Box Office Mojo – The Business of Hollywood Thread

Topic

Discuss box office results and the business side of the movie, television, and streaming industries here!

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Christian wrote:

There’s apparently speculation that Netflix could go down that route, too, but I don’t know about them as far as affordability is concerned.

Seems very unlikely; Netflix are supposedly one of the worst in terms of residuals, etc, and are also the outlet least affected by the strike as they film everything so far in advance.

Barbie is doing fantastic numbers.

https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/box-office-barbie-oppenheimer-opening-day-projections-1235676681/

And so is Oppenheimer. I guess the marketing has paid off.

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garjones

Dave wrote:

Barbie is doing fantastic numbers.

It’s very interesting with Barbie in the vaguest of all Hollywood financial metrics: marketing.

In the last two weeks I have taken 9 flights and Barbie ads have been everywhere. On escalators on the London underground, Heathrow, Dublin, Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur only one film is on every ad board.

Honestly the last time I can remember something so pervasive was Ghostbusters decades back where the logo was on every bus stop in town. It’s not a small budget movie but moderate compared to a lot of blockbusters that have opened much lower. Should you stick $50m  more on the production budget or the marketing one?

I feel in recent years we’ve had stuff like ‘Solo’ where barely anyone outside hardcore fans seemed to have known it was out. Netflix have seemingly enjoyed dropping material with no fanfare which has had mixed results, worked for Squid Game, not that much else.

There is some happenstance in the joke that two movies of such extremes in tone came out the same day and went viral, which has likely helped both but the Barbie side have spent a lot of moolah on ads.

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Ben

garjones wrote:

Honestly the last time I can remember something so pervasive was Ghostbusters decades back where the logo was on every bus stop in town.

Yeah it feels like that kind of thing. Batman ’89 with the bat-symbol too.

It’s been marketed smartly, and the money they’ve spent doing that seems to have actually made the marketing reach the people it needs to reach, which isn’t always the case.

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Todd, Ben, garjones

Dave wrote:

garjones wrote:

Honestly the last time I can remember something so pervasive was Ghostbusters decades back where the logo was on every bus stop in town.

Yeah it feels like that kind of thing. Batman ’89 with the bat-symbol too.

It’s been marketed smartly, and the money they’ve spent doing that seems to have actually made the marketing reach the people it needs to reach, which isn’t always the case.

The whole “Barbenheimer” phenomena has also given a boost to Oppenheimer that it would never have gotten. I would say it’s doing way better than it would have had it been released on its own on another date.

Heh. And yet, Nolan apparently doesn’t love the whole Barbenheimer thing.

Christian wrote:

And yet, Nolan apparently doesn’t love the whole Barbenheimer thing.

Someone might accuse him of having “fun”.

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Todd, Dave

He’s not the most happy go lucky character around.

I’m sue he’ll welcome the money either way.

It’s the first time two films have opened in North America and made over $80m each on the same weekend. Two films making over $60m was the previous record and that hasn’t happened for 10 years. Good counter-programming on the previous ones of kids cartoon and adult action movie.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

The studios will sit down with the WGA on Friday to try and put an end to the writers strike

(via @DEADLINE) pic.twitter.com/FHVYPryu2J

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) August 2, 2023

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Todd

garjones wrote:

He’s not the most happy go lucky character around.

I’m sue he’ll welcome the money either way.

It’s the first time two films have opened in North America and made over $80m each on the same weekend. Two films making over $60m was the previous record and that hasn’t happened for 10 years. Good counter-programming on the previous ones of kids cartoon and adult action movie.

Regarding Barbie: It worked out. If it bombed, it could have seriously damaged some of the careers of the cast.
But it didn’t.

If it’d “bombed”, that’d have been great for another Barbenheimer meme though!

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Todd, Al-x, DavidM

JRCarter wrote:

The studios will sit down with the WGA on Friday to try and put an end to the writers strike

(via @DEADLINE) pic.twitter.com/FHVYPryu2J

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) August 2, 2023

They said something about AI : They could sign you as an extra for one day and according to the current contract setup, take your image, likeness, and voice and use it from then on. You only get paid for that one day, with no residuals for your image and voice after.

Something like actors now not getting paid for the reruns in syndication.

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Ben, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

So the Barbie movie made 1B.

I can remember when if a movie making 100M and covering its production it was considered a hit.

Now a movie making a billion is so ho hum…

Don’t worry Al, I’m sure it’ll be found to have both made a billion and a loss.

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry, Todd

How come I haven’t seen any think pieces about how badly Blue Beetle did?
This makes Green Lantern look good 😬

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3693445889/?ref_=bo_hm_RECENT_WEEKEND_WIDGET_1

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

How come I haven’t seen any think pieces about how badly Blue Beetle did?
This makes Green Lantern look good 😬

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3693445889/?ref_=bo_hm_RECENT_WEEKEND_WIDGET_1

I think that would mean people would have to care about it in the first place.

The majority of the reviews I saw said it was basically a generic superhero movie that we have seen numerous times before.

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Uncle Retrospective

There’s a Blue Beetle movie?

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Todd

DavidM wrote:

There’s a Blue Beetle movie?

Are you kidding?! It’s the film that knocked BARBIE out of 1st place at the box office!!!

For a week, anyway….

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Todd

Honestly that is mostly my response, no idea it was out. I was told by friends it was heavily marketed on Instagram (a SM platform I don’t use), which seems to suggest that isn’t the best option and the film is being quite well reviewed. I have a 12 year old son who is target market for this material, never mentioned it existing, never asked me to take him. I am a comics fan, never even seen a trailer.

By contrast my wife asked me to take the family to Barbie, which is the first time in 16 years of marriage she has ever driven that conversation, it’s either me or the kids suggesting what to see.

Studios, maybe redirect some of the budget to effective marketing. Travelling to UK/Ireland last month the Barbie ads were everywhere.  Nobody could not know it wasn’t in cinemas.

 

 

 

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Todd

garjones wrote:

Honestly that is mostly my response, no idea it was out. I was told by friends it was heavily marketed on Instagram (a SM platform I don’t use), which seems to suggest that isn’t the best option and the film is being quite well reviewed. I have a 12 year old son who is target market for this material, never mentioned it existing, never asked me to take him. I am a comics fan, never even seen a trailer.

This post could just as easily apply to the SHAZAM sequel. I only found out this was a thing when it popped up on one of the HBO channels, long after its initial release. Was there any marketing for it whatsoever? Was it even released to theaters? Absolutely no idea.

Hopefully the James Gunn DCEU will improve marketing. If not….

garjones wrote:

Honestly that is mostly my response, no idea it was out.

Yes, same here. My post was supposed to be funny, but funny because it was true.

Ironically, I saw a Blue Beetle reference somewhere on social media last night, the first I have consciously noticed. I think it was pointing to a review saying the movie was “meh”.

 

njerry wrote:

Hopefully the James Gunn DCEU will improve marketing. If not….

I think WBD is just dumping the DCEU films off and spending a little as possible on them at this point. Since it came out that Gunn’s DCU would be a fresh start, the DCEU movies have essentially been dead men walking.

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Uncle Retrospective

Behind Disney’s Spectrum blackout: A ‘proxy battle’ for the future of television

A PR firm has been manipulating the Rotten Tomatoes movie scores for over 5 years by paying critics directly

(via @vulture) pic.twitter.com/TUmthkbrHH

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) September 6, 2023

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Todd

JRCarter wrote:

A PR firm has been manipulating the Rotten Tomatoes movie scores for over 5 years by paying critics directly

(via @vulture) pic.twitter.com/TUmthkbrHH

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) September 6, 2023

Looking forward to the internet warfare over ethics in film journalism.

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Todd, Ben

Disney shareholders reject activist investor Nelson Peltz’s board nominees

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Todd

[Sean Robinson]

‘Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Still Reigning With $52M-$55M Opening – Saturday Box Office Update – Deadline

SATURDAY AM: For those hooked on a theory last weekend that star power no longer works in opening films, their concerns are further underscored this weekend as a bunch of no-name apes are driving 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes to what might be the biggest B.O. opening this May of $52M-$55M. This is all fueled by PLFs and Imax screens which are delivering 44% of the weekend’s till. Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak exits showed that 43% of the moviegoers bought tickets because they love the franchise, natch.

We’ll see if a Cannes Premiere this week can lift Furiosa past its current $40M-$50M projection, but word of mouth is excellent out of early screenings for the George Miller directed Mad Max: Fury Road prequel. Unlike Disney with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last Cannes, a movie that wasn’t ready for primetime, Warners is truly in pole position here to blast Furiosa off.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes posted a very good Friday of $22.2M thanks to late night business, which isn’t that far from the first Friday results of Tim Burton’s 2001 version ($24.6M), and ahead of Rise of the Planet of the Apes ($19.5M) and pennies lighter than War for the Planet of the Apes ($22.1M). However, the Wes Ball directed version of the 56-year old franchise gets a B Cinemascore and 3 1/2 stars/77% on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak, so hopefully these apes don’t lose their muscle. On a whole 85% of the CinemaScore audience gave Kingdom an A or a B. That’s one of the lowest grades for an Apes movie in the millennium down there with Burton’s which got a B-. Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score has eased to 79%. Still, good on Disney for getting this movie opened, their first try with the franchise post 20th Century Fox. Despite the audience exits, there’s confidence at Disney for the sequel to arrive at the higher end of its projections due to its better-than-expected Friday.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Sean Robinson.

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Todd

I’m going to try and see Apes next week. Zero interest in Furiosa though.

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Todd

I have no interest in Mad Max as a franchise overall, but Fury Road was so good that I definitely want to see Furiosa.

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Sean Robinson

Yeah, same. Fury Road was fantastic and much as I don’t like prequels as a general rule, I’m interested in Furiosa.

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Sean Robinson

I didn’t enjoy Fury Road. It was visually fantastic, but the story was absolute garbage. The story and script really needed another 5-7 passes and to cut 30-45 minutes.

I have zero interest in the new one.

Fury Road was amazing in the theatre, but I don’t think it holds up watching it at home.

Tsk. You people are all crazy.

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Sean Robinson, Dave, njerry

[Sean Robinson]

Box Office Meltdown: ‘Garfield’ Claims Victory Over ‘Furiosa’ With Worst No. 1 Memorial Day Opening in Three Decades – Hollywood Reporter

The bad news doesn’t end there: overall revenue for the four-day holiday also hits a 29-year low and is down a steep 36 percent from last year.

The Memorial Day box office is no picnic this year.

Alcon and Sony’s The Garfield Movie is claiming victory ahead of George Miller‘s Furiosa with an estimated four-holiday gross of $31.9 million, the worst Memorial Day No. 1 opener since Casper debuted to $22.5 million nearly 30 years ago in 1995 (and that’s not adjusted for inflation). This stat excludes 2020, when theaters were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the race isn’t over just yet. Furiosa made more than Garfield for the three-day weekend with an estimated $25.6 million versus $24.8 million, but the four day number is the key stat. Rival studios either show Furiosa slightly ahead for the long weekend or have the two movies tied. Warners has taken the unusual position of not reporting a four-day estimate until Monday (with the race so close, and the headlines so bad, it’s easy to understand why the studio is deviating from tradition).

Furiosa, a prequel that sees Anya Taylor-Joy play a younger version of Charlize Theron’s character in the last film, had been expected to open to $40 million to $45 million for the four-day holiday but instead is the latest summer event pic to underperform in its launch (an exception was The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes).

In 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road started off with a three-day gross of $45.4 million. Miller’s new film, which also stars Chris Hemsworth, cost a pricey $168 million to make before marketing. Overseas, Furiosa started off with $33.3 million from 76 markets for a subdued global start of $58.9 million through Sunday, meaning it will need strong legs if it is to land in the black. So far, it is drawing few females, with males making up 72 percent of the audience in North America.

Garfield, in which the title character is voiced by Chris Pratt, was financed entirely by Alcon. It cost a relatively modest $60 million to produce and opened in line with expectations. Overseas, where it began rolling out earlier this month, the kids pic earned another $14 million from 51 markets this weekend for a global cume of $91.1 million through Sunday. The movie’s performance has successfully relaunched the franchise, insiders say.

Elsewhere, Angel Studios continues to try to emulate the stunning success of last summer’s Sound of Freedom but so far hasn’t come close to doing so. This weekend, it is opening the faith-adjacent film Sight, which is on course to gross an estimated $3 million to $3.5 million for the four days for a seventh-place finish.

More in link…

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Sean Robinson.

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Todd

$168 million is pricey? I thought that was a bargain these days.

Still, bit of a shame. Maybe there’s been too much free postapocalyptic content recently?

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Todd

How Neon Made ‘Longlegs’ Sexy At Box Office With Distrib’s Record Opening Of $22M+, Best Start For Original Horror Pic YTD – Sunday Update – Deadline

UPDATED, Sunday AM: Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4 won the weekend with $44.6 million, but Neon‘s Nicolas Cage-Maika Monroe starrer Longlegs stole the headlines, delivering the best original horror opening year-to-date and the best-ever start for the Tom Quinn-run 7-year old distribution company with $22.6M.

That’s an excellent win for original movies, a much-needed boost for the horror genre, and a big win for the arthouse circuit, which we hear had several sellouts over the weekend with theaters adding showtimes. Overall, per ComScore, it’s the seventh highest-grossing weekend of the year at $129M for all titles.
We told you at the onset of the summer that Longlegs could surprise, with Neon executing a deft marketing campaign with clever clips; overall, a campaign that hid Nicolas Cage. The amazing coup here with Neon is how they racked up a ton of money off a very high single-digit P&A spend — all digital, sans TV. In addition, Dave Caplan’s C2 financed Longlegs for under $10M. Sources verify this is true.

Neon posted 11 videos of Longlegs on YouTube in the last 90 days, amounting to 30 million views, according to Tubular Labs. Consider that major studios, seeing how horror worked in the post-pandemic space, flooded marquees with titles, each one paling one after the other YTD with $8M-$11M openings apiece. However, patterns can be broken and new norms created, and that’s Longlegs.

… more in link …

By the way, Longlegs didn’t have the Imax screens this weekend; DM4 did, with $2.9M and a running stateside cume for the large-format exhibitor on the animated fourthquel of $13.8M.

Box Office: ‘Twisters’ Whips Up Huge Storm With Record $80.5M Domestic Opening – Hollywood Reporter

The film marks the biggest start ever for a natural disaster pic in North America. The winds, however, weren’t as strong overseas.

Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters is whipping up huge winds at the box office, with forecasters predicting a far better than expected domestic opening of $80.5 million in North America. That’s even up from Saturday’s already massive estimate of $74.6 million.

The record-breaking movie, playing in 4,151 theaters, easily boasts the top domestic opening ever for a natural disaster film, not adjusted for inflation. (The current crown holder is Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, which bowed to $68.44 million in 2004.) It’s also the third biggest start of the year to date behind Inside Out 2 ($154.2 million) and Dune: Part Two ($82.5 million) after edging out Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($80 million).

The turnout for Twisters cements the rising star status of Hollywood’s man-of-the-moment Glen Powell, along with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos (the trio lead the ensemble cast). It’s also a notable win for Chung, the acclaimed filmmaker of indie hit Minari. The film’s demos are impressive: It is playing evenly among females and males, as well as appealing to both younger and older adults in what could lead to a new franchise. The film’s critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is a decent 77 percent, but its audience score is much higher at 92 percent, in line with an A- from Cinemascore.

… more in link …

While Twisters became a Category 5 storm domestically, the same can’t be said for overseas, where the film is coming in slightly behind expectations. It took in $27.1 million from 76 markets this weekend for a cume of $42.7 million (it opened in some markets ahead of its domestic debut). That puts the global total at $132.2 million against a net budget of $155 million. It’s scoring its biggest numbers in Latin America and Australia, along with the U.K, but bombed in China with $1.5 million.

Heading into the weekend, tracking services had Twisters starting off with $40 million to $50 million domestically. Some distributors believed it would go higher, but no one predicted $70 million-plus, much less $80 million.
_______________________

Neon’s breakout horror hit Longlegs continued to win over moviegoers in its second outing, falling a scant 47 percent to $11.7 million for a 10-day domestic total of $44.7 million against a budget shy of $10 million budget.

… more in ĺink …

Sean Robinson wrote:

While Twisters became a Category 5 storm domestically

“Category 5” is a measurement for hurricanes, using the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale.

Tornados are measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale, so the line should read “While Twisters became a EF5 tornado domestically…”

Sorry, that just annoyed me. I went through a Category 1 hurricane last week.

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Sean Robinson, Uncle Retrospective, Christian

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Scores Mightier-Than-Expected $211 Million, Sixth-Biggest Debut in Box Office History – Variety

Deadpool & Wolverine” soared higher than expected in its first weekend of release. The comic book tentpole, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, collected $211 million in its domestic box office debut, ranking as the sixth-biggest opening of all time.

Ticket sales were above Sunday’s record-breaking estimate of $205 million, which already stood as the biggest opening weekend of the year and the largest ever for an R-rated film. With Monday’s final tally, “Deadpool & Wolverine” has grossed $444.3 million globally after three days of release.

Only “Avengers: Endgame” ($357 million), “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($260 million), “Avengers: Infinity War” ($257 million), “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($247 million) and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” ($220 million) have enjoyed bigger starts at the domestic box office. All of those tentpoles crossed the $1 billion mark with ease — a milestone that’s all but assured at this point for “Deadpool & Wolverine.” If the superhero epic joins the billion-dollar club, it’ll be only the second R-rated film in history — after 2019’s “Joker” ($1.07 billion globally) — to achieve that victory.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” is notable because it ushers the comic book characters that were previously licensed to 20th Century Fox into Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ticket sales for the Shawn Levy-directed tentpole were stratospheric because ardent fans wanted to watch the film as early as possible to avoid plot twists, major cameos and see Jackman’s gruff mutant Logan emerge from retirement.

Over the weekend, Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe became the first film franchise ever to cross $30 billion at the global box office. Although not all of the franchise’s 34 installments were box office winners (the less said about recent entries like “Eternals,” “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the better), the MCU remains in rarified air in terms of commercial appeal.

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Christian, Todd

Hollywood Reporter (very similar) story with other movies

…Neon’s Longlegs in fifth place. The hit indie horror pic also made box office history in becoming Neon’s biggest film ever with $58.6 million in domestic ticket sales after earning another $6.8 million this weekend (the pic continues to grow in screen count based on demand). The crown previously belonged to Neon’s Oscar-winning Parasite, which grossed $53.4 million.

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Christian, Todd

“Alien: Romulus’ Scaring Up $75 Million, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Eyes $1.14 Billion – Forbes

Alien: Romulus debuts this weekend to an expected $70-80 million globally this weekend, as Disney continues dominating the summer box office season, with Deadpool & Wolverine eyeing $1.14 billion and Inside Out 2 building it’s lead past $1.6 billion as 2024’s biggest movie so far.
…

If Alien: Romulus plays similar to the early summer sequel hit Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (which finished at nearly $400 million), then 20th Century Studios and Disney should be quite pleased, as the film is modestly budget at just $80 million.
…

Deadpool & Wolverine should sit near $1.08 billion entering the weekend, and add another roughly $65 million worldwide this weekend. I expect that to be good enough to push the super-sequel toward $1.14 billion. Deadpool & Wolverine topped Joker’s 2019 gross of $1.078 billion on Thursday to become the new highest grossing R-rated box office release in cinema history.

Deadpool & Wolverine also passed Captain Marvel (2019, $1.12 billion) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019, $1.13 billion) this weekend as it steadily climbs the Marvel Studio box office charts. It will pass Captain America: Civil War (2016, $1.5 billion) this week, and should eventually top Iron Man 3 (2013, $1.2 billion) to finish as the seventh-highest earning MCU film.

Inside Out 2 topped $1.6 billion at the start of the week, and now appears headed for about $1.625 billion, but any predictions for this film now require a big qualifier that it has consistently performed ahead of expectations and keeps surprising with it resilience. It’s not merely Pixar’s biggest film ever, it’s the highest grossing animated movie of all time, and easily the biggest release of 2024 to date.

… more in link…

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Todd

‘Alien: Romulus’ Wins Busy Box Office Weekend With $41.5M Opening, $108M Globally – The Hollywood Reporter

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Todd

Nice to see that one do well. I’d love to see it in the cinema; unfortunately, that’s currently not going to be possible.

https://deadline.com/2024/08/megalopolis-trailer-recalled-lionsgate-fabricated-quote-controversy-1236046745/

In a highly unusual move, Lionsgate is pulling its new trailer for Megalopolis, unveiled early this morning.

The decision comes following controversy over critic quotes featured in the trailer, which digging by Vulture and other outlets revealed to be fabricated.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” said a spokesperson for the studio. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

The quotes featured in the Megalopolis trailer highlight previous ‘criticisms’ of Coppola’s now-iconic works, such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, by such famed critics as The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. With reference to The Godfather, for instance, Kael is quoted as calling the film “diminished by its artsiness,” with Sarris referring to it as a “sloppy self-indulgent movie.”

The messaging here seemed to be that while Coppola’s Megalopolis was polarizing from the outset, dividing critics in its premiere at Cannes, the film will ultimately stand the test of time as a classic, much like so many of Coppola’s past works have. While it’s not clear how a slew of erroneous critic quotes wound up in the new trailer, other critics cited included Roger Ebert, Vincent Canby, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann, and Rex Reed.

The trailer debacle hasn’t been the only controversy Megalopolis has weathered en route to theaters, as Variety in July published a report on supposed unprofessional behavior from Coppola, along with a video that appeared to depict the director kissing extras on set. A week later, one of the women featured in the video, Rayna Menz, came forward to dispute our sister trade’s account of events, telling Deadline, “He did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable. I felt disgusted, I was blindsided by it because it was a closed set. That someone had video of that is just ridiculous and super unprofessional.”

Self-financed by Coppola at a budget north of $100M, Megalopolis is described as a Roman epic set in an imagined Modern America. In the film, the City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.

Marking Coppola’s first feature outing since 2011’s Twixt, the film also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, and Dustin Hoffman. Its producers include Barry Hirsch, Fred Roos, and Michael Bederman.

Lionsgate is set to release Megalopolis in U.S. theaters on September 27.

Yeah, I saw that trailer yesterday and it left me with questions. I mean, it felt like a very dumb decision in the first place, even if the quotes had been real, because what that trailer told me was that apparently critics thought the movie was shit – something I wouldn’t have known without that trailer. So, baaad decision in the first place. Also, they decided to put Dracula on the same level as Apocalypse now and The Godfather, which… listen, I liked Dracula a lot but “beautiful mess” actually describes it quite well.

Also, the trailer told me nothing about the movie itself, which it would have needed to do after telling me that everybody thinks it’s shit, so, you know.

And now this. My guess is: Somebody at Lionsgate hasn’t figured out how ChatGPT works yet. This is exactly the kind of thing you’d get if you typed a prompt like “Can you give me quotes from negative reviews of these movies”. And I know because I tried this ages ago (asking for quotes for a question in an exam about “No News from the Western Front” and in contrast to these guys I got suspicious when there were some unlikely ones).

I expect someone is going to get fired over this.

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Todd

This is something I have been thinking about lately, especially with my rewatch of Remington Steele.

With a lot of shows and their short seasons with a couple of years between seasons, character development really takes it in the neck. It is all about the overarching story. Sometimes, individual episodes don’t even tell a coherent story. As mentioned in the video, a lot of these shows probably would have worked better as a 2-hour movie.

I look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a show that absolutely nailed it once it hit its stride. Season 1 was 20 episodes with Seasons 2-7 being 26 episodes each, and each season started about three months after the previous one did. And this show was heavy with FX! It had arcs that spanned a season and crossed seasons. Yet, each episode told a story. Being completely honest, not everyone was great but that’s to be expected. Still, you had more hits than misses. You got very character-driven episodes where you gained new insights into them. It made you care about them and the show more.

Something that really bothers me is having to wait years between seasons, especially ones where there are little to no special effects. There really is no good reason for this. Streamers should know fairly quickly after a show concludes whether or not there will be new season. If the Star Trek series from the late 1980s to the early 2000s could regularly crank out 26 episodes every year, contemporary shows have no excuse.

Streaming can do better.

Yeah, I think the pressure to put out 24 episodes a season had both negative and positive effects. There was some crap as a result, but also episodes that were wonderful that wouldn’t have got made if it wasn’t for this kind of pressure.

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Todd

I don’t think that the number of episodes is the core of the problem, there are plenty of shows with shorter episode counts per series with fantastic characters and well-realised plots.  Like Spaced has 14 episodes with about 18 months between the two series, and the characters are beloved comedy icons.  Or Fawlty Towers has an almost four-year gap between its’ two series!

On the Drama front, something like The Wire has 60 episodes across 6 years, and there are two-year gaps between series 3 and 4 and 4 and 5.

Around 10 minutes in, he touches on a point I find more important – the idea that the destination that matters and all you can do is write towards this.  The idea of “premium TV” as the “novel for Television”.  And that often leads to shows having the same format – the idea of the big twist moment in the second-last episode, and having to find things for the cast to do to get to that point, but it all has to move towards the point somehow.  You can’t just have characters do things, but oddly in an actual novel you can have subplots that don’t tie in to the main story, just have two sets of plots that might intersect or have a thematic link.

At 12 minutes he talks about budget and that’s another big issue for me.  Like Secret Invasion cost $212 million for 6 episodes.  Star Trek Picard, at a cost of about $9 million per episode came to about $270 million total.  Those are both like, a lot of money.  Your average episode of Star Trek in the 90s cost about $1 million per episode, Babylon 5 was $500k.  Space: Above and Beyond was notable for its whopping $2 million per episode.  And let’s say that $5-10 million per episode is reasonable for an episode of SF TV in the modern era – the Orville had an estimated $5 million per episode – I think most people can agree that modern Trek has great production values, so where does all that extra money go in a Marvel or Star Wars TV production? In Secret Invasion I’m sure a chunk of it went on Samuel L Jackson and the other bigger name cast members’ salaries, but Picard was generally a million per episode over Discovery between Patrick Stewart’s salary and filming in California because he didn’t want to work in Canada.  Throwing money at these shows means the risks are greater if they underperform and they don’t seem to look any better than shows considerably cheaper than them.

Ultimately I think the problem is the kinds of stories they’re trying to tell.  You can have a show that tells mostly self-contained stories and takes some risks – to go back to the Trek well, Strange New Worlds series 2 felt very much like they just wanted to do some baseline Star Trek stories, but we still had the musical episode, and the one about Dr. Mbenga’s time in the war.  We spend time hanging out with the characters even if some of their stories are kinda essentialist, like them deciding Ortegas is defined by being a pilot. I largely enjoyed Discovery but even the characters we spent a lot of time with are more defined by what they did rather than who they were, and SNW has mostly avoided that trap.

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Box Office: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Scares Up Near-Record $110M Domestic Opening – Hollywood Reporter

Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel returning Michael Keaton as the ghoulish prankster scored the second-best September launch of all time.

Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is off to a rip-roaring start at the domestic box office as if no time had passed between now and when the first film graced the big screen 36 years ago.

From Warner Bros., the first event pic of the fall season opened to a monstrous $110 million, coming in on the high end of expectations. Whether it can successfully revive the franchise will depend on its staying power.

There’s also the question of overseas, where the original film didn’t play in theaters so doesn’t have the same nostalgic factor (it has developed some markets including the U.K and Australia). Beetlejuice Beetejuice‘s foreign launch of $35 million from 69 markets is notably behind its domestic showing, but the hope now is that it picks up momentum after placing No. 1 in numerous territorise, and also has yet to open in such major markets as France, Germany and Japan. It’s showing promise in Europe and Latin America; the U.K. led all overseas territories with $9.6 million, followed by Mexico with $6.5 million — and also did a tidy $2.6 million in Australia. (Warners knew it would never be a big player in most of Asia.)

In North America, there was plenty to celebrate. The campy comedy-horror movie delivered the second-biggest September opening of all time behind fellow Warners’ 2017 R-rated Stephen King adaptation It ($123 million), not adjusted for inflation. And it was a career-best opening for Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Monica Bellucci, Justinn Theroux and Jenna Ortega.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees the return of Michael Keaton as the titular ghoulish prankster, alongside Ryder and O’Hara. Franchise newcomers include Ortega, Theroux, Bellucci, Arthur Conti and Willem Dafoe. This time around, Lydia Deetz (Ryder) and her family return home after a tragedy only to find that her daughter, Astrid (Ortega), has opened a portal to the afterlife. (The teaser trailer appropriately features Keaton declaring to an astonished Ryder, “The Juice is loose.”)

The movie is appealing over all age groups and families, a testament to the first film’s cult classic status. It’s skewing female by anywhere from 54 percent to 58 percent and is playing well in all parts of the country. More than a third of the gross is coming from Imax and other large-format screens. Another boost: Hispanic consumers, who are the most frequent moviegoers. Ortega, star of the hit Netflix series Wednesday, was another secret weapon in helping to winning over younger females. (Burton is among Wednesday’s exec producers and directs multiple episodes.)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice received a B+ CinemaScore, on par with a fresh Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 76 percent and a notch up from the B CinemaScore given to the 1988 film. (It isn’t uncommon for horror films or titles with horror elements to land lower CinemaScore grades.)

“Tapping into the maniacally playful spirit of one of his enduring golden-era hits, the director seems reinvigorated. He serves up comparable tonic as well for two actors who were a big part not just of the original Beetlejuice but also of Burton’s Batman movies and Edward Scissorhands: Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, respectively,” writes The Hollywood Reporter chief film critic David Rooney in his review.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice eclipsed the previous second-biggest September opening of all time, 2019’s It Chapter Two ($91.1 million), followed by Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($75.4 million), which was released during the pandemic in 2021. After that, the next biggest September opening is in the mid-$50 million range.

The sequel cost a reported $100 million to make before a major marketing spend that included staging the movie’s world premiere at the glitzy Venice Film Festival.

Burton directed the sequel from a script by Wednesday showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, with Seth Grahame-Smith credited for his work on the film’s story.

The first Beetlejuice grossed $74 million at the domestic box office — a huge sum at the time — or more than $195 million when adjusted for inflation.

No other major studio film dared open opposite Beetlejuice 2, which is playing in 4,575 locations. The only other new wide offering is indie distributor A24’s psychological horror pic The Front Room failing to find its groove, opening in tenth place with $1.7 million. If there was any solace, its that traffic was better than expected on Saturday, when it looked like the film might only open to $1.4 million.

Back at the top of the chart, Deadpool & Wolverine placed No. 2 in its seventh weekend with $7.2 million domestically for a global cume of $1.257 million. The indie Ronald Reagan biopic Reagan followed in third place with a solid $5.2 million for a 10-day domestic cume of $18.5 million and Alien: Romulus with $4 million for hefty global total of $314.4 million, the best showing for fhe franchise behind Prometheus.

It Ends With Us rounded out the top five with another $3.8 million as it leapt past the $300 million globally.

Hollywood studio of 2024 to gross $4 billion in global ticket sales, thanks to billion-dollar babies Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Alien: Romulus, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes have also prospered, among other titles.

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[Sean Robinson]

Box Office: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Stays No. 1 as ‘Speak No Evil’ Impresses and ‘Killer’s Game’ Bombs – Hollywood Reporter

Elsewhere, conservative provocateur Matt Walsh’s mockumentary ‘Am I Racist?’ scores the third-biggest opening for a doc in almost a decade.

Tim Burton and Warner Bros.’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice lost none of its ghostly mojo in its second weekend and easily stayed atop the box office chart with an estimated $51.6 million as it hurtles toward the $200 million mark domestically.

The pic, playing in 4,575 theaters domestically, fell just 54 percent for a 10-day domestic total of $188 million. Overseas, the sequel took in another $28.7 million from 76 markets for a lukewarm foreign tally of $76.3 million and $264.3 million globally.

Blumhouse and Universal’s new horror-thriller Speak No Evil was also good news for the early fall box office. The pic opened in second place with an estimated $11.5 million from 3,375 locations against a budget of just $15 million before marketing. The movie follows an American family as they spend the weekend at a plush British estate only to discover that their host, played by James McAvoy, has a rather sinister side. McAvoy is earning strong marks for his performance.

Speak No Evil boasts an 85 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B+ CinemaScore from audiences. Overseas, it started of with $9.3 million from 73 markets for a global launch of $20.8 million.

Marvel and Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine held at No. 3 all the way in its eighth weekend, with an estimated $5.2 million for a domestic cume of $621.5 million and $1.305 billion worldwide, the seventh-biggest showing of any MCU title.

In the biggest surprise of the weekend, conservative provocateur Matt Walsh‘s Am I Racist? opened in fourth place with an estimated $4.8 million from 1,517 locations, the top debut of 2024 so far for a doc and the third biggest since Disney’s nature film Bears a decade ago. Am I Racist? is doing big business in conservative markets in the South, Midwest and Mountain States.

The Justin Folk-directed film, described as a “social experiment,” comes from Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing’s The Daily Wire and marks the company’s first theatrical launch for an in-house production with distribution handled by SDG Releasing.

In the film, which is drawing comparisons to Borat in terms of its tactics, Walsh tricks his subjects by assuming the role of a DEI trainee who attends anti-racism workshops, crashes private intellectual dinner parties and conducts sit-down interviews with experts and everyday Americans alike on the topic of racism. The film also discloses the fees paid to certain experts, including Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. In recent days, DiAngelo blasted Walsh and said she had donated her $15,000 fee to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund.

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• This reply was modified 9 months, 3 weeks ago by Sean Robinson.

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Todd

[Sean Robinson]

Box Office: ‘Megalopolis’ Bombs With D+ CinemaScore, ‘Wild Robot’ Soars to No. 1 – Hollywood Reporter

Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million passion project only cleared $4 million in its domestic debut after receiving the disastrous audience score and divided reviews.

DreamWorks Animaton and Universal’s family film The Wild Robot is charming moviegoers and audiences alike, boasting both a stellar 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics score and a 98 percent audience score, not to mention an A CinemaScore from moviegoers. Thanks to great word of mouth, Wild Robot came in No. 1 with an estimated $35 million.

If only the love were being spread around.

Francis Ford Coppola — in one of the low points of his long and illustrious career — is watching his new movie Megalopolis get almost utterly rejected by moviegoers (it was likewise maligned by many critics). The film received a disastrous D+ CinemaScore from audiences and only cleared an estimated $4 million in its domestic debut (many rivals predict final numbers will be lower). Heading into the weekend, tracking and Lionsgate expected it to do at least $5 million to $7 million.

While The Wild Robot came in ahead of tracking, many had predicted the film would do big business, particularly after Paramount and Hasbro Entertainment’s fellow PG animated film Transformers One opened behind expectations last weekend.

Wild Robot is based on Peter Brown’s beloved bestseller about a robot nicknamed ROZ who forms an unexpected bond with an orphaned gosling and other creatures after being shipwrecked on a lonely island. Oscar nominee Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods) directed and wrote the movie, which tells a story of the bridge between nature and technology. The high-profile voice cast is led by Lupita Nyong’o, Kit Connor, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy and Stephanie Hsu, alongside Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

Overseas, the CGI-animated pic earned another $9.9 million from 29 markets for an early foreign total of $18.1 million and $53.1 million globally.

Tim Burton’s hit sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came in third with $16 million for a domestic total of $258.1 million. It’s doing less business overseas, where it has earned $123.2 million for a global total of $373.3 million.

Paramount and Hasbro Entertainment’s Transformers One — which had hoped to get fanboys in addition to kids and parents — fell a steep 62 percent in its second outing to an estimated $9.3 million for a 10-day domestic total of $39.2 million.

In a surprise twist, the Indian Telugu-language action film Devara: Part 1 placed fourth domestically with an estimated $5.5 million.

Blumhouse and Universal’s Speak No Evil rounded out with top five with $4.3 million in its third weekend for a domestic total of $28.1 million.

Megalopolis is looking at a sixth-place finish. As revered as Coppola is, no major Hollywood studio would sign on to finance or distribute the pricey $120 million film in North America after seeing the film at an early buyer’s screening before its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it drew mostly meh reviews. Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf star in Coppola’s epic reimagining of the Roman Empire in modern-day New York City on the brink of ruin.

Lionsgate ultimately signed on to release the movie domestically but isn’t on the hook for distribution or marketing costs. Imax is also in Coppola’s corner after the director used Imax-certified cameras to shoot portions of the movie, with Megalopolis booked to play in roughly 200 Imax theaters, or about half the large-format’s circuit, during select showtimes.

Megalopolis would have been stranded without Imax, which is reporting $1.8 million in ticket sales for the film, including $1.4 million domestically.

Last week, Coppola compared the film’s storyline to the current political situation in the U.S. before a screening of his new film at the New York Film Festival, suggesting that the 2024 presidential election may mirror the downfall of Rome. His comments were streamed into 65 cinemas across the U.S. and Canada with support from Imax.

If Coppola was hoping to rev up detractors of the Republican presidential nominee, it didn’t work.

Nor, as it turns it, are fans of Trump rushing out to see Vindicating Trump, the latest documentary from conservative pundit and Trump supporter Dinesh D’Souza that examines the obstacles facing the GOP nominee in his bid to reclaim the Oval Office.

D’Souza’s doc — made in cooperation with Trump, who has been personally plugging the film — is playing in 813 theaters domestically but didn’t get much traction, earning less than $1 million, or $762,000, to place fifteenth. Faith-based distributor SDG, home of the record-breaking mockumentary Am I Racist?, is handling Vindicating Trump in North America. Highlights include D’Souza interviewing Trump after a would-be assassin’s bullet clipped Trump’s ear.

At the specialty box office, Sony opened Jason Reitman‘s Saturday Night — a love letter to the long-running NBC sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live timed to its 50th anniversary season — in five locations in New York and Los Angeles. The film is reported a promising per-location average of $53,000.

Amazon MGM Studios’ acclaimed specialty film My Old Ass expanded into more than 1,700 theaters, earning $1.6 million for an early domestic cume of $2.9 million.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by Sean Robinson.

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Todd

I am curious about Megalopolis, but not enough to actually spend money and go to a theater to see it. It is definitely “wait for cable/streaming”.

I’d love to see it at the theatre, but am unlikely to make it.

Which is a shame, this is the movie that typically I never do watch on streaming at home…

Christian wrote:

Which is a shame, this is the movie that typically I never do watch on streaming at home…

To be fair, it seems people aren’t watching it in the theater either.

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Christian

Todd wrote:

Christian wrote:

Which is a shame, this is the movie that typically I never do watch on streaming at home…

To be fair, it seems people aren’t watching it in the theater either.

Surely somebody must have made the MegaFlopolis joke already by this point?

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Christian, Todd, njerry

Dave wrote:

Todd wrote:

Christian wrote:

Which is a shame, this is the movie that typically I never do watch on streaming at home…

To be fair, it seems people aren’t watching it in the theater either.

Surely somebody must have made the MegaFlopolis joke already by this point?

No, we were waiting for you, Dave.

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Dave, Todd

The earliest use I can find is from April:

Is Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Turning Into a Megaflopolis?

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njerry, Todd

This morning, I read the plot summary for Megalopolis on Wikipedia.

Well, that certainly is… something.

My Facebook friends who have seen it have not been kind to it. A lot of them said it doesn’t make sense. One of them walked out of the theater after an hour. Definitely waiting for cable/streaming to attempt to watch it.

Can ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Sing in Tune at the Box Office and Overcome Worrisome Tracking? – Hollywood Reporter

When Todd Phillips‘ Joker: Folie à Deux came on tracking three weeks ago, forecasts showed the Warner Bros. movie opening to $70 million — $26 million lower than previous installment five years ago, but still a respectable sum. Since then, projections have slipped to anywhere from $50 million to $60 million.

Why the drop?

The polarizing, R-rated movie — which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival to mixed reviews — is a genre-busting, music-infused sequel that strays outside the comfort zone of the typical fanboy-fueled comic book pic. While 2019’s Joker earned comparisons to the earlier works of Martin Scorsese, the sequel is a far slower paced journey that focuses on the interior lives of its two leads. Critics have praised the movie’s overall beauty, its performances and its crafts, but dinged it for its narrative. “For a movie running two-and-a-quarter hours, Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter chief film critic David Rooney out of Venice.

All of this could be confusing for the first Joker‘s target audience and help explain the dip in tracking and lighter-than-expected advance ticket sales. Regardless of its box office performance, the movie is expected to be a major player in the Oscars race.

Overseas, Joker 2 opens everywhere this weekend, save for Japan and China, where it launches in the coming weeks. Warners is hoping for a foreign debut of $80 million to $85 million.

Joker: Foile à Deux reunites Phillips with Joaquin Phoenix, who returns in the titular role after winning the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck/Joker. Released in 2019, Joker opened to a huge $96.2 million domestically on its way to earning a record-shattering $1 billion at the worldwide box office, making Phillips and Phoenix heroes on the Warner Bros. lot and earning them enough goodwill to allow them to experiment with the sequel.

Indeed, neither Phillips nor Phoenix was sure about making a sequel, and for a time contemplated putting on a Broadway show instead, before ultimately committing to the movie.

The first Joker cost just $55 million to produce before marketing. After its success, Phillips’ was given a net production budget of $190 million to $200 million for the second installment. Part of that went to bringing aboard Lady Gaga in a role inspired by the comic book character Harley Quinn (the filmmakers are hoping she will lure in female moviegoers).

Todd wrote:

My Facebook friends who have seen it have not been kind to it. A lot of them said it doesn’t make sense. One of them walked out of the theater after an hour. Definitely waiting for cable/streaming to attempt to watch it.

I suspect it’s a movie you can enjoy if you go into it in the right mindset. It seems like a pretty unique experience, whatever else it may be.

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Todd

Sean Robinson wrote:

Can ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Sing in Tune at the Box Office and Overcome Worrisome Tracking? – Hollywood Reporter

When Todd Phillips‘ Joker: Folie à Deux came on tracking three weeks ago, forecasts showed the Warner Bros. movie opening to $70 million — $26 million lower than previous installment five years ago, but still a respectable sum. Since then, projections have slipped to anywhere from $50 million to $60 million.

Why the drop?

The polarizing, R-rated movie — which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival to mixed reviews — is a genre-busting, music-infused sequel that strays outside the comfort zone of the typical fanboy-fueled comic book pic. While 2019’s Joker earned comparisons to the earlier works of Martin Scorsese, the sequel is a far slower paced journey that focuses on the interior lives of its two leads. Critics have praised the movie’s overall beauty, its performances and its crafts, but dinged it for its narrative. “For a movie running two-and-a-quarter hours, Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter chief film critic David Rooney out of Venice.

All of this could be confusing for the first Joker‘s target audience and help explain the dip in tracking and lighter-than-expected advance ticket sales. Regardless of its box office performance, the movie is expected to be a major player in the Oscars race.

Overseas, Joker 2 opens everywhere this weekend, save for Japan and China, where it launches in the coming weeks. Warners is hoping for a foreign debut of $80 million to $85 million.

Joker: Foile à Deux reunites Phillips with Joaquin Phoenix, who returns in the titular role after winning the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck/Joker. Released in 2019, Joker opened to a huge $96.2 million domestically on its way to earning a record-shattering $1 billion at the worldwide box office, making Phillips and Phoenix heroes on the Warner Bros. lot and earning them enough goodwill to allow them to experiment with the sequel.

Indeed, neither Phillips nor Phoenix was sure about making a sequel, and for a time contemplated putting on a Broadway show instead, before ultimately committing to the movie.

The first Joker cost just $55 million to produce before marketing. After its success, Phillips’ was given a net production budget of $190 million to $200 million for the second installment. Part of that went to bringing aboard Lady Gaga in a role inspired by the comic book character Harley Quinn (the filmmakers are hoping she will lure in female moviegoers).

Floppie à Deux.

I’m going to coin at least one of these.

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Christian, Todd

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

Given how much money it’s going to lose, it probably would have been cheaper for them to pay Adam Driver to come to your house and ask you a question at the appropriate moment.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Dave wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

Given how much money it’s going to lose, it probably would have been cheaper for them to pay Adam Driver to come to your house and ask you a question at the appropriate moment.

Unfortunately, that would mean having Adam Driver in my home.

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lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

Dave wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

Given how much money it’s going to lose, it probably would have been cheaper for them to pay Adam Driver to come to your house and ask you a question at the appropriate moment.

Unfortunately, that would mean having Adam Driver in my home.

Have you still not fixed the holes from when he recited the Marriage Story scene last time he was over?

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Christian, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Todd wrote:

Dave wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

Given how much money it’s going to lose, it probably would have been cheaper for them to pay Adam Driver to come to your house and ask you a question at the appropriate moment.

Unfortunately, that would mean having Adam Driver in my home.

Have you still not fixed the holes from when he recited the Marriage Story scene last time he was over?

Holes in my house or holes in my ear drums?

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lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Todd wrote:

Dave wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

If you watch it at home, do you have to stand up and ask Adam Driver a question at the appropriate moment?

Given how much money it’s going to lose, it probably would have been cheaper for them to pay Adam Driver to come to your house and ask you a question at the appropriate moment.

Unfortunately, that would mean having Adam Driver in my home.

Have you still not fixed the holes from when he recited the Marriage Story scene last time he was over?

Holes in my house or holes in my ear drums?

All together now…

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Todd, njerry, lorcan_nagle

Dave wrote:

Floppie à Deux.

Sorry, some guy on X made that joke a month ago.

https://x.com/EmenaIo/status/1831482139084554718

You know, I think it’s far easier to explain Joker 2’s lack of success than Joker 1’s success.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

Christian wrote:

Dave wrote:

Floppie à Deux.

Sorry, some guy on X made that joke a month ago.

https://x.com/EmenaIo/status/1831482139084554718

You know, I think it’s far easier to explain Joker 2’s lack of success than Joker 1’s success.

I thought the first Joker was a pretty good movie although I wasn’t comfortable with the depiction of his mental illness. The second one doesn’t seem very interesting.

Yeah, I agree it was pretty good (not great though), but a pretty good social drama/character study usually doesn’t make a billion bucks these days. I mean, Parasite was universally hailed as a masterpiece, a brilliant social satire, it won best picture at the Oscars and the Palm d’Or and it made about 250 million dollars, which I’d say is normal for a fantastically successful movie of this kind. The Machinist – a somewhat similar (and better) movie to Joker in many ways – made about 8 million bucks, which is normal for this kind of movie, too.

In the end, a lot of it probably was just the novelty of making this kind of movie based on an iconic comic book villain, and now that that novelty’s effect has faded, people just aren’t interested enough in going back to the story of this character. Which is fine, really.

From what I’ve heard about the sequel and its relationship to the first one (in the way it interrogates it and questions why people may have enjoyed it), it sounds more interesting than the first one, which I found quite dull and derivative.

The trouble is, I think they’ve created a sequel that actively plays against the first movie – which will probably piss off fans of the first one who go see the sequel, even if it would probably be more to the liking of people like me (but who won’t see it anyway because they didn’t like the original).

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I didn’t like the first one, but I thought Phoenix was great in it.

The sequel is mostly just boring, and Phoenix’s performance didn’t work for me at all, especially in the many musical sequences, which are somehow incredibly dull. Gaga is fine, but gets little to do outside of singing. She doesn’t feel like Harley at all.

I saw it with an almost-full crowd, who were mostly completely silent throughout.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Weekend estimate at $39-40M: https://deadline.com/2024/10/box-office-joker-folie-a-deux-1236107521/

Lower than The Marvels, on par with Morbius.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

‘D’ Spells Disaster – Audiences Heckle ‘Joker 2’ Off Box Office Stage – Forbes

Audiences are heckling Joker: Folie À Deux off the box office stage this weekend, with (in every sense of the word) roughly $45 million domestic and a disastrous D grade via audience polling at Cinemascore. At Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s reputation continues to drop, now at 32% “Rotten” for both critics and audiences.

Unless international markets come to the rescue and China delivers big numbers, there is the potential for a complete box office collapse. Yet, even if foreign receipts manage to double domestic numbers, that still puts Joker: Folie À Deux at $135 million opening weekend, so a decent 3x final multiplier still barely puts it north of $400 million worldwide by the end of its run.

The problem with that math is, a 3x final multiplier is unlikely, based on that D grade from audiences.

For comparison, Black Adam debut at $67 million off a B+ grade, while The Flash opened to $55 million with a B grade, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods opened to $30 million at a B+ as well. Over at Marvel Studios, The Marvels opened to $46 million and landed a B grade from viewers.

How did those turn out? Black Adam topped them all with $393 million worldwide by the end of its run. The Flash came in second with $271 million, followed by The Marvels with $206 million. In last place is Shazam! Fury of the Gods with $134 million.

Hoping for international audiences to double domestic numbers just to get to $400 million tells you how bad the situation probably is. Because if, instead of a 3x final multiplier and foreign tickets doubling domestic, we wind up seeing a 2.7x multiplier, then it finishes at about $365 million. And at 2.5x, it will gross $338 million.

Joker: Folie À Deux’s nearly $200 million budget plus marketing costs puts “break even” at north of $500 million, and I see no path to that figure unless something entirely unexpected and major changes in the next 24 hours.

So if expectations hold through the rest of the weekend, then all we’ll really be doing from this point forward is waiting to see how much of a loss it takes.

More in link…

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Todd

No One’s Laughing Now: ‘Joker Folie à Deux’ Falls Down With $39M-$40M Opening: How The Sequel Went Sideways – Sunday Box Office – Deadline

“This isn’t a box office marketplace problem, this is a creative development problem,” declared one movie marketing vet this weekend over Warner Bros‘ bold swing with a foul Joker: Folie à Deux, which at a production cost of $190M+ net is coming in way, way, way below forecasts at $39M, steeper than the $47M which was spotted by the town yesterday. Warner is reporting $40M this morning, others see it lower. Amazingly, the studio’s overseas $80M+ projection held up with what’s coming in at a $81.1M opening; total worldwide at $121.1M, not $140M+.

If anyone was betting on Joker: Folie à Deux as being a winning tentpole in their fantasy box office league a year out, well, sorry, you just lost a ton of cash. This sequel based on a DC Comics character is one of the lowest sequel openings in memory to a major franchise film based on a comic-book. It’s certainly lower than the start of Marvel Studios’ bomb last fall, The Marvels, and that was $46.1M. More people saw Marvels at 3.3M admissions in its opening weekend one versus Joker 2‘s 2.5M per EntTelligence.

Interestingly enough, it’s not the lowest opening for a DC movie on record, that goes to the Josh Brolin western Jonah Hex with $5.3M. Clearly, no one wanted to see Joker 2 (though I know one person who did, who actually enjoyed it) especially when compared to the October record domestic start of the 2019 first film of $96.2M.

The only nice thing you can say about Joker: Folie à Deux‘s opening here is that when it comes to movie musicals, its stateside start is bigger than the entire domestic gross of Cats ($27.1M).

Friday was $20M (which includes previews) and Saturday dropped -45% to $11.4M as if Batman himself was throwing Joker off a building; not the -20% decline many were seeing, even outside Warners. Everyone was so serious about this movie being frontloaded, and indeed it was.

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Todd

It’s shocking because they really seemed to think they had something here. Opening at Venice and dropping the review embargo weeks before release, Gaga doing a companion album and just doing it at all after saying they wouldn’t..It’s funny to see so much misplaced confidence be so roundly rejected.

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Todd

It sounds like there was confusion as to who the movie was for.

It was a musical (though trailers gave no indication as such) and has a story which seemed to take a shot at the audience who loved the first movie. The switch from 1970s Sorcese homage to musical may have been too much of a tonal shift.

My wife and her nephew saw it Friday. (I declined to go.) They went to the 6:15 pm showing and the theater had only a few people in it. My wife, who is a Lady Gaga fan, thought it was just okay, though she did sound a bit disappointed. Her nephew did not like it at all, and thought the third act and the ending were especially bad.

Everything I have read said the first movie was supposed to be a standalone film. It sounds like greed took over and the sequel was created.

I honestly think the sequel was doomed no matter what they did or how it was executed. Even if it had not been a musical and been a straight drama, I just don’t think it would have been as successful as the first.

Apparently they thought about doing it as a broadway show at some point. Should’ve gone with that.

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Todd

And things just got worse: ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Lower In Opening With $37M+ After ‘D’ CinemaScore – Box Office

The opening for Warner Bros‘ Joker: Folie a Deux was even lower at $37.8M this weekend versus the $40M that the studio reported yesterday morning. Sunday came in at $6.2M, -45% off Saturday’s $11.3M. The movie cost $190M+ before P&A.

Overseas was better as we told you yesterday with a $81.1M take, however, just like domestic, prospects aren’t bright. More on what went wrong with this film under the David Zaslav led Warner Bros. Discovery conglom here. As we told you, the studio gave filmmaker Todd Phillips to make the movie he wanted, but at a much higher greenlight price of $190M+, a that’s 171% above the original 2019 movie’s $70M, which had two co-financiers, Village Roadshow and the then Bron. Joker 2 only had one co-fi partner, Domain at 25%.

As one wise industry colleague pointed out to me last night, whenever low CinemaScores register like this it’s because the audience was sold a bill of goods that wasn’t delivered upon by the studio. Ya know that poster of Joker and Harley dancing on the stairs? It’s not in the movie. As is de rigueur in movie marketing, studios don’t blatantly sell musicals as musicals or else no one will show up. They have to hide that in their movie marketing and trick audiences in the door. It’s then that they easily become a fan — or not, which was the case here. Some critics argue that Joker 2 isn’t a musical — but it has songs and singing and dancing, and that’s what pissed off a 9PM Century City AMC attendees on Saturday who were shouting at the screen. We also understand that the lower 40% of theaters for Joker 2 only generated 5% of the gross.

Despite any great intent in filmmaking here by Phillips, this is not the sequel that general audiences wanted to see.

Saturday’s gross went off a cliff next to Friday + previews’ $20.3M. This is all after bad word of mouth with a D Cinemascore, 1/2 star on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak and a Rotten Tomatoes audience score, which is even lower than the critics’, 31% to 33%.

Joker 2 in its final domestic will be greatly lower than the opening of the original movie, which continues to stand as an October domestic record with $96.2M.

What about weekend 2? Does Joker 2 win? Possibly –even if it falls off a cliff with $9M-$10M. The Marvels, which was Marvel Studios’ lowest opening ever last November at $46.1M fell through the floor with a -78% drop in weekend 2 with $10.1M and that was off a ‘B’ CinemaScore. This weekend Joker 2 faces Sony’s wide expansion of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, Iconic Events’ Terrifier 3 which could do $9M, and Focus Features’ Piece by Piece which could do $4M.

And the hits just keep on coming:

Clown Vs. Clown: ‘Terrifier 3’ Shows Teeth With $18M+ As ‘Joker 2’ Posts Record Drop For DC Character Pic; Awards Season Darlings Shriek – Sunday Box Office

Warner Bros’ second weekend of Joker: Folie à Deux is posting a -81% freefall with $7.055M in third place per Warner Bros this morning. That’s the absolute worst hold for a DC character movie in the history of the brand on the big screen. Triple note, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios did not steer or shepherd Joker 2. The Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga R-rated musical got kicked out of No. 2 by a cartoon robot, DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s Wild Robot ($13.45M third weekend). This drop isn’t a shocker as we saw Joker 2 doing worse than the second frame of Marvel Cinematic Universe’s The Marvels (-78%) which was the worst hold for that Disney label’s movies.

Joker 2‘s second weekend drop is steeper than the previous worst drop for a DC character movie, summer 2023’s The Flash (-73%). It’s also more severe than the second weekend of 2021’s The Suicide Squad (-72%) which remember had a theatrical day-and-date release with HBO Max; those dynamic distributed titles always tumbled in their second weekend. The only nice thing to say here about Joker 2 is that it’s second weekend is more than Wonder Woman 1984‘s second weekend ($5.4M) which of course was due to theater closures during Covid, and it’s better than the second weekend of Jonah Hex ($1.6M) which owns the worst opening ever for a DC movie at $5.3M.

Joker 2 had the Imax screens, hence $800K for the weekend for a running cume for the large format exhibitor of $6.2M. Global stands at $165.3M through this weekend. The Marvels, the comp we keep using, ended its global run at $206.1M.

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Sean Robinson

Box Office: ‘Kraven the Hunter’ Bombs With $11 Million Opening Weekend, Worst Start of Sony-Produced Marvel Films – Variety

Eve
Kraven may be the world’s greatest hunter, but the comic book villain couldn’t manage the climb to the top of box office charts.

Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter,” a superhero spinoff starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Spider-Man’s notorious foe, launched behind already low expectations, at No. 3 with $11 million from 3,211 theaters. It landed the worst debut for Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters behind February’s misfire “Madame Web” ($15.3 million), as well as some of the franchise’s lowest-ever marks from critics and audiences with a tragic 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and “C” grade on CinemaScore. That kind of reception signals that, barring a holiday miracle, “Kraven” won’t rebound over the rest of December.

Kraven the Hunter” is Sony’s third Spider-Man-adjacent adaptation of the year, following October’s “Venom: The Last Dance.” The alien symbiote trilogy, led by Tom Hardy, has proven itself to be critic-proof and commercially successful, although the third and final movie didn’t live up to the box off heights of its predecessors. Sony has otherwise yet to produce a comic book hit from its offshoots led by tertiary Spider-Man baddies. The studio also stumbled in 2022 with “Morbius,” a vampire-inspired thriller with Jared Leto as the fanged villain — another one of Peter Parker’s infamous enemies. These ambitions began at a time when superheroes were all the rage at the box office, but ticket sales for too many recent comic book tentpoles have been decidedly Earth-bound.

The long-delayed “Kraven” cost an upward of $110 million to produce (it was greenlit for $90 million but ballooned after last year’s writers and actors strikes), though it was co-financed by TSG. Directed by J.C. Chandor, the R-rated film explores the origins of Sergei Kravinoff, the comic book character’s alter ego, including his rocky relationship with his crime lord father (Russell Crowe) and his quest to become the greatest hunter.

“As the superhero genre has declined over the last five years, ‘Morbius,’ ‘Madame Web’ and ‘Kraven’ have led the race to the bottom,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Kraven’s budget was downsized according to the realities of the market, but it’s still too high for this kind of result.”

Also this weekend, the Warner Bros. anime fantasy film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” stumbled in fifth place with $4.6 million from 2,602 cinemas in its opening weekend. It carries a modest budget of $30 million, so any losses during its theatrical run won’t be ruinous for the studio. Plus, box office riches weren’t necessarily the impetus for “War of the Rohirrim,” based on J. R. R. Tolkien characters and set 183 years before the events of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, getting the greenlight. The animated film was developed and fast-tracked to ensure that New Line Cinema didn’t lose the film adaptation rights for Tolkien’s novels while Jackson and the teams behind the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” trilogies were working on two new live-action films for 2026 and beyond. The first of those movies, tentatively titled “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” will be directed by and star Andy Serkis.

War of the Rohirrim,” which has mixed reviews and a tepid “B” on CinemaScore, faltered last weekend in its international box office debut with just $2 million from 31 territories. It expands to 42 additional offshore markets over the weekend.

Despite the two newcomers, Disney’s “Moana 2” retained the No. 1 spot on domestic box office charts for the third consecutive weekend with $26.6 million from 4,000 theaters. The Polynesian-set animated adventure, which was originally commissioned for streaming, has become a theatrical smash with $337.5 million in North America and $717 million globally so far. It’s already the year’s fifth highest-grossing movie domestically and fourth-biggest global release.

Universal’s “Wicked” adaptation earned more than double that of “Kraven” even though the big-budget musical has already been playing in theaters for a month. “Wicked” stayed in second place with a dazzling $22.5 million from 3,689 venues in its fourth weekend of release. The film, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, has generated $359 million domestically and more than $524 million worldwide to date. It’s the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation in domestic box office history, ahead of 1978’s “Grease” ($188.62 million), as well as the second-biggest worldwide stage-to-screen reimagining after 2008’s “Mamma Mia” ($611 million).

Paramount’s “Gladiator II” landed in the No. 3 spot with $7.8 million in its fourth frame. The quarter-century-in-the-making sequel to Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning 2000 epic “Gladiator” has earned $145.9 million in North America and more than $398.5 million globally.

Heading into the coveted holiday frame, overall box office revenues are 4.8% behind 2023 and 23% behind 2019, according to Comscore. “Moana 2” and “Glicked” (the portmanteau for the two films with twin release dates and spiritual sequel of “Barbenheimer”) will continue to rule at multiplexes until Christmastime, when Disney’s “The Lion King” prequel “Mufasa,” Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and A24’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” all open on Dec. 20. A few days later, the Focus Features’ “Nosferatu” remake and Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown, starring Timothee Chalamet, land on Dec. 25 to close out the year.

Until then, it’ll be all Moana, Glinda and Elphaba all the time.

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Todd

Well well well. Seems like doing a series of movies starring B-list Spiderman villains in which Spiderman doesn’t appear wasn’t the formula for success that everybody thought it would be. What a crazy world.

(It’s really funny in retrospect that Venom’s unpredictable and weird success made Sony think they’d struck gold and really put some money behind those movies.)

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Uncle Retrospective, Sean Robinson, Dave, Todd

Between Venom 1-3, Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven, Sony finally got a sinister six, just not in the way they intended.

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Sean Robinson, Todd

[Sean Robinson]

I guess we’ll find out soon, but I think some behind the scenes are nervous in the “somewhat” to “oh fuck” range.

Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World Might Be A Big Box Office Gamble – SlashFilm

… is hitting theaters next weekend, and it’s a lock to deliver 2025’s first blockbuster opening, which theaters could sorely use. The question is, can it be a big success like a pre-pandemic superhero film? Or is Marvel Studios rolling the dice with this one?

Director Julius Onah’s take on “Captain America” is currently eyeing an opening weekend in the $81 to $98 million range. That’s more or less in line with earlier tracking numbers, which had the film taking in around $90 million, per The Hollywood Reporter. On the surface, that may seem underwhelming since we’re accustomed to Marvel Cinematic Universe entries clearing $100 million in their debuts with ease. But that is not some arbitrary measure of success.

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Todd

It’s probably not that big a gamble, as it only had a 180 milion dollar budget. That’s pretty much typical Cap movie money, but pre-inflation. Anyway, they’re good as long as it makes like 400 million, even if that’d be perceived as a massive dud.

Christian wrote:

It’s probably not that big a gamble, as it only had a 180 milion dollar budget. That’s pretty much typical Cap movie money, but pre-inflation. Anyway, they’re good as long as it makes like 400 million, even if that’d be perceived as a massive dud.

It’s also coming out on Valentine’s Day. That may not be a movie couples will want to see that day.

Another factor is what is coming out on subsequent weekends. That could create issues for continuing momentum.

Todd wrote:

It’s also coming out on Valentine’s Day. That may not be a movie couples will want to see that day.

Who wouldn’t want to spend Valentine’s Day watching a man in spandex beat off an engorged Harrison Ford.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Sean Robinson

You sure know how to turn a phrase, Dave.

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Todd

njerry wrote:

You sure know how to turn a phrase, Dave.

That’s what Harrison Ford said!

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Uncle Retrospective

[Sean Robinson]

Box Office: ‘Thunderbolts*’ Rules Quiet Weekend With $33M, ‘Sinners’ Continues to Wow – Hollywood Reporter

With no new nationwide event pic on the marquee, Marvel Studios’ ensemble superhero pic easily stayed No. 1 in its second weekend. ‘Friendship’ makes plenty of pals at the specialty box office.

Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* lorded over a relatively quiet weekend at the domestic box office, earning $33.1 million for a 10-day North American tally of $128.5 million and $272.2 million globally.

The ensemble pic led by Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan fell a respectable 55 percent from its opening weekend, compared to an average decline of 57 percent for a title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thunderbolts* — it turns out the asterisk refers to the alternate, unofficial title The New Avengers — boasts both strong reviews and audience scores.

Directed by Jake Schreier, the film brings together a band of dysfunctional outsiders — and lesser-known comic book characters — who discover their potential to be heroes when working together. In addition to Pugh (Yelena Belova) and Stan (Bucky Barnes), the movie features Wyatt Russell (John Walker), David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian), Lewis Pullman (Bob), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (CIA director Valentine Allegra de Fontaine).

With no new event pic on the marquee, the weekend belonged to holdovers all the way around.

Warner Bros. had plenty to celebrate as Ryan Coogler’s sleeper hit Sinners crossed the $200 million mark at the domestic box office for a worldwide total of nearly $300 million. In a second victory, A Minecraft Movie zoomed past $900 million in global ticket sales.

Sinners came in second in its fourth weekend with a huge $21.1 million for a North American total of $214.9 million through Sunday and $283.3 million globally. The supernatural vampire pic starring Michael B. Jordan is another coup for Coolger, the bold and audacious filmmaker behind the Black Panther and Creed franchises. (Jordan has starred in all five of his movies.)

A Minecraft Movie – the second-top-grossing video adaptation of all time behind Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, not adjusted for inflation — placed third in its sixth weekend with $8 million for a domestic haul of $409 million and $909.6 million globally.

Amazon MGM Studios’ The Accountant 2, now in its fourth weekend, enjoyed a fourth-place finish with $6.1 million for a solid domestic total of $50.9 million.

Among a handful of smaller titles hoping to drum up business on a nationwide basis, IFC’s slasher pic Clown in the Cornfield fared the best in opening to $3.7 million, enough to round out the top five. Lionsgate’s Shadow Force and Vertical’s Fight or Flight both opened in the $2 million range (the order will be determined Monday morning when final weekend grosses are tallied.)

“This relatively quiet weekend is just the calm before the proverbial storm,” says Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian in referencing such upcoming May titles as Final Destination: Bloodlines, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Lilo & Stitch and Karate Kid: Legends. He adds, “It’s looking like it’s going to be an epic month of May for movie theaters.”

There was action at the specialty box office, thanks to A24’s Friendship, which opened in six cinemas. The Tim Robinson-Paul Rudd bromance scored a dazzling per theater average of $75,137, which A24 says is the best showing of the year so far for an indie title.

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Todd

Would You Pay $400 Million for This Movie? Hollywood Reporter

Between delays, reshoots and rising costs, this year’s summer blockbusters are racking up astronomically high price tags when factoring in marketing costs. Can the box office keep up?

On Paramount’s storied lot in 2018, studio brass and partner Skydance gave the go-ahead for Tom Cruise to make two more Mission: Impossible movies following the massive success of Fallout. No one taking part in that decision some seven years ago could have known what was in store for Hollywood, much less the world, or the minefield they would have to cross.

Between COVID-19 delays, the strikes, reshoots and rising costs due to inflation, the blockbuster hopefuls of the 2025 box office season — from Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, one of the most expensive movies ever made, to DC Studios/Warner Bros.’ Superman and Universal/Amblin’s Jurassic World: Rebirth — are saddled with price tags requiring sky-high box office returns. (Rebirth did rein in its budget substantially compared to the prior film.)

Another title getting buzz for its budget is Apple Original Films’ highly anticipated F1, which Warner Bros. is releasing theatrically. One source says the budget is $300 million, a figure disputed by the filmmakers. If that figure is the total before tax rebates and production incentives, the net budget could indeed be substantially lower. If it isn’t, the ultimate spend could approach $400 million when including marketing costs.

No one will divulge what the original greenlight number was for the two final Mission films starring Cruise, but the combined cost was a net $700 million before marketing. Now in theaters, Final Reckoning’s budget is $400 million after subtracting tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives and rebates from the various countries included on its globe-trotting shooting schedule. (As a way of comparison, Fallout’s net budget was anywhere from $200 million to $250 million.)

“These costs are not sustainable. Obviously, there were unique items that didn’t help the budgets, such as strikes and COVID. Costs will come down as the business normalizes,” says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of Roth Capitol. “There is a reason studios shoot outside of L.A. so as to rely on incentives and rebates from states or countries overseas.”

Turning to the list of the most expensive films, Final Reckoning would come in behind 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($447 million) and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($432 million). And, like Final Reckoning, a slew of megabudget tentpoles saw their budgets dramatically impacted by the pandemic and strikes, including 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water, which cost well north of $400 million, and 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, at roughly $432 million. Again, these are net budgets before marketing spends.

Last year, documents filed by the Superman production team with the Ohio government seeking incentives listed the gross budget of the highly anticipated July film as $363.8 million. When that number was reported, director James Gunn — who also runs DC Studios — lambasted the article. “How in the world do they think they know what our budget is?” he wrote on social media. In recent days, DC suggested the budget is a net $225 million after incentives and tax breaks.

Yet one longtime financier says the $363 million figure isn’t incorrect. And sources say DC and its parent could spend as much as $200 million on the global marketing campaign, compared with the usual $150 million for an all-audience summer tentpole. It wouldn’t be a surprise, since Superman kicks off the Gunn era and needs to work at the box office. Either way, between the production budget and marketing, it’s certain to land in the $400 million club.

According to a veteran studio source, Superman, which opens July 11 in North America, is exploding on social media, with the first full trailer raking in 250 million-plus views, the most in Warners/DC history. Based on such metrics, a domestic debt of $175 million or thereabouts is within the realm of possibility; it even has a shot at finishing with $1 billion-plus globally. “There’s no way to defend these budgets, because when you get into the $700 million to $900 million break-even point in regards to box office and ancillary revenue, it doesn’t make any sense,” says a veteran financier.

Jurassic World: Rebirth opens nine days earlier, during the Fourth of July corridor. That film features an entirely new cast, led by Scarlett Johansson. It’s hardly a surprise that Universal and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin, which the studio now owns, took efforts to substantially reduce the budget, which sources confirm to be a net $180 million. Either way, that’s still a sizable chunk when factoring in marketing. Others dispute the net price tag of $180 million and say total costs could still come in between $330 million and $400 million when including marketing.

Final Reckoning, opening less than two weeks ago over over Memorial Day, should clear the $400 million mark in the coming days at the global box office and is hoping to do significantly more business than the last installment, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, which was stymied by Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Box office isn’t the only factor in judging a movie’s performance. The value of a franchise library can increase exponentially with each installment and can drive tens of millions of dollars in TV licensing rights, merchandising, special-edition DVD sales and streaming licensing revenue. Both Mission: Impossible and Jurassic World are the kind of coveted properties that can play a major role when suitors are interested in buying an entire studio.

“When looking at the performance of a film that is one segment of a franchise property, you have to look holistically at the franchise as a whole and remember that each installment augments the overall performance of the prior films and the general IP itself,” says one studio veteran familiar with both. “Franchise films drive multiple revenue streams across the entire library including streaming, home entertainment, and global content distribution.”

As one example, in the lead-up to Final Reckoning, sources say the launch of a Mission: Impossible rewatch campaign on domestic digital was a resounding success. Sales of a bundle of the first six movies was up 160 percent year-over-year, and movies one through six were up 97 percent individually. That helps justify those sky-high budgets, as well as celebrating Cruise’s final turn after a three-decade run.

“We’ll never again see a movie where an actor does his own stunts and so little CGI,” predicts one person close the the M:I pic. “A.I. will take over.”

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

I am blown away at how Lilo & Stitch is absolutely owning Mission: Impossible. I genuinely would have thought it would be flipped. L&S’s International is almost as much as M:I’s worldwide. That’s insane.

Lilo & Stitch
Domestic (46.7%)
$292,738,958
International (53.3%)
$334,528,537
Worldwide
$627,267,495

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Domestic (35.9%)
$129,317,322
International (64.1%)
$231,200,000
Worldwide
$360,517,322

That really is quite something.

I’m not all that surprised where MI is concerned though. I thought Dead Reckoning was underwhelming, and since you have to have seen that before you can watch Final Reckoning… well, I have no desire to see it, at least.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

Well, I’m currently re-watching Dead Reckoning (on Amazon Prime), and it has improved the second time around, since I already know the plot points and can pick up more of the subtleties now.

Another thing I’m noticing during this re-review is that Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg and (especially) Tom Cruise have really aged since their previous MI appearances, BUT…Vingh Rhames still looks the same as he did way back in the first Mission Impossible film.

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Christian, Todd

There were subtleties?

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Todd

What Are Superman 2025’s Box Office Projections? Opening Weekend & Domestic Sales Prediction – Superhero Hype

New figures are out for Superman 2025 box office projections that are slightly lower than originally tracked. Original predictions for the upcoming James Gunn-directed movie had ticket sales at around an $175 million opening, but these opening weekend numbers have been lessened a bit due to the film’s presale release. Domestic sales in the United States still remain high overall and are still among the highest when compared to other movies releasing around the same time, specifically Jurassic World Rebirth and The Fantastic Four: The First Steps. Here’s a breakdown of the latest box office tracking for the new Superman movie, which releases nationwide on July 11.

The box office sales for Superman 2025 is expected to fall somewhere between $140 and $185 million for the 3-day opening weekend (July 11 is on a Friday), while overall domestic sales range from $370 and $571 milllion.

For a point of comparison, the new forecast has the opening weekend for The Fantastic Four: First Steps to come in between $125 and $155 million, with overall domestic sales ranging from $277 to $395 million.
These numbers are noticeably, well, a step lower.

These new projections come from Box Office Theory, an industry newsletter founded by the Director of Analytics (Movies) at Fandango. The report has shaved off a small portion of the opening weekend ticket sales mainly because of the Amazon Prime early access event for Superman 2025 that allowed moviegoers to purchase presale tickets at Fandango to early screenings of the movie on July 8.

It notes that this is only the second time, after Wicked last year, that a Prime early access event has been done through Fandango, so the impact of these early screenings on the film’s opening is rather unpredictable. Still, the report predicts that these July 8 viewings will amount to around $22 million. Fandango revealed that this presale opportunity for Superman 2025 was the site’s best first-day ticket pre-seller to date.

That said, the report remains conservative with the film’s opening success in part due to the saturation of somewhat high-profile movies in the market, which includes Jurassic World Rebirth, How to Train Your Dragon, F1: The Movie, and 28 Years Later.

The global box office goal for Superman 2025 is over $700 million for the movie to be considered “a hit,” according to a top talent agent in May.

Honestly thinking a $700 million take will not have the bigwigs saying “hit”, but that’s because there has been such good tracking after every trailer that they think this can do a Billion or more, and then double-down and fully commit to the universe.

Hey, my mom really tried but just couldn’t make it through watching Man of Steel at home.
Now she really wanted to join us opening weekend so me and my brother are taking her to an Imax showing on the first Saturday afternoon.

I’m hearing lots of people with plans to see it, and tons of positive opinions on Krypto. Do not underestimate that.

Fingers crossed for Superman being good, and having a great 2 week run before FF, which will do very well.

The movie I’m worried for is 28 Years Later.
It opens in 5 days, and I am just not feeling any hype.
Really hope I’m wrong, and things will ramp up this week. Hopefully the reviews are good.

’28 Years Later’ Rages To $60M Global Bow; ‘Elio’ Misses Liftoff With $35M; ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ Flies To $358M & ‘Lilo & Stitch’ Tops $910M WW – International Box Office – Deadline

UPDATED: Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later has come alive with an estimated $60M worldwide bow. The split is dead even at the domestic and international box office with $30M each for the auteur-driven R-rated Sony horror movie. This is slightly above pre-weekend projections.

The opening in 59 offshore markets is higher than recent auteur horror Sinners (+76%) and on par with Nosferatu. It’s bigger than horror franchise films A Quiet Place: Part II (+13%), Evil Dead Rise (+24%) and Smile 2 (+29%), all in like-for-like markets at current exchange rates.

Amid a heatwave raging in the market, 28 Years Later stormed the UK at a No. 1 start of $6.4M. Mexico was the next best bow at $2.7M. The Middle East as a region launched with $1.8M. Other notable market totals include Australia ($1.7M), Korea ($1.5M), Germany ($1.3M), France ($1.3M) and Spain ($1.2M).

The other new opener this weekend, Pixar/Disney’s Elio did not meet expectations, lifting off with $35M global, of which a soft $14M was from 43 material overseas markets (80% of the footprint with China, Japan and Spain to come later). This is well below the pre-weekend projection despite positive audience and social reactions. Note that Elio, which skews young, opened into an international marketplace where kids’ school holidays have largely not yet begun. Elemental opened into the same corridor in 2023, albeit on a more staggered release, and ended up continuing to build. To create franchises, studios have to start somewhere — Disney has the top 3 original animated global openers post-pandemic in Elemental, Encanto and now Elio — but the latter didn’t click out of the gate and will need to capitalize on holidays and a lack of new animated entries until Smurfs in mid-July (see Anthony’s deep dive for more).

Elio scored its best overseas opening in Korea, where it jumped from No. 4 on Friday to No. 1 on Saturday and ended the frame with an estimated $1.8M at No. 1 for the frame. Behind Korea were Mexico ($1.4M), France ($1.3M), UK ($1.2M) and Italy ($800K).

As expected, the overall offshore and global weekend was again led by Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon which has fired up $358.2M worldwide from two sessions. The overseas total so far is $197.7M. In the sophomore frame, the live-action take on the beloved animated franchise’s first entry added $53.6M in 81 markets for a 37% drop from opening.

Excluding China, the international cume is above Sonic the Hedgehog 3, HTTYD3 and The Little Mermaid at the same point.

The second weekend saw some strong holds including in Brazil (-13%), Australia (-28%), Germany (-28%), Netherlands (-32%), China (-32%), Korea (-33%) and Mexico (-38%). HTTYD remained the No. 1 movie in all markets save UK/Ireland, China and Korea. Japan releases in September.

The Top 5 to date are Mexico ($24.5M), China ($23.2M), UK ($16.8M), Brazil ($12.6M) and Korea ($9.6M). The global Imax cume is $28.4M including $13M from international.

Turning back to Disney, Lilo & Stitch passed yet another milestone, crossing $900M now with $910.3M global through today. The 5th weekend surfed up another $19.7M (-39%) from 52 material offshore markets, taking the international cume to $523.6M.

Tops on this one are Mexico ($64.2M), UK ($46.3M), France ($37.1M), Brazil ($34.5M) and Germany ($29M).

Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, also in its 5th weekend, has reached $540.9M global to date, after adding $12.8M from 66 overseas markets during the session. The international running cume is $362.5M led by China ($60.6M), UK ($32.9M), Japan ($30.2M), Korea ($22.5M) and France ($21.8M).

The worldwide Imax total is $74.5M.

In local news, we’re hearing estimates that Indian superstar Aamir Khan’s latest, Sitaare Zameen Par, is on track for an $8M opening in the home market this weekend, and $11.5M global.

MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE
Materialists (SNY/A24): $2.1M intl weekend (11 markets); $7.5M intl cume/$31.4M global
Karate Kid: Legends (SNY): $1.7M intl weekend (56 markets); $48.8M intl cume/$98.3M global
Final Destination Bloodlines (WB): $1.7M intl weekend (75 markets); $145.3M intl cume/$280.1M global
The Phoenician Scheme (UNI): $875K intl weekend (59 markets); $15.8M intl cume/$32M global
Sinners (WB): $455K intl weekend (49 markets): $86.5M intl cume/$363.8M global

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Dave

Sean Robinson wrote:

Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, also in its 5th weekend, has reached $540.9M global to date, after adding $12.8M from 66 overseas markets during the session. The international running cume is $362.5M led by China ($60.6M), UK ($32.9M), Japan ($30.2M), Korea ($22.5M) and France ($21.8M).

Paramount really can’t be pleased with this performance. It has an estimated budget of $300-400 million. I’m not sure if that includes advertising or not. I know I saw tons of ads for it, and it was hyped as the final installment of the franchise. Based on reviews I have seen, it seems like it’s considered “okay”. And the fact that it is being beaten by a live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch is just pouring salt on the wound. Maybe the franchise should have ended a couple of films ago.

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Christian

Todd wrote:

Maybe the franchise should have ended a couple of films ago.

Yeah, it probably should have ended with Fallout, which resolved a bunch of threads including the recapture of Solomon Lane and the reunion of Ethan and Julia. But the lure of big money is a tough thing to pass up in an up-to-this-time successful movie franchise.

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Christian, Todd