Weekend Box Office: Wonder Woman 1984 is doing fine, so HBO Max hasn't killed theaters yet
Aux Features Film
So this is the new year, and the weekend box office numbers don’t look any different. Well, they look a little different, in the sense that there are a couple of names that weren’t there the last time we checked in, but everything still feels pretty much the same as it has for the last few months. For those who need a refresher, here’s how this has been working since theaters in the U.S. started reopening: One new movie comes out each week and makes okay money that is still nowhere near what a big a movie would make pre-pandemic, while every other movie drops waaayyy down. If no new movie comes out, the previous week’s top movie holds on while still making significantly less money. Basically, it’s an extremely untenable situation where studios are reluctant to release too many big movies, people are reluctant to risk their lives and the lives of others by going to see movies that aren’t a big deal, and the theater industry needs people to keep coming to see movies to stay afloat. Each side is only getting what it wants by depriving another side of what it wants (a.k.a. capitalism).
That brings us to Wonder Woman 1984, which is technically the first film to come out under Warner Bros.’ Christoper Nolan-defying plan to simultaneously release all of its new movies in 2021 on HBO Max and in theaters (keeping everyone happy in theory, if not in practice). This was Wonder Woman 1984's second week on the charts after getting released on Christmas, and so far it’s already made a relatively impressive $28.5 million. Without knowing how many people are streaming it on HBO Max, this seems to indicate that—though it’s the only example on the books—Warner Bros.’ scheme seems to be working. The movie is available to stream without putting anyone’s life in danger, and yet it still made okay money. And it’s getting a sequel!
Elsewhere on the charts we have The Croods: A New Age, which made $2.1 million (for a total of $34 million), and News Of The World, which joined Wonder Woman on the list last week and has made a total of $5.4 million. Then we have Monster Hunter, which has the unique burden of being a video game movie that is only in theaters during a pandemic, so it should be praising the movie gods that it’s making anything at all ($1.2 this week, $5.4 million total). Rounding out the top five is Fatale, which added only $700,000 to its $3 million total.
For a more detailed breakdown of the past weekend’s box office numbers, head over to Box Office Mojo.
42 Comments
67% drop in the middle of a Holiday where everything else dropped like 20-ish percent tho. Word of Mouth is killing this movie.
This was Wonder Woman 1984’s second week on the charts after
getting released on Christmas, and so far it’s already made a relatively
impressive $28.5 million.
In its second weekend, it did less than half of what it did in its opening weekend. People don’t like the movie, and word of mouth is spreading.
And it’s getting a sequel!
It shouldn’t. Stop rewarding bad movies with sequels.
I guess this is all true? If they waited to release it until theaters could safely operate at full capacity, it likely would have made something like 20x its current box office (and would have likely dramatically increased the payout for creatives involved).Theaters are going to have to modify their business model, that was never in doubt. But actors/directors, etc. are going to have to consider what “percentage of the gross” means in a world with simultaneous streaming.
If streaming becomes the dominant than asking for backend is less valuable than being paid upfront on the presumption that the netflix model is about keeping people subscribed. More like, you pay 10-20M to a star on the presumption that Netflix will keep making 1-2B a month on subscriptions. But the tentpole marvel-style movie isn’t cost effective on streaming, you’re not paying extra to see it and streaming is more about just a fire hose of content to keep subscriptions rolling in. That being said, I think movie theaters are likely due to the dumb Trump rule that likely panned out via sheer luck to let the distributors own the theaters which will cut down on overhead for releasing them there, essentially making each ticket sale gravy while showing everybody else’s film as will be required for anti-trust rules. If it let’s low-budget indie flicks in all the better as Netflix may jump in with a modest chain as well because putting out their 50-100M budget projects incentives the profit margins to make bigger modestly-sized productions.
I wonder if COVID will kill the blockbuster completely. If theatres are dying – and, barring a huge turnaround post-vaccine, there will be casualties – then there’s no point spending $300 million on your big blockbuster, it’ll never pay off. That said, splitting them into six episode seasons spread out over a year on the streaming service you partially own? That’s lucrative.
That would work out well for me cause I prefer the tv format to the movie format anyway.
The problem is that while I think the 300M blockbuster will survive just fine if companies opt to buy the theaters, the issue is going to be what were theaters doing when ticket prices kept creeping up and fewer and fewer draws were viable?
I mean, that’s the whole issue with the blockbuster model. You’re increasingly relying on a major spectacle to draw attendance rather than low-cost 50-100M movies that returned investment. The major studio comedy is basically dead because who wants to risk 100M on a Bill Murray/Jim Carrey vehicle of decent size on what will at best return 1/3rd what a marvel movie’s weaker offering will. The size of the return and guaranteed profitability killed the market for mid-grade B-movies in the 1970s with TV getting better and then basically the standard trough drama and comedy died in the 2010s because the value of blockbuster grew too much and there wasn’t a need to compete. I kind of hope for a rebuilding of the model where decent selections are put back into theaters and maybe if we’re lucky a subscription model could be attached.Imagine subscribing to HBO Max for X dollars a month and for 2x that getting 1 free pass to their WB’s theaters for unlimited viewings. I would pay for that and then add a family tier for up to 3 or 4 passes for maybe 3x a month, basically you’re already paying for the cost of the movie and the concessions could be reasonably priced because of the expectation of non-subscribers still doing a brisk walk-in business. It’s definitely a feasible model if they wanted to be a one-stop entertainment center. Just imagine on being able to request a theater showing of a binge-show? Say Disney decides at the release of the Mandalorian season end do a 6-10 hr saturday/sunday marathon showing to watch in the theater? You could reasonably sell it out for non-subscribers who may pay the equivalent of 2-3 months of service for a ticket and subscribers could watch it for free. You’ve got space, it’s paying for itself by using it for your vast library of content.
Those are certainly better ideas than anything the studios and theater owners have suggested. People think that studios owning theaters are a bad idea but the truth is that back in the day when the studios did own theaters they provided a much broader, even more daring selection and were able to let a lot of small, oddball films find an audience and even make money. When the studios had to sell off their theaters they immediately cut back on small and adventurous films in favor of crowd pleasers and big budget fare. As much as I hate Disney, if they bought up a chain of theaters and started running some of their classic animated films (and even some live action fare) on a couple of screens per megaplex (along with all that great 20th Century Fox catalog they own) I’d be in line in a heartbeat.
Could you imagine the ‘disney vault’ series? Playing on 1-2 screens per theater where they rotate showings on a Fri-Sun model? Just every theater swaps out a classic disney animated or live action film a week? It would take a year or more to get through them if you through Pixar in there, everytime Toy Story hit (time it around Dec) and you would easily blow up ticket sales.The problem with the studios owning all the theaters was it closed out all independent competition. It allowed them to make cheap B/C flicks but nobody could come in and show. Which is something I actually imagine with the ownership and streaming model a return to B/C movies. I mean, that’s been the majority of Netflix’s original work now. If I could sit down in a theater and watch their crap movie I would actually go watch them just because then I wouldn’t feel so uninvested. Give me a netflix+Theater subscription package and I would pay $60-100 or so a month for 2 different theater access models and I would likely go out most nights to the theater or much more often than just once a month or less I’ve done so for the last decade.
I imagine there will be a greater demand for Fathom Events-type programming. I don’t know about other types of stuff, but whenever I’ve seen an anime movie in theaters, no matter which movie it is, the theater is at least 75% capacity.
Problem is the A-List actors, actresses, and directors who want their big payout plus or a percentage of gross would never agree to that.
Well then they wouldn’t get work.If nobody is going to greenlight a $300m blockbuster it doesn’t matter what your demands are.
Blockbuster Movies and TV won’t get made either and that’s the point. And people to pay to see The Rock and Charlize Theron, so the studios lose more.
“Theaters are going to have to modify their business model”How?
No clue. If there’s money to be made, someone will figure it out. As mentioned elsewhere, studios can own theaters again, so that might be an answer. Regardless, it sounds like the big chains might not make it through the pandemic, so there’s going to be some big changes one way or another.
I’ve never seen this movie, nor am I going to ever. But I can unequivocally say, without a single shred of doubt, that this is the very worst movie ever made.
This comment is an insult to the oeuvre of Neil Breen.
The name “Neil Breen” is an insult to the word “ouevre”.
Any movie directed by Coleman Francis would like to have a word with you. Ed Wood atleast enjoyed making movies.
Let’s not forget Warrens Hal P. and Jerry. Especially Jerry. I wonder if Mike Nelson ever hunted him down.
“Karloff . . . sidekick . . . ?”
Spoiler!
In our world, Carthage collapsed because it was sacked by the Romans. Rome (the city) collapsed because it was sacked by the Goths. Rome (the Empire) split into two for easier administration, and the Eastern half basically survived into the 15th century before being conquered by the Ottomans, while the Western half split up to work on separate projects before reforming as the Holy Roman Empire (which critics said wasn’t nearly as good as the original).But in the DC cinematic universe, history could be very different. The fall of Carthage could have been caused by Circe, or aliens, or Satan.
They also handle ancient relics without even putting on gloves in multiple scenes. I know it’s a silly nitpick but it bugged me. Almost as much as the fact that a Art historian badge can get you into the Smithonians Air and Space museum plane storage, where the keep magically always gassed up fight jets with unlimited range that can be flown by World War 1 era pilots. The script for this movie was written by those thousands of monkeys with typewriters people always talk about but apparently they are also really dumb monkeys
In this case, it was actually just two monkeys, Zim-Zim and Mr. Floops, hahaha, those guys, I hear they’re working with Zach on the Justice League reshoots …
*”reshoots”
Visigoths : “Are we a joke to you???”
It does seem to be the worst Wonder Woman movie ever made.
Put Fast 9 on Peacock already, you cowards.
HBO MAX was never going to kill movie theaters, that would be, oh, I don’t know…THE FUCKING PANDEMIC. Jesus.
Glad you’ve been paying attention to all the backlash and thus understand what the headline is saying so that you don’t end up saying something stupid that proves you didn’t understand what the headline is saying.
Congrats, stupid.
THIIIIIS.
who knew there were so many people WITHOUT any sense of self-preservation or taste but WITH disposable income
So me and wife watched this tonight and it’s bad. The story is a mess, the fights look like shit, the special effect as well. It’s way to fucking long. I think Warner knew they had a stinker and were happy drop this on HBO Max
And it’s just boring. Also I couldn’t put my finger on it, maybe Pedro Pascal is too likeable a guy to be playing a villain?
maybe Pedro Pascal is too likeable a guy to be playing a villain?
He was fine as the villain in the Kingsman sequel. His performance just didn’t fit in this one.
I only know him from Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian acting-wise, in interviews he seems just like a jovial guy.
Naw I think he’d do just fine, he just needs to be a villain with a proper story, especially back story
Although theaters may kill the audience.
my dad paid 30 bucks to watch this last week. i think the only thing he liked about it was that i pay the cable bill :/
I can’t imagine going to see a movie at a theater until maybe September and I may get the Vaccine earlier because of being high risk. I mean I go to like 25 movies a year but fuck that, when I get the Vaccine their is more I want to do than sit in a theater with NYC assholes.