I guess that's the point I am trying to make- the lack of excitement. A few weeks ago I had been expecting an opening of around 100M based on Will Smith's star power and the history of the franchise.
I take the midnight number as evidence of lukewarm interest in the franchise and thus its box office prospects.
A dormant franchise would imply weaker midnights/pre-sales but better walk up business. We'll find out tonight. There aren't many comparisons to draw from as it is right now, but if it had negative reviews, I'd be more worried, but considering that it's passable entertainment, it might catch on with audiences well enough.
That's what I'm expecting. Plus the somewhat positive skew on the reviews points to this expanding as the weekend goes on. This isn't a film people are going to stand in line for for hours to see. But I could see casual viewers turning out in force and eventually pushing the number up.
A dormant franchise would imply weaker midnights/pre-sales but better walk up business. We'll find out tonight. There aren't many comparisons to draw from as it is right now, but if it had negative reviews, I'd be more worried, but considering that it's passable entertainment, it might catch on with audiences well enough.
From the trailers I was definitely expecting a 30s score on Rottentomatoes, so I was surprised to see it in the high 60s. Glad to see that the film appears to be an honest attempt to recover the franchise. I still don't think it will match the total of the first film, but with ok legs, it could pass $200M.
Boxoffice report is way to early to be certain of anything though.
$50M 4-day for Avengers will pretty much guarantee $600M if that is true as well.
80 million is pretty much the range most have been expecting for the 4-day. Hopefully the Friday number goes up a bit and WOM spreads through the weekend. I'd like to see MIB do 200 mil + and 600m WW.
Do you know how the box office works? No way this movie does only $15 million each day Saturday and Sunday unless the word of mouth is venom, which it certainly isn't.
Do you know how the box office works? No way this movie does only $15 million each day Saturday and Sunday unless the word of mouth is venom, which it certainly isn't.
I think the only movies to tank like that are DH2 and Twilights but then they crash like that because they burn off their audience and not because of WOM. Even a movie with horrid WOM like SM3 didnt crash on the weekend, it started later. So at this point, with a 20M ballpark figure for Fri and still wishing for a 50M weekend is probably based on opinion rather than math.
Why do audiences not do repeat business for fan favorites like Harry Potter and Twilight, but keep going to stuff like Avengers? Why are they so front loaded?
From the trailers I was definitely expecting a 30s score on Rottentomatoes, so I was surprised to see it in the high 60s. Glad to see that the film appears to be an honest attempt to recover the franchise. I still don't think it will match the total of the first film, but with ok legs, it could pass $200M.
Boxoffice report is way to early to be certain of anything though.
$50M 4-day for Avengers will pretty much guarantee $600M if that is true as well.
So I searched but couldn't seem to find a thread for Chernobyl Diaries - is there one?
Does nobody care?
They shouldn't because it's a super disappointing movie.
My "review" I guess:
When I first saw the trailer, I was intrigued. I know Paranormal Activity gets shit on because it's bad, and for the most part it really is, but I still enjoyed 1 & 3 and was properly scared shitless by 1. So when I saw the director had a new movie, and one about Chernobyl, I put it on my radar. I had a little problem with suspending my disbelief about people going into the town right by the reactor without a radiation problem, but whatever. Apparently the radiation HAS gone down enough that people can visit the surrounding areas now? Anyway.
So I'm kinda stoked to see the movie. I figure, it's gonna be a radioactive mutant movie from the guy that totally rocked the ghost movie scene. Should be pretty cool. And I HATE mutant/deformed Hills Have Eyes type monsters so I think, this will scare the shit out of me. Awesome!
Then a few days ago, I see a TV ad for it with all these rave review quotes. One of them really caught my attention: "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE EXPECTING!" I got excited - the last time I went into a movie that wasn't what I was expecting was Cabin in the Woods, and I fucking love that movie. So I thought, "Oh, good, cool, maybe it's not just "kids trapped in a building with radioactive mutants". Maybe that's just like the first part and there's some radical twist or change to turn the idea on its ear and they don't show that in the trailers."
Nope. The movie is EXACTLY what I was expecting, which in light of the "YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK THIS MOVIE IS!" commercial, was really disappointing. I don't know what the hell that reviewer was expecting this movie to be to have that kind of reaction to it. A cartoon? A documentary about flowers? Fuck. I was still scared, don't get me wrong - there is a LOT of tension and suspense in this movie. But it was just... it wasn't anything new or exciting. There was no fresh take. I'm not going to have nightmares or sleep with the lights on like the PA movies did. It's not like I needed it to be a game changer but I just didn't expect it to be so... boring.
There's a part in the trailers where their guide fakes them out by a river, pretending to have been bitten by something in the water.
That scene gets a lot of attention in the movie. The guide makes a big deal to one of the kids to let him know if he DOES see anything strange in the water. There's a half-dead mutant fish they find on the shore. After the kids leave, there is a long camera shot on the river where we see a ripple in the middle of the water with no visible source, with lots of fish swimming around it. I thought, "Oh, awesome, maybe it's a MONSTER movie? Maybe they're like nasty mutant fish things, that'd be cool." But no, it's never brought up again why they focused on the water so much. It turns out the bad guys really are just people with radiation poisoning. In fact, you don't really ever actually SEE them, so I don't know if they're mutants, or just pale bald people who murder and eat the cast.
Edit:
And WHY do people suffering from radiation poisoning, who escaped from a medical facility, murder and eat people anyway? WTF. They act like zombies but it's stated quite clearly that they are just people. Stupid.
It was also really by the numbers as far as twists go, though saying this movie had twists is really, really stretching it.
Before I even saw the film I thought, "I bet part of the movie will actually take place in or around the actual nuclear reactor." Yep. Kids run through a series of underground tunnels and their geiger counter keeps going off and suddenly their skin is burning, gee I wonder where they are? Burst out into the open, oh hey there's Reactor 4 right behind you.
The only real "OMG moment", that the Russian government was in on it and knew about the mutants, isn't even a twist at all because it's telegraphed so early on in the movie that the army knows something is up at the reactor. When they first go on the tour, their road is blocked by the Russian army. They have to go around some secret way to get in because the army has the place on lockdown. HMM. And it's [the reveal they knew the whole time] handled INCREDIBLY poorly in the movie too, almost all exposition by two doctors.
The best thing about the movie was the blond girl, Olivia Dudley. She was super pretty and it turns out a friend of a friend knows her, so I immediately put that call in hahaha.
It's worth noting, I think, since my reaction to the movie was slightly tainted by the commercial promising more than I got, that I went with a friend who had not seen anything but the first trailer. He was expecting a scary movie by the guy who did Paranormal Activity about radiation mutants and nothing more. He was also extremely disappointed for the reason I stated above:
they never really show off the mutants. We see their silhouettes. We see quick flashes of their pale faces as flashlights swing around in the dark. But that's it. There's never a real reveal, a "we killed one and now we're gonna turn over its dead body to see what we're fightiOH GOD DISGUSTING EEEEEEEK" moment, and even when they do kill some of them they just push them face-down into the dirt and run away.
So, there you go. I'd say 2, maybe 2.5 stars out of 5, because the atmosphere was really creepy, it had good tension, and Olivia is beautiful. It's not like they had to reinvent the wheel here to impress me but man, it was just really by the numbers and unexciting.
Do you know how the box office works? No way this movie does only $15 million each day Saturday and Sunday unless the word of mouth is venom, which it certainly isn't.
The MIB3 Friday estimate was bumped to $18M. The Avengers estimate was bumped to $9.7M
Looks like the Avengers is going to do about $35M for the 3-day weekend, and $45M for the 4-day.
People jumping all over Tom_Cody over saying that MIB3 would be around $50M for the 3-day were a little premature with their timing. It will be over $50M for sure, but an $18M Friday means a $54-60M 3-day depending on how the movie increases on Saturday.
People jumping all over Tom_Cody over saying that MIB3 would be around $50M for the 3-day were a little premature with their timing. It will be over $50M for sure, but an $18M Friday means a $54-60M 3-day depending on how the movie increases on Saturday.
Everyone updates their thoughts and estimates as more numbers come out though. I originally said that the Hunger Games would end up around $350M and under $375M after seeing its second weekend. You were arguing with me 2-3 weeks ago that the Avengers wouldn't match or exceed Pirates 4 overseas. Obviously we stopped holding these opinions as either movie's trajectory became clearer.
Regardless of what he said before, people jumped on him for his last post stating "We'll see Sunday night. I still think the 3-day will be closer to $50M." His statement might not be that far off. Especially if Saturday is flat, or increases <10%
It's hard to judge how MIB3 will fare today since most recent Memorial Day openers opened on Thursday. And many of those that didn't were animated films which always increase huge on Saturday.
Everyone updates their thoughts and estimates as more numbers come out though. I originally said that the Hunger Games would end up around $350M and under $375M after seeing its second weekend. You were arguing with me 2-3 weeks ago that the Avengers wouldn't match or exceed Pirates 4 overseas. Obviously we stopped holding these opinions as either movie's trajectory became clearer.
Regardless of what he said before, people jumped on him for his last post stating "We'll see Sunday night. I still think the 3-day will be closer to $50M." His statement might not be that far off. Especially if Saturday is flat, or increases <10%
Well its one thing to revise projections and admit mistake and another of moving goal posts. I'll gladly accept that I didnt think that Avengers wouldnt do Pirates 4 numbers overseas but then havent we all under-estimated Avengers at one point or another?
ERC is projecting 63M with a 18M Fri. I'm not sure how anyone could believe it would be in the range of 50M for the weekend when a 19.5M Fri number was being floated around. Sorry, thats just plain opinion and not math.
Well its one thing to revise projections and admit mistake and another of moving goal posts. I'll gladly accept that I didnt think that Avengers wouldnt do Pirates 4 numbers overseas but then havent we all under-estimated Avengers at one point or another?
ERC is projecting 63M with a 18M Fri. I'm not sure how anyone could believe it would be in the range of 50M for the weekend when a 19.5M Fri number was being floated around. Sorry, thats just plain opinion and not math.
I'm not sure how anyone could believe it would be in the range of 50M for the weekend when a 19.5M Fri number was being floated around. Sorry, thats just plain opinion and not math.
The ERC prediction multipliers don't make sense. Why would the Avengers have a worse internal multiplier on its fourth weekend than MIB3 on its first weekend?
They have the Avengers at $32M for the 3-day weekend (according to Artist's link). With a $9.7M Friday, that would be the total for a non-holiday weekend:
Fri - $9.7M
Sat (40% increase) - $13.6M
Sun (35% decrease) - $8.9M
Total - $32.2M
Makes zero sense to project that total on Memorial Day weekend where the Sunday gross will only be 5-15% lower than the Saturday gross.
On the other hand, to get a $63M 3-day, MIB3 would need to play like this:
Fri - $18
Sat (35% increase) - $24.3M
Sun (15% decrease) - $20.7M
Total - $63M
Taking out the $1.5M Friday midnights, that would be a 47% increase on Saturday. Since MIB3 is not a 90 minute animated film, I don't see that happening either.
I see 57 million for the 3 Day and 70 million for the 4 day, could go up a bit depending on the Saturday increase and Sunday drop. Definitely not going higher than 75 million though.
Some official 3-day weekend estimates are pouring in. Unsurprisingly, ERC's earlier estimate for Avengers was wrong.
Avengers 3-day estimate is $36.9M. Early 4-day estimate is $47M. The film passed the $500M mark on Saturday, reaching that mark in 23 days. The previous record holder was Avatar at 32 days. Avengers will be at around $523M as of Monday, which means the Dark Knight is probably dropping to third this coming Friday. Worldwide total for Avengers on Sunday was $1.295B. It will break the $1.3B barrier on Monday, and will pass Deathly Hallows 2 this coming weekend.
Battleship drop 58% during the 3-day despite it being a holiday weekend. Weekend total was $10.7M.
Chernobyl Diaries fizzled with only $8M. I guess people don't want horror movies in Spring.
Those opening numbers for MIB3 are horrible. The only saving grace is that it's a four day weekend and not three. I thought that the generally good reviews and WOM would push this higher. Obviously not.
While it's international weekend numbers will still be good I think it's unlikely to be any sort of banner opening for Sony.
Some are out. MIB3 made just under $150M internationally for a worldwide total of $202M this weekend. Should end up with $600M+ worldwide.
Avengers grossed $26.3M this weekend internationally. MIB3 hurt it a lot more overseas than it did domestically. Still, Avengers shouldn't have any problems getting to $850M internationally, especially with Japan opening in the future. $900M might be a stretch.
If ERC has been the box office authority since 1974, you'd think they would be better at projecting weekend totals after the Friday grosses have been released
They originally had Avengers at $32M and MIB3 at $63M for the 3-day weekend after Friday's numbers.
