What's new

2011 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

Steve_Tk

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2002
Messages
2,833
Originally Posted by TravisR

It might bomb because it's a bad movie, not because it's the green lantern.


I think quality is meaningless to the opening weekend of a summer movie though. If Green Lantern bombs, it'll be because the marketing campaign couldn't convince people to see it. People will pay to see anything if they have the right marketing campaign. For example, the new Transformers movie will probably be as bad or worse than the other two but it'll make at least $300 million this summer.[/QUOTE]

I hate to admit this, but a movie doesn't make $300m at the box office unless some people like it. Marketing alone doesn't get you $300m domestic. I don't understand how Pirates keeps doing it, but I guess it has fans. Transformers doesn't only make money because of their marketing, it's because people enjoy the films. I hate the 2nd one and kinda enjoyed the first. Same with Pirates. If Green lantern bombs it will be because the marketing was terrible (is terrible) and it has terrible word of mouth after release. I know we trash transformers here, but most of the time when I hear about it outside a forum like this it gets average votes, usually something like "it was fun to watch, not a great movie but I enjoy them anyway". If every critic trashes a movie, and it has terrible word of mouth, no way marketing gets you $300m.
 

mattCR

Reviewer
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2005
Messages
10,897
Location
Lee Summit, Missouri
Real Name
Matt
Well, market interest matters a lot. I think marketing for X-Men First Class took on quite frankly a tough sell. But so far, it's been (easily) the best popcorn movie of the summer. At least for me. But that first weekend is critical. Because XM:FC didn't start out with a HUGE first weekend, it's upper limit on earning is not as high as other films.


GL will be determined a lot by the first weekend. And that has a lot to do with marketing.
 

TravisR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2004
Messages
42,426
Location
The basement of the FBI building
Steve_Tk said:
I hate to admit this, but a movie doesn't make $300m at the box office unless some people like it.
You're definitely right. For every one person who hated Transformers, there's probably two that love it. And to look at it from a different angle, I'm sure there were guys sitting around in 1977 saying "Why is this Star Wars movie so popular? It's terrible!" and it's one of my all time favorites.
 

Brandon Conway

captveg
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2002
Messages
9,623
Location
North Hollywood, CA
Real Name
Brandon Conway
As Transformers 2 proved, if you have cars changing into robots you could have them sitting on the mechanical toilet for 3 hours and the general public will love the hell out of it. That's the secret to Transformers, and nothing else.


That being said, in the reviews now coming out the thing that concerns me is not the complaints about things that are simply unfamiliar to those who don't know the story (such as the aliens being too prominent and the ring/lantern powers being "silly"), but that the dialog is unpolished and the acting subpar. That is a problem with the delivery of the film that could have been improved upon easily if true, and though I suspect GL will make it's money back due to international sales, it does not bode well for the launching of the DC comic films.


So, yeah, on GL Warner has hinged the future of all DC superhero movies aside from Batman and Superman. Basically, GL not being a big hit immediately cancels any plans for movies about The Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Hawkman and the Justice League for a good 10-12 years. Then if The Man of Steel fails, they'll have nothing except a desperate need to reboot Batman, which is doomed to fail simply because it'll be in the shadow of Nolan.


So, we're talking recession at Warner Bros for a long, long time. That, and trying to give Rowling a billion dollars for another Harry Potter story to film...
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
If GL fails to launch another big-money franchise for the studio, than the (tentative) plan with the other prominent DC superheroes will be to launch them in a Justice League movie.

If GL is a massive success, then the studio will be in a better (safer) place to green-light "The Flash" and "Hawkman". DC so far hasn't enjoyed the success with their library of characters that Marvel has. WB is hoping that GL does for DC films what Iron Man did for Marvel.
 

Paul_Scott

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2002
Messages
6,545
Originally Posted by TerryRL

If GL fails to launch another big-money franchise for the studio...

it's looking like it will fail- in spectacularly epic fashion.


Fortunately I think Warner/DC will learn the right lessons from all this.



No, it's not things like pacing, character, structure, showing not telling, all that etc boring stuff. It's about the need for characters to have body armor and be engaged in grim vendetta missions.

Thankfully we are only a year away from the Dark Knight Breaks His Back and four years away from The Dark Knight 2.0.
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
Um...wow.


http://collider.com/pirates-of-the-caribbean-on-stranger-tides-box-office-disney/96679/


Here’s a bit of a weird one: despite the fact that Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides got shat on by the critics and boasted the weakest domestic opening weekend at the box office of any Pirates sequel, the movie is still breaking records for Disney. How you ask? Why foreigners, of course! The movie is a hit in North America, but it’s bringing in absolutely absurd amounts of money overseas, so much that the movie currently ranks as the fourth highest grossing film of all time worldwide. That’s right, the movie that made everyone sick of watching Johnny Depp prance around in eyeliner is now officially the most successful entry in the series.


Remember how you were hoping that crapfest would officially kill off the franchise? That ain’t happening. If anything, expect Disney to make more Pirates Of The Caribbean sequels than ever before. I guess the movie is only good with subtitles. Hit the jump for further details about this moneymaking juggernaut.


So far Pirates 4 has brought in $211 million in North America. That’s not bad for a movie that hasn’t even been out for a month yet. But according to THR, that’s nothing. So far On Stranger Tides has brought in an absolutely insane $695.9 million dollars overseas, bringing the box office total to a ridiculous $907.4 million. It’s officially the highest grossing film internationally in the history of Disney and now ranks fourth on the all time overseas box office charts behind only Avatar ($2 billion), Titanic ($1.2 billion), and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King ($742 million). Apparently a big reason for the inflated grosses is that unlike in the US, 3D grosses have yet to see any sort of decline overseas. In countries like Russia, China, and Brazil the little plastic glasses are more popular than ever.


At this point, it’s inevitable that the grosses for On Stranger Tides (anyone figure out what that means yet?) will cross a billion dollars and it will become the biggest moneymaker of the series. Unfortunately for film fans, mediocrity doesn’t seem to be getting any less profitable. We can probably expect this to turn into the start of a second—and at least mercifully Orlando Bloom free—Pirates trilogy. There is a chance that Johnny Depp will see the light and refuse to participate in another crappy Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel (he certainly looked bored by the material onscreen), but Disney execs were willing to break salary records to get him onboard last time and it’s hard to imagine they won’t do it again. Get ready for Pirates 5: Let’s All Buy Johnny Depp His Own Private Caribbean Island in the summer of 2013.---Phil Brown


After Pirates 4 crosses the billion-dollar global mark, Disney will have produced four of the eight movies that have earned north of the $1 billion plateau worldwide (Johnny Depp will have headlined three of the four).
 

cafink

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 19, 1999
Messages
3,044
Real Name
Carl Fink
I enjoyed On Stranger Tides a hell of a lot more than At World's End, and I thought it was about on par with the first two. Not sure why everyone is so down on it.
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
I really like the idea of Tim Burton helming the next installment of the series. Personally, I've always thought that the Pirates films would be something that would be right up Burton's alley. With the Pirates franchise now earning over $3.6 billion globally, I doubt Disney would balk at Burton's salary demands (he earns between $10-$20 million per movie). Burton is at the top of the short-list of directors that the studio is talking to for the gig. From what I understand, scheduling may be an issue.
 

Tim Glover

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jan 12, 1999
Messages
8,220
Location
Monroe, LA
Real Name
Tim Glover
Another director who could bring some needed ENERGY to this would be Robert Zemecksis. Back in the day, Bob was pretty good at some offbeat films and humor and combining that with Disney's safe aimed audience that could be great. Burton would be utterly fantastic though. Loved Corpse Bride. Depp and he are really effective together. Stranger Tides just bored the heck out of me and I like Depp and love Captain Jack Sparrow. Even on Tides, at times, his plethora of screen charisma just oozes all over the place. Imagine a script and direction like we had with Curse of the Black Pearl? And Dead Man's Chest which to me has aged VERY well and time has found this entry to be quite compelling and some wonderful moments. And 5 years later...5 long years of "improved CGI"...nothing has touched the realness of Davy Jones. Every moment he's on screen you think he's there and it's amazing each little nuance. Wow.


That probably belonged in the movie discussion thread! Sorry.
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
I agree with pretty much everything you just said. Zemeckis would be an inspired choice, but I would love to see Burton's take on the material.


And to this day I think Davy Jones is the best CG character I've ever seen in a movie.
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
Looks like GL is going to come in on target with WB's opening weekend predictions, but this one may end up sinking like a stone in the coming weeks due to poor WOM. If the movie does stellar business overseas, than the studio will green-light a sequel. The studio is playing the wait-and-see game right now. We'll see what happens.


http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/green-lantern-makes-3-35m-midnights/


Both Warner Bros' Green Lantern ($22M Friday, $60M weekend) and Fox's Mr. Popper's Penguins ($7M Friday, $19M weekend) look on target right now. But these numbers also mean falling stars in Hollywood. The superhero pic had well-known actor Ryan Reynolds in it, yet looks like it can't better Thor's recent $65.7M opening weekend starring a complete unknown. And Mr. Popper's result shows that Jim Carrey's popularity keeps waning in live action movies: his last pair were Fun With Dick And Jane (2005) opening to $14.6M, and The Number 23 (2007) debuted to $14.3M and Yes Man (2008) which first released to $18.2M. (I'm not counting I Love You, Phillip Morris because it never received wide distribution.) That this latest is grossing at all is due to the penguins, I'm certain. The total moviegoing weekend ends up an estimated -17% from last year (when Toy Story 3 opened to $110.3M. The big qualifier for all the above is the Sunday drop for Father's Day.


Full analysis below. Refined numbers in the morning. Here's the Top 10:


1. Green Lantern (Warner Bros) NEW [3,816 Runs]
Friday $22M, Estimated Weekend $60M


2. Mr. Popper's Penguins (Fox) NEW [3,338 Runs]
Friday $7M, Estimated Weekend $19M


3. Super 8 (Paramount Week 2 [3,408 Runs]
Friday $5.8M (-52%), Estimated Weekend $19.5M, Estimated Cume $71.5M


4. X-Men: First Class (Fox) Week 3 [3,375 Runs]
Friday $3.3M, Estimated Weekend $11.5M, Estimated Cume $129M


5. The Hangover Part II (Legendary/Warner Bros) Week 4 [3,460 Runs]
Friday $3M, Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $233M


6. Kung Fu Panda 2 (Paramount) Week 4 [3,469 Runs]
Friday $2.5M, Estimated Weekend $8.2M, Estimated Cume $143M


7. Bridesmaids (Universal) Week 5 [2,573 Runs]
Friday $2.4M, Estimated Weekend $7.2M, Estimated Cume $136M


8. Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 (Disney) Week 5 [2,742 Runs]
Friday $2.2M, Estimated Weekend $8.2M, Estimated Cume $222M


9. Midnight In Paris (Sony Classics) Week 5 [1,083 Runs]
Friday $1.4M, Estimated Weekend $5M, Estimated Cume $21.5M


10. Judy Moody (Relativity) Week 2 [2,524 Runs]
Friday $825K (-63%), Estimated Weekend $2.5M, Estimated Cume $11.4M


Fox Searchlight expands Terence Malick's Tree of Life into 114 screens and should gross close to $300K Friday for an estimated $1.2M weekend for an estimated cume of $4M. The specialty house also opened newcomer The Art Of Getting By onto 610 screens and grossed about $275K for about an estimated weekend of $750K.---Nikki Finke
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
WB's "The Hangover" became the 28th film series in history to top the $1 billion mark in total worldwide box office earnings. This gives WB's parent company, Time Warner, it's sixth such franchise joining Batman, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and the Ocean's series.
 

TerryRL

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2001
Messages
3,977
WB now finds itself in a good news/bad news type situation.

The good news? "Green Lantern" will open with about $52-$55 million this weekend.


The bad news? Saturday business was off by 21% compared to Friday, meaning the film could already be showing signs of suffering bad word-of-mouth. Rival studios are now expecting the movie to drop like a stone next weekend.

What is also troubling is that the film is said to be off to a "soft" start overseas. Not good if WB hopes to recoup any of their $300 million investment.
 

Adam_S

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2001
Messages
6,316
Real Name
Adam_S
I'm not at all surprised GL is getting bad WOM, I've been telling everyone I can to avoid it like the plague. Green Lantern's story/script was jaw-droppingly bad in a way I haven't seen in the genre since bad 80s Scifi like Tron. The filmmaking, effects, acting and general charisma of the cast was pretty good, but my god, it was MST3K worthy in the worst way for all the hysterically funny super serious repetitions of the words: WILL!!! YELLOW!!!!!! GREEN!!! and FEAR!!!!!!!!!!! and the whiplash bouncing back and forth across the universe in a minute or two. Earth! Lantern Land! Earth! Lantern Land! Earth! Lantern Land! (wait, why was the lantern that died in the beginning in a slow slow slow spaceship when any lantern can jump to any point in the universe in seconds?) back to EARTH... OMG the Lost Smoke Monster is back and it has a grudge!


like all speculative fiction, and comic books in general, Green Lantern has a very silly core concept, but the successful films in these genre always manage to make their mileau and conceits believable. Green Lantern, for all it structures it's plot like the Matrix, and tries to lift emotional character moments from the Donner Superman movies never once makes anything in the film believable much less approachable. I'm sure the under fifteen set will like the film a lot. But it was laughably, horribly, astonishingly bad. And I really wanted to like the film, from the trailers, I thought it looked fun, beautifully made, and had the potential to be as good a film as Iron Man. I wouldn't be surprised at a 70-75% drop next weekend.
 

Greg_S_H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2001
Messages
15,846
Location
North Texas
Real Name
Greg
You hurt your argument by comparing it to Tron. Tron ees good! I haven't seen GL and don't want to, but the recent comic update of GL's origin explained why Abin Sur was in a spaceship. It was prophesied that his ring would fail him at a crucial moment, so he was afraid to rely on it for space travel. His captive wisely pointed out that he FEARED his ring failing, but Sur explained it away as his just being cautious. But, it was a crack in his control and the captive used it to break free, leading to Sur's crash and death. Obviously, I have no idea if any of that made it into the film.
 

TravisR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2004
Messages
42,426
Location
The basement of the FBI building
TerryRL said:
The bad news? Saturday business was off by 21% compared to Friday, meaning the film could already be showing signs of suffering bad word-of-mouth.
You'd know better than me but couldn't that drop be at least partially due to alot of the comic book fans going on the first day to see it and Saturday is more indicative of what the movie is earning? I think the way the movie is presented in the marketing campaign will hurt it much more than word of mouth will.
 

Lord Dalek

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2005
Messages
7,093
Real Name
Joel Henderson
Mind you about 8 of that 53,000,000 was from 3D. So the film only made something in the mid-40s.
 

Don Solosan

Supporting Actor
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
Messages
748
"But it was laughably, horribly, astonishingly bad."


I have to laugh when people use prose like this. I just watched Puma Man again on MST3K. You don't have a clue when it comes to laughably, horribly, astonishingly bad.
 

Brandon Conway

captveg
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2002
Messages
9,623
Location
North Hollywood, CA
Real Name
Brandon Conway
Is word of mouth really that bad? I keep reading online average movie-goer reviews in the C+-B range, which suggests that while general audiences don't outright love it, they do think it's OK rather than something to flat out avoid.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,624
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top