Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

I think this one will quietly make a ton of money. This is 50 shades of gray for basement geeks. If it is actually good watch out....

 

I agree -- I'm not smelling a hit with the new Tarzan, either.

BTW, just to correct myself: Al Kasha and Joel Kirschorn wrote the music to the original Pete's Dragon, not the celebrated Sherman Brothers, but it was clear to me they were going for kind of a "Mary Poppins" thing with the original film. The new film is reportedly not a musical, but new or old, it's just a bad story. I don't see this making any money or gaining an audience at all. Remaking a bad film is almost never a good idea. In fact, I have yet to see a great film remake of a bad film, now that I think about it. The opposite is often true; there were two TV sequels to Casablanca, and they were so bad nobody saw them and nobody remembers them.

 

Finding Dory will be huge. I'll see it, and I don't see anything

 

I think it'll be a very successful film, but I'm still bummed-out at Disney and Marvel's penchant for sequel-itis. Not everything has to be a sequel all the time.

 

I'll admit, it doesn't have much appeal to the discerning moviegoer. But on a purely business level, it's the safe bet

 

I'm looking forward to a bunch of them. Tarzan I hope it's good, I've always been a fan. The Finest Hour looks good. Anyway, I don't go to the theater to watch a movie anymore since I have a theater in the hacienda & the price of going to the movies is ridiculous.

 

Millions of people played "Pac-Man" and "Pixels" still didn't do well!

I didn't know a "Warcraft" movie existed until I saw the trailer the other night. My gut says it's going to bomb. It just looks terrible based on that trailer...

 

Don't offend the "Pete's Dragon" audience - I know from experience they're a sensitive bunch! I wrote a negative review about the 1977 film a long time ago and I still get e-mail that bitches me out for it!

 

I think "Batman v Superman" is gonna be huge. The trailer went over really well before "Force Awakens" the other night, and it includes so many big-name characters that I think it'll be a massive draw.

Yeah, it's disheartening that Snyder remains at the reins, but I'm hopeful he'll learn from the mistakes of "Man of Steel" and make something more "fan-friendly".

I think it's perplexing for Disney to put out another "Star Wars" movie a year after "Force" and six months before Episode VIII. I know they want to get their money's worth out of the property, but I think they risk "'Star Wars' Fatigue".

I'll see it, and I'll understand it's not part of the "trilogy series", but will the average movie-goer?

 

OK, fearless prediction time. Gods of Egypt is gonna bomb.

 

I think Snyder thought he could get away with making a Superman movie that was as dark, bleak, and serious as Dark Knight. The difference is: Chris Nolan is Chris Nolan, and Zack Snyder ain't Nolan. And I think you need a greatly different approach. The (mostly) lighthearted, optimistic, colorful presentation that Marvel uses -- particularly with the snappy dialogue and humor to lighten things up -- are a terrific combination. I can't say enough good things about the way Marvel does their movies. (The possible exceptions would be the Thor movies, which have kinda left me cold.) But I think Warner Bros. is getting very desperate for a hit at this point, and there's tremendous pressure being put on Batman vs. Superman to deliver.

F 'em. The movie stunk. It also finished Helen Reddy's career. I think it's one of many sad examples of studios trying to recreate Mary Poppins and failing; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was another one (and that had Dick Van Dyke and the Sherman Brothers). And that stank on ice.

 

It really did. I was 10 when "Pete's Dragon" hit and I liked it then - kids like anything you shovel in front of them!

As an adult, no amount of nostalgic fondness can overcome that movie's flaws. It's evidence of what a terrible state Disney was in during the 70s - the same year's "Rescuers" isn't much better...

 

Ditto.... just Popcorn movies.

 

Right, Hollywood is contributing to the obesity epidemic!

 

So, is there any reason that The Blair Witch Project and Halloween aren't on that list? I thought they were two of the ultimate ROI films.

Also: It's a Wonderful Life wasn't a hit, per se - it tanked on original release and didn't turn a major profit until the '90s I think.

 

It's more like the food chains, etc. want to be associated with a potential blockbuster film.
And there are millions to be made from such ancillary deals. Something that never seems to be accounted when a film's "budget" is reported.

 

I get the idea that if all the thread contributors ruled the movie industry, there wouldn't be a single (maybe one or two) film released in 2016 (or ever again).

 

Possibly? Then again if a handful us where in charge on couple studios.
There would less pointless crap out there ..
Talent and story telling would a must special effects would be in middle
if movie needed cgi..
You wouldn't have disney making live action movies of there cartoons
Pete's Dragon please, It should be Puff The Magic Dragon..
The boy got ahold of dads stash .. and imagined a dragon.
That handed a 2 foot joint.

 

I think Ant-Man performed better than Marvel and Disney expected. World Wide gross was
$518,629,494 on $130 million budget. If it just made back its expenses it would have had to gross $390 million. Ant-Man is considered a second tier superhero. I agree that the second "Avengers" film might have been a bit of a disappointment compared to the first film as far as the opening but it grossed $ 1,405,035,767 (world wide)on a $250 million budget less than "The Avengers" but I think that the gimmick of putting all of the characters together had peaked for the moment.

 

If Star Trek Beyond is anything like its first trailer, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't do as well as the past two.

 

I rarely go to the movies any more and this

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March)
Captain America: Civil War (May)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (November)
Finding Dory (June)
The Jungle Book (April)
X-Men: Apocalypse (May)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (May)
Independence Day: Resurgence (June)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December)
Suicide Squad (August)
Warcraft (June)
Doctor Strange (November)
Pete's Dragon (August)

is why.

 

$517 mil worldwide opening for Force Awakens and I don't think the train is gonna stop for a while. I have some friends at Disney who were on the campaign; I'm pretty sure they're gonna celebrate with more than pizza for this one.

 

I once did some editing work for Al Kasha in the 1970s, and even he admitted it was a terrible film. His take was, "hey, we didn't write the film... and our songs were good." He and songwriting partner Joel Hirschorn did write some good songs -- "The Morning After" won an Oscar and sold pretty well -- but Pete's Dragon was miserably awful. In fairness, I think pretty much everything Disney did in the 1970s was pretty damned bad. You could write a pretty good book on all the mistakes they made in the 15-16 years after Walt died, leading up to Michael Eisner taking over in 1984.

 

That's just 14 films out of the hundreds that will be released next year, you should be able to find something to go and see if you look hard enough.

 

On the contrary, I'm looking forward to most (obviously not all) of the movies Vidiot listed. My favorite movies of 2015 include big hits, small films, and the odd bomb alike. I do, however, wish that the studios would put a little more money toward medium-size films (which nowadays seems to mean under $100 million) and a little less toward franchise fare, which I think would result in fewer catastrophic years for them like the one WB had.

As for the comic book pictures, mostly, I like them. I did think 2015 was a pretty bad year for them (Avengers 2 and Ant-Man both being bland films), but generally I consider myself a big fan of the Marvel formula and the other studios' attempts to mimic it, e.g. with the recent X-Men pictures.