RT for Apes are meh.

 

Top Critics 67% and a 6.6/10 rating.  Al Critics 80% and a 6.9/10 ratings.  The RT score and rating have slowing been dropping.

Verified audience score is at 80% and all audience score is at 78%.

 

All pretty blah numbers. 

I really don’t see how these data can be perceived as anything other than solid. 
 

80% with 6.9 average is a perfectly good score, there’s nothing meh about it.

 

Sometimes it feels like years of MCU getting +90% with just okay movies create this overall feeling in audiences that 80% for a blockbuster isn’t good when it is.

 

The B cinemascore is not ideal, and is closer to meh to be fair. Still, considering the descriptions about the movie being slower and skewing to older audiences, maybe the B is more related to comparissons to the previous movies instead of rejection. Legs can still be decent, let’s see.
 

Overall, i think matching War OW, getting good reviews etc is probably the best case scenario for this movie than anyone anticipated when it was announced.

[CoolioD1]

1 minute ago, grim22 said:

Since we are talking about 2001 summer, looked up the running time for the movies that summer and they are

 

Mummy Returns - 126min

Planet of the Apes - 119min

Rush Hour 2 - 90min

Jurassic Park 3 - 92min

The Fast and The Furious - 102min

Pearl Harbor - 182min

 

Maybe we do need movies to start losing some bloat again.

well I mean, most of these movies are quite bad. 

[kayumanggi]

 

[Borobudur]

I saw the movie and the movie is quite good.  I am surprised and confused other receive it more negatively. 

[kayumanggi]

 

[JohnnyGossamer]

11 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

Burton never really recovered from Planet of the Apes. 15 years deep into his career he didn't have a bad movie before that one.

 

It's also the least Tim Burtony movie he ever made. you could tell me some generic brett ratner type hack made it. like a planet of the apes movie with an actual Tim Burton aesthetic would've at least been something.

The score and the look is all him. Set design, costuming, makeup, score is all great. I still think it's maybe the best looking Apes movie.

 

Script us brutal. Marky Mark and Warren as leads also brutal.

 

I'd argue he never really recovered since Superman Lives was halted and scrapped. Sleepy Hollow and, yes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were really good though. Heck, even Big Fish has its moments. But, yeah, otherwise, enormous fall from grace. Alice was especially awful and put the globe on alert that he was finally completely washed.