Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

Hmm? What's sad about box office revenue being hurt by bad weather?

 

As Dudley mentioned, "Big Short" is actually doing decently. It's up to $54 million, which ain't great, but it's fine for a film of that sort.

"Spotlight" is at $31 million, while "Jobs" petered out at $17 million...

 

Including international box office though, The Big Short has made about $73 million, which going by the 2.5x metric means it's already into profit.

Including international, Steve Jobs gets boosted to $29 million, which still ain't good, and Spotlight is pretty much unchanged.

 

So, Star Wars is going to cross $900 million domestic either this weekend (more likely) or sometime next week.

Fugitive observation, though -- its earnings were unbelievably front-loaded. It actually made less in its sixth weekend than Phantom Menace! And that's unadjusted for inflation, by the way. It made $14 million this past weekend, while back in 2010 Avatar was still cookin' that weekend with $35 million.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/moreweekends.htm?page=6&p=.htm

This is why I, stupidly it turned out, was skeptical it could overtake Avatar's domestic earnings. Of course, it has long since obliterated them. But it doesn't seem to have the legs that Avatar did. And I think it pretty unlikely it will threaten Avatar's international gross, even unadjusted.

 

It still did alright.

 

It's just a matter of, people were rabidly hungry to see Star Wars while Avatar was an unknown quantity (apart from the involvement of James Cameron), so they rushed out to see Star Wars faster.

 

I think anytime a movie makes a billion dollars, the studio execs order a few magnums of Moet & Chandon and celebrate.

 

Now that the crowds have died down, I went to an afternoon showing of the new star wars movie. They had the trailer for World of Warcraft, it looked good! I don't play video games since I got rid of my Apple II so it's original to me. From the trailers, I thought that it was intelligently put together.

Talking to one my guests today, he said you were out for a few hours. I told him about seeing the Star Wars movie. He asked me how it was, I thought for a moment and said "you know what?, it wasn't stupid". This is a franchise that, starting from the first movie, when you don't think it can get any stupider, somehow, it always manages to.

It is enjoyable to have a plot, a script, and real people once in a while.

 

That was close to my reaction. I was just relieved it wasn't too stupid for a change, and it actually made sense, had a beginning-middle-and end, and it had characters you could understand and empathize with. It's amazing how seldom a lot of films pull that off.

 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies tanked this weekend:
http://theslanted.com/2016/02/22323/box-office-results-pride-prejudice-zombies-hail-caesar/

The zombie pop culture thing already peaked a few years ago so I would have picked this to bomb if I'd ever been aware this was coming out.

Plus these over-the-top "meme" movies from hipster/Internet culture like Snakes on a Plane, Scott Pilgrim, Sucker Punch and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter are never box office hits - maybe the Sharknado route of making them for TV is the only way they can work.

 

Doh, I was very surprised that the Coen Brothers movie Hail Caesar kind of tanked. The smart thing for them is that the film only had a budget of $22M, and it looks like it'll make $11M this weekend. All in, I'd say in two months it'll break even but only barely.

 

I'm not...IMO the thing looked stupid and confusing simply based on the adverts. But then I may be biased because I cannot stand the Coen Brothers films

 

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man

 

Or trailers, apparently. . . It's a good movie. "Cohen-quirky" in all the right ways.

 

Ugh! I hated that one most of all...one of my exes used to play The Big Lebowski incessantly. Watching it once was bad enough, but like once a week?

Thanks for the warning

 

I think any movie coming out on Super Bowl weekend is going to face an uphill battle. I'm sure the studios realize this as well.

 

Lulling interest in zombies PLUS a Jane Austen novel? What were they thinking? You couldn't get me to sit through "Pride and Prejudice and Victoria's Secret."

 

They're cranking out so many movies (or having their name on so many) I think they're falling into Woody Allen territory now. Lots of movies; lots of low numbers.

I'm also suffering from Josh Brolin burn out at this point. It's not like he's the world's most EXCITING actor.

 

Not with Keira Knightley, anyway. She's not really built for that sort of thing.

 

Wait - you thought "Hail Caesar!" had box office hit written on it???

 

Blood pool will bomb.. and so will the Trolls movie by Dream Works

 

I think at this stage a Coen Brothers comedy akin to O Brother, is at best going to be a word of mouth thing that will get seen more after it hits DVD. I want to see it, but rarely see anything in the theater. Im a fan of theirs and only saw Fargo in the theater.

 

I thought it was gonna do better than $11 million, yeah. The last few Coen Brothers films had better opening weekends, and I think the trades reported that this was the lowest-opening for a George Clooney film in a long time.

 

Any box office predictions for Dead Bath?

 

They're remarkably idiosyncratic filmmakers who somehow have a career in Hollywood. They make choice that - for better or worse - would dismay other filmmakers. I'm thinking of Donnie's death in Big Lebowski. Not funny, darkens the tone of the film toward the end, and seems to have been devised just so they could have a slapstick scene with his ashes. Yet their films are so technically assured you know you're witnessing a high level of craft and talent, ironically sometimes informed by a very juvenile sense of humor.