Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2022

Shang-Chi was ok I thought, it bore no resemblance at all to the Marvel character I read as a kid, but in its own right it was watchable.

Black Widow was dreadful, really poor.

The Eternals looked awful so I skipped that.

No Way Home too much more than all three combined, mainly as it was free from any kind of forced political agenda and just what fans wanted. Which I think in these type of films is the whole point. These aren't art films made to make you think, and they shouldn't be.

Just make a good film like that and that is what people want to see. It's as simple as that.

Shang-Chi got introduced to Wong, Hulk and Captain Marvel during the end credits, so he could become an Avenger, or there is an Asian team in the comics, the Agents of Atlas, which Marvel seem to be pushing big time so he could be part of that.

 

The reports were Sony was definitely surprised how well No Way Home did. Hence the delay in Morbius, to just sit back and let Spider-Man take in more money rather than compete with themselves. They also apparently wanted Morbius to start in the next quarter now since Spider-Man brought so much unexpected profit into the first quarter. Hence it conveniently opens on the first day of the second quarter now. They also "reissued" Venom 2 into 1,400 theaters this weekend to try to goose up its gross (it's inches away from outgrossing Venom 1 domestically).

As for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, its budget and box office were extremely similar to that of Sony's Equalizer 1 and 2. Sony just announced an Equalizer 3. If you add on the fact that Ghostbusters has a big merchandising component, it seems likely they will greenlight a sequel to Afterlife. Afterlife is also just a couple million away from outgrossing Ghostbusters 2016 domestically. Sony's had remarkably consistent performance with Venom, Ghostbusters and Equalizer domestically!

Budgets for Equalizer 1, 2 and Afterlife were $55m, $62m and $75m.

The Equalizer - Box Office Mojo

The Equalizer 2 - Box Office Mojo

Ghostbusters - Box Office Mojo

Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Box Office Mojo

Venom - Box Office Mojo

Venom: Let There Be Carnage - Box Office Mojo

 

I wouldn't consider that much of an accomplishment...

Sony recently released a Ghostbusters box set of three Ghostbusters movies. They purposely left 2016 out of the set!

 

2016 Ghostbusters is not considered canon so it would have no place in the set focusing on the male Ghostbuster characters we all know.

 

To many, it has never had a place and should have not been made in the first place.

One thing is clear, Hollywood is slow to learn...

 

Sounds like it offended you for some reason.

 

Almost all Ghostbusters fans were offended by Ghostbusters 2016 because it threw out a canon that had been carefully established and explored for decades across multiple media platforms just to do a boring, unimaginative remake of the first movie without the original characters.

Afterlife's gross is an accomplishment because its budget was a lot lower than Ghostbusters 2016. And it's holding onto the domestic gross of the previous movie in the series in a pandemic, despite previous recent Sony followups like Men in Black: International and Charlie's Angels (2019) doing much worse than their predecessors (like $100m less domestically). It's difficult for any heavily retooled sequel, reboot, or in this case an un-reboot, to succeed.

 

The original Ghostbusters made $295 million (on a budget of $30 million); Ghostbusters II made $215 million on a budget of $40 million. I think Ghostbusters: Afterlife making $191 million on a budget of $75M is not great. It was shot in July-October of 2019, so this movie sat on the shelf for two years while Sony struggled to deal with Covid. My guess is with advertising and waiting for release, it cost a lot more than $120M.

The interest on that investment must have been ridiculous. I think they're going to be in debt for a long time on Afterlife. Bear in mind that the 2016 all-female Ghostbusters made $219M on a budget of $144M, and that's regarded as a major bomb and a huge critical disappointment. I think studio expectations in the last couple of years are all over the map, since nobody expected a pandemic.

 

Afterlife is going to get over $200m by the end, after opening in Japan next month and collecting a little more from Australia and the U.S. That's safely above the stricter breakeven rule of thumb of 2.5x budget for box office. If they accrued interest, that at least won't be a factor in a cost/benefit analysis on a potential sequel. They'll also be expecting the sequel to do better if we're in a post-COVID era. We know Sony hired Jason Reitman/Gil Kenan to a first-look deal after Afterlife opened, which looks like a vote of confidence.

Merchandising can't be overlooked with Ghostbusters. It seems to be Sony's most merchandised film franchise. We know Hasbro crowdfunded a proton pack replica last month to the tune of $8,446,589. Lots of other Hasbro, Lego, Playskool, costumes, props, books and other merchandise went out-of-stock in many online and physical stores after the movie opened. I suspect merch sales were massively improved over 2016, because this movie targeted the hardcore fans as well as children, rather than the hip adult crowd.

The 2016 movie did below breakeven based on the 2.5x box office rule of thumb ($130,852,491 below vs. $4,114,249 above for Afterlife currently). But they still tried again after 2016. The "legs" on this one are also better, 2.85 vs. 2.79 (based on domestic gross/opening weekend), and the Cinemascore went up from B+ to A-. Online audience reviews, of course, are massively improved over 2016. So, given that Sony is not swimming in other lucrative franchises, it seems like there's a good chance they'll give this one another go and see if the next one can move further in the right direction.

The one external factor working against it is the success of Spider-Man. I could think of 6 different Spider-Man films they could put into development right now that would make huge profits. And a few more that also have a shot at success. So they may decide to focus on that if they see the same things I'm seeing.

I do think a Ghostbusters sequel may be retooled a bit to look more like the original film, with new adult Ghostbusters running a business in NYC. But this movie already seems to hint it's going in that direction.

 

I think you nail it with this. So much potential. And this is the same reason , an Alita sequel will not happen. Between Marvel, Disney , Pixar, FOX IP , it would be stupid to throw money at a film , that did 80 mil in US/Canada BO.

 

I am puzzled, too??

 

Fu Manchu rights , are the main problem (even with the comic books)

 

What made the original Ghostbusters and many movies from that era a success was having the iconic SNL cast members to grab and stick into movie parts. You had so many well known (and liked) comedy actors on TV back then.

You look at the first two MIB movies that were huge and you have Eddie Murphy (along with Tommy Lee Jones). Make #3 without them and it crashes and burns. And that is with using actors who were very prominent. But that would have been like replacing Laurel and Hardy.

Not only did you have ready made funny people but you had plenty of then you could team up together. You just could not have made most of those successful movies again today because there is not that type of already recognizable talent that can be picked off the shelf.

 

Why be puzzled? That question has already been explained in an obvious way.

That and spending really stupid money to do it. They made a movie that nobody wanted or asked for. That came to fruition when nobody came to see it.

Maybe next, Hollywood will do an all female cast remake of The Blues Brother's? That'll go over big... They could call it The Blues Sisters. They could cast Whoopi Goldberg and Sara Silverman in the lead roles. Budget at least 100M!

Wait, I shouldn't be giving the studios any ideas.

 

Yes, I think that's a big problem for comedy movies now. Saturday Night Live has been terrible for years and its viewership is in the toilet. There is almost no talent coming out of there. Kristen Wiig was one of the only ones to transition to movie stardom in the last 20 years. Lorne Michaels lost his touch. So in the same way that they now have "regular" actors doing voice roles in cartoons, they seem to have "regular" actors doing comedy movies, at least, the few times they actually produce a comedy these days. For instance, Jungle Cruise. Are Emily Blunt and The Rock the best people to headline a comedy? Do they walk on screen and just naturally seem funny? The pipeline of taking people from the grassroots in these improv groups up to TV exposure and eventually into movies seems to be broken. No real comedic talent is being found and elevated to a higher level anymore. Someone ought to be trying to compete with SNL in TV sketch comedy now like they were 40 years ago. Their position is much more vulnerable to being usurped now.

 

Absolutely on point.

You can't even have SNL type comedy on SNL as it wouldn't be acceptable.

On top of that, instead of making fun of everyone, they use there own agendas to target those with different opinions.

What this has effectively accomplished is severely limiting their possible appeal to half the audience demographic. This is not a workable number for movie box offices.

As we point out. They are placing regular actors in comedy rolls. The problem is that these actors just are not funny.

You just can't make certain movies without people who are genuinely funny and that audiences identify with them being funny.

When I hear that there is a comedy called Good Morning Veitnam and it stars Robin Williams, I know in advance that it is going to be a very funny movie. I am already pre-sold on the movie.

 

It was certainly sold as a comedy. Recently watched, and the film actually gradually modulates from a comedy to a drama. That's really hard to do, and rarely works (and is almost never even tried) The script (and improv) and direction and characters pull you along.

 

For several years now, interest has been a non-factor, the rates are extremely low and the markets are flush with cash.

 

I was always a fan of this type of presentation, if it was only in my head. Shows were either dramas or they were comedies, never a mixture of the two.

I would think, why couldn't there be a dramatic show with some sophisticated humor worked in. M.A.S.H. was the first movie that introduced this format to me.

Same kind of thing with Good Morning Veitnam. But, again it takes a Robin Williams type genius to pull it off.

 

Reddit predictions from last Tuesday were spot on for Scream's opening.

The Numbers - Weekend Box Office Chart for January 14, 2022

1 N Scream Paramount… $30,600,000

Budget was only $24m, so it's likely this won't be the last movie in the franchise. Final global numbers could be around $125m. Still nowhere near the success of the Halloween revival. Supposedly rights issues have prevented Friday the 13th from being revived, but I think the "wannasee" factor is growing very high for that one.

 

Let me know what 18 months interest is on $100 million dollars.

 

When I was a kid, I actually did experiment with flattening an unplayably warped 78 in a microwave oven once. The results were, shall we say, not good.

Keying off the earlier discussion of anime-derivative Alita, which, being about a film from well before 2022, was admittedly off topic, may I raise an on topic question from the world of anime? My daughter the anime fan has been waiting for a movie spinoff of the series Yuri!!! on Ice called Ice Adolescence. A trailer was released a few years ago, as I understand things, but the movie's release date has been "delayed" for ages now. Anybody heard anything to suggest it might be released this year? If it is, I would guess it will do quite well, considering the popularity of the series on which it is based.

 

the main character in Afterlife is female!!!

 

A lot of factors at play here, if we're dealing with the Disney/Sony/Warner/Paramounts of the world they would have several lending facilities with their banks around the world.

Ex: Disney per their financials for the year ending Oct 3/2020 they have $52.917 Billion in "Borrowings" on their Balance Sheet. The effective interest rate (avg) for all instruments is less than 3% except for Asian Theme Park borrowings 5.51%.

Let's round everything up to 5% - the interest expense on $100 million for 18 months would be around $7.265 million.

 

No - a bunch of people got their panties in a bunch that they used girls!! to bust ghosts.

Total reaction to that, not to "throwing out canon".

I've been a "Ghostbusters" fan since 1984 - I've owned countless copies of that movie - and I wasn't "offended" by the movie.

I enjoyed it - it's the best of the bunch other than the original.