Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2019

Those stats are misleading. Who are the main audience for this film? Fans of Will Smith. They will no doubt give it a positive score no matter what the film is like.

 

Financially Gemini Man can be filed under "bomb".

Box Office Bust: 'Gemini Man' Faces $75 Million Loss

The loss will be spread between David Ellison's Skydance Media, Paramount Pictures and two China-based companies, Fosun and Alibaba. The pic — which features Smith as an elite assassin who faces off against his younger self — cost roughly $140 million to produce after tax rebates and incentives, in addition to a $100 million-plus marketing spend.

Leading up to its release, Gemini Man sparked headlines across the globe for Lee's use of groundbreaking de-aging and high frame rate technology, but Paramount and Skydance knew they were in trouble in late September when reviews started pouring in and prerelease tracking stalled. While praising the film's technological prowess, critics slammed the story, resulting in a career-worst Rotten Tomatoes score of 25 percent for Lee.

Paramount and Skydance each put up 35 percent of the budget (the former's losses could be minimized when recouping its distribution fee). Fosun, which is distributing Gemini Man in China, has a 25 percent stake, followed by 5 percent for Alibaba, according to sources.

 

Couldn't you make that claim for lots of movies?

 

I would think that the main box office draw for this movie would be fans of Will Smith.

I doubt if people would be otherwise attracted much by the story line or other cast members?

People don't really care about special effects, high frame rates and reverse aging these days.

The opposite was also sited by the lack of financial success of the the current, Men In Black International, not having Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in the cast.

Though, I thought it was a good movie and went to see it even though Tommy Lee and Will weren't in it.

 

If the audience is quite low, which means only the hardcore fans are going, meaning a more biased rating coming out.

 

We did not like the Addams Family movie. I see it also has a bad rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (42%), but a decent audience score (70%).

The script is rather bland, and failed to have an undercurrent of adult humor or themes (which the good films of this nature do). Also, the antagonist was a big misstep, and unnecessary. To its credit, it was beautifully animated, and had some nice moments, especially Uncle Fester and Wednesday.

YMMV

 

Maleficent mistress of evil bombs bad.. 36 million over the weekend.

 

They can't be too happy with the results so far, the first one made $758.5 million worldwide with a domestic first weekend of $69.4.

 

I liked the first one a lot, but thought the story was complete. I have no interest in a sequel.

 

I don't think it's a bomb per se, but it's a "disappointment."

‘Maleficent’ Sequel Disappoints at Box Office

Worldwide, it's not doing terribly:

‘Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil’ Eyes $165M+ Global, ‘Zombieland 2’ $30M U.S.: Box Office – Deadline

Yeah, my guess is that based on this, Maleficent will be lucky to make it to $450M, which is close to a break-even for Disney (cost about $240M). I think they definitely thought it would make 3/4 what the first one did, which would have been $568M+ or so. Maybe the foreign box-office will save it -- you never know.

 

Just being released, it is too early to tell, give it a month.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is not doing that good worldwide, with a current box office of 157.3M

Let's at least get through a 2nd weekend and we will have a better picture, but so far, it is not looking good to me.

I think that most movie budgets are way, way to high now days.

 

Disney has never been one to walk away from the prospect of a sequel, no matter how bad.

FWIW, though the critic's did not think much of it, the audience approval rating is quite high. I'm assuming that those who saw the first movie would be the first ones in line to see the sequel.



I did happen to locate a $5 first run cinema near to where I am at. It is playing there, I might pop in and see it.

This is where I watched Ad Astra.

 

Here's a fascinating story on why Joker may be the most profitable studio film of the last 5 or 6 years, becoming an unexpected hit at well over $800 million dollars (vs. a cost of about $63M):

Box Office: How ‘Joker’ Became Insanely Profitable

 

Joker had a brilliantly stealth marketing campaign if you frequent underground sites favored by younger demographics. It helped the movie turned out compelling for its primary audience, but it never hits these figures without one of the smartest marketing campaigns I've seen the past decade.

 

Michelle Pfeiffer is the only reason I'll watch it when it's available to stream online.

 

To quote the article, "“‘Joker’ is definitely having the last laugh,” said Jeff Bock, a senior media analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “You can’t buy a comic-book adaptation for that price, yet Warner Bros. pulled it off with good old-fashioned story telling.”"

Earlier in the year there was this decent and entertaining kid's movie about a kid who discovers King Arthur's sword. Not a bad movie overall and a decent family movie, but nothing more, yet they spent 60M to produce it. The Kid Who Would Be King, brought in 30M worldwide.

Another movie this year, follows two girls in a 24-hour period preceding their H.S. graduation. It took 20M to produce it. Booksmart took in 24M worldwide.

Yet, there was Five Feet Apart, which made over 91M worldwide and was produced for 7M ( a movie, I very much enjoyed, this year).

The major studios need to take lessons from these successes and failures.

While science fiction "space" movies like Star Wars, etc. do cost a lot of produce due to extensive special effects, other movies do not necessarily need to have these ridiculous budgets.

The Joker, like Batman, is a total human character, lacking the ability to fly and similar super powers. People want a good entertaining story and good acting.

They seemed to accomplish both with The Joker.

 

And here's surprising news: Terminator: Dark Fate is performing less than expected in its overseas openings...

In other new play, Terminator: Dark Fate sealed $12.8M in its early debuts. Those include France, Germany and the UK along with Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The Paramount/Skydance pic is released overseas by Disney and jumped on some offshore markets to capitalize on upcoming holidays. The wider release is next session (outside Japan, Taiwan and Poland).

The early result on the Linda Hamilton-starrer is lower than might have been hoped, but there are holidays coming up in the key markets that bowed this frame.

Joker Nears $850M WW; Terminator: Dark Fate Unlucky At $13M Offshore Bow – Deadline

 

The word used to describe its performance in France/Germany/UK is bomb. For what it's worth it's sitting at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes (critics), with a lot of people calling it the Star Wars equivalent of The Force Awakens.

 

And I continue to be amazed that Joker has done so well domestically, again trouncing Maleficent at the box office...



Put on a happy face: In its fourth weekend in theaters, Warner Bros.’ “Joker” returned to the top of domestic box office charts, narrowly defeating Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.”

‘Joker’ Reclaims No. 1 Spot on Box Office Charts

 

It's almost certain that Joker becomes the most profitable "superhero" movie of all time, even over the various Avengers' flicks that topped a billion. Most of Joker's box office total has been made in markets where the Hollywood studio gets a much larger cut than where Avengers did well, namely China.

 

Joker wasn't even released in China. So, yes $850M worldwide means amazing profit.

Maleficent 2 appears to be this season's Dark Phoenix

 

It's looking real bad for Terminator right now, real bad.


James Cameron produced the November tentpole, which is a direct sequel to the filmmaker's first two 'Terminator' films.
Paramount and Skydance's Terminator: Dark Fate may not cross the $30 million mark at the North American box office this weekend, as it competes with Halloween festivities.

The action movie started its opening weekend run with $2.35 million in Thursday previews and is on track to gross $28 million over its opening weekend, according to Friday estimates.

The direct sequel to Terminator: Judgment Day (1991) is directed by Deadpool helmer Tim Miller and produced by James Cameron, creator of the the original Terminator franchise.

The R-rated movie reunites Cameron with original stars Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who join new franchise actors Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna and Diego Boneta.

Dark Fate was initially tracking to open in the high $30 million to low $40 million range domestically earlier in the week. Overseas, where Disney is releasing the November tentpole, it opens in a raft of major markets, including China. In North America, it rolls out in more than 4,000 theaters, including Imax locales.

 

Doh, this is sad...

‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Conking Out Stateside With $28M Opening

Box Office: ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Stumbling to $28 Million Opening

It appears to be tanking. Co-writer/co-producer Jim Cameron insists that this is the true sequel to Terminator 2, and that we should ignore all the movies and TV shows that came afterwards... but here's an interesting dissection of the story...

6 Major Ideas 'Terminator: Dark Fate' Copied From Previous 'Terminator' Movies

 

The buzz on Terminator: Dark Fate had been terrible for months. I had seen negative reactions to it across the net as early as August and no one was excited for it.

 

Ya know, with Alita: Battle Angel (cost $170M, made $405M, which is not enough for a break even) and now Terminator: Dark Fate, I bet even Jim Cameron is wondering whether his two-decade winning streak is running out of steam...