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

[Casper Gutman]

To state the obvious: what is meaningful to one person is irrelevant to another.

Just saw a video of the antics going on at the Minecraft movie.

No.

Now, if they make separate showings like they did with the wicked sing-along, that’s another story. But I’m not buying a ticket for jumping up and yelling and popcorn throwing.

I might dig it if I were 11 and absolutely certain I would not get in trouble.

Get ready. Every single studio will be chasing that reaction.

 

[DisneyHead123]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet
Semi-related but I want to remind all of you people that Skibidi Toilet got into Fortnite not too long along and I wish I was joking when I typed that.

At least the Skibidi song is catchy as heck. My son was walking around singing “Give me some Skittles, but I don’t wanna pay for them” the other day so I was thinking “Oh fun! Another ear worm meme song!” and looked it up. Now that one? I don’t understand at all. It doesn’t even rhyme!

Kids today. I cannot figure them out.

 

[TP2000]

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Barbie story (this one might be true).

I get your point, but I thought the movie Clue was brilliant. I remember it well 40 years later.... I was drawn in by Madeline Kahn, and a slightly lesser extent by Eileen Brennan, plus vague memories of playing Clue as a kid. But I thought it was great fun, and a great movie! And again... Madeline Kahn for goshsakes!

Barbie, similarly, was also great fun. And while I didn't play with Barbies as a child (or at least didn't dare), I thought the pop culture bullseye that movie had was fantastic. So fun, so true, so.... Barbie.

Those movies can work fabulously, and the box office is usually great. Not everything has to be War And Peace, after all.

 

[brideck]

I get your point, but...

I'm not sure you did. He was listing movies that had care put into a meaningful story despite originating as shallow merchandising tie-ins as opposed to just compiling together a series of gags from Zoomer/Alpha spaces online, like Minecraft does.

Indeed, none of those listed were War and Peace, but they all had coherent stories with meaningful stakes or messages at their core.

 

[brideck]

This coming weekend will be interesting. At my local theaters, Minecraft is keeping all of the screens that it had for its opening, which almost never happens. What will the dropoff be? Angel Studios goes big into the animated space with King of Kings -- my spouse has been getting all sorts of ads on YT for it this week, and it's getting 2+ screens/theater here. Also opening are Drop, Warfare (a new war flick by Alex Garland), and 20th Century's The Amateur. Each of them gets a full screen and steals a handful of premium screen showings as well. I don't think I expect any of those three to make a real impact with audiences.

 

[Disney Irish]

This coming weekend will be interesting. At my local theaters, Minecraft is keeping all of the screens that it had for its opening, which almost never happens. What will the dropoff be? Angel Studios goes big into the animated space with King of Kings -- my spouse has been getting all sorts of ads on YT for it this week, and it's getting 2+ screens/theater here. Also opening are Drop, Warfare (a new war flick by Alex Garland), and 20th Century's The Amateur. Each of them gets a full screen and steals a handful of premium screen showings as well. I don't think I expect any of those three to make a real impact with audiences.

There is a bunch of small and mid range movies opening between now and when Thunderbolts opens up on May 2nd.

It'll be interesting to see how many of them do, I'm not expecting any to make huge box office but a couple may do relatively well. So we may be heading into a new era of small to mid range movies again, which many here claim we need for the variety. Lets hope audiences so up otherwise Hollywood will shut the door on the theatrical for many of them again in favor of pushing to streaming.

 

[Baloo124]

Kids today. I cannot figure them out.

I'd agree, but honestly can't, at least without seeming hypocritical.

When I was a kid, our big thing was Vanilla Ice rapping as 4 turtles turned ninjas danced hip-hop. We ate it up like candy.

 

[Disney Irish]

For every dark cloud there is a silver lining as they say. As much of a bomb disaster Snow White has been at the box office it has officially broke into the top 40 musicals highest grossing of all time, currently sitting at 32 for WW and 38 for domestic.

All Time Worldwide Box Office for Musical Movies

This chart contains the top 100 Musical movies based on the cumulative worldwide box office.

www.the-numbers.com

https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-movies/genres/musical

With the last couple years seeing a few musicals coming out and doing relatively well it'll be interesting to see if Hollywood makes a revival of the movie musical in a bigger way.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

I'd agree, but honestly can't, at least without seeming hypocritical.

When I was a kid, our big thing was Vanilla Ice rapping as 4 turtles turned ninjas danced hip-hop. We ate it up like candy.
View attachment 852441

While I've always felt Turtle Power was the better song, no one can deny Ninja Rap was the greatest moment in cinematic history.

 

[Baloo124]

While I've always felt Turtle Power was the better song

Heck yes, what a great earworm that song is! Powerful, catchy, and the good parts make you forgive the one big flaw: the lyrics mistakenly calling Raphael the "leader of the group" when we all know it meant to say Leonardo.

And now that song is stuck in my head again. No complaints whatsoever.

 

[erasure fan1]

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story.

You can tell any story you want with lego, by design. A space story? Yup. A fantasy story? Yup. A ninja story? Yup. Any story you want.

There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story.

Why not? It was just a murder mystery. They've been telling those for a long time.

There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story.

So there's no way to tell a meaningful police drama about undercover cops?

There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story.

The plethora of novels and stories going back decades would say differently.

I'll amend my statement that it's not "there's no way". But in my opinion there's very little there to work with outside of the very distinct look of the world and some mobs. So there's a whole lot less to work with than those other films. So they gave us the basic aspects of the game with a basic story over top. It was never ment or billed as high art.

The reason I questioned Moana was I expected more from Disney than Minecraft. I didn't question it's success like you implied.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

You can tell any story you want with lego, by design. A space story? Yup. A fantasy story? Yup. A ninja story? Yup. Any story you want.

Why not? It was just a murder mystery. They've been telling those for a long time.

So there's no way to tell a meaningful police drama about undercover cops?

The plethora of novels and stories going back decades would say differently.

I'll amend my statement that it's not "there's no way". But in my opinion there's very little there to work with outside of the very distinct look of the world and some mobs. So there's a whole lot less to work with than those other films. So they gave us the basic aspects of the game with a basic story over top. It was never ment or billed as high art.

The reason I questioned Moana was I expected more from Disney than Minecraft. I didn't question it's success like you implied.

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

 

[Casper Gutman]

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

I thought about is. At least it sort of TRIED, even if it failed. I fell back on ones I thought ended up being genuinely good.

 

[erasure fan1]

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

No, I got it. You missed the point. Those are bad examples because you absolutely can tell a good story with those examples. It was just thrown out to be a gotcha.

 

[LittleBuford]

Those are bad examples because you absolutely can tell a good story with those examples.

That was his point!

 

[easyrowrdw]

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

I thought that movie was a blast! It's totally underrated

 

[celluloid]

The biggest crime of The Battleship movie was marketing never having a single preview or promotional piece featuring:

See the HIT B4 you MISS it.

 

[Casper Gutman]

You can tell any story you want with lego, by design. A space story? Yup. A fantasy story? Yup. A ninja story? Yup. Any story you want.

Why not? It was just a murder mystery. They've been telling those for a long time.

So there's no way to tell a meaningful police drama about undercover cops?

The plethora of novels and stories going back decades would say differently.

I'll amend my statement that it's not "there's no way". But in my opinion there's very little there to work with outside of the very distinct look of the world and some mobs. So there's a whole lot less to work with than those other films. So they gave us the basic aspects of the game with a basic story over top. It was never ment or billed as high art.

The reason I questioned Moana was I expected more from Disney than Minecraft. I didn't question it's success like you implied.

They didn’t make a mystery film or a fantasy film or a whatever film. They made a Clue film and a D&D film and a Lego film. They made films that not only used the surface trappings of the IP but explored why they were special and why and how people engaged with them. Look at how many reviews of D&D discussed how the film managed to capture the sense of playing a game with your particular set of friends. They did this while also making films that told stories with humor and substance. The point is that, if you have creators that are good enough and care enough to actually try, you can make meaningful stories about almost anything. The Minecraft Movie didn’t try.

There is just as much to work with in Minecraft as in Lego. Both are about building. Your dismissive comments about Lego can be just as easily applied to Minecraft.

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

Minecraft will rake in tons of cash as a fan service film. Just like Mario Bros did. It doesn't need to be a good film and could even have negative feedback. Fans of the game will still want to see it.

I've never played it so it's a pass for me even on streaming.

 

[celluloid]

They didn’t make a mystery film or a fantasy film or a whatever film. They made a Clue film and a D&D film and a Lego film. They made films that not only used the surface trappings of the IP but explored why they were special and why and how people engaged with them. Look at how many reviews of D&D discussed how the film managed to capture the sense of playing a game with your particular set of friends. They did this while also making films that told stories with humor and substance. The point is that, if you have creators that are good enough and care enough to actually try, you can make meaningful stories about almost anything. The Minecraft Movie didn’t try.

There is just as much to work with in Minecraft as in Lego. Both are about building. Your dismissive comments about Lego can be just as easily applied to Minecraft.

And more specifically, at the core, they would have just been an entertaining well produced time even without the Intellectual Property attached.


That is what Michael Mckean said best with what he said about Clue years ago "You can make a great or bad movie about anything"

Great storytelling is great storytelling.