Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2017

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Dec 3, 2016.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    There's a couple of very funny lines I use from The Experts every day, particularly the snappy bits from Arye Gross.

    I think The Dark Tower is a big question mark, but these books were never huge sellers for King, and I think they're an acquired taste at best. Given the huge variability of Ron Howard's films over the past ten years, I'm inclined to say it won't do well but won't be an outright bomb.
     
  2. There was original a "just kidding" below. When I added some comments on my iPhone I failed to put it back below Jedi.
    i cut and pasted my response so I must have not included that somehow. If The Last Jedi tanked, it would be pretty astonishing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2017
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  3. I wouldn't disagree. When I went back in to clean up my post on my iPhone I accidently Cut and pasted my response which was "just kidding" far below my original comment.
     
  4. neo123

    neo123 Senior Member

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    Northern Kentucky
    I think John Wick II will do more than just break even, unless it's production costs (and other costs associated with it) were high. Anyone know what the budget was for the movie?

    Seeing it this Friday, by the way. Loved the first one and the previews to this one look good too.
     
  5. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    The first John Wick cost $20 million and was a surprise hit; my guess is that the new one would cost between $30 million and $35 million.
     
  6. I agree I don't think it will be a huge hit but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the entire series sold around 30 million books. I can't remember if that was world wide sales or not but, if it represents U.S. Sales, then there is the possibility it might exceed expectations (given that there are, what, 314 million people in the U.S., that would suggest that around 10% of the U.S. Population would have owned the books. That, of course, doesnt guarantee that they all READ them).

    When HBO launched "Game of Thrones" for example the series helped launch the books to an even broader audience. I'm sure the opposite could be true but the mythology of the books may be too dense for the average fan. We will see.
     
  7. Me, too although I don't hold out much hope it will be a better film, it will be, hopefully, entertaining.
     
  8. We know World War Z II won't be out this year what with no director and no footage shot. They would really have to cram it in to make it by Xmas. It'll be a 2018 film IF they can get their suit together.

    The zombie craze will still be around even if somewhat diminished next year.
     
  9. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    You have to divide that 30 million by seven, remember. (Though it's really more like a larger portion read a book or two, and a smaller portion read all of them.)
     
  10. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    Ron Howard isn't the director -- it's a Danish guy named Nikolaj Arcel.
     
  11. True, that's why I mentioned the whole series. You are right thiugh--I don't think most people dug in beyond one or two books. The big IF here is based on the total cost of the film vs. revenue--if it cost 100 million to make and 100 million to market it needs to make around 600 million to be truly profitable. Then again, in the Hollywood bookkeeping system, no movie ever makes money ;)

    I seem to be in the minority in that I think Idris Elba is terrific casting--it's quite different than what fans have in mind but it is cool casting.
     
  12. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

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    Ah - see that now.

    If you could copyright typos, Wayne would be a billionaire by now! :D
     
  13. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

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    Because it didn't cost much, "Wick" was profitable, but I think it's a stretch to refer to a movie that made $43m US and $86m total worldwide a "hit"...
     
  14. projectcookie

    projectcookie Forum Resident

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    Mamet was one of the pioneers of heavily styled dialogue inspiring the likes of PT Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, et al!

    Back to the topic of terrible movies, who else is excited to watch the clearly misguided attempt at creating an all-audience inclusive cash cow aka The Great Wall, the period fantasy epic that takes place in China starring Matt Damon!

    The real sad part is that it's directed by a has-been super legitimate director Zhang Yimou... sad times
     
  15. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    LOL, I thought you were going to mention a different location!
     
  16. Coming soon! The sequels! Movies about dragon like creatures as they take on all the great monuments in history. The sequel will be called "The Great Sphinx". Instead of being dragon like creatures, they will chimeras!
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    I'm not so quick to condemn The Great Wall until the film has been reviewed and/or I've seen it. The trailers are not terrible, and in fact it looks pretty good to me:



    I don't give a crap who's in it or what the racial make-up is; I just want an entertaining story that surprises me and makes sense, with characters you can empathize with.

    A movie that costs $20 million and makes $86 million is actually a hit. And they generally don't make sequels for movies that aren't hits. There are modest hits, big hit, and blockbuster, mammoth hits. (Same thing with bombs.)

    What's a problem is a movie that costs $150 million and makes $350 million, because technically, it only barely broke even (maybe). If it grossed 4:1 -- that is, $600 million -- it'd be hard to argue that it wasn't a hit.
     
  18. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

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    The Great Wall seems like it could be fun, but the trailer seems to suggest possibly excessive, physics-defying CGI that may make The Hobbit trilogy CGI look subtle in comparison.
     
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  19. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

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    They make sequels to movies with minor audiences all the time. If they can shoot the sequel cheap enough, they go for it.

    Again, "Wick" was profitable, but I can't see a movie that made so little money as a "hit".

    Just making a profit doesn't mean something is a hit. If I shoot a movie for $100 and it makes $10,000, it that a hit?
     
  20. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Well, I've argued in the past how it's weird how films that sells HUNDREDS of millions of dollars worth of tickets are still called bombs because of budget (so, for instance, more people bought tickets to "Batman v Superman" than all but a small handful of movies last year, over $800 million worth, but nobody called it a "hit").

    So clearly *total* amount of box office receipts, and total amount of people having their eyes on a movie, aren't independently analyzed and termed a hit, even a film makes almost a billion dollars.

    So it seems receipts relative to budget are more regularly used as a metric, within reason of course. So while I'm not sure if a $1,000 budget movie making $50,000 would be called a hit, I think a $20 million movie making $86 could justifiably be called a hit. If a movie making $800 million leads to a studio still losing money or barely breaking even, then I'd be hard pressed to call *that* film a hit but not a film like "John Wick" that made four times its budget.

    I'd also guess that, relative to box office performance, "John Wick" did exponentially better on home video/streaming compared to a lot of other films. A quick look at even just physical sales shows that while John Wick was ranked #77 at the box office for 2014 in the US, it was the #31 best selling blu-ray and #40 best selling DVD of its release year, and I'd guess it got even more sales via download/streaming, considering all the young (mostly males) that were into the movie.

    There's really no particular measure for "hit" outside of being "successful", and there are obviously about 50 different ways to measure success with movies.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2017
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  21. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
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    I remain a "purist" in terms of what makes a "hit" or a "bomb" and tend to leave budget out of it. I mean, if a movie earns $1 billion, it's a hit - even if it cost $500 million and wasn't profitable, that's still a lot of tickets sold.

    $86 million worldwide is such a drop in the bucket that it's hard for me to view it as a "hit". Success relative to its cost? Sure, but "Force Awakens" made more than that in its first 24 hours in the US alone!

    I do agree that it appears the home video afterlife of "Wick" helped it. There are sequels to not very successful movies made all the time because of the video market...
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Exactly. It's all about total gross relating to its cost.

    A $10 million movie that makes $80 million is technically a much bigger hit than a $200 million movie that grosses $500 million. It's the ratio of cost-to-gross that makes the difference.

    Again, it's similar to the problem of how to define a bomb: there's a big hit, a hit, and a modest hit... all different descriptions of a profitable film. A modest hit still made money. As far as I know, there is no "dictionary of Hollywood" that really defines these things, because they're all open to interpretation.

    But again, it's extremely rare that a studio makes a sequel to a disappointing film. There are exceptions: Richard Donner complained that he was fired off Superman 2 because the producers chided him for going overbudget, which made it hard for Superman to break even. But he claims they never told him what the budget was, so he's still pretty pissed-off about it, let alone that the producers kept making sequels for several years (all of which had diminishing returns). Famously, Starship Troopers bombed in theaters, but eventually it had enough of a success in home video and on TV syndication that Sony Pictures justified several sequels -- albeit low-cost sequels.

    What puzzles me is when studios decide to make a remake of a bomb film, and then they're surprised when the remake is also a bomb. For example, Disney expected that Pete's Dragon was potentially going to be another Mary Poppins, but were very chagrined when it wound up making only a fraction of what the original made (particularly adjusted for inflation); the remake also did poorly. Technically, it made about $150 million on a cost of $65 million, but the problem is that they spent over $50 million marketing the film -- something that people didn't do in the 1960s or 1970s -- so the total amount they sank into the film makes it harder to break even. You can make a similar case for the Tron sequel, Tron: Legacy, which technically grossed $400 million but cost an incredible $170 million. I think if any of these films had cost (say) 1/3 less money, that would've been a very different deal. If either Tron:Legacy or Pete's Dragon had made four times what they cost to make, it'd be hard to argue that they weren't successful. If they had made ten times their cost, that's a blockbuster by any definition.
     
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  23. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

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    There are sequels to "non-hits" all the time. "The Marine" made $22 million WW on a budget of $20 and spawned sequels. "Death Race" made $75m WW on a budget of $45m and spawned sequels. There are umpteen "Police Academy" movies made after the franchise stopped generating hits.

    It's not rare at all...
     
  24. neo123

    neo123 Senior Member

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    Northern Kentucky
  25. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

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    Sheboygan, WI
    sadly, this thread is more interesting than most of what is currently in theaters. Lego Batman might be an exception.
     
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