Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2015

R-Rated films are not "box office poison". Now, you probably don't want to make a $200 million R-rated movie, but if you keep the budget reasonable you can still make a huge profit. R-Rated comedies and horror movies are both lucrative genres.

 

You bet 50 shades will get to 300 million? It did 250 million it's opening weekend. Are you sure it will make it all the way to 300 million? Isn't that a bold prediction?

 

I was on the Kingsmen campaign. It did as well as we were figuring.

 

What's R rated n the US usually isn't overseas. For example, in France 12 year olds can freely see 50 Shades (if they wanted to). So the overseas market is potentially open to a wider demographic.

 

I was strictly speaking about pre-sales being indicative of box office success.

 

Well, it's already done $266M in the first week. I don't see it making a billion, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't go up another 50% in the next month. $500M worldwide looks possible to me, even assuming the usual 40%/week downward turn in the next 3 weeks. It's interesting the huge number of negative reviews the film has gotten; this is a good example of a film being absolutely critic-proof, which figures for one based on a book that sold 100 million copies.

I'd take that bet. I think the movie will do well financially, but no way will it hit $1 billion worldwide theatrically. I could see it hitting $600M over the next two months, but I bet that's about as high as it goes.

On the other hand, the Twilight film series made $3.8B out of four films, and I bet there's an overlap between that audience and this one.

 

Re: 50 Shades...

My facebook feed alternates between "50 Shades of s h i t" and "Loved it!" type reviews. lol

Eddie

 

Yup. NC-17 or "unrated" are box office killers, but R-rated movies do well. Yes, they're less likely to enter blockbuster territory because they lose much of the lucrative under 18 crowd, but "box office poison" is a radical overestimate of the negative impact the rating has on tickets.

If an R was "box office poison", Hollywood would hardly make any movies with that rating - and the R movies that DID emerge would never make more than $20 million or so...

 

It could very well reach $500M in next 60 days, there isn't much else coming out. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 next week, Chappie and Disney's live-action Cinderella in March. Things are kind of low key until Fast 7 in April.

 

I'm very curious to see how well audiences will take to the CG Paul Walker. So far, the very brief shots we've seen in trailers look fine to me, but god help them if the CG character has the "uncanny valley" problem where the face and eyes look a little inhuman.

 

I think it was a dumb idea to call it "Furious 7" instead of "Fast 7".

 

I've seen some interesting articles that posit how much of the viewership of "50 Shades" is "hate-watching" it, a phenomenon previous known to be more exclusive to TV viewing (due to the obvious cost involved in going to the movies).

I'm not here to pile on how bad the movie might be. It's clear it's getting bad reviews and also performing extremely well.

But I'm curious how isolated the cases are in terms of reports of audiences actively snickering/laughing during "50 Shades" screenings (and, as the reports go, not because people are nervous during sex scenes and the like).

 

The 50 Shades books are massively, monstrously successful despite being absolutely terrible -- why should the movie be any different?

 

I can think of all kinds of books that were huge as books, but then the film versions bombed, big-time. Crap happens. I think what all the studio execs are hoping for is a movie series similar to the Harry Potter or Twilight phenomena (or going back even further, the Bond series), so they can keep making new ones every 2-3 years.

 

Home Depot was ready for it.

 

Let's check in on my 50 Shades predictions:

From December 23rd:

From last week:

Actual figures: weekend 1: $85,171,450
weekend 2: $23,246,000 (73% drop)

I'm in pretty good shape. Bow before my premonitory power!

 

A 73% drop is pretty scary. But it just hit $409 million this week worldwide, so it seems certain to at least reach $500M within 6-8 weeks. $1 billion... very doubtful.

 

That large drop was only in the US, it didn't drop nearly that much in the other markets. I think regardless of the advertising spend on the film that $400 million puts it safely into mega-profit territory. Definitely an impressive showing for an R-rated, adult themed film.

 

Absolutely. The studios always break open the champagne when a film grosses more than 10 times its cost. Compare that to (say) a Spiderman film that costs $200M+. If that "only" makes $400M, they're in big, big trouble.

 

Within 6-8 weeks? It may do it next week. Certainly in two. It may not hit a billion. That was a number off the top of my head. But when it's done it's going to be pretty close.

 

Tee hee. I read some wag today who said "It's two hours of what you fast-forward through when you watch a porn movie".

 

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 took a beating this weekend.

It must be horrible if Cusack passed, he's done nothing but crap for years !

 

Cusack scored the #1 movie, with Jackie Chan, in China last weekend (Lunar New Year)

 

I predict the sequels aren't going to do well at all. With reports first that the director won't return and then the male lead has bailed because of concerns about how public perception of him could affect his marriage, as well as the author's insistence on having script control over the next two films (because she's clearly a skilled writer), I smell train wreck.