Box Office Musings

[misplaced validity]

Barbie doing $90 million by Friday night is incredible, but I'm actually more surprised Oppenheimer looks to do $70 million for the weekend. They really used Barbie well.

[malcolm1980]

Can I say just how happy I am for the success of Barbenheimer? Imagine that. Two auteurs made the films they wanted to make are both big hits at the box-office, getting rave reviews and audiences are loving both (both got A’s in Cinemascore). Plus neither one is a sequel or a superhero movie.

[eurocheese]

(07-23-2023 01:57 PM)malcolm1980 Wrote:  Can I say just how happy I am for the success of Barbenheimer? Imagine that. Two auteurs made the films they wanted to make are both big hits at the box-office, getting rave reviews and audiences are loving both (both got A’s in Cinemascore). Plus neither one is a sequel or a superhero movie.

Plus, for extra bonus points, right wingers are having a total meltdown (including full "what about the children?!" rants) about Barbie being a huge hit. It's their giant pink women-empowering nightmare come to life, and it makes me love Greta Gerwig even more.

[misplaced validity]

I looked into this out of a discussion on social media. If you look at the top 10 movies so far this year, literally every one is part of a franchise or based on a pre-existing character/person/story. Not a fully original story in there. To make it worse, the only movie to finish in the year-end top 10 in the 5 previous years that was an entirely original script (i.e. not based on a true story, a pre-existing character, a franchise, a book, etc) is Free Guy.

[misplaced validity]

So I just found out Taylor Swift's concert film is only showing on the weekends. Is that some ploy to ensure she is reported #1 for as many weekends as possible?

[NUguy514]

(10-22-2023 01:32 AM)misplaced validity Wrote:  So I just found out Taylor Swift's concert film is only showing on the weekends. Is that some ploy to ensure she is reported #1 for as many weekends as possible?

Oh, absolutely. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.

[teppo2]

(02-04-2023 01:13 PM)teppo2 Wrote:  Alright, after a slight delay, my $50 million grossers for 2023:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. III - 410
2. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom - 320
3. The Marvels - 325
4. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 300
5. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - 275
6. Elemental - 260
7. The Little Mermaid - 235
8. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - 215
9. Spider-Man: Across the Multi-Verse - 210
10. Fast X - 200
11. Strays - 200
12. The Flash - 175
13. Shazam! Fury of the Gods - 175
14. Dune: Part 2 - 170
15. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - 150
16. Super Mario Bros - 150
17. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - 145
18. Wonka - 145
19. Trolls 3 - 140
20. The Last Voyage of the Demeter - 140
21. Wish - 135
22. Ghostbusters II - 135
23. Kraven the Hunter - 130
24. Oppenheimer - 130
25. John Wick: Chapter 4 - 125
26. Barbie - 120
27. The Nun 2 - 110
28. The Meg 2: The Trench - 110
29. The Haunted Mansion - 100
30. The Equalizer 3 - 90
31. Exorcist - 90
32. Megan - 90
33. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves - 80
34. They Listen - 80
35. The Color Purple - 75
36. Insidious 5 - 70
37. Creed: III - 70
38. A Haunting in Venice - 70
39. True Love - 70
40. Book Club 2: The Next Chapter - 65
41. 65 - 65 (I know)
42. Scream VI - 60
43. Cocaine Bear - 60
44. Migration - 60
45. Knock at the Cabin - 55
46. Saw - 55
47. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - 55
48. Harold and the Purple Crayon - 50
49. Magic Mike's Last Dance - 50
50. About My Father - 50
51. Evil Dead Rise - 50

2022 had 4 $400M+ grossers, 8 $300M+ grossers, and 18 $100M+ grossers (curiously, no grossers between $200M and $300M); the above would mark a hefty step down at the very top (which poses the question - which of these have the best potential to break out?). This would also mark a much more equitable spreading of the wealth, with 29 films making $100M+. With that, Disney looks to capture the crown again as follows:

1. Disney 2235
2. Universal 1450
3. Warner Brothers 1400
4. Sony 1005
5. Paramount 675
6. Lionsgate 605
Other Wide 525
Total: 7895

Agreements? Disagreements? I seem to forget something big to include every year - who wants to be the first to catch it?

Recap time!

Big Lesson this year: Some recent trends fell by the wayside this year - most obviously, the collapse of the comic book movie. To think that The Marvels and Aquaman: Lost Kingdom are going to end up at 20% and 36%, respectively, of their massive predecessors is nearly shocking. The glut of streaming content has taken it's toll, both as a general alternative form of content consumption as well as having the impact of lessening the "event" status of major comic book entertainment. While Guardians 3 was still able to maintain healthy grosses, it was heavily outweighed by the aforementioned, as well as the underperformance of The Flash, Ant-Man, and Shazam 2 to varying degrees as well.

Disney had a pretty disappointing year. In addition to the above-mentioned comic book movies, they had a major franchise reboot underperformer (Indiana Jones), the once bulletproof Pixar again fail to take off (Elemental), and a 2nd consecutive Disney Animation box office flop (Wish). All of their major brands/strategies that had new releases suffered this year.

My biggest miss of the year has to be Barbenheimer. It's always hard to predict a true phenomenon, but even then, never in a million years would I have anticipated the sort of zeitgeist Barbie would achieve. It essentially took two days to gross what I'd predicted for it's entire run ($120M). Oppenheimer, on the other hand, I maybe could have seen the writing on the wall with the apparent obsession with all things WWII, but it was still nearly equally shocking to see a 3 hour movie aimed very squarely at thinking adults do blockbuster numbers.

Some additional flubs for the year:

Strays - $200M predicted (p.)/$24M actual (a.; not sure what I was thinking here - took a wild stab at predicting an unlikely late summer comedy smash hit)
Super Mario Bros - $145M p./$575M a. - Similar to Barbie, I was taken aback with how much this was able to tap into audience sentiment. It was a bit disappointing as well given how uninspired the film felt to me, but this isn't a favoritism game.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter - $140M p./$14M a. - I went with the (wildly) wrong choice for the late summer/August hit, which turned out to be TMNT.

Some minor pats on the back for:

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. III - $410M p./$359M a.
The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - $150M p./$165M a.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - $145M p./$157M a.
Cocaine Bear - $60M p./$64M a.
Saw X - $50M p./$53M a.

Bottom line: this was nowhere near my finest year. Much more top-heavy that anticipated, and I predicted an extremely easy win for Disney when it ended up in the runner-up position. Seeing if we can get back on track for this year's predictions...coming shortly.

[teppo2]

Alright, my $50M grossers for this year, and studio breakdown:

(in millions)

1. Deadpool 3 - 350
2. Venom: Along Came A spider - 275
3. Inside Out 2 - 250
4. Joker: Folie a Deux - 230
5. Despicable Me 4 - 220
6. Dune - 200
7. Wicked: Part 1 - 185
8. Red One - 180
9t. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - 175
9t. Twisters - 175
9t. Mufasa: The Lion King - 175
12. A Quiet Place: Day One - 135
13t. Gladiator 2 - 130
13t. Beetlejuice 2 - 130
15. Garfield - 125
16t. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - 120
16t. Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim - 120
16t. Transformers One - 120
19t. Kung Fu Panda 4 - 115
19t. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - 115
21t. Kraven the Hunter - 110
21t. Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire - 110
21t. Mad Max: Furiosa - 110
24. Bad Boys 4 - 105
25. Karate Kid - 100
26. Borderlands - 95
27t. Wolf Man - 90
27t. Smile 2 - 90
27t. Madame Web - 90
30t. IF - 85
30t. Project Artemis - 85
32t. Harold and the Purple Caryon - 80
32t. Untitled Universal Monster Movie - 80
32t. The Wild Robot - 80
35t. The Fall Guy - 75
35t. Alien: Romulus - 75
35t. Speak No Evil - 75
38t. Mean Girls - 70
38t. Horizon: An American Saga Part I - 70
38t. Trap - 70
41t. Alto Knights - 50
41t. Argyle - 50
41t. The Forge - 50
41t. Wolfs - 50
41t. Ballerina - 50
41t. The First Omen - 50


Studios:
Universal - 1327
Warner Bros. - 1323
Sony - 1301
Disney - 1084
Paramount - 755
Lionsgate - 387
Other Releases - 1648
Total: 7825

A few comments:

I feel like Garfield, LOTR, and Kevin Costner's Horizon movie in particular both have potential to break out even more, but I'm not quite comfortable predict that. Also, this would mark a severe markdown (-13%) from this year's total, which would be of course understandable given all the postponements/cancellations due to the strike.

Which movie(s) are going to outperform and reach the $400+ level? Which big release did I forget about? Where am I wrong? Let me know.

[NGL]

You don't think Megalopolis will make over $50M?

[teppo2]

Hmmm. The above only includes predictions for movies with set release dates for this year. It does look like it's going to be out at some point this year, although that's yet to be officially confirmed. With that, I'd imagine somewhere in the realm of $60M - $80M. He's generally not known for producing huge commercial successes, give or take The Godfather.