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DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

A very unsuccessful WB movie knocked a very successful WB movie off the top.

With diminishing returns expected every week, one can imagine just how bad Blue Beetle's take will be when all is said and done. At present, this film appears to be the result of a disastrous miscalculation on WB's part.
 
The real losers are cinema owners who were contractually obligated to take Oppenheimer off IMAX for this turkey.

Interestingly a lot of the hype merchants claimed this would play big in latin America especially Mexico - here's how it stacked up on it's open weekend [In Mexico]:

  • Barbie: $22.69 million
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: $21 million ($30 million five-day)
  • Fast X: $14.44 million
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: $13.43 million
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: $11.67 million
  • Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: $9.24 million
  • The Flash: $8.73 million
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: $8.46 million
  • The Little Mermaid: $8 million
  • Meg 2: The Trench: $7.99 million
  • Insidious: The Red Door: $5.83 million
  • Elemental: $4.68 million
  • Oppenheimer: $4.62 million
  • Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: $4.35 million
  • John Wick: Chapter 4: $4.22 million
  • Shazam! Fury of the Gods: $4.05 million
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - To the Swordsmith Village: $3.43 million
  • Creed III: $3.15 million
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: $2.81 million
  • Blue Beetle: $2.1 million
 
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I fully agree with that sentiment, not having to wait to long for movies to be available for streaming. But, to make the primary topic of this entire forum a part of my post....
At this moment, I would need at least three services to watch all of Star Trek in the Netherlands, and Discovery is literally nowhere. When Netflix made the deal back when to do Discovery but also have all the other Star Trek shows, I was quite happy. I thought that would be my one trick pony. Than Discovery vanished, with only the 6 prime shows avaiable on Netflix (TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT). Picard is Prime, so is Lower Decks, but the later might change. SNW is on SkyShowtime, which I don't have. Prodigy is nowhere. Sometimes the Kelvin movies are free either on Netflix or Prime, but that changes all the time.

I would really very much like for there to be a limited amount of services that I pay for, with the major studios having contracts with those platforms to create content. And honestly, I'm 95% certain that will happen in the next 5-10 years. It's the only viable way.

I have Skyshowtime for SNW this month - the Kelvin movies are all on there now (along with all the older movies). I doubt you'll be seeing them anywhere else again unless/until SS goes down/merges with something else. If I had to guess, the rumblings of Lower Decks leaving Prime probably indicate it will go there, too, which if that's true I would assume that will mean that all of them will go there eventually once the old contracts run out. (I guess Netflix had a really good, long-term contract for the older shows.)

I agree it will be nicer to have fewer services running around. Especially since their methods for selling themselves are so opaque its an incredible pain to even know what you're signing up for. I tried HBO Max in Jan specifically for DC content and half the DC content I wanted to see wasn't there. First time I did Skyshowtime I could only watch the first half of Prodigy because they didn't upload the full season all at once.

But they are 100% going to be more expensive. As far as I can tell from the news about the strikes, it sounds like the entire streaming model has been built off of massive exploitation, so once the guilds get some kind of actually workable deal on streaming residuals, all the streamers' overhead costs are going to skyrocket. Fingers crossed they deal with it the intelligent way through mergers and lowering the competition rather than the idiot method of constantly rotating shows out of their collection so they don't have to pay residuals for a while and replacing quality contant with reality crap.


Here's a depressing thought; If Warner's had done to 'Blue Beetle' what they did to 'Batgirl' they'd have been better off financially than they're going to be now.

On the other hand, if they had just sold them both to Netflix they'd likely have been much better off.
 
I miss the days when movies were allowed time to build an audience, rather than having to be huge smashes on the first three days of release. It's ridiculous how quickly the industry gives up on movies these days. Lower the stakes, people. It only hurts everyone.


It's all about quick returns. Some movies just spent 400 million with advertising included (Indiana Jones). I'm pretty sure they want their investment back.


Someone help me crunch the numbers. How much did Indiana Jones need to make and what would be the profit they get back?
 
Someone help me crunch the numbers. How much did Indiana Jones need to make and what would be the profit they get back?

Cost (somehow) 300 million, so needed about 750 million.

The crazy thing is of the Top 20 highest grossing movies of the year worldwide (so far), eight of them are financial failures, ranging from the minor (Quantumania) to the major (Indy/Flash/Mission Impossible).
 
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I know. That's the problem. There used to be more patience. Movies could stay in theaters for the better part of a year, if not longer. It wasn't about this desperate rush for the first weekend -- slow and steady could win the race.

You're talking about decades ago, before even home video players let alone streaming.
 
The real losers are cinema owners who were contractually obligated to take Oppenheimer off IMAX for this turkey.

Interestingly a lot of the hype merchants claimed this would play big in latin America especially Mexico - here's how it stacked up on it's open weekend [In Mexico]:

  • Barbie: $22.69 million
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: $21 million ($30 million five-day)
  • Fast X: $14.44 million
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: $13.43 million
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: $11.67 million
  • Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: $9.24 million
  • The Flash: $8.73 million
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: $8.46 million
  • The Little Mermaid: $8 million
  • Meg 2: The Trench: $7.99 million
  • Insidious: The Red Door: $5.83 million
  • Elemental: $4.68 million
  • Oppenheimer: $4.62 million
  • Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: $4.35 million
  • John Wick: Chapter 4: $4.22 million
  • Shazam! Fury of the Gods: $4.05 million
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - To the Swordsmith Village: $3.43 million
  • Creed III: $3.15 million
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: $2.81 million
  • Blue Beetle: $2.1 million

Interesting list. Anyone believing Blue Beetle would play well in Mexico for reasons seem to ignore the fact that Mexican audiences look for quality films as much as the audiences of any other country. That, and Blue Beetle is just indicative of the "Its another superhero film? Whatever" sentiment that is clearly held by some movie goers.

It's all about quick returns.

True; historically, the film industry always banked on large, early returns. They were not cranking out potential sleepers (nor were they trying to do that). That's simply not the nature of that business at all. They wanted films that opened big and had staying power, not expensive films (no matter the era) that were trotting instead of running out of the gates, especially with high-profile film series.
 
I know. That's the problem. There used to be more patience. Movies could stay in theaters for the better part of a year, if not longer. It wasn't about this desperate rush for the first weekend -- slow and steady could win the race.
That's because the opening weekend is the only time they get the majority of the money. On the opening weekend, the theaters get a bigger percentage of the money, but after that more of it goes to the theaters. So they want to get as much money as possible while the percentages favor them.
 
That's because the opening weekend is the only time they get the majority of the money. On the opening weekend, the theaters get a bigger percentage of the money, but after that more of it goes to the theaters. So they want to get as much money as possible while the percentages favor them.
Didn't you read, he knows how time works, he just waxing nostalgic. :p
 
That's because the opening weekend is the only time they get the majority of the money. On the opening weekend, the theaters get a bigger percentage of the money, but after that more of it goes to the theaters. So they want to get as much money as possible while the percentages favor them.

There's no point merely describing the way things work now, because I'm saying it hasn't always worked that way and therefore there's no reason to assume it can't work another way. Change has happened before, so it makes no sense to describe the current state of affairs as if it were immutable law.

Institutions want us to blindly accept that the way things are now is the only way they can ever be, because that keeps us from agitating for change.
 
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Sorry, with the way your other post was written, I thought maybe you weren't aware that was why they are so focused on the opening weekend.
 
For comparison, Shazam 2 opened at $65 million worldwide opening weekend. Shazam 2 ended with 133.8 million. This might actually struggle to tap 100m.
 
I have Skyshowtime for SNW this month - the Kelvin movies are all on there now (along with all the older movies). I doubt you'll be seeing them anywhere else again unless/until SS goes down/merges with something else. If I had to guess, the rumblings of Lower Decks leaving Prime probably indicate it will go there, too, which if that's true I would assume that will mean that all of them will go there eventually once the old contracts run out. (I guess Netflix had a really good, long-term contract for the older shows.)

I agree it will be nicer to have fewer services running around. Especially since their methods for selling themselves are so opaque its an incredible pain to even know what you're signing up for. I tried HBO Max in Jan specifically for DC content and half the DC content I wanted to see wasn't there. First time I did Skyshowtime I could only watch the first half of Prodigy because they didn't upload the full season all at once.

But they are 100% going to be more expensive. As far as I can tell from the news about the strikes, it sounds like the entire streaming model has been built off of massive exploitation, so once the guilds get some kind of actually workable deal on streaming residuals, all the streamers' overhead costs are going to skyrocket. Fingers crossed they deal with it the intelligent way through mergers and lowering the competition rather than the idiot method of constantly rotating shows out of their collection so they don't have to pay residuals for a while and replacing quality contant with reality crap.




On the other hand, if they had just sold them both to Netflix they'd likely have been much better off.

Well, I might give SkyShowtime a shot at some point I guess. Right now the biggest issue for me is that my TV doesn't have the app for it, and I think my model is too old to get that particular app. Not a big fan of things like chromecasts and other devices, I prefer to just use the smarthub on my tv with a cable to the modem. More stable streaming this way.
 
Well, I might give SkyShowtime a shot at some point I guess. Right now the biggest issue for me is that my TV doesn't have the app for it, and I think my model is too old to get that particular app. Not a big fan of things like chromecasts and other devices, I prefer to just use the smarthub on my tv with a cable to the modem. More stable streaming this way.
I haven't had cable TV (US) for a year-and-a-half or so. One thing I learned is the Chromecast is a very capable device of hosting apps completely on its own, 99+% of the time I use it I do not "cast" to the device, I just use the device itself to run the apps. Maybe it's obvious but it wasn't to me because everything I read about it only talked about using it for casting. There is also a dongle available to use it with direct ethernet if you prefer, I myself just use it with WiFi but it's available. There's an initial cost but I have found it well worth it personally.
 
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