Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2020

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Dec 4, 2019.

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  1. sharedon

    sharedon Forum Zonophone

    Location:
    Boomer OK
    The extremely loud sound systems, rowdy kids and noisy other folks, uncomfortable seats, and screens of diminishing size led to my hardly ever going to a movie theater before all this. I really want to see Bond 25 (good or bad), but.... I dunno if I'll hazard a trip to do it this fall.
     
  2. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    As long as I don’t touch my face until I get home and wash my hands, the things I touch in a supermarket aren’t going to hurt me. Extended close contact/shared confined airspace with breathing, speaking humans are the only things that can hurt me. The air is what can hurt me, not things I touch. That potential hurt is reduced by distance + mask when indoors. My mask doesn’t protect me as much as others’ masks protect me.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2020
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  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yes, we're fans of that concept, too. I was really disappointed when I found out that the Alamo Drafthouse that opened up in LA late last year just closed and may not open up again -- that's a great environment to see films, new and old.
     
  4. Jeff Edwards

    Jeff Edwards Senior Member

    Movie theaters here closed before they were legally required to.
     
  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    True, but right before they closed, movie theaters had almost no patrons. The same thing holds true right now.

    Since your school is now out, you can go to early shows during the week, when the theater would be normally less crowded.

    Now, the theaters are going to be way less crowded.

    You may very well go to shows where you are the only one in the auditorium or one of the very few people in the auditorium.

    Remember also, that a movie theater is different than a regular retail establishment.

    Movie theaters have a large volume of air. By their nature, they are large rooms with high ceilings, this gives you a much larger room overall than most any other indoor space that yoy might be in, outside of a large shopping mall.

    Covid-19 aside, I have always avoided crowded confined spaces where people are coughing and sneezing around me.

    I don't particularly care for crowds anyway and tend to avoid them by preference.

    Which is one of the main reasons I always go to movies at times where the crowds will be the least heavy.

    I am just short of being 66 years old, which does put me in a higher risk category.

    Still, I have no intention of living out the remaindet of my life in isolation.

    But, all things considered, I consider a movie theater to be a low risk environment, as it presently exists.

    If I felt that seeing a movie in a theater posed an undue risk, I simply would not be attending.

    You might, or should say, definitely would be better off with a N95 mask that would give yourself much greater protection, in a public environment.

    Your first and foremost obligation would be to protect yourself, when you are out in a public surrounding.

    If I felt that I might be risking my life, when out in public, I would certainly use every method of protection that may be available to me.
     
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  6. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    You make some very good points, as usual. :)

    Theaters aren’t even open here yet, and there is no word other than from theater owners as to when they even might open. So I have plenty of time to think about it.

    I have no desire to live out my life in isolation either. I’m still frustrated that even vast, open air places I normally visit this time of year (public gardens, sculpture parks) in both NJ and NY are still closed.
     
  7. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Some encouraging signs overseas.

    Box Office Milestone: 'Little Women' Crosses $100M Overseas as Moviegoing Resumes

    The Sony film recently opened in Japan and Denmark.
    Greta Gerwig's Oscar-nominated film Little Womenhas crossed the $100 million mark at the international box office in a welcome sign as cinemas begin to reopen around the globe after shuttering three months ago due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

    The Sony and New Regency film pulled in $475K from 472 screens in 12 foreign markets, led by Japan — where it opened last weekend — with $300K for a two-week total of $1.3 million. Little Women also opened recently in Denmark, where it earned $170K over the weekend for a territory total of $1 million.

    Little Women's global gross now stands at $209 million.

    Sony reported the weekend grosses on Sunday, becoming the first Hollywood studio to issue box office numbers since the shutdown and as roughly 2,000 theaters go back online worldwide.

    In addition to solid box office traffic in Japan and Denmark, there was also good news in South Korea, where Sony's local-language film Gyul-Baek (Innocence) earned a strong $1.2 million in its second weekend for an early total of $4.2 million.

    In the U.S., most cinemas are planning to reopen by mid-July in time for new titles including Mulanon July 24 and Tenet on July 31. Late last week, AMC came under criticism when saying it would defer to local authorities in terms of whether customers are required to wear face masks. The largest circuit in the U.S. quickly reversed course and said masks would be required (Regal Cinemas followed suit).
     
  8. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
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  9. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Maybe I live in an alternate universe, but aside from this thread, no one I know cares about box office numbers. Everyone I know decides to see a movie based on ads/trailers they’ve seen, reviews they’ve seen or read, and/or word of mouth from people they know.
     
  10. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    Alternate universe over here too.
     
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  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Then get out of the thread.
     
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  12. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    What? Why?

    I am interested in this topic and have been following this thread for ages.

    I’m just saying that in my personal experience, the people I know don’t care about box office numbers and don’t choose movies that way. That is in direct contrast to what the article you posted states, that average people like to talk about this and choose movies this way. Just saying I disagree with the “social” premise of the article, that’s all.

    Sheesh.
     
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  13. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI

    The bold and underlined sentence above has always been the criteria I used to decide whether or not I wanted to see a film...

    However, when the local news would have their report of what the top five films were, I was always interested in that, just because I'd like to know how certain films were doing. But, that never was a deciding factor in whether I'd want to see a film or not.
     
  14. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I think average people are only aware of box numbers when there is a new super big hit, like Titanic, Avatar and Endgame.

    Or when they read about big box office failures in the news.

    Really, neither of these are good ways to evaluate the merits of a movie as an artform.

    This thread is more like bookmaking or off track betting.
     
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  15. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    Agree, that outside of the peculiar world of this forum, no one cares. I’ve never once heard my wife say, “Movie X is doing great at the box office, let’s go see it.” I’ve never heard her, or the vast majority of the people in my day to day life, debate or discuss in any way the box office numbers for any movie. Agree 100% that, outside of the Hollywood and/or nerd bubble, people decide to see movies because of word of mouth or trailers or advertising.
     
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  16. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I don’t think that stuff should matter to me. But I do find a number one album, or number one film, will compel me to at least look into it. So I think even if one think’s it doesn’t matter, sometimes it does even if subconsciously. It’s just one other way we are aware of things. Caring about it, as brownie said, might be another matter altogether.
     
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  17. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I think you dismiss the popularity of box office news too much.

    The WaPo publishes weekend box office every Monday - well, they did when theaters were open.

    I doubt they're the only mainstream newspaper that does this.

    So there's clearly an audience for this info beyond Internet nerds...
     
  18. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    They also publish, or before the Internet at least, used to publish stock prices and baseball box scores and a bunch of other specialized information that only people in interested in that particular subject looked at. I’ve seen the box office rankings in newspapers and online. I’m aware that that’s a thing. What I’ve never run across in real life is anyone saying to me, “Hey, I see the new Hobbit movie broke $200 million, we should go see it.”
     
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  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    This is a thread for people who actually care about Hollywood movies and whether or not they're hits or bombs... hence, the title of the thread. It's not a discussion for people who want to argue that average people don't care about box office numbers.

    Average people also don't care about CD mastering, Beatles vs. Stones, whether vinyl is better than CD, whether tubes are better than transistors, or any number of arcane discussions that happen every day on this group. The forum is not for average people -- it's for crazy fans who love arguing and discussing these things.

    This would be like getting on a group dedicated to discussing 1950s Chevys and saying, "you know, you guys are full of crap. The 1970s Fords are so much better." That's kind of the very definition of thread crapping: if you don't like the subject and can't find a way to contribute to the discussion in a positive way, hit the road. I see stuff all the time on the board where I roll my eyes and say, "nope, I'm not going to dive into that hornet's nest" and I just move on.

    Bear in mind I've lived and worked in LA for more than 40 years, and I've been in the film & TV industry for a long time. Box office grosses, ratings, and reviews are important to how I look at the business, and to some extent I have to be aware of all this stuff just to be able to do my job and have a conversation with filmmakers. I know an awful lot of people not in the business who are just hardcore movie fans who are into the minutia even more than I am.

    There have been cases where I saw a preview for a new film and read a review and thought, "aaaaa, that doesn't sound like something I need to see." And then it explodes in theaters and makes a ton of money. Maybe a couple of weeks later I think, "maybe I should see this just to get a sense of what all the hoopla is about." I have an interest in a lot of facets of pop culture, and sometimes it's good to observe just to see what's popular. Some stuff is awful to me (like the Fast & Furious movies, which I won't see in the theaters any more), but I get that there's a market for it and big audiences enjoy these films.
     
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  20. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    The very first line of the article you linked says:

    “The blockbuster age, it’s usually said, began with the release of “Jaws” and “Star Wars.” But you could argue that the blockbuster mentality didn't fully kick in until ordinary moviegoers began to fixate on the question of what was doing well (or not) at the box office.”

    Another line says:

    “The popularization of the box-office report heightened the dynamic of people wanting to see hit movies because they were hit movies.”

    I, and others, have said that we don’t see ordinary moviegoers doing any such thing. So that negates your claim that there is some sort of social fallout from the lack of box office reports.

    I personally look at box office articles every week, but not one person, not one ordinary moviegoer, whom I know outside of this thread would care. And that’s all I meant by my post.

    You are not an ordinary moviegoer.

    I’m not sure why you are trying to chase me out.
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2020
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  21. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Curious as to how much of your entertainment budget is spent on entertainment you "want" to see, as opposed to how much you "ought to" see. Obviously you're in a rarified environment, where you have that freedom to indulge in both your wants and your tangential interests. I know before the tax laws changed, I spent a lot of disposable income on perfectly-deductible expenses based on being in tune with the publics' interest in entertainment, based on my wife's and my own radio careers. "Show prep" is a viable expense in our industry, and my accountant was very aggressive, and well-versed in, what the IRS was comfortable with for various career expenses.
     
  22. The Wanderer

    The Wanderer Seeker of Truth

    Location:
    NYC
    I read reviews, make an assessment, and decide what I want to see - I pretty much discount 'blockbuster' status.
     
  23. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    No one claims that people consciously say "I'll see that new George Clooney movie if it hits $90 million opening weekend".

    I am saying there's clearly more general interest in box office than in the past.

    The WaPo puts that data smackdab in prime real estate in the "Style" section. It's not relegated to the pages for specialists.

    And given how much smaller the WaPo is than it used to be, that says something. They dropped the data you mentioned but added weekend box office...
     
  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I use a lot of different factors, mainly friends and also critics whose opinions I value, sometimes social media. And I watch a lot of trailers, probably 10x1 more than actual films. If the movie has a good buzz, if the trailer looks good, if the reviews are positive, I'll go see it (at least pre-pandemic). Once in a blue moon, I'll see something I know is going to be bad (like Cats) just because I'm curious how bad it'll be. I don't think I generally saw more than 2-3 films a month at theaters. Maybe another 2 a week at home (in addition to whatever I'm working on, which is not exactly "watching a movie").

    We do subscribe to a lot of entertainment services, so at the moment we're getting Amazon, Apple TV, CBS All-Access, Disney+, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Showtime, and a lot of stuff on DirecTV. I just finished watching all of the classic Universal Horror films on Blu-ray, and just started watching all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films in 4K HDR and in chronological story order, which is fun.
     
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  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think that's obvious. And ordinary people don't care about vinyl vs. CD, or CD vs. streaming, or tubes vs. transistors, or analog vs. digital, or any of the thousands of conversations that happen every day. So what? I'm talking to the people here. Crazy movie fans absolutely care about things like this. I'm the first to say, "just because a movie makes money doesn't make it good," and there are plenty of bombs that were good movies, and plenty of bad movies that make money.

    Still, as witnessed by the discussions of Doolittle and Cats and a few other huge 2020 bombs, it's interesting to dissect what happened and why these films all tanked at the box office. In a lot of cases, the films were extremely bad and/or maybe made for the wrong reasons. And that's the intent of this thread. Saying that "nobody cares about this" is just thread-crapping.

    Go over to the next "Beatles vs. Stones" thread and say "ordinary people don't care about this," and see how far you get.
     
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