Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Casper Gutman]

By the way, a word on the Platt family that has gone on the offensive against Zegler in the trade press - Marc Platt, the father, is a producer who put his son Ben into one of the most gratuitous and blatant nepotism projects of all time, the film version of Dear Evan Hanson. Jenny Nicholson has a very, very funny video about the debacle. The chief hatchetman against Zegler is Jonah Platt, Ben's brother and Marc's son. It's fair to say this is a tight knit family that thinks very highly of itself.

 

[Baloo124]

People cared a lot more about Will Smith and what he did. Slapping Chris Rock for no reason seemed insane.

As far as Disney goes, it has encouraged Will's behavior multiple times through film.

In Peter Pan And Wendy, poor Pan gets it after helping everyone escape the cave...

Rapunzel issues a slap on steroids (a Will Smith slap with added frying pan influence) to Flynn a few times...

Captain Jack Sparrow has been Chris Rock a time or two...

...and he's also been Will Smith at least once...

Rey knocks Finn to the ground with a space stick at first meeting...

There are other incidents, but those few just came to mind.
If Will Smith really wants to be redeemed for his behavior that night, make him the hero of a Disney flick and fans will love him for it.

 

[Agent H]

I’m sorry they’re making another minions spinoff film based around “the mega minions”? And people say Disney is out of ideas. This world does not need more minions movies.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

reporting about backlash to Pedro’s remarks supporting her.

Remarks? It was one word: #icon.

Good for him. Much like myself, he stands up for people being unfairly or overly targeted.

He is a Latino man standing up for a young Latina woman, who has received some flack she opened herself up to with the election comment, but most other attacks on her have been based on exaggeration, and on who she is, on how she was born - and, incredulously, on her looks and singing, in some cases.

I sincerely hope she has more support than just Pedro, because the pressure she is under right now has to be enormous to someone who isn’t even old enough to have learned when to moderate her public opinions. I know I espoused some not fully formed opinions with confidence and gusto in my 20’s which I’d argue against today. I just didn’t grow up with it documented on the internet.

We learn and we grow. I’ll bet she will. I’ll bet too many of those bashing her won’t.

Bravo to Pedro for living up to his cohones in a way most machismos do not. He also unabashedly stands up for the gay community. (And I love his new apple commercial!)

There should be more Pedros. Maybe he’ll give her some good advice - like keeping comments to one well-placed hashtag.

 

[Farerb]

At least young Snow White had the decency to thank her co-star (unlike another actress who decided to disingenuously thank everyone just to be passive aggressive). Hopefully she has a promising career:

 

[Prince-1]

At least young Snow White had the decency to thank her co-star (unlike another actress who decided to disingenuously thank everyone just to be passive aggressive). Hopefully she has a promising career:

It is so much fun seeing how triggered you get because of Zegler and Snow White. Thanks for the laughs.

 

[Farerb]

It is so much fun seeing how triggered you get because of Zegler and Snow White. Thanks for the laughs.

It is so much fun seeing how triggered you get by my posts. Thanks for the laughs.

 

[DKampy]

It is so much fun seeing how triggered you get by my posts. Thanks for the laughs.

So you are trolling just for the laughs

 

[Farerb]

So you are trolling just for the laughs

People don't have to be triggered by my posts, they can just move on and not reply.

 

[Prince-1]

It is so much fun seeing how triggered you get by my posts. Thanks for the laughs.

Your reply is the equivalent of, "I know you but what am I?"

But tell us more about Zegler.

 

[Farerb]

Your reply is the equivalent of, "I know you but what am I?"

But tell us more about Zegler.

Why does it upset you that some people have legitimate criticism about her behavior?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

All the posts are related to CinemaCon which is happening this week.
The posts about Rachel addressed concerns people here were expressing about her future projects. That info should be helpful to all concerned!

Still…not really needed to repost other material

That’s what drew the Disney Dooode Does

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Your reply is the equivalent of, "I know you but what am I?"

But tell us more about Zegler.

Would you ask for no accountability if paramount released this movie?

(That’s rhetorical)

 

[DKampy]

To follow up on this, it looks like Snow White is sitting at 1 screen/theater this coming weekend in my market. Its reported theater count will probably still be in the high 3000s as a result, but the decrease in showtimes continues to be real.

Meanwhile, Minecraft is opening with as many screenings as Brave New World had, which has chewed into the pool of available screenings for a bunch of mid-tier movies, e.g. Black Bag, Novocaine, Mickey 17. In Disney release news, 20th Century's The Amateur gets a handful of pre-release screenings this weekend to try to generate some buzz for next weekend's official release.

My closest theater(10 minute drive) also has Snow white down to 1 theater… what is more interesting to me… Minecraft did not get the same 5-6 theaters planned blockbusters usually get here.. it is only playing in 2 theaters all day… a regular theater and an Ultra Screen… it also has a theater with 2 showtimes of the 3d version which appears to be sharing with Captain America as that movie is down to just a couple of screenings also…the rest of the screens has all the movies you mentioned playing all day… plus the newly released The Friend and H3ll of a summer as well as their weekly The Chosen episodes… hope this type of variety keeps up

 

[TalkingHead]

Talk about stale product. Local multiplex this weekend is still showing Mufasa, Dog Man, and Captain America. Then add to that Snow White and Minecraft and a couple dramedies that scream “wait for streaming or, more likely, skip entirely” and you start to see why the industry is dying. There’s not a single movie playing that I’d feel compelled to recommend to another adult.

 

[brideck]

Talk about stale product. Local multiplex this weekend is still showing Mufasa, Dog Man, and Captain America. Then add to that Snow White and Minecraft and a couple dramedies that scream “wait for streaming or, more likely, skip entirely” and you start to see why the industry is dying. There’s not a single movie playing that I’d feel compelled to recommend to another adult.

Curious as to which movies you're talking about here. Regardless, this feels like a big part of the problem. If movie theaters are only for big event blockbusters, then yeah... they're going to be vacant six months a year.

 

[Disney Irish]

Talk about stale product. Local multiplex this weekend is still showing Mufasa, Dog Man, and Captain America. Then add to that Snow White and Minecraft and a couple dramedies that scream “wait for streaming or, more likely, skip entirely” and you start to see why the industry is dying. There’s not a single movie playing that I’d feel compelled to recommend to another adult.

Before the days of streaming it was normal for a theater to play a movie for 3 or 4 months, sometimes longer. Add to that that the 1st quarter tends to be the slowest part of the year in terms of movie releases and you can see why theaters would keep movies on screens longer, and begging studios to keep them out longer rather than ship to streaming after 45 days.

Otherwise you're having vacant theaters most of the year with only blockbusters being released during the prime summer and winter holiday seasons as @brideck mentioned. Leading to theaters basically going out of business in many markets.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Before the days of streaming it was normal for a theater to play a movie for 3 or 4 months, sometimes longer. Add to that that the 1st quarter tends to be the slowest part of the year in terms of movie releases and you can see why theaters would keep movies on screens longer, and begging studios to keep them out longer rather than ship to streaming after 45 days.

Otherwise you're having vacant theaters most of the year with only blockbusters being released during the prime summer and winter holiday seasons as @brideck mentioned. Leading to theaters basically going out of business in many markets.

Those are good reasons why the streaming model is so flawed

 

[TalkingHead]

Curious as to which movies you're talking about here. Regardless, this feels like a big part of the problem. If movie theaters are only for big event blockbusters, then yeah... they're going to be vacant six months a year.

The Naomi Watts dog movie and the Penguin something (maybe a UK film?). Not really a comment on the quality of either, just saying they both appear to be the type of small scale filmmaking that people have decided isn’t worth a trip to the theater.

 

[Disney Irish]

Those are good reasons why the streaming model is so flawed

Except the problem with that thought is that you assume that each side has the same priorities, which can't be assumed.

To me this indicates more that both sides (studios and theater owners) need to come to a better understanding of release schedules and theatrical windows rather than a particular model being flawed. Because you could say the same thing about the video/dvd post-theatrical model if the same theatrical window was kept, ie less than 70 days.