Box Office Thread

Now onto to see if Solo will do any good 4 months from now.

The way Jumanji is retaining its audience week to week is just insane.

It’s like a big dumb friendly golden retriever. I enjoyed it and I’ve been recommending it to everyone.

Good timing. There is a hole around this time when it comes to stuff to watch.

Jumanji has beaten Justice League at the domestic charts, but it's still way behind on foreign numbers. Though it has to be said overall that it's beating Justice League if you combine domestic and foreign numbers together.

And you have to say that that is fairly shocking.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=jumanji2016.htm

Any movie that made even a single dollar in net profit beat Justice League.

There is nothing shocking about it. It just highlights what we already knew, the Justice League is a colossal failure.

The funny thing is, $660 million for just about any summer blockbuster would be considered pretty great. The first Iron Man made $585 million, X-Men Apocalypse made $548 million, Thor The Dark World made $644 million, the first Captain America made $370 million, the Wolverine made $414 million, and the first Transformers made $709 million, and all these were viewed as big successes and good enough to warrant sequels. But when your film stars Superman and Batman (inflation-adjusted, three solo Batman or Superman movies have already broken a billion) and is the second most expensive movie ever made (despite not looking like it at all)... expectations are going to be a lot higher. I like Forbes' label of "highest grossing box office bomb ever."

Interestingly, the DCEU was trending upwards in terms of box office profit before this.[1] The blow dealt by Justice League just looks worse and worse the more context you have and the more info that comes out.

[1]Small thing on that list. MOS made $170 million in product placement, so I'm willing to bet it was actually more profitable than BVS once you factor that in. BVS was the definite winner in actual box office numbers though.

Dawn of Justice? More like Doom of Justice am I right? :V

edited 15th Jan '18 8:14:18 PM by Mizerous

I believe this goes hand in hand with how Hollywood is foolishly spending too much money in movie production.

Lack of wise spending.

Well, it's hard for the MCU films at least not to inflate things when RDJ alone costs $50 million per film, and SJ another $20+ million per film.

edited 16th Jan '18 8:12:15 PM by NogaiKhan

It's not the fault of Justice League that it failed that badly. This is the fall-out from Bv S and to a less degree Suicide Squad. Yes, Wonder Woman did particularly well, but not if you look at the opening weekend. It indicates clearly that fans were hesitant about that movie too.

Personally I think that WB left money on the table with Wonder Woman, too. Being part of the DCEU wasn't helpful and I wonder how much a (good!) Wonder Woman movie could have made without being connected to this mess.

Jumanji just made #1 again for the third time. Won't be long until it overtakes Pirates to get into the top 10 worldwide of 2017.

It’s also nearing $800 million worldwide & just passed JL’s foreign gross.

In other news, TLJ is only $4 million away from $1.3 billion.

edited 21st Jan '18 10:51:27 AM by Spinosegnosaurus77

For some added clarity reference the two movies I'm going to link to Box Office Mojo's figures for them:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=dcfilm1117.htm

Justice League total gross worldwide: $655,176,070

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=jumanji2016.htm

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle total gross worldwide: $767,785,148

Jumanji is crushing Justice League by over a hundred million dollars at this point, and unlike the WB/DC film, is actually in clear profit by this point, as it only cost a pathetically small 90 million dollars to make.

If you had walked up to a bookies in Las Vegas and put money on this outcome a couple of years ago, the odds they would have given you against it happening, given the respective pedigree of both films, would have been astronomical. You'd have needed an armored truck to get the money you'd have won to the airport.

I demand a sequel to The Big Short that's about betting against the Justice League movie.

At this point, Jumanji has made more than Thor: Ragnarok domestically and is about to make more than Spider-Man: Homecoming. There are plenty of people who would have bet against Justice League, but I doubt anyone bet on Jumanji doing this well.

I'm going to consider this and Deadpool as making a trend: if you release a at least moderately good, entertaining, midbudget action-comedy in the Jan-Feb low season where there's little competition, it will likely do well.

edited 21st Jan '18 3:07:01 PM by Galadriel

Bodes well for Black Panther next month.

It's still wild how out of control the budgets on the DCEU films are. Even Aquaman has an 180 million budget for some reason.

How cheap is Black Panther?

Jumanji is doing better overseas than Wonder Woman did. It’s a long shot, but I wonder if it can reach $850 or even $900 million.

Not known at the moment but probably less than $175 million. For comparison, Aquaman’s budget is reportedly $10 million greater than the budget for the first Guardians of the Galaxy.

edited 21st Jan '18 5:18:50 PM by Spinosegnosaurus77

Marvel’s budgets are on the larger side generally, but they usually aren’t bloated the way the DC budgets usually are. (Wonder Woman aside.)

Jumanji will likely end up with a higher net profit than Ragnarok, because:

1. Half the budget. This matters not only for initial production, but marketing, guild residuals, and talent participation fees.

2. Higher domestic numbers. A dollar made at the American box office typically involves 55 cents being kept by the studio; in China that drops to 25 cents, and somewhere in the 30s for most other markets.

Hopefully the success of Jumanji, Deadpool, and Logan (among others) will help rub in that not every movie needs to be $150+ million, and in fact it can be more profitable if it's not. JL might rub that in too, albeit in a different way. By showing how bloating a budget so spectacularly can turn a disappointing but profitable movie into a disastrous bomb. Especially since Justice League REALLY doesn't look like it costed more than GOTG or TR to make (or, say, the Star Wars prequels).

edited 21st Jan '18 8:17:21 PM by NogaiKhan

I don’t think it’s a problem when it’s something with a guaranteed audience like Marvel, Star Wars or Fast and the Furious.

Part of the reason DC’s budgets seem wasteful is they’re spending it on shit they assume will be hits despite dubious prospects. Like seriously, after the reaction between Batman v. Superman who the fuck thought the sequel warranted 250 million before reshoots?

edited 21st Jan '18 8:29:48 PM by comicwriter

To be fair to them, they probably thought that they were going to be winning the audience back with JL, or at least recouping some of their losses.

Though, honestly, part of the reason that it seems like they're wasting their money is because...they kinda *are?* I mean, it's been a while since I've seen something as jarring as the CGI used for Cyborg on film (his torso looked SO damn improperly done I have to wonder how it managed to get through production without anyone catching it).

And obvious screw ups like that make it look like they are either half-assing their job or just **bad** at it. Which makes it look even WORSE next to movies with better effects and half the budget.

The Greatest Showman is one of the "leggiest" films of all time. In fact, it's being compared to Titanic.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/01/21/hugh-jackman-and-michelle-williams-greatest-showman-makes-more-box-office-history/#1034fbb6da47

Since it came out on December 20 it has never been higher than third or lower than fifth.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=greatestshowman.htm

Crossed $230 million in international box office and is still chugging along.

edited 21st Jan '18 10:26:03 PM by jamespolk