Weekend Numbers [Aug 02 - Aug 04, 2024] | Actuals | 96.81M DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE | 22.80M TWISTERS | 15.45M TRAP

[Ryan C]

Just now, DAJK said:

I know this isn’t really the topic of conversation in this thread at the moment, but looking ahead to next weekend, I hope something that studios realize from It Ends With Us is that:

 

a) Adult women (25+) are a legitimate movie-going audience that shouldn’t be ignored by the major studios. The reason they don’t come out as much is because the movies that are being made aren’t catering to their demographic as much as they are to men and families.

 

b) Even though the YA craze has died down from the early 2010’s, book-tok is a thing, books are still popular, and there are tons of best-selling novels aimed at adults that can be made into modestly-budgeted hits if you get the right star/marketing. I want to see more book adaptations in the future.

 

All of this is 100% true, but I sadly wouldn't bet on that. 

 

We wanted the major studios to learn that same lesson after Barbie's massive success last year, but they didn't. 

 

Maybe Sony will keep making these kinds of adult dramas like Crawdads or It Ends With Us that appeal more to women, but I don't expect any of the other major studios to realize or learn any kind of lesson. 

[ThomasNicole]

I could be wrong, but i think most powerful executives in Hollywood are male, which for me is why they have such a hard time making movies that strongly appeals to women that, of course, is just as valuable commercially as anyone. 

 

There´s powerful female directors pushing things up like Greta, some books and other materials are too big to be ignored as adaptations, but overall they´re not really able to understand what this audience wants.

 

They know way better what males want, especially if they´re white and straight. When they try to put effort in these ´´male´´ projects to appeal strongly to women, it usually leads to bizarre representations that just makes everyone mad.

Edited August 4 by ThomasNicole

[Ryan C]

3 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

I could be wrong, but i think most powerful executives in Hollywood are male, which for me is why they have such a hard time making movies that strongly appeals to women that, of course, is just as valuable commercially as anyone. 

 

There´s powerful female directors pushing things up like Greta, some books and other materials are too big to be ignored as adaptations, but overall they´re not really able to understand what this audience wants.

 

They know way better what males want, especially if they´re white and straight. When they try to put effort in these ´´male´´ projects to appeal strongly to women, it usually leads to bizarre representations that just makes everyone mad.

 

That's definitely true, but I honestly find it weird that Sony is the one that's putting out these kinds of movies and not Universal. 

 

I bring them up because they have Donna Langley as the chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group. That and whenever I see Universal talked about as a distributor, she's usually mentioned. You would think that with Langley in such a high position that she would be able to greenlight more movies aimed at women, but that's not really the case. 

 

It's frustrating because with the right movie and marketing campaign, Universal can really bring out the female audience. Pitch Perfect 2 and Girls Trip are perfect examples of this. I guess Wicked will be another example of that later this year, but I do wish (especially with Universal having the most diverse slate out of any of the major studios) would do more of the things that other studios wouldn't do. 

[ZattMurdock]

2 hours ago, AMC Theaters Enjoyer said:

we’re not doing the “is Marvel done” discourse this week.

 

Instead we will discuss something less controversial: Zack Snyder and the Rebel Moon directors cuts.

Here’s how it works:

 

1) The real test will be the next film, in this case, Captain America: Brave New World;

2) If the next film succeeds, the real test will be the next film after that, in this case, Thunderbolts*;

3) If Brave New World and Thunderbolts* succeeds, then the real test is The Fantastic Four: First Steps;

4) If all of those succeed, the real test will be Avengers: Doomsday;

5) If Avengers: Doomsday succeeds, then the real test will be Avengers: Secret Wars

6) If everything I’ve just said blow up at the box office, the real test will be the next film after Secret Wars that it will be theorized as a jumping off point into oblivion;

7) Repeat point 1 at the start of the Mutant Saga.

 

This isn’t new, mind you. It’s literally the road map to what has been happening since literally Avengers: Age of Ultron or earlier.

[Ryan C]

Also, and this is off-topic, but something is telling me that Wicked is gonna be a bigger hit than a lot of people think it is. 

 

I just feel like it'll be one of those movies that'll crossover with not just the female audience (which are still massively underserved) and the fans of the Broadway show, but families and just the average person. To me, it really reads like a film that anyone of any age can go in and enjoy regardless if you've seen the broadway show or not. 

 

I could totally be wrong, but I would not be surprised if Wicked becomes one of the biggest non-Disney hits of the year. 

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, Ryan C said:

Also, and this is off-topic, but something is telling me that Wicked is gonna be a bigger hit than a lot of people think it is. 

 

I just feel like it'll be one of those movies that'll crossover with not just the female audience (which are still massively underserved) and the fans of the Broadway show, but families and just the average person. To me, it really reads like a film that anyone of any age can go in and enjoy regardless if you've seen the broadway show or not. 

 

I could totally be wrong, but I would not be surprised if Wicked becomes one of the biggest non-Disney hits of the year. 

Controversial opinion: trailer looked fun to me. If it’s going to connect, I don’t know. But I liked the trailer.

[Killimano3]

32 minutes ago, DAJK said:

I know this isn’t really the topic of conversation in this thread at the moment, but looking ahead to next weekend, I hope something that studios realize from It Ends With Us is that:

 

a) Adult women (25+) are a legitimate movie-going audience that shouldn’t be ignored by the major studios. The reason they don’t come out as much is because the movies that are being made aren’t catering to their demographic as much as they are to men and families.

 

b) Even though the YA craze has died down from the early 2010’s, book-tok is a thing, books are still popular, and there are tons of best-selling novels aimed at adults that can be made into modestly-budgeted hits if you get the right star/marketing. I want to see more book adaptations in the future.

 

As somebody born in 1996 I always find it funny in retrospect how much older people harped on us about "kids not reading anymore". Like our generation read far more then those preceding and succeeding us XD. Essentially every big YA series is from that timeframe

[lorddemaxus]

5 minutes ago, Ryan C said:

Also, and this is off-topic, but something is telling me that Wicked is gonna be a bigger hit than a lot of people think it is. 

 

I just feel like it'll be one of those movies that'll crossover with not just the female audience (which are still massively underserved) and the fans of the Broadway show, but families and just the average person. To me, it really reads like a film that anyone of any age can go in and enjoy regardless if you've seen the broadway show or not. 

 

I could totally be wrong, but I would not be surprised if Wicked becomes one of the biggest non-Disney hits of the year. 

People are already over predicting it. The average person doesn’t care about Wizard of Oz and families (who also don’t care) will be lining up for Moana. The trailer also has pretty abysmal views so far.

[JeepCSC]

23 minutes ago, Killimano3 said:

 

As somebody born in 1996 I always find it funny in retrospect how much older people harped on us about "kids not reading anymore". Like our generation read far more then those preceding and succeeding us XD. Essentially every big YA series is from that timeframe

Huh? Potter was (mostly) the generation before you. Goosebumps probably sold more than anything in the 2010s. The 90s was the heyday of paperback books. I don’t know if kids read less circa 2010, but I highly doubt they read more.

 

[eddyxx]

1 hour ago, ZattMurdock said:

Here’s how it works:

 

1) The real test will be the next film, in this case, Captain America: Brave New World;

2) If the next film succeeds, the real test will be the next film after that, in this case, Thunderbolts*;

3) If Brave New World and Thunderbolts* succeeds, then the real test is The Fantastic Four: First Steps;

4) If all of those succeed, the real test will be Avengers: Doomsday;

5) If Avengers: Doomsday succeeds, then the real test will be Avengers: Secret Wars

6) If everything I’ve just said blow up at the box office, the real test will be the next film after Secret Wars that it will be theorized as a jumping off point into oblivion;

7) Repeat point 1 at the start of the Mutant Saga.

 

This isn’t new, mind you. It’s literally the road map to what has been happening since literally Avengers: Age of Ultron or earlier.

I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was the real test?

 

Edited, its hard to believe that that movie came out 10 YEARS AGO this week! Wow!

Edited August 5 by eddyxx

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, ZattMurdock said:

Here’s how it works:

 

1) The real test will be the next film, in this case, Captain America: Brave New World;

2) If the next film succeeds, the real test will be the next film after that, in this case, Thunderbolts*;

3) If Brave New World and Thunderbolts* succeeds, then the real test is The Fantastic Four: First Steps;

4) If all of those succeed, the real test will be Avengers: Doomsday;

5) If Avengers: Doomsday succeeds, then the real test will be Avengers: Secret Wars

6) If everything I’ve just said blow up at the box office, the real test will be the next film after Secret Wars that it will be theorized as a jumping off point into oblivion;

7) Repeat point 1 at the start of the Mutant Saga.

 

This isn’t new, mind you. It’s literally the road map to what has been happening since literally Avengers: Age of Ultron or earlier.

 

 

Deadpool and Wolverine does not guaranty anything about the performances of upcoming Marvel movies. It's like saying No Way Home guaranteed the success of something like The Marvels

[wattage]

How Cap 4 performs will be an actual bellweather to me for normal MCU fare. Clearly the cameo-fest mega events are fine and were always going to be fine. Even Doctor Strange with its abysmal multiplier made a fuck ton of money. The Avengers movies will do great. 

 

I want to see how Cap 4 and Thunderbolts do, which both seem like very weird movie leftovers from the "what are we even doing here" era that the MCU has been trapped in. Fantastic Four is a brand new start for known and semi popular characters, I expect that to do great as long as it's a good and fun movie. 

[ZattMurdock]

28 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

 

Deadpool and Wolverine does not guaranty anything about the performances of upcoming Marvel movies. It's like saying No Way Home guaranteed the success of something like The Marvels

So you’re telling me that Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) doesn’t have a shot to break into $1B WW even if Iron Man 3 and The Avengers did so on the two years previous? Damn I didn’t know that. No MCU film is guarantee of success of its previous film, insane and unrealistic expectations towards these films has been a thing for more than a decade now.

[PlatnumRoyce]

2 hours ago, Ryan C said:

I'll just clarify that I didn't mean what I said to come across as someone who intentionally cherry picks data and leaves out bad results.

Yeah, that was clearly not your intent and I probably would have phrased it differently if I was writing it again as it unhelpfully muddled the issue.

 

Quote

say that even though this movie won't sell as many tickets as this other movie, it's still doesn't take away from it being a success. 

If we ignore the bad faith scenarios, my objection is more that that I think nailing the general degree of pandemic/post-pandemic adjustments to be applied is very uncertain. Just look at the-numbers' goofy little model's "market strength adjustment" which took a inflation unadjusted comps system which peaked at 94% of late 2010s levels in September 2022 but then fell down to a 75-80% range. I just think it's less that this uncertainty means we should stress the theatrical positives than simply this uncertainty is increased uncertainty. Does that make sense? I think this point justifies more negative arguments (we don't know ___) than positive ones (x was a success) and I take your point to be leaning more into positive arguments. 

To take a non pandemic example it really does take away from the success of Civil War if you expect it to play more like Avengers 2.5 than Captain America 3 or Iron Man 4. I just don't think there's a way to resolve that short of resolving the underlying analytical question. 

 

1 hour ago, AniNate said:

Who has made excuses for the early Disney animations? I'm pretty sure Lightyear, strange world and wish being flops is a generally agreed upon consensus

I took it to be commonly understood as both a normal argument people make today and a series of arguments that were frequently treated as conventional wisdom in 2021/2022 (especially before the release of Puss in Boots make it undeniable that a kids movie could thrive in this theatrical environment). I think Encanto counts - like Elemental it had a genuinely weak audience interest that was saved by WoM (Encanto just took till week 2 of streaming). But it's not just or primarily an Encanto point. It's true both of Raya (see e.g. Tom & Jerry) and the structural arguments made in the wake of Strange World/Lightyear bombing. "It's the theatrical environment/purely a function of direct to D+ expectations" style arguments voiced in the wake of their bombing sounded a lot like the doom & gloom around the summer kickoff films. It's not that there's nothing possibly in those arguments but they were just wildly overstated relative to it actually being about the reception of those films.

The whole "project popcorn" dataset at HBOMax really retroactively makes it clear that people probably overestimated the theatrical penalty a film like Raya or Black Widow suffered as a result of dual-releases. Of course, this could be underestimating Raya's PPV numbers. Disney's PPV equivalent massively spiked during covid (alongside a new UFC deal) in a way that seems to leave open the possibility we're underestimating how much money was generated from the failed premiere access experiment. 

[Jiffy]

4 hours ago, HummingLemon496 said:

Domestically, Avatar 2 is at 48M admissions. So it 7th behind No Way Home (70M), Top Gun: Maverick (68M), Barbie (60M), Inside Out 2 (~58-59M), Deadpool & Wolverine (~53-55M), and Mario (51M). That's very disappointing for a movie whose predecessor sold 74M admissions. No movie post-Endgame sold more tickets domestically than Avatar 1.

 

Zootopia 2 will easily beat Avatar 2 and 3 in admissions. Maybe even Minecraft/Passion of the Christ 2 can do it.

How have you managed to post the exact same thing like 4 separate times in one weekend thread.

[wildphantom]

4 hours ago, HummingLemon496 said:

This is true, Avatar 2 is the biggest movie of the 21st century in global admissions

 

Disagree, I understand sequel drops are normal but going from the absolutely legendary performance of the first movie (only behind TFA/Endgame in admits) to the kinda just above average performance of the sequel is pretty disappointing. Here's the best way to put it: it is a genuine question mark on whether a movie in the 2020s will sell more tickets than A1 domestically, whereas we're getting around 2 films per year which sold more tickets than Avatar 2 domestically.

Just above average performance?

 

The movie made $2.3 billion dollars!!
 

Seriously, that is quite the take 
 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheFlatLannister]

9 hours ago, Migs20242 said:

 

I hope it dethrones Barbie and AoU WW. Might be a long shot be we shall see

 

*side note: Empire has been crazy accurate in his Deadpool projections. He called $200M OW months ago and said likely $100M second weekend last week. Jat we know is always on his game. 

[grey ghost]

58 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

 

Deadpool and Wolverine does not guaranty anything about the performances of upcoming Marvel movies. It's like saying No Way Home guaranteed the success of something like The Marvels

 

DPW shows that, despite The Marvels flopping, the MCU can still break records with a compelling premise.

 

Once again, there's no superhero movie fatigue, there's bad movie fatigue.

[Killimano3]

1 hour ago, JeepCSC said:

Huh? Potter was (mostly) the generation before you. Goosebumps probably sold more than anything in the 2010s. The 90s was the heyday of paperback books. I don’t know if kids read less circa 2010, but I highly doubt they read more.

 

 

Eh maybe I'm defining "generation" too broadly but basically everyone my age was reading Harry Potter and we definitely had goosebumps as well, so I definitely consider the "YA craze" as starting in the 90s even if it probably peaked in the 2000s. My girlfriend and I have a lot of younger relatives though and I can confirm the average kid these days reads effectively nothing if they aren't made to. There will be the odd one that's a big reader but I can't say I know any of them. More the parents fault then anything of course, they just don't get their kids to read any more sadly, which is evident in the lack of giant hits in YA genres compared to past decades.

[Cheddar Please]

9 minutes ago, TheFlatLannister said:

*side note: Empire has been crazy accurate in his Deadpool projections. He called $200M OW months ago and said likely $100M second weekend last week.

Tbf he always goes very optimistic on his predictions so is projections are only extremely accurate if the movie is blowing up