Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2022

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

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  1. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I think this Scream will perform better because of the passage of time, in 2011 Scream was simply old hat, not quite at the point of nostalgia, think some of the middle Halloween movies. Now it's been a quarter century and the original is a classic to people in the 30s and 40s while having reached legendary status with younger folk. Ghost Face has officially entered Jason, Michael, Freddy territory and we saw how Halloween 2018 (and Kills to a lesser extent although that one was streaming from day one which certainly impacted its gross) did
     
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  2. MelodyFair

    MelodyFair West Coast Suburban Hausfrau

    Location:
    British Columbia
    I'm hoping All Quiet on the Western front comes out this year. From the pictures I've seen it looks incredible. Other than that, I want more Sally Hawkins films. She is incredible, and deserves to star in more roles.
     
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  3. Oatsdad

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

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Maybe. I'm certainly not gonna claim as a fact it'll bomb! :)
     
  4. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    True. I just an noticing a lot more hype, nostalgia and goodwill this time where it seemed like people were indifferent in 2011. American Reunion suffered the same fate in 2012, it hadn't been enough time for there to be nostalgia for the American Pie movies that it largely went unnoticed
     
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  5. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
    Disney will not go near an Alita sequel. Way too controversial at this point, plus they have enough Marvel characters to replace this.
     
  6. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Alita made over $400 million to Ready Player One's $582 million. It's a significant difference, but I don't see how you can say the one was a "big hit" and the other "tanked." I can get behind saying that RP1 was a success and Alita was a disappointment, but it's useful to avoid exaggeration.

    There are continuing whispers about an Alita TV series for Disney+ where it continues to be heavily pushed on the home screen, even though it's been on the service for a long time (at least a year at this point). None of this would be the case if there weren't some kind of audience for it that's adding value to the streaming service, even if there obviously isn't a big enough audience to justify a major theatrical follow-up.

    Robert Rodriguez has been putting in a lot of time on Disney+ lately (Mandalorian and Boba Fett) and it's hard not to see that as an "audition" to do similar stuff with Alita.

    It would be a mistake to overestimate the "controversy" that was generated by some morons on the internet over the proximity of this film in the release calendar to Captain Marvel. Disney had no problem going ahead with the theatrical re-release of Alita last autumn (or whenever it was). And, as I mentioned, they are heavily pushing it on the Disney+ home screen. There is no "controversy" over Alita just because some goons on the internet purported to like it and not the (much more successful) Marvel.
     
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  7. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Completely agree here. There is no controversy with the general public. Just a bunch of typical Internet "nannies" standing in the shadows.

    In fact, there may be even more interest in Alita now because more have had the opportunity to view it on streaming services and home media.

    Disney is an anything-for-a-buck company and is heavily invested in Cameron and his films. Seeing that there is already the first chapter in the Alita "franchise" out, this means already having a stepping stone in place to develop this into another franchise property.

    Studios today are not focused on one-and-done stand alone movies, the bigger money stream is coming from franchises.

    That Disney owns the MCU had no bearing at all concerning them looking to develop new franchises. The more successful franchises they own, the more income streams they will have.
     
  8. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    It might have something to do with Alita looking too much like she was made by a SnapChat face filter.
    [​IMG]
     
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  9. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Why was it considered controversial?
     
  10. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    White-washing accusations.
     
  11. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    As of now Scream isn't nearly as sold through at my theater as Ghostbusters: Afterlife was in pre-sales the day before it came out. And that's strictly comparing IMAX sales for Ghostbusters to both regular and 4DX Scream sales, so I'm selling Ghostbusters short for what it had on other screens. I think it's like only a third to a half of the way there.

    I think Scream would do great walk-up business if people are in the mood to just go out on the weekend and see a movie. It looks like the enthusiastic fans for it though may not be nearly as big as for Halloween Kills. Reddit predictors have Scream at about $30 million, whereas Halloween Kills was $49 million. That would be slightly under Scream 2 and 3, but much better than 4.

    I definitely think there's more nostalgia for the franchise now than there was when 4 came out, but demand is tempered by the fact that a lot of people dislike one or two of the sequels, and the lack of any fresh hook for this one.
     
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  12. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    with the new one, there is talk that at least one of the main three characters bites it this time so I think that might drag in some attention. Much like Halloween or Ghostbusters this one seems like a "passing of the torch" installment since Campbell and Arquette have both said this is the last one they're doing (Cox on the other hand hasn't said anything) so I think that could be a hook knowing this is the last time they're doing it (then again, how many times has Jamie Lee Curtis said the same thing?)
     
  13. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I don't know the series beyond the first movie, but the only hook I can imagine really working is bringing back Drew Barrymore. I'd do it as a twin sister if that wasn't ruled out in the first movie.

    Alita's CG-eyes maybe? Ready Player One is one of my favorite adventure or sci-fi movies in recent years. I thought it was a rare return to the spirit of 1980s Amblin that got it right (unlike Super 8). I think there's many reasons it was more appealing than Alita, mainly its greater relatability. The hero is a generic American white guy, like Luke Skywalker or Peter Parker, who acts as an avatar for the viewer to enter the fantasy world (even while he plays the game through his own avatar). The movie is filled with recognizable pop culture references from movies, games, toys, music. And the quest story gives the movie really strong momentum and a clear ending.

    Alita is fundamentally an adaptation of a Japanese story that may not have beats the American audience gets. The hero is a cyborg girl with an uncanny face. You're watching her more than experiencing the adventure through her (large) eyes. I don't think the pacing of the story is very smooth, and the ending certainly isn't satisfying. I think if you told each movie as a bedtime story to a child, Ready Player One would be a lot easier to explain and sound much more interesting.

    From a sequel standpoint and a relatability standpoint, I think they made a huge mistake giving her a CG face. I think Cameron's obsession with special effects was his folly here. The manga/anime did not show that Alita's eyes were bigger than a human's eyes. Her artificial neck was supposed to be the thing that identified her as a cyborg. The eyes are a strange, self-aware nod to the entire style of big-eyes anime. But doing that takes you out of the story in a way the original anime never intended. And it makes one wonder if this is the only anime Cameron ever saw, and that he got confused about why the characters had big eyes.

    And it was also expensive. The budget would've been lower and a sequel more viable if the character was allowed to have a normal human face, just like our many other famous cyborgs such as Terminator and Robocop.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2022
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  14. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I disagree. There's a hype factor that develops around some of the biggest movies of all time, and it has very little to do with how good they are. It has much more to do with how much people are anticipating them. For one thing, No Way Home's opening weekend alone was $260,138,569. That's a big chunk of the gross from people who had no idea how good the movie was going to be.

    I would say the biggest examples of what I'm talking about are Star Wars Episode I and Episode VII. Try to find people who think those films are great, or anywhere near great enough that they deserve to be in the top 20 films of all time (adjusted dollars). Obviously all these films deliver something that the viewer was looking for, but it's clear that most of what they deliver is simply the concept of each film itself. People wanted to see the beginnings of Darth Vader, and what happened to Luke, Leia and Han, and the return of certain old Spider-Man characters. But the fact that the movie delivered those story lines doesn't make them great movies.

    The hype also clouds viewers' ability to fairly evaluate the movie. It took some people a long time to come to terms with the fact that Phantom Menace was disappointing. Now there are some people seriously talking about No Way Home being nominated for Best Picture. :crazy:

    No, the main difference in 2021 box office comes from the fact that about half a normal year's worth of movies simply didn't come out. You can see here that 397 releases came out in 2021. We averaged about 800 movies a year from 2017-2019. And it didn't help that Warner Bros. cut into all their box office with day-and-date streaming releases, and pretty much every other studio did a few times as well.

    Domestic Yearly Box Office - Box Office Mojo
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2022
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  15. Clipper Sylvania

    Clipper Sylvania L'écharpe d'abricot

    I was really looking forward to a good period piece origin story for Kingsman after I mostly enjoyed the first one. I managed to miss the second one but this one looked great. Somehow, it's less than the sum of its parts. Rasputin versus Ralph Fiennes to save the British and Russian empires in World War I? How can this go wrong?

    Well, the production found a way. Multiple ways.

    I'm not sure if it's the villain's lame personal motivations or the weird business with Rasputin and that crucifix/syringe or the interminable interludes with Oxford's son, but there's something wrong with this film and I was disappointed on the whole, despite there being bright spots. Perhaps "too much style, not enough substance", even for a Kingsman film.

    I had such high hopes for the latest Matrix film when I saw the "White Rabbit" trailer.
     
  16. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    That seems odd. IMAX doesn't list 355 on their web site as an IMAX film, and the Wikipedia page for all films released in IMAX doesn't list it. All the theaters around me are still showing Spider-Man in IMAX. The most premium showing for 355 in this area is at an AMC Dolby Cinema once a day.

    Movies | IMAX

    List of films released in IMAX - Wikipedia
     
  17. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    I saw one of the bigger flops of 2021, THE LAST DUEL. BTW, it's the "last" duel because it was the last ordered by the nascent French government.

    It's actually a good movie but does ask its audience to pay enough attention to the three stories to notice the differences between them, and to actually care about those differences.

    I suspect a screenplay doctor would have immediately created a narrative device, presumably their testimony to the king, that would carry the viewer through the story only once while pausing to cover the contested points, instead of presenting three separate narratives which cover much of the same ground three times.

    The final duel is a shock after all the court intrigue, a loud, violent conclusion and Scott does not spare the gore. I found it interesting to compare and contrast this film with his first, THE DUELLISTS, which also features a clash between a nobleman and a warrior.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2022
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  18. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    That would be a huge advantage to RPO. Average white guy vs. comic book character attached to Japanese story telling culture. If Alita were any more foreign, the movie would be sub-titled.

    This is really a completely unprecedented cultural driven thing to spring on American audiences. From this standpoint alone, its a wonder that anyone saw it? Still RT audiences gave it a 93% vs. RPO at 77%, which kind of backs up @Vidiot. Audiences went to see it but it obviously was not a favorite with them. I haven't seen RPO and can't comment.

    [​IMG]

    Not understanding where you come to this observation?

    [​IMG]

    As I understand it, point of manga / Japanese characters are the large eyes. Not present Alita this way would be completely taking the story sideways.

    Human brain inside a cyborg body. Perfection of performance capture was Cameron's entire point of making this movie. Taking it from blue aliens to human "like" realism.

    [​IMG]

    When I look at Alita, I see Rosa.

    [​IMG]

    When I look at Rosa, I see Alita.
     
  19. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Because ALL the characters in anime have big eyes. It's the style. Just like in The Simpsons. If you adapted The Simpsons into live-action, you wouldn't CGI big eyes on Bart, and make everyone else look like a normal human.

    Maybe in part 2 they can say she was damaged and had to be rebuilt, and just show us Rosa's real face. :agree:
     
  20. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
    Demand for this , is going to be hurt by COVID , much of the Target audience , is not going to go to a Movie Theater
     
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Am I gonna lie to you? I just checked and they've now added more screenings of Spiderman, but that only just happened in the last day or two. Last week, it was The 355. I asked one of the theater people as we were walking in, and they said, "yeah, we thought it was weird, too." What happens is that the theaters get locked in with a distributor for X number of days, and only after that contract is fulfilled can they change it.

    Note I'm talking about Los Angeles, California, not your market.
     
  22. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
  23. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
  24. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I don't think this is necessarily true at all. Yes, there were 873 movies released in 2018 and in the other years between 2015 and 2019, there were more than 700 movies released. During these years, the box office was doing over 11M.

    I don't think the public either knows or cares how many movies are released, because they will go to see whatever movies that happen to be playing. The number of movies being released does not play as significant part as one might expect.

    If you go from 400 to 800 movies, the excess 400 are very minor releases that ten people have gone to see. The top 100-movies in any year probably account for 97% of the box office revenue.

    For example:

    In 2002 the box office was $9,206,407,731 and 480 movies released.

    In 2001 the box office was $8,069,781,604 and only 355 movies released.

    And this is closing in on two decades earlier and is not adjusted for inflation. Yet it is still very close to the last few years in actual dollars, with way less number of movies.

    As although more major movies being released in a single year may increase the total revenue, to a certain extent, the competition will actually cut into revenue for individual movies.
     
  25. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    But The Simpsons are an American family. Hard to adapt and American family cartoon to live action and give the characters large eyes. Cartoons, by their nature have characters with exaggerated facial features.

    Japanese anime originated with American cartoons. You can't present a Japanese manga character and not have big eyes. Note that this is contrasted to other human characters in the movie that are and look human. Alita was deliberately intended to have a cyborg look that set her apart from actual humans.

    How about we compromise and keep the motion capture and simply reduce the size of her eyes? :p
     
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