Count Dookkake
Member
gdt5016 said:
I am sure there is a Goldman Sachs joke to be made here.
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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)
- Thread starter SCULLIBUNDO
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I am sure there is a Goldman Sachs joke to be made here.
GhaleonEB said:
I had heard that Cameron forfeited his points in exchange for more funding for Titanic. After it was all said and done, Sony "gifted" Cameron about 50 million because of this. I had heard this on a podcast long ago, not sure of the accuracy.
I'm assuming he has an even greater percentage of the gross this time around. That's usually how it works in Hollywood.
That's what I'd heard too. He went into that on the Charlie Rose interview, it's here: http://www.charlierose.com/ToxicAdam said:
Hit "recent shows" on the right, it's about ten down. Start at about the seven minute mark.
He says he offered to give up his fees, but after the success Fox restored them all back.
ryutaro's mama
Member
:lol :lol :lolFutureman said:
Did YOU miss the part where it's second week totals are BIGGER than their first week ones?
Also, the drop last weekend from the first was 1.9%.
Any studio would kill for that kind of "slowdown".
PhoncipleBone
Banned
There are only two weekends out of the way for Avatar. The first was opening weekend, the second was Christmas weekend which is usually a high traffic one. If this thing has a shot of overtaking Titanic, I think we should wait two more weeks before making claims like that. That way we will have at least one non holiday weekend to judge it by. BUT its midweek numbers are nothing to scoff at. I am loving seeing it rise so fast, but I wonder how fast the fall will be? I think this coming weekend's take will tell a lot.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Wonder if any movie can top 2 billion. Avatar II (III?) maybe?
BattleMonkey
Member
PhoncipleBone said:
New Years weekend as well, lot of people are having long weekends this week so it will likely be another big money maker.
PhoncipleBone
Banned
BattleMonkey said:
New Year's is not as heavily trafficked as Christmas, but the weekend should still be huge. The drop from last week is what will be telling. The weekly total itself should be a bit higher than last week though, as Christmas Eve took a big dip in the middle of the week.
I just think that after two weekends it is a bit premature to start wondering if this will beat Titanic. After another week or two I will start giving it more serious thought.
BattleMonkey
Member
PhoncipleBone said:
Well it's not so much new years, as it being a 4 day weekend for many.
Guardian Bob
Member
Chinner said:
I would think even longer than that. It felt like the Dark Knight was in theatres for a long, long time.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
PhoncipleBone said:
Yeah this is what I think too. We really don't know if it will compete with Titanic until the weekend of January 8-10th at the earliest.
One factor helping Titanic was that it sailed into a competitive wasteland in January and February. Avatar is heading into a similar void where there are few major releases that will challenge it. Both are movies that are showing broad demographic appeal and repeat business, and have nothing on the horizon to knock them off.mckmas8808 said:
ryutaro's mama
Member
GhaleonEB said:
January has Book of Eli on the 15th.
And Legion and the Tooth Fairy on the 22nd.
We'll see though...
ryutaro's mama
Member
Idk. It's I Am Legend-esque with Denzel.GhaleonEB said:I don't feel the need to revise my post.
I can't see a scenario where it isn't #1 in it's debut.
Prove me wrong, Jimmy.
Guardian Bob
Member
I don't think Tooth Fairy will stand much of a chance. I didn't even hear about that movie until I went to Avatar again last night.
Ah, so James Horner did the soundtrack. Well that explains why I kept thinking they just copied some of the tracks from Troy and threw it in :lol
And I'm going to see this movie again later today with a couple people who want to see it. I think this is like four days in a row now. Is this real life?
And I'm going to see this movie again later today with a couple people who want to see it. I think this is like four days in a row now. Is this real life?
I like Denzel. I think he's awesome.ryutaro's mama said:
I like Gary Whitta. I think he's awesome.
Avatar is going to do the jujubes thing to Book of Eli. The writing is just on the wall at this point.
I'd like for it to be a solid it despite that, as the movie looks awesome. But movies like Book of Eli open in January to get out of the way of the holiday releases. When one decides to keep going, it's movies like The Book of Eli that are in their way. And that won't end well.
PhoncipleBone
Banned
ryutaro's mama said:
No offense to Gary Whitta, but I dont see Book of Eli doing major money in January. I think the movie looks fantastic, and it is nice to see Gary Oldman back in crazy psycho mode, but Denzel is not a huge box office draw. He has only had three movies break $100 million, which were Pelican Brief, Remember the Titans, and American Gangster. If Book of Eli opens at #1, it is because Avatar has dropped a lot. Well, at least dropped to normal levels for a movie. Like others said, the week of Jan 8-10 will be telling.
I like James Horner and all, and Cameron will probably not let him go. But it is a shame he didn't think about using Hans Zimmer. He and Lisa Gerard could have made such a touching soundtrack, especially if he came up with a song for Lisa to sing in the Na'vi language.
Love his song in Man on Fire (although, like Horner, Hanz did lift a lot of it from his own Gladiator
): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1x55t51uc
Love his song in Man on Fire (although, like Horner, Hanz did lift a lot of it from his own Gladiator
): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1x55t51ucget out of my head chaaaaaaaarrleess!Combine said:I like James Horner and all, and Cameron will probably not let him go. But it is a shame he didn't think about using Hans Zimmer. He and Lisa Gerard could have made such a touching soundtrack, especially if he came up with a song for Lisa to sing in the Na'vi language.
Love his song in Man on Fire (although, like Horner, Hanz did lift a lot of it from his own Gladiator
He should have gotten Zimmer on this one, agreed so much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHAvjaHtlMA
If they played that song at the end of Avatar. I just..I wouldn't know what to do.
GhaleonEB said:
Hans Zimmer did:
Lion King
Prince of Egypt
Gladiator
The Dark Knight
All on my playlist.
Hans Zimmer is great. Together with Harry Gregson Williams, Steve Jablonsky ( he's stepping up, Cameron even used his My name is Lincoln in the trailer).
It is absolutely true that some of Zimmer's work isn't that good. But lord have mercy, most of his stuff is heart penetrating. Hans Zimmer reigns supreme.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
Should have gotten Howard Shore or re-teamed with Alan Silvestri.
The only one I like on that list is TDK (and Batman Begins, which was also excellent).
I'd rather have Horner any day, and I think his record stacks up favorably to and is more consistently excellent than Zimmer. Probably just a stylistic preference.
I'd rather have Horner any day, and I think his record stacks up favorably to and is more consistently excellent than Zimmer. Probably just a stylistic preference.
I'd rather have Zimmer.Scullibundo said:
Scullibundo said:
This is some sweet stuff Zimmer and Harry GW poured out in POE ( My favourite Animated film ever).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVmtG9_55F0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcyyf3ndYDg&feature=related
Zimmer's a talent.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Ghaleon you didn't like the Lion King?GhaleonEB said:
civilstrife
Member
Loved the movie except for the lack of a memorable soundtrack.
Almost forgot this one from Lion King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnrd...laynext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15#&t=05m25s
This one especially. Amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnrd...laynext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15#&t=05m25s
This one especially. Amazing.
Yep.Combine said:
DarkMehm said:
Eywa has heard you! :lol :lol
Jibril said:
Jibril said:
Many things with the Zimmer name on it arent really Zimmer compositions. Half his work should have really been attributed to his Media Ventures company rather than Zimmer himself. Most of them have branched out on their own now and have commanded their own respect and have their own scores, but there was a time when a "Zimmer" score could be made up of uncredited work from Harry Gregson Williams, Steve Jablonsky, Klaus Badelt, James Newton Howard, John Powell, Lisa Gerrard, etc.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
PhatSaqs said:
WHOA!
Guardian Bob
Member
My favourite Zimmer movie: Kung Fu Panda. Soundtrack is great 
TacticalFox88
Banned
Well to each his own. I'm an absolute sucker for the Disney Renaissance films. Lion King is my favorite 2D movie. It may be because of my childhood nostalgia. Who knows? But I agree Disney's stuff today, still don't meet the standards they put out in the late 80's and 90's.GhaleonEB said:
Here's the problem (and it is a problem): supposing Titanic is around $350 million after the weekend (which it should be, give or take a few million and given a $60 million weekend, which is about what I would expect), the weekdays are going to drop dramatically. The days after Christmas act like mini-holidays, historically, while after January 1st, they start going back to normal weekdays. The weekends, too, usually suffer, since Sundays don't act like holiday Sundays (which act more like Saturdays thanks to increased evening traffic). You should also keep in mind that Christmas Day is THE biggest moviegoing day of the year. This year the box office is exceptionally lucky that both Christmas and New Year's Day (another big moviegoing day) both fall on a Friday, which hasn't happened since '98 (who'da thought), so some of the effects should be muffled this weekend, but that just means that they will be spread to the weekend after instead.GhaleonEB said:
Now, after next week I think Avatar might very well have 25%ish drops for awhile, at least on weekends, considering how good its word of mouth is and the limited 3D venues (and all the other factors I mentioned before). But that first drop--especially when it comes to the weekdays--matters a LOT. To make that somewhat more concrete, in the scenario you outlined, assuming around 25% weekly drops WITHOUT factoring in the big weekday drops would give Avatar around $14 million weekdays Monday through Thursday next week (the week after New Year's Eve weekend), and $11 million weekdays the week after that--which is pretty much impossible when you consider that the holiday traffic is mostly gone, with people either at work or school for most of the day. In fact, not only would you be looking at 28 or more consecutive days over ten million, you wouldn't even get below five million dollars a day until the seventh week. There just aren't enough people in theaters for the kind of run you're imagining here.
Another issue--and this is a deeper one--is the limited number of screens, 3D or otherwise. While Avatar's IMAX numbers are pretty much safe from other incursions for a long time, which will help soften the drop, as the year progresses even the biggest blockbusters start losing screens to other movies. January is pretty barren, which is why in the short term this effect can be mostly ignored (Book of Eli may be wonderful but it's not much of a threat to Avatar). As more movies start coming out, however, theaters will start to replace Avatar's showings. 2D theaters will be affected more heavily and earlier, since they don't generate as much of a premium, and theaters will obviously want to keep making bank off Avatar as long as possible, but eventually the per-theater average will be low enough that they would be making more money by switching them to other movies. This especially hurts with the 3D screens, since you're losing the premium and (in Avatar's case) a lot of the reason people have for coming. Unfortunately, since 3D screens are limited, any new 3D movie that comes out will steal some away, and even if they're total bombs by the time the theaters acknowledge it another movie's come to take their place. It is important to realize that this has nothing to do with audience perception or the quality of the movies, or even their grosses--it's simply a matter of limited screens.
Seven or eight weeks from now, when in your model Avatar is supposed to be passing Titanic, it won't have nearly as many screens, especially not 3D ones. It will be inaccessible for some people and pointless for others, and the infrastructure really won't be there for it to be making the nearly $5 million a weekday your model says it should. This is what happened to Up (which was on pace for over $300 million)--it lost 3D theaters too quickly and, in the end, couldn't make it. At some point, as the pace of theater loss slows to a crawl, this will become less of an issue--this is one reason many movies, even frontloaded ones like Twilight and box office disappointments like Terminator Salvation, show "late legs." When Titanic was released--and the longer back you look, the truer this becomes--there were a lot less movies released per year, and movies were given much more time to build their grosses and stretch their legs. In Titanic's case, it was able to take advantage of an almost complete absence of direct competition for months; in Avatar's, two huge movies were released literally the week afterwards, one by its own studio! That sort of thing was pretty much unheard of in leggier times.
Now, let's move on to your other scenario. As you said, 40% drops are normal, or at least not overwhelmingly startling, for a (well-received) blockbuster after its first few weeks. But for the reasons I outlined above (and more) Avatar's first few weeks are sort of a special case, so it might be more instructive to ignore the first $290 million or so and think of Avatar as opening this weekend to around a $60 million haul and playing like a normal blockbuster. We can make it a fairly leggy one, since it's Avatar, which by today's standards means (sadly) a 3.5 multiplier or above. Now let's see what various scenarios would mean and how they would play out:
- 3.0 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 3, or approximately $$470 million. This is a very, very high box office take--blows what most people expected of the movie before it came out out of the water--but I think it can safely be considered a conservative estimate for a leggy movie like Avatar. Good movie comparisons: Indiana Jones 4, Terminator Salvation, Wanted, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, 300... I think you get the picture. That this is a lower estimate is already astounding, and I want to make it clear that I do think its box office performance is stunning. But it's a long way from here to Titanic.
- 3.5 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 3.5, or approximately $500 million. It would be just the third movie ever to get here, and the way it's tracking I think it will probably get here. This is around Iron Man, Dark Knight, Star Trek, Transformers 2 (yeah, I know), Spider Man 1, and bad animated movie legs.
- 4.0 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 4, or approximately $530 million. This is around average Pixar legs (Pixar movies are generally considered to have damn good legs and consistently open around $60 million). Other comparisons: good animated movies, Harry Potter, decent movies aimed at kids (kids see movies with their parents, and therefore at their parents' convenience and aren't as obsessed with coming out opening day as older crowds or sequel/property-driven audiences). For an event film to have these sorts of "normal" legs is extremely rare these days (and yes, I know Avatar's not normal, but I think we took care of that when we pretended its third weekend was its opening weekend)--Casino Royale, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, and The Bourne Ultimatum are a few from the last few years. This is also, gross-wise, Dark Knight territory. I think it has a fairly good chance of getting here and (perhaps) surpassing the Dark Knight given how leggy it's been so far, but this is really the highest estimate I would feel comfortable giving to an investor. Still falls pretty far short of Titanic.
- 4.5 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 4.5, or approximately $560 million. Transformers 1 was around here, as was the first Chronicles of Narnia, The Devil Wears Prada, and other random films. It's hard to find high-grossing movies anywhere near this multiplier, at least in the recent past, but I personally think Avatar has a chance of getting here or close to it, because I think it is a very special film. This is probably my personal upper ceiling.
- 5.0 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 5, or approximately $590 million. These are some seriously good legs, pretty much unheard of for a modern blockbuster (see my previous chart), with some REALLY soft drops. Still, you could probably make a case for this being feasible, though I would wait on a few more weeks of data for that. For a better idea of how ridiculously leggy this is, consider the following list of comparable movies: Borat, The Departed, Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Crash... event films really just DON'T get here these days. And we're still not at Titanic.
- 5.17 multiplier - final gross of around $600 million, or Titanic territory. Like I said, I don't think this is very likely at all in today's theater environment--I wouldn't exactly give it a "good" chance. Almost perfect comparison (from a multiplier perspective): Return of the King. Except WITH the Christmas gross we excluded from Avatar included.
- 6.0 multiplier - final gross of $290 + $60 * 6, or approximately $650 million. I think it's safe to say that this isn't happening, so consider this an official upper bound. The Matrix is the most recent comparable movie to get here, and even then it did so off a pretty small opening weekend, ten years ago.
So basically... I don't think Titanic is happening. Then again, I thought if there was one person who wouldn't like Avatar it was my sister, but apparently she really enjoyed it, so maybe we really can throw all precedent out the window.
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