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

[Disney Irish]

If they need to borrow some of my records, I'd be happy to help.

Only if you're going to see it in theaters.

 

[TP2000]

Only if you're going to see it in theaters.

No, I have no need. I'm sure it's a lovely little film for some folks, but if it's not actually about The Supremes I will take a pass.

 

[BuddyThomas]

If they call themselves the Supremes, maybe it will have music by The Supremes? That would be a plus for moviegoers.

But as I have every single LP and CD that Motown Records ever released for The Supremes, I wouldn't need to see the film or buy the soundtrack for this movie. I'll let it pass. But for about 8 minutes last night, I was so excited to see this movie!

They already have a movie loosely based on the Supremes. It’s called Dreamgirls. I trust you’ve seen that one? It’s not Disney, so you can watch it!

 

[BuddyThomas]

If this arthouse movie Poor Things was so popular for folks here, how come it never had its own thread to discuss its plot and characters and artistry?

No one seemed to care enough to make a thread about it with all the other movie threads in this movie forum.

Are you freaking kidding?

 

[TP2000]

They already have a movie loosely based on the Supremes. It’s called Dreamgirls. I trust you’ve seen that one? It’s not Disney, so you can watch it!

I have now-hazy memories of seeing it on Broadway in the late 80's, and then much clearer memories of seeing it at the Ahmanson Theater around 2000. But I never saw the actual movie because I'd seen the stage show already. Twice. It was pretty good, as I remember. Although it obviously was merely "inspired by" The Supremes, and not a faithful retelling of their specific story.

Are you freaking kidding?

Nope. There's a separate thread for every motion picture Disney has released theatrically in the past year or two on this forum, including smaller studios like 20th Century releasing the various Poirot movies that bombed, etc.

But Searchlight movies like Poor Things and All Of Us Strangers never seem to get their own thread dedicated to them in this forum to talk about the film, the plot, the characters, the artistry, etc.

 

[Disney Irish]

Nope. There's a separate thread for every motion picture Disney has released theatrically in the past year or two on this forum, including smaller studios like 20th Century releasing the various Poirot movies that bombed, etc.

But Searchlight movies like Poor Things and All Of Us Strangers never seem to get their own thread dedicated to them in this forum to talk about the film, the plot, the characters, the artistry, etc.

Since I've been contributing to this side of the forums for a lot longer than you, I can confidently say we do not have a thread for every movie Disney has released. I can say its actually rare, if ever, for any of the Searchlight movies to get their own threads, so its not strange or unusual.

 

[celluloid]

I am not just basing the posts on just theatrical box office… I noticed in the universal theme park threads anytime someone even mentions the smallest of critiques on Universal parks you are there quickly to defend and compare how much better they are over Disney… I am not going to derail this thread to much…but there was something you said there that clicked in comparison to Disney

Yep…I never argued about The Haunted Mansion…but you still want to point out that movie… as it is the easiest one to compare….I agree…it was truly awful… I think it would of been fine as a streaming movie, but in theaters….the one saving grace it was not the 2003 film

By the way I have read articles about Sony, Warner Brothers, and Paramont all having issues about possible bankruptcy… it seems WB pulled out of it, but Paramount may be in trouble and bought out… I am hoping not… as someone who goes to the theater every week… I think a healthy dose of completion is good… You know what Studio I have not read about any bankruptcy issues… Disney

Ok. So Disney is not going bankrupt or publicly giving any feeling of any time soon? So what? Bankruptcy was in no way a part of our exchange. They still had so many big budget flops last year. You know what you did hear? Pixar Employee Layoffs.

Also, best to not accuse someone if you are willing to try to do so but won't provide evidence because then you draw the line.

Haunted Mansion is one among other(all) big budget disappointments Disney had last year.

Paramount has been pretty sucky lately. But unless they are absorbed by Disney or Universal(Or Apple is a Wild Card), no one is going to bother much with it. They still have their occasional hit and Viacom. They at least have the number one movie playing in theaters right now that is is already entering the gravy zone of profit according to your standards.

 

[TP2000]

Haunted Mansion is one among other(all) big budget disappointments Disney had last year.

Paramount has been pretty sucky lately. But unless they are absorbed by Disney or Universal(Or Apple is a Wild Card), no one is going to bother much with it. They still have their occasional hit and Viacom. They at least have the number one movie playing in theaters right now that is is already entering the gravy zone of profit according to your standards.

Box Office from overseas just got updated today for this past weekend, and you know what's heavily in the Gravy Zone right now? The two family movies released for the holidays that were NOT made by Disney and are still in the Top 10 as the calendar flips over to March. This is Gravy!

Migration: Production $72, Marketing $36, Domestic B.O. Take $72, Foreign B.O. Take $60 = $34 Million Profit
Wonka: Production $125, Marketing $63, Domestic B.O. Take $129, Foreign B.O. Take $161 = $102 Million Profit
Wish: Production $200, Marketing $100, Domestic B.O. Take $38, Foreign B.O. Take $70 = $192 Million Loss

 

[DKampy]

If they call themselves the Supremes, maybe it will have music by The Supremes? That would be a plus for moviegoers.

But as I have every single LP and CD that Motown Records ever released for The Supremes, I wouldn't need to see the film or buy the soundtrack for this movie. I'll let it pass. But for about 8 minutes last night, I was so excited to see this movie!

You claim to be a Supremes fan… but you would not watch a film dealing with the Supremes or featuring their music…odd

 

[BuddyThomas]

You claim to be a Supremes fan… but you would not watch a film dealing with the Supremes or featuring their music…odd

Some of the responses from the Disney hate club on here are truly amazing.

 

[brideck]

Imagine investing a hundred dollars to someone and in two years you get that 100 dollars back plus a five dollar bill. ... Even arthouse pictures expect more than that in show business.

This is on its face not true. This is not to say that arthouse pictures are expecting to lose money, but most of them understand that (at least re: box office alone) they won't have made their money back yet.

Hilarious that Poor Things is still being talked about in general. Forget Bias accusations, the reality is people are holding onto Poor Things as a gravy train, and that shows how desperate the brand loyalists want a win. Its cool that it was not a loss. Some would also have to admit that tentpoles and oversaturation are not the way Disney is going to win now. Imagine that...

If there's any brand I'm loyal to here, it's Yorgos Lanthimos and art films in general. I could care less that it's Disney managing the purse strings. I'm talking about it here both because it's good and because people insist on not calling a spade a spade. "Oh, man, now it's actually made money? Guess I have to reframe the conversation to remind people of Disney's larger box office failures. Anything to keep from admitting that I don't know anything about the lifecycle of Oscar-nominated movies. Maybe they'll forget the egg I put on my face months ago."

 

[Tony the Tigger]

For your information, All of Us Strangers is now on Hulu, so your gleeful little post that it is in the “30’s” is absolutely irrelevant.

The Best Movie of 2023 Is Now on Hulu

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

www.thedailybeast.com

OK, I just upgraded to the Hulu bundle, so I think we are going to check this out tonight. I warned Brian that everyone I’ve heard talk about it have mentioned leaving the theater not just in tears, but crying their heads off.

 

[brideck]

OK, I just upgraded to the Hulu bundle, so I think we are going to check this out tonight. I warned Brian that everyone I’ve heard talk about it have mentioned leaving the theater not just in tears, but crying their heads off.

My body is ready. There haven't actually been so many tearjerkers for me over this Oscars season, and I've only got 9 movies to go in the death race.

 

[DKampy]

That person is being ridiculous. As you say, why wouldn’t we be talking about Poor Things. To date, it has been nominated for 244 major awards and has won 84 of them. It is nominated for 11 Academy Awards and is expected to win a few of those. It is a spectacular movie, and it’s hysterical that all the ones hating on it have not even seen it.

Yeah… I don’t know why I bother… the mental gymnastics they to try to show Disney is performing worse than any other studio… it is getting beyond ridiculous

 

[brideck]

Also, I saw that Poor Things hits Hulu on March 7th, so folks who weren't up for it in theaters have a good chance to see it before the Oscars if they want to.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

OK, I just upgraded to the Hulu bundle, so I think we are going to check this out tonight. I warned Brian that everyone I’ve heard talk about it have mentioned leaving the theater not just in tears, but crying their heads off.

My body is ready. There haven't actually been so many tearjerkers for me over this Oscars season, and I've only got 9 movies to go in the death race.

I guess I didn’t get it. No tears in this house, either of us.

It was an enjoyable watch, a bit confusing at times, not at all a waste of time - but I wasn’t particularly moved when I think they wanted me to be. Acting was solid. Some pretty camera shots. Relatable gay stuff.

Overall, 3 snaps up and a “meh.”

 

[DKampy]

Ok. So Disney is not going bankrupt or publicly giving any feeling of any time soon? So what? Bankruptcy was in no way a part of our exchange. They still had so many big budget flops last year. You know what you did hear? Pixar Employee Layoffs.

Also, best to not accuse someone if you are willing to try to do so but won't provide evidence because then you draw the line.

Haunted Mansion is one among other(all) big budget disappointments Disney had last year.

Paramount has been pretty sucky lately. But unless they are absorbed by Disney or Universal(Or Apple is a Wild Card), no one is going to bother much with it. They still have their occasional hit and Viacom. They at least have the number one movie playing in theaters right now that is is already entering the gravy zone of profit according to your standards.

You came at me first about something I said which was not controversial.., in fact I was basically captain obvious…Poor Things will not only break even but make a bit of profit while in theaters as such will continue to add to those profits for the rest of the films lifespan… which is a fact as an individual film… but then you came at me about how that’s not true because of other films from the studio… I am still not sure how that affects Poor Things profits… so I was merely pointing out other studios are in more dire straits

Yes… I agree Bob Marley: One Love will make a profit in the theatrical window… and the rest after that will be gravy for that particular film… By the way I saw the film… The movie itself was not great, but as a fan of Bob Marley’s music I still liked it… if that makes sense

The only reason I mentioned the universal loyalist stuff was because of your insinuation that I was a loyalist blind follower of Disney which I felt was calling the kettle because I remember seeing a back and forth between you and someone else in the universal threads… I was going to comment then, but decided to stay out of it as that was between the 2 of you…and I don’t think it is appropriate of me to derail the box office film thread with theme park discussion

I don’t automatically like everything Disney does… just because I actually watch it before I criticize… Sure as a Disney fan I might be predispose for some of it to hit me differently… but that is no different then a Nintendo fan who likes The Super Mario Bros. Movie due to their nostalgia even though that movie was not great… although Haunted Mansion had tons of nostalgia and I still did not care for that movie

 

[TP2000]

You claim to be a Supremes fan… but you would not watch a film dealing with the Supremes or featuring their music…odd

Wait, so this movie The Supremes at Earl's is in fact really about The Supremes, and not just a group of women hanging out in an Indiana diner who call themselves the Supremes and may have a riff or two of Baby, Love or The Happening in the movie?

@Disney Irish have you been misrepresenting this movie, or is it truly about The Supremes the iconic girl group?

 

[_caleb]

How do you do that with the whole connected universe thing?

I'm already pretty interested in how they try to thread the needle with an R-rated Deadpool 3 becoming part of the MCU. How do they make the events of that movie relevant to everything else without causing issues for the families with kids who saw the movies before and will see the movies after but which the parent's aren't comfortable with taking their kids to a movie without language restrictions, graphic violence and jokes about pegging?

I think it would take a pivot into disconnected stories in the same Universe.

For them to break into different genres of content, they have to accept that large chunks of their audience are not going to come along for the ride for each showing and that they can't expect to rely on the events of those films to fill in the gaps in the "main" releases like they've done up to this point.

I think it’s a weakness of the MCU that every film, series, short, etc. tries to tell the same meta-story. But I get that if there’s a new Marvel movie coming out, kids are going to want to watch it even if it’s rated R/Mature and not intended for kids. And if they DON’T tie it in somehow, they risk creating a bunch of stuff that would widely be considered skippable by fans. But this seems to be happening regardless with some recent Marvel stuff.

I guess I wasn’t thinking of “Mature” as a genre. Why not have family-friendly (if edgy, like the MCU has been at times) films in different genres?

I think that only works if they're standalone films or in their own connected "universes".

Want to do horror?

Fine but that kind of needs to be its own whole thing because a huge chunk of the main audience isn't going to watch that or, at least, not want their children to watch that which would poison the well for things like future Avengers movies if they rely on the events of such films for backstory.

Werewolf By Night sort of fit that niche. In the Marvel Universe, but its own standalone (for now) story. Mostly family-friendly. If they did more like that, we could have horror/monster movie characters that don’t interact with the action/adventure characters, but still exist in the same world.

We saw how the main MCU audience reacted to the comedy court procedural attempt that had a "why did I waste my time caring about any of this?" ending.

Sure, I think they can branch out more but if they do, the whole MCU thing kind of unravels unless they want to spin out a whole slew of "universes" and then only have them converge in easter-egg sorts of ways.

Yeah, this makes sense to me.

 

[Disney Irish]

Wait, so this movie The Supremes at Earl's is in fact really about The Supremes, and not just a group of women hanging out in an Indiana diner who call themselves the Supremes and may have a riff or two of Baby, Love or The Happening in the movie?

@Disney Irish have you been misrepresenting this movie, or is it truly about The Supremes the iconic girl group?

You have Google, as your sig proudly states, you can look it up yourself. I’m not doing your homework for you anymore on this.

Or wait until the movie is released and actually see it to know what it’s about.