Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2018

Christmas movies are essentially dead at the box office after January 1, so any expensive Christmas movie needs to max out it's time in the marketplace in order to make it's costs back. That's why so many Christmas films are released in November. This was the same strategy Disney used for their hit Santa Clause movies, among others. If you have a film people want to see, it can run quite nicely from early November through to January.

The response to "The Nutcracker" is likely much simpler than a poor release date. Americans have never shown any serious interest in anything that smells of High Culture, and as The Nutcracker is primarily identified as a ballet, they're not gonna go.

 

Christmas albums usually come out in October!

 

HA does qualify as a Christmas movie, because, like the Nutcracker, it incorporates a Christmas theme in the movie.

I'm not sure about Die Hard, the first movie, maybe.

But in the same vein of HA and Nutcracker, Die Hard II, was definitely a Christmas movie. It took place during the Christmas holiday's and had the holiday song "Let it Snow", so definitely a Christmas movie by "studio definition".

Actually, by my definition, that a Christmas movie should be in some way, other than taking place in December and having a Christmas tree in a scene or two, a Christmas movie, should be about Christmas in some way.

Even Ernest Saves Christmas, is more of a Christmas movie than HA, Nutcracker, Die Hard I & II.

By that definition, now that I do think about it, I would agree with you, despite a "double Holiday" theme, it was about Christmas as the primary subject, So it does meet my personal definition of a Christmas movie.

I don't think that the October date reflects the lack of Disney's faith in the project, more so as being able to take advantage of the Halloween theme. But, not as a lack of Disney's faith in the movie. But still, like Nutcracker, though both would obviously do better during an actual Christmas release, neither would have been the big Christmas event that the studio's are looking for.

The studio's want to suck in the family business and milk the Christmas holiday's for what they can.

To me, movies like Prancer are what Christmas movies are all about. You don't have to have a big budget movie to be a good Christmas movie.

One of my favorite Christmas movies was The Night They Saved Christmas. It had the North Pole, Santa's workshop and was completely Christmas. It looked Christmas and it was only a made for TV movie. Showing, that you can still have a Christmas movie without the budget of Nutcracker.

Nutcracker could have been a lot better movie, it they actually made it as a Christmas movie (by my definition).

Even though Nightmare was not a blockbuster hit. Considering that it was made on an 18-million dollar budget, it was very successful financially speaking. Again, reinforcing that you do not need a big budget for a successful Christmas movie.

Home alone was shot for 17-million and it killed every movie out there. I will give it credit for that.

I think that because of this, Chris Columbus was chosen to direct Harry Potter. I think the studio wanted a director that had proven success with a family audience. They were right on the money.

 

I don't know about that.

The trailer's do not portray the movie as "high Culture" ballet, but rather clearly a Disney family movie, centered around Christmas and the Nutcracker story.

It was not at all portrayed as "high Culture".

I do grant you, that you would likely be correct if the movie was a high production value (meaning cost ot make) real ballet of the Nutcracker.

Here are always so many Nutcracker's on TV during the holiday season, that people can watch at home.

Not being a high culture ballet fan myself (or opera), the Nutcracker is about the only ballet that my level of culture will allow me to sit through anyway.

Once I have seen a decently produces and costumed ballet version of the Nutcracker. They really would be no reason for me to see it performed by another ballet company. That would have no meaning to me.

I would go to see it live, if I was taking a child to see it in a live performance.

 

Columbus also made "Mrs. Doubtfire" to add to his "family audience" credits.

Even so, I recall Columbus was viewed as a surprising choice for Potter because he'd never handled a big fantasy movie like that. He did "Bicentennial Man", which had a sci-fi side, but a) it bombed, and b) it was more of a sentimental drama than a tentpole film.

FWIW, although the 2 Columbus Potters sold tickets, they're arguably the weakest of the series, IMO. I think a different director would've done better with those properties...

 

As I understand it, Steven Spielberg was the main contender early on. He indicated that he wanted to cast the "I see dead people" kid in the roll of HP. Rowling was not on board with this at all.

I really thought that it was the success from Home Alone, that made both Rowing and the studio's comfortable with this.

I believe that a key factor was understanding the family audience and believing (correctly so) that he would have the ability to work successfully with children.

I had not read the story at the time, but I thought that the first HP was well done. It did portray the innocence of young children, which worked well with the inexperienced young cast.

I think that the prime directive in the first movie was to be faithful to the book and it's legion of fans, more than anything else. the first HP movie had to be an establishing shot for everything that was to follow.

It had to be a movie that was relatable to a nine year old audience, which, if ticket sales are a yardstick, it was all that and more.

Myself, I felt the chemistry and relationship of the three leads did more than anything else to carry the movie and build a foundation of their character's that would take them through the entire franchise.

The casting of these three is the primary reason that I like the franchise above any other factor.

I thought that COS was an excellent movie that took the franchise toward a darker next step, far apart from the first "fantasy" movie. I think that starting out more of a fantasy movie provided the contrasts to move the franchise forward into the other books/movies.

now that I am thinking of it the first HP did have a distinct "Christmas" thing at Hogwarts. After all, it did have that magical November 14th, mid November release date.

Chris did move aside to make way for three other noteworthy director's to talk over the helm of the franchise, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell and David Yates. I do agree, that all of whom did a superb job.

 

I think Bicentennial Man is a secret minor master-peace I know it is not loved by many but every time I watch it it gets better and better.

 

I saw it theatrically and thought it was awful. Never saw it again - might need to revisit it...

 

It seems that the singing cowboy is not quite over yet, check out this post on the subject of Christmas.

And here I was thinking that the singing cowboy was conceptually dead.

 

This. Exactly.

 

Here's one, released in March 1987.

 

The first two films follow the books very closely. I think the first one captures the magic and establishes the world perfectly. The second one simply has weaker material to work with. There is no bad Potter book or film, but Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire are the lesser entries. The only mistakes they made in the first two (imo) were casting Dumbledore too old and feeble, and Lockhart in the 2nd one did not work for me.

The later directors did an excellent job of turning very thick books into fun two hour films.

But the first movie is...magical.

 

First movie is magical.

I never thought that the second movie had weak material to work with. I thought that COS was a good next step, stepping away from the magical fantasy into the darkness of Voldermort. The first movie did not really play him as being the dark as did COS.

I liked Richard Harris as Dumbledore, I think the very old wizard worked exceptionally well for the part as Dumbledore was supposed to be quite old. It helps make him what he is, old but extremely powerful. When they have the powerful parts you don't see it coming because of his age, but he does project his powerful magic.

Locckhart was an odd character, but I think that Kenneth did a god job playing the part.

I thought all of the movies worked well together in a nice progression.

 

I like them all. I like the plot of Chamber of Secrets a lot. I am not sure why it ranks below the others for me (except Goblet of Fire).

I just found Harris to be too weak.

 

Sink or Swim?

 

Looks like Magic Mike with scales.

 

I was just going to post this one. For some reason, the 'Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?' debate rages on, but for some strange reason, there is no debate as to whether or not this high-octane, immensely popular action flick that takes place during the Christmas season is a Christmas movie.

 

Well at least we can enjoy the 15th or 20th Robin Hood remake.

 

The end credit music for Die Hard was Vaughn Monroe's 1946 hit "Let It Snow," which most people regard as a Christmas song (but it actually doesn't mention Christmas in the lyrics). I only know this because I worked on the film and had to watch it a half-dozen times. The entire movie takes place in a 24-hour period where NY policeman Bruce Willis reunites with his LA wife for her office Christmas party, and things go awry. There were some memorable Christmas references like this one:



(You can't quite read it, but the bottom of the shirt says "ho, ho, ho.") I think properly, this is an action/adventure/heist movie that happens to take place at Christmas, but it's not exactly a Christmas movie. A Christmas Story or any of the Santa Clause Tim Allen films are Christmas movies.

 

Going to be huge 250+ million ..US alone

 

This was the point that I was trying to make. Just because a movie happens to take place around "Christmas" time and happens to have a Christmas tree and some Christmas decorations in it, doesn't make it a "Christmas" movie, in my book.

In order for me to consider a movie a Christmas movie, it has to have some sort of real Christmas theme at it's core. As you say, A Christmas Story or any of the Santa Clause Tim Allen films are Christmas movies.

Prancer, Ernest saves Christmas, Christmas Vacation, Nightmare Before Halloween, Scrooged. Any movie that has some sort of take on an actual Christmas theme, no matter how odd it may be.

Even the stupid Nutcracker movie was not really a good Christmas movie. It wasn't even a good Nutcracker movie.

How do you even make a Nutcracker movie that is not really a Christmas movie, when it comes down to it?

With two director's and over a month of re-shoots and it barely lasted two weeks in the theaters?

 

One of the points of the "Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs" threads is to basically come up with reasons why the studio thought a particular idea was a good one, even when it seems patently obvious that it was bound to fail. But there's always those fun exceptions when an idea sounds terrible on the surface, then you see it and it's a terrific movie that makes tons of money.

I know there have been occasions where a movie got greenlit, everybody loved the original script, and then something happened -- like an A-list star got attached and insisted on another rewrite -- and the movie wound up turning into something completely different. Sometimes, they get halfway through editing and the studio says, "nope, this ain't working" and fires everybody, then goes in and reshoots and reedits the movie in a desperate attempt to try to save it. That rarely works. (I can think of several examples: The Wolfman was a good one, where the director was fired twice, and they had two different editors working for over a year to try to shape it into a good movie, and it never worked.)

The recent Tom Cruise reboot of The Mummy had me going, "what were they thinking?", because it was so awful. That was one where the director complained that Cruise had the movie rewritten to include all the action stuff he thought his audience needed to see.

 

It's underwater Black Panther.

I think James Wan is skilled enough to make a decent film that hits the right notes. That is all you need to do these days with a comic book film for it to do well at the box office, it doesn't really need to be great. Look at Venom, Suicide Squad and BVS - all pretty average but they still all made big money.

There is an audience for these films now and as long as they don't hear it's terrible they will go. Sink.

 

I dig all these type of movies...Seen all the Superhero movies from DC and Marvel

Aquaman has a lot of potential since he's from Atlantis but also mingle's with mere humans, kind of like Marvels Thor

They picked the right actor for the role for sure, I'm looking forward to seeing it.