Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2019

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Dec 17, 2018.

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  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

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    I'm guessing, you have a good tax accountant. :righton:
     
  2. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    A
    Acgually, both films you mentioned I would probably go see too! I’m a sucker for Christmas themed movies.
     
  3. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Do you think there’s a good chance this might stay in theaters longer than they thought given word of mouth and a lot of people seeing it again? If so it might exceed expectations. Even if it could just go 25 million over expectations that would be pretty impressive. I’m surprised, given you are saying there wasn’t big expectations, that Sony would allow such a big budget for a risky film that they didn’t see a lot of upside potential for.
     
  4. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Maybe they're looking at a long-term relationship with Mr. Tarantino. There's a lot more that he could be doing beyond directing.
     
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  5. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    My prediction for Once Upon a Time is a domestic gross in the $130 million range for its run, currently at $108.8.
     
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  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Glad to see that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is now doing well overseas: it's the number one film in the world (outside America) right now, and is the best foreign-opening film Tarantino has ever had:

    Box Office: ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ Pulls Ahead of ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Overseas

    Meanwhile, I was surprised to see that Rocketman is being looked upon as a disappointment:

    Box Office: 'Rocketman' Is A Hit, But Paramount Needed A Home Run

    It cost $40M but made "only" $187M. In any other circumstances, that's a very profitable film, but I think Paramount got it in their heads that it would be possible to get close to the massive hit grosses of Bohemian Rhapsody, which brought in an astonishing $903 million dollars (along with several major awards). Repeating a formula -- gay 1970s rock icon descends to drugs and madness, but eventually overcomes his triumphs and has a great career -- doesn't always work. The scholars will be picking apart the two films for years and trying to analyze why Bohemian worked but Rocketman did not. I liked both films, but I confess I liked the former more.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2019
  7. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I never saw BR. But was well aware of what it did at the box office.

    I also never thought that RM would come anywhere near what BR did at the box office.

    From the trailers, I could see the excitement about a band that was super popular worldwide.

    With RM, it was a story about a 72-year old guy that plays the piano. How many people around the world really care about the details of his life?

    I enjoyed RM, thought it was entertaining and well done, but I never thought it would be any kind of super hit.

    It was done on about the budget that I thought would be necessary and it made as good of return as could be reasonably expected.

    I personally thought it was the wrong decision to release the film with an "R" rating, which might imply TMI to the general public.
     
  8. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    It was a very mild "R" as far as I'm concerned. There's far worse on TV with "TV-MA" ratings these days.

    BTW, back to today's box office: I am shocked that the movie Good Boys is not only a hit, it's a huge hit, the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in 3 years and the #1 U.S. film of the weekend...

    Box Office: ‘Good Boys’ Leads Crowded Weekend With $21 Million

    I would've pegged this for a very modest success (if that), but I would've been way wrong. I saw the trailer and thought, "ehhhhhhhh, nope."
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2019
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  9. Oatsdad

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

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    "Rocketman" has some male full nudity - albeit brief and not "in your face" - as well as rampant drug use and many, many uses of the "F word" as well as other bits of profanity.

    It lacks graphic violence but clearly earned its "R". Saying it's a "very mild 'R'" implies that it could've been lightly edited and become "PG-13".

    "Rocketman" would've needed a LOT of work to get to "PG-13"!
     
  10. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
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    Agree. Saw the trailer about 20x in the past 2 months and the movie is so obvious with every cliché they could think of I also thought most people would see through it but you know what they say about the public.
     
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  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Oh, trust me, that's a mild R. They had to cut it down as it was to avoid an NC-17. If anything, Bohemian Rhapsody was much too lukewarm -- that very definitely could've been a hard R.
     
  12. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I am a huge Elton fan but I really didn’t like the film that much. Likely Bohemian was simply a better film.
     
  13. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I agree that it is a very mild "R", but it is the rating that often implies to the view what they might be expecting to see.

    More of a perception than anything else.

    I just think that it would have fared much better at the box office with a PG-13 rating and maybe have been a better, more interesting movie.
     
  14. Oatsdad

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

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    Again, "mild 'R'" implies a film that is borderline "PG-13".

    As you note, the movie was almost "NC-17", which indicates that it was nowhere close to a "PG-13".

    No movie with the nudity and profanity and drug use of "Rocketman" comes close to a "PG-13", so it's not a "mild 'R'"...
     
  15. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
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    I guess filmmakers can't win. People complained that "Boh Rhap" sanitized Freddie's life to get a "PG-13". Elton goes for a more blunt "R" version and gets criticized! :sigh:
     
  16. There's no way that Paramount expected the R-rated Rocketman to match Bohemian Rhapsody's box office.
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Naw, there are definite hard separators between a PG-13 and an R.

    The Real Difference Between "PG-13" and "R" Rated Movies

    The Difference Between PG-13 and R

    PG-13 vs. R: What's the Difference, Really?

    But then there's this:

    Little difference between PG-13 and R-rated films, study says

    If you haven't seen it, watch the documentary This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated, which goes into the struggle by independent filmmakers to get commercial ratings (i.e., PG-13 and R) when the MPAA wants to try to push their ratings higher. And yet major-studio releases usually go in and get exactly the rating they want and expect. Don't forget there's a $5000 fee every time you submit a film for a rating -- and that includes re-ratings where you're trying to get a lower (more commercial) rating.

    Looking at current films: I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was R-rated throughout just for language. And then the violence at the end pushed it from a "mild-R" (language) to a "hard-R" (gruesome violence, on-screen deaths, close-ups of dead bodies, scenes of torture, etc.). You can argue that the brief Nazi clip alone might have gotten them an R. Could Tarantino have pushed it into NC-17 territory? Sure, but generally that version becomes the "unrated" home video release... which (unfortunately) becomes a home video release that kids have relatively-easy access to.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2019
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  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    I don't think it would be -- I think there are conceptual problems with the movie that made it less of a commercial success. It's fascinating to me that both Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman were largely supervised and controlled by one director, Dexter Fletcher. The biggest problem with Rocketman is that Elton was alive and had a lot of say in how his life was portrayed. As it was, it's clear they went for different approaches with both films, and yet the similarities are interesting.

    I liked both films somewhat, but I was more interested in Bohemian Rhapsody because it had more of a dramatic flow, culminating with the Live Aid concert. I know that historical events weren't exactly as they were portrayed in the film, but it works very well dramatically; Elton's film didn't have the same ebb and flow. I can see why Bohemian made more than three times as much money as Rocketman.
     
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  19. Oatsdad

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

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  20. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    ... that explains it well. ; ) but sometimes the adults have to have a movie of their own...like teach the children well? instead of living around them...what's wrong with; no you can't watch that...simple. or watch it when they're sleeping. I never had a problem with R and above rated movies with my children...they listened.
     
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  21. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    I'm waiting for the BD of Rocketman...
     
  22. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    why not? just curious...so basically they cater movies for young people? there are millions of fans of both...
     
  23. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    I'd like to see the extra behind-the-scenes bits. And there's always the chance of an unrated version.

    I think some kids at a certain age can handle it, but some can't. I think it's hard to pinpoint a specific age, but I would get nervous for kids 10 and under. You can always make an argument for a loving relationship in a film that has some mild sexual content, vs. a film where people are machine gunned in the face and splattered... both rated R. Which is more harmful?
     
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  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    The trick is that it's a moving target. I've provided past examples of films that used to be PG-13, but when they went back to get it re-rated, it became an R... with no editorial changes. And there have (famously) been some X or NC-17 films that got re-rated back to R without any changes. So a lot of it is very arbitrary.

    I've gone through incidents like the ones depicted in This Film Is Not Yet Rated, even some nail-biting cases where the director was terrified that their film would get an NC-17, which would stop the distributor from advertising it releasing it widely. Sometimes, we made it to an R just by the virtue of a few frames here or there. The economic impact of the "wrong" rating can have a terrible effect on films and careers.

    And there was the famous case of Terror in the Aisles, a compilation film I worked on for weeks where it was made up of all clips from R-rated horror and suspense films. And the MPAA kept giving it an NC-17 because of the "intensity." Five people dying grisly deaths in one minute is too much, but four is OK? The rules were hard to nail down, so it was all very subjective. I think it took 7 or 8 tries before they finally got an R rating. (And in truth, the unrated version was released to home video, and it's not that much worse.)

    I think they anticipated it woulds hit half the numbers ($450M), but it didn't even make 1/3 ($187M instead of the hoped-for $300M).
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2019
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  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    we both know the answer to that. ; ) and it ain't no love of a machine gun! being responsible is the key...
     
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