Weekend Estimates by Len The God of Box Office Estimation
Weekend Box Office Headline You Won’t See: Cranky White Man Beats Happy Black People Into Submission With A 3D Hammer.
My guess is that Disney overdid the overstatement on Sunday’s estimate a little bit, expecting Universal to do the same for their film. I expect that BM2 will come close to its estimate and Thor-er will end up shaving a couple million off of its number in “actuals” tomorrow. But the placement is no surprise. PRECOGNATEDJA!
Ya gotta give it up to CBS Films and queen bee Terry Press. They got Lost Vegas though the first couple weekends with a decent $33.5 million, but now is when this one starts to make its real success happen. Not only is the weekend estimate down just 19%, but the entire week (Sunday-to-Sunday) is off about the same. This is because of… wait for it… old people, aka people over 50. They aren’t opening weekend-driven. But if the word-of-mouth is good, they will start coming in numbers in weekend 3 and 4 and on. LV is already the #2 grosser in CBS Films history and it will be the #1 for the distributor by this time next weekend. But this film could actually hold well enough through Thanksgiving to get into the high 70s or 80s… maybe even passing the $90m mark. There’s really nothing out there for the older audience until Mr. Banks and Walter Mitty. Nor are there family films, except maybe Frozen, to drag old and young to over Thanksgiving weekend.
Another leggy surprise is Bad Grandpa, which is already the #2 Jackass film and now seems sure to be a $100m domestic movie. A 33% hold four weekends in tells you that the core audience for this film is being underserved by the market and that word-of-mouth is terrific for those who like this kind of thing.
Talked about 12 Years A Slave yesterday. What caught my eye today was that Blue Is The Warmest Color, which didn’t start fast out of the gates, is steadily building an audience.
Marvel Comics movies are a pox on the film industry.
The angels weep every time a new one opens.
I can’t believe anyone besides 8-year-old boys would even give a damn.
So depressing.
I pegged “Vegas” as a steady-earning sleeper weeks ago. And I still think CBS will announce a sequel before New Year’s Day.
Do you really think “Mitty” has senior appeal, Dave? Even with the name recognition (and warm-and-fuzzy Danny Kaye memories), I think it’s pretty clear from the trailer that it’s not your granddad’s James Thurber.
“Mr. Banks” and “Grudge Match” look like the AARP movies to beat this holiday season. And “Osage County” in the (select) markets where it’s opening for Xmas.
Well, until the angels stop weeping fat bags of money into the Marvel coffers, your lament will have to go unheeded, movieman.
So sad, Hallick.
So very, very sad.
It’s so sad that there must be a word in German for it (like schadenfreude) that English hasn’t even come up with yet.
Seriously, “Rush”, a Chris Hemsworth movie which by most accounts is fantastic and really worth your ticket-buying money, TANKS. But Thor 2, a movie I have still yet to hear or read a single enthusiastic thing about is outperforming Thor number one, a movie I also have yet to hear or read a single genuinely enthusiastic thing about.
Thor: THE DARK WORLD is wonderful. I am sure RUSH is wonderful as well. I was moving and missed it, but that’s a great F1 story. Nevertheless, Marvel movies are a franchisethat people care about, and go to the movies to see. I believe, movieman, you want people to go to the theatre, right? You want people invested in film? If not, then what kind of fucking movieman are you?
Also, you’d rather fucking have CONJURING 3 over THOR 3. That speaks volumes about your movie going character!
You don’t have to hope stuff you think reeks makes a bundle just because you’re a movie fan JS…in fact, quite the opposite. I really like some of the Marvel movies, but I sure wasn’t rooting for TRANSFORMERS 3 to make $1.1 billion because all that does is beget TRANSFORMERS 4-6 (yup 5 and 6 are being “written” now), and I sure as hell didn’t want PIRATES 4 to make a billion and beget PIRATES 5, or that nightmarish ALICE IN WONDERLAND monstrosity to make a billion and beget terrible fantasy spin-offs like OZ.
PIRATES 5, TRANSFORMERS 22 etc is anything but an investment in film. Even stuff I fall for, like FAST & FURIOUS….at some point, enough is enough. I don’t need FAST & FURIOUS 7-9, (yes they are planning a new trilogy) especially not every year. I sure as hell don’t want a STAR WARS film every single year even though I love the originals.
I love when stuff like LIFE OF PI, GRAVITY and INCEPTION makes $600 million-$900 million because it encourages studios to take risks. Johnny Depp spending the rest of his life in a pirate costume doesn’t.
I like movies and I like Ron Howard’s work but I could give a fuck about car racing. I don’t consider the marvel movie comic book adaptations as much as they are book adaptations. They are adaptations of best selling books. These books have sold millions for a couple of generations. Hard to beat that kind of built in awareness. Fuck I remember having discussions on the playground about who would be in these movies and now the are actually happening. Good times. That said I wish they’d make each one of these movies a specific sub genre. Maybe mystery, family adventure, horror, etc. Might keep the whole machine moving longer.
Also, you’d rather fucking have CONJURING 3 over THOR 3. That speaks volumes about your movie going character!
Huh??
Who mentioned “The Conjuring” 1,2 or 3??
For the record, I disliked the last two James Wan movies more than any of the Marvel films (including the dreary “Thor”s) to date. I actually have some affection for the first and third “Iron Man”s and “Captain America.”
What drives me batshit is the sheer volume of Marvel Comics movies, and how they’ve become so cookie-cutter generic and, yes, boring.
I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that apparently millions of people worldwide are clamoring for more of the same old/same old, year after year after…
And yes, “Rush” is terrific. It’s easily Howard’s best work to date.
Freebirds is also holding surprisingly well, especially considering the dismal reviews from critics.
What’s the story with Charlie Countryman? Would’ve thought Shia could get at least a few more people than that to see it out sheer curiosity.
Charlie Countryman is really cut together good, and Mads is perfect as the bad ass … worth seeing yes, but Evan Rachel Woods’ accent is spotty
There is a sense of generic-ness coming into the Marvel movies, partly because of the long-term planning.
I’m getting a little tired of the “object of great power we haven’t heard of in the previous movies which doesn’t do anything particularly defined but take our word for it that it’s powerful”. It’s a little more annoying for those of us with some comics lore who have seen where this is going that there’s going to be 4 more of them… please start differentiating them beyond just what they look like.
Also, Tom Hiddleston is being forced to do so much heavy lifting on the Villain side, since all the others are fairly ineffectual (the latest getting beaten in a knife fight by someone who so far has been explicitly a non-combatant). He seems to have taken some sort of bet to see progressively how much more scenery he can chew in each new movie.
They’re good, but no matter how mean a pizza you can bake eventually I’m going to want something other than pizza.
The presence of Shia Labeouf would be one of the main reasons I wouldn’t go see Charlie Countryman. Out of the entire younger generation of actors out there I can’t think of a single one as irritating and non-charismatic as him. His new attempt to grunge up his image is not helping either.
More than any other franchise, the Marvels feel like ‘product’ like assembly line manufacturing, hit the right notes and count the cash. And even though Thor 2 is probably better than the mediocre Oblivian or the dreadful Pacific Rim I would feel like a chump plunking down my cash for what feels like a blatent money making enterprise instead of an inspired attempt at filmmaking.
And not sure if Lebeouf is intentionally attempting to grunge up his image. This is likely the only budget level where people are willing to hire him.
Flaws and all, Pacific Rim still kicks Thor 2’s ass.
I’m no Shia fan, to say the least, but he was in a Redford film, is in Von Trier’s sex opus, and is in David Ayer’s “End of Watch” follow up with Brad Pitt. Clearly, people want to work with him, and since he declared he’d never be in blockbusters again after TRANNIES 3, so one assumes he’s turned down quite a few roles.
I give The LaBeouf credit for exiting out of the gift shop from his tent pole days and wanting to do more interesting films.
i like shia, he’s weird
INSIDIOUS 3 scheduled for April 2015. FilmDistrict is somehow losing its cash cow to…Focus Features? Wtf? Other than the very niche art-house “Thirst,” I don’t believe Focus has ever released a horror movie.
I guess you missed that Focus absorbed Film District but really more like vice versa. Anyway, Focus Features as we have known it no longer exists, sadly.
Wow, I did miss that. Looks like Fox and Sony are the only two majors left with art-house shingles (Paramount using the Vantage label once a year doesn’t count).
I was doing a lot of work for Disney Channel around the time EVEN STEVENS was developed, and thought LaBeouf was quite a find. And I thought he was great in that Project Greenlight movie, THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS.
shia was alright in that bootlegging one recently with tom hardy and jessica chastain and oldman, the john hillcoat one… i’m spacing on the title, anyway i guess people dislike him from trannies and indy and i can’t really blame them. he’s ok in other mainstream YA stuff like ‘disturbia’ so i tend to blame the movies more than him, i’m glad to see him still working on weirder more alternative stuff – he seems willing to take some risks so maybe he could still do something interesting, no pain no gain – at least he’s not yet another bland madame tussauds wax museum pretty boy like a lot of young actors today, they’re starting to all look the same to me.