Weekend Numbers | 09.27 - 09.29, 2024 | Friday | 11.32M THE WILD ROBOT | 4.19M BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE | 3.90M DEVARA I

[wattage]

The hold for the Substance is really good. Sub 40% for a body horror film. I think that's the benefit of not doing a slow expansion when thats not the type of audience you're trying to get. Theres a time and place for a slower rollout over maybe 2-3 weeks but it certainly wasn't this and they knew that. They did an entirely digital ad campaign, they clearly wanted an audience that would spread the word online and want to see it immediately to be part of the conversation, not wait 3 weeks for it to be available. And I think it worked out. 

[CheeseWizard]

5 hours ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

At this point, I don't think a better release date would've helped the movie much. That projected second weekend drop is an indication the casual audience is straight up rejecting the movie, which sadly is primarily because of the movie itself being made with Transformers diehards as its primary audience. Most people simply never asked for or wanted a Transformers origin movie to begin with.

 

But I definitely agree that Paramount's management of the brand has been atrocious. The perfect relaunch opportunity was delivered to them on a Megalon platter with Bumblebee, and yet instead of properly analyzing what it did right, they went right back into the same mistakes with Rise of the Beasts. And now they are paying the price, as even if they make another great Transformers movie now, no one will go see it. The mountain who cried wolf. I hope, for the brand's sake, Hasbro revokes Paramount's license after this mess and goes on the hunt for a new partner that'll give these timeless characters the care and respect they deserve.

 

What makes this even more baffling is, Manhog disaster aside, Paramount has actually done well with Sonic especially. They've given that property the necessary care and respect, scheduled the movies appropiately, and consistently capitalized on the momentum of each movie by amplifying what fans loved. And they've just given Ninja Turtles a new lease on life. So they know how to properly manage these classic brands. Then why do they keep fucking up with Transformers so much, arguably their most cinematic brand?

I genuinely don’t think I can say why they keep fucking it up without getting jumped lmao

Edited Saturday at 09:11 PM by CheeseWizard

[wattage]

5 hours ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

At this point, I don't think a better release date would've helped the movie much. That projected second weekend drop is an indication the casual audience is straight up rejecting the movie, which sadly is primarily because of the movie itself being made with Transformers diehards as its primary audience. Most people simply never asked for or wanted a Transformers origin movie to begin with.

 

But I definitely agree that Paramount's management of the brand has been atrocious. The perfect relaunch opportunity was delivered to them on a Megalon platter with Bumblebee, and yet instead of properly analyzing what it did right, they went right back into the same mistakes with Rise of the Beasts. And now they are paying the price, as even if they make another great Transformers movie now, no one will go see it. The mountain who cried wolf. I hope, for the brand's sake, Hasbro revokes Paramount's license after this mess and goes on the hunt for a new partner that'll give these timeless characters the care and respect they deserve.

 

What makes this even more baffling is, Manhog disaster aside, Paramount has actually done well with Sonic especially. They've given that property the necessary care and respect, scheduled the movies appropiately, and consistently capitalized on the momentum of each movie by amplifying what fans loved. And they've just given Ninja Turtles a new lease on life. So they know how to properly manage these classic brands. Then why do they keep fucking up with Transformers so much, arguably their most cinematic brand?

Them wasting the fresh start Bumblee gave them ultimately doomed them imo. A well received Transformers movie in the wake of a movie that the audience hated and the decline of the franchise. It mananges to be a reasonably budgeted true fresh start that reinvigorates the franchise. Great human characters, a great robot character. First time I cared about the human characters since the 3rd Transformers movie. A chance to slowly ramp up to bigger action but still with some great personal storytelling with the humans and robots again. And then the follow up was a Bay-verse wannabe with weaker action and lame human characters again. Reception was lukewarm, not terrible but when trying to do a new start in a new decade for your franchise...not good. 

 

They completely tanked the path to freedom that Travis Knight gave them. Like it was so unbearably stupid of a decision that it actually made me mad at the time and still does. And someone else said it last week but they were chasing after the financial highs of Bay and wanted it immediately instead of accepting that they needed to build themselves back up to that after the 4th and especially the 5th films just double team tanked the franchise domestic and then internationally.

 

And their genius plan is to do a GI Joe crossover. Yeah that's gonna get the kids so eager to buy toys. They don't know if they want the toy sales or to appeal to old timers who are nostalgic for the 80s. So they try to do both. That's what TFOne is and that's what this crossover nonsense is gonna be. 

Edited Saturday at 09:15 PM by wattage

[Flopped]

11 minutes ago, CheeseWizard said:

I genuinely don’t think I can say why they keep fucking it up without getting jumped lmao

 

It already lost screens this weekend.  Usually even the biggest bombs get a two-week commitment. 

[CheeseWizard]

4 hours ago, titanic2187 said:

Wild Robot received a solid A CinemaScore and 96% positive/62% definite recommend on Comscore/Screen Engine’s Postrak.

 

 

That is quite a strange low definite recommend % for a 96% positive movie. 

 

 

I know TFOne has a 75% definite recommend but what positive % did it have? All I can find is articles saying 5/5 stares but idk how to properly compare 5/5 stars to 96% positive, cus that could theoretically be anything from a 90% to a 100%. 
 

Weird as hell if Wild Robot got less definite recommends. Could it be cus it was kinda dark, or even too sad?

 

 

Edited Saturday at 09:28 PM by CheeseWizard

[AniNate]

1 hour ago, wattage said:

The hold for the Substance is really good. Sub 40% for a body horror film. I think that's the benefit of not doing a slow expansion when thats not the type of audience you're trying to get. Theres a time and place for a slower rollout over maybe 2-3 weeks but it certainly wasn't this and they knew that. They did an entirely digital ad campaign, they clearly wanted an audience that would spread the word online and want to see it immediately to be part of the conversation, not wait 3 weeks for it to be available. And I think it worked out. 

 

I just saw it and it definitely seems destined to be a cult horror classic. It's very... visceral

[wattage]

6 minutes ago, AniNate said:

 

I just saw it and it definitely seems destined to be a cult horror classic. It's very... visceral

Visceral doesn't feel strong enough of a word. And it serves the themes of the movie really well. Definitely a cult film in the making.

Edited Saturday at 10:25 PM by wattage

[VanillaSkies]

2 hours ago, wattage said:

The hold for the Substance is really good. Sub 40% for a body horror film. I think that's the benefit of not doing a slow expansion when thats not the type of audience you're trying to get. Theres a time and place for a slower rollout over maybe 2-3 weeks but it certainly wasn't this and they knew that. They did an entirely digital ad campaign, they clearly wanted an audience that would spread the word online and want to see it immediately to be part of the conversation, not wait 3 weeks for it to be available. And I think it worked out. 

It also lost a few hundred theatres this weekend, which makes the hold all the more impressive.

[PlatnumRoyce]

1 hour ago, CheeseWizard said:

I know TFOne has a 75% definite recommend but what positive % did it have? All I can find is articles saying 5/5 stares but idk how to properly compare 5/5 stars to 96% positive, cus that could theoretically be anything from a 90% to a 100%. 
 

Weird as hell if Wild Robot got less definite recommends. Could it be cus it was kinda dark, or even too sad?

 

Think lower: I'm pretty sure the assumption should be that it's likely 88/89% positive because if it hit 90% they'd have included it. If you're looking back to the early days of deadline citing posttrak they'd regularly only give % recommend but that hasn't been true for 8? years. Given it got 5 stars perhaps you want to argue it up but then you'd probably still want to assume low 90s not high 90s. If you just plot a lot of posttrak datapoints in deadline you'll see some herding.

 

A great example of this hearding is posttrak's Shazam 1 posttrak score. In 2019 we only got a "x stars" anecdote and no positive/recommend but after Shazam 2 was released we got an anecdote about the first film's weaker than expected positive/recommend scores (much much lower than the cinemascore). 

Edited Saturday at 11:13 PM by PlatnumRoyce

[The Wild Eric]

 

[Flopped]

I was surprised by The Wild Robot. I thought I would be blown away by its originality and creativity but it's just fine. 

[Mojoguy]

People haven't forgotten your book. In fact the movie will get MORE people to read you book. No need to be jealous of a movie.

[AniNate]

Yes, I'm sure he realized that twelve days ago

[Ryan C]

 

[CheeseWizard]

4 hours ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

 

Think lower: I'm pretty sure the assumption should be that it's likely 88/89% positive because if it hit 90% they'd have included it. If you're looking back to the early days of deadline citing posttrak they'd regularly only give % recommend but that hasn't been true for 8? years. Given it got 5 stars perhaps you want to argue it up but then you'd probably still want to assume low 90s not high 90s. If you just plot a lot of posttrak datapoints in deadline you'll see some herding.

 

A great example of this hearding is posttrak's Shazam 1 posttrak score. In 2019 we only got a "x stars" anecdote and no positive/recommend but after Shazam 2 was released we got an anecdote about the first film's weaker than expected positive/recommend scores (much much lower than the cinemascore). 

I should not have read this at 4am on minimal sleep, my tiny brain is in pain now, but I think I get it 

 

Also kind of unconnected; I know of Encanto as an example, but how often is it that a movie bombs at the box office and then succeeds primarily due to streaming/vods or whatever nowadays? 

Edited yesterday at 03:18 AM by CheeseWizard

[AniNate]

Was hoping for a better bump but I guess it's still an inconclusive barometer for legs. Bad Guys had just a 36% Saturday bump.

[WebSurfer]

 

[AnthonyJPHer]

24 minutes ago, Ryan C said:

 

Could maybe push to 15m if walk ups get stronger. Would push it to 36-37m if that happens 

[Ryan C]

14 minutes ago, AniNate said:

Was hoping for a better bump but I guess it's still an inconclusive barometer for legs. Bad Guys had just a 36% Saturday bump.

 

I think the Saturday bump was slightly lower for The Bad Guys because there were still some schools on Spring Break during that time. 

 

Regardless, a 49% Saturday bump for The Wild Robot is still very good and indicative of strong word-of-mouth. I was hoping for more as well, but getting to $38M or especially $40M off an opening day that was less than $10M (if you back out previews) would've been really hard to do. 

[AniNate]

18 minutes ago, CheeseWizard said:

I should not have read this at 4am on minimal sleep, my tiny brain is in pain now, but I think I get it 

 

Also kind of unconnected; I know of Encanto as an example, but how often is it that a movie bombs at the box office and then succeeds primarily due to streaming/vods or whatever nowadays? 

 

In the grand scheme of things it probably happens more often than we think. There was a blurb in Deadline last month about Gods of Egypt apparently having just recently broken even due to long-term VOD interest, and Alex Proyas is working on a new film now so there's probably a kernel of truth to that. Something like Encanto though was a pretty unique situation, it surely would've been a legit theatrical hit if it released in a non-COVID anxious environment and hadn't had a D+ drop announced for a month later.