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DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

Christopher said:
Which just goes to show how little correlation box office has with quality. Those top two openings (at the bottom of the list, oddly) are IMHO the two most unwatchably incoherent and terrible movies in the series, at least in their theatrical releases (the director's cut of BvS is considerably better).

I doubt these numbers say much about the movies themselves at all, and more about the vagaries of audience interests as shaped by any number of factors. I mean, surely the opening-day results are the least correlated to the actual merits of a film, since the audience hasn't seen it yet. I don't get the industry's obsession with the first weekend instead of the overall performance over time, which would surely be stronger for a film people wanted to see again and recommend to their friends.
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But these numbers aren't completely random, though sure there isn't necessarily a distinct pattern.

Usually if there is a big opening day, it shows that it is a very anticipated film... but the quality of it will determine if it drops...as well as if a "more important" film opens soon after ... so for example,i think the HUnger Games prequel greatly hurt the Marvels.

It's also interetsing looking at the chart above that Aquaman 1 did about the same opening night at Black Adam... but Black Adam soon tanked while Aquaman made a billion worldwide (and the leading DCFU film).

Also Wonder WOman 1984 was released during Covid AND also on Streaming that same day, The Suicide Squad had Covid, and Blue Beetle had the writers and actors strike in full swing.... so they got hit hugely. And anecdotely, there were at least some theaters in CHicago that had sold out of Aquaman 2

JD said:
The studios focus on the opening weekend because that's when they get the majority of the money, after that most of it goes to the theaters.
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But also, it often sets the tone for the rest of the run. It's a significant number, but not the only one.
 
JD said:
The studios focus on the opening weekend because that's when they get the majority of the money, after that most of it goes to the theaters.
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Yeah, but it seems unhealthy for the system to be set up that way. It's the way things are, but that doesn't make it the way things should be.
 
Studios now put all of their marketing behind opening day weekend in hopes of earning back the money spent on production in the shortest amount of time before they move onto the next big blockbuster.
Unlike a few decades ago where a movie could run for months on a screen. I looked up the history of a local Cinerama and Star Wars ran for nearly a year at that one theater. I can still remember seeing Star Wars at a drive-in in the summer of 78. I remember seeing Popeye in a local theater in the summer of 1981, even though it opened in December 1980.
 
Raiders ran for so long at a local theater ( which doesn't exist today ) that it felt like it was never going to leave.
 
DarrenTR1970 said:
Studios now put all of their marketing behind opening day weekend in hopes of earning back the money spent on production in the shortest amount of time before they move onto the next big blockbuster.
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Which just reinforces the idea that the overinflated budgets are the root of the problem. If they'd make less costly movies to begin with, it wouldn't be so hard for a movie to succeed. The overdependence on blockbusters is dysfunctional.


DarrenTR1970 said:
Unlike a few decades ago where a movie could run for months on a screen. I looked up the history of a local Cinerama and Star Wars ran for nearly a year at that one theater. I can still remember seeing Star Wars at a drive-in in the summer of 78. I remember seeing Popeye in a local theater in the summer of 1981, even though it opened in December 1980.
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Yes. When I was a kid, I'd generally read the novelization of a movie when it first came out (or sooner, since novelizations sometimes came out a month or more in advance to generate buzz), then maybe not actually get to see it in the theater until months later. In retrospect, it's odd that I didn't go to movies that often, since there was a neighborhood theater just two blocks from where I lived from age 10 through early adulthood. We were a frugal family, but we spent freely on books, and movies weren't much costlier. (Although books are, obviously, far more essential.)

Hey, maybe that explains something in a season 2 episode of For All Mankind, where the main characters were talking about seeing The Wrath of Khan in the theater even though the episode was set in 1983. I was wondering if the movie opened later in the alternate history for some reason, but maybe it just had a long theatrical run.
 
I seriously thought you meant Aquaman 2....


The DCEU movies were nearly all announced to go on Netflix a few months ago.
 
I'm starting to lean into not seeing Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in theaters, the lukewarm reaction has just kind of killed my enthusiasm for it, and I'm just not in the mood to go the theater right now. I'll definitely check it once I switch back over to MAX though.
 
Actually, the reaction is somewhat better than I expected, at one point the rumor mill made it sound like this thing was going to be a complete trainwreck.
 
JD said:
I'm starting to lean into not seeing Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in theaters, the lukewarm reaction has just kind of killed my enthusiasm for it, and I'm just not in the mood to go the theater right now. I'll definitely check it once I switch back over to MAX though.
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I'd recommend seeing it in the theater,even if just to experience one last mega-budget DC Comics film. It isn't great by any means, but boy, it is a visual treat. Staying home is one more vote to not make DC Comics movies. If we don't see them in the theater, soon there won't be any to release to Max
 
GHS said:
I'd recommend seeing it in the theater,even if just to experience one last mega-budget DC Comics film. It isn't great by any means, but boy, it is a visual treat. Staying home is one more vote to not make DC Comics movies. If we don't see them in the theater, soon there won't be any to release to Max
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Thanks.... that helps me think about it... it depends on the family... definitely not hyped to see it (as opposed to say Across the SPiderverse or No Way Home or The Marvels)

Would you say it's about the same level as Black Adam -- we had a good time with that movie.
 
Anybody remember Canon Films from the 80s? They died off with that awful Masters of the Universe movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cannon_Group,_Inc.

Their business model was to churn out a lot of low budget movies knowing that a few hits would more than offset the cost of the failures. I feel like movie studios will start to go back to lower priced films, so that they can make more profit. The easiest place to do this is horror movies, which have seen their budgets creep up for really no reason.

The other problem that they’re dealing with is the implosion of streaming, where ads are getting out of control as a way to fix it.
 
bdub76 said:
Anybody remember Canon Films from the 80s? They died off with that awful Masters of the Universe movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cannon_Group,_Inc.

Their business model was to churn out a lot of low budget movies knowing that a few hits would more than offset the cost of the failures. I feel like movie studios will start to go back to lower priced films, so that they can make more profit. The easiest place to do this is horror movies, which have seen their budgets creep up for really no reason.

The other problem that they’re dealing with is the implosion of streaming, where ads are getting out of control as a way to fix it.
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Canon made some really enjoyable bad movies though. Usually the 'pyro guy' was on-point. Hell, up into the 90s you would often find a lot of low-budget movies that did better pyro stunts than you get in many blockbuster CGI-fests of today.

Some of the best Canon stuff was the over-the-top violence in the Death Wish movies with Charles Bronson.
 
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