Box Office Thread

[thecolorsblend]

Meanwhile, Tom is cruising to another box office triumph and has 99% on RT for Dead Reckoning Part One.

In relation to that, I've got my IMAX tickets for next weekend ready to go. This is a film that's worth supporting so I'm going to brave the crowds and the movie theater to do just that.

To put that in perspective, literally the only reason I saw The Flash in theaters is because someone else volunteered to pay for my ticket. If not for that, I wouldn't have seen it in theaters. And might not have seen it at all, frankly. Because Keaton or no, it didn't seem like a film that's worth supporting.

[The Joker]

Modern Hollywood is definitely a hit-and-miss type of business (and way more outright gutters than strikes in recent times), but your own personal tastes/enjoyment of a film is always going to be subjective. Personally, how well a movie performs financially at the box office, along with critical reception (especially with something like RT being the barometer lol), has absolutely no sway or influence on my overall assessment on a film. Neither as a adolescent, or now, as an adult. As anyone is more than perfectly capable in deciding for themselves, what, in their own view, they favor or disregard. Regardless of public opinion.

Honestly, if I were to dictate my DVD/Blu Ray/4K purchases over the past 23 years on how well a movie performed, and the majority online reception, let's just say my personal collection would be significantly more modest than as it stands. For instance, one of the genre's I gravitate towards is '80's action/horror flicks (a decent portion made under Cannon), and a majority of these films aren't considered great. Or in some cases even good for that matter.

Fortunately, I like what I like, and I would hope anyone would have the tenacity and confidence to put themselves, and their enjoyment of a movie, before something as precarious as the winds of RT scores and box office.

But I have very little objectivity when it comes to Keaton playing Batman. For me, the glass is definitely half full.

His return didn't diminish his version of the character (like Arnie in Terminator has begun doing), he wasn't made to look like a clown (like Indy in Dial Of Destiny apparently does), he wasn't arbitrarily killed early for shock value (like John Connor), the movie didn't subject him to a feature length criticism of how overrated he is (as happened to Luke Jake Skywalker) and at no time was he expected to step aside so that some woker, more diverse replacement could take over (like Logan).

All things considered, Keaton's Batman got off light. No, The Flash doesn't burnish Keaton's Batman resumé. But it doesn't damage him either. And that's all I could hope for from modern Hollywood anymore.

I didn't mind, and liked "Logan", but I pretty much agree with everything else in your assessment. Given what we knew about the original trajectory with Keaton's Batman in "The Flash", it was a relative 'safe bet' that we wouldn't see the same kind of outright character assassination like we have with Arnie's Terminator, or Jake Skywalker in TLJ. Those two, unfortunately, had their purposely devalued trajectory set up from the jump, where in Keaton's situation, it clearly wasn't. Even in the final film, despite all the studio and Gunn tinkering, this fact was readily apparent.

To think people called MOS and BvS flops. Nowadays, the vast majority of DC adaptations can't even reach half a billion dollars at the box office.

Prior to Josstice League, the DCEU films were outpacing that of Disney's MCU Phase 1, which should've been commendable to some extent, but Warners frothing at the mouth for the elusive one billion, continuously handing down studio notes, along with the constant barrage of online MCU mouseketeers critiquing the opposition for not being more of the same (with Warners being rather amicable to this notion due to their indecisive nature), ect all amassed to what the current situation they find themselves in.   

Hell, Suicide Squad's theatrical cut was financially successful as well, in spite of the movie being a butchered mess due to the editing. Yet people claimed TSS suffered due to the bad word of mouth of the first attempt. If that were true, then Venom wouldn't have gotten two sequels.

True. Financially, wasn't "Suicide Squad" consistently in the top 5 at the domestic box office for roughly a month or so (Aug 2016)? Which, if you contrast this with TSS's performance, well, one of these is clearly not like the other. I've read some people use the pandemic argument regarding Gunn's TSS, which is amusing to say the least, considering it didn't seem to affect "Godzilla vs Kong". Which opened up months prior, by the way, and in same said pandemic. Weird.

I don't even hate TSS, but it wasn't really for me. Put it that way. Some things I liked about it, but honestly felt like the 6 or 7 out of 10 score I gave it was me being, at the time, rather polite.

[The Dark Knight]

Meanwhile, Tom is cruising to another box office triumph and has 99% on RT for Dead Reckoning Part One.

In relation to that, I've got my IMAX tickets for next weekend ready to go. This is a film that's worth supporting so I'm going to brave the crowds and the movie theater to do just that.

To put that in perspective, literally the only reason I saw The Flash in theaters is because someone else volunteered to pay for my ticket. If not for that, I wouldn't have seen it in theaters. And might not have seen it at all, frankly. Because Keaton or no, it didn't seem like a film that's worth supporting.

I think it's pretty cool how Tom's pair of running shoes are more effective than all these CGI armies amassing on superhero battlefields. At some point studios will have to change their ways, either in terms of slimming down their huge budgets or giving what people actually want to see. Losing sums of $200 million at a time isn't sustainable. I just hope the lack of interest in what DC/WB are doing doesn't start to rub off on Reeves and Phoenix projects.

[The Laughing Fish]

It's already stated how big this bomb is, so here's an update: box office experts predict this damn movie won't even reach $300 million at the box office after it earned a paltry additional $12 million over the weekend. But even if it does, it's still destined to make way less than Black Adam.

I predict an announcement will be made that Muschietti will withdraw from this Batman reboot, and Gunn will spin more dubious PR bullsh*t to avoid admitting that the studio fired him.

Meanwhile, I saw a screenshot on social media about a fan asking Gunn when is the final Blue Beetle trailer, and he said he doesn't know because he's "too busy working on Superman and Creature Commandos". This douche isn't fit to be an executive, I swear to God.

To think people called MOS and BvS flops. Nowadays, the vast majority of DC adaptations can't even reach half a billion dollars at the box office.

Prior to Josstice League, the DCEU films were outpacing that of Disney's MCU Phase 1, which should've been commendable to some extent, but Warners frothing at the mouth for the elusive one billion, continuously handing down studio notes, along with the constant barrage of online MCU mouseketeers critiquing the opposition for not being more of the same (with Warners being rather amicable to this notion due to their indecisive nature), ect all amassed to what the current situation they find themselves in. 

I can understand the argument that Snyder's first two films may have underperformed to high box office expectations, even though MOS already made a profit of $170 million in merchandise before the film even came out. But at the end of the day, the DCEU was a fledgling franchise. Ego and extreme pettiness got in the way of WB's judgment throughout two regimes, and as time goes by, you don't have to be a "sNyDeR cUlTiSt" to realise the franchise would've been far better off to let him finish the saga. Or at the very least, keep all the actors who were established in that continuity, as opposed to picking and choosing.

Instead, we get terrible decisions that are fueled by malice, deception, and outright stupidity. Whether you like it or not, the MCU was able to maintain its success for so long because they catered to the core fanbase. In contrast, it's now come to a point that DC has lost theirs, and the casual audiences see all the disarray and say "why bother wasting time and money?".

True. Financially, wasn't "Suicide Squad" consistently in the top 5 at the domestic box office for roughly a month or so (Aug 2016)? Which, if you contrast this with TSS's performance, well, one of these is clearly not like the other. I've read some people use the pandemic argument regarding Gunn's TSS, which is amusing to say the least, considering it didn't seem to affect "Godzilla vs Kong". Which opened up months prior, by the way, and in same said pandemic. Weird.

Like TSS, GvK was simultaneously released on HBO Max too. Unlike TSS, as you already mentioned, GvK fared much better. There are some excuses for TSS that got affected due to the Omicron outbreak, but again, tons of countries and territories were still in lockdown while GvK was released, and IIRC, even a shill like Forbes' Scott Mendelson stated Omicron wasn't a good reason to explain TSS's failure.

[thecolorsblend]

MOS already made a profit of $170 million in merchandise before the film even came out

$170 million in PRODUCT PLACEMENT.

In accounting terms, that won't be considered against the film's box office performance. Rather, that's a cost-cutting measure. It adds padding to the bottom line. But as far as the bean counters are concerned, product placement won't make a film officially profitable all by itself.

In MOS's case, it turned a real profit all by itself. And the product placement was probably gravy.

Even so, personally, I give MOS a handicap because it was following after the woeful, underwhelming, morose Superman Returns. I think it's a minor miracle that MOS did as well as it did considering how awful SR was.

[eledoremassis02]

Doing well on digital
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/with-the-flash-leading-vod-warner-bros-discovery-gets-another-1-film/ar-AA1eiSYQ

[The Laughing Fish]

$170 million in PRODUCT PLACEMENT.

Ah, I stand corrected. Nevertheless, only a blind hater will try to argue MOS's profitability while trying to excuse most of DC films' inability to break even.

Meanwhile, it's reported that Flash's domestic theatrical run is making less money than Green Lantern. That's how bad this flop is.

If the money wasn't already wasted on this mess, it's reported that WBD spent additional money on reshoots for Aquaman 2. Not once, not twice but THREE times.

David Zaslav needs to step down. Giving Gunn the job and announcing a reboot before these movies came out was already bad enough. Now he's wasting more time and money on films that no longer matter, never mind the time and money that was already wasted on scrapped reshoots.

If these investors and shareholders don't push back and kick Zaslav, Gunn and Safran out before the entire studio's reputation sinks even further than they are just as culpable.

[Silver Nemesis]

Deadline's financial analysts have named The Flash the second biggest box office bomb of 2023, bringing in an estimated net loss of $155 million for the studio. You can read a full breakdown of their analysis here: https://deadline.com/2024/05/biggest-box-office-bombs-2023-lowest-grossing-movies-1235902825/

The only 2023 movie that bombed worse was The Marvels.