Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2022

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Jan 7, 2022.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    And after a brief absence, we're back to predicting which major-release Hollywood movies will do well and which will flop for this year. Some of these were technically released in late December 2021, but for our purposes we'll call them "2022 films" since the bulk of their release dates will come from this year.

    Already we've seen West Side Story bomb big-time. That Spielberg musical cost $100M, plus at least another $50M for marketing, and I think it's taken in less than $50M as of this week (and fading fast from theaters). Conservatively, I think it would have to make at least $250M-$300M to make a profit. That's never going to happen. Does it mean audiences are rejecting musicals? I dunno: Greatest Showman defied the odds and went from "the little film that could" to bringing in a whopping $434 million, which I think nobody in their wildest dreams ever imagined.

    While there was a lot of fan interest in Matrix: Resurrections, I think the reality is after more than 18 years, maybe they waited too long, and the actors were too old to connect to a younger audience. It didn't help that it cost somewhere north of $190M and has only made $100M as of this week. My guess is that they'd have to hit $400M to break even... and you're living in another dimension if you think that's ever going to happen. Reviews were middling at best.

    A big action film I hadn't thought about much was King's Man, and that wound up bombing big-time:

    Why ‘The King’s Man’ Was A Predictable Box Office Disaster

    I think this article is a sobering analysis of why movies like this fail, and the lessons learned from sequels that can't bring the original audiences back to the theaters.

    And in the hits category, Spiderman: No Way Home shows no sign of stopping, and it just hit $1.4 billion dollars as of this week. The only question now is whether it'll hit $2 billion worldwide in the next month or two. We're going back to see it in Imax tomorrow, and I'm going to look for all the Easter Eggs I missed the first time.
     
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  2. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
    Licorice Pizza , your honest opinion on the BO ?? I don't think the film is any good, but it is receiving love from this forum and the critics
     
  3. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Glad to see you jumping back in on this topic for 2022! We just saw American Underdog, and it’s the first time I’ve gone back to a theater in a very long time. It was a fantastic, well done film. Highly recommended.

    i don’t know what in the world they were thinking producing West Side Story. Who thought that had any chance for success? Spielberg or not, I just don’t think that’s a film that needed to be redone. Of all the things he could have done, why that?
     
  4. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think Spielberg has $7 billion or $8 billion in the bank, and at this point he's glancing nervously at the clock and realizing he only has a chance of making another 4 or 5 good films in his lifetime (at best). I think "musical" had been on his bucket list for a long time, and he figured "why not try to remake one of the greatest musicals ever made?" In hindsight, I think it was a bad idea, but I think it was a dream project, one he loved as a child, and also a chance to possibly win some Oscars. I think he'd have better luck with a Western or maybe a screwball comedy (neither of which he's made yet), but that's me.

    I think the critics are giving it very good reviews. 92% on Rotten Tomatoes ain't bad. It's very hard to get a mid-budget ($40M) period piece financed and released these days. I think a better market for this film would have been Netflix or Amazon, but Paul Anderson is clearly committed to film -- both shooting on it and releasing it on film in theaters. It's been playing on and off at Tarantino's New Beverly Theater in my office's neighborhood for a couple of weeks. I'd like to see it, but I'm willing to wait for streaming. But the images look beautiful and the story looks heartfelt: I think it's a brave idea to do an unrequited romantic story of a friendship between a 15-year-old boy and a 25-year-old girl. Financially, I don't think it's doing great, but the budget is low enough that I think it'll eventually do OK.

    I admire filmmakers who take risks and make really personal films that don't necessarily have big audiences, especially when it's one about a period like the 1970s. Anderson is 51, so he's actually too young to have been a teenager in 1973, but the film very much captures what life in the San Fernando Valley was like in the seventies. I would say it succeeded artistically even if it didn't make a lot of money. I'll be curious to see if it picks up any major award nominations.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2022
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  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    There were a few why nots...

    Many films that were either big at the box office or Academy award winners, were so because it was their "time". If many of these same films were to be made or remade at a different period of time, they would neither be successful at the box office nor would they make the academy award "darling" list.

    Musicals are not dead, they never were. They may be less popular now than they were back in the 50's and late 60's in the Roger's and Hammerstein days.

    But. You still have to make the right musical. Just making a musical because you decide to make one or because another musical was popular and made money, doesn't work. Good modern musicals have made tons of money at the box office.

    Couldn't Spielberg at least find something original? Something that might work better for modern audiences?

    One of the big comments I have heard about WWS was that it didn't connect with hispanic audiences.

    The big white elephant in the room is that, while earlier in the 20th century, there were groups from Europe, like the Italians, who spoke Italian in their neighborhoods, but English was the established language in "America".

    Those who came here from Puerto Rico were already US citizens and did not have to "immigrate" as we think of it today. They quickly assimilated and learned to speak English, moving on to other northern cities like Chicago.

    This is very similar to the early Cubans who arrived here in 1960. "the initial wave of Cubans was distinctive because of the large number of professional and middle-class people who migrated..." (Britannica.com). They quickly learned to speak English because English was the spoken language in S. Florida back then.

    My point is not intended to be political, only to point out the obvious. Hispanics in America do not identify with WSS, anymore than anyone else does.

    Phrases such as "free to waite tables and shine shoes" are not relatable. Sure, they waite tables and work in kitchens, the same as other Americans. Shining shoes went out of style decades ago. People in general working in restaurants waiting tables make decent money and drive SUV's. Speaking English is no longer a criteria for "living in America".

    WSS is out of date and out of touch. That is why it failed. It was a movie that didn't need to be remade and shouldn't have been remade.

    This is in no way being critical of the fine acting and casting, wonderful costumes, score, dancing, location shooting, production values and Spielberg.

    Movies like The Matrix, join ranks with other sequels of aging actors like the Terminator and Rambo franchises.
     
  6. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Remaking "WSS" was always a bad idea.

    Don't remake classics. There's nowhere to go but down.

    The best remake targets are movies with potential to be good that don't get there. Stay away from movies that received nothing but acclaim and success.
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Well, if that were true, then the Broadway revivals of West Side Story done over the past 40 years would have bombed. They're just telling a "Romeo & Juliet" story that has existed for hundreds of years, and it's generally done well. I think the reason why this movie didn't do well is the audience didn't give a crap. It didn't fail because it wasn't diversified enough, or because it was too diversified, or because of the casting, or anything else. I saw the film and thought it had a lot of boring stretches, and I think most of the lead actors lacked charisma. I don't think it's a story modern audiences wanted to see. But it's a very well-made movie, so it's unfortunate when world-class technicians and artists get together and crank out a movie like this.

    Spielberg has said he's struggled in the past 10 years to get films made -- in particular, he said getting The Post, Bridge of Spies, and Lincoln financed were very difficult -- and part of it is that he's trying to make mid-budget straight-ahead human dramas, which are a tough sell these days. When they do get made, you see 6 or 7 production companies and studio logos at the head of the film, meaning each one shelled out $10 million each so that they had the combined budget to make the film possible. I don't think the failure of West Side Story will make his efforts any easier.

    On the other hand, I thought Ready Player One was a stinker, and I thought The BFG was awful. But the former went on to make almost $600 million, while the latter only made $195M, which was not profitable for a $140m-budget film. So sometimes there's an audience for this stuff. I'm sure studio execs are baffled as to why Alita: Battle Angel tanked, while Ready Player One was a big hit.
     
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  8. townsend

    townsend Senior Member

    Location:
    Ridgway, CO
    To get the ball rolling (drum roll!), here are 22 films to watch (out for?) in 2022: 22 films to watch in 2022

    Movies that I have piqued my interest are The Northman (perhaps finally a period piece that does the Vikings justice . . . no, I didn't dig the TV series), and Killers of the Flower Moon -- this Scorsese film is about the cold-blooded murdering of native Americans (Osage tribe in OK) in order to steal their oil rights. It disgusts me to even have to type that.
     
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  9. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    FWIW if I ran a studio or was financing films and had, say 100 million, I'd look to make one 40-50 million film, and split the rest up into 3 or 4 smaller budget films based on creative and interesting screenplays and capable young directors.

    Let the other guys make the big $ and big bombs. As mentioned here, the whole idea of a remake of WSS is a big 'huh'? and it seems to reflect some strange ideas of who the audience might be for something like that. I haven't been interested in a Spielberg movie since 'Munich' and I wish he'd take on something with narrative integrity, like an Elmore Leonard or George Higgins novel, or aim a bit lower. A Ronin sequel, for instance, would correlate with his strengths as director.
     
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  10. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Here's a new wrinkle on the "Hollywood Bomb" discussion: I had no idea that most of the biggest movie bombs in history were fairly recent...

    Most Of The Biggest Box Office Bombs Of All Time Were Made After 2010

    The biggest bombs so far...

    John Carter
    Lone Ranger
    13th Warrior
    Mortal Engines
    Cutthroat Engine
    Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
    Battleship
    Mars Needs Moms
    Pan
    Tomorrowland


    With few exceptions, those were bad, bad, bad films. In the case of Tomorrowland, you wanted to just grab director Brad Bird and ask "what were you thinking?"

    And this also brings up this evergreen Onion headline...

    Corpses of 'Lone Ranger' Producers Hung From Hollywood Blvd. Street Lights As Warning To Others
     
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think the problem is that five $40M films would be lucky to make $80M apiece, while a single $200M blockbuster (like the current Spiderman: Far from Home) could potentially make $1 billion or more. So the studio execs are just gambling and chasing big money. They want home runs, vs. a 2-base hit.

    You can argue that the small "$20M-$40M human drama" films are now destined for Amazon / Apple / Hulu / Netflix streaming and so on, and maybe on FX, Disney+, HBO, Paramount+, Showtime to a lesser extent. In Spielberg's case, his next film is The Fabelmans, which is a semi-autobiographical film about a young Jewish teenager growing up in Arizona who wants to be a filmmaker. I'd say this is a very interesting, original idea that's not a sequel, not a blockbuster, just a personal human drama, so maybe that's a good direction for him at this point in his career.
     
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  12. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Was disappointed with The Kings Man myself.
    Most of the others you mentioned as well. The Matrix : Resurrections was pretty good I’ll give it a 7/10 and the actors look old especially shaven heads.
     
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  13. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    What predictions : Predator 5 aka Prey?
     
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, I noticed that the filmmakers and the studio are dodging questions as to why Lawrence Fishburne wasn't in the reboot. He's not that old (60, which is just 3 years older than Keanu Reeves), so you wonder...

    I liked the first couple of Predator movies, but there's a point where you make one too many sequels and it becomes very repetitive. Some studio execs would point to Fast & Furious and say "there's never too many sequels," but I'm not a fan.
     
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  15. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    I think we need to go back to the original reason why movies were made starting as far back as the early '20's, an era that desperately made folks want to escape and never come back. Today's world is increasingly making truth stranger and more entertaining than fiction especially with all the wiz bang technology that fragments our already divided attention and scientific advances that take the mystery out of living in predicting quite accurately its risks and pay offs. This probably challenges many writers of fiction to come up with a movie screenplay that's not only believable but more out of this world and never seen before in our history.

    I mean we're still hung up on super hero comic book movies (still top box office draws) telling the same mythological struggles of man's ability to rise above... what?....a better car? better beer? better Wi-Fi reception? better housing? better food? better computers? better HDtv? better health and longevity...

    (i.e Ralph Macchio is freakin' 60 years old and he looks like he's 30! COME ON!). And his Neflix series Cobra Kai is a big hit!

    IOW What the hell do we have to escape from by going to the movies?!
     
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  16. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I'll give Ralph 45 to 50 - he looks younger than 60, for sure. But 30? Nope! :)

    [​IMG]
     
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  17. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    You haven't seen some of my relatives. Your posted pic makes him seem even younger. YEP!
     
  18. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    This is more an indictment on your relatives than it is praise for Macchio! :laugh:

    I'm 54, and Ralph doesn't look significantly younger than my peer group. Like I said, I'll go as low as "45 looking", but that's it - final offer! :D
     
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  19. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    Then it's an indictment on you and your age group that you've had it way too good. Go watch your over 50 year old Spiderman character movie and comb your peach fuzz.:D
     
  20. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Wonder what Spielberg could have done with WSS if he'd engaged Aaron Sorkin to find some new angle, or emotional center, to a story that was irrelevant today. Or Jordan Peele, who has shown some success saying something fresh about race issues.

    He wanted to do a musical just for the sake of doing a musical? How about making a musical out of another film that was concurrently in development...like, who knows, "Licorice Pizza"...? The same film, only as an '80s rock opera...? No baggage on expectations, because nobody would have seen the original while he was re-envisioning it...or maybe " Pig", in the style of a Rice-Webber musical...
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2022
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Speaking of other bombs, I've seen the Pixar trailer Turning Red, a film about a little girl who inexplicably turns into a red furry monster because of a family curse, playing at a bunch of theaters. I thought, "there is no way this thing can make money in theaters," and apparently Disney decided today that they agreed, and it's going to only stream on Disney+:

    ‘Turning Red’ Skips Theaters & Heads To Disney+ For March Debut – Deadline

    The Pixar gang are bummed-out, because this is the third Pixar film a row that went to streaming, after Soul (which is a very good film) and Luca.
     
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  22. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    The audience didn't give a crap not because it didn't have enough diversity or that it had too much diversity. This is one of those modern cases where wokeness that Hollywood is prone to serving up, didn't enter into the picture.

    The movie just did not interest or connect with modern core audiences. We already understand that the geezer crowd, preferring to remain home and view movies on streaming services. But, even if more geezers went to the theater, it still would not be enough to impact theater revenue. A commercially viable movie must have a primary audience, which WSS clearly did not.

    Another point, making comparisons to Broadway, the medium is the message.

    Taking another example from Broadway. South Pacific hit Broadway back in 1949 and held the record of being the 2nd longest running music at that time. The movie version came out in 1958 and was the #1 film for box office revenue for the year.

    Fast forward to 2008...

    A revival of South Pacific opens at Lincoln Center and was a big success. It ran until August of 2010, more than two years and 996 performances.

    Now, have Spielberg or any director of your choosing remake the movie on a hundred million dollar budget and it will BOMB! It will require location shooting in the islands, where the weather is bad all the time. You just can't go on location in NYC. You just can't put yellow filters over the lens and sing a song.

    But, no matter what is done or who is doing it, nobody will care and nobody is going to go see it. On top of which. The media will have a field day condemning Asian stereotypes and Lieutenant Cable having a relationship with an underage girl.

    No matter what, a movie remake will fail, yet the plays revival was very successful.

    The main "Romeo and Juliet" theme of WSS, deals with a forbidden relationship between two different nationalities. No body cares. This is common in the U.S. today and we see it on every TV show.

    This was an underlying theme in South Pacific also. But today, not only does nobody care, they wouldn't even notice.

    Just my thoughts on a failed movie...

    Cat's as a movie, didn't work out so well either.

    Copiously, the audiences for Alita brought in $405M. Let's see how WWS ends up against it? I don't view Alita as a failure with those numbers. Without having any previous following, a whole lot of people came to see it. Due to being made in 3D and with pioneering new performance capture technology, it was just an expensive movie to make. I would say that it about broke even. Maybe it was not a money maker but neither was it a failure.
     
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  23. Kevin In Choconut Center

    Kevin In Choconut Center Offensive Coordinator

    Just a few thoughts here. I liked "West Side Story". I found "The King's Man" to be kind of underwhelming. I too, saw the trailer for "Turning Red" and had my doubts about it.

    Trailers I saw yesterday before "The 355" included ones for "The Batman", which looks good, and "Death On The Nile", which looks to be a beautifully filmed movie.
    As regards "The 355', I liked it.
     
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  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I would say if it cost almost $200M, then $400m would be a breakeven at best. And studios don't like movies that break even -- they like movies that make money.
     
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  25. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    WSS' performance is far worse, only $49 million grossed to date on a production budget of $100 million + who knows how much more in publicity & marketing. This one is going to bleed a significant amount of red ink, probably a nine digit loss.
     
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