The Box Office

[inisideguy]

I'm amused Joker is getting namedropped in a scapegoating discussion about current year underperformance. I remember when Joker was coming out people weren't sold on the Joaquer look (but that always happens with new Jokers) or weren't sure if Maleficent 2 could be the bigger movie for that month (by now we know Disney was unloading as much big product in theaters for that year). And that was before the media fearmongering started. Joker could have been fine doing Shang-Chi numbers at any point in time, especially when we don't know for sure if we're getting a direct sequel soon or if we're looking at the next Gladiator.

Joker did just bonkers numbers. I don't think there was a person on planet earth who predicted those numbers. I still look at that and think WTF.

[useridgoeshere]

With AQP 2 making 160 million I don't see why the better-known horror franchise shouldn't make 185 million. With an obscure comic book character like Shang-Chi making 224 million I don't see why a popcultural mainstay and wellknown character like Joker shouldn't make 280 million.

A Quiet Place 2 definitely came out at the best time of 2021. Optimism was the highest, vaccinations were fresh, restrictions everywhere were lifting, and the Delta variant hadn’t emerged. People rushed out to see something new. If Black Widow had opened then, I think it would’ve done better. However, that one moment is not reflective of the entire year.

I chose a few movies but I could’ve easily picked kids or older-skewing titles and the gap would’ve been even wider. It’s not like there’s one percentage for all movies. More than 15% of the moviegoing audience is still rejecting the idea of going to the movies, especially in certain demos. which impacts four quadrant movies like the MCU more, as well as those created for those audiences.

I also think the whole “Shang-Chi is obscure” point is irrelevant. Marvel is the brand. Most people have no idea who any of these people are for the most part and Disney isn’t counting on comic book fans to carry the load for anything. It was a quality MCU entry with high re-watchability. It could’ve done over $300 million.

[inisideguy]

A Quiet Place 2 definitely came out at the best time of 2021. Optimism was the highest, vaccinations were fresh, restrictions everywhere were lifting, and the Delta variant hadn’t emerged. People rushed out to see something new. If Black Widow had opened then, I think it would’ve done better. However, that one moment is not reflective of the entire year.

I chose a few movies but I could’ve easily picked kids or older-skewing titles and the gap would’ve been even wider. It’s not like there’s one percentage for all movies. More than 15% of the moviegoing audience is still rejecting the idea of going to the movies, especially in certain demos. which impacts four quadrant movies like the MCU more, as well as those created for those audiences.

Yea thats the thing with this year in general. Even putting aside the same day streaming stuff this virus ebbs and wanes in various parts of the world and hits different places at different times. Right now its slamming europe again. In two weeks it could be smashing us really bad again. Its impossible to put any context into this stuff compared to other years.

All I know is 2019 you had 10 freaking movies with over 300 million domestic which is crazy. In 2018 you had 5. You are not going to have 1 this year except maybe spider-man. That isn't just a coincidence and knocking 15 percent off.

[80sbaby]

I doubt it'll gross more than the 2016 version.

But ultimately with the smaller budget it will be successful but i can't see it grossing more than the 2016 version.

I hope I'm wrong though but I will be genuinely surprised if it does.

I feel pretty confident it will gross more. It's going to have very positive WOM.

[chicago_bastard]

Eternals overall is not doing poorly so far.
It's doing overall well so far.



My view what the audience thinks is below.


This was posted in another forum below.


B CinemaScore is not bad by the way.


For the rest of my views go here.
THREAD: ETERNALS MCU APPRECIATION 2021
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...90#post5808090

The RT audience score was changed in 2020 as a response to movies like Captain Marvel getting review-bombed. Since last year only votes of people who verify that they bought a ticket for the movie in question count for the audience score, making it impossible for people who haven't seen the movie or bots to influence the rating. Therefore comparisons between the audience scores of movies released prior to 2020 and a movie from this year are not valid. A better comparison would be to other blockbusters released this year:

Shang-Chi 98%
Free Guy 94%
Jungle Cruise 92%
Black Widow 91%
Godzilla vs Kong 91%
Dune 90%
No Time To Die 88%
Venom 2 84%
F9 82%
Eternals 80%

So Eternals has the lowest audience score of all blockbusters released this year. F9's score is close, but that one also underperformed slightly judging by the franchise standard so it's in line with the notion that the lukewarm reception influences the box office.

Audience scores tend to skew higher because most people rating movies are the ones who went to see the movie right at its start, so if these people wouldn't like it nobody would. 80% sounds good at first look but one has to put it in perspective.

Same goes for the CinemaScore. A B sounds good, but actually it's rather bad for a four quadrant blockbuster. For reference: Other comic book movies with a B CinemaScore are Batman v Superman, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Elektra, and Catwoman. Does anyone believe these are well-received films among audiences?

Eternals' domestic legs are pretty bad, the third weekend drop could be another 60%. Barring a miraculous Thanksgiving boost F9's result is already out of reach. It could even struggle to top AQP 2.

[chicago_bastard]

A Quiet Place 2 definitely came out at the best time of 2021. Optimism was the highest, vaccinations were fresh, restrictions everywhere were lifting, and the Delta variant hadn’t emerged. People rushed out to see something new. If Black Widow had opened then, I think it would’ve done better. However, that one moment is not reflective of the entire year.

I chose a few movies but I could’ve easily picked kids or older-skewing titles and the gap would’ve been even wider. It’s not like there’s one percentage for all movies. More than 15% of the moviegoing audience is still rejecting the idea of going to the movies, especially in certain demos. which impacts four quadrant movies like the MCU more, as well as those created for those audiences.

I also think the whole “Shang-Chi is obscure” point is irrelevant. Marvel is the brand. Most people have no idea who any of these people are for the most part and Disney isn’t counting on comic book fans to carry the load for anything. It was a quality MCU entry with high re-watchability. It could’ve done over $300 million.

Shang-Chi came out in September and did very well. Venom 2 came out in October and did very well, making roughly the same numbers as the first one. Black Widow did very well in July considering the streaming option. Free Guy did very well in August. Spider-Man will shatter the box office in December. The argument that AQP 2 had the moment of opportunity is rather weak. It even had a slightly worse outlook as more regions were still in complete lockdown back then (large parts of Canada for example).

If the Marvel brand automatically pushes a movie to 300 million then why did both Ant-Man movies and Doctor Strange fail (by a wide margin) to make 300 million? The MCU brand is what makes movies like Ant-Man and Shang-Chi reach more than 200 million in the first place. Cut the Marvel brand and we would likely be looking at them making Shazam numbers. That was also a well-received comic book movie, yet it only made 140 million.

It's not about comic book readers by the way. Everybody knows Thor from the Avengers movies, so more people were interested to watch Thor 3 than Doctor Stange, a character they haven't seen before. We haven't seen Shang-Chi in MCU movies prior to his solo film, making 300 million very unlikely from the beginning.

[basbash99]

Yeah at the end of the day just no way to know how these movies would've performed had COVID not come along. I mean, certainly COVID definitely hurt box office, but there are other variables at play, too. People who decided Endgame was a good jumping off point for the mcu, i'm sure most of us have anecdotal evidence of this at least in terms of online posters but who knows how many/few people fall in this category. Focusing on more obscure comic characters may have played a role (Widow aside). Many moviegoers are neutral about having more diverse leads, but for some its either a huge pro or con. And also lets face it these movies haven't had as much competition as usual due to WB with its same day streaming release, which could also affect BO.

On another note, i'm finding Eternals BO somewhat interesting - it certain appears to be a flop domestically - its around 130 now and my guess is it will top off at 150 (give or take). right now its 50 million behind Widow and 100 million behind Shang-Chi, so basically no way to catch up at this point. But internationally its a different story, with Eternals currently at 176 compared to Black Widow 195 and Shang-Chi 206 so it seems like the movie is performing comparably to the other mcu movies abroad. I wonder what accounts for the difference?

I'm using last weekend's numbers, i'm sure the Eternals BO will be updated for this weekend later today

[Kirby101]

And Europe is going into another COVID lockdown, which will affect the International Box Office.

[inisideguy]

Yeah at the end of the day just no way to know how these movies would've performed had COVID not come along. I mean, certainly COVID definitely hurt box office, but there are other variables at play, too. People who decided Endgame was a good jumping off point for the mcu, i'm sure most of us have anecdotal evidence of this at least in terms of online posters but who knows how many/few people fall in this category. Focusing on more obscure comic characters may have played a role (Widow aside). Many moviegoers are neutral about having more diverse leads, but for some its either a huge pro or con. And also lets face it these movies haven't had as much competition as usual due to WB with its same day streaming release, which could also affect BO.

On another note, i'm finding Eternals BO somewhat interesting - it certain appears to be a flop domestically - its around 130 now and my guess is it will top off at 150 (give or take). right now its 50 million behind Widow and 100 million behind Shang-Chi, so basically no way to catch up at this point. But internationally its a different story, with Eternals currently at 176 compared to Black Widow 195 and Shang-Chi 206 so it seems like the movie is performing comparably to the other mcu movies abroad. I wonder what accounts for the difference?

I'm using last weekend's numbers, i'm sure the Eternals BO will be updated for this weekend later today

Its currently 7th domestically. Thats a flop now? I mean all you can do is compare it to whatever other movies were released this year.


The top domestic gross movie of the entire year is 224 million dollars. I just did a quick search and had to go back to 1998 to find a year where that happened.

[chicago_bastard]

Yeah at the end of the day just no way to know how these movies would've performed had COVID not come along. I mean, certainly COVID definitely hurt box office, but there are other variables at play, too. People who decided Endgame was a good jumping off point for the mcu, i'm sure most of us have anecdotal evidence of this at least in terms of online posters but who knows how many/few people fall in this category. Focusing on more obscure comic characters may have played a role (Widow aside). Many moviegoers are neutral about having more diverse leads, but for some its either a huge pro or con. And also lets face it these movies haven't had as much competition as usual due to WB with its same day streaming release, which could also affect BO.

On another note, i'm finding Eternals BO somewhat interesting - it certain appears to be a flop domestically - its around 130 now and my guess is it will top off at 150 (give or take). right now its 50 million behind Widow and 100 million behind Shang-Chi, so basically no way to catch up at this point. But internationally its a different story, with Eternals currently at 176 compared to Black Widow 195 and Shang-Chi 206 so it seems like the movie is performing comparably to the other mcu movies abroad. I wonder what accounts for the difference?

I'm using last weekend's numbers, i'm sure the Eternals BO will be updated for this weekend later today

Part of the reason for Eternals' comparably good international box office is that cinemas in some South East Asian countries and India are now fully or at least partially operational whereas these countries were in complete lockdown when BW and Shang-Chi opened. The MCU is quite popular in these parts of the world so it definitely hurt BW's and Shang-Chi's international cume.

For comparison: BW made roughly 1 million in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India combined. It didn't get a theatrical release in India at all, while it opened in the three other countries only in September and October because they were in lockdown prior to that. Of course, at that point many people in said countries have already watched illegal copies of it due to the Disney+ release in July, therefore leading to these lackluster numbers.

Eternals made roughly 13 million in the four countries mentioned, and as the numbers are from a week ago it's likely even more now, so it benefitted from these markets being open right at its start. Then there are other factors (e.g. it plays in much more theaters in Germany and Japan as some cinema chains in these countries boycotted BW because of its streaming release) but overall October/early November was a better time to release a movie internationally than July, also shown by the very good international numbers of No Time To Die and Venom 2, and to some extent even Dune.

[Gaastra]

Ghostbusters over preforms with $44m. Film only cost $75 million to produce. Off to a good start.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...h=5af14e14dd98


Also looks like the film got many families and kids.

On Saturday, over 33 percent of the audience saw the movie before 4 p.m., indicating a strong turnout among and parents and their kids (children over 5-years-old can now be vaccinated), according to analytics firm EntTelligence.

And, according to PostTrak, nearly 50 percent of the audience was between the ages of 25 and 44, while 57 percent of ticket buyers were male.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...rd-1235051374/

[Username taken]

Ghostbusters over preforms with $44m. Film only cost $75 million to produce. Off to a good start.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...h=5af14e14dd98

Wow, i stand corrected on Ghostbusters then.

That's just $2m off the 2016 version.

[basbash99]

Its currently 7th domestically. Thats a flop now? I mean all you can do is compare it to whatever other movies were released this year.


The top domestic gross movie of the entire year is 224 million dollars. I just did a quick search and had to go back to 1998 to find a year where that happened.

I mainly meant a flop in terms of the domestic not coming close to covering the "budget", but you are right that certainly this year its all relative. And while the international BO may allow them to break even, i dunno.. if we assume the typical marketing budget doubles costs to $400, i don't think it gets there but ends up closer to $350. But again, whether marvel views that as bad given the COVID impact, beats me.

My main point was why the disparity between domestic vs international vis-a-vis other 2021 mcu films, and subsequent posts did provide some good info on that. Thanks!

[inisideguy]

I mainly meant a flop in terms of the domestic not coming close to covering the "budget", but you are right that certainly this year its all relative. And while the international BO may allow them to break even, i dunno.. if we assume the typical marketing budget doubles costs to $400, i don't think it gets there but ends up closer to $350. But again, whether marvel views that as bad given the COVID impact, beats me.

My main point was why the disparity between domestic vs international vis-a-vis other 2021 mcu films, and subsequent posts did provide some good info on that. Thanks!

I mean look at dune. 165 million dollar budget, Around 100 million domestic. Eternals will at least equal its budget domestically. Dune won't even be close. But again its been said before, its really hard to judge things to any other time in history except maybe a world war. I honestly don't know what is making money. For cripes sake Cruella which is a really good movie made 86 million domestically. But they announced sequel. No one in their right mind thinks a movie like Cruella in normal times would make that little. But it was released at a really bad time in the pandemic the fact that it even made that much is sort of remarkable.

[chicago_bastard]

Dune and Cruella both had a parallel streaming release so that explains why they made so little. I mean it's not that these basic correlations have been stated a hundred times in this thread...