Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2022

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

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  1. gabacabriel

    gabacabriel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bristol, UK
    Which just goes to show throwing money at a movie doesn't always get you a GOOD movie.

    Lordy, there are some stinkers on that list.
     
  2. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    I saw it today and I loved it. But with only one week in theaters, how can it possibly make any money? What a shame.
     
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  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Well... all theatrical films eventually wind up on some kind of Pay TV service. But some of us believe there's a kind of magic in going to a theater with other people and experiencing the thrill of seeing the same film at the same time. It's especially fun with comedies and horror, stuff like that. You don't get that at home, particularly if you don't have a large family.

    An LA producer I knew (who sadly passed away about 5 years ago) had a very funny, albeit cynical, reason for why certain things (TV shows, album reissues, stores, etc.) weren't available to buy or use. If I'd ask about a certain title or a particular special thing, he'd laugh and say, "Marc... nobody gives a ****." And often that's the reason why something fails or why manufacturers decide to drop a feature or a mode (like 3D) from existing products. Sure, you care... but nobody else does. If there's no perceived market for it, the mass market doesn't care and it's not gonna happen.

    The profits are already so small in the TV business, they're not about to spend another $5 to add a feature like 3D to their existing TV sets. I think it could be done and it wouldn't be that expensive to do, but those pesky marketing questions remain.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2022
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  4. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    One week ?
    Guess they thought better served streaming.
    Knifes Out …I’d give 8/10
    Glass Onion 5/10
     
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  5. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Latest films seen.
    Don’t know how they equate in box office terms .
    Rating ?
    Triangle Of Sadness 8/10
    Banshees Of Isherin 8/10!
    Decision For Leaving 7/10
    The Hunt 5/10
    Living 7/10
    More arthouse I guess.
     
  6. gabacabriel

    gabacabriel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bristol, UK
    Maybe you're better served by the screens in your area than I am. The last few times I've been to the flicks though, I've thought to myself "my home set-up is better than this". And it's not that my home system is any great shakes (55 Sony OLED) - but I do like the blacks to be, well, black, and not a muddy gray which seems to be the norm in my neck of the woods. Dune for one really suffered from the lack of dynamic range in the image.

    I might make an exception for the new Avatar if the reviews are good and if I can book a big enough 4K HDR screening near me. I have a friend who is a manager at a local cinema chain and all their screenings are still HD SDR!
     
  7. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    I remember when the "new" 5.25 audio discs -- DVD-A and SACD -- made their way to retailers. I wondered how many people who bought them actually intended to buy a hi-rez disc.

    Same with 3-D discs. How many were sold to people who just wanted the regular presentation of whatever title it was?
     
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  8. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Back when they were slapping 3D on just about anything they could, a lot of the Marvel movies I went to see were all 3D and it was totally unnecessary. It didn't add to the experience and actually detracted because having to wear those glasses was utterly pointless due to the lack of real benefit. But I'd have felt otherwise if it actually made the viewing experience more entertaining.

    I remember going to watch the documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the French caves and it was in 3D. Every once in a while you'd see the cave drawing sort of float in front of the screen. It was comical and stupid at the same time.

    If they did all this to kill 3D, it must have worked.
     
  9. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    New Avatar is it the same as the original ? The trailer I seen just looked like the original all blue bit of green - purple.
     
  10. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    TV ad
     
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  11. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Yep! That’s the one. Just looks the same as the first film.
     
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  12. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    That and I like visual experience that you can only get on a really large screen. My surround sound was better at home, so that didn't figure in.

    My point exactly. 3D for the sake of 3D doesn't work with audiences anymore. It is now too overdone and usually not well.

    Still, one of the reasons that I do go to the theater is for a 3D experience. RealD 3D glasses don't bother me. Their circular polarization allows for decent freedom of movement.

    When 3D is done well, it can add another element of dimension to the experience.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2022
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  13. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    Variety are reporting that it's so expensive that it needs to be the fourth highest grossing film of all time just to break even. It has to break the 2 billion mark just to break even.

    That sounds insane doesn't it. I predict therefore that it will lose money as I don't see it being that popular. Lots of people I speak to saw the first one as they thought they needed to but thought it was not good. So I don't see a repeat of that phenomenon.
     
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I knew the head Sony exec who was in charge of SACD marketing and MiniDisc marketing in 1999. I asked him how it was going, and he shook his head and said, "I've been set up to fail. My bosses in America know this sh!t isn't gonna sell at all." They already knew after months of surveys and research. I did invest heavily in both, because I believed in the formats: I saw SACD as the logical replacement for a higher-quality CD music format that could store more data, and I saw MiniDisc as a perfect replacement for audio cassettes. But they went down in flames.
     
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  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Getting deep blacks in a projected image is a huge challenge. You can do it if the theater is pitch black, and if they use a laser projector, and if the system is correctly aligned. But without that, it's a crap shoot. We try to avoid crappy theaters whenever possible.

    Actually, they're showing 2K SDR, which is still the official DCI theatrical standard. Look at it this way: color film was the same standard for more than 70 years. It's not a disaster to watch 2K SDR. If the characters, the story, and the direction are all good, it can still be a compelling experience.

    I like to believe that as laser projectors slowly start becoming the standard, all theaters will eventually invest in them -- the laser pickup lasts more than 100 times longer than the traditional Xenon light bulb, which reduces costs -- and it really is a better picture. But we're not there yet. I can remember 1980s theaters still using film projectors and popcorn machines from the 1950s, so theater owners were used to the idea of equipment lasting decades. Not anymore. I figure 10 years is the maximum you can get out of a new projector.
     
  16. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    With good reason, because they did!

    I bet the only reason for upgrades was to move to a newer projector where you could place a movie on those large platters.

    This really cut down the labor for a projectionist. That and multi theater cinemas coming on the scene.
     
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  17. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Reminds me of a story...

    I used to be in the home / small business "micro" computer industry. A friend of mine was in town and was a factory rep in the music business. He said to me, I am going to visit one of my best customers, he has this great music store with pro-audio. Do you want to take a ride with me?

    We went to the store, My friend introduced me to the owner. The owner just received a brand new product and was very pumped up about it! The product was a digitally sampling keyboard.

    The owner was showing us the product. He was demonstrating how it had this little 2.75" mini-disk that you used to load in the different samples. He was gung-ho on the product and was ready to place a large order for them.

    I am just the observer here. But I spoke up and told him that this product is going to fail. Things got quiet and they were both looking at me!

    I explained, the product appears to be everything you think it is and may very well be an excellent product. There is only one problem, but it is a deal killer.

    I want on to explain that I was in the computer business. Many manufacturers come up with proprietary equipment. They end up failing because they haven't adapted industry wide standards.

    I explained that the entire industry uses a micro-floppy that is 3 1/2". Nobody uses a 2.75" disk and they never will. I made my point...
     
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  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, weird proprietary disk formats generally go nowhere. Too many examples to name.

    Getting back to the thread topic, Disney's Strange World is bombing big-time:

    Box Office: Disney's 'Strange World' Bombing - Variety

    I think it's looking more and more like the second Bob (Chapek) should've done a simultaneous streaming and theatrical release, maybe a Black Widow deal where you'd have to pay $20-$30 to see it on Disney+.
     
  19. brucewayneofgotham

    brucewayneofgotham Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bunkville
    This is going to be rough holiday at the box-office
    once Avatar doesn't do well

    The Whitney bio
    might be the only hope
    for the theaters

    That and the Al Sharpton bio-doc are the only things
    I will be seeing
     
  20. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I was surprised to see the production budget estimated at $130-180 million, based on the first weekend box office estimate it's going to lose a ton of $$.
     
  21. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    Light-year had a production budget of $200m, add in promotion and it made a huge loss as it only took $226m at the box office.

    It used to be a new Disney, Star Wars or MCU film was a big deal, seems like people don't view them like that anymore. At one point you could almost guarantee a billion at the box office.
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Sad but true. Feature cartoons are tough to do, because they don't always know what's going to work until they actually see finished sequences. Andrew Stanton is a prime Pixar director who's fallen flat on a few films because of the reshoots (and that includes the disaster John Carter, one of the biggest bombs in Disney history).
     
  23. 64FALCON

    64FALCON Forum Resident

    Looking over this thread at all the money being spent on various 'BIG' features makes me wonder where all the 'SMALL' low-budget movies went?

    Or maybe what's considered a 'low-budget' movie in the 2020's is still darned expensive! I dunno?
     
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  24. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
    Bomb or not, I still really like that movie.
     
  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Don't assume your tastes match up to the world box office -- that's two different things. All the industry predictions are that Avatar 2 will do very well, but the question is whether it'll do extremely well or not. There's a huge difference between making $800 million dollars vs. making $2 billion or $3 billion in theaters.

    John Carter was a disaster almost beyond belief -- I know a few Disney employees who lost their jobs because of that bomb.
     
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