Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2017

Holy moley... this nutty movie is gonna do over $100M, which I think nobody would have predicted...

Crazed Clown Cashes In & Wakes Up Box Office As Stephen King’s ‘It’ Breaks Records With Est. $103M-$108M Opening

I figured they'd be lucky to get $70M, but $100M is crazy. Glad to hear the movie is getting such great reviews. I think it's the right time for a big, super-scary R-rated horror film, so the timing was perfect. (Well, except for the massive hurricane hitting Florida this weekend.)

 

Even more impressive when you consider Florida is the 3rd most populous state.

 

Driving around on a sunny day yesterday and saw two girls, early teens, probably.. one dressed in a rain slicker and hat, carrying a couple red balloons and placing a paper boat on a sewer grating while the other girl was recording her on her iPhone.

In another few days the trade papers will be filled with stories about big budget remakes of classic Stephen King stories.

 

I noticed a lot of mentions during the lead up in places I never expected it. Even my friends were talking about it hitting the cinemas and I thought "What the heck?" It was a lot more popular than I ever gave it credit for.

 

I did feel that there was a good deal of chatter on "It" that may have flew under the radar. A lot of people where I work were talking about going to see it and I noticed people bringing it up on Facebook.

 

I think It hits a pretty good balance as an R-rated horror for a wide audience, lots of spooky imagery and thrills but moves along at a snappy enough pace to prevent any real dread from building up or becoming too depressing, its' level of terror is akin to an amusement park ride.
Plus the characters and story are engaging and likable, plenty of well-written humor to lighten the mood, great acting, and impressive direction with a lot of classical finesse to the camera moves and editing (in its precision and relative restraint it reminded me a lot more of big budget classics from the 80s and 90s than modern schlocky horror fare).
Between the overwhelming response to It and the success of The Conjuring franchise I think the horror genre is going to be a much bigger part of Warner Bros' bread-and-butter going forward. I'm sure it won't be too long before they look into R-rated adaptations of the more grisly DC comic books.

As for explaining the popularity, I can chime in that I was born in 1997 and when I was in elementary school on the playground, even long after the book and miniseries premiered, everyone knew who Pennywise was. He's an iconic horror figure and I think people were excited to see him unrestrained by the standards of network television. That and a great marketing campaign.

 

filmmakers are going in another direction, many other directions. studios are stubbornly clinging to a very tired formula, and as a result they are pushing a lot of very talented young writers and directors elsewhere. 10 or 15 years ago this would have been the death knell for virtually all of those talented people, but what the major studios seem to be unaware of is that what they represent is nowhere near as relevant anymore. there are heaps of new (a)venues that can reach many more people than the conventional cinema model still favored by the big studios. like the major record labels, the major studios have stuck their fingers in their ears for decades and ignored the changing landscape. virtually all of the interesting work in film is happening right under the noses of the major studios, but they're too antiquated to do anything about it. so let them keep churning out superhero films and remakes of 1960s TV shows; the talented people know where to go.

 

It's pretty clear the future belongs to Netflix, Amazon, Google and possibly Apple. The major studios seem content to circle the drain of their own creation...

 

Enjoyed
American Made.
Tom Cruise excelled.

 

And now the studios are freaking out trying to figure out why the movie It is performing so well...

Crazed Clown Cashes In, Smashes Sept., Genre Records As Stephen King’s ‘It’ Pulls In $123M+ Opening

5 Reasons 'It' Became Horror's Biggest Box Office Success Ever

How 'It' Succeeds Where Others Have Failed

5 Lessons ‘The Dark Tower’ Could Learn From ‘It’

The latter is particularly interesting, because it asks the question, "if a Stephen King story can become one of the biggest-opening hit films of the year, why did the most recent one flop?" The answer is, sucky movies often don't do well.

 

I agree with everything in that last article except the first one "embrace the R rating". A film's rating has 0 to do with the quality of a film.

 

That's true in the sense that you can make a quality film under any ratings category. However, an R rating gives the freedom to explore and depict harder edged content in a more visceral way, which is rather important in the horror genre. Of course, this extra latitude doesn't in and of itself define 'quality', but if done with care and skill, it does enhance the overall experience.

 

'It' received one of the most extensive viral marketing campaigns in history. I saw glimmers of the campaign beginning over ten months ago. The studio's marketing team absolutely littered underground sites visited by the under 18 crowd for months with sneaky, viral content. They copied the same online marketing strategy Fox used for Deadpool.

Once again, Hollywood has become much more efficient at marketing movies than actually making good movies. It's a town run by MBAs now.

 

there are just a ton of weirdos obsessed with clowns - I can't think of many of my friends who were talking about this movie...but I can think of one or two (women.....) -who were absolutely obsessed with it.....that is my theory at least.....its the subject matter ....more than being a Stephen King movie.....I imagine a John Wayne Gacy bio-pic would be a big hit if there were enough scenes of him as a clown....

 

But in this case, the movie "It" lives up it's marketing. "It" is a good movie.

 

I think maybe another way to put that is, "don't water down the story and characters in order to desperately try to make a family-friendly PG-13 movie." Many of Stephen King's novels are unapologetically R-rated, and if you do start censoring them, it can diminish their impact very quickly.

It's been that way for a long time. But a hit movie can't sustain big box office unless it's also really a good film... and critics seem to think both Deadpool and It are good movies.

 

'It' is No. 1 at the North American box office for a second weekend

‘Mother!’ Dies With ‘F’ CinemaScore And $7.5M Start As ‘It’ Becomes Biggest-Ever September Release With $218M+ Cume

American Assassin was 2nd, which I saw on Friday and a was a pretty good action flick. If you like Jack Reacher series, you will probably like American Assassin. Michael Keaton shines in the movie.

Apparently Mother!, with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, didn't meet expectations.

 

Blade Runner 2049.
Flop?

 

Anybody think Mother gave away too much in its' TV spot flight this past week? Gave the intended audience enough to get what was going on there, and decided it wasn't for them. IMHO.

 

‘It' becoming biggest horror pic ever beating 'The Exorcist'

 

there was one with Brian Dennehy in it - a tv movie - I think.....not too bad (but mostly because I like Brian Dennehy)

 

My beef with "It" being such a bit hit is that we're now guaranteed to get not just one sequel, but numerous sequels, probably some spin-off films, etc.

"It" benefitted greatly from having a couple weeks with essentially no competition at the box office, and following up on several weeks where there was slim pickings. If a sequel gets butted up against any other film with legs, it may not fare quite as well. Although, the hype and prestige garnered by the first film doing so well probably helps its chances.

 

And you can never go wrong opening a horror movie during the first few weeks of 'back-to-school' in September. Word-of-mouth amongst kids is a massive factor in the success of any movie they might be interested in, R-rated or not.

 

'It' will definitely be turned into a franchise. Any moderately successful horror film these days gets 3-4 sequels and prequels.