Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2017

I've seen 7 of those films. Logan was my favorite, followed closely by Wonder Woman. The 3 I didn't see were Beauty And The Beast, Boss Baby and Despicable Me 3 and I have no plan nor desire to see them.

 

Management at its' worst: fire people based on consequences out of their control (or, to save your own a** by claiming you "fixed" the problem), or promoting for something they barely had a hand in...such as greenlighting a picture.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I like a lot more of those 60's movies than the current ones, with one big exception: Logan. One of the best comic book movies ever.

 

That about sums it up just perfect. I liked the first one and thought it was really good. This one is a money grab.

 

It's hard to argue with that. I think those three are well-made films, but not necessarily something I need to see.

 

‘War For The Planet Of The Apes’ Loots $56.5M In Box Office Spoils – Sunday AM Update

 

Doh, and it looks like Valerian is bombing big-time...

Weekend Box Office: 'Dunkirk' Heads for $45M-$50M U.S. Debut; 'Valerian' Bombing

I'm glad to hear Dunkirk is doing pretty well.

 

I liked Dunkirk, and I'm glad it's doing well too. But I still doubt it's going to get to the likely $800 million or so worldwide needed to break even. It seems that Nolan is getting 20% of the first dollar gross, which means that if the movie makes 800 he gets $160 million. And the studio gets only about half of that 800 million anyway, even if it get there. The budget was probably about $200 million (including Nolan's $20m advance), marketing and overhead are at least another $100 million, and if you put Nolan's final payday at over $100 million (depending on how it does) it still seems that red ink is likely for someone—just not Nolan. Seems like a foolish deal, but then he's made WB literally billions in profits from his past movies, and so I guess it's payback time..

Valerian, on the other hand, looks like a total bomb. A $180 million dollar movie that's making less than $20m in its first weekend in the US? Maybe it'll do well in China?

One thing about Dunkirk is it was a movie with bold sound design and music. Too bold imho, and it just dominated the movie and the audience with explosions, gunfire, repetitive (although effective) music, etc. There was limited time for dialogue and character development.

Dunkirk is bold, visceral movie-making, but there's a cost to that assault-the-audience approach. As a result, I doubt I'll ever want to see it again, compared to the dozen or so times I've seen Bridge on the River Kwai in the last 40 years.

 

And also "make the very profitable director happy" time, I think. WB clearly wants to continue their relationship with Nolan so they can benefit from the next time he takes on a more clearly commercial property.

As well, WB may view "Dunkirk" as a "prestige property" likely to get some awards consideration so they wanted to be attached to that.

I'll be curious to see how "Dunkirk" does come Oscar time. It checks off the "serious subject matter" box the Oscars loves but might it get "forgotten" after all the fall/winter releases? And might its summer blockbuster-ish status be a turn-off to voters?

I think it was always clear "Valerian" wasn't going to make a big splash in the US. Luc Besson has just never been a terribly successful commercial director in the States.

"Lucy" did pretty well, but "Fifth Element" - which seems like a direct spiritual predecessor to "Valerian" - failed to make a big dent at the US box office. "Fifth Element" seems regarded as a semi-classic now but it wasn't warmly received by audiences 20 years ago.

Fact I didn't realize until now: if Wiki is correct, Besson self-funded "Valerian"!

BTW, Wiki claims the budget was $209 million! They also claim the movie "only" needs $350 million WW to break even - presumably due to the unusual financing methods...

 

Your predictions?



I'm beyond tired of Zack Snyder continuing to pass the destruction of large buildings off as appropriate for a supposedly uplifting, inspirational piece of entertainment - even Godzilla got that memo!

 

"Justice League" will easily pass the $300 million US mark. Of the 4 "DCU" films to date, 3 made $300m plus and "Man of Steel" came close.

Given the goodwill "Wonder Woman" brought to the DCU, I'd be surprised if "JL" doesn't make it past $400m - and if it's actually any good, I could see $500m+...

 

Um, still not clear on what Aquaman brings to the party.

 

Shrimp and cocktail sauce.

 

They're saying Dunkirk cost $150M, and even though it's true that Nolan got $20M to write & direct it, I would bet that the rest of his profit participation may hinge on the box office gross hitting certain milestones. In other words, the more it makes, the more he makes. If it doesn't do to well, then he'd make a lot less money. Given that it did $50M this weekend in America, I think it'll be a profitable film in the end. It won't make Batman money, but if it did north of $500M worldwide, they'd be profitable. I think WB cuts Nolan a lot of slack since his films have made a lot of profit for their studio.

If they don't screw it up, I think Justice League could be the biggest Warner Bros. film of the last five years. That's a big if.

 

You might be right about Nolan's deal. But here's what the Hollywood Reporter said last year:

"“The deals are now so convoluted,” says a top producer. “Gone are the days when you had a Scorsese and he always got his quote. Seldom do you see anyone get their quote anymore.” It happens — Christopher Nolan is said to be getting $20 million upfront and 20 percent of the gross for his upcoming World War II epic Dunkirk, the richest deal since Peter Jackson got the same for King Kong. "

Movie Stars - Hollywood Salaries 2016: Who Got Raises (and Who Didn't), From Movie Stars to Showrunners

 

Often the advance payments are against royalties, so he's basically getting a percentage based on an expected minimum gross. The tricky phrase nowadays is Modified Adjusted Gross Receipts, and a lot boils down to how profit is defined. I would bet an upper-A-list director like Nolan would very definitely get a percentage from dollar one, and once the movie is into "real" profit (which I think would be north of $350M), he could very well get into the 10%-20% level that Spielberg and Hanks and DiCaprio get. I would be very surprised if Dunkirk does badly, but it's an ambitious film that might not play that well all over the world.

The trick on payment nowadays is that there's an awful lot of people (Scorcese, Tarantino, Jim Cameron, Spielberg, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, etc.) who basically work at scale, then get a guaranteed percentage from day 1 once the movie is released. So on the surface, they "only" get $18,000 a week plus expenses, but it eventually turns out to a lot more once the movie is released. The DGA Basic Agreement is a very interesting read, but be warned it's about 600 pages long.

 

Dear God, that movie looks like a cartoon for the most part... literally half or more is straight-out CGI!!!

Say what you want about the old optical effects, but they had weight and substance.

 

Predictions:

Justice League will gross about a billion dollars worldwide.

It'll be an awful movie.

I won't bother to see it.

And, finally, I'll become a grumpy 52-year old man who thinks: "These kids today. They call this a movie? Get the hell off my lawn!"

 

Well I'm older then you and looking forward to it.

 

Logaan? Not familiar with that one much.

 

Predictions on The Emoji Movie?

Mine: Flop

 

Define "flop" - US gross? WW gross?

 

How about just gross.

 

I would be astonished if The Emoji Movie made dime one.

Let's wait and see how the reviews work out. The film opens November 17th, and I would bet that Joss Whedon is working night and day to make it the best it can be. Excessive CG or not, if it has a decent story, snappy dialogue, and good characters, that could well salvage everything else.