Friday Box Office Estimates Archive for July, 2012

Friday Estimates

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 28th, 2012

A 62% drop without Midnights and 77% with Midnights of The Dark Knight Rises continues to allow question about whether there is a fear of going to the movies, though friday night also opened against the most watched night of The Olympics. Drops for other returning movies are also looking a bit heavier than usual. And the two newcomers both opened soft, though there are other possible issues with both.

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Friday Estimates, July 13, 2012

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 14th, 2012

Ice Age 4 opens right in the middle of the series pack domestically. No Ice Age movie has ever grossed as much as $200m domestically and the big story of the series’ success is overseas, where it’s still early in its rollout. The Friday-to-Friday drop for Amazing Spider-Man is decent, though last Friday was the film’s 4th day in domestic release. Ted continues to hold strong.

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Friday Estimates: July 6, 2012

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 7th, 2012

After opening big on Tuesday, Spider Man stays topside with another $20.3m on Friday. Ted will pass $100 today and Brave holds strong. Oliver Stone’s Savages debuted in fifth on the list with $5.6.

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Quote Unquotesee all »

“The important thing is: what makes the audience interested in it? Of course, I don’t take on any roles that don’t interest me, or where I can’t find anything for myself in it. But I don’t like talking about that. If you go into a restaurant and you have been served an exquisite meal, you don’t need to know how the chef felt, or when he chose the vegetables on the market. I always feel a little like I would pull the rug out from under myself if I were to I speak about the background of my work. My explanations would come into conflict with the reason a movie is made in the first place — for the experience of the audience — and that, I would not want.
~  Christoph Waltz

This is probably going to sound petty, but Martin Scorsese insisting that critics see his film in theaters even though it’s going straight to Netflix and then not screening it in most American cities was a watershed moment for me in this theatrical versus streaming debate.

I completely respect when a filmmaker insists that their movie is meant to be seen in the theater, but the thing is, you got to actually make it possible to see it in the theater. Some movies may be too small for that, and that’s totally OK.

When your movie is largely financed by a streaming service and is going to appear on that streaming service instantly, I don’t really see the point of pretending that it’s a theatrical film. It just seems like we are needlessly indulging some kind of personal fantasy.

I don’t think that making a feature film length production that is going to go straight to a video platform is some sort of “step down.“ I really don’t. Theatrical exhibition as we know it is dying off anyway, for a variety of reasons.

I should clarify myself because this thread is already being misconstrued — I’m talking about how the movie is screened in advance. If it’s going straight to Netflix, why the ritual of demanding people see it in the theater?

There used to be a category that everyone recognized called “TV movie” or “made for television movie” and even though a lot of filmmakers considered that déclassé, it seems to me that probably 90% of feature films fit that description now.

Atlantis has mostly sunk into the ocean, only a few tower spires remain above the waterline, and I’m increasingly at peace with that, because it seems to be what the industry and much of the audience wants. We live in an age of convenience and information control.

Only a very elite group of filmmakers is still allowed to make movies “for theaters“ and actually have them seen and judged that way on a wide scale. Even platform releasing seems to be somewhat endangered. It can’t be fought. It has to be accepted.

9. Addendum: I’ve been informed that it wasn’t Scorsese who requested that the Bob Dylan documentary only be screened for critics in theaters, but a Netflix representative indicated the opposite to me, so I just don’t know what to believe.

It’s actually OK if your film is not eligible for an Oscar — we have a thing called the Emmys. A lot of this anxiety is just a holdover from the days when television was considered culturally inferior to theatrical feature films. Everybody needs to just get over it.

In another 10 to 20 years they’re probably going to merge the Emmys in the Oscars into one program anyway, maybe they’ll call it the Contentys.

~ Matt Zoller Seitz