Wkd Box Office Est. 03•23-25•12 - audiences hungry for Games

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Again, DM, file this under '2012 Solo box office RISES':

Will Skyfall even hit $200M domestic?

I think it has a good shot, but that's also likely about as high as it could get. CR and QoS were about $165M-$170M domestically. Its much more of an international driven franchise than a domestic one. But I think, barring the movie being bad, they should finally cross $200M in North America.
 
Now we're talkin'!

Seriously though, short-term records (opening day, opening weekend) seem made to be broken. Ever year or so they get beat. It's the overall records that are far more impressive. I wonder when a movie will pass Titanic (either domestic or WW), let alone Avatar.

Well there is a movie coming out on April 4th that will surpass Avatar...
 
Hunger Games took it's audience seriously and didn't go for the lowest common denominator. That deserves applause for a film featuring children with no real happiness to it. And it's made by a studio in Hollywood. To disregard it completely and say it's only aimed at a certain audience is short sighted.
 
Titanic on the other hand is from a filmmaker that not only continuously steals ideas but is very short on creativity. Just thought I'd bring that up only because Cameron's name is coming up on this thread.

Now there's a film aimed right at the heart of teens and Leo fans. It didn't earn it's money on it's own merits.
 
I said no such thing, stop extrapolating before I throw a libel lawsuit on you!



I think the Titanic re-release will do very well, but $160M well? That would be a feat.

I don't think it's that much of a stretch. Lion King 3D made 94 million.
 
Now we're talkin'!

Seriously though, short-term records (opening day, opening weekend) seem made to be broken. Ever year or so they get beat. It's the overall records that are far more impressive. I wonder when a movie will pass Titanic (either domestic or WW), let alone Avatar.

shit I just looked up how much avatar and titanic did. I thought they were close but avatar has about a billion over titanic :o
 
Titanic on the other hand is from a filmmaker that not only continuously steals ideas but is very short on creativity. Just thought I'd bring that up only because Cameron's name is coming up on this thread.

Now there's a film aimed right at the heart of teens and Leo fans. It didn't earn it's money on it's own merits.

Please do not drag Cameron's name through the mud like that. James Cameron is a Canadian hero.
 
Man, between JOHN BOMBA and THE (LIONSGATE AIN'T NEVER GONNA EXPERIENCE) HUNGER (AGAIN) GAMES, March has been the most entertaining box office GAF month since Avatar turned from a bomb to the biggest earner ever 2.5 years ago.

And with all the big stuff coming up this summer, the fun should carry right on through. You just know that at least one of the summer popcorn outings will be a mega bomb, and at least one will greatly surpass expectations.
 
I agree that all of the short term records are bound to be broken. The viewing trends of American audiences are becoming more and more front-loaded. The multiplier seems to go down every year. The Hunger Games' mammoth opening weekend isn't that surprising as the real test will be the legs of the film. $300 million domestic is guaranteed, but if it can hit $400 million that would be mightily impressive. My guess is that it finishes 3rd in domestic box office in 2012 behind TDKR and The Hobbit.

In non Hunger Games related news, I'm thrilled that The Raid did well in limited release. It grossed $221k on 14 screens for an average of $15,786 (2nd highest average of the weekend). WOM should make this million dollar martial arts flick a very profitable release for Sony Pictures Classics.
 
Great results, saw it twice with my wife. The entire day has HOUSE FULL/SOLD OUT in the theater and it was playing every 30min

Its about as far from a Twilight movie as you can get so kudos to Lionsgate for bringing in a adult and male audience instead of pandering to solely tween girls

Not to mention any movie where little kids are killed on screen deserves applause for having the balls to do it
 
shit I just looked up how much avatar and titanic did. I thought they were close but avatar has about a billion over titanic :o

Yeah, even accounting for inflation and rising ticket prices, I don't see Avatar's $2.8B WW being topped any time in the next 25 years.
 
Hunger Games took it's audience seriously and didn't go for the lowest common denominator. That deserves applause for a film featuring children with no real happiness to it. And it's made by a studio in Hollywood. To disregard it completely and say it's only aimed at a certain audience is short sighted.

I really dislike the Twilight comparisons and I don't understand why so many people are pigeon-holing it like that. It's not the same sort of thing at all. Also, they sorta did cater to a lower denominator as the books verbatim would be rated R movies, no question.
 
I'm quite happy for The Hunger Games.

A good, thoughtful adaptation + an excellent cast + unbelievably good marketing = B.O. success

I think it's a good Hollywood success story.
 
It's targeted directly at the Twilight audience.


I haven't seen this film nor read the books, but I wonder why you all seem to think this? I have seen the advertisements, this film doesn't seem to aim at the twilight audience very much at all. Feels like a bit of a scattershot across multiple demographics to me. Much more so than twilight films.

Now maybe the movie/book itself is twilight-esque crap on a stick, but thats not the way they seem to be marketing it.
 
Man, between JOHN BOMBA and THE (LIONSGATE AIN'T NEVER GONNA EXPERIENCE) HUNGER (AGAIN) GAMES, March has been the most entertaining box office GAF month since Avatar turned from a bomb to the biggest earner ever 2.5 years ago.

And with all the big stuff coming up this summer, the fun should carry right on through. You just know that at least one of the summer popcorn outings will be a mega bomb(Battleship), and at least one will greatly surpass expectations(Prometheus).
Those are my guesses.
 
I really dislike the Twilight comparisons and I don't understand why so many people are pigeon-holing it like that. It's not the same sort of thing at all. Also, they sorta did cater to a lower denominator as the books verbatim would be rated R movies, no question.

They went with the audience that would make them the most money, R rating like the a direct production of the book would have locked in into a lower tier of money

I think they pulled off some pretty adult and R level things without resorting to the graphic showing of it though

But yeah the twilight comparisons are just trolling comments imho, the book reads nothing like it and the movie is in another league all together
 
I haven't seen this film nor read the books, but I wonder why you all seem to think this? I have seen the advertisements, this film doesn't seem to aim at the twilight audience very much at all. Feels like a bit of a scattershot across multiple demographics to me. Much more so than twilight films.

Now maybe the movie/book itself is twilight-esque crap on a stick, but thats not the way they seem to be marketing it.

There is probably a good bit of crossover from the female readers of the books. It sounds like HG appeals to more males and that is where it has the advantage over Twilight.
 
I just looked up Twilight OW --> New Moon OW...... that shit DOUBLED (from $69.6M for Twilight to $142.8M for New Moon). Now, of course there is no way HG2 doubles, because a $310M OW would be insane beyond belief, but I do think it means it could cross $200M for a joke.

Am I the only person here who liked Alice in Wonderland?

I haven't seen it, to be honest.
 
I really dislike the Twilight comparisons and I don't understand why so many people are pigeon-holing it like that. It's not the same sort of thing at all. Also, they sorta did cater to a lower denominator as the books verbatim would be rated R movies, no question.

First-person narration from a female protagonist involved in a love triangle, aimed primarily at teenage girls.

Teenage girls don't get a lot of attention when it comes to major Hollywood releases. Twilight is (I think) the first movie to really laser in on that demographic. The comparisons to The Hunger Games come because the books were aimed at the same demo, and the movie is being pitched to those same teenage girls because it turns out you can make a ton of money doing that. THG is better than Twilight in basically every conceivable way, and seems to be trying to prove you can target teenage girls with a movie and not make a total piece of unwatchable shit that won't appeal to anyone else, but the Twilight crowd were the most likely to buy in and so the similarities got played up (Team Gale vs Team Peeta, etc.)
 
160$ million is a huge stretch. TLK appeals to the whole family and not purely women audience. No way it will do above a 100$ million.

I don't think Titanic is entirely skewed to a female audience. I saw an early screening of the remaster back in February and there were plenty of men present.
 
They went with the audience that would make them the most money, R rating like the a direct production of the book would have locked in into a lower tier of money

I think they pulled off some pretty adult and R level things without resorting to the graphic showing of it though

But yeah the twilight comparisons are just trolling comments imho, the book reads nothing like it and the movie is in another league all together

I thought they did a fine job toning it down without losing much. But Hunger Games and To Catch Fire aren't so bad, Mockingjay on the other hand is going to be very difficult.
 
They went with the audience that would make them the most money, R rating like the a direct production of the book would have locked in into a lower tier of money

I think they pulled off some pretty adult and R level things without resorting to the graphic showing of it though

But yeah the twilight comparisons are just trolling comments imho, the book reads nothing like it and the movie is in another league all together

The movie really hypes up the love-triangle in a way that didn't exist at all in the first book. That's probably why people are comparing them. It's obvious the film makers went for that demographic.
 
160$ million is a huge stretch. TLK appeals to the whole family and not purely women audience. No way it will do above a 100$ million.

Titanic is the not the type of film that females go to alone or with their friends. They take their BF, fiance, husband with them. It did not gross $600M domestic 15 years ago on purely a female audience.
 
RE: Prometheus - I just looked up Ridley's career on BOM.

His best opening ever was Hannibal @ $58M and his best final total was $187M for Gladiator. If Prometheus is a moderate hit it should be his career best.
 
The Hunger Games is not a poorly written series of books. Technically, the writing is perfectly competent - it's just not written at a very high level.

Twilight, on the other hand, is practically unreadable. I've never seen a published author misuse adjectives like Stephenie Meyer. It's embarrassing.

So while there are certain comparisons that are warranted, The Hunger Games is a substantially better series than Twilight.
 
The movie really hypes up the love-triangle in a way that didn't exist at all in the first book. That's probably why people are comparing them. It's obvious the film makers went for that demographic.

First-person narration from a female protagonist involved in a love triangle, aimed primarily at teenage girls.

Teenage girls don't get a lot of attention when it comes to major Hollywood releases. Twilight is (I think) the first movie to really laser in on that demographic. The comparisons to The Hunger Games come because the books were aimed at the same demo, and the movie is being pitched to those same teenage girls because it turns out you can make a ton of money doing that. THG is better than Twilight in basically every conceivable way, and seems to be trying to prove you can target teenage girls with a movie and not make a total piece of unwatchable shit that won't appeal to anyone else, but the Twilight crowd were the most likely to buy in and so the similarities got played up (Team Gale vs Team Peeta, etc.)

Neither the advertisements nor the actual film tries to sell the story as a love triangle.
Katniss barely spends any time with Gale in the entire trilogy. Their relationship is really poorly fleshed out. Which is why no one is surprised when nothing happens between them.
 
Now that you're rolling in cash, Lionsgate, please double the budget for HG2. I don't want to see any more television-level-budget production.
 
Now that you're rolling in cash, Lionsgate, please double the budget for HG2. I don't want to see any more television-level-budget production.

I thought it used it's budget just fine. But I understand throwing 100 million away on blowing up CG buildings is expected these days.
 
Neither the advertisements nor the actual film tries to sell the story as a love triangle.
Katniss barely spends any time with Gale in the entire trilogy. Their relationship is really poorly fleshed out. Which is why no one is surprised when nothing happens between them.

Yeah, but all the hype leading up to things outside the trailers played up that angle. The casting of Gale and Peeta was a huge event, Team Gale versus Team Peeta was a thing showing up in online articles, etc. Gale received a ton of attention in articles and stuff to play up the love triangle. And I'd argue the
cuts back to Gale watching during the film are there to keep the idea of a triangle on the audience's mind.
It's not the entire point of the books, unlike Twilight, but it's something they were willing to exploit to grab young girls and was present in a lot of the media coverage.
 
Yeah, even accounting for inflation and rising ticket prices, I don't see Avatar's $2.8B WW being topped any time in the next 25 years.

Come on now. With the growing economies of China, India, Russia, Brazil etc.... I could totally see Avatar being overtaken in the next 10 years.
 
I thought it used it's budget just fine. But I understand throwing 100 million away on blowing up CG buildings is expected these days.

ho ho ho!

I won't take the bait, but I will simply say that this movie looked CHEAP. The sets and the costumes were not well done and the aforementioned CG was terribly integrated. Another $100M would greatly benefit the sequel.
 
Neither the advertisements nor the actual film tries to sell the story as a love triangle.
Katniss barely spends any time with Gale in the entire trilogy. Their relationship is really poorly fleshed out. Which is why no one is surprised when nothing happens between them.

lol because the constant cuts to
Gale looking like a sad puppy when Katniss kissed Peeta weren't hyping it up?
The teenage girls in my audience went crazy every time that happened.
 
Come on now. With the growing economies of China, India, Russia, Brazil etc.... I could totally see Avatar being taken in the next 10 years.

Avatar is ONE BILLION dollars ahead of the #2 film worldwide, and it made DOUBLE the next film after that. Hell, only 7 films period have made a billion dollars. My 25 years may be pushing it, but your 10 years is pushing it just as much in the other direction.
 
By Avatar 2 and 3.

Honestly? I just don't see it. Both will be MASSIVE successes, obviously, but I just see the original as that lightning-in-a-bottle, once in a generation type of success that just simply cannot be replicated.
 
Honestly? I just don't see it. Both will be MASSIVE successes, obviously, but I just see the original as that lightning-in-a-bottle, once in a generation type of success that just simply cannot be replicated.

If any film has a chance it's going to be the sequels. I don't see anything else having a real chance.

EDIT: Also Titanic's record of 17 straight #1 weekends will not be topped in our lifetime.
 
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