Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2018

Because they opened in the U.K. in 2018...

 

There is a new Nicholas Cage (you know, the actor who keeps setting records by stooping lower and lower) entitled Mandy, that looks like a sure loser, and yet it has 97% on RT, with 28 thumbs up and one thumb down: Mandy

I watched 10 seconds of the trailer and was mightly unimpressed. I know many here despise RT, but remember, they did give Gotti 0% (33 thumbs down reviews). What ya think about watching the trailer -- as far as you can stand it?

 

Eventually the superhero will burnout Marvel still at peak
Next couple years I see things change..
Maybe the movie goer will mature want movies with meaning and compelling stories.
Right now it's like a video game.
And last superhero movie that have great story and compelling
Was Logan, all rest are cgi cartoons..

 

David Lynch does a horror flick. The cinematic equivalent of one of those music mashups.

 

According to Yahoo entertainment staff, these the the worst movies of 2018 -- followed by the ominous phrase "so far": The worst movies of 2018 — so far

 

He's actually here in my small city making a movie right now. I'm no fan of a lot of his movies but he is coming across as Mr. Super Nice Guy. He's out shopping and wandering around in public and happily posing for pictures with anyone that asks. He hit the local music store yesterday - in a jacket with a picture of Elvis on it.

 

I was surprised to see Fred Dekker's name in the new Predator trailer.

Fred Dekker and Shane Black; didn't they once write a movie together?

 

Ant Man/Wasp is out now and I saw it, in Vegas where I was (on Saturday)..very good (too bad they closed their only Strip theatre, the United Artists (Regal) theatre, though I saw it in nearby Henderson at a casinoa theatre.

 

Shane Black and Fred Dekker have worked together on quite a few projects over the years, but I still always end up thinking about a very different type of "power couple" with a similar combined name...

 

With the Marvel and Pixar movies going gangbusters, while STAR WARS and WRINKLE IN TIME under-performed, will Disney turn the crank even harder on their established franchises? Can they release more than four Marvel movies a year?

I always thought the STAR WARS brand was a license to print money, but I guess if it's been decades since a good one, people do eventually notice.

 

Well, Sith was 2005 and if I'm honest, I liked that better than Force Awakens and Last Jedi although I think Rogue One was the best Star Wars film since Jedi. That's probably trigger point #1. Trigger #2; as flawed as Last Jedi is, it did a few things better that I judge it the superior film but not by much.

 

Star Wars is a license to print money - the people running it now with Lucas gone are tanking the entire franchise. The Last Jedi has more or less damaged the brand in a way that the Prequels never did.

It's highly unlikely Marvel expands their schedule even more.

 

Mileage. I'd say it's the racist incels and their white hot Internet meltdown that's done the most damage to the brand. In an era where Wonder Woman and Black Panther are huge blockbusters, nobody wants to be associated with that level of basement dweller.

 

Nope!

'Nuff said ...as Stan Lee used to end his Marvel Comics editorials back in the Silver Age.


Cat

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp already took what it cost to make in the opening weekend and it hasn't even opened yet in some countries like the UK (due to the World Cup).

 

The Driller Twins?

 

Maybe to hardcore fans who love Lucas but seeing those three prequels pretty much ruined the franchise for anyone who likes quality movies. lol They are horrible. Given the choice I'd rather watch TLJ three times in a row than watch the prequels and I didn't like TLJ that much. It wasn't that great but it didn't ruin the franchise by any means. I think people might be forgetting how people reacted to those prequels. Time heals wounds...

 

If Episode IX flops or obviously underperforms expectations ala "Solo", then maybe I'll agree with you.

I'm betting that won't happen. Return of JJ + concluding chapter = big old financial success, IMO...

 

Ya don't pay much attention to politics these days, huh?

 

They're not at breakeven yet -- they have "only" made $161 million so far. They'll need to make north of $300 million to really make a profit (based on a production cost of $120M). I think it's a guarantee that will happen, given they've done so well in only about a week. The last film wound up at about $519M, and I would bet this one will go higher, maybe as much as $600M, which is definitely a profitable film.

I'll predict right now there's almost no way that can happen. Even if it was terrible, it'll do at least half a billion; Solo is struggling to make $400M (stuck at $379M at the moment), so that's definitely a film that lost money.

I think both Star Wars IX (December 2019) and Avengers 4 (Summer 2019) will do well, just because of the anticipation. Whether they go north of a billion is a good question. And after that... the crystal ball is hazy.

 

With Avengers 4 I don't think it even IS a question, Infinity War was widely liked by the fanbase and general audience (even being popular enough to inspire several widespread memes, which isn't all that common with a still-in-theaters movie), left on a giant cliffhanger, and is past $2 billion globally and is currently sitting at #4 of all time, and is only $18 million away from taking #3 from The Force Awakens. It'll do gangbusters.
Star Wars, however, is unpredictable and shaky ground right now with the clear downward trajectory that's begun to emerge in the box office results. It's definitely not as sure of a bet as it once was. Nothing we can do but wait and see, I do think the year and a half wait (whether by design or not) is a good move, SW just seems more prone to potential fatigue than Marvel due to the relative homogony in the genre, story, and style of the movies. I honestly think they should have saved the expense of practically remaking it and just let Phil Lord and Chris Miller have their way with Solo, it at least would have been different and hardly could have performed any worse..

 

I think you - and others - overstate the status of the franchise. Yes, this has been a relatively difficult 8 months or so, but it's not like the franchise has suffered disappointment after another.

Even though "Last Jedi" became controversial, it still made a ton of money - and no matter how much the fanboys griped about it, they're going to see E9.

As the final chapter - and probably the last time we see any OST actors on screen - E9 seems likely to offer a substantial bounce back.

I don't claim it'll make "Force Awakens" money, but I'm going with an easy $700 million US and probably more like $800m.

With JJ back in the chair and the anticipation of a closing chapter, I feel confident it'll do massive business...

 

I'm sure this has been endlessly debated and argued in the upper executive rooms of Disney. One thing I'll say for sure: that would've been a much cheaper movie to make. I think Ron Howard's version cost another $60M-$70M. I was just thinking today that I bet you could write a very good book on what went wrong with the film, what kind of movie Lord & Miller would have made, why they clashed with Kasdan and the other producers, and why Kathy Kennedy made the decision she ultimately made. Ultimately, I think it's a power play, and the studio got cold feet as to whether these two guys could really handle a $180M movie.

My gut feeling -- based on the fact that these guys made 21 Jump Street and the various Lego Batman movies -- is that they were trying to make a fun comedy with dramatic moments, and that's ultimately not what Lucasfilm wanted. Is there room for a comedy among the Star Wars films? I think there is, but maybe the Han Solo story was not the right choice for that.

 

It is odd that they picked them considering what they had seen before from these guys.

 

Yep, it's not like these films lost a large amount of money or nobody. One or two missteps doesn't mean that the franchise is doomed.