Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

I don't make many predictions, but so far my track record on those I've made has been pretty accurate.

My gut feeling is that Passengers will be a big 2016 holiday hit:




Cat

 

Possibly. The trailer looked a little superficial and fluffy for my taste, but I'll still check it out.

 

And of course, Roberts had zero to do with the success of Oceans as well. Has she been a marquee draw at all this millennium?

 

I couldn't agree more about Roberts yet people talk about her{outside this forum of course} like she's a hit machine and a top 2 actress. If someone is talking about her they think she was just in a big money making hit movie. I always thought she was in some good movies but petered out long ago.

 

"Erin Brockovich" was 2000. Otherwise... nope!

 

Not to defend Roberts in any way, cuz I am NOT a fan, but Eat Pray Love (2010) did o-kay. $80 million dollar gross on a $60 million dollar budget, and it made an additional $124 million overseas.

 

Wouldn't say she's busy either.
Wonder (filming) and that's it as of today. Maybe by choice, don't know.

 

Just saw Closer on a recommendation upthread. Very interesting, unusual movie. Julia's performance was excellent (of course), as were the other principal actors (Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Clive Owen).

 

But I don't think that shows Roberts as a "marquee draw". That was a hugely successful book so it was a "pre-sold" property to a large degree. It would've made $80 million if Eric Roberts had been the lead!

 

Her brother Eric Roberts works more than her but then again, he has to since Julia's got quite the nest egg.

 

I wonder if there will be a sequel now that the author has gone to explore her Sapphic side with her best friend?

 

Julia Roberts spends most of her time raising her three children and making films in between her husband's career. She is said to be worth more than $100 million. I would assume she picks and choses what films these days she wants to make,

 

Even if she isn't a top draw she still has a "name" that, in combination with others brings respect and credibility to films.

 

That mat be true but they also want it to make money.

 

No doubt but putting together a series of actors that are associated with "quality" will usually bring in a crowd

 

I thought quality=$

 

Not these days.

 

I actually ended up significantly under-estimating demand for both of this week's big pictures. I guess either Magnificent Seven looked better to other people than it did to me, or people have just been feeling what I've been feeling, which is a desire to go to the movies as the weather turns regardless of whether anything good is on.

In any case, though I predicted "high teens" for both Seven and Storks, they pulled in $35 million and $21 million, respectively. Storks is still clearly a bomb, but for a modern western a $35 million opening is actually quite respectable. I doubt it will be particularly profitable, but what is these days?

 

Marvel cartoonish superhero movies, Star Wars and animated films.

 

Pratt has become a huge box office draw. I think he's driving Seven's boxoffice.

 

a prediction:

the girl on the train" and "arrival" will both be huge.

 

Well, an animated movie called Storks did not do well at the box office at all. It's only at #2.

 

That would be profitable by any measure. The key is for the filmmakers not to make films that are ridiculously expensive. But the problem is that most major studio execs are not greenlighting modest human dramas, romantic comedies, and films like that intended to be made for less than $40 million.

One huge exception are horror movies: five horror films this year came out that cost under $10M each, but they all made north of $60M-$70M. So that's still a very profitable area.

Storks only cost $70M, so it'll do OK. I was just reminding a friend of mine today that Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks basically killed the studio by making three horrendous animated bombs in a row: Rise of the Guardians, Turbo, and Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and they each cost north of $120M. There's no way they should've spent that kind of money on those films, and the losses basically tanked Dreamworks' stock and forced Katzenberg to sell the company to Universal. Universal's much more-economical animated films, like Minions ($60M), have made billions of dollars. I think the animation on the Universal films isn't nearly as good, but it's hard to argue with success.

 

Back when I worked for a distribution company (2000-2003) we pretty much survived on horror films for awhile. You'd buy the rights (UK only) for $500K US, P&A wasn't too expensive and it'd make anywhere from £3M-5M at the box office (we usually only received 30% of that, sometimes less and you have to back out VAT) and the dvd rental and sales would top that up significantly. We were generally already in profit after theatrical only.

They were a very good money earner. Honestly, I can't believe they still are! I used to think "this trend can't last forever". There's definitely a good market out there for this genre and they can be made cheaply and still be very effective.

 

I don't know about huge, but I think it's fair to assume both will be substantially successful. I expect Arrival will earn something in the Interstellar range, i.e. around $150-$200 million domestically. At the extreme end it could do as well as The Martian ($228 million) but I think it will be too esoteric to scrape Gravity's numbers ($275 million).

Girl on the Train is likely to be in the $80-$100 million range, unless the reviews are extremely good.

One film that is really testing my powers of prognostication is Rogue One. $300 million domestic seems to go without saying, but what's the ceiling? What's a reasonable expectation? Somewhere, I guess, between Attack of the Clones's $310 million and infinity...