The Box Office

[chicago_bastard]

Well 13.5 million for the weekend isn't good but all of this is pandemic driven so you are not wrong. Lets just say it made 13.5 million. It is what it is.

I wasn't talking about Snake Eyes, that one can surely be described as a bomb. It was more about your notion that "everything bombed".

[inisideguy]

but the post only described Snake Eyes to have "bombed" and not all current top tens

It was a new opening. The rest of them are old except for Old. It made 13.5 millon. 2.5 million more than black widow which has been out for three weeks. So projections will by third weekend with snake eyes you might be bringing in 2 million.

[inisideguy]

I wasn't talking about Snake Eyes, that one can surely be described a bomb. It was more about your notion that "everything bombed".

The whole weekend was bad. I mean I don't know anyway to describe it. BW held up relatively well considering, and F-9 held up pretty well to.

[chicago_bastard]

but the post only described Snake Eyes to have "bombed" and not all current top tens

Maybe I misinterpreted the "everything bombed" part. To me that didn't come across that it was about Snake Eyes only.

[inisideguy]

Maybe I misinterpreted the "everything bombed" part. To me that didn't come across that it was about Snake Eyes only.

Well the whole weekend was bad for everything. Its all relative. But obviously a big movie like snake eyes bringing in 13.5 million is probably the worst.

[chicago_bastard]

Well the whole weekend was bad for everything. Its all relative. But obviously a big movie like snake eyes bringing in 13.5 million is probably the worst.

The holds of most movies are pretty okay with SJ2 being the notable exception. The weekend is obviously bad, but one can't blame the movies that are in their third or even higher week for that. The new starts didn't deliver.

[Tofali]

The holds of most movies are pretty okay with SJ2 being the notable exception. The weekend is obviously bad, but one can't blame the movies that are in their third or even higher week for that. The new starts didn't deliver.

especially if the only chance is having at least a big enough opening weekend and the trend is to drop 65 - 70% on its 2nd weekend.

[inisideguy]

I think Next weekend is Jungle Cruise and the Green knight. I can't see Green Knight doing anything in this environment. Jungle Cruise has same day streaming so thats obviously gonna affect it. The pandemic is getting worse. I don't really know what Jungle Cruise will open at. I would hope better than Snake Eyes, and Old. But in this environment who the freak knows.

[chicago_bastard]

I think Next weekend is Jungle Cruise and the Green knight. I can't see Green Knight doing anything in this environment. Jungle Cruise has same day streaming so thats obviously gonna affect it. The pandemic is getting worse. I don't really know what Jungle Cruise will open at. I would hope better than Snake Eyes, and Old. But in this environment who the freak knows.

Even with a day and date release I can't see Jungle Cruise doing as bad as the new starts this weekend did. Jungle Cruise and The Suicide Squad are basically the only movies that have potential to become "big" hits until september. Presales for the Gunn movie are reported to be pretty low though and I doubted its potential even before the pandemic hit as basically everybody hates the prior Suicide Squad movie and I don't think general audiences know about James Gunn. At least Warner seems to have realized that, too, and namedropped GOTG in the last trailers for the movie, let's see if that helps.

I have no idea what to expect of Free Guy, that one is a total wild card, but I'm leaning to it landing on the disappointing end as Reynolds doesn't seem to be a big draw outside of his Deadpool costume. Biggest hope for a positive surprise is maybe Don't Breathe 2, as horror movie sequels did quite well in the past weeks.

The slate of coming movies just isn't great, I doubt these films would have lit up the box-office in pre-pandemic times, let alone nowadays.

[Gaastra]

Maybe I misinterpreted the "everything bombed" part. To me that didn't come across that it was about Snake Eyes only.

I was just talking about snake eyes but i guess "bomb": was not the best word to use.



Deadline talks about things here along with the box office. Old does indeed come in first over snake eyes.

https://deadline.com/2021/07/snake-e...ce-1234798883/

Two releases respecting the theatrical window –Universal’s Old and Paramount’s Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins– are opening at the box office to blah results, respectively with $16.5M and $13.35M. But don’t blame the distribution strategy.

However, it’s questionable whether we can blame the delta variant. These two movies, which received lackluster CinemaScores of C+ and B-, are opening roughly right in line with their estimates. If both of these movies were A CinemaScore titles and completely missed their projections, then it would be quite feasible to squarely blame the delta variant.

However, it’s just another lull at the summer pandemic box office, and we’ve seen that before this summer during May and June. Even with LA County seeing an 80% spike in Covid-19 cases this week (vs. last), the market was No. 1 for Universal’s Old with $1.22M, and it was No. 1 for Snake Eyes.


Overall, the mixture of two mediocre studio wide entries, delta concerns, and theatrical window experimentation is pushing the overall weekend box office down -25%, with an estimated $69M, a drop from last weekend’s $91.4M. There is something to be said, though, in the current pandemic marketplace that the avid moviegoer is fearless about returning to the cinema, but the casual moviegoer is still reluctant. A 76% comfort level about moviegoing during the pandemic remains, according a recent NRG poll, and despite jitters last week about the delta variant, the Dow jumped 200 points to close above 35,000 for the first time.

Don’t forget, when it comes to box office, it’s all about product, and last weekend it was clear that there was a segment of the audience who was eager to see the long-awaited sequel to 1996’s Space Jam, spending $31.05M. Space Jam: A New Legacy opened in the face of the delta variant and over-indexed its $20M projection to become the biggest domestic debut for a family movie during the pandemic. This weekend, the sequel is down -69% for around $9.56M, putting it in 4th place. But the fact that the film is available for free in HBO Max households has plenty to do with that.

Disney’s Black Widow, also available in homes on Disney+ Premier, is looking at a third weekend of $11.6M in third place, -55%. Black Widow made $3.5M on Friday, -56% from a week ago.

More proof that audiences didn’t want to go out of their way to see Old and Snake Eyes can be seen in their Comscore/Screen Engine audience exits: the M. Night Shyamalan movie posted an awful 61% positive, 37% recommend, while Snake Eyes drew 69% positive and 46% recommend. Both titles’ respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 52% Rotten and 42% aren’t exactly advertising ‘must-see’ either. For the record books, Old ranks as Shyamalan’s sixth No. 1 opening as a director.

Some rival marketing suits tell me that the problem with Old was that the ads didn’t have the extra grab factor in regards to why people should go out and see this tropical horror movie about upper middle class vacationers who age hysterically during a day’s journey at the beach.

When you have a director known for his twists, it’s impossible to include that in the trailers. Some blame the sluggishness of Snake Eyes on the fact that Henry Golding isn’t a marquee draw. But we can’t use the same excuse for Old. Shyamalan as filmmaker is the drawing power for his films, and his other titles with fresh face casts, i.e. The Visit ($25.4M) and Split ($40M), opened significantly better.

Also, in regards to Snake Eyes, Paramount and Hasbro haven’t exploited the G.I. Joe properties aggressively like Transformers in the last 12 years. Why, then, should anyone suddenly care about Snake Eyes? If you’re going to reboot the franchise with a $110M spin-off, best to make a movie which wins on all fronts like a Marvel movie, and rises above its fanboy kitschy IP. Make it smarter than it’s supposed to be.

G.I. Joe in the 1980s wasn’t all toy and TV show: the IP had a great long-running storyline in the Marvel comics, with some fantastic cliffhangers, a great read in a Reagan Economics America.

All of that said above, the G.I. Joe demos are rather splintered: Guys who grew up with the toys in their late 40s know who Snake Eyes is, but do kids 18 and below know, and even care? Snakes Eyes is clearly no Sonic, who has lived a multitude of generations in videos games throughout the years.

Heading into the weekend, RelishMix noticed a “mixed positive” response to the film on social media (“a sarcastic cynicism runs thick about connecting the dots from Snake Eyes comic books” says the analytics corp). I’m sure Paramount could have easily sent Snake Eyes to Paramount+. However, it’s part of a cinema franchise, and best not to tarnish that, even if there’s another, more improved G.I. Joe movie down the road.

[chicago_bastard]

Some better news: F9 has crossed 600 million worldwide and BW has crossed 300 million worldwide.

Looks like BW is the highest grossing Hollywood movie worldwide for three weekends in a row. Its holds in international markets are better than domestic, that can be contributed to countries that have no simultaneous Disney+ release.

[Wildling]

Some better news: F9 has crossed 600 million worldwide and BW has crossed 300 million worldwide.

Looks like BW is the highest grossing Hollywood movie worldwide for three weekends in a row. Its holds in international markets are better than domestic, that can be contributed to countries that have no simultaneous Disney+ release.

I'm not surprised since Cruella's international box office was reported to reflect the same a bit ago. If Disney don't commit to date the sequel they announced a while ago I'll be miffed, maybe even Cruelled.

[Castle]

So I take it that Space Jam 2 fell off badly? I still hope some of this films like Black Widow and F9 can crawl to the 200m mark USA.

[inisideguy]

Even with a day and date release I can't see Jungle Cruise doing as bad as the new starts this weekend did. Jungle Cruise and The Suicide Squad are basically the only movies that have potential to become "big" hits until september. Presales for the Gunn movie are reported to be pretty low though and I doubted its potential even before the pandemic hit as basically everybody hates the prior Suicide Squad movie and I don't think general audiences know about James Gunn. At least Warner seems to have realized that, too, and namedropped GOTG in the last trailers for the movie, let's see if that helps.

I have no idea what to expect of Free Guy, that one is a total wild card, but I'm leaning to it landing on the disappointing end as Reynolds doesn't seem to be a big draw outside of his Deadpool costume. Biggest hope for a positive surprise is maybe Don't Breathe 2, as horror movie sequels did quite well in the past weeks.

The slate of coming movies just isn't great, I doubt these films would have lit up the box-office in pre-pandemic times, let alone nowadays.

Free guy looks fun. But I can't see it bringing in any real numbers in this environment. I forgot about suicide squad. Yea I mean maybe it will get a decent opening weekend. I don't know right now I don't really know what a decent opening weekend would be. Like if Jungle Cruise brings in 40 million next weekend is that good? I guess all we can do is compare these numbers to other movies numbers this year.

[inisideguy]

BW about to pass A Quiet Place for #2 in domestic this year. One interesting note. BW also was #2 at the Box office on Monday beating Snake Eyes which has only been out 4 days.