Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2015

Same here.

 

I think the female Ghostbusters movie is going to bomb bigtime.

 

I seen pictures I hope it bombs bad and obsession with McCarthy ?
Then she might go away.
I have the first Ghostbusters movie and cartoon series I am happy.

 

I only saw 2 movies on that list:

Jupiter Ascending: Already stated my opinion on this movie. Another failure for the Wachowskis.

The Gunman: I liked this movie, but I imagine the premise just didn't appeal to the masses. I thought Sean Penn did a good job and he looked damn buff for his age, despite is his face looking older than his actual age (too much smoking and tanning over the years most probably caused that.)


My family saw two others on this list that I didn't go see with them:

Tomorrowland: One family member thought it was boring and didn't like it at all (female), even though she really likes George Clooney and another family member liked it (male), but didn't say much about it other than that. Don't know about the 3rd family member (male) who saw it, as he didn't express his opinion one way or the other.

Chappie: One family member hated it (female), even though she likes Hugh Jackman and hated the fact he was a antagonist in the movie, while the two male family members did like it.

Either way, I'm glad I didn't go myself and waste more money on them. I may or may not watch them if and when they come to cable.

 

Since some of these movies have already been released, what do you think the list should look like now?

 

I'm merely reprinting the list attributed to the source in my message.

If I was picking hits and bombs, I would say Mission:Impossible will do very well, I don't think Adam Sandler's Pixels will do well, I think Ant-Man will do OK but not through the roof, and I think Self/Less will tank. I also think Man from U.N.C.L.E. will be a disappointment, and I think Fantastic Four will only do breakeven business at best. Totally my gut reaction based on trailers and buzz.

 

I really think Fox needs to be concerned with Fantastic Four. I've never seen so much social media hate for a single film, every single post about the film is epic nerd-rage of the highest order. It's really amusing, I love watching people get all worked up over nonsense, but still it can't be good news for the studio. Each new trailer or bit of released footage kicks the sh**storm back into high gear.

 

"nerd rage." hilarious.

 

I was really looking forward to this one, in hope that it would be the "fun" superhero movie of the year, but it looks like Ant-Man is going to steal that title and FF is going to be grim and dark.

 

Ant-Man at least looks different and thankfully lighthearted. I enjoyed Age of Ultron but I also realized after it was over that I'm pretty much done with the "city-destroying" bombast that these movies invariably turn into. They really need to find some new ways to explore their climactic battles.

 

The nerds will buy tickets, though. The trick is getting the general populace into seats.

 

My predictions aren't doing as well as they were last year:

* I expected Paul Blart 2 to be a bigger success than it was, but clearly I was underestimating the American public. It's still a substantial success relative to budget (over $100 million internationally on a $30 million budget).

* Jurassic World did not look good in the trailers and I was caught off guard by its incredible success. FWIW, I enjoyed it, taking it more or less as a self-conscious spoof of movies of this type.

* I was sure Avengers 2 would be the biggest film of the year -- and sort of thought Joss Whedon couldn't possibly bungle it -- and it's still a huge success, but also a joyless, pointless picture that seems to have let the air out of the Marvel hype machine. I no longer expect the next Avengers or Captain America pictures to be world-beating hits; audience goodwill has taken a pasting. Even not including a scene after the credits seemed like a calculated move to irritate the fans.

* I didn't expect Tomorrowland to be a mess -- again, I thought Brad Bird could do no wrong -- so I was expecting more from it. Having seen it, I really have no idea where that gargantuan budget went.

* I'm not surprised Black Hat is a failure (it was badly received and promoted), but I'm kind of surprised it's the kind of disaster that derails careers.

* I anticipated Mad Max and Terminator Genisys would both be well-reviewed and do about $100-$150 million domestically. I was about 1/4 right. Mad Max received ecstatic reviews (and is one of my favorite movies in years) and has already cleared $150 million domestically (though it doesn't seem to have much gas left in the tank). Terminator, on the other hand, has been getting rather ungenerous reviews (I think it's an OK picture, myself) and doesn't seem likely to be considered a success or to even hit $100 million here. I expected more from a film with this pedigree (Game of Thrones director, Shutter Island writer). It's somehow made less than half of what the badly-received 3rd one did in 2003.

* I expected Minions to be moderately big, but I thought it would be $65 million in its first weekend kind of big. Not over $100 million.

* At least I was right about 50 Shades of Gray having a huge first weekend (and a weak second weekend). No-one in this thread believed me, except for @Scott Wheeler! You folks just have no idea how big the book is with middle-aged women.

 

Hey, I think you did 90% better than most industry executives. A lot of people were completely caught by surprise on Jurassic World and Minions. Both are shaping up to being enormous hits, not nearly the moderate-to-decent successes the studios predicted. Minions has already done $430M in less than a month, and Jurassic World is very close to $1.5 billion, which makes it the biggest hit of the year so far.

Another movie that I think stunned execs who thought it was going to be a sure-fire hit was Magic Mike XXL, which kinda stiffed (ahem) at $70M, compared to almost $170M for the original. It'll make money, but not nearly as much as they were expecting.

If I were a betting man, I'd say Ant-Man will spoil Fantastic Four's picnic lunch.

 

I think both will be huge disappointment in both studios eyes.
Then Fantastic Four will be dead .

 

I agree with you about Ant-Man...think that one's going to be bigger than people expect. It won't have a huge first weekend ($60 million, I think) but just wait for that $50 million second weekend. Seriously. I think word of mouth is going to carry that one. I anticipate its domestic total will be in the $200s.

Fantastic Four is shaping up to be a career-damaging failure for Josh Trank, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan, I'm sorry to say. All very talented young men.

Yesterday I saw one of the year's bigger flops, Self/Less with Ryan Reynolds. I thought it was shockingly entertaining ... spatchcocked elements from Seconds, Total Recall, and the Bourne Series done with style.

 

Fox will be forced to turn it over to Marvel and let them finally do it right.

 

And as an update: most of Sony Pictures movies have flopped so far this year, and the studio is blaming most of them on ousted boss Amy Pascal (which is not entirely fair). The current Adam Sandler bomb, Pixels, is not helping. Sony is now the seventh studio in terms of box-office gross for 2015, below even Lionsgate, which is not exactly a studio:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ghost-amy-pascal-haunts-sonys-811729

Sony is putting a lot of faith into the new James Bond film Spectre, but the article reminds that the movie's profits have to be split 3 ways (between Eon Productions, MGM, and Sony), and the film cost a whopping $300 million, making it by far the most expensive film of the year. It'll have to make at least a billion dollars in order to make a big profit.

 

WTF?! $300M to make a Bond film?...Are they paying Craig $50M this time?

 

I find the quote from Columbus to be really funny. How anyone read that script and thought it would be "a perennial, a film that families can watch together for the next thirty years," is beyond comprehension. Then again, it's Chris Columbus. He's not exactly a filmmaker who's body of work is brimming with excitement.

 

No, but I'd bet he got about $20M plus points. He signed a £31 contract for Spectre and the next film, so it's basically $20M each plus a percentage if the film grosses over a certain amount.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...id-bond-with-31-million-contract-8328542.html

The first two Harry Potter films were extremely good, and Columbus did do good work in the 1990s. Not so much in the past 10 years.

 

Wow. £31 ...more or less $49M...is he going to do one more? Imho, he looks too old right now but as long as the movies make money he's safe.

Still surprised that a Bond film needs $300M to be made...heck Fast 7 probably holds the record for the greatest amount of cars destroyed on screen and still it cost $190M.
Avengers 2 has an ensemble cast that's not cheap to sign (including the huge paycheck for Downey Jr) plus hundreds of expensive visual effects and it cost $250M...

I want to see those $300M when I'll watch Spectre on the big screen

 

Looks like Pixels will be another great...tax loss.

 

Adam Sandler and bomb do go together.

 

I have no idea of its budget so it may well not be a big financial bomb but Meryl Streep as an aging punk rocker trying to reconnect with her family looks like a stinker from the get go. I just saw an extended preview before Trainwreck (good) the other day and not one scene evoked any kind of emotional response other than "Oh come on, really?". She seemed about as believable as James Franco as the Wizard of Oz.

 

Does that figure include the promotional budget? Even if it did, that is an astonishing (and I'd say irresponsible) amount of money for a James Bond picture. They very rarely make the kind of money to justify that kind of expense -- Skyfall made something like twice as much as the next most profitable one. Crazy.

In other news, it seems I was overconfident about the money-making potential of Ant-Man. I correctly guessed the first weekend gross at $60 million, but way overestimated its staying power. It did hang on to #1 in week 2, but there was a huge drop. I think it's got enough gas to overtake the 2008 Hulk movie, but other than that it will be the weakest performer of the Marvel pictures and (mark my words) will not get a direct sequel.

I have a bad feeling about Marvel's chances as they try to transition to the "next Avengers" revolving around Falcon, Ant-Man, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Vision, etc. Those characters are all bland do-gooders. I just don't think they'll be happy with the size of the audience they get once Evans, Downey, Hemsworth, and Johansson head for the hills.

Yeah, that one's going to tank. It's the new film from Diablo Cody, the screenwriter of Juno. Not much positive buzz around it. That is going to be a tough week for the studios, since Fantastic Four is likely also going to disappoint...there doesn't seem to be much excitement for it. Sadly, it's probably Josh Trank's last shot at a picture of this size.