Friday Estimates by Klady: Bird Wars
The first summer weekend loaded with multiple movies is going to disappoint. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not a thriller.
The Angry Birds Movie will open as the #2 franchise for Sony Animation, between Cloudy and Transylvania. But not a big step closer to DreamWorks or any step at all towards Disney or Pixar. This movie will be a success. But there is a difference between succeeding and finding a spot at the cash trough.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is a tough beat. $8.7m opening day vs a $19.6m open just 2 years ago. What went wrong? I don’t think it was the movie. If you really liked the first one, you can be expected to like this sequel. Of course, opening weekend is about marketing. My take is that Universal didn’t sell the kink of the film. Broad strokes (no pun intended) only. You have a strong “girl power” theme in the film with the Moretz character leading the charge to change the way women are treated in Greek life. Not in the ads… not an appeal to women. (The first film also had an unsold feminist streak.) Then you have Zac Efron pushing back against type as he sees his value drop in the world in his post-frat life. Not in the marketing mix.
Now… Universal may well have tested these ideas and has them rejected or test less well than the pitch for the first film, which they kinda stuck to closely. So instead of a trio of diverse young women pushing back against the objectification culture of frats by starting their own in their own way, we get bikinied-boob-car-wash.
In some ways, this feels like the same misstep as Magic Mike XXL. It is not easy to look at a big hit and say, “The movie went a different direction… we should go there with the marketing too.” Much more the norm to stick with selling the same movie again with some added elements. If you, as a marketer, got this same result after changing up the marketing, no doubt that some bosses would then question your choice and say it was a mistake, where as rolling out the same campaign and the film dropping by more than half would surely seem to be the fault of whatever made the first movie blow up just falling out of the zeitgeist. I don’t think it would be true… but it is the safer play.
The Nice Guys is the heartbreaker of the weekend. WB went for it. All the way. More side marketing/publicity for this movie than you ever, ever see… maybe once every couple years, from the entire studio system. They threw everything and the kitchen sink at this one.
And to be fair, this one will do more business in the first 36 hours than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang did overall (a year ago). But… a $10m-ish opening weekend is not a great pay-off. As George S. Kaufman said, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” And really, this film is a 70s-style satire, in the spirit of Michael Ritchie, Altman, and Colin Higgins.
The Friday gross is just a bit lower than The Coens’ Hail, Caesar!, so they are in good company in their disappointment.
Honestly, as a film lover, it makes me angry at the audience. But it also makes me want to flip the bird at the “they could never make a film like this in 2016” crowd too. They did make the film. A major released it. They released Hail, Caesar!. They released Money Monster and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which are imperfect films, but were not going to find a bigger audience either way.
Then you have a film like Where to Invade Next, which is, by far, Drafthouse’s biggest release…. by also, by far, Michael Moore’s lowest grosser with a release over 55 screens.
Very frustrating. But at the same time, it is too simplistic to simply blame comic book movies and studio greed for this. The studios are businesses and they do react to the market. And when films like The Good Guys, which got a hardworking release don’t take off at all, everyone notices. It’s easy to second guess the details of marketing campaigns for a lot of movies this year… but not this one. So…
I liked The Nice Guys. Wish it was going to open better. It’s a fun, easy watch. Gosling and Crowe are a good team, and Angourie Rice is fantastic. Slight but very entertaining. Much more enjoyable than Civil War.
Disappointing numbers for The Nice Guys and lord knows Warners marketed the shit out of it but why did they have to open against Neighbors 2, ANOTHER R-rated comedy?? Last weekend would have been much better…guess they over-estimated how strong Civil War would be.
And speaking of which Etguild, 56% drop on its third Friday and barely pacing Iron Man 3 now…. that’s quite the word-of-mouth phenom you’ve got there! đ (Sorry just couldn’t resist, just satisfying to see the aggressive fanboy/YouReviewer push for a narrative on this film stumble a bit)
Feels like we are between eras in comedy. We’re going to head into June with the lowest grossing “#1 comedy movie of the year” at this point (Ride Along 2) in ten years, which is about the time this “era” of sensitive man-child bros led by Apatow/Rogen/Phillips was taking off (it also was the beginning of the Tyler Perry era in the urban sector, which has faded, while another over-lapping era has ended with Adam Sandler conducting some sort of social experiment re: whether he can turn his in-film Funny People filmography into a career).
Seems like Rogen is moving toward more idiosyncratic passion projects (Preacher, Sausage Party, Console Wars, anything with James Franco) with perhaps a mainstream release every now and then, while Apatow focuses more and more on TV and Phillips tries his hand at somewhat weightier fare. It’s a bit of a stretch to call this the
era of Kevin Hart or Melissa McCarthy quiiiite yet with CI and Ghostbusters huge tests. Waiting to see what happens next in the mainstream comedy genre….was ready for the Lord/Miller era of meta-wackiness but Star Wars calls for now.
Geoff, I’m glad that the fact Civil War may do $415 million rather than $425 million brings you joy. Whatever gets you through the week. I’m sure Disney considers this a disappointment, just as they will TJB if it doesn’t quite catch DEADPOOL domestically, or ZOOTOPIA if it doesn’t quite hit $1 billion.
Speaking of Lord/Miller since Sony Pictures Animation is a subject of discussion this weekend…remember when SPA was going to be the next big thing, with a daring release by a pair of exciting new talents with CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS? Hard to believe 7 years have passed since then, and we’ve endured a pair of “Smurfs” knock-offs of “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” an adaption of a cell-phone game that arrived 2 years too late (yeah they didn’t produce yadayada), and the wham-bam start and finish of an Aardman partnership…with a Smurf-threequel and a movie based on texting emojis (not kidding) on the way, presumably starring Johnny Depp as “zany face.”
What did we do to deserve this?
Et- What did we do to deserve Drumpf?
Life ain’t fair these days. In art, commerce or in politics.
Just got in from a bargain house matinee of “Allegiant” (yes, I’m playing catch-up), and damn if it doesn’t represent pretty much everything that’s wrong w/ 21st century franchise-at-all-costs moviemaking.
The first two “Divergent” movies weren’t very good, but this one is utterly dismal.
Finally saw The Witch. Surprised that anyone has taken it as a pro-Christianity message. Such an interesting little film.
Also saw Everest. Another movie that was better than it had to be.
It is depressing that Nice Guys is not doing better. The movie is a blast. But this seems to be the norm for a Shane Black movie not named Iron Man 3. Lethal Weapon was a grower not a shower and did not explode into the franchise it was until 2. The Last Boy Scout did okay but it found it’s cult on video. The Long Kiss Goodnight, Last Action Hero and Kiss Kiss Bang were all bombs that have become much more appreciated in the home video afterlife. These are all some of my most rewatched movies well except for Last Action Hero which I have seen twice and it does improve a lot on 2nd viewing seperated from week after Jurassic Park release. These movies were made. Let us be happy about that.
Not sure if this is the place for it, but as I’m still in mourning due to the last ever episode of Banshee last night…
If Marvel truly wanted some diversity in their films, they should have grabbed Hoon Lee and transplanted his character Job into Dr. Strange’s aide Wong. A cross-dressing, foul-mouthed, sarcastic Asian would be a nice edition to the Marvel Universe. I can see it now:
“And you call yourself the mother-f**king Master of the Mystic Arts?”
This may be hair-splitting, but is The Angry Birds Movie actually a Sony Pictures Animation production? Everything I’ve seen says it was produced by a different branch of the Sony empire, i.e. the Vancouver-based Sony Pictures Imageworks. There is nothing about Angry Birds on the SPA YouTube channel, for example.
Geoff, they are Saturday movies, and it is still a billion dollar movie. Is BvS? Hmmm…
You know what? Movies like Hail Caesar and The Nice Guys, should come out in September and October. Why? They are great post Summer cleansers. I don’t know about you people, but I love the post Summer months. It’s like smaller movie world, lots of thrillers, and other films which I fucking love.
Should these films be stuck in the Fall? No, but Avatar changed shit. Now, the Winter is a great time to make money, and the Hunger Games changed up March even more than 300. This leaves very little space for these Films outside of VOD, so they should be put after everyone has had enough of fucking Summer. It just happens. Right now, no one is looking for the Nice Guys, and it’s not like those two guys are movie stars. Great actors, but not draws.
Saw Everest as well this week, decent movie but it really didn’t suck the landing. We meet these characters and then they just sort of drop off the map without a lot of impact. Brolins arc was probably the most dynamic but they sort of shortchanged him as well, why mention the characters depression and them not bring it into the narrative again. And that helicopter going down the mountain scene could have been absolutely nail-biting but they rush through it to get to the end. Glad I saw it but it didn’t reach its potential. An extra half hour might have helped.
It’s simple JS: if Warners REALLY wanted BVS to be a billion dollar film (which it could have been), then they shouldn’t have hired Zack Snyder. Whereas Disney/Marvel clearly expected ‘Civil War (Avengers Plus Spider-Man) to play as well as The Avengers…which it won’t. That said, Disney’s having a banner year and with both The Jungle Book and Zootopia really over-performing, they’re going to more than make up for the $200 million to $300 million they left on the table with ‘Civil War.
And yes Etguild, interesting observation about how poorly comedies are performing this year so far….flat-out comedies. Of course then, couldn’t you consider both Zootopia and Deadpool comedy hits?
And that’s the thing JS about when to release films like Hail Caesar and The Nice Guys – there REALLY is no safe time to put films like that out at this moment. Hail Caesar had Deadpool in its second weekend and if you look at NEXT February…..wow, it’s loaded with big budget genre product: Dark Tower, Lego Batman, and John Wick 2. March is even worse with the live action Beauty & the Beast, Kong Skull Island, Wolverine – Old Man Logan, King Arthur, AND the return of Power Rangers. (!)
Hcat, I think you’re bang on about Everest, but I guess it’s my really low expectations for mountain climbing movies that I was amazed at how much they put into the Brolin character and how they did a good job establishing where everyone was on the mountain. It was better than it had to be, which I guess I appreciated.
I’m pretty sure nobody was predicting Civil War to do better than Avengers 2, least of all Disney. Internal expectations were for it to open at $175 million and make almost exactly what it’s making now. I don’t understand this “leaving $200 to $300 million on the table” thing.
Civil War is a Captain America movie. No one (at least no one who had realistic expectations) thought the film would magically gross 500 or 600 million in the United States. Even if one buys the very dubious notion that Civil War actually is “Avengers 2.5”, it’s going to come up just 30 or 40 million short of Age of Ultron.
Have you ever heard of the word “ceiling”? Do you know what it means when applied to box-office analysis?
One needs to have strong self-control not to call you a troll, Geoff.
Agree with JS that NICE GUYS feels very late September/early October. BURN AFTER READING opening to $19 million comes to mind. MONEYBALL at $20, PRISONERS at $21, RED at $22, BLACK MASS at $23.
I don’t really think of tentpoles as “comedies,” fair or not, but the idea of studios folding more of the traditional comedy slate into blockbusters is frighteningly plausible (MIB23).
To leave $300 million for CIVIL WAR on the table at this level, you’d have to go in with the expectation that you’re dropping the biggest overseas movie in summer release history. Even if you’re rolling out BATMAN vs ELSA, that is not an epectation any studio has with ANY release, especially if it’s not the marquee title in your marquee franchise (Infinity War Part 2 is probably the first movie to go in with the expectation it hits $1b overseas). To follow that logic, you’d have to say Disney and WB would be disappointed with ROGUE ONE (Episode 3.5) and FANTASTIC BEASTS hitting $1.5 billion and $1 billion respectively, markers I believe they’d be pleased as punch about.
Geoff is going to keep moving the goalposts for Civil War until he gets to 2 billion, I think.
Are people that threatened by someone who doesn’t worship Civil War? Anyone who doesn’t gush is a troll? It’s a dull and overstuffed superhero movie that bored me silly. In the same week I saw Sing Street, Money Monster, Civil War, and The Nice Guys and Civil War is the only one I didn’t like. If that makes me a troll, then I’m a troll and happy to be one.
Boy, Civil War is like a Gene Hackman movie, from the late 80s. You either get it, or you don’t.
No, Geoff isn’t a troll. He’s a DC fan, that wants DC to be doing MARVEL business. What we need to do, is sit Geoff down, and set him straight. It’s real easy. Marvel have made films, that total 10 billion dollars, and that total will keep going. BvS, fucked up the DC movie versus again (and I LOVE THAT DAMN MOVIE! I am in the minority… obviously), so now they have to emulate Marvel again, and have GEOFF JOHNS run their films.
Little known fact about Geoff: he’s no where near as consistent, as Kevin Feige. He’s just not, so it’s a crap shoot for DC, because who knows what they will get from him? Hopefully, he’s on point, because DC should have been doing what Marvel is doing now, back in the 90s. Instead, they sat on their hands, have to play catch up, and put all of their faith in ZACK FUCKING SNYDER. Watchmen worked, but putting WATCHMEN IDEAS over the rest of the DC universe? Doesn’t work. Here’s to Geoff and Ben, fixing shit.
Again, Cap is going to be… ANOTHER BILLION DOLLAR MARVEL MOVIE. Geoff can think what he wants, but that’s pretty fucking impressive. Not impressive? Your whole movie release date thing, Geoff. I know how release dates work, but there is SUMMER MOVIE FATIGUE! There comes a point, where people have enough of this shit, and movies in September and October should be used, to cleanse the pallet. It just makes sense, to open these movies in the right time, and not the wrong one. Hail Caesar and The Nice Guys, were given shitty fucking dates, and it left MONEY ON THE TABLE!
Stella, I didn’t particularly care for CIVIL WAR (though acknowledge it’s well done for what it is). I’m also not really into Taylor Swift, but I acknowledge the fact that she almost single-handedly props up the music industry in lean years. I don’t need to belt out the lyrics to Bad Blood in order to Bow before the Queen and thank her for being a driving force to keep a dizzying array of music being released each year despite the fact no one buys albums anymore (or in this case, driving the death of indie film if you want to be a pessimist).
Didn’t get it. Yes that’s right. I didn’t get a comic book movie. It’s just too complex and only the likes of IO can understand it. EtGuild2 didn’t get it either apparently. The things people say on the Internet. IO I promise the world doesn’t end if not everyone worships Marvel as much as you do. It’ll keep spinnin’ man. So relax. But anyone playing the “you didn’t get it card” due to a difference of opinion is a fool.
So Geoff is a troll because he thinks Civil War could have made more money? I didn’t see him label it a flop or anything like that. And he’s right, some fanboys are aggressive (please see 12:50 pm post).
Boy, YOU FALL FOR IT EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME! I knew as soon as I typed that out about Gene Hackman, that you would respond like you did. Why? You still care about shit from ten years ago, that I do not even remember. Refer to me as IO or whatever, as if that doesn’t make you seem like you are still angry, because it’s not about “GETTING IT.” It’s about the TYPE OF MOVIE it is, and it reminds me of a Gene Hackman action film. If you dislike “The Package,” then that’s on you! IT’S QUALITY, DAMN IT! QUALITY!
That aside, you are once again jumping into an argument, because I dare enter it. Unfortunately, this started with Geoff last year, and Ethan and I (along with some others), are just pointing out his silliness. Also, I love BvS, but please keep going on about this being about Marvel, and all of this other nonsense, that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH… me. Here’s a little scoreboard for me and some of you, when it comes to Marvel: 10 billion to 0. I remember the weekend Iron Man opened. I don’t remember a lot of these discussion, but that one I do. Anghus, must be in constant misery about these films.
Aggression, is when you angrily jump into an argument, refer to me as I0, then go on about me being ANGRY! When, if you could read my post without getting mad about something, that happened in 2008. You would see, that there is nothing angry or aggressive in there.
I don’t know how anyone can say Civil War is not an Avengers movie. It was obviously sold as an Avengers movie and not a Captain America film. Thats like saying X-Men Days of Futures Past is a Wolverine movie. And I dont care what the title says I care about how it was marketed. I don’t think it is a disappointment at all but saying that it will make hundreds of millions more than the last Captain America movie thereby showing growth for Marvel Studios is as intellectly dishonest as what Geoff is doing. The warning I think this signals for Marvel is that this clearly shows they need multiple first tier characters in all of their movies going forward. They think even Spiderman needs Iron Man as a co star as insurance against a flop. This is not sustainable. Where do they go after Infinity Ward?
I think once you get discharged from the Infinity Ward, you are free to roam among the cosmos as long as you don’t present a danger to yourself or others.
Stella’s Boy, I was tempted to call him a troll not because he didn’t “worship” the movie. I’ve never seen him comment on the quality of the film, so stop with your strawman argument right there. It’s about box-office, not subjective opinions on the artistic merits of the film. Someone who keeps posting the same thing over and over again in order to get a raise out of others, without engaging the arguments from the people who have replied is a troll.
maybe that’s because ‘civil war’ (civil fucking war, civil war my ass, what a bunch of assholes, all you warring superheroes just kill each other off already and die, DIE DIE DIE, what’s taking so long), like all these ‘superheroes fighting each other’ shitshows is baaaadly written, excruciatingly contrived and just plain dumb
i don’t think geoff is a troll trying to get a rise, he’s just in his own bubble, and maybe he’s kinda right. i mean who gives a shit, all this box office stuff is like arguing over tea leaves.
@Pete B đ
What leahnz said. It’s so silly to get so defensive about box office, especially when there’s still 27 Marvel movies in the pipeline.
Wow guys…..as the Scarecrow said in Batman Begins, some of you need to “lighten up.” This is a BOX OFFICE blog where we are encouraged to discuss BOX OFFICE. đ Right now Disney is the number one team with the number one players apparently…..how is the trajectory of the latest installment of their biggest franchise NOT relevant for discussion??
You want to call me a “troll” or a shill for Warners/DC, good luck with that – I’m not disputing that Batman V. Superman performed disappointingly or even that Warners didn’t make their own bed with that situation by giving Zack Snyder free reign.
Yes it’s all relative and I’m sure Warners would have LOVED to have Civil War’s grosses for its own film but let’s be straight here: Disney/Marvel didn’t open up their checkbook and dish out $50 million plus to Downey, thread the needle of working with Sony to bring back Spider-Man the flagship Marvel character into the fold, and go out of their way to promote this as “Avengers 2.5” so they could end up with ticket sales less than Iron Man 3 – there’s no moving of goal posts here, the film is fading relatively fast here and overseas. Which to be fair is not ALL the fault of the film – X-Men launched this weekend in most markets and that was certain to eat into the grosses. You look at the trajectory and they’re likely to end up with between $1.1 and $1.2 billion worldwide – FANTASTIC numbers for most other franchises (except Transformers and Pirates, where that’s just standard) but the first Avengers did $1.5 billion four years ago and then the second one did $1.4 billion last year….so that’s a drop no matter how you spin it.
Should we be crying for Disney? Hell no….they have two other $1 billion movies in theaters right now. But it’s positively silly to ignore the obvious.
“how is the trajectory of the latest installment of their biggest franchise NOT relevant for discussion??”
Personally, I think the debate over Princess Elsa having a girlfriend will damage their #1 franchise’s brand, and might allow Pokemon to unseat FROZEN as the biggest toy line in the world again. It’s a sad sign that we haven’t come nearly as far as we believe we have.
Moving back to their #3 franchise, Disney could have stuck Woody and Luke on Team Iron Man, and Buzz and Anakin on Team Cap, and they’d still have trouble clearing the #2 all-time superhero slot worldwide. I feel like I need to sit you down, hold your hand, and look into your eyes to get this across Geoff, but there’s a limit to the number of people on this planet who go into these movies with an encyclopedic knowledge of Black Panther and Scarlett Witch, but go by the title appeal and their friends’ ability to explain it instead. There are limits to the number of people willing to see a movie fronted by the pop-culture symbol of American jingoism, as was discussed ad nauseum in 2011. You can throw the Dalai Lama, Michael Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela’s re-animated corpse into the mix, but how will that help it play in China and Bolivia?
That’s how successful the MCU is; people have gone off the deep end and are arguing that a secondary comic character with conventionally limited appeal, should be able to make off with more loot than any other figure in comic history, because he’s fronting a pseudo-teamup based on a storyline 5 million people on the planet are familiar with, that we expect people in Tenochticlan and Macau to be aware of.
Wow Et, you REALLY stretched the argument so far it’s pretty much about to snap. I don’t think anybody was expecting the heavens to open for larger audiences to seek out Black Panther or Scarlet Witch…..but EVERYBODY has heard of Spider-man!
See the link below:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=comicbookadaptation.htm&adjust_yr=1&p=.htm
Two of the five highest selling movies within this genre STAR Spider-man….why do you think Disney/Marvel and Sony went through several months of negotiations 2014 into 2015 to re-boot the character for the THIRD time in 15 years?! đ I actually took my daughters to the Disney store earlier and guess WHICH character had more shelf space than the rest of the Marvel superheroes combined?? Yup you guessed it….and it wasn’t Bucky. đ
I’m not saying that the film isn’t hugely successful nor profitable, only that its success is disappointing compared to recent MCU films – it’s likely going to end up pulling in fewer worldwide dollars than the last stand-alone Iron Man movie, perfectly reasonable to see that as disappointing when you’re launching Avengers 2.5 with Spider-man.
Geoff, the WIZARD OF OZ is one of the highest grossing movies of all-time, but I don’t recall your fist-shaking tirade over OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL’s performance. Unfortunately, it’s possible to ruin a good thing, and to be let in on a small secret: those movies were released back when Beyonce was in Destiny’s Child, and during the Iraq War invasion respectively. The most recent adaptations clock in at #24 and #37, so I guess you’re saying Dick Tracy would have been good for an extra $100 million in grosses? You seem to think audiences have a greater immunity to shoveling shit at them than they do. 2 of the last 3 movies have been terrible and the other was mediocre. Hence the declining grosses.
“perfectly reasonable to see that as disappointing when youâre launching Avengers 2.5 with Spider-man”
Not sure what this means. Is it launching Avengers 2.6? Look, you could make two arguments about SPIDER-MAN 3 regarding its performance: one, upon its release, would postulate that IT’S THE BIGGEST SUPERHERO MOVIE OF ALL TIME! (worldwide). It’s proof Spider-man is King! The other would look back in retrospect point out the fact it cost even more than Cap 3 today, and probably was barely profitable, and led to the collapse of Sony’s marquee franchise. Both are technically accurate, but one is non-sensical. If SPIDER-MAN 3 had been the most profitable movie released in 2007, does anyone think the 4th wouldn’t have happened? If Disney is run by rational people, they don’t look at releasing the most profitable movie of the year as a disappointment. You reserve that for SPIDEY 3, BVS, APOCALYPSE, MAN OF STEEL, BATMAN BEGINS, etc. Otherwise, by your definition, 95% of movies released to general audiences are disappointments.
Oh yeah, RDJ is in Homecoming, because of story reasons. He’s sort of this Spider-man’s UNCLE BEN, so it would be stupid for Tony Stark, to not be in that movie. Also, a BILLION PLUS dollars is not a ceiling. It’s a ballpark, and it’s the ballpark only Star Wars and Marvel play in.
“Geoff, the WIZARD OF OZ is one of the highest grossing movies of all-time, but I donât recall your fist-shaking tirade over OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFULâs performance. Unfortunately, itâs possible to ruin a good thing, and to be let in on a small secret: those movies were released back when Beyonce was in Destinyâs Child, and during the Iraq War invasion respectively. The most recent adaptations clock in at #24 and #37, so I guess youâre saying Dick Tracy would have been good for an extra $100 million in grosses? You seem to think audiences have a greater immunity to shoveling shit at them than they do. 2 of the last 3 movies have been terrible and the other was mediocre. Hence the declining grosses.” Etguild I have no clue what any of this really means sorry. Wasn’t The Wizard of Oz actually a box office disappointment when it first came out in ’39 and it was only through decades of re-releases and syndicated re-plays on TV that it became profitable??
And wow that’s quite the reach you’ve got there to make an argument that doesn’t even really make sense. We’re not talking about being unfair to Disney nor are we talking about not talking about not making profit……we’re talking about simple MATH.
When a Major League Pitcher wins 21 games one season then wins 17 games the following season, that might still be a good season but that’s STILL a disappointment relative to their PREVIOUS season. And if that same pitcher then wins 14 games the following season, do you think their agent is going to be in a good position or a bad position to negotiate a higher contract with their team?? đ
“Itâs a ballpark, and itâs the ballpark only Star Wars and Marvel play in.” Yup….and ‘Pirates and Harry Potter and Fast & Furious and Transformers and Minions/Despicable Me and Jurassic Park…in other words $1 billion is becoming a FLOOR, not a ceiling for true franchise success nowadays. It’s absurd that the media obsesses about that stat but some perspective is necessary: there are 25 films that have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, but only 4 of them were released before 10 years ago.
Geoff, I’m not sure how I lost you. You still haven’t addressed the issues on the recent Spider-Men, and I was addressing an argument fanboys consistently make about Spider-man 3’s grosses, which I assume you’re cribbing from when citing the Raimi movies in order to prove the character still has outsized relevance. Nothing particularly hard to understand.
As for the sports analogy, this is an argument made by pundits living inside a bubble. Here’s why it doesn’t hold water: your comparisons are off, in what I assume is a deliberate attempt to exaggerate your argument. You’re not comparing a pitcher winning 21 games to 14. In MLB terms you’re comparing, let’s say, Justin Verlander in 2011 (24 wins, historic level ERA) to Collin Mchugh last year (19 wins, fantastic ERA).
The Analogous argument here: you’re arguing a pitcher would be considered a disappointment after he followed up one of the all-time greatest seasons with a near-historic fantastic season, immediately after Tommy John surgery (to add in the not-quite-Avengers issue). This is just insane. But sure, there are pundits demented and crazy enough to make this argument I guess.
” other words $1 billion is becoming a FLOOR, not a ceiling for true franchise success nowadays.”
And that’s the Big Problem with this: you end up attacking yourself by citing franchises with one billion dollar grosser (Fast and Furious, Minions, Jurrasic, Potter) or franchises that have deceptively high grosses but aren’t close in terms of profitability (Pirates 3 and 4 are two of the most expensive movies of all time and rely on China; Age of Extinction derives the highest percentage of its worldwide gross from China for a worldwide title-holder ever).
It’s true that there are 25 movies that have hit $1 billion. But only one franchise really does it consistently. God I’m already dreading the “Fast 8, Transformers 5, Despicable Me 3,” “Jurassic World 2” letdown articles.
“You know what? Movies like Hail Caesar and The Nice Guys, should come out in September and October. Why? They are great post Summer cleansers. I donât know about you people, but I love the post Summer months. Itâs like smaller movie world, lots of thrillers, and other films which I fucking love.”
You’re half right. 15-20 years ago, The Nice Guys is perfect and typical summer movie fare. Two stars team up for an action movie. 20 years ago, Nice Guys opens in either June or first week of August and probably kills. In 2016, not so much. I can’t imagine launching a Lethal Weapon type franchise now. How the hell can you sell PI’s or badass cops when you have Captain America punching Iron Man in the face with a laser?
I am not going to bother with whether or not Cap 3 is a disappointment, of course it’s not. But this:
“Even if one buys the very dubious notion that Civil War actually is âAvengers 2.5âł”
So a movie advertised with most of the Avengers roster, in which RDJ plays a prominent role, and y’know just for the hell of it throws in SPIDER-MAN, can’t be considered anything other than a Captain America movie? For really real? Yeah, no. I’d say this movie was Cap 3 in name only but even by that standard it was sold as a giant ass superhero gangbang.
Etguild, that’s the thing about Spider-Man – two of the last three Spider-man films had horrible reviews but this incarnation has been routinely noted as “the Spider-Man we have been waiting for!” And if we’re really discounting recent reception of a given character, how come the first Avengers exploded following an Iron Man sequel and the first Captain America movie, which BOTH had pretty mixed receptions?
And if we’re defining what’s really a “billion dollar franchise” all of the ones I noted above pretty much qualify: there were 8 Harry Potter films which AVERAGED $965 million worldwide while there have been 13 MCU films which have averaged $781 million worldwide, not sure why you would disqualify the latter unless you really believe that extra $35 million per film would have really made a difference as a qualifier. There have been two Jurassic worldwide grosses exceeding a billion (depending if you include re-releases of course), Despicable Me/Minions produced one billion dollar grosser last summer and DP2 grossed $970 million three years ago, and….we’re going to disqualify ‘Pirates now?? There have been four ‘Pirates films and every sequel has exceeded $960 million with the last two topping a billion….and At World’s End didn’t cost much less than ‘Ultron which derived a lot more of its gross from China. Any particular reason that the geniuses at Disney you keep citing would NOT greenlight another ‘Pirates entry for next summer if they weren’t at least MARGINALLY profitable? đ
The point is that the so-called “Billion Dollar Club” is really not that exclusive anymore so yes, the bar IS getting set higher for all mega-franchises including Marvel.
“this incarnation has been routinely noted as âthe Spider-Man we have been waiting for!”
Yeah people sure stormed the castle for BATMAN BEGINS!
Why was the AVENGERS super popular? If the first AVENGERS were coming out in 2016 and featured Spider-Man, the negative history wouldn’t really matter–because it’s something audiences had never seen in history– several solo-movies, of middling to positive reception, leading to the grand spectacle of a team-up. I thought that went without saying?
Geoff–averaging movies in a franchise is disingenuous gooniness and you know it. They ain’t going to make a TOKYO DRIFT follow up, because of a franchise average. On Potter, when you have one movie doing $1.4 billion, it skews the average. I can be equally disingenuous and say “if you exclude the finale…” yada yada. And yeah, PIRATES 3 and 4 are the most expensive movies ever made…they cost almost as much as AVENGERS, AVENGERS 2 and your AVENGERS 2.5 combined. A little different economics there bud, especially given the high-percentage reliance on overseas/China. Obviously, Pirates has this other thing going known as “ancillary,” which is why they keep making movies. That and they think they might be able to make the next one for a weensy-teensy bit less than the $380 million boondoggle of ON STRANGER TIDES, I assume.
I can’t decide whether you’re being serious or not.
Etguild, ‘On Stranger Tides is probably the most expensive every made, close to $400 million before rebates were taken into account. But ‘Ultron was pretty much a clusterfuck of a shoot itself, costing over $330 million before rebates and tax incentives – even a year after its release, Whedon was still admitting that he let it completely get away from him. And those numbers aren’t even including the back-end deals for Downey, Feige and at least three other players who were getting points….
http://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2014/11/13/disney-spends-record-580-million-making-movies-in-britain/#3e813d8e36fa
Oh yeah and back in 2011, ‘On Stranger Tides made $804 million overseas with $70 million coming from China while ‘Ultron made $946 million overseas……with $240 million coming from China. Oh and ‘Civil War is going to end up drawing around 25% of its overseas gross from China JUST like ‘Ultron, so that means MORE profit?! đ
And you wanna throw shade at success of the Harry Potter franchise, good luck with that – 7 out of the 8 films grossed more than $870 million worldwide, you really don’t get much more consistent than that.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=harrypotter.htm
Yikes, Geoff. You’re talking about much different scales in profit with the domestic cumes Geoff. Close to an extra $120 million to the studio for ULTRON just on domestic grosses. And I’ve never heard of the $330 million total. If you want to get into spectulation, there are some who said STRANGER TIDES cost over $450 million. The consensus is TIDES cost about $100 million more. All in all, you’re looking at a difference of around $300 million to the studio.
Not throwing shade at POTTER. I’m sad, seeing people all over the net setting up FANTASTIC BEASTS up for failure, just like this.
Etguild, look at the Forbes article I linked above – they spent $330 million on ‘Ultron.
According to the Forbes article it was $280 million after the rebates if I’m reading that correctly. Also, I heard all sorts of rumors about how absurdly expensive Batman v Superman was–much more than $250 million.
Yeah, I was talking post-rebate. If you’re going to cite Forbes, PIRATES was $410 million before production costs and $378 million after according to them. So there’s your $100 million production budget difference. +$115 million in domestic money to the studio, +25 million foreign-ish =about a quarter billion difference. And I assume the ancillary take is substantially higher on an Avengers movie.