Box Office Thread

It's not just the studio, it's the subject matter. It's a movie aimed at hardcore comic book fans starring a black kid trying to impress a panel of jurors that famously is mostly made of old white guys who refuse to watch animation. I would love if it won, but history has made me pessimistic.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Jan 6th 2019 at 9:09:35 AM

I mean, a film about a black, gay man won Best Picture, so I doubt Miles's race would be a problem with them.

There is nothing niche about Into the Spider-verse. It's a CGI movie made by an American Studio and is currently in wide release. Niche are the European entries, like the works of Cartoon Saloon and naturally the whole Japanese offers, unless they are made by Ghibli (and since Ghibli is currently on hiatus, maybe forever….).

And that it happens to be a comic book movie, well, that doesn't really matter for the animated category. Remember, both The Incredibles and Big Hero 6 are Academy Award winners.

Edited by Swanpride on Jan 6th 2019 at 7:00:58 AM

You really think that Spider-Verse is as socially biting and relevant as Moonlight? Movies about black people only win when they're about being black. (Just to make this clear, I have nothing but scorn for the Oscars and that's what motivates me to argue whenever I see someone assuming that anything like quality or deservingness matters).

It's an animated movie whose primary audience is adults, and will best case scenario make about a sixth to a half of what its Disney/Pixar competition will make. It's niche.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Jan 6th 2019 at 10:03:00 AM

I don't think that anyone cares about skincolor when it comes to judging animated movies.

I am glad that you are able to be so optimistic.

Relevant:

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jan 6th 2019 at 7:07:41 AM

Changing topics, it's a new year. And that means a new year filled with films to devour each other in an attempt to be number one. So naturally, everybody's wondering who's gonna come out on top this year.

I'm not going to make a top 10 prediction, but I am going to make my predictions for the highest grossing films for each month. Because I can at least see what films they're up against and go from there:

• January: Glass (2019)
• February: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
• March: Captain Marvel (2019)
• April: Avengers: Endgame (this also my vote for highest-grossing film of the year)
• May: Pokémon Detective Pikachu
• June: Toy Story 4
• July: The Lion King 2019
• August: Honestly, this could be anyone's game. My best guesses would be Fast and the Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw, Dora the Explorer, or Artemis Fowl. I'm genuinely at a loss here...
• September: It: Chapter Two
• October: Joker (2019)
• November: Frozen 2
• December: Star Wars 9

Who knows, maybe there will be a sleeper hit this year, but this is my best prediction based on absolutely no empirical evidence and guesstimating. Feel free to make your own predictions, and maybe by the end of the year we can look back on this and laugh.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Jan 6th 2019 at 10:51:56 AM

Of those, I can't see Joker or Artemis Fowl doing well. Nobody liked Leto's Joker, and YA adaptations have been poison lately, especially of older series like that.

Umm, Leto isn't playing the Joker in the upcoming film. Joaquin Phoenix is, and it's going to be completely separated from the DC Extended Universe.

Unless you're implying that Leto's performance in Suicide Squad (2016) killed any audience goodwill in seeing the Joker on the big screen again. Which I can believe.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Jan 6th 2019 at 10:50:20 AM

If it did, all the test footage of Joker via Taxi Driver seems to have made people want to give them a chance.

Wait, they're doing a separate Joker origin story, and also giving Leto's Joker his own movie later? Yeah, that confusion isn't going to help anyone.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Jan 6th 2019 at 10:54:51 AM

I don’t think Leto is getting his own movie.

I vote Aladdin for May & New Mutants for August.

Oh man, looks like 2019 is gonna be another record-breaking year.

Detective Pikachu is gonna make so much money.

Ten bucks says letojoker's gonna get killed in his next movie, especially considering the title of the Birds of Prey film. If audience reaction to Joaquin Phoenix is positive enough they'll probably bring him into the mainline DCEU despite their words to the contrary.

I’m guessing that Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars 9 will be the top grossers for 2019. Which are, I grant, pretty obvious guesses. There’s always at least one big surprise per year (this year’s was Black Panther out-grossing Infinity War domestically), so I’m not inclined to speculate further.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 6th 2019 at 11:43:41 AM

As far as I know, there was only ever one solo Joker movie, and in that movie they cast Joaquin Phoenix. I get the impression that from this point on Warner is going to try and do some more stand-alone movies instead of going all in on the cinematic universe thing, which is what they should have done to begin with. I don't think Leto Joker is going to be a thing anymore going forward.

But it was announced a while ago.

My money is on Spider-Man far from home making more than Captain Marvel but then, when it come to Captain Marvel a LOT depends on how well the movie resonates with the audience.

I think it's safe to look at my list of films that made the top 10 in the box office worldwide worldwide @1636. Unlike last year, where I underestimated Jumanji's great comeback in January, this time I made sure to check to see if there were any major markets yet to see the holiday films like Ralph Breaks the Internet or Bumblebee (or at least could potentially push them to the top ten). This time I only have two missing from the top ten being Solo and Dark Phoenix.

For Solo, this taught me that even the biggest film franchises can have a major slip up in terms of profit. I'm probably not alone on predicting this one to make it, but after having better knowledge of the marketing difficulties I can understand how someone were to predict this dud. Hopefully, this won't be repeated with the other Star Wars films.

For Dark Phoenix, of course it was delayed to next year and replaced with Bohemian Rhapsody. Which is ironic seeing how that film made it to the top 10, but I'll talk about that later. And I doubt Dark Phoenix will even make it to the top 15 for the crowded 2019.

Now to look at the two films that made it that weren't on my list. For Venom, it seems I was wrong about this one being another fatal attempt by Sony to start a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe that started with Amazing Spider-Man 2. Of course, I forget that Venom seems to be the next big Spider-Man thing next to Spider-Man. Not to mention Tom Hardy in a superhero film automatically equals gold, so oops on my part.

For Bohemian Rhapsody, again taking Dark Phoenix's place was probably a better trade off. It's nice were aren't just getting big budget action films or remakes of classics in the top 10. And Queen is a cultural phenomenon, which I looked passed apparently, even if I really enjoy their songs. And of course, they need it to be PG-13 so that parents can take their kids to listen so Queen goodness .

That's about it. Overall, I got 8/10 right which is an improvement from last year which was 6/10 (originally 7/10 but that was before Jumanji came in). I'll make a prediction list for 2019, but I doubt it will be as accurate as my last one.

It’s pretty striking that 5 of the top 6 movies this year are superhero movies (Aquaman will pass The Grinch for 6th in a couple of days). Far from superhero movie fatigue, the genre only seems to be getting stronger. I can’t remember another year when they were so dominant.

And it’s not just the MCU. We’ve got Marvel (2), Pixar (1), Fox (1), and DC (1), and Sony also did well with Venom.

Globally, superhero movies also make up 5 of the top 6 (but with Venom instead of Deadpool 2).

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 10th 2019 at 7:26:21 AM

It's a largely untapped resource...Yes, Superhero movies can be repetitive, but look at the ones released that year. It included the biggest Comic book movie event ever (at least until Endgame gets released), an inventive animated take on the notion of a multiverse, Tom Hardy molesting himself of screen, an underwater extravaganza, a movie which involved fighting off criminals with a giant pez dispenser, a Superhero family drama and naturally the movie making fun of all the craziness. Oh, and the other movie making fun of all the craziness, but animated and made for kids.

Btw, if Venom makes it past Solo...seven of the top ten movies domestically will be comic book movies. Superhero fatigue my a...

After having seen Spider-Verse, I’m impressed. It’s good - very good. It has the great fourth-wall-breaking of Deadpool without the sophomoric humour; Miles’ personality, beliefs, and relationship with his family are all very well-done; and the three (well, really four) main Spider-people are all sympathetic and characterized well. And the action is fantastic!

But I’m not very confident it will get the Best Animation Oscar, because it is seriously weird for anyone who isn’t pretty deep into comic boook fandom (or me, because I picked up a lot by proxy via spending way too much time on TV Tropes). The average middle-aged Academy viewer who sees this - if they bother to watch it - will end up going “What the heck did I just watch and why does it have Porky Pig as Spider-Man?”

What about Incredibles 2, which is more of the same "weird" superhero stuff. Ralph 2 doesn't seem like it has enough to earn it besides not being about superheroes.

Superheroes are mainstream by now. Existence of superheros doesn’t make a movie weird any more. Incredibles 2 is pretty conventional at this point.

Spider-verse takes it to a whole new level. Like, if Deadpool was a level weirder than your average superhero movie because of all the fourth-wall-breaking stuff, Spider-verse is a level beyond that. Like I said, Porky Pig as Spider-man.

I think it deserves the Best Animation award, I’m just not sure it’ll get it.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 12th 2019 at 8:08:37 AM