Weekend Estimates by Klady 3
The wide newcomers uniformly are failing to estimate 3X Friday, while the top holdovers (wonderful and wrapped alike) are. Ugly weekend… kind of. The only out and out failure amongst the 4 top new films was Rough Night. Cars 3 is about international and merchandising. All Eyez on Me overperformed expectations, strong vs costs. 47 Meters Down came from a new distributor, meeting ambitions. And… Rough Night.
At this point of the summer last year, there had been eleven $20 million summer openings. This year, eight. Last year by this time, three $50m+ openings. This year, four. Last year, two $100 million openings by now. This year, also two.
What do those numbers mean? Not much. Mostly that the sky isn’t falling. And more subtly, that summer is a marathon, not a sprint.
Another series of numbers: 14, 12, 14, 19, 12, 18, 13, 15, 17, 17. That’s the number of $100 million domestic grossers in each of the last 10 summers (starting in 2016). Clearly there has been a slowing in the number of films hitting that bar.
On the other hand… 36, 46, 61, 32, 49, 55, 41, 36, 26, 35.
Those are the numbers of $100 million international grossers for the entire years in the last decade. And you can see the opposite trend. There are about 45 $100m international films a year in each of the last five years to 39 in the five years before that.
Last year, only three of the 14 $100m domestic summer grossers failed to do $100m internationally (Bad Moms, Central Intelligence, Ghostbusters).
On the flipside, there were eight summer movies that did less than $100m domestic, but did over $100 million internationally… six sequels, as well as Warcraft and Me Before You.
So what’s my point? This summer feels down. It feels like we have been drowning in IP, though the truth is that we have only had four actual sequels to date. (There were 11 sequels last summer and by the end of this summer, there will also be 11.)
Guardians, Vol. 2 is fine, thanks. Overall, it is up about 10% from the first, almost equally from domestic and international.
Alien: Covenant about doubled its domestic gross internationally and is now at about $215 million. China is still to come.
Pirates: Dead Men Tell No Tales is at $650 worldwide and will soon pass the first Pirates. But the billion-dollar hopes (three of the four previous films did over $950m ww) are gone. And China doubled its gross from the last film… but still, China gets the 20% return asterisk, making the overall haul about $70m less impressive.
Cars 3 is too soon to tell… but Cars did $218m internationally, which was less than the domestic gross and Cars 2 did $371m, which was two-thirds of the overall worldwide gross. So, a tale of two very different box office grosses in an evolving worldwide box office standard. 2 was off $50 million from the first… and there is a good chance that 3 will be off as much from 2. What will happen internationally?
The IP films that are perceived domestic bombs are having success internationally. Baywatch is already at $120 million worldwide. King Arthur grabbed $100 million internationally, though the film is still nowhere near black ink… $75 million writedown at the very least. And Tom Cruise’s international juice is giving the finger to Variety and those who want to hang him out to dry. The film is near $300 million worldwide today, $239m international. There is still a good chunk to get before the film is out of the red, but international has protected the studio from a legitimate disaster.
As for the new films? June gloom. It used to be the norm, then there was a run of a few years when the slot offered up Man of Steel, 22 Jump Street, and Jurassic World. But last year in this slot wasn’t pretty and this year, a little worse.
I coincidentally mentioned 22 Jump Street. In the three years since that release – this same weekend in 2014 – the only other $50 million opening that Sony has delivered was for James Bond (Spectre). Paramount has had five $50m+ openings in that same period. Fox has had seven, Warner Bros eight, Universal nine, and the insane run at Disney has acccounted for 17 $50m+ openings in these last three years.
This is why Amy Pascal exited the top movie job at Sony… not e-mail. And now, Tom Rothman is 28 months into his tenure and while much of it can be put on Ms. Pascal’s plate, the studio is still bleeding. Spider-Man is coming… but success will be credited to Marvel (even though word is that Marvel is not happy with Sony/Rothman). The Dark Tower has dark prospects. And the next real light at the end of the tunnel is Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in December. Baby Driver may overperform. Flatliners could overperform. But these aren’t game-changers for a studio.
For all the complaining about Tom Rothman, he did well for Fox. He had a good run and you can moan all you like, the numbers are the numbers. But the numbers are the numbers at Sony too… and there is not enough movies on the schedule that suggest big hits are coming. What is next summer for Sony? A Will Ferrell comedy. Okay. But Barbie? Slenderman? Next fall is kinda loaded (if the dates are made), but another 16 months is going to be a white knuckle ride if that is the expectation.
About eight months ago, Brad Grey did a presentation that was, essentially, an attempt to convince everyone that he had a vision for the future of Paramount. But it wasn’t very convincing. And he was out (apparently not because he was mortally ill).
Tom Rothman is an enthusiastic film lover. He needs to convince his bosses that he has a vision for the future. And it would probably behoove him to convince the rest of Hollywood. No one wants to go to a studio where your one movie is the thing that is needed to turn the place around. People want to take their most commercial projects to the places where the tide is already high and they can get all the benefits of that… and if magic strikes, be the big hit everyone wants.
Sony should have dumped Rough Night or spent some money to try to fix its inherent big-ticket flaws. I truly believe that they could have turned the corner, cutting the film to the bone and then shooting for three weeks with someone like Paul Feig or Apatow guiding the process. There is near-consensus that the film stops dead when the guy gets killed. So go the full Weekend at Bernie’s or make trying to get rid of the body funny or let them get comfortable with the body as a symbol of their empowerment. SOMETHING! Get some more Demi and Ty Burrell in there. De-pathetic the second act Jillian Bell. Give Scarlett the on-screen make-over. And I’m not even saying that the director couldn’t deliver this. She just needed a much, much stronger third act. This is, mostly, a movie on a stage. Invest another $10 million to make it work well enough to sell or push it to Amazon or Netflix and take your loss. That’s all I’m sayin’.
All Eyez On Me is a hit, given its circumstances. It’s not a huge number. And it will drop a lot next week. But it’s a win. Tupac passed away before the explosion of international… so no idea how it will play there. Maybe France? UK?
47 Meters Down did better than I expected. Entertainment Studios’ first film. They seemed to spend more on publicity than advertising. Smart. I don’t have the numbers, but I can’t believe they expected more.
And The Book of Henry is a classic smash-hit-post-partum present to a director. Focus spent bupkiss on this one and it was probably the right choice. Film Festival opening night in place of a premiere. Etc, etc, etc. A non-event. Looking forward to seeing it on Starz. I bet it’s underrated… and still not a project that was ever going to find an audience as broad as the 569-screen release it got this weekend.
No freaking clue where WONDER WOMAN ends up now with the targets changing so fast. Now DEADPOOL seems very catchable, with SPIDEY 2 a possibility…GOTG2 still seems safe for now with $390 million in view, but if it holds like this a few more times perhaps not.
When’s the last time the future of a top-tier Hollywood franchise relied upon a single country, other than China (Transformers), more than PIRATES is on Japan? ON STRANGER TIDES made $108 million there, the equivalent of over $200m in China. But ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS fell a whopping -80% from the first movie which isn’t a good sign. If DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES can manage a ~40% decline, you’ve got to figure Disney ends the day happy and looks at a sixth installment in the early 2020s.
That Wonder Woman has got a great pair of legs. I wonder what the result would have been if this was released before BvsS?
Yeah Dave, no mention of Wonder Woman?? It only had the fourth best third weekend of any comic book movie ever which sounds an inconsequential stat until you see the three films that are above it: The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and SpiderMan…..so yeah, pretty damn impressive. I gotta think it has another $100 million domestic in the tank though MAYBE a late summer re-release could push it to $400 million….man the egos at Disney and Warners might push this into a legit firefight in August if they BOTH have re-releases because I’m SURE that both REALLY want that summer title even if it’s just for bragging rights.
Of course GOTG2 probably cost about a $100 million more to make though it’s a much more effects-heavy film and let’s face it, some of that CGI in Wonder Woman was pretty hinky. 🙂 I’ve seen WW three times now and I love it but I can admit that with the CGI version of the character in some of those battle scenes….they got what they paid for.
And JS, I know you’ve been railing on Disney for their gender issues but they’re not alone for sure – my daughters got me some nice father’s day gifts in old-school Justice League gift wrap which features the logos of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash….and that’s it. No Wonder Woman logo featured. And we had the same issue when we did a Wonder Woman-themed birthday party for my youngest a few months ago (at her request) and could not find ANYTHING at Party City which featured Wonder Woman though a ton featuring the other Justice League characters. I have a feeling that’s all going to change within the next few months but still.
And to think that just a week ago in the comments section, people were throwing around the possibility of Rough Night getting to $100M.
lol, TrackerBracker you’re an hour late with the vindictiveness this week. You call your dad and reminisce about your days as a little obnoxious snot?
And there were no “people” throwing this possibility around.
Watched “The Exception” as a VOD and really enjoyed it. The nudity (full frontal for Jai Courtney!; everything but frontal for Disney’s former Cinderella!) was a nice surprise.
Does anyone know why A24 rather than, say, Sony Classics picked this up?
Feels like a real outlier for the house of “Moonlight,” but would have fit SPC (or mid-’90s Miramax) like a glove.
The fact that it’s done pretty decently for a movie whose VOD was D&D w/ “limited theatrical” is probably why A24 is adding screens. (It hits Cleveland on Friday). But are the streaming profits really that much better than they could have been w/ a more conventional theatrical release? Guess we’ll never know since that (VOD dollars) secret is as closely guarded as Trumpy’s tax returns.
Geoff, the next time you are at Target. You should look for the DC heroes shirt, that doesn’t feature one female superhero on it. Not one. All of this, is so fucking hokey, but you know what gets attention? That Wonder Woman hold. That’s some game changing shit right there. Seriously. Why Dave just ignores it, is another one of his quirks. Nevertheless, she persisisted, and it’s on China to help the Transformers again!
Dave is a fucking hoot. Why? He does an extended rewrite and still… Ignores… Wondie’s hold. Incredible. Wondie is some magical stuff, but in Dave’s world. It’s time to discuss genuine creative n’er’do-well… Tom Rothman. Marvel Studios should be pissed at him. He has the fucking nerve, to announce a bunch of nonconsequential Spider-Man movies, because his broke ass needs a dollar? GTFO, Rothman. Seriously. He’s the worst, but Sony do not always make the best decisions.
Also, Covenant is doa. Whoa! It made money abroad. Guess what? ALIENS SEQUEL.
Sony dug its grave the moment they sacked Jeff Blake. He could sell this shit. The new guys can’t.
So how appropriate is it that the #42 car of Kyle Larson won the NASCAR race at Michigan today and he had the Cars 3 logo on his car and on his fire suit?
Looking forward to seeing The Book of Henry? That’s literally insane. There’s – conservatively – about 3000 films I’d want to watch before I suffered through that syrup fest and that doesn’t include the 4000 or so films I’ve already seen and would happily watch again.
It’s the bad berserk, that one.
Its one type of problem for a major studio to lag behind Lionsgate this far into the year. Its another for two major studios to trail Lionsgate this far into the year. But it is jaw dropping that the two majors COMBINED havent sold the same amount of tickets that Lionsgate has and it isn’t a Hunger Games or Twilight year. Columbia and Paramount have tentpoles to turn it around slightly but um..is anyone in the market to buy a studio? These need to get in safer hands.
the elephant in the room
How long before Sony reboots “Close Encounters”?
Or “Tootsie”?
“Kramer Vs. Kramer”?
Anyone?
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried resuscitating “The Deep.”
Sad.
@JS
They had a similar situation at Hot Topic. WW shirts for ladies, but not for men.
I guess guys have to wear heros, and women wear heroines?
Strange in 2017.
Dave I agree 100% that Guardians is fine and profitable but I am curious; Your prediction back in April was $1.25 billion. It’s going to fall $400 million short of that. Was there really a sense in the industry that it could reach those numbers? Other sites were prediction over a billion too. If so, Marvel cannot be overjoyed. Content sure, but happy? Or was that number just a wild guess on everyone’s part? I’m not trying to imply some stupid “it’s a flop!” thing; clearly it’s a big hit. But expectations versus reality can be a funny thing in business.
“Ugly weekend” is demonstrably untrue so long as Wonder Woman’s 31% hold is in there.
A small nothing article in Variety made mention of an event called “The David Lynch Foundation’s National Night of Laughter and Song.”
Is it just me or does that sound ominous and a little terrifying?
Movieman,
Can’t see Tootsie or Kramer being seen as exploitable properties today, Wasn’t the Deep already remade as Into the Blue a decade ago? I guess a film about a fleet of Blue Thunders might work, but other than that I wouldn’t be surprised if they dipped into the Charlie’s Angels pool again.
Given the level of desperation over there I wouldn’t be surprised by the announcement of another Final Fantasy or Krull. Or an attempt to spin off The Snorks.
Stevie would never allow Close Encounters to be remade, thankfully. And you could only do it as a period piece anyway – even Spielberg says that cell phone cameras and the paucity of semi convincing UFO footage out there, has made him more sceptical of alien visitation nowadays.
Pete, I own multiple Wonder Woman shirts, as does my brother. What you seem to be missing, or are completely fucking ignore is this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4e/5a/e4/4e5ae4c4cb911e8795948fc2c1fdc118.jpg
Look at fucking that, Pete. It’s a Marvel shirt, with male and female characters on it. DC made billions last year, on their heroines alone, but they also put out a shirt, that ignores them for two fucking parademons. Seriously, get the fuck out of here, with your nonsense, because no company should make a shirt ignoring their female heroes. Especially fucking DC, who are tied to them even more so than Marvel.
And don’t ever fucking belittle Nirvana. They didn’t fuck over metal. Shit metal bands fucked over metal.
One thing I’ve learned is that no existing property is apparently off limits for a reboot, remake or whatever the hell they’re calling ’em these days.
Except “Citizen Kane,” I suppose.
Be thankful for small favors, right?
Citizen Kane could be a great reboot though. You make him a tech tycoon, basically Zuckerberg, and go from there. Hell. You could riff on Lisa Jobs, and have him being the heir of a computer firm, and getting Christina Ricci to play his mom.
” “Ugly weekend” is demonstrably untrue so long as Wonder Woman’s 31% hold is in there”
don’t mention the war, palmtree
(the radio silence re: such small drops and the WW WOM is…bizarre. where’s all the fevered bean-counter minutiae and historical analysis that would accompany pretty much any other flick? weird)
Totally agree, leah. WW will likely be the highest grossing film in the DCEU, and this is so insanely better than all expectations that it should merit at least a nod, right? I mean, it is a game-changer in so many ways on top of its gross. That’s what should attract the attention of a journalist.
Not sure how I missed the point JS. I was agreeing with you that the marketing is dumb. And I have a Zatanna t-shirt that is a prize possession.
Excessive bloat incapacitated Metal. Grunge stood nearby to make sure it wasn’t resuscitated.
Scary thing is, WW could have made even more $$$. It got pulled from our IMAX to make room for The Mummy, and then was back for just this weekend. (Transformers takes over tomorrow.)
Pete, my mistake, and there were so many bad metal bands. Personally, that terrible Skid Row song about uncle Tom’s cabin, and it’s shit video, is what did it all in. It was so fucking dreary, that the world needed a change. I love metal though, and it’s not like it’s not more vibrant today than ever.
Aside from that? The Wondie weirdness, is just bullshit. It’s doing special stuff, and Transformers should be worried, and Cars should be worried. Hell. Transformers has all but fucked it’s opening weekend with a Wednesday release, so this weekend will be interesting.
one surprising thing, a person i know told me the 3D in WW was really good – amongst the best he’s seen – and i was like get outta town (i’ve seen it only in 2D so now i regret not going for 3D my second viewing, if i get a chance i hope to check it out. who was it who asked about the 3D, triple op maybe)
No problem JS, and actually Uncle Tom’s Cabin was by Warrant, not Skid Row.
My vote for worst metal video is Freight Train by Nitro. I’d provide the link, but it’s truly a crime against humanity.
Why did I always hold that song against Skid Row? I should have googled, but I just didn’t want to even hear it again. Oh the humanity!
Now, that Nitro video is something else. Fucking amazing.
Leah, the wife & I caught the next-to-last IMAX 3D showing of WW and I’d say the 3D is pretty good. The whole final sequence at night was clear and not murky. (Unlike the craptastic King Arthur.) The animated(?) sequence at the beginning when the Queen tells Young Diana the story of Ares popped much better than in 2D. Not sure how much of this was the 3D and how much was IMAX.
It was my 3rd viewing, but the 1st in 3D.
Hope that helps.
good to know
speaking of that classical style animated/illustrated preface, one thing i heard (though i don’t know if it’s true) was that it was more the amazon rebellion/war on Olympus/vanquishing of ares story that maclaren wanted to do, so i wonder if now that further instalments should be in the offing that amazon war backstory could be revisited and live-actioned
hcat wrote:
“A small nothing article in Variety made mention of an event called “The David Lynch Foundation’s National Night of Laughter and Song.”
Is it just me or does that sound ominous and a little terrifying?”
I know right? I’d kill to be there. Maybe the Evolution Of The Arm will sing a song.
Slightly off-topic: my favorite things about the metal/grunge years was when Spin magazine chose Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub as Record of the Year over Nirvana’s Nevermind. This is when Spin–and music magazines– mattered.
Mind you they were right. Bandwagonesque is a masterpiece and Teenage Fanclub are still bloody brilliant. Saw them live in October. And it was as quietly influential as Nevermind was loudly influential.
But that’s just me. i never got into grunge or metal. I was more of an REM and The Smiths guy.
Is there a reason King Arthur is included as an IP film? Does it count if the IP involved is public domain? I thought IP only referred to characters owned through copyright and/or licensing.
Stuff like Snow White, The Jungle Book, BATB, Arthur and Robin Hood probably shouldn’t be counted as IP aside from when Disney is remaking itself, but I am also of the mind that there needs to be a “Warnes Bros corollary” that any WB adaptation of classic lit can automatically be counted as IP.
I’m curious about where branded remakes of non-coppywritten material fall into this btw. If Andy Serkis were to suddenly break into song or make a sexually-charged aside about the “bare necessities,” is he risking a lawsuit? Shrek made me assume that’s all fair game.
Metal collapsed under the weight of the November Rain video, the genre expanded and became too pretentious, especially for what was essentially fun nonsense to begin with. But it wasn’t just grunge that picked up the remains rap picked up a fair share of the metal heads upon collapse. From my fuzzy memory of the period Pretty Hate Machine was the shot across the bow and then Nevermind, Blood Sugar Sex Magic and Check Yo Head were innovative enough to make whatever Vince Neil was doing look just plain silly.
ET,
Its a pretty fine line, there are elements in the Disney adaptations that others are not allowed to touch. And it works both ways, Warners was watching Disney like a Hawk on the Oz movie a few years ago making sure they weren’t making an unofficial sequel to their property.
Bill,
Right, the Lynch event is like finding out there is an “Annual Dario Argento Bake Sale and Easter Egg Hunt”. -Event was well attended, there were no survivors-
Um, OK we are going to need a thread on Lord and Miller quitting the Han Solo movie after four months of principal photography and with only THREE WEEKS remaining in the shoot?!? WTF? So now Lucasfilm plan to reshoot with an entirely new director (and likely extensive script changes) even though they don’t even have an initial rough cut of Lord and Miller’s version?? And still plan have it out for May 2018?!?
What a disaster. What an absolute disaster.
You got it.
I think the Shrek films are also protected because they are clearly parodies of the original. That’s considered fair use. However, straight out remaking something not yours is gonna throw up red flags.
But in the case of Arthur, would creating your own King Arthur movie be an issue of IP if it’s public domain? And does it count if the first King Arthur branded movie was from 2004 with an entirely different team and studio involved?
Night Owl,
Sounds like a job for John Badham!!!!
At least in a different decade it would have been, I would suspect Ms. Jenkins got a phone call tonight, though after watching Star Trek Beyond this evening I could see them giving Justin Lin a crack at it. Otherwise, and I know this is a shot in the dark but…..I believe Lucas is free.
Thanks for the feedback guys; that’s interesting. It’s definitely interesting where you draw the line between fair use and infringement.
I assume Arthur wouldn’t be a problem. They released dueling Snow White movies almost simultaneously. And we’ve had how many Robin Hoods with another next year. Disney has just managed to co-opt so many classic tales that have been ingrained in the public consciousness that aside from Snow White, it’s rare to see major filmmakers even try unless it’s really off-kilter (Ponyo).
@Leah – Yes, I was the one inquiring about Wonder Woman in 3D. I opted to see it in 2D. Perfectly happy with my choice. I could see some things that I think added depth would’ve been cool. For the most part, the 3D films I’ve seen have all looked decent enough and the glasses don’t bother me but what it adds to a film isn’t that much. I’ll end up feeling scammed more than anything else.