Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Muppet Master]

S X Tape bombed as well and will easily fail to reach its budget, serves it right, in my opinion it was such a dumb film.

 

[Mynameisdean]

Yeah, it deserved to fail as well! It seems The Purge 2 dropped a lot as well. I guess that's good.

 

[Muppet Master]

Yeah, it deserved to fail as week! It seems The Purge 2 dropped a lot as well. I guess that's good.

Seems everything from last week was thrown out to make room for the two new releases and three-week holdover "Apes". Purge, Planes, and SX Tape.

 

[Mynameisdean]

Yeah, Planes(BOO,btw, the BOO! emoticon won't work) will drop more than MMW! Not to mention my aggrevating typos! Sorry!

 

[Drtooth]

I hope the fact that last week's films had weak openings (Hercules especially) doesn't mean the public's sick of blockbusters before GOTG. I still think they were playing with fire putting it in August.

Yet, it seems that they're fairly confident it will be a hit. A sequel has been announced as well as an animated series. And I noticed the merchandise is starting to move even before the film's release date.

Someone please answer me this question.... was there ever a successful August film?

 

[Muppet Master]

I hope the fact that last week's films had weak openings (Hercules especially) doesn't mean the public's sick of blockbusters before GOTG. I still think they were playing with fire putting it in August.

Yet, it seems that they're fairly confident it will be a hit. A sequel has been announced as well as an animated series. And I noticed the merchandise is starting to move even before the film's release date.

Someone please answer me this question.... was there ever a successful August film?

No film in August really succeeds, heck the highest grossing film from August I remember is The Help at a final total less than $170 million. The odds really aren't for GOTG, and I think planning a sequel, and announcing an animated series is a classic counting your chickens before they hatch.

 

[Drtooth]

The Marvel brand might just pull through, though. They've been marketing the heck out of the film, and considering this film may have a connection to Age of Ultron (and probably will have some teaser for it as well), it pretty much has a built in Marvel fan audience. Plus, the thing might just do well overseas (Amazing Spider-Man 2 made it's budget before it was released stateside).

It's the more mainstream audiences I'd be concerned with. GOTG isn't exactly the most popular of Marvel comics. Most people never even heard about it until the film's announcement.

 

[jvcarroll]

No film in August really succeeds, heck the highest grossing film from August I remember is The Help at a final total less than $170 million. The odds really aren't for GOTG, and I think planning a sequel, and announcing an animated series is a classic counting your chickens before they hatch.

Again, I don't understand this arbitrary standard of yours. $170 million dollars for a $25 million movie isn't just a success, it's wildly successful. The $30 million budgeted Butler came out last August and made over $116 million domestically. That too was considered an impressive hit.

However, you're right that few mainstream blockbuster films are released in August. The new James Brown feature, appropriately placed in August, is going head-to-head with Guardians! This might spark a trend of bigger films taking over sleepier months. We'll see.

Studio executives also feel that women action heroes can't helm movies, but we know that's not true after last week's Lucy.

The Marvel brand might just pull through, though. They've been marketing theheck out of the film, and considering this film may have a connection to Age of Ultron (and probably will have some teaser for it as well), it pretty much has a built in Marvel fan audience. Plus, the thing might just do well overseas (Amazing Spider-Man 2 made it's budget before it was released stateside).

It's the more mainstream audiences I'd be concerned with. GOTG isn't exactly the most popular of Marvel comics. Most people never even heard about it until the film's announcement.

This is a weird experiment indeed. But, I think this movie may just rise to the top five of the year (if not the top film of the year). So far critics love it (94% so far at RT), preview audiences have expressed their joy about it and the studio is so pleased that there are now rumors of the Guardians director taking over the Avengers franchise from Whedon for the third installment. The only thing sour is the release date. I'm not so worried about that.

 

[Drtooth]

Studio executives also feel that women action heroes can't helm movies, but we know that's not true after last week's Lucy.

It's not so much that it's true or not. The real problem is that they judged those films based on the fact that the women hero action movies they released were freakin' awful. A live action Aeon Flux? Was there a point to that? How about a live action Superjail, then? Taking something that's only appealing in animation, and making it a generic action film is not a good way to judge how women action stars will go over.

That said, half the reason we're barely getting Wonder Woman in film (she appeared in The Lego Movie before they even decided to add her to Batman and Superman) is because of an obnoxious fanbase that will whine about any minor thing done to the character one way or another. The same ones that WANT a Wonder Woman film. The same ones that whined that the actress playing WW in that upcoming film doesn't have enough boing.

 

[Drtooth]

Looks like GOTG had an impressive late night Thursday opening... EVEN better than Captain America: The Winter Soldier! Somehow, this film was originally tracked for a 60 million weekend, but now they're confident that they'll get 70 million. And these aren't just numbers that are appearing out of no where. I just hope they get that much. It's said if it does get that much, it would be a record breaking opening for August.

Heck, most movies that open that month barely get what it got on Thursday.