Shang-Chi coming to a theater near you 5 5

[drotto]

On 8/14/2021 at 6:34 PM, D84 said:

3 films in a row don't turn a profit, budgets will be slashed, causing a dip in quality, which causes lower box office.

And this is how we circle the drain.

I agree budgets will be slashed.  But the changing budgets is going to result in casting with lessor known and cheaper actors, and push more properties that may have been films to streaming shows.  Less risk on streaming, higher potential profits by cutting out middle men, and easier to hide actual numbers. Remember price does not always equal quality.  It may even make so of these properties are better in the long run because they will have to concentrate more on building a god story and engaging characters, as opposed to making things flashy. They will also have to make films that appeal to a broader audience and be less potential controversial. 

 

Yes,  three under performing films is a massive issue, but they are films that for now Disney will come up with convenient excuses.

[jsilverjanet]

Disney has a printing money machine 

they will continue to make these movies 

they never stopped making animation 

it’s the other studios that will probably pause on their projects 

stuff like Hellboy and other independent material may not get made due to the fear 

[paperheart]

On 8/14/2021 at 3:43 PM, drotto said:

I agree budgets will be slashed.  But the changing budgets is going to result in casting with lessor known and cheaper actors, and push more properties that may have been films to streaming shows.  Less risk on streaming, higher potential profits by cutting out middle men, and easier to hide actual numbers. Remember price does not always equal quality.  It may even make so of these properties are better in the long run because they will have to concentrate more on building a god story and engaging characters, as opposed to making things flashy. They will also have to make films that appeal to a broader audience and be less potential controversial. 

 

Yes,  three under performing films is a massive issue, but they are films that for now Disney will come up with convenient excuses.

WB leading the way: BOP, WW1984 ,TSS- but they went one better than under performing, they've got 2 out of 3 that incinerated tens of millions and there's little chance they slow things down right away, 2022 is cast in stone 

[drotto]

On 8/14/2021 at 8:15 PM, paperheart said:

WB leading the way: BOP, WW1984 ,TSS- but they went one better than under performing, they've got 2 out of 3 that incinerated tens of millions and there's little chance they slow things down right away, 2022 is cast in stone 

Granted a lot of this stuff was already in motion with money allocated, scripts written, and casts set.  The process is very involved and it takes time, these large expensive projects can't change rapidly. So they are basically committed to it already, too late to course correct. It is the next set of projects green lit but still in early development, that are going to be severely affected.

Edited August 15, 2021 by drotto

[kimik]

Shang-Chi is also an irrelevant character to start with. They were already too far in to change things, but I think Marvel Studios is learning fast that marginal characters are better left to D+.

[Gatsby77]

On 8/14/2021 at 11:06 PM, kimik said:

Shang-Chi is also an irrelevant character to start with. They were already too far in to change things, but I think Marvel Studios is learning fast that marginal characters are better left to D+.

How do you figure?

Guardians of the Galaxy was as risky as Eternals & cost $200M with a largely unknown cast, yet knocked it out of the park.

And Captain Marvel (who *nobody* in the collecting world cared about) did $1+ bn.

I mean, I agree that Shang-Chi won't do well - but not because he's unknown, necessarily. But because film watching has fundamentally changed.

If anything, the way forward with superhero films is to niche down - smaller characters, smaller budgets. And with that creativity we can get truly experimental (yet amazing) projects like WandaVision (a series literally *no one* asked for) and Loki.

For instance, I'd love to see a tight $60M budget Daredevil film.

Or another Punisher film a la the Thomas Jane/John Travolta one, but continuing with Jon Bernthal.

Similarly, I'd love to see a $40M Cyborg solo film, even if it went directly to HBO Max.

And let's see an 8-episode Deathstroke series on HBO Max, starring Joe Manganiello. Rumor has it he might be the villain in the forthcoming Peacemaker series anyway...

[Jaydogrules]

On 8/15/2021 at 8:35 AM, Gatsby77 said:

How do you figure?

Guardians of the Galaxy was as risky as Eternals & cost $200M with a largely unknown cast, yet knocked it out of the park.

And Captain Marvel (who *nobody* in the collecting world cared about) did $1+ bn.

I mean, I agree that Shang-Chi won't do well - but not because he's unknown, necessarily. But because film watching has fundamentally changed.

If anything, the way forward with superhero films is to niche down - smaller characters, smaller budgets. And with that creativity we can get truly experimental (yet amazing) projects like WandaVision (a series literally *no one* asked for) and Loki.

For instance, I'd love to see a tight $60M budget Daredevil film.

Or another Punisher film a la the Thomas Jane/John Travolta one, but continuing with Jon Bernthal.

Similarly, I'd love to see a $40M Cyborg solo film, even if it went directly to HBO Max.

And let's see an 8-episode Deathstroke series on HBO Max, starring Joe Manganiello. Rumor has it he might be the villain in the forthcoming Peacemaker series anyway...

The fist GotG was lightning in a bottle that has not been repeated since.

Captain Marvel obviously benefited by being the "final chapter" in the MCU leading up to Endgame.

Nothing will save marvel phase 4.  It was going to be a turkey even without Corona.  

Hence why the went ballz out to get those high profile Fox properties.  

-J.

[@therealsilvermane]

On 8/14/2021 at 6:38 PM, D84 said:

My non-comic collector friends have been asking when will there be movies that don't have super heroes again.

I believe about every week there are new movies released without any super-heroes in them. That's a statement by a person who looks down on comic book culture and is trying to blame all their life's troubles on the MCU.

[Jaydogrules]

On 8/14/2021 at 5:15 PM, paperheart said:

WB leading the way: BOP, WW1984 ,TSS- but they went one better than under performing, they've got 2 out of 3 that incinerated tens of millions and there's little chance they slow things down right away, 2022 is cast in stone 

You make this sound like DC's losimg streak is either A) recent?, and B) Just started in the last 18 months.  

Even before Corona, Shazam was a modest money loser. So was man of steel.  Then of course BvS and justice league was an outright disaster. 

In fact the only feathers in their cap are the first wonder woman (completed negated by the second one, and then some), Aquaman , and the first suicide squad (also completed negated by the second one, and then some).

If you want to throw Joker in there as another rare "win" for them, so be it.  But their misses far outnumber their wins, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why they are charging forward with not one but TWO Shazam sequels, when that movie, while generally well reviewed, did not make any money.  It's like WB just enjoys pizzing away tens of millions of dollars, or something.  

-J.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Jaydogrules

[@therealsilvermane]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:29 PM, Jaydogrules said:

The fist GotG was lightning in a bottle that has not been repeated since.

Captain Marvel obviously benefited by being the "final chapter" in the MCU leading up to Endgame.

Nothing will save marvel phase 4.  It was going to be a turkey even without Corona.  

Hence why the went ballz out to get those high profile Fox properties.

With the exception of like IH and Dark World, the MCU has captured lightning in a bottle with almost every movie since Iron Man 1, and that includes Black Panther, Thanos, the Disney+ shows, etcetera, etcetera.

People also wanted to know who this new character "Captain Marvel" was and how she would affect the MCU. The same newcomer effect could be what happens in the case of Shang Chi and the Eternals, pandemic effect aside.

"Nothing will save marvel phase 4. It was going to be a turkey even without Corona." So, was the movie industry in general going to be one big turkey even without Corona? Was WW84 always going to get like $20 million domestic regardless of a pandemic or not? No. Why? Because the coronavirus pandemic is what's causing not only the movie theater industry to be down, but also the convention industry, the catering industry, and a lot of other entertainment industries.

Fantastic Four isn't a surefire cinema hit for anybody. Three strikes on the big screen proves that. And we're not going to be seeing mutants in the MCU for a while. Marvel Studios is putting a lot of effort into Shang Chi and Eternals and is counting on them to be successful.

Edited August 15, 2021 by @therealsilvermane

[Gatsby77]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:36 PM, Jaydogrules said:

Even before Corona, Shazam was a modest money loser. So was man of steel.  Then of course BvS and justice league was an outright disaster. 

No.

Shazam did $366M on a $100M budget. (a 3.66X ratio).

Analysis by Deadline noted it turned the studio a profit of $74 million after all expenses (including P&A), a 28% Return on Investment.

And Man of Steel did $668M on a $225M budget. (a 2.97x ratio).

Analysis by Deadline noted it turned the studio a profit of $42.75 million after all expenses (including P&A), a 7% Return on Investment.

In other words, not only was Shazam profitable, it was literally 4x as profitable (percentage-wise) as Man of Steel. Hence why one has a sequel forthcoming and the other (direct) sequel was cancelled in favor of BvS.

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Gatsby77

[Jaydogrules]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:02 AM, Gatsby77 said:

No.

Shazam did $366M on a $100M budget. (a 3.66X ratio).

Analysis by Deadline noted it turned the studio a profit of $74 million after all expenses (including P&A), a 28% Return on Investment.

And Man of Steel did $668M on a $225M budget. (a 2.97x ratio).

Analysis by Deadline noted it turned the studio a profit of $42.75 million after all expenses (including P&A), a 7% Return on Investment.

In other words, not only was Shazam profitable, it was literally 4x as profitable (percentage-wise) as Man of Steel. Hence why one has a sequel forthcoming and the other (direct) sequel was cancelled in favor of BvS.

 

Uh yeah, deadline is good for laughs sometimes, but often it is hard to discern exactly where they get their figures from.  

For example, Shazam would have cost around $200MM to make and market, so by my calculations of the typical splits as reported by MOJO, the film "maybe" cleared about $165MM theatrically.  

Which would make it a modest money loser theatrically.  

Even throwing in another 30MM from home video, according to The Numbers, still does not get it to profitability. 

Further, given that the film was expected to do 500MM, and didn't come anywhere near that, are all reasons enough to question the sanity of pizzing away so much money on an, at best, marginal IP.

-J.

[Jaydogrules]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:00 AM, @therealsilvermane said:

With the exception of like IH and Dark World, the MCU has captured lightning in a bottle with almost every movie since Iron Man 1, and that includes Black Panther, Thanos, the Disney+ shows, etcetera, etcetera.

People also wanted to know who this new character "Captain Marvel" was and how she would affect the MCU. The same newcomer effect could be what happens in the case of Shang Chi and the Eternals, pandemic effect aside.

"Nothing will save marvel phase 4. It was going to be a turkey even without Corona." So, was the movie industry in general going to be one big turkey even without Corona? Was WW84 always going to get like $20 million domestic regardless of a pandemic or not? No. Why? Because the coronavirus pandemic is what's causing not only the movie theater industry to be down, but also the convention industry, the catering industry, and a lot of other entertainment industries.

Fantastic Four isn't a surefire cinema hit for anybody. Three strikes on the big screen proves that. And we're not going to be seeing mutants in the MCU for a while. Marvel Studios is putting a lot of effort into Shang Chi and Eternals and is counting on them to be successful.

Disney wanted the Fox properties primarily for the villains and X men. 

We will just have to hope they do right by the FF.

Wonder Woman 1984 didn't even make the money Tenet did.  TSS won't even make what the conjuring did.  BofP was a flop even before Corona.  And, as i mentioned above, Shazam was "at best" a serious under-performer.

Corona or not DC would still be on a spectacular losing streak, audiences are just not very interested in these movies.  

-J.

[Bosco685]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:36 PM, Jaydogrules said:

So was man of steel.

-J.

Oh, ye of little research. First it cleared $170M in product placement before the movie was even released. 

How Superman has made $170million without even selling a ticket: Man of Steel takes product placement to new level

Something Disney established a department to generate such revenue like this years before. Which our good fellow Gatsby and you did not realize and used to laugh about that figure was the total dollar value of branded products donated to WB Studios as set pieces.

 

On 5/5/2019 at 5:08 PM, Bosco685 said:

Very interesting article on how studios use product placement to offset production and marketing costs. Including the history of how product placement came about.

 

Show Me The Money: The World of Product Placement

 

But here is where the money comes into the picture, which folks have assumed previously is just free goods on the set versus payment for such obvious placement.

Then it actually hit the 3.0X production budget target ($668.05M) which with expenses countered by the $170M leads to it making even more revenue than was realized. Which is right where Thor (2011) was at 3.0X, higher than Captain American: The First Avenger (2.6X), and just below Iron Man II (3.1X). Though I am sure they had no marketing budgets - but WB/DC films do - in your analysis.

Then it made $120M alone in Domestic Home Theater sales in DVD's and blurays (digital is much larger but unaccounted for as a hidden market). The international figure is not published as the market is so distributed across many countries.

If only some of you would take those hate blinders off and be more open-minded, we'd probably have less friction in this part of the boards. But unfortunately it was due to you, Gatsby and Paperheart with your 'I know things' accounting that got me into tracking all these productions years ago. So you got that going for yourselves.

[Bosco685]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:17 PM, Jaydogrules said:

Disney wanted the Fox properties primarily for the villains and X men. 

-J.

So all Disney wanted from a $71.3 Billion acquisition was the villains and X-Men from Fox 20th Century?

[Gatsby77]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:13 PM, Jaydogrules said:

Uh yeah, deadline is good for laughs sometimes, but often it is hard to discern exactly where they get their figures from.  

For example, Shazam would have cost around $200MM to make and market, so by my calculations of the typical splits as reported by MOJO, the film "maybe" cleared about $165MM theatrically.  

Which would make it a modest money loser theatrically.  

Even throwing in another 30MM from home video, according to The Numbers, still does not get it to profitability. 

Further, given that the film was expected to do 500MM, and didn't come anywhere near that, are all reasons enough to question the sanity of pizzing away so much money on an, at best, marginal IP.

-J.

We went back and forth on this ad nauseum in the Venom thread, where you claimed a film had to make back 4.5x its stated production budget *theatrically* to even break even.

That was never true, because (for the umpteenth time), P&A is always assumed to be covered by post-theatrical profits (including DVD sales, streaming, TV, and Cable licensing, toys, etc.) - which you derided as mere *ancillaries* but which often net studios 50-100% of the original theatrical profits.

Even moreso, now, since Disney literally made more from Black Widow's first weekend streaming via Premiere+ than it did from its domestic box office.

More to the point - It doesn't matter if a film is profitable *theatrically* - what matters is that it comes close to break-even, so the lifetime value of the film can turn a healthy profit.

But yeah, ignore all that - because both Shazam and Man of Steel literally were profitable from just their theatrical releases alone.

See also Scott Mendelson's break-down of Shazam here.

 

 

[paperheart]

meant to quote the guy who kept claiming Aquaman was unprofitable

Edited August 15, 2021 by paperheart

[Gatsby77]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:31 PM, Bosco685 said:

Oh, ye of little research. First it cleared $170M in product placement before the movie was even released. 

How Superman has made $170million without even selling a ticket: Man of Steel takes product placement to new level

Something Disney established a department to generate such revenue like this years before. Which our good fellow Gatsby and you did not realize and used to laugh about that figure was the total dollar value of branded products donated to WB Studios as set pieces.

 

Then it actually hit the 3.0X production budget target ($668.05M) which with expenses countered by the $170M leads to it making even more revenue than was realized. Which is right where Thor (2011) was at 3.0X, higher than Captain American: The First Avenger (2.6X), and just below Iron Man II (3.1X). Though I am sure they had no marketing budgets - but WB/DC films do - in your analysis.

Then it made $120M alone in Domestic Home Theater sales in DVD's and blurays (digital is much larger but unaccounted for as a hidden market). The international figure is not published as the market is so distributed across many countries.

If only some of you would take those hate blinders off and be more open-minded, we'd probably have less friction in this part of the boards. But unfortunately it was due to you, Gatsby and Paperheart with your 'I know things' accounting that got me into tracking all these productions years ago. So you got that going for yourselves.

Thank you!

Ignoring your personal attacks, it's exactly these numbers that @Jaydogrulesintentionally ignores and derides as "ancillaries." 

When he's not, you know, accusing Disney of securities fraud by making up its opening weekend Premiere+ streaming gross for Black Widow.

Theatrical profitability isn't a thing when you've got product placement, toys, DVD & streaming revenue, etc.

[Bosco685]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:38 PM, Gatsby77 said:

Thank you!

Ignoring your personal attacks, it's exactly these numbers that @Jaydogrulesintentionally ignores and derides as "ancillaries." 

When he's not, you know, accusing Disney of securities fraud by making up its opening weekend Premiere+ streaming gross for Black Widow.

Theatrical profitability isn't a thing when you've got product placement, toys, DVD & streaming revenue, etc.

What's that like when someone responds to you like that? I would never know.

Uuuu-hhhhmmmm

[Bird]

wifey and I are talking about seeing this in the theatres...we were fans of Kims Convenience so both want to see Simu Liu do well. we will likely hit a theatre in the local college campus during the day to hopefully see it with as few people as possible (I saw the most recent Hellboy there by myself!) I think it looks good, but I love Akwafina too.

I am also looking forward to Eternals and hope to see it in the theatre. (wifey loves Kamil N) We have not seen Black Widow and will wait until it is free and even then I am in no hurry.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Bird