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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates Shaky Klady

Friday Estimates 2015-05-30 at 9.10.25 AM

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45 Responses to “Friday Estimates Shaky Klady”

  1. Geoff says:

    Wow good hold for Mad Max – $150 million domestic and $450 million worldwide looks very attainable at this point, which is crazy considering the history of the franchise…..if only Warners could have spent less on this thing. Speaking of Warners, is there any doubt that Entourage is going to get its clock cleaned next weekend? They’re pretty much cannibalizing themselves by opening it so soon after ‘Max and San Andreas.

    Tomorrowland is going to end up being another John Carter or Lone Ranger for Disney, which really isn’t bad considering they don’t happen too often…..just seems like when do, EVERYBODY notices it. They already more than made up for the loss with how well Cinderella has done and they have Bird confirmed for The Incredibles 2, so they’ll be fine.

    The most exciting race has to be for this year’s worldwide crown – Furious Seven has about $300 million up on Avengers which looks like it has at least $200 million left in the tank, so it’s going to be close. Looks like ‘Ultron is probably going to pass The Dark Knight Rises domestically, so I was wrong about that.

  2. Bulldog68 says:

    “Looks like ‘Ultron is probably going to pass The Dark Knight Rises domestically, so I was wrong about that.”

    Memorial weekend saved its slide. TDKR has a couple of very low weekend drops coming up, from weekend #6 through 10, it dropped an average of 32% thanks to a 15% drop in weekend #7. So after 10 weeks, it was at $443m.

    Ultron has too much of a head start now sitting at approx $426m after 5 weeks to TDKR’s $409. TDKR had $39m left in the tank, so Ultron has less. We’ll see how much less. Next week Entourage steals away some of the males, and then Jurassic Park eats everything up, so Ultron probably has no more than $30m left.

  3. Arisp says:

    I for one am glad WB spent as much as it did on Mad Max. It was worth every penny. It’s the best flat out balls to the wall action film I have ever seen. The closest experience I’ve ever felt at a movie was the first 45 mins of Saving Private Ryan.

  4. Eric says:

    Should I see Mad Max in 2D or 3D?

  5. Tracker Backer says:

    2D. The 3D doesn’t add anything, and actually takes away from the brilliant colors.

  6. Arisp says:

    2D.

  7. JS Partisan says:

    The 3D in a theatre, that doesn’t suck. It’s really solid in 3D, and the DOOF WARRIOR has a great bit of 3D business towards the end of the film.

  8. Arisp says:

    Converted to 3D in post. Also you can’t trust the projectionist in any theatre today. So 2D is the way to go, and not to mention that Miller said it should be seen that way.

  9. movieman says:

    I hated everyone in “San Andreas” (particularly the insufferable Brit brother team) and wanted them all to die.
    The only positive feature to the whole debacle was that it helped me appreciate the subtlety and genius of Roland Emmerich’s “2012” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

  10. movieman says:

    Is it really true that “Ted 2” is 135 minutes long?
    That seems like a wildly excessive length for a comedy.
    Doesn’t bode well at all, especially since the first “Ted” ran out of gas after a half hour. And that was only 106 minutes.

  11. brack says:

    Yeah, that’s getting into Judd Apatow length comedies. Not that I have liked his movies (that I’ve seen anyway), but comedies rarely should be close to two hours, let alone over that.

  12. palmtree says:

    The 3D may have been done in post and Miller may prefer 2D.

    But damnit, it’s not like you’re watching 3D talking heads. This is nonstop action, and there are specific moments where the 3D really shines. I’d say watch it in both formats if you can, but 3D if you can only see it once.

  13. CollinsFan says:

    Hey baby doll, what’s going on?

    Can we please get an update on the highest grossing picture in the history of Bleecker Street Films?

  14. EtGuild2 says:

    “Is it really true that “Ted 2″ is 135 minutes long?
    That seems like a wildly excessive length for a comedy.”

    movieman, when you think of the great cinematic portrayals of civil rights issues…TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, MILK, has run-time ever been a consideration? Does this celebration of existentialism not deserve a 3 hour director’s cut? I for one won’t begrudge an extended run-time for “The Suffragette.”

    ULTRON continues to be almost exactly in line (sliiightly better weekend comps) with IRON MAN 3 since it jumped ahead its first weekend. $470 million still the target. Totally agree that ENTOURAGE reeks of bomb, but was never into it so I really have no idea.

  15. Kevin says:

    Comedies should stick to 90-100 minutes.

  16. JS Partisan says:

    Entourage is going to Sex and the City your asses. Seriously. The trailers, hint of what the show was before the last two seasons, and that alone makes it worth checking out. Never forget, that the show was the IT HBO SHOW for at least four years, and dudes loves goofy debauchery comedies. It’s also opening on a Wednesday, so that may help it. I am looking forward to it, because those characters deserve better than that finale.

  17. Tracker Backer says:

    More complete and utter wackiness from JS. Check out the ratings for Entourage when it was on. They were never great, and it was never anything close to being the “it” show that Sex was. And do some real, critical thinking: why do you think they’re opening it on a Wednesday?

  18. Pat Hobby says:

    JS Partisan you are deluded and you have bad taste.

  19. Bulldog68 says:

    JS thought Mad Max looked “fucking awful”. So there’s that.

  20. movieman says:

    My all-time favorite (modern era) comedies, “Annie Hall” and “Lost in America,” ran 94 and 91 minutes respectively.
    Enough said.

  21. YancySkancy says:

    Runtime has nothing to do with quality, comedy or not. If a comedy’s not working for you, it’s because you’re not finding it consistently funny. If you laughed your ass off for three hours, you wouldn’t say, “I could’ve done without about an hour and a half of those laughs.” The conventional wisdom seems to be that humans get tired of laughing over the course of a couple hours, regardless of how funny the material is. That may be. But of course making an unfunny comedy shorter won’t make it funnier.

  22. JS Partisan says:

    Bulldog, those trailers were shit, and did not come close to conveying what that movie truly is. Excuse me for having a differing fucking opinion from you, but you and Geoff need to keep going on about Ultron and TDKR. I mean, really, that is such a fun fucking topic.

    Tracker, take your fucking mansplaining, and fuck right off. Who has time for that fedora level bullshit? Critical thinking? They are opening it on a week with another comedy, and trying something different. It is the Summer after all, but god forbid their OPENING DOESN’T FIT YOUR PARAMETERS FOR WHAT’S GOOD OR NOT! OH MY GOD! GOSH!

    Also, Entourage was an IT show. I am sorry if you were 10, and don’t remember this happening. It did happen, but later seasons diminished the quality of those early seasons. Again, if you weren’t paying attention, then that’s on you. It’s not on history.

    Pat, that’s some ignorant ass bullshit, because no one knows anyone’s taste online. You, or anyone else that believe they do, are fucking out to fucking touch with reality.

  23. movieman says:

    Yancy- But didn’t a sage once opine that “brevity is the soul of wit”?
    Methinks it was Shakespeare, lol.
    But a one-joke Seth MacFarlane movie can never be short enough.
    Personally speaking, I have nothing against long movies.
    Loved “Winter Sleep” and “Beloved Sisters” recently.

  24. EtGuild2 says:

    “Winter Sleep” could have done with a shave for me. The 20 minute diatribes led me to want to smack everyone in the entire movie in the face by the end.

  25. Tracker Backer says:

    JS, you’re simply wrong about Entourage ever being an “it” show. There’s zero evidence to support it.

    Also, you clearly don’t even understand my point about why WB is opening the movie on a Wednesday.

    I really do worry about your sanity.

  26. movieman says:

    Really, Et?
    I found the entire film mesmerizing. I could’ve easily sat through another hour.
    Felt the same way about “Beloved Sisters” actually.
    I thought it compared favorably to Truffaut’s (long form) “Two English Girls” and Fassbinder’s “Effie Briest,” both of which are among my all-time favorites.

  27. EtGuild2 says:

    I thought it’s largely as well written as everything Ceylan puts out is…but for a movie meant to slowly convey the intellectual bankruptcy and arrogance of its protagonist, I had difficulty liking anyone. In fact, If I had a sister half as grating, I’d probably end up being as condescending as him. It becomes like a series of vignettes of the kind of “trapped together at the holidays where your uncle goes juuuust too far in his personal opinion of you” claustrophobia where it gets hard for me to watch. It also didn’t help that I thought it was the weakest Palme winner since the baffling “Uncle Boonmee” though that’s no fault of the film.

    Ceylan always walks a knife’s edge between making me ponder human nature and being ponderous.

    Agree on “Beloved Sisters.” It probably could have been cut I guess, but I was happy to be swept away.

    LATE ADD: One super long movie I’m kinda sorta dreading this week is Aleksei German’s “Hard to Be A God” aka “History of the Arkanar Massacre.” I love “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” so we’ll see. Honestly I’m not sure I’ll be able to comprehend it, so 3 hours seems daunting.

  28. Bulldog68 says:

    JS, I think you forgot to take your meds again.

  29. movieman says:

    I’ve enjoyed all of Ceylan’s films to date, but “Sleep” was the first that felt like a bona-fide masterpiece. It had the density (and richly burnished texture) of a great Russian novel, and I happily surrendered to its leisurely rhythms.
    I actually had the chance to watch an online screener of “Hard to be a God” a few months back, but opted to pass. It sounded “difficult” enough without the added onus of having to watch the damn thing on my laptop.
    I can wait for the DVD.

    Weakest Palme in memory? “Eternity a Day.”

  30. movieman says:

    “Eternity AND a Day.”

  31. JS Partisan says:

    Do you two know how dicky you look, when you treat mental illness the way you do? It’s ridiculous, and insulting to people that live with it. If you want to insult someone in the 21st century, then try to do it without using mental illness, gender identification, or sexuality. It’s fucking disgusting, but that’s white privilege for you.

    Tracker, there is all sorts of evidence, and it’s called BEIN OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER IT! Why on earth do you think they greenlit the fucking movie? It’s a property that even was big in other countries, but please keep on responding as if you are right about everything. It’s funny.

    And yeah MRA, I got your point, but you refused to get mine. Maybe they are doing something else with the strategy, but you are too conceded to grasp, that you aren’t the execs that run Warners. They are trying something different. It’s not like movies opening on Wednesdays on now Holiday weeks, always means disaster, but you are so clever with your mansplaining. You obviously get how this works.

  32. Bulldog68 says:

    “that’s white privilege for you.”
    I’m a black guy originally from the Caribbean you unwashed twat.

  33. Bulldog68 says:

    And if you can’t take a joke, then don’t play in the sandbox.

  34. EtGuild2 says:

    That’s definitely up there movieman. Also, “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Wild at Heart (?!)” haha. And I might be alone in thinking so, but “L’Enfant” is definitely lower shelf Dardenne in re-visiting it.

    “Dheepan” makes me nervous. I like Audiard but the plotline gives me traumatic flashbacks to “Intouchables,”
    and “The Good Lie” haha.

  35. Amblinman says:

    “If you want to insult someone in the 21st century, then try to do it without using mental illness, gender identification, or sexuality.”

    You just described virtually every line of dialogue in every episode of Entourage.

  36. Tracker Backer says:

    Ha ha. Good point, Amblinman.

    And JS: you’re still not getting the point on the Wednesday opening. They’re doing it because it makes it more difficult for the filmmakers to compare to other openers in terms of success/failure. It’s all about the WB execs wanting to control how its spun.

    Also, you seem to keep making this assumption that I’m somehow too young to remember when the show was on. The show’s finale was less than 4 years ago. Regardless of how much you continue to scream about its popularity, it typically averaged about half of the ratings of a show like True Blood. The main reason the movie was made was that its about the movie industry, and a bunch of people convinced themselves it would be a good idea to go back to the well one more time, with lots of celebrity cameos, etc. It’s relatively low-cost, so there’s not a significant downside to it. 3 weeks after it’s released, no one will even remember it. Seriously. No one cares.

  37. leahnz says:

    “My all-time favorite (modern era) comedies, “Annie Hall” and “Lost in America,” ran 94 and 91 minutes respectively.
    Enough said.”

    and ‘enough said’ (one of my modern comedies faves) ran 93 minutes, so there you go…
    (i kind of wish all movies in general were a bit shorter now, so much bloat and padding around crappy storytelling. needs more scalpel)

  38. Smith says:

    Etguild, movieman – Hope you don’t mind my crashing your Palme talk. I loved Winter’s Sleep for the most part, but found the last half hour almost insultingly on the nose. Had the same problem with Once Upon A Time in Anatolia – Ceylan makes these beautiful, subtly written masterpieces, and then nearly ruins them by tacking on a half hour at the end so the characters can explain exactly what the movie was about, in case you missed it for the first 2 (or 2.5) hours.

  39. Pete B. says:

    “…but please keep on responding as if you are right about everything.”

    Oh the irony.

  40. Hallick says:

    “Also, Entourage was an IT show. I am sorry if you were 10, and don’t remember this happening. It did happen, but later seasons diminished the quality of those early seasons. Again, if you weren’t paying attention, then that’s on you. It’s not on history.”

    Entourage was kind of a second-tier IT show for maybe a season back in the day (95% thanks to Jeremy Piven’s character), but it has been a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time since that peak and I have a lot of trouble imagining the movie having a better-than-70% drop in its second weekend. Does anybody actually see legs on this? It could still be a good movie, but a good “Entourage” movie doesn’t seem like something with a real chance at a lifespan.

  41. Hallick says:

    “My all-time favorite (modern era) comedies, “Annie Hall” and “Lost in America,” ran 94 and 91 minutes respectively.”

    Sadly, 38- and 30-year-old movies can’t really be called modern era anymore. 2015 minus 38 years gets you to “Annie Hall”, but “Annie Hall” minus 38 years would send you back to 1939.

  42. movieman says:

    Thanks for reminding me of the (succinct) glory that is “Enough Said,” Leah.
    One of my favorite movies (period) of the decade so far.

    I have the same apprehension about “Dheepan” that you do, Et.
    Generally love Audiard’s stuff, but the mixed reviews out of Cannes (from crix I respect) makes me a tad nervous.

  43. Christian says:

    JS, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a bigger WTF Wall Of Silence at a trailer than the one for ENTOURAGE before MAD MAX. I literally heard crickets. You know a trailer is desperate when it brings out the producer for a cameo to remind you that this is a Hollywood movie with stars. But nobody cares or laughs anyway. Are we supposed to go, “OMG! It’s MARK WAHLBERG!” (swoon) That’s how the trailer plays it.

    Who is the audience for this besides people at The Grove? This really should have been an HBO mini-series for the fans.

  44. movieman says:

    A wrap-up “Entourage” HBO movie–like they promised but never delivered for “Deadwood,” and are (once again) promising with “Looking”–would have been sufficient, Christian.
    I (mostly) enjoyed “Entourage” during its run. But it’s not like it closed shop w/ any big unanswered questions.
    I can think of a half dozen (or more) former HBO series I’d be more interested in revisiting in a follow-up (theatrical) movie.

  45. EtGuild2 says:

    The long knives are getting a bit too long for a movie that is probably going to do about the same as “Hot Pursuit” (That is, if they really kept the budget to $30 million). and might end up being this month’s best Marky Mark product ahead of “Ted 2” and “Ballers.”

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So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

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