2018 At The Boxoffice (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

Me too. That'll likely give us a good idea of where this thing will end up compared to other Marvel films.

I think it'll have a smaller-than-average drop-off because like "Wonder Woman" last year, "BP" has entered "cultural touchstone" territory. I've heard from a lot of people who don't usually see superhero movies but who will see "BP"...

 

[Jake Lipson]

Variety is projecting that Black Panther will hold #1 until A Wrinkle in Time opens:

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/a-wrinkle-in-time-black-panther-box-office-1202706589/

 

[Tino]

Right now I’m sticking with my $700 million domestic prediction.

Hell by the end of this coming weekend it will already be over $400 million.

 

[Tino]

Do people think A Wrinkle In Time will be a hit?

It looks terrible imo and I predict major flop.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Do people think A Wrinkle In Time will be a hit?

I loved the book as a kid, and for that reason, I will see it. However, I personally have not been too jazzed by the trailers for whatever reason. Disney is marketing it as "from visionary director Ava DuVernay," but I don't think the general public knows who Ava DuVernay is; she has not risen to the level of Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan, who are big enough to sell the movie on their own. It's also unclear just how popular the book is with today's kids, because it is not a recent property like Harry Potter was. They're going to be relying on the big-name cast, like Oprah and Reese Witherspoon, to put butts in seats.

If it's good, it could do very well for them. Or, it could do very poorly. There are a lot of different ways this one could go, and it is not at all a sure thing.

But if it does flop, the one-two punch of Black Panther and Infinity War, in addition to Solo, Incredibles 2 and Ant-Man later in the summer, should be more than enough to compensate for any losses incurred by it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Do people think A Wrinkle In Time will be a hit?

It looks terrible imo and I predict major flop.

I think you greatly underestimate how beloved the book is for Baby Boomers forward. I don't think it will be anything close to the scale of what we've seen from Black Panther, but I do think it will exceed Bridge to Terabithia's box office comfortably. And it will do very well for Disney later on with home video and streaming.

 

[TravisR]

Do people think A Wrinkle In Time will be a hit?

It looks terrible imo and I predict major flop.

I think it'll do alright. Not great but not a failure either. I think Oprah will be a major draw. I don't have much interest in it but if the reviews are good, I'll probably see it.

 

[Tino]

Oprah is the reason I don’t want to see it.

 

[Tino]

I think you greatly underestimate how beloved the book is for Baby Boomers forward. I don't think it will be anything close to the scale of what we've seen from Black Panther, but I do think it will exceed Bridge to Terabithia's box office comfortably. And it will do very well for Disney later on with home video and streaming.

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Perhaps. I’m basing my opinion solely on the trailer, not the source material.

 

[TravisR]

Oprah is the reason I don’t want to see it.

I'm as sick as anyone of hearing how great Oprah is all the time but then I see her in a movie and she is a solid actor. I guess it bothers me that there's another thing that she's good at.

 

[Tino]

Imo she hasnt been good since The Color Purple. Too much baggage.

But boy was she awesome in TCP.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I think Red Sparrow will be #1 the weekend it opens, but we'll see. Variety obviously knows the business better than I do.

 

[Tino]

I think Red Sparrow will be #1 the weekend it opens, but we'll see. Variety obviously knows the business better than I do.

No chance.

It will be BP’s third weekend and it should do about $50 million or so. No way Red Sparrow opens bigger than that.

 

[Malcolm R]

Disney is marketing it as "from visionary director Ava DuVernay," but I don't think the general public knows who Ava DuVernay is;

I'm always perplexed when marketing and trailers make the director a point of emphasis. Outside of the bigger names (Spielberg, Cameron, Bay, Scorsese, Coppola, Nolan, and a few others), most people don't know directors by name or what films they may have directed in the past. I follow a fair amount of film news and often cannot place these names. Ava DuVernay goes right over my head, too.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Ava DuVernay goes right over my head, too.

She is best known for Selma. But, to your point, if they wanted to make that connection, it might have been better to say "From the Director of Selma," rather than assuming people know that she directed Selma based on her name.

Personally, I think Selma was very poorly directed, so I'm not excited by her directing this one and really hope that it is better.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That kind of billing is often in the contract. The studio is only willing to pay so much for a particular actor or director, so to sweeten the deal, the studio instead offers a more prominent credit in promotional materials. I obviously have no way of knowing if that's what's happening here, but I wouldn't be shocked if that's what it was.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The studio is only willing to pay so much for a particular actor or director, so to sweeten the deal, the studio instead offers a more prominent credit in promotional materials.

Currently, the trailer says "From Visionary Director Ava DuVernay." If you are correct that this is contractual, it could have more effectively been "From Ava DuVernay, the Visionary Director of Selma" in order to get both her name and the connection to her previous movie in there. Just her name might make her feel good but doesn't necessarily do a whole lot in the eyes of the wider viewing public without a previous credit accompanying it.

 

[Tino]

Visionary? How ridiculous. You need a body of work before that moniker should be used.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Visionary? How ridiculous. You need a body of work before that moniker should be used.

I agree completely. I'm not actually calling her a visionary; I'm just reporting back what I remember the trailer saying. "Visionary" is Disney's marketing team's word, not mine. It does make her sound more important than if they didn't use it, though.

 

[TravisR]

Visionary? How ridiculous. You need a body of work before that moniker should be used.

Yeah, I liked Selma a lot but I wouldn't call her a visionary. She's in good company though because I wouldn't even call greats like Spielberg or Fincher or PT Anderon or Scorsese or even Hitchcock a visionary either. Off the top of my head, I would only really call people like Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick a visionary in terms of their movies. I'd also call George Lucas a visionary for his contributions to the technical side of movies and not his actual work (which I love). I don't know what Webster's has to say but I'd use visionary for people who have made a movie that was startlingly different and that had a huge influence on the people who come after them.