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'Blade Runner 2049' Is A Box Office Disaster With Poor $13M Friday

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Shoeless

Member
With the current audience climate in America, it's really not a huge surprise that a slow, ponderous, hard SF/Cyberpunk film that makes the audience work for it isn't going to do gangbusters theatrically.

I loved this movie, but I believe, like the first, it will find its home on home video, through word of mouth. This kind of movie was never going to be popular with a mainstream audience.
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
Movies can only succeed relative to the audience they are made for. I enjoyed it, but this type of movie just doesn't cut it nowadays. To be successful, while adhering to its ideals, it had to be flawless, and that it was not.

That doesn't answer what I asked, so I'll ask it again: How does this movie not being for everyone mean that it's bad and that it deserved to bomb?
 
added in forbes' bit about budget to the OT. people don't seem to be responding to the whole article which is worth a read

The lesson boils down to budget. It’s not handwringing about audiences rejecting intelligent adult fare, and it’s not quite a rant about Netflix and VOD gobbling up adult moviegoers. If you want to make a sequel to Blade Runner, don’t make it so bloody expensive that it has to play like a sequel to Star Wars. That Blade Runner 2049 will outgross Blade Runner in the first weekend and still be a borderline flop says it all.
 

hydruxo

Member
It's not that surprising if you think about it. Blade Runner bombed at the box office back in the day and this is a sequel to that 35 years later. As renowned as Blade Runner has become it's not a household franchise. Doesn't mean it's a bad movie because it flopped, the audience just wasn't as big as people thought. It's going to make a ton of cash off bluray/dvd sales.
 
At a certain point during the making of it, I have a feeling the production companies were like "Yeah we can't market this, but it's a such a beautiful and poignant piece of art that we'll just gonna roll with it".
 
This doesn't bode well for Dune. I think the subject matter of that story would be even more difficult to get into and it's probably going to have an even longer runtime.
 

DonShula

Member
Was almost no one in a Saturday 6ish showing... maybe 16 people total.

I’ll concede the movie probably didn’t need to be that long, but that’s hardly the reason people aren’t going to see it the first weekend. I didn’t even realize it was that long until I’d been sitting there for 90 minutes already.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
People cant enjoy mood pieces without having the instant gratification of the main character selling meth, avoiding their DEA brother in law and saving a Goddamn failing marriage.
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
It was never going to be a smash hit, it's a sequel to a niche movie from 30 years ago that was never going to attract the plebs. I'm just thankful that it exists at all.

Studios release bombs all the time, at least this one brought some artistic credibility to the studio. Kudos to them.
 
I hope the strong reviews and word of mouth gives it good legs. Though the original didn't go that well in the cinema as well, right?
 

Hyun Sai

Member
45 mn more than the first movie and around the same spacing ?

This better be as good as you guys are saying, especially when it's only available in fucking 3D in my city.
 

Slayven

Member
maybe the same nerds kept rebuying the blurays = wow there's so much interest in all the cuts!!!



lol

4IJG9VI.jpg
.
 

Bronx-Man

Banned
a
replicant uprising
movie is a movie that the world don't need. :/
I feel like that would be missing the point of both Blade Runner films. It’s not this big action blockbuster about uprisings and the like, it’s arthouse sci-fi noir. They can save that for an anime spin-off or something.
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
My theater audience was full too, but I'm fairly certain most of the audience was well over 30 as well who were probably big fans of the first one. Didn't see much of my early/mid 20s demo.
 
From the movie podcast I was listening to said the same thing. Great visuals but an overbloated mess. Was thinking of watching it, but now I am thinking otherwise.

Woah, I've never listened to his podcast, but I seriously question the taste of those on it. An 'overbloated mess'? That's like language reserved for something like Batman v. Superman

Blade Runner 2049 may be long and it may be slower paced, but an overbloated mess it is not. It's a noir movie for Christ sake. What were people expecting?

My theater audience was full too, but I'm fairly certain most of the audience was well over 30 as well who were probably big fans of the first one. Didn't see much of my early/mid 20s demo.

Cinema I watched it in in the UK was basically full, which was strange. Be interested to see the UK numbers.

My theater was noticeably empty. I went Friday night, and I thought it was strange. But I chalked it up to being a fluke. Unfortunately, it was not
 

Prompto

Banned
Weird, my theater on Saturday was completely sold out
Where in the country do you live? Seems like it did well in the cities but not so much anywhere else.

Warner Bros. domestic distribution president Jeff Goldstein said “Blade Runner 2049” had fallen short of expectations in mid-sized and smaller markets along with the South and Midwest.

“We did well in the major and high-profile markets,” he added.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
That doesn't answer what I asked, so I'll ask it again: How does this movie not being for everyone mean that it's bad and that it deserved to bomb?

Because it needed to be flawless, and that it wasn't. It has pacing problems, required you to watch a movie from 30 years ago in order to fully understand it, it doesn't develop key characters properly, it ends in a cliffhanger, it has silly plot details (they cloned Rachel, but somehow missed the eye color), etc.
 

Nokterian

Member
going this evening. rip

that said, marketing was NOT strong for this film at all.

Marketing was pretty wrong in my eyes, even when it was announced..as a fan of the original it just seems weird to even see a sequel when that movie came out the year i was born..35 years later.
 

televator

Member
My theater audience was full too, but I'm fairly certain most of the audience was well over 30 as well who were probably big fans of the first one. Didn't see much of my early/mid 20s demo.

So was mine and I went to a Dolby Vision screen with electric recliners. So tickets were more expensive.
 
Where in the country do you live? Seems like it did well in the cities but not so much anywhere else.

Living in the South, I can confirm the only people who were in my screening were people who clearly wanted to be there, not just randos who wandered in because "yaaaasss Ryan Gosling!!!" The screening was half full at most.
 

duckroll

Member
.... what? Like, what?

Okay, edgelord.

I'm not really sure how that's being an edgelord. I actually expected it to be slow given that it is a Villeneuve movie and avoided asking a larger group of friends to watch this. Not everyone is a film buff who wants to spend almost 3 hours appreciating deliberate filmmaking, great cinematography and an arthouse character piece with long lingering shots. It's a great film, but it's not a film you force on people.
 

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
Never expected a smash. It's for the fans like me and the fact it exists at all is already a win. If it's the last one for the franchise, I'm good regardless.
 

Timbuktu

Member
Could Villneuve make a good Blade runner for 80 million. He probably could. How much of that budget was to do with castings Gosling and Ford? A more similar budget to Arrival would have been a safe bet.
 

Fury451

Banned
This is unfortunate, but not really surprising in any way. The first is beloved and inspirational in all kinds of ways for sci-fi, but I wouldn't call it something that's ever had mass mainstream appeal.

In fact I know a lot of hard-core science-fiction fans in my circle that have a lukewarm opinion of the original (aside from aesthetics which everyone agrees are fantastic) or have never seen it at all.

That said, this will probably find its audience in the future, much like the first did, and be revered as the classic and achievement it is.
 
I'm sorry what???

I literally cannot believe this. The buzz for this movie is insane! Isn't it?

Will it pick up with word of mouth? There have been plenty of films that open to $30 mil and end up grossing 200 mil or whatever.

Come on. Come onnnnnn.
 

jetjevons

Bish loves my games!
A true modern classic that will endure the test of time. The questions surrounding Joi and K still keep me thinking for a long time. 2017 American mainstream cinemagoers reject it? Move along here folks, nothing to see. Enjoy Transformers 6 or Fast Furious 9.
 
added in forbes' bit about budget to the OT. people don't seem to be responding to the whole article which is worth a read

That's very true. It's made almost triple what the OG Blade Runner did opening weekend but is still considered a massive flop. It could make 200 million and still be considered a flop. Hell, it probably needs around 350 to 400 million just to break even. This was absolutely a failure of budgeting.
 
My theater had 30-ish people on it, but it was a Thursday screening, so I didn't think much of it.

The movie itself was amazing, I really wish the studios made more blockbuster movies like it.

Can China at least save it?
 
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