Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[mr3urious]

I know it takes practically no time for a movie to leave the theaters and start hitting the DVD and pay-per-view circuits, but didn't BIG EYES just come out? I mean, like, just come out?

It came out in Christmas of last year, so not that long.

 

[D'Snowth]

It feels like it's been more recent, maybe within the last month or too.

Remember the old days when you had to wait almost a year - give or take - for theatrical movies to come out on VHS and DVD? Nowadays, it's like you wait till the period it's slashed down to like five to nine dollars before you buy it, because during that time cable wears it out.

 

[jvcarroll]

I know it takes practically no time for a movie to leave the theaters and start hitting the DVD and pay-per-view circuits, but didn't BIG EYES just come out? I mean, like, just come out?

On average, modern films usually get 4-6 weeks in the theaters, get yanked for 2-3 months, and then hit DVD. However, many films hit streaming a few weeks earlier than that. This seems to be on track. But yeah, it seems quick and that line between theater and home is going to blur even more in the coming years.

(Also, films sometimes stream OnDemand the same week as theaters before going away for a few months.)

 

[Drtooth]

But yeah, it seems quick and that line between theater and home is going to blur even more in the coming years.

And that's partially why they're losing theater patronage. They want to get all the money out of a movie at once, and as a result they make these films more and more disposable. The only reason to go to a theater now is to see something before it hits where films were always intended for, tiny little phone screens where the film can be used to kill time on a commute while being interrupted by terrible flash games that everyone's willing to spend more money on than theatrical entertainment. Family movies have been hit the hardest, but considering how rowdy and not at all ready some of the younger kids are, I can't really blame them.

Then again, Big Eyes was an unfortunate blip on the radar, and wasn't as well promoted or acknowledged as it should have been. It was overshadowed by Burton's other film (did that one even do that well anyway?), and it's a shame since Big Eyes looks like a delightful return to form instead of pandering to emo tweens.

 

[mr3urious]

Furious 7 takes the top spot yet again. Unfortunately, Paul Blart 2 has made a decent amount of money thanks to having no competition and a cheap budget. Ditto the found-footage horror Unfriended.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=16&p=.htm

Nice to see that Home held its own and finally turned a profit, too.

 

[Drtooth]

Unfriended at least manages to have a semi-relevant concept. Supposedly, it's better than it looks, but I'm no horror fan. Paul Blart may only be doing well because of the unstoppable barrage of advertisements. I just don't think PB2 has much of a shelf life beyond that. Among other things, It's less than 2 weeks to Age of Ultron.

That one worries me. I'm indescribably excited for Ultron. Disney's Marvel movies have been very good as of late, and I'm sure Ultron's no exception. I just get the suspicious feeling someone, somehow is going to be slightly disappointed with this film and that turns into "THIS IS THE WORSTEST FILM OF ALL TIMEZ!!!" by the end of the summer. Of course, I can say that about every big budget comic movie, so...

 

[Drtooth]

This Cracked Article manages to mention two points about movie "success" measuring I can't stand.

They're numbers 4 and 2, respectively.

 

[mr3urious]

Gotta agree with #5 as well. The puny, low-risk budgets are the only reason those throwaway horrors keep getting made.

 

[Drtooth]

Horror is an unstoppable genre. Even throwaways with low budgets somehow get a following. At least with bad ones attracting an ironic crowd.

But it's disheartening when a movie's opening weekend isn't huge and it's called a bomb or a flop outright. It somehow manages to drive home the misconstrued message of "if it's failing, it must be bad, so not worth my time." And as I've said often, Box Office is not always equal to a film's quality. Lots of horrible movies do well while good, quieter movies fall by the wayside. Not that there aren't bad films that flop and good films that do well. But who's going to want to see a movie that doesn't win the box office opening weekend? That just paints the film as a failure when it isn't. Not to mention (surprised it wasn't mentioned much here) the whole inconsistency of foreign numbers. They don't count, unless they do, but then they don't. How come sometimes when a movie does so so domestically but great in other markets it's a HUGE success, but other times when the bulk of the money (and it's bulky) comes from overseas and the domestic numbers are meh, it's a failure? Ditto with the opposite. A hit in the US, but weak foreign numbers makes it a failure, yet the times when they just count the US market it's a hit.

Hint: If a movie doesn't make back it's budget, especially if it was a low budget, it's a flop. If it just makes back things with a small profit, it's not a failure, but not wildly successful. If it makes a crapload of money past it's budget, it's a hit. Then how come I see sequels of flop films all the time, but modestly decent ones are considered bad?

 

[Luke kun]

Has Sponge Out of Water hit DVD yet? I really wanna rock out to those time travel sequences again.