Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I'm actually super excited for 'The Little Prince':
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-little-prince-review-flights-of-imagination-1470342248
It's a shame this movie didn't make it to theaters instead of that completely unnecessary Ice Age sequel. Oh well. I'm also pretty excited for "Kubo and the Two Strings". And with Laika's track record with films like "Paranorman", "Coraline" and "Boxtrolls", I have high hopes.

 

[Drtooth]

I forget what the circumstances exactly for Little Prince being pulled from theaters, but whatever the heck it is, it's the fault of the film distributor.

Kubo excites the crap out of me, since Laika's a great studio with horridly underappreciated at the box office fare. Why, the film looks so good I can even overlook the casting of Mathew McCouneghey, who actually sounds good in this film as Autobot Drift Beetle.

Saw the weekend box office winner, Suicide Squad yesterday, and count me in the camp of it not deserving the bad reviews it's getting. Certainly not 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's easily the best DC movie since the Nolan Batman trilogy concluded, and at least it got the tone right instead of a joyless, overly dark film trying desperately hard to be The Dark Knight trilogy without what made the films work. Not to say Suicide Squad didn't have plot and script problems, but at least it was a fun sit through. Really deserves at least a better score than Man of Steel, and I actually liked that one. At least they knew to evacuate the city in this film, so you can tell the script at least has that much smarter than MOS. However, I do agree that the cast is far stronger than the story. As much as Will Smith shows his ego (he's the first guy you see so he can be the first name listed in the end credits, he's got top billing everywhere), it's some straight up Men in Black, Independence Day quality GOOD Will Smith. No wooden After Earth crap.

My only complaint is the villain. I can see where the bad reviews come from, since they could have had a much stronger antagonist than wannabe Zuul. The CGI on Enchantress's brother was weak. Wish that there was a LOT more Joker and a lot less Enchantress. I like Jared's Joker, but all it did was make me want to see more of him doing more Jokery things. But, Hey. If there's 3 people worth watching the film for it's Deadshot, Joker, and Harley. Even calls him Mr. J and Puddin' a couple times.

Spoiler

Batman and The Flash make brief cameos. I think we got a better dose of Batfleck here than in his own actual V Superman movie. Least he didn't have strange voice modulation. Flash was good too, despite having one line.

All and all, a very deeply flawed film, but stylistically and thematically superior to the other 2 DCCU movies so far. And with a great cast. Maybe a few too many characters, I was disappointed by how little Killer Crock was utilized, and he didn't even get to throw a rock. Not even a Big rock.

 

[Muppet Master]

Some box office thoughts

• Suicide Squad easily broke the August record with $135 million, despite awful reviews, probably doesn't hold well in the coming weeks.

• The Secret Life of Pets continues to be an amazing performer taking fourth place down a light 39% in week 5 to $11.5 million, putting it's domestic total at a massive $319 million, really impressive, and it's worldwide total now stands at $502 million, which is pretty good, hopefully it catches on even more at the foriegn box office.

• On the other side of the animated spectrum there's Ice Age 5 which collapsed 61% to just $4.3 million in it's third weekend, it's domestic total now stands at a pathetic $53 million, wow just sad, I really hope this makes FOX stop churning out these Ice Age films and it's not even doing all that well at the foriegn box office with just $234 million, that's bad for an Ice Age film, in comparision Ice Age 4 had made $200 million at the foriegn box office before it was even released at the domestic box office. It's worldwide total stands at a low $288 million, it hasn't even passed the first movie's total yet. Any plans for Ice Age 6 should be cancelled.

• Ghostbusteres is not going to reach it's budget, it was looking good at first, but each week has seen it drop 50% or more, this week was no exception putting it at $4.8 million in it's fourth weekend, for a domestic total of $116 million, so it's not going to make it's $144 million budger, they really should have spent less.

• Surprised that Finding Dory hasn't cracked the billion dollar mark yet, it's already blown past the domestic box office record for an animated film with $473 million, but it hasn't blown up at the foriegn box office with $396 million, hopefully it makes more there, but a $870 million worldwide total is still nothing to complain about.

• That atrocious Nine Lives movie managed just $6.5 million for it's opening weekend, considering how cheap it must be, it's probably already made a profit, there is no budget listed as of no.

• Really curious how Sausage Party will perform next week, if it works out maybe we'll see more R-rated animated comedies.

• Pete's Dragon will probably bomb like The BFG, Pete isn't as well known as something like The Jungle Book and the budget is probably way too high like the former. I'll be surprised if it does really well.

 

[Drtooth]

• Ghostbusteres is not going to reach it's budget, it was looking good at first, but each week has seen it drop 50% or more, this week was no exception putting it at $4.8 million in it's fourth weekend, for a domestic total of $116 million, so it's not going to make it's $144 million budger, they really should have spent less.

It technically made back its budget overseas. It just can't get bailed out by China like the atrocious Warcraft movie because it was banned by the culture ministry. By all means, if it lost money, it didn't lose as much as most summer flops did domestically this year. They're still probably going to do a sequel.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Well, this explains a lot:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693

Looks like the production of Suicide Squad was rushed and the screenwriter may have only had about six weeks to write the script. So in other words, most people don't seem to think the movie was bad but they don't think it was good. So what that tells me is, DC could've finally had a hit again if they just let the production process go on longer. It doesn't look like anyone besides Marvel can keep up with the demands of a shared universe franchise.

 

[Drtooth]

Suicide Squad is pretty frustrating. It had all the right ingredients, the cast was amazing, it was a movie everyone was hoping would pick up the DCU from the Snyderisms that faulted Batman V Superman, and yet, this explains why we frankly had the worse Ghostbusters remake. Now, I don't think Enchantress was as bad as creepy, socially awkward sexual predator Lex Luthor that ruined an otherwise forgivable movie, but she was a weak villain and her lousy CGI brother was a joke. Say what you will about Transformers and the new TMNT films, at least they look more realistic. And it's a dirty shame that the movie didn't get the time and effort it deserved to be the big success it should have been substantially.

Honestly, they should have steered away from the big big villain trope and just made The Joker the movie's main antagonist. I get that the entire concept of The Enchantress was that the government screwed the heck up by trusting her, only to create a massive disaster and having the Suicide Squad clean up their mess. That would have worked if they wrote her part better. And maybe paired down some of the members. El Diablo was basically the kind of cliche in a movie you can't overlook or forgive.

The problem with DC trying to do what Marvel did is that, well... they haven't had a good starting point and said "screw it" with Man of Steel. They should have taken the unproduced Justice League movie, reworked it a bit, and started with that and then do movies based on the members. Work backwards to contrast themselves from Marvel. That said, I wonder. What if people actually liked Superman Returns? Would we have had a DCU with that Superman and Nolan's Batman?

 

[Muppet Master]

Sausage Party got off to a great start with $13.5 million on it's first today, demolishing the meager $7 million that Ice Age 5 did on it's first day which was the last animated film to open, I'm glad it did so well, it seems like a great concept and with a budget of just $19 million, it's a sure-fire hit, it even edged out Suicide Squad, and hopefully beats it for the weekend as well. It's poised to make more than $30 million which is a solid start. Meanwhile Pete's Dragon did poorly as DrTooth predicted with just $6.9 million on it's first day, but unlike The BFG which had a huge budget, this one only has a budget of $65 million, so it might be able to at least break even hopefully. And Ice Age 5 is just sad, it has not done well in the foriegn box office with just $236 million so far, that's well below the $715 million the last movie made, and there's no chance it comes close to that total by the end of it's run and just $57 million at the domestic box office, which is still below how much money Ice Age 2 made in it's first three days, $68 million, they should really end plans for another installment right now.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm highly annoyed by this Box Office Report that Suicide Squad "plunged" in its second week of August. I'm sorry, but anything with a 133 million opening in August isn't going to have anything greater than a 50 Million weekend second week out. For a movie everyone hated so darn much it didn't exactly do domestic numbers of the other movies everyone hated this summer. I doubt this will be the Guardians of the Galaxy type of film that comes back on top several weeks later. It's making its money, it didn't disappear completely in its second week, and it's still number 1. That's the power of Harley Quinn's fanbase.

Meanwhile, I just fail to see the point of why Pete's Dragon was even made. It's not the most well known of Disney films, though I think that's the point. It does look low budget, compared to Jungle Book, but something tells me Disney knew Pete's Dragon would fail to capture audiences and gave it a low budget. Yet, if they knew it wasn't going to be a hit, why did they bother making it?

 

[Muppet Master]

Some box office thoughts

• Aww, I wanted Sausage Party to take the #1 spot, it ended up going to Suicide Squad tumbled 67% but still has a respectable $222 million domestic total, which is already well above it's budget

• As for Sausage Party, it did great opening to $33.6 million on a $19 million budget, so it's already made money back. That opening is in line with a lot of PG rated animated movie, so I'm glad it still did well despite being more adult, maybe we'll see more of these R rated animated comedies.

• Just unbelivable for The Secret Life of Pets, easing just 23% to $8.8 million in it's sixth weekend, it's domestic total now is $335.9 million, it's about to pass Zootopia's total, very impressive, and it's raked in some more cash overeseas with a foriegn total of $256.7 million for a worldwide total of $592 million, it's certaintly going to reach $600 million worldwide and maybe even $700 million.
• Flop Age 5 dropped 53% in week 4 to just $2 million with a grand total of $58 million, it still only has $236 million at the foriegn box office, and hasn't broken $300 million yet worldwide, honestly just sad.
• Pete's Dragon opened to $21.5 million in third place, that's a bit better then The BFG's $18 million, and Pete only has a $65 million budget, it's very possible it reaches it's budget and passes it, but it'll need to avoid those 50% drops
• Ghostbusters has now grossed $121 million at the domestic box office, it should close on $130 million by theh end of it's run, still not making the studio any money, so I think they should stop any prospects of a sequel.

 

[mr3urious]

As for Sausage Party, it did great opening to $33.6 million on a $19 million budget, so it's already made money back. That opening is in line with a lot of PG rated animated movie, so I'm glad it still did well despite being more adult, maybe we'll see more of these R rated animated comedies.

Being a Canadian co-production, it was real cheap to produce due to all the tax write-offs the production got. Great news for R-rated animation as a whole, but I'd much rather see more animated dramas get made, like A Scanner Darkly.