Box Office Discussion

[mr.negativity]

Combined, Benedict Cumberbatch's supherhero movie, 'Trolls' and Mel Gibson's 'Hacksaw Ridge' are chasing away the blues at the U.S. box office. One reason? They all earned an A CinemaScore.

[mr.negativity]

“Ben-Hur” was one of the summer’s biggest box office flops and the failure of the religious epic depressed profits at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the third quarter.

[The Shadow]

I was surprised that MGM released this during the summer, especially this year when even the big movies were seeing lower BO takes. It always seemed to me that releasing Ben Hur over Christmas would have been a better route.

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Earns 533 million yuan (US$76.6 million) to surpass Stand By Me Doraemon

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[O.Supreme]

I'm not going to go on the bandwagon about "franchise" fatigue, or Universe Building fatigue. I like most movies associated with these, but I'll acknowledge it exists. But I do agree there are simply too many big movies. I was blown away to hear that most American families only go to the theater on average ONCE per year...I mean growing up in the 80's my family only went 2-3 times and I thought we were pretty conservative considering it seemed my friends were going all the time.

But if you go back 20 years, when Titanic had that insane 15 week run at #1 (Granted for the longest time Feb-memorial day was usually the worst season for movies) , there were only a few major big budget blockbusters per year. A film could easily stay at #1 for over a month.

Going back to December 2015, The Force Awakens was the last movie to stay #1 for 4 full weeks. 2016 had 7 films that topped the charts for 3 consecutive weeks, five of those were Disney owned films. (Zootopia, Jungle Book, Finding Dory, Moana, and Rogue One). the others were Deadpool and Suicide Squad.

Looking at 2017 so far only 2 films have topped the charts for 3 consecutive weeks, and they aren't what you might think. Split (which benefitted from lack of competition in Jan/Feb), and Furious 8 (which also had no competition in April). Since then almost every week a new Major film has come out and even films that in the past would be staples of summer are getting buried by other films in most instances 2 weeks or less, which I think actually hurts the whole industry. Oddly enough it seems there is such a thing as having too many choices.

Looking at the current trend beginning in June

Wonder Woman had 2 weeks at #1
Cars 3 had 1 week
TF 5 had 1 week
DM 3 will have 1 week

Now here's where it gets interesting...

War For the Planet of the Apes comes out on 7/14/17. These films are so well received critically, and have a solid fan-base, but I think it might actually open in 2nd place if Spider-Man performs well

In either case both those films will fall to (2 and/or 3 respectively) When Dunkirk comes out on 7/21.

7/28 has The Emoji Movie, which will be fun for kids, but I think it will open at #2 behind a strong positive reaction to Dunkirk.

In fact Dunkirk's timing may win it the summer...as 8/4 offers its only competition in The Dark Tower, which may again get buried. In fact traditionally there has always been one late summer offering in August that won crowds over. I actually see nothing in August that screams overwhelming favorite. Dunkirk may win the summer simply by being the LAST big movie, which I didn't expect at all.

I wonder if this will cause studios to rethink their strategy. We've already seen them break tradition and go as early as February to dominate that sweet February-Memorial Day spot that was so lacking before. I know studios want as many people as possible to see their films. I wonder if they may considering putting off their releases until late August or even September, another time when traditionally big movies are sorely lacking due to *back to school* syndrome, and before the fall horror fest.

[Benjamin Haines]

[mr.negativity]

The debut was more than the entire China total of 'Despicable Me 2' in 2014.

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[lhb412]

^It was a crappy year for the box office, but a good year for movies. I probably see five new films in theaters a year on average, but this year we still have four months left and I've seen *thinks for a moment* : Get Out, Your Name, Colossal, GotG2, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Skull Island, Baby Driver, and John Wick 2. Kong and Baby Driver I saw multiple times.

Later this year we have Shape of Water, Thor, Star Wars, and even Mary and the Witch's Flower is supposed to get a theatrical run.

[klen7]

[lhb412]

^I don't know. Saw the trailer before the screening of Castle in the Sky this Monday and it was the Japanese trailer with Japanese audio with some added English titles.

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[lhb412]

Wait, how wide a release is Magnolia giving this movie?!



I mean, sometimes they only do the big cities and other times they do practically a wide release. If this plays anywhere near me I'm going!

[mr.negativity]

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[lhb412]

^Wow.... so Wonder is doing well, eh? Good. I'm glad for that little film.

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