Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Dec 18, 2015.

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  1. Simon A

    Simon A Arrr!

    Ever since Ishtar of course! :D
     
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  2. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The Shallows was a very minor mid-budget film, but it did make money. Finding Dory and Secret Life of Pets were all mentioned several times as most likely being big hits (at least my prediction). At the moment, Dory is shaping up to be the biggest film of the year, already at $647M after only a month of release.
     
  3. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Four films, actually! :)

    I don't think those films should be viewed as "traditional sequels", though, since they're based on books.

    To me, a "traditional sequel" is something like "Aliens": it exists because the first one was successful and the studio decided to tell another story.

    "Hunger Games" was already a book series before production started, so unless the first one totally bombed, it was always going to be a 3 or 4 film series.

    Same thing with Harry Potter - maybe you can view the books as sequels, but not the movies, since they adapt already-existing properties.

    Does that distinction make sense to anyone but me? :help:
     
  4. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I love Sheldon Resnick, the 32-year-old 10th grader just out to meet girls. He was Wooderson from "Dazed and Confused" before Wooderson existed! :D
     
  5. Luke The Drifter

    Luke The Drifter Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Add the Eastwood Dollars Trilogy to that list. Both sequels are fantastic, with the Good, Bad, and Ugly best of the lot.
     
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  6. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    No, I think your point is valid. And the fourth Indy never needed to be made imo! I just think the average person thinks of titles like that sequels, and it doesn't help that they box them all together if you want to buy them that way! But your point is well taken. I agree on Aliens (and probably should have listed it as a worthy group of sequels as well).
     
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  7. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    You know, Shallows is story driven. It's a compelling and interesting story, at least to me it was. It didn't need a big budget. I think if a film NEEDS a big budget, that is a red flag...not literally, but you get my drift. The story should be amazing. Actors should be able to sit in a room, read the script and we should be interested and engaged into whatever issue they are dealing with. If the story is awesome, then everything else should fall into place, including the effects. Like music...yes, I want it to sound fantastic but if the songs are good, I am still going to listen to it. Blake Lively did a very good job in Shallows, and we've all been scared before, so you can kinda relate to what she was going through as far as her emotions and it connected with a lot of people. The director really did a great job; that film could have been a real disaster. The shark effects were just a part of getting the job done, and like Jaws, the shark was shown about as minimally as possible. They were clearly working the story, not the CGI. That's all effects should do, just show what the writer had in his or her head, not BE the film. That worked in the early years of CGI, but I think most of us are far past that now. I was dumbfounded when I watched the original ID4...just, wow! But those days are probably behind us now. Jungle Book is just the perfect example of what I'm saying. They had a great script, probably before anything else was done. That is the way to do this. How do movies like Ghostbusters get green lit with scripts like that? Just makes me mad that the powers to be think "ya, people are gonna laugh at this stuff...let's do it". It's just completely insulting to me as a viewer, and I got angry all three times I had to sit through that really crappy trailer. That was THE worst trailer for a major film I have ever, ever seen and that is saying a lot because I think at least 30% of the trailers I see show a film that I just don't understand how it got made. As someone else said upwind, if you've seen a lot of movies, you can tell a lot by the trailer. It's perhaps unfair to the film, but then, don't show me the trailer if it isn't going to make we want to see the film. We've seen trailers that do their job well, like the one for Secret Life of Pets...and clearly one of the reasons it is doing fantastic.
     
  8. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    [QUOTE="Jrr, post: 14672078, member: 36562" How do movies like Ghostbusters get green lit with scripts like that? [/QUOTE] I haven't seen the film but if the trailer represents the film, it is indeed crappy. I've occasionally worked as a Location Scout in the Midwest for film crews from either coast. There is somewhat of a condescending attitude toward "flyover country" (you know, the middle 80% of the U.S.)
     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Here's a good article for those who are trying to a get a handle on why big-budgeted movies need to make so much money in order to break even. Universal just admitted that the recent blockbuster fantasy film Warcraft "only" made $430 million, and will lose money even though it "only" cost $160 million. This analysis breaks down why the film would have had to have made at least $450 million to erase all debts:

    Box-Office Analysis: 'Warcraft' Avoids "Utter Failure" But Will Still Lose Money »

    Note that this film is widely looked upon as an enormous bomb, but because it sold a lot of tickets in Asia, it wound up not being an "utter failure." It's sobering when a film makes $45M in America but a whopping $220M in China. And you could also make an argument that the movie may have sold enough merchandise to make a profit when you look at all the different revenue streams at one time.
     
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  10. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    After home video, online video and whatnot, it'll certainly turn a profit - just not much of a profit. Not enough to be worth all the money Universal sunk into it.

    That was a ridiculous amount of cash to sink into a Warcraft movie to begin with - videogame adaptations are always a dodgy bet.
     
  11. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Read this evening China will not allow Ghostbusters to show in that country. They don't like those types of movies playing there, occult and ghost type films. Good. Maybe they will stop making dummied down crap for the US market because it needs to work in overseas markets. Not gonna happen, I know, but that's why I was glad to read that. We have to bring down our standards so studios can market their junk in other markets. Glad to see it isn't alwaus successful.
     
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  12. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    China not wanting films bout ghosts/occult/etc has nothing to do with the degree of dumbness but as a socially preventative measure to stop the masses from organising around belief systems involving 'higher beings', which might threaten the power of the state, over time. They're already jumpy enough about that (control) as it is, what with the continued slowdown of economic growth.

    Also, good luck with the US not making dumbed-down films (regardless of markets). :)
     
  13. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    what do ya'll make of this? While the trailer doesn't seem to convey a story, it looks interesting and possibly amusing. An out of left field hit like 'Heaven Can Wait'?
     
  14. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    The Cult Of Godzilla is rising in great numbers..
     
  15. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
  16. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    No, I understand that. If it were based on dumbness not much would show there....I mean't it was over the occult issue.
     
  17. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    A Howard Hughes comedy? It looks interesting and a little strange. But a Howard Hughes comedy? Only Warren Beatty could get the money to make a comedy around a figures from the 40s in this day and age. I'm sure it will see a very limited release since its squarely aimed at adults and not the mass-moviegoer teens. Weird.
     
  18. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    Han Solo and Snow White in a 40's screwball comedy update with Beatty in his life long dream to play H.H.?
    I'm interested.
     
  19. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Have to disagree. There are some movies that can't be told well without ample - and good - visuals. Even with a great story behind it, a "Lord of the Rings" that lacks good production values will flop - it needs to create a convincing world, and that means lots and lots of effects/makeup/etc., stuff that ain't cheap.

    Throwing money at effects and "production value" unnecessarily is bad, but I do believe some movies require big budgets to create the "vision" involved...
     
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  20. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    I watched that and I thought, this is the Howard Hughes movie Beatty has been talking about making for decades? I always assumed he wanted to make the later-life Hughes version of The Aviator, i.e. a serious biopic.

    Warren sure looks good for almost 80 years old. There may be some help involved but it doesn't look unnatural. I kinda figured he'd stopped working because he didn't want to be on camera anymore but he still looks like Warren Beatty.
     
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  21. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Totally agreed. I just think that sometimes the powers to be forget that a good movie starts with a good story, well told. From there, then you build the worlds and production values. When it goes the other way around, I think you get yourself into a lot of trouble. And they seem to excel at that.
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    This is an interesting article on Sony Pictures' quandary with Ghostbusters, which was not exactly a bomb but was kind of a borderline-disappointment opening at $46 million:

    ‘Ghostbusters’: How Its $46M Opening Creates A Quandary – Weekend Box Office Postmortem »

    It's interesting that Sony is trying to spin the numbers as successful, and they're insisting that they still plan to make all kinds of sequels, TV spinoffs, theme park rides, the whole deal. If this was an enormous blockbuster success, I could see that happening, but not with this kind of so-so opening. The predictions are not good for this weekend, up against Star Trek and Ice Age.
     
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  23. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    It'll implode this weekend. The only hope for this turkey is overseas.
     
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  24. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    Unfortunately that article really doesn't go into the nuts and bolts of why the film will be in the hole. I know the standard reasoning is that large blockbusters need to make roughly 3 times their production budget to break even - would that be why? As noted in the article, the co-financing arrangement does diminish the impact upon any one party: this isn't akin to, say, Disney and John Carter.

    Vidiot, would you be able to direct me to a more substantial article that provides something of a financial breakdown of the losses resulting from a major box-office bomb? Or is this data that the studios would likely never reveal (for any number of reasons)?
     
  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    What they basically say is, Warcraft cost $160M, plus at least $50M for P&A (prints and advertising), basically the distribution fee. It grossed $430M so far, but bear in mind a lot of that money came from overseas, and in countries like China, they don't get the usual 50% split with the distributors due to government interference. Bear in mind that they spent the $160M in the two years prior to the movie coming out, so there's also studio overhead and interest charges going on, and they never stop through the life of a film. There are also sometimes "gross profit participants" who take their share of the incoming money right off the top. For this reason, movies that technically never made a profit did actually generate income for certain people. There's a very loose definition of what "profit" is in Hollywood, and there's as many as four different kinds of profit.

    I would point to Lynda Obst's book Sleepless in Hollywood and also George Lucas' Blockbusting as having good explanations on why certain films wound up profitable, some films barely broke even, some films were disappointments, and some were enormous flops. In general, if you have a modest-budgeted film, the chances of losing money are less: if the film cost (say) $20M, and cost $20M to release, then you'd do fine if it made $80M-$100M. But there are so many associated charges with the blockbusters, the risk is greater. The studios keep making them because if they're massive hits (in the $1B+ range), then all that red ink is wiped out and they'll have a great year. But it's a very risky formula.

    This is a facinating story of a very low-budgeted film that only wound up making $30:

    How ''Zyzzyx Road'' only grossed $30.00 »

    The best book on a film that should have made a profit but did not is Fatal Subtraction: How Hollywood Really Does Business, and it's a sobering look on writer Art Buchwald's lawsuit against Paramount over the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America. That film cost $39 million and grossed $388 million, so you'd think there'd be a profit, right? According to the studio, it never broke even!
     
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