Predicting the Movie Hits & Bombs of 2022

Probably should have a Charlie's Angel's recast with three men as "Angel's" and have their boss be a female Charlie.

Or perhaps, Marty Poppins?

Maybe a male cast as Captain Marvel? Of course, that might make too much sense. Though I would wager to speculate that a certain crowd would be in an uproar!

Or, maybe we could retain the original characters and have Hollywood come up with new movies with all new characters and cast them as they see fit?

 

Do you complain this much about every remake/reboot?

They tried something different with "GB2016". Some liked it, some didn't.

Move on, people!

 

Somewhat counterintuitively, in a major studio release, the higher the budget, the lower the break-even multiplier. This is because marketing and distribution costs are theoretically the same for all ultrawide releases, regardless of whether the movie cost a lot or a little.

It really sounds like you are trying to "finesse" the numbers to justify a preconceived objection to the 2016 movie and cast it in a worse light. It's pretty transparent tbh. Anyway, the idea that a general audience cares about the "canon" of Ghostbusters is laughable.

It would not be reasonable to compare pandemic-era grosses to pre-pandemic grosses, but Afterlife grossed less in dollars in 2021 than Ghostbusters II did in 1989 (itself considered a disappointment at the time) -- let alone Ghostbusters 2016, which Afterlife has yet to outgross domestically. The international gross for Afterlife is particularly anemic. In a non-pandemic scenario Afterlife would likely be universally recognized as a flop.

Posts like this are quite embarrassing to the forum IMO.

 

Also: don’t at least some studios lend the money to themselves through legally different corporations, effectively making interest a moot point?

 

Yes, the Financing division might charge the Film division 6% for financing that costs them 2.5%. It doesn't really matter when all of these divisions/companies (assuming they are wholly owned by the same parent) get consolidated together, the real expense is the interest that Disney paid to their lenders. I can only imagine the web of companies that fall under the Disney umbrella.

 

Yup. I think "GB16" might've been more objectionable if it'd taken place in the original movie's universe and crapped on those characters actively, but it didn't - it clearly went into a "different universe" where Ghostbusters never existed in the past.

No one has to like the movie. I think it's entertaining and funny, but if people think it sucks on its own merits, that's fair.

It's this incessant whining about it because it used female leads and/or wasn't "canon" that got old 5 years ago - and those attitudes haven't improved with time.[/QUOTE]

 

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I thought the 2016 movie was pretty obnoxious except for Chris Hemsworth. But as someone whose very first album was the original Ghostbusters soundtrack on tape, and who was deeply into Ghostbusters stuff as a kid (including the cartoons), the idea that there are adults out there who care deeply about the "canon" or "cinematic universe" of a funny spoof movie from 1984 is either laughably disingenuous or a pathetic reflection of Gen X priorities or both.

Are the same people going to get upset that Airplane 2023! is "non-canon"?

 

[QUOTE="Maggie, post: 28704447, member: 16236"Posts like this are quite embarrassing to the forum IMO.[/QUOTE]

Only if one can't accept views that doesn't represent their own.

OMG... The forum is embarrassed...

 

And in the past five years, Hollywood still has not come to accept that audiences that identify with the original franchises, prefer that the studios leave them as they have been constructed.

Instead of screwing with existing franchises, can they not create new original franchise properties and create new characters for these properties.

In case you might not have noticed, the studios have continued down this path, completely rejecting what the fans of the franchise consider proper. Do they fail to notice that this seriously impacts them at the box office? Is that a hint?

 

Disney/Marvel is now admitting they had a few mis-steps in the last few months:

Could Eternals Find a Second Life on Disney+ Like Encanto?

We just watched Eternals over the weekend on Disney+, and I thought it was a lackluster film (particularly given the $200M budget). We did enjoy Netflix' Red Notice, which is reportedly the #1 Netflix film ever made, according to the ratings. I thought the latter was a decent action/comedy film that had a lot of charm and fun, which I don't get from the Fast & Furious movies. There's a point where things get too stupid for me to buy into it, but Red Notice didn't quite sink to that level -- but know in advance it is stupid.

 

I could buy the "ewww, I don't want female Ghostbusters" defense against misogynist manbabies if the franchise audience weren't the same people who championed Afterlife, which, get this, has a main female character as well as has a new Ghostbusters team that is 50% female. Yeah, sexist manchildren who wretch at the sight of female main characters onscreen.

90% of the hate for 2016 comes from the fact that Harold Ramis' body was barely cold by the time Sony was suddenly greenlighting this after 20 years of a development hell Ghostbusters III namely because of Murray. Take one of the primary actors and writers out of the equation and they suddenly decide to do a reboot nobody asked for. And then when Sony and members of the cast have to start personally attacking people for not being interested in it, they started fighting a losing battle. On its own 2016 isn't even a bad movie and isn't that much worse than Ghostbusters II, but when you begin attacking people who felt jipped that they were getting this instead of a long-awaited GB3 (which Afterlife pretty much became), they began looking like assholes and I don't blame people for getting upset.

 

There was actually an attempt in the later seasons of Charlie's Angels to do precisely that, have three hunky men while Barbara Stanwyck served as the boss.

<moderator note: removed dead link>

 

I don't think I said much about the 2016 movie. It was published in the major trades that it lost millions of dollars. Only the amount it lost was ever disputed. Dan Aykroyd infamously went on a rant about Paul Feig ignoring advice that led to costly reshoots, which he claimed led to the movie's financial losses.

Yes, I'm giving my best explanation of why I think Sony will greenlight a new Ghostbusters movie that follows on from Afterlife in some way. I may be biased as a fan of the movie, but that doesn't make my argument automatically wrong. Feel free to pick my argument apart in detail, I won't be offended.

I was referring to the fans I think, not so much the general audience. I saw both Ghostbusters movies in theaters in the 1980s, watched every cartoon and owned nearly every toy. I've also been on numerous Ghostbusters fan forums. I know I and many others were open to the idea of any kind of sequel they wanted to make. Everyone expected a new team of younger characters would be formed. But we absolutely did not want a remake or reboot, especially one that completely threw out the original characters. If they had recast Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston, maybe it would have been different, I don't know. But to lose both the universe and the original characters was an intolerable disappointment. I tweeted twice to Paul Feig my objections to the movie the day after he announced that he would be making it.

But the general audience isn't a pushover for this kind of thing either. There's a huge difference between a sequel and a remake or reboot. The box office of the modern era is littered with the debris of failed remakes and reboots that were based on "modern era" post-1975 movies. Examples include Total Recall, Point Break, Poltergeist, Red Dawn, Robocop, Conan, The Thing (2011), Fame, Footloose, The Bad News Bears, Arthur and Annie. Jackie Chan's Karate Kid is almost the only movie in this category to become a hit. Even some superhero reboots have underperformed like Superman Returns, Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man. Note that I do not count Disney's live-action adaptations of animated movies, because those truly offer something new, an eye-popping upgrade to a different medium.

On the other hand, sequels that follow up on hit 1975-and-up movies after long gaps in time, like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic World, Tron: Legacy, Fury Road, Bad Boys 3, Rocky Balboa, Rambo and Halloween 2018 have a much better track record of doing well (with far fewer flubs like Independence Day 2 and Blade Runner 2049, albeit the mistake there was forgetting that the original movie lost money too...both original and sequel earned 1.4x their budgets!).

Studios have to consider this history very carefully. Top Gun: Maverick is a sequel that brings back Tom Cruise, but it could've been a remake with a younger lead. Should they reboot Gremlins, or do a sequel that incorporates the original movie's history, with a returning human character to connect back to it? Would a Goonies 2 that brings back the original actors as grown-ups do better than a remake with all new young actors playing the original characters? Should Lethal Weapon be rebooted, or should they do a part 5 with Gibson and Glover returning? The track record I laid out above makes a clear case for sequels over reboots. At least during this post-1975 era when original cast members are still possibly alive. A lot of people ask for sequels. Almost no one clamors for a remake of something.

So, it should be no surprise why Ghostbusters 2016 lost money and didn't meet Sony's expectations. Ghostbusters has a much larger fan base than most other 1980s properties, and had more spin-off media featuring its characters than almost any movie-originated franchise outside Star Wars, including a popular video game in 2009 voiced by the original 4 actors. Fans were attached to the original story line and its characters. We had followed the rumored development of a Ghostbusters 3 with baited breath for almost 20 years (mostly fueled by Dan Aykroyd interviews). If you have trouble perceiving why the mere idea of the 2016 movie was a huge letdown, just try to imagine if Disney had done "Star Wars: A New Hope - The Remake" instead of Episode 7, but maybe with the genders of the characters swapped around. It was the exact same situation for Ghostbusters fans.

With the 2016 reboot, general audiences were also being sold a brand name with little nostalgic connection to the original movie. If they had just changed the movie's name to Spookcatchers and modified a few of the designs, another studio might've been able to produce this same script without even needing the rights from Sony. So what's fun for them about seeing much of the original movie's plot rehashed by characters who look slightly different? Not to mention, the whole crop of actors they chose have shown limited appeal at the box office in anything but a handful of movies. So the whole thing smacks of a director and group of actors trying to cash in on a carbon copy of someone else's work because they lacked the imagination to do something original themselves.

I think if they did another movie and it didn't improve on Afterlife's results, they might consider calling it quits for a while. But Sony doesn't have a lot of franchises to fall back on. If they at least break even on this, it's going to be worth it to try again, maybe with some tweaks in the cast or the premise, or a slightly lower budget, and see if the gross goes up on the next one (a phenomenon experienced on quite a few modern sequels, Fast & Furious, Transformers, Marvel movies, 21 Jump Street). If they believe they've established a floor for a Ghostbusters movie's gross, then they know how much to safely spend to at least break even. And a franchise that can live on a lower budget is a lower risk. If suddenly no one shows up to your movie at all, it's better to spend $75m rather than $200m.

We can't ignore grading on the pandemic curve either. Dune made 2.4x its budget, was considered a success story, and a sequel was announced. Afterlife has earned 2.6x its budget. Other 2021 movies did better, others did worse. But that's also better than Sony's pre-pandemic MIB: International and Charlie's Angels (2019). And even better than their Equalizer 2, which just got a sequel announced (although that budget is disputed, TheNumbers web site says $77m). There is also a possibility for "cinematic universe" synergy with the GB franchise. Crossovers with Men in Black or 21 Jump Street are possible. So to completely give up on and mothball one of the really well-known brands that they own would seem to be something of a risk in and of itself.

 

You really wanted Aykroyd's Ghostbusters 3? Have you seen Nothing But Trouble?

 

Eddie Murphy starred in Men In Black , what Earth did I wake-up in? Earth-II?

 

So sorry, my bad, must have been thinking about SNL when it was funny. Eddie could have worked in the Will Smith role, maybe?

 

Stop reading Breitbart , get your facts straight. ‘SNL’ Season 46 Ratings: No. 1 Entertainment Show On Ad-Supported TV – Deadline

 

No, I don't think it would have worked , maybe the 1980s Eddie Murphy? Will Smith , was perfect , huge TV Sitcom, Huge MTV Star, the perfect demo's

 

IDK... I was referring to if we had the younger Eddie. Huge movie star. I don't see the demo's as being that different? OK, they are not the same person, no MTV and such. I don't think their movie rolls were that dissimilar?

 

All of this Dune follow-up stuff will not happen , behind the scenes , the head of Discovery (who will be taking over after the summer) has 5 words for what his priorities will be : DC , DC Comics, DC Comic Books, DC Entertainment , and Batman .....HBO/MAX streaming is going to become HBO/Discovery/DC Universe ..... They do not own the Dune IP, no sense in continuing with it...I think Legendary will looks for another partner ....As far as Ghostbusters , it is done, there are easily 20+ characters they can spin-off from Spider-Man , and do better

 

80's Eddie , yes, 90s Eddie though was a bit too family friendly , you needed someone , who the teen audience bought as "hip"

 

So one bad movie means they're ever incapable of another good script? I dont think 2016 would've been as hated had it been GB III where the old cast is retired and the ladies were a new generation of Ghostbusters, but the old franchise was unfinished and nobody wanted a remake gender be damned.

Again, why are the detractors of 2016 misogynistic manchildren virgins yet not a single person complained about the main character of Afterlife being a girl? Afterlife was a love letter to the series, Paul Feig on the other hand said he had no affinity for Ghostbusters and took a job.

 

I thought it was amusing that the same guys in this thread bemoaning the lack of comedians used in today's comedies never bothered to give Ghostbusters kudos for not following that trend. They just could not get over the fact that women were now the stars and that this movie was greenlit for production and release. This whole fake argument about "throwing out canon" is amusing as it assumes even 1% of the fans of the original movie were even aware a "Ghostbusters canon" existed.

 

I find that I can compare Ghostbusters to Men In Black. Both were well done entertaining movies. I was never in love with either movie, just found them to be nice enjoyable movies.

In the early days of Hollywood, movie studios picked up on the idea that their audiences liked certain characters and themes. This recognition goes back to Shirley Temple and Tarzan movies.

As the 60's came along, studio systems with their contract artists faded and along with this went the studio driven franchises. Starting in the early 60's, Bond became the successful movie franchise property.

Then, this idea began to spring to life again with movies like Planet of the Apes and The Exorcist. Noting that while there was a market for a sequel, these and other sequels were spun to such up some additional dollars for the studios. One of the main aspects in common with sequels was to produce them on a lower budget than the original, to better ensure profitably.

Often, these sequels had a different director and different casting from the original. This resulted in sequels that held little in common with the originals they were based on (other than the title).

For me, it really wasn't until Cameron came along that sequels became legitimate properties that not only identified with the original, but proved they could be even better than the original. Witness Aliens and T2. In these cases, the public so much identified with the originals that Alien became Aliens and Terminator became T2.

The key to doing a follow-up, is to know and understand the original property. This means knowing what to change and what to retain. Think "vodka martini, shaken not stirred" and "Walther PPK".

When I go see a sequel (call it a remake, reboot or whatever). I don't go into it having high expectations, just that it will be enjoyable movie fare that is decently tied to the original, that's all.

They recast M.I.B: International. I didn't have a problem with that. I didn't have an issue that one of the "men" agents was now cast as a woman. I considered M.I.B. as having an agency at its core, similar to MI6. An agency of this stature would have many varied agents. There were many things that fell short in this movie, but I attributed none of them to the casting.

From what I gather, right from the start, the largest backlash against the movie, was not having the established and familiar faces of Tommy and Will as the leading actors. Well, Tommy and Will are not in it, so we either can the franchise or we move on.

I see the original Ghostbusters as what might have been (or should) the beginning of a Ghostbusters universe. A future GB could address a ghost outbreak in Paris, with a different cast. There are ways to do a follow-up right and ways to get it completely wrong.

 

Source??

The green light has already been given for Dune II, shooting starts later this year.