The Box Office

[Bunch of Coconuts]

The problem is not agenda, but simply push it towards the wrong audience without making the story good first.

Barbie didn't make such mistake.

Please name 1 agenda from each of the recent "failed" Disney/Marvel movies.

[Wildling]

Inside Elemental's slow-burn journey from summer flop to year-end hit.

https://www.vulture.com/article/insi...op-to-hit.html

[Nods]

Please name 1 agenda from each of the recent "failed" Disney/Marvel movies.

Ant-Man and The Wasp - Bloated cast created for toys that killed any narative movement or focus for the film.
Marvels - Spreading the storyline over a failed TV show.
The Little Mermaid - created yet another raceswap live action film and marketed it during the Oscars in what was a shameless and disgusting act in my opinion.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - A soft reboot where a series of action set pieces were filmed and another story retrofitted on it.
Elemental/Wish - bland uninspired obvious racial politics stories
The Haunted Mansion - remaking a bad film with a bloated cast and dumping it at a bad time of the year

[Gaastra]

Beyonce is no swift but still hit first with $22m.

AMC’s second concert movie, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, though clearly frontloaded in its previews/Friday with a Saturday tumble of -48% ($6M), remains solid enough to hit a $22M opening per industry sources. AMC is calling the weekend at $21M. For a movie opening during the listless first weekend of December, that’s fantastic, not far behind Tom Cruise’s 2003 The Last Samurai which still holds the weekend’s record of $24.2M.

Sources slapped their foreheads over AMC’s move, which was mutual with Beyoncé, to release the movie over what is a terrible box office weekend, however, here it is, and the movie fared quite well, slightly ahead of its $20M expectations. Should the movie have been programmed during 2024 where we need product? Should the movie have arrived so soon in the wake of unicorn Taylor Swift: Eras Tour? Surely there were other options, but this was the choice that was made.

Renaissance repped the second straight No. 1 opening at the domestic box office from AMC Theatres Distribution. From Elizabeth Frank, Executive Vice President Worldwide Programming & Chief Content Officer, AMC Theatres:

https://deadline.com/2023/12/box-off...es-1235647651/

Silent night stumbles with $3m opening weekend in 9th place. Ouch.

Godzilla minus that already made it budget back in japan alone made $10.8m and gets third place.

Wish has a nasty drop. This is treasure planet area here! Napoleon crashes also second week.

“The Hunger Games” prequel slid to second place, adding $14.3 million from 3,691 theaters in its third weekend of release. “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” starring Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in an action-adventure that’s set decades before the arrival of Katniss Everdeen, has generated $121 million in North America and $243.9 million globally to date. Lionsgate’s return to Panem hasn’t been as lucrative as the original series, but the new entry has a (relatively) slimmer $100 million production budget, so it is well positioned in its theatrical run.

At No. 4, “Trolls Band Together” collected $7 million from 3,613 venues in its third weekend on the big screen. The animated threequel has so far grossed $74.2 million domestically and more than $150 million worldwide against its $95 million budget.

Disney’s family-friendly “Wish” rounded out the top five with $7.3 million from 3,900 locations in its sophomore outing, declining 63% from its debut. The animated musical fable, about the Wishing Star that so many Disney characters have wished upon over the studio’s century-long history, is shaping up to be the latest underperforming blockbuster in 2023. It cost $200 million and has amassed just $41 million in North America.

Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” dropped to sixth place with $7.1 million from 3,500 theaters over the weekend, a harsh 66% collapse from its opening weekend. The hisorical epic, backed by Apple and distributed by Sony, has grossed $45.7 million. It’s an unimpressive result for a film that carries a $200 million price tag.

https://variety.com/2023/film/box-of...ce-1235819664/

No word on the grinch and monty python rereleases.

Next week studio Ghibli arrives with a 97 rt score and almost no marketing to face die hard, unit 262, poor things and La Syndicaliste.

[Nods]

Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” dropped to sixth place with $7.1 million from 3,500 theaters over the weekend, a harsh 66% collapse from its opening weekend. The hisorical epic, backed by Apple and distributed by Sony, has grossed $45.7 million. It’s an unimpressive result for a film that carries a $200 million price tag.

“Napoleon” has fared better at the international box office, where the Joaquin Phoenix-led film has earned $90 million from 63 territories. Globally, it has grossed $136.6 million.

Napoleon is doing well overseas...the movie I saw this week was Dream Scenario.

[Pinsir]

Bob Iger blaming Disney's failures on woke creators just justified the existence of every anti-SJW creator, absolute scumbag. Wish looking like a direct to DVD film had nothing to do with it being woke. Nor was wokeness the reason why The Marvels was a sequel to three Disney+ shows. "Daddy" Zlaslav is a scumbag, but he inherited an ailing company and had to make tough calls.

Disney is cooked, at least until the end of the decade, the company has enough cultural staying power that it won't ever disappear though. Mufasa and the Snow White "live action" remakes are gonna disappoint/flop. Star Wars is literally dead. Disney animation will be making Frozen sequels until the end of time. For the MCU, they are literally reshooting an entire film (Cap 4)...its ogre for them.

You can't own a monopoly on cultural products. Trends fade, anyone can create new IPs, companies can't maintain a creative team forever (MCU being a good example of this).

[Slowpokeking]

Bob Iger blaming Disney's failures on woke creators just justified the existence of every anti-SJW creator, absolute scumbag. Wish looking like a direct to DVD film had nothing to do with it being woke. Nor was wokeness the reason why The Marvels was a sequel to three Disney+ shows. "Daddy" Zlaslav is a scumbag, but he inherited an ailing company and had to make tough calls.

Disney is cooked, at least until the end of the decade, the company has enough cultural staying power that it won't ever disappear though. Mufasa and the Snow White "live action" remakes are gonna disappoint/flop. Star Wars is literally dead. Disney animation will be making Frozen sequels until the end of time. For the MCU, they are literally reshooting an entire film (Cap 4)...its ogre for them.

You can't own a monopoly on cultural products. Trends fade, anyone can create new IPs, companies can't maintain a creative team forever (MCU being a good example of this).

Some changes were unnecessary, such as making the queen good instead of being evil couple, and remove the romance. I don't think it's woke, but some agenda did affect the plot a little bit.

A big problem with Wish is that most of the recent Disney Princess have the same adorkable personality, it doesn't work on everyone.

As for the Marvels, it didn't get the target audience right.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

Ant-Man and The Wasp - Bloated cast created for toys that killed any narative movement or focus for the film.
Marvels - Spreading the storyline over a failed TV show.
The Little Mermaid - created yet another raceswap live action film and marketed it during the Oscars in what was a shameless and disgusting act in my opinion.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - A soft reboot where a series of action set pieces were filmed and another story retrofitted on it.
Elemental/Wish - bland uninspired obvious racial politics stories
The Haunted Mansion - remaking a bad film with a bloated cast and dumping it at a bad time of the year

Yeah, you shoulda left that to the poster I quoted to answer.

[Wildling]

Bob Iger blaming Disney's failures on woke creators just justified the existence of every anti-SJW creator, absolute scumbag. Wish looking like a direct to DVD film had nothing to do with it being woke. Nor was wokeness the reason why The Marvels was a sequel to three Disney+ shows. "Daddy" Zlaslav is a scumbag, but he inherited an ailing company and had to make tough calls.

Disney is cooked, at least until the end of the decade, the company has enough cultural staying power that it won't ever disappear though. Mufasa and the Snow White "live action" remakes are gonna disappoint/flop. Star Wars is literally dead. Disney animation will be making Frozen sequels until the end of time. For the MCU, they are literally reshooting an entire film (Cap 4)...its ogre for them.

You can't own a monopoly on cultural products. Trends fade, anyone can create new IPs, companies can't maintain a creative team forever (MCU being a good example of this).

Yeah I thought Iger's response might be the worst studio decision this year, and that's after Paramount/Spyglass fired Melissa Barrera, with Jenna "Wednesday" Ortega not returning either, and with them being expected to scrap whatever current plans they had for the next Scream sequel, like a common pre-James Gunn DC Films Universe.

[Zauriel]

I just checked and read the box office weekend results on Box Office Mojo.
Trolls Band Together has good legs. Wish is doing well and might have legs.

The Marvels isn't doing very good at box office. The film would have legs if it didn't have a very terrible second weekend (79% drop).

Godzilla Minus One is making an impressive showing at the box office. This film pulled out a decent opening gross. $11,031,954 in 2,308 theaters for three days.

[Slowpokeking]

Yeah I thought Iger's response might be the worst studio decision this year, and that's after Paramount/Spyglass fired Melissa Barrera, with Jenna "Wednesday" Ortega not returning either, and with them being expected to scrap whatever current plans they had for the next Scream sequel, like a common pre-James Gunn DC Films Universe.

“Entertain first, not messages,” Iger said, adding that “positive messages for the world” sometimes overwhelmed storytelling.

I think he was right, just that we can't blame everything into it. We need more creativity now.

[skyvolt2000]

“Entertain first, not messages,” Iger said, adding that “positive messages for the world” sometimes overwhelmed storytelling.

I think he was right, just that we can't blame everything into it. We need more creativity now.

You got creativity.

The issues that we are seeing now is segments of folks want to dictate what gets made and wants excluded.

Especially if certain demographics are in the films that for some odd reason they can't stop taking issue with.

With claims that those folks are only in those films or got jobs because of agendas and not talent.

[The Overlord]

“Entertain first, not messages,” Iger said, adding that “positive messages for the world” sometimes overwhelmed storytelling.

I think he was right, just that we can't blame everything into it. We need more creativity now.

I don't know, some of the best sci-fi properties around: X-Men, Robocop, Star Trek, etc are all about messages. I find most of the MCU movies are pretty bland when it comes to social commentary and most are not as daring as movies in the past.

[Amadeus Arkham]

Kind of nuts we live in a world that a serious R-rated three hour biopic drama outgrossed every comic book movie this year. Audiences are sometimes unpredictable as to what they will be willing to make a success.

[Username taken]

The thing is Hollywood needs to scale back it's budgets.

With the exception of Oppenheimer, movies directed towards adult male audiences have been put hrough the meatgrinder this year. That's inadvertently also affecting superhero movies which have largely been driven by adult male audience attendance. That's ultimately why Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones and Fast and Furious didn't really do very well. If these movies had smaller budgets, they'd have done better.

Movies like John Wick still end up profitable because their budgets aren't exactly out of control like some of the other tentpoles. For whatever reason, adult men aren't going to theaters in the numbers they used to post-pandemic and budgets for those movies need to come down. Also, movies need to say something. The Sound of Freedom was a very political work thar captured audience attention, Barbie was an explicitly feminist film, Across The Spider-Verse was basically a celebration of anti-authoriatism, Elemental was about the immigrsnt story, GoTG 3 was once again about family and had a harrowing animal rights story inside it, Oppenheimer was a biopic that was all about the politics of the time etc.