Gatsby77

But will it finish domestically at or above it's $84.5 million production cost?? Will lose lots of screens next weekend because one of the three wide releases is The Way Back, the Ben Affleck sports drama, from Warner Bros.

Good luck, Greg! I forget - you still own your CGC 10.0 Rai # 0?

Bosco's correct here. Multiple credible sources have said the film cost $97 million to produce, which was reduced to $84.5 million net after tax credits. Thus, the cost of the film is accurately reported as $84.5 million. Likewise, total marketing costs for this film are far closer to $50 million than $100 million. The point? It doesn't require anything close to $300 million theatrical to break-even. The credible range for break-even is just $230 - $250 million theatrical. Easiest formula for it to get there is to gross $90 million domestic and another $160 million overseas. Unfortunately, it looks like it won't reach either of those numbers. But it's nowhere *near* on track to be a massive financial bomb for Warner Bros.

So...If I rent this from Redbox for $2.12 for Easter, the studio cut is what? 50 cents?

Interesting that the Japanese title prioritizes: "Harley Quinn" first. They must have gotten the memo.

Fair point.

To be fair, it's already made more than the ~$71 million the R-rated Blade film made back in 1998.

Dang, Bosco. You're bending yourself into a dang pretzel trying to defend this film. You might as well have said, "Compare it to recent R-rated superhero films? Unfair! You can only compare it to female-led R-rated action films released during February of a Leap Year under a Wolf Moon in the Year of the Rat" The truth is...people just...didn't...want...to...see..it.

I saw Upgrade (albeit via Redbox). Surprisingly good for having a no-name cast. The point? What's the best-case domestic for Bloodshot? $60 million? $80 million? If it reaches $110 and does decent internationally - sure. But this smells more like XXX: Return of Xander Cage (which, I'll grant, took off internationally) than one of Diesel's recent homeruns.

Much as I'd love the Bloodshot film to really break out and lead to a slew of connected Valiant films, I don't see it. The plot looks roughly the same as Upgrade, and the advertising's been remarkably light for a film less than three weeks from release. And I'm a huge Valiant / Bloodshot fan - my username on the ValiantFans boards and Whet's board is, after all, "Rai-fan."

It's a great book, but it's also now 30 years old. To have been read it off the stands or -- more likely -- a year and a half later once Silver Surfer 50 and Infinity Gauntlet # 1 hit, you'd have to be at least 42 years old. I was the right age for this, but wasn't reading Surfer at the time -- first I ever heard of Thanos was the week that Silver Surfer 50 came out. And Infinity Gauntlet sealed the deal for me -- convinced me to go back and collect Marvel Premiere 1-2 & Warlock 1-15 (with, seemingly, the rest of the collecting world at the time). But if you weren't there to read Infinity Gauntlet off-the-shelf, hear all the buzz around Thanos and Warlock at the time, why would you even know about Silver Surfer 34, let alone care about it? And on the "getting older" / mortality point, it's weird to me that in 1990/1991, Amazing Fantasy 15 wasn't yet 30 years old. Marvel made a big deal of Spidey's 30th anniversary in 1992. Here we are, nearly 30 years' later, and our generation has...what? A short list might include: Bone # 1, New Mutants 87/98, Silver Surfer 34, Ghost Rider 1, Spider-Man 1, Tim Drake Robin, The New Warriors, and Darkhawk. Not exactly comparable, no?

You're not wrong here. But Deadline *also* includes the post-theatrical revenue (including DVD, streaming and TV sales -- the very "ancillaries" you always refuse to acknowledge) and these traditionally (as in, 90%+ of the time) *more* than balance out all of the P&A expenditure. Which is why the industry doesn't count them in the rule-of-thumb 2.5x-3.0x theatrical = break-even calculation. $70-$100 million in marketing expenses doesn't matter when full-lifecycle post-theatrical sales are $120 million. Again, 2.5-3.0x of the production budget theatrical is all that's needed for break-even.

Again with this ? P&A is accounted for in post-theatrical -- nobody counts marketing budgets against a theatrical profitability calculation. 3.0x its known budget theatrical here is sufficient. Also - Hughes himself -- crackhead that he is -- cited marketing for this film at $50 mill., not $90 mill.

That Hughes article is really bad. There's *zero* chance that WB lumped the costs for Shazam, Joker & BoP together in a "we only need 1 in 3 to hit" strategy - and to suggest there was some sort of synergy in their marketing costs when they were released so far apart?? Utter . Consensus theatrical floor for BoP to ultimately break-even is $235 million worldwide. It *may* hit that; may not. If this loses the studio money, it won't be catastrophic -- but we comics fans will be the biggest casualty, as it will give WB pause before taking similar risks again -- esp. with Harley Quinn, the Suicide Squad and its ilk, R-rating or not.

Nice! Still pacing with John Wick 2! Oh wait...John Wick 2 cost less than half as much. Cool cool cool cool cool

Yeah - but domestically, they're no longer close. Dark Phoenix finished its run <$66 million domestically. Birds of Prey is already past $61 million, and is likely to finish around $90-$95 million domestically.

Don't think Dark Phoenix is an apt comparison anymore, given that that while they opened similarly, that film dropped 71.5% in its second weekend, grossing only $9.4 million. It is still, however, pacing nearly identically to John Wick 2.

Honestly, 48.2% isn't a bad drop, considering 55% is about average for superhero films like this. I mean, Suicide Squad dropped 67.4% in its second weekend. Even Man of Steel dropped 64.6%.

? That doesn't look like Vigilante's costume to me.

I clicked on this link, even though I was 90% certain I was gonna' be Rick-Rolled. While it's unfair to make fun of such misguided predictions so long after the fact, I still had to smile that rather than opening at his # 11 (at $55 million) it opened nearly $20 million below Batman Forever (at # 15). Hell, it opened nearly $10 million worse than Batman & Robin did back in '97, and George Clooney straight apologized for ruining the Batman franchise with that one.

Another try at the FF? You know what they say... "Fifth time's the charm!"

More of the same? But without, ya' know: Batman The Joker Will Smith Amanda Waller Or (for us comics fans): Oracle. How you gonna' have a BoP movie without one of the team's most critical characters?

Hey - on the plus side, BoP's $33.0 million is ~9% more than John Carter's $30.1 million opening. So it could rock $85-$90 million domestically.

That's about as charitable a post as possible, given that $33.3 million is: - $20 million below industry expectations - $20 million below Shazam!'s opening - Birds of Prey opened on 1,100+ more screens than did John Wick 2.

Did you see it, Bosco? Curious what you thought.