Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

Somebody at Sony is smoking the crack pipe and and shrooms too..
Nobody cares about Ghostbusters anymore except for few fanboy websites...
It's big failure Sony is in deep denial calling Dr Frasier Crane he's listening...

 

I think both Sony and Warner Bros. desperately want the almost-guaranteed franchises that Disney has with Marvel, Star Wars, and its tradition of cartoons, what Universal has with Fast & Furious and Despicable Me, and what Paramount has with the Transformers series. Those are the closest to a "sure thing" in show business in terms of making money... at least at the moment.

 

but what happens when some these franchises go bye bye...

 

Agreed but...doesn't Sony has 007? And Warners made billions on the Harry Potter movies for a decade when the competitors weren't so successful, so maybe in some years Warners will find something successful again. This Xmas a new trilogy written by Potter's writer, J.K. Rowling, starts. I'll be surprised if at least one of those movies doesn't join the billionaire club.

 

The James Bond 007 franchise is now up for grabs since the contract between Eon Productions and Sony just ended with SPECTRE. Warners is trying the Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them as a possible franchise, but it remains to be seen how it'll do. I think what WB really wants is to do Harry Potter 8, which is now on the London stage.

 

Saw this at a pre-release party last Saturday. I found it both funnier and more poignant than was Boxtrolls, and my two kids (who are closer to the target audience) said they liked it better than all of theirs with exception of Coraline.

 

I've commented on this in the past, but the whole "needing to make three times the budget" think is interesting. At first, it makes the "average Joe" consumer look like the uneducated luddite, not understanding how "the business works." But then once you dig in and read about it, while there are plenty of details and various scenarios to become familiar with to understand everything, there is also a profoundly simple take-away from this phenomenon: It's the studios who look like idiots for basing their industry on a model where not only does everything need to make three times its "budget" to be profitable, but where that initial investment tends to be in the $150-$250 MILLION range in many cases.

It's obvious the studios are being lazy and gambling on big budget films instead of taking more risks and doing MORE small and mid-level budget films. They keep doing films that need to make $750 million to turn a profit, because if they *can* get that huge hit, then it seems to fix everything for awhile.

The industry is also in a weird way turning consumers and critics and industry pundits and the media against them, because now people will indeed call a film like "Batman v Superman" that makes over $800 million "a disappointment", or a film that still pulls in $300 million "a flop." The studios are undercutting themselves. Like a hundred times more people saw "Batman v Superman" than some indie doc that made $1 million on a $50,000 budget. So why don't the studios try to point that out?

All of the studios are trying to make their own "cinematic universe" and I think the bottom is going to fall out of that at some point. Even the Marvel films are going to fizzle out at some point. It may take another 5 or more years, but it's going to happen. Not everything has to be serialized and part of a universe.

I think some studio could get themselves a lot of press (and good results if they hired good people) by being the first BIG "originals studio", one that does original stories of all genres that are compelling.

Or, maybe everyone really has finally just run out of ideas.

 

Excellent what you said..

 

Yep. I agree. Also, Disney is going to milk everything they can from Star Wars Universe. Fortunately, though, if they hire good writers and storytellers, they won't have to worry about Star Wars fizzling out.

 

I think "Star Wars" is to a large degree critic-proof and will never just full-on tank. Especially the main "episodes." I think three off-shoot films and three new episodes is stretching it thin, but they'll all do well. I don't see the bottom falling out of any Star Wars stuff (and I say this objective and separate from the actual quality of the material; I had mixed feelings about "The Force Awakens" for instance), unless they *really* start diluting it and do like multiple TV show spinoffs and straight-to-video adventures, etc.

I do think it's funny that people (correctly) point out how Warner and DC are "rushing" their "cinematic universe", when I'd say Disney is kind of needlessly rushing out Star Wars films. A film *every year* for six years?

 

Yeah it's pretty fast when you consider the films of both previous trilogies were released 3 years apart and the two trilogies 16 years apart.

On the other hand, the three years between each prequel didn't exactly make them better.

 

Awesome thread! Let's take a break for a moment and enjoy a behind the scenes clip...Jason Bourne style.
The fun starts around 2:26...



Now, back to our scheduled discussion!

 

What do you think of "Suicide Squad" coming to a Theatre near you featuring Will Smith

 

I will be seeing Suicide Squad all by myself. No one in my family wants to see it.

 

Although... the Disney execs reportedly panicked when they saw a rough cut of Star Wars: Rogue One in May and frantically ordered a month's worth of reshoots and hired some "consultants" to assist with the picture (which to me means more writers and somebody to prod the director). I think the film wound up being much darker and downbeat than they wanted, so they're redoing it to make it a bit more rolicking, upbeat, and adventurous. In that respect, the Star Wars franchise is not completely critic-proof. If the fans catch a whiff that the film might stink, it could wind up just being a breakeven film, which Disney does not want.

Disney Orders Reshoots for 'Star Wars' Stand-Alone 'Rogue One' This Summer »

Note that they need to get the film totally locked and finished by July (now) in order to make the 3D deadlines, because it basically takes one month of work to convert 20 minutes' worth of images. That will just barely make it to their December 16th release date.

I think 90% of what's going on is that the executives are frightened: scared that their movies will bomb, scared that the critics will hate them, and scared that they'll lose their phony-baloney jobs. It takes a lot of guts to do an original film, and I kind of admire a studio that takes a chance and falls on their face, rather than puke out the same kind of film they've done before.

Note that Pixar has said after a certain date in the near future, they're going to aim for "all-original" movies for the forseeable future. Even they see that they risk just repeating the same old crap. The reviews on the new Ice Age movies are horrendous, basically saying you could take any of the past four or five movies in the series and put it out again with the new title, and nobody would notice.

Some executives have privately admitted they hate putting out $150 million action pictures that basically imitate everything else that's been done, but their explanation is, "hey, I just have to be here two more years and then I get my golden parachute as an exit strategy. Any films coming out afterwards are the next guy's problems." So they're not so much worried about entertaining the audience or winning awards, but rather seeing how long they can avoid getting fired.

 

If you were closer (A lot closer) I’d pick you up long the way......

 

Doh, and now Paramount is said to be "concerned" that Star Trek: Beyond will be making less money in its opening weekend than the previous Star Trek: Into Darkness...

‘Star Trek Beyond’ Flying To Decent $56M: But Why Is It Lower Than ‘Into Darkness’? »

 

But it looks like it's all due to Paramount's own doing instead of the quality of the movie.

 

the clench factor...aka known as going "all in"....this will be interesting to watch over the next few years, I suspect that the first sequel could push them into unheard of levels of $$$$$ or fall backwards into a break even scenario if "II" fails which I can't see happening given the amount of time and work that is going into these movies


SAN DIEGO — While promoting the 30th anniversary DVD/Blu-ray release of “Aliens” at Comic-Con Saturday, director James Cameron explained why his “Avatar” series needs the scope of the three sequels he announced at Cinema-Con in April. He also finally dropped details on a Blu-ray release of his 1989 sci-fi film “The Abyss.”

“The ‘Avatar’ story arc was originally meant to be a trilogy, but I overwrite, and my writers overwrote as well,” Cameron told Variety in an interview. “But basically the first of the sequels cloned itself and became two films, so now it’s four films. And the studio’s very happy with it. They have an opportunity to make more money, but it’s also an opportunity to spend a lot more money, too, so there’s a clench factor.”

 

I liked Ghostbusters a lot. Loved it when I was a kid and still do now. It looks like they are still going to go ahead with a sequel.

 

The worse one.
Dissaponted. Oh well i can pass getting the blu ray now.

 

Yeah, Ice Age as much as I love it , it running out of ideas..
Blue Sky , needs to do something else.?
or it will become those land before time sequels
god awful sing alongs.. poor dinosaurs will never grow up..
Sony, is denial mode.. Ghostbusters failed .
All product endorsements toys etc.. is dead in the water.
Star Trek, New Trek, is running it's course..
Won't see it ethier..

 

Hollywood wake up.

 

You're assuming the people running Sony Pictures are still gonna be there in six months...

What did Paramount do wrong? I think they promoted the film fairly well, I see billboards all over town, there's been tons of TV commercials, and the actors have been making the publicity rounds. The movie got pretty good reviews -- it's up to 84% on RottenTomatoes, which is very good -- and I don't know how much more the studio could have done. More fast-food tie-ins? McDonald's plastic cups? Chipotle Spock Ears made from rice & beans?

Sometimes, movies wind up not making enough money because the film came out at a bad time, or the audience is just sick of that kind of film. The industry trades imply that Paramount is nervous that viewers may simply be tired of Star Trek, which I think would be a tragedy. I think it's a great, epic story with compelling characters and a good cast, and Jason Lin clearly knows how to direct action movies. On the surface, this looked like a movie that would do at least $80M in its first weekend. Not gonna happen.

 

They are awake! Around 40% of the American populace never goes to the theater (or goes once a year), and another 40% goes a couple times a year. The 20% that goes regularly likes comics and sequels and boomcrash. Give the paying customers what they want - they're never going to recover the rest of us others.