The celebrity memoir epitomizes the logic of publishers--selling the name on the book rather than its content, which is so often banal, and at any rate unlikely to be by the person whose name and face are on the cover anyway.
Why is that? The plain and simple answer is that while idiots do not realize or admit it writing is hard work and a demanding craft--especially at the level of producing anything remotely resembling a publishable book-length manuscript, or even a first draft of one, which is likely to be a very time-consuming activity. The pampered high school drop-outs who make up the Hollywood A-list are unlikely to have the skills to perform the task, the opportunity to go about it if they are constantly out in front of the camera as they seem to be, or the patience to endure the grind even if they really try their hand at it, especially when they can with much greater ease and profit spend their time shilling for their lines of crappy "wellness" products instead as they leave the writing to someone else.
Still, obvious as this all seems, the fact is rarely spoken--indeed, seems to me to be even less spoken than it was back when C. Wright Mills estimated in his classic White Collar that the chances of a book by a "prominent but non-literary" public figure actually having been written by that public figure as no better than "fifty-fifty," and that in an era in which I think it safe to say the odds of famous people really writing their own memoirs were probably a good deal higher than they are today (and this going all the more for the kind of famous people whose books make the lists).
Thursday, November 9, 2023
On the Popularity of Celebrity Memoirs
I have previously remarked the prominence of celebrity "memoirs" ghostwritten on behalf of illiterates which say absolutely nothing, and the eagerness with which the public seems to eat them up, rewarding the Dauriats of Park Avenue for their so crassly selling the "distinguished" names on the covers of books rather than the stuff between the covers so that the already rich and famous get richer and more famous while they tell real writers who may actually have something to say to (to put it relatively politely) go to hell.
Where the memoirs of celebrities from the world of politics--"Showbusiness for ugly people"--are concerned, those who find this reality distasteful and depressing at least can take comfort in the thought that their sales figures substantially represent purchases by backers looking to subsidize and promote their bought politicians, and reward them for services rendered, directly and by helping the books be bestsellers by making them bestsellers. (Eddie Murphy's 1992 satire The Distinguished Gentleman may not have been particularly well-received by the critics, but it did have its moments--not least Joe Don Baker's Olaf Andersen thundering at Lane Smith's Dick Dodge that among much else he had done for him he bought ten thousand copies of his "boring, dull-ass autobiography!")
Alas, in contrast with the faked show of interest in the self-serving garbage that the memoir of a career politician looking to get further up the greasy pole must necessarily be, a great portion of the public's apparent enthusiasm for the supposed "Big Thinks" of people from just plain "Showbusiness" seems to me to be genuine--such that while costly publicity efforts doubtless played their part in making their books bestsellers (and indeed, any bestselling book is probably open to the charge that it is a bestseller because its backers bought their way onto the bestseller lists these days), these publishing blockbusters cannot be wholly dismissed on those grounds, however much many of us would like to think so.
Where the memoirs of celebrities from the world of politics--"Showbusiness for ugly people"--are concerned, those who find this reality distasteful and depressing at least can take comfort in the thought that their sales figures substantially represent purchases by backers looking to subsidize and promote their bought politicians, and reward them for services rendered, directly and by helping the books be bestsellers by making them bestsellers. (Eddie Murphy's 1992 satire The Distinguished Gentleman may not have been particularly well-received by the critics, but it did have its moments--not least Joe Don Baker's Olaf Andersen thundering at Lane Smith's Dick Dodge that among much else he had done for him he bought ten thousand copies of his "boring, dull-ass autobiography!")
Alas, in contrast with the faked show of interest in the self-serving garbage that the memoir of a career politician looking to get further up the greasy pole must necessarily be, a great portion of the public's apparent enthusiasm for the supposed "Big Thinks" of people from just plain "Showbusiness" seems to me to be genuine--such that while costly publicity efforts doubtless played their part in making their books bestsellers (and indeed, any bestselling book is probably open to the charge that it is a bestseller because its backers bought their way onto the bestseller lists these days), these publishing blockbusters cannot be wholly dismissed on those grounds, however much many of us would like to think so.
Sunday, November 5, 2023
Will The Marvels Be the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Solo?
This was probably always a longshot. There was a profound difference between the shared universe of Marvel's superheroes, with their separate though interlinkable adventures, and the cinematic equivalent of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, with regard to the potential to appeal to a really mass audience. And reality caught up with Disney-Lucasfilm that way in 2018, when Solo crashed and burned at the summer box office, putting paid to plans to make Star Wars the equivalent of the MCU. The only Star Wars movie that came out after that was the conclusion of the new main-line trilogy in 2019, after which nothing has appeared--and will not be appearing before 2025 at the earliest as Kathleen Kennedy now speaks not in terms of the spectacularly high output MCU but the low output James Bond films (these days, very, very low output), all as new Star Wars is mainly reserved for the small screen.
Right now it looks as if Captain Marvel 2--aka The Marvels--will be as big a flop as Solo, and perhaps even worse. (Solo made over $200 million domestically--more like $250 million domestically when you adjust for inflation--whereas according to the latest data Captain Marvel 2 may be lucky to make even $150 million.)
Given all this one may wonder if Captain Marvel 2 will not be the MCU's Solo, a flop that forces Disney to back off and profoundly change course. However, sheer inertia will keep the movie from being that, no matter how badly it does at the box office.
After all, when Solo hit theaters Disney's Star Wars movies had been coming out for a mere two-and-a-half years, with Solo only the fourth film in the sequence.
By contrast the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going strong for over fifteen years now, with Captain Marvel 2 the 33rd movie in the sequence. What Disney merely hoped to achieve with Star Wars, but did not, it did achieve with the MCU, especially in Phase Three--which at this point may be feeling more and more distant for fans, but for the executives probably feels like it was "just yesterday," and not just because time passes differently for old people, or because executive types are slow on the uptake. After all, if things have gone less well since, Spider-Man: No Way Home was as big a success as could have been hoped for even pre-pandemic; if they did not do so well as hoped, the latest Dr. Strange, Thor, Black Panther sequels were among the most profitable movies anyone in Hollywood had in 2022 (#4, #5 and #9 on Deadline's list); Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was at least a respectable performer in the end; and even the disappointment with Ant-Man 3 can be chalked up to exaggerated expectations for what an Ant-Man movie could do and the Chinese market becoming less open to the franchise rather than catastrophic across-the-board collapse.
The result is that where with Solo there was little cushioning against their worst fears that they were acting in a profoundly foolish way in regard to Star Wars. By contrast, even the worst that has been predicted for Captain Marvel 2 runs up against that massive success already behind them so that they can think of it as a fluke and hope for better the next time.
Or several times.
After all, even if the studio really is given pause by Captain Marvel 2's failure, that same matter of inertia leaves them heavily invested right now in a plethora of additional MCU films--with Captain America 4 already in post-production, and three more movies in production (Deadpool 3, The Thunderbolts, Blade), enough to keep the movies coming until at least 2025. Meanwhile there is the lesser investment in two more movies already in "pre-production" (Fantastic Four, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty), to say nothing of others "in development."
Lucasfilm had nothing comparable to that roster of films going when Solo made the studio's management change course, and one cannot picture Disney-Lucasfilm shutting all that down simply because one movie underperformed (however severely). The investment is recognizably the bigger when we consider Marvel's streaming TV empire (Star Wars hadn't got one yet as of the summer of 2018), and the revenue Marvel derives from the way the new films keep up interest in and trickles of revenue coming from the increasingly vast collection of old films (32 before this one!), the merchandising, and the rest on a scale that may also dwarf Star Wars when one puts it all together.
As if all that were not enough the fact that even as Star Wars was not working out Disney was doing so well with its other properties made it easier for the studio chiefs to make the hard decision to back away from its earlier plans for that franchise. After all, they had Pixar, they had their live-action adaptations of their animated classics, they had the MCU, all generating billion-dollar movies in ticket sales on a regular basis. (Indeed, counting the 2019 Spider-Man film the top eight movies at the box office were all Disney productions, each and every one a grosser of $1 billion or more worldwide and the eight together collectively accounting for over $10 billion in ticket sales.)
Now the MCU, even in its weakened state, looks like their strongest asset, with any replacement a long way off, making it far more likely that those calling the shots at Disney will feel that much more pressure to hold on to the MCU for dear life, and hope for the best. The result is that there is probably zero prospect of Captain Marvel 2's failure (should it fail--let us not forget this has not actually happened yet) making Disney change course with the MCU the way that it did with Star Wars. However, it could mean some changes in the longer-term planning, and perhaps more caution in regard to those projects they can still alter.
Is There Any Hope for Captain Marvel 2 at the Box Office?
There has been plenty of pessimism about Captain Marvel 2 in recent weeks--as many an analysis of the available data shows, apparently for excellent reason. Films made from the longtime templates for blockbusters in our era--like big-budget high-concept franchise-based sci-fi action films--have been flopping right and left, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe consistently underperforming since at least Thor 4 four movies back. Moreover, were these precedents not worrying enough in themselves the early box office tracking for the film has produced expectations of, for that type of film, a very poor opening weekend--one in the $45-$62 million range, which is to say, even at the high end of the range, less in real terms than the original Captain Marvel took in on opening day.*
Is there, then, any reason to think the film might do better than disastrously? The best reason I can think of is that hits lately are less front-loaded than they used to be, such that they are displaying the kind of legs that redeem a weak opening, with the prior MCU film worth remarking. Guardians of the Galaxy 3's first Friday-to-Sunday gross was a letdown, but the movie proved "leggier" than expected in slightly better than tripling that opening weekend gross.
If Captain Marvel 2 has an opening weekend closer to the high end of the range and triples that over its run, it would beat Boxoffice Pro's projection--blasting past the $156 million now discussed as the (fairly low) high end of the range it calculated to surpass the $180 million mark. Should the movie quadruple that figure, as many films have done this year, its gross would enter the range of $250 million. And should it quintuple its opening weekend ticket sales the way Elemental did, even starting with the weakest opening projected for it the movie would still blow past the $200 million mark, and at the high end of the range, surpass the $300 million mark, and in the process come to look much, much less like a flop. Indeed, especially were the international gross to correspond to this (so that the global gross is 2.65 times the domestic gross), the movie would end up within striking distance of $800 million, at which point, on the basis of the currently reported outlays for the film, it could end up not just profitable, but one of the more profitable films of the year.
Of course, if the hits are less front-loaded and showing longer legs the flops open weakly--and collapse, as The Flash did (the movie ending up with that weak debut accounting for more than half of all it ever made in North America). This leaves the question of why the movie might--or might not--end up a leggy hit rather than a buckling flop. Where "might" is concerned what the movie seems to have going for it is that if anticipation for it does not seem very strong, the anticipation for the other movies scheduled to come out over the same stretch of the year is less strong than that--Fandango's poll telling us that Captain Marvel 2 is doing about as well that way as any movie in the next two months, with the second most-anticipated movie (and closest competition Captain Marvel has), Aquaman 2, coming out six weeks later. The significance of weak competition should not be underestimated, especially in a time of year in which movies show more box office staying power than tends to be the case in the summer season.
Where the possibility of making this happen is concerned what those hopeful for the film might see as most likely to give the movie its chance is the public's finding Captain Marvel 2 a "pleasant surprise" after the way it has been talked down (which would be the extreme opposite of the way The Flash was talked up so insanely it could not but disappoint). It may also be that the audience will find themselves in the mood for a "silly" Marvel movie at this point, to laugh rather than sit through a played-out repetition of the familiar formulas--and perhaps also find that this one is a better put-together silly movie than Thor 4. (Audience affection for Thor 4 seems to have badly undermined by tonal consistency as it went from the dark horror movie stuff with Gorr the God Butcher to broad comedy and back.) Just avoiding that, and keeping the movie mercifully brief for an audience impatient with lumbering three-hour epics, could work to Captain Marvel 2's advantage.
Still, if a relatively happy outcome for Captain Marvel 2 does not seem wholly outside the range of possibility the movie seems to have an uphill battle ahead of it--on which you can expect to read more right here.
* Captain Marvel took in $61.7 million on the day of release back in March 2019, which adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index works out to $75 million.
Is there, then, any reason to think the film might do better than disastrously? The best reason I can think of is that hits lately are less front-loaded than they used to be, such that they are displaying the kind of legs that redeem a weak opening, with the prior MCU film worth remarking. Guardians of the Galaxy 3's first Friday-to-Sunday gross was a letdown, but the movie proved "leggier" than expected in slightly better than tripling that opening weekend gross.
If Captain Marvel 2 has an opening weekend closer to the high end of the range and triples that over its run, it would beat Boxoffice Pro's projection--blasting past the $156 million now discussed as the (fairly low) high end of the range it calculated to surpass the $180 million mark. Should the movie quadruple that figure, as many films have done this year, its gross would enter the range of $250 million. And should it quintuple its opening weekend ticket sales the way Elemental did, even starting with the weakest opening projected for it the movie would still blow past the $200 million mark, and at the high end of the range, surpass the $300 million mark, and in the process come to look much, much less like a flop. Indeed, especially were the international gross to correspond to this (so that the global gross is 2.65 times the domestic gross), the movie would end up within striking distance of $800 million, at which point, on the basis of the currently reported outlays for the film, it could end up not just profitable, but one of the more profitable films of the year.
Of course, if the hits are less front-loaded and showing longer legs the flops open weakly--and collapse, as The Flash did (the movie ending up with that weak debut accounting for more than half of all it ever made in North America). This leaves the question of why the movie might--or might not--end up a leggy hit rather than a buckling flop. Where "might" is concerned what the movie seems to have going for it is that if anticipation for it does not seem very strong, the anticipation for the other movies scheduled to come out over the same stretch of the year is less strong than that--Fandango's poll telling us that Captain Marvel 2 is doing about as well that way as any movie in the next two months, with the second most-anticipated movie (and closest competition Captain Marvel has), Aquaman 2, coming out six weeks later. The significance of weak competition should not be underestimated, especially in a time of year in which movies show more box office staying power than tends to be the case in the summer season.
Where the possibility of making this happen is concerned what those hopeful for the film might see as most likely to give the movie its chance is the public's finding Captain Marvel 2 a "pleasant surprise" after the way it has been talked down (which would be the extreme opposite of the way The Flash was talked up so insanely it could not but disappoint). It may also be that the audience will find themselves in the mood for a "silly" Marvel movie at this point, to laugh rather than sit through a played-out repetition of the familiar formulas--and perhaps also find that this one is a better put-together silly movie than Thor 4. (Audience affection for Thor 4 seems to have badly undermined by tonal consistency as it went from the dark horror movie stuff with Gorr the God Butcher to broad comedy and back.) Just avoiding that, and keeping the movie mercifully brief for an audience impatient with lumbering three-hour epics, could work to Captain Marvel 2's advantage.
Still, if a relatively happy outcome for Captain Marvel 2 does not seem wholly outside the range of possibility the movie seems to have an uphill battle ahead of it--on which you can expect to read more right here.
* Captain Marvel took in $61.7 million on the day of release back in March 2019, which adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index works out to $75 million.
Balzac's "La Maison Nucingen": A Few Thoughts
Balzac's "La Maison Nucingen"--literally "The House of Nucingen," though perhaps more fittingly translated as "The Firm of Nucingen"--consists of a long dialogue among a group of men about time over a meal in a restaurant overheard by another diner. In that dialogue one of the party tells the others how it was that that major figure of Balzac's "Human Comedy," Eugène de Rastignac, made his fortune, bridging the gap between the condition we find him in in Le Père Goriot (Father Goriot), and the position we find him in in later works like Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions), where he is an established figure in Parisian society and eventually one of the most prominent men in all of France.
Not what I expected given the craftsmanship Balzac showed in prior works, it is also the case that the dialogue is rather maundering, to the point of Balzac himself making excuses for it--the storyteller's dining companions actually getting impatient and themselves accusing him of maundering, and he dismissing their objections repeatedly. (As the man telling the story remarks of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, "the most wooden-headed playwright would give you the whole . . . in a single act," Richardson's literary accomplishment the production of "fourteen volumes of her" from the material.)
I did not find the answer particularly satisfying, the novella trying my patience in a way Balzac rarely does. Still, the story's events are too important for someone really interested in this corner of Balzac's saga to skip over, and the interest of the tale does pick up as it moves along, because we move from more marginal figures and events to those at the heart of the story, and because of Balzac's memorable portrait of the financial world where the action happens, the chicaneries and treacheries of which never lost their relevance given, to use the phrase of another Victorian novelist who told tales of the financial world, "the way we live now."
Not what I expected given the craftsmanship Balzac showed in prior works, it is also the case that the dialogue is rather maundering, to the point of Balzac himself making excuses for it--the storyteller's dining companions actually getting impatient and themselves accusing him of maundering, and he dismissing their objections repeatedly. (As the man telling the story remarks of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, "the most wooden-headed playwright would give you the whole . . . in a single act," Richardson's literary accomplishment the production of "fourteen volumes of her" from the material.)
I did not find the answer particularly satisfying, the novella trying my patience in a way Balzac rarely does. Still, the story's events are too important for someone really interested in this corner of Balzac's saga to skip over, and the interest of the tale does pick up as it moves along, because we move from more marginal figures and events to those at the heart of the story, and because of Balzac's memorable portrait of the financial world where the action happens, the chicaneries and treacheries of which never lost their relevance given, to use the phrase of another Victorian novelist who told tales of the financial world, "the way we live now."
Friday, November 3, 2023
The Marvels: Boxoffice Pro's Last Long-Range Forecast for the Movie
There is just one week left to go until the theatrical debut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)'s latest--The Marvels--and Boxoffice Pro has put out the last "Long-Range Forecast" that will include the film
(its projection next week to be found in its coverage of the weekend).
For the third week in a row Boxoffice Pro's projection reports erosion from its prior projection--from week to week slight (2 percent in the second projection, 9 percent in the third, 2 percent more this week), but it adds up, the more in as the initial numbers were underwhelming (indeed, along the lines not of what had been predicted for The Flash, but how that movie actually did).* Thus where the expectation in the October 12 report was of the movie having a $50-$75 million debut, on the way to a $121-$189 million total, as of yesterday Boxoffice Pro projected a mere $45-$62 million opening, and a final domestic gross in the $109-$156 million range.
If the pattern seen in the prior three weeks continues there might well be a little further erosion of the projection between now and next week--while as the precedent of The Flash shows, even an already much-reduced opening weekend projection might yet prove overoptimistic (Boxoffice Pro having still predicted $60-$80 million just before the movie pulled in a mere $55 million, with this proving more than half all it was going to get).
For my part I am still thinking of $250 million as representing the likely floor for the film's global gross--though the $500 million I had discussed as the upper end of the range back in October, if not necessarily out of the question, looks less and less plausible now.
* The initial projection for The Flash one month before release had the movie enjoying a $115-$140 million gross on opening weekend, on the way to a final domestic take of $280-$375 million. That number, received as underwhelming in the wake of the extreme hyping of the film, actually turned out to be wildly overoptimistic as The Flash's entire run amounted to $108 million in ticket sales, less than the low estimate of what it was supposed to make in just the opening weekend, and less than a third of what had been thought plausible for it.
For the third week in a row Boxoffice Pro's projection reports erosion from its prior projection--from week to week slight (2 percent in the second projection, 9 percent in the third, 2 percent more this week), but it adds up, the more in as the initial numbers were underwhelming (indeed, along the lines not of what had been predicted for The Flash, but how that movie actually did).* Thus where the expectation in the October 12 report was of the movie having a $50-$75 million debut, on the way to a $121-$189 million total, as of yesterday Boxoffice Pro projected a mere $45-$62 million opening, and a final domestic gross in the $109-$156 million range.
If the pattern seen in the prior three weeks continues there might well be a little further erosion of the projection between now and next week--while as the precedent of The Flash shows, even an already much-reduced opening weekend projection might yet prove overoptimistic (Boxoffice Pro having still predicted $60-$80 million just before the movie pulled in a mere $55 million, with this proving more than half all it was going to get).
For my part I am still thinking of $250 million as representing the likely floor for the film's global gross--though the $500 million I had discussed as the upper end of the range back in October, if not necessarily out of the question, looks less and less plausible now.
* The initial projection for The Flash one month before release had the movie enjoying a $115-$140 million gross on opening weekend, on the way to a final domestic take of $280-$375 million. That number, received as underwhelming in the wake of the extreme hyping of the film, actually turned out to be wildly overoptimistic as The Flash's entire run amounted to $108 million in ticket sales, less than the low estimate of what it was supposed to make in just the opening weekend, and less than a third of what had been thought plausible for it.
Are Things Looking Up for the Hunger Games Prequel?
Boxoffice Pro's initial projection for Hunger Games prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, was none too impressive--a $35-$45 million opening weekend on the way to a final take in the $90-$142 million range, a very, very far cry from the spectacular grosses of the four films of the original saga (after adjustment for inflation, $850 million+). Still, where, for example, Captain Marvel 2's projection has eroded from week to week, there has been a slight improvement in that of the prequel film's, of 5 percent last week, and 1 percent more this week, which has raised the projection to a debut in the $38-$50 million range, and a total run in the $97-$157 million range.
The film, of course, has two more weeks to go, and one can picture the improvement continuing--but even were that to happen, the movie's likely gross rising by another 10 percent or so (to, say, $110-$175 million in the domestic market), it would still be a far cry from the successes of the first four films, and, given the likely investment in the production, very dependent on a strong overseas response to break even.
The film, of course, has two more weeks to go, and one can picture the improvement continuing--but even were that to happen, the movie's likely gross rising by another 10 percent or so (to, say, $110-$175 million in the domestic market), it would still be a far cry from the successes of the first four films, and, given the likely investment in the production, very dependent on a strong overseas response to break even.
Fandango's Poll and Aquaman 2
Fandango's recent poll found that the film movie audiences seem to be looking forward to most is Captain Marvel 2.
Aquaman 2 came right after it.
Right now Captain Marvel 2's prospects are none too bright. The implication is that Aquaman 2 will do worse--this sequel to the DCEU's biggest hit (its sole billion-dollar hit) ending up on a level with its poorest performer by far, The Flash.
If so it would be another blow to the increasingly battered DCEU, and the increasingly shaky superhero genre of which it has been so large a part this past decade—and box office-watchers should keep the possibility in mind as the tracking-based estimates for the movie start going public in the coming weeks.
Aquaman 2 came right after it.
Right now Captain Marvel 2's prospects are none too bright. The implication is that Aquaman 2 will do worse--this sequel to the DCEU's biggest hit (its sole billion-dollar hit) ending up on a level with its poorest performer by far, The Flash.
If so it would be another blow to the increasingly battered DCEU, and the increasingly shaky superhero genre of which it has been so large a part this past decade—and box office-watchers should keep the possibility in mind as the tracking-based estimates for the movie start going public in the coming weeks.
Captain Marvel 2 and the Fandango Poll on the Season's Most Anticipated Movies
A Fandango poll recently found that among moviegoers the most anticipated movie of the November-December period is Captain Marvel 2--The Marvels.
This can seem like good news for a movie whose prospects have been a cause of such pessimism--and one might not wonder if the movie is not likely to do better than the projections of The Flash-like numbers circulating in the media. Yet one can take the news in another way--namely that the weak numbers for The Marvels are as good as it is likely to get for any movie this season, there being commensurately less interest in Hollywood's other offerings over those months. A view all too consistent with the way franchise films have consistently underperformed this year, it also seems consistent with suspicions that the next two months do not contain the kind of box office-saving surprise blockbuster that a Super Mario Bros. Movie or a Barbie or even an Oppenheimer was--that what we see is what we will get, with the result Hollywood closing out a disappointing and worrying 2023 on a low note.
This can seem like good news for a movie whose prospects have been a cause of such pessimism--and one might not wonder if the movie is not likely to do better than the projections of The Flash-like numbers circulating in the media. Yet one can take the news in another way--namely that the weak numbers for The Marvels are as good as it is likely to get for any movie this season, there being commensurately less interest in Hollywood's other offerings over those months. A view all too consistent with the way franchise films have consistently underperformed this year, it also seems consistent with suspicions that the next two months do not contain the kind of box office-saving surprise blockbuster that a Super Mario Bros. Movie or a Barbie or even an Oppenheimer was--that what we see is what we will get, with the result Hollywood closing out a disappointing and worrying 2023 on a low note.
How Will Disney's Wish Do at the Box Office? Some Thoughts
NOTE: This post was completed on the basis of the information available in late October. While it has dated slightly I have decided to go ahead and post it.
Animated films have done well at the box office these past couple of years--with the latest Despicable Me franchise movie (Minions: The Rise of Gru) the biggest success of 2022 after only Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2; the follow-up to the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. (Beyond the Spider-Verse) not only nearly doubling the original's gross but also outgrossing every live-action superhero movie at the box office thus far this year; and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, for all the critical sneers, to the first half of this year what Barbie has been to the second, one of the rare billion-dollar plus hits carrying the box office.
Alas, that traditional king of animation Disney has had little share in this success, with 2022 seeing Lightyear and Strange World among their year's biggest flops (Strange World losing $200 million by itself to win the dubious honor of biggest flop, according to Deadline). This year's Elemental did better--though if it is looking to be profitable in the end it is a long way from the kind of success that Disney took so much for granted for so long.
One can thus picture Disney looking to its next big animated feature, Wish, for relief, especially given the higher than usual stakes--the movie intended as a 100 year anniversary film and homage to its near century-old tradition of big animated movies.
So just how well is it likely to do?
Boxoffice Pro's first long-range forecast including Wish has the movie making $45-$65 million on its opening weekend of domestic play and perhaps quadrupling that over the longer run to $185-$289 million (given the legs such a movie could have over the holidays). The low end of the range can seem worrisome, especially if the unspectacular domestic gross is matched by a Little Mermaid-like international response. However, should the movie have the benefit of a merely healthy international response even with just a mid-range performance Wish, if not all that might be hoped for from a 100th anniversary event, or even a run-of-the-mill Disney release, could be a moneymaker in the end--while it would do still better than that should it perform at the high end of the range and get an Elemental-like international response. Were the near $300 million gross that now seems within the range of the possible was doubled or better internationally (as was the case with Elemental) Disney would be within range of a billion dollars. Of course, even if it crosses that line some will compare it unfavorably to other films that had made still more than that--like Frozen 2's $1.45 billion back in 2019 (which works out to more like $1.75 billion today after adjustment for inflation). Still, especially in today's market it is very hard to deny that a billion dollar hit is a hit, and the folks at Disney could sure use one about now.
Animated films have done well at the box office these past couple of years--with the latest Despicable Me franchise movie (Minions: The Rise of Gru) the biggest success of 2022 after only Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2; the follow-up to the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. (Beyond the Spider-Verse) not only nearly doubling the original's gross but also outgrossing every live-action superhero movie at the box office thus far this year; and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, for all the critical sneers, to the first half of this year what Barbie has been to the second, one of the rare billion-dollar plus hits carrying the box office.
Alas, that traditional king of animation Disney has had little share in this success, with 2022 seeing Lightyear and Strange World among their year's biggest flops (Strange World losing $200 million by itself to win the dubious honor of biggest flop, according to Deadline). This year's Elemental did better--though if it is looking to be profitable in the end it is a long way from the kind of success that Disney took so much for granted for so long.
One can thus picture Disney looking to its next big animated feature, Wish, for relief, especially given the higher than usual stakes--the movie intended as a 100 year anniversary film and homage to its near century-old tradition of big animated movies.
So just how well is it likely to do?
Boxoffice Pro's first long-range forecast including Wish has the movie making $45-$65 million on its opening weekend of domestic play and perhaps quadrupling that over the longer run to $185-$289 million (given the legs such a movie could have over the holidays). The low end of the range can seem worrisome, especially if the unspectacular domestic gross is matched by a Little Mermaid-like international response. However, should the movie have the benefit of a merely healthy international response even with just a mid-range performance Wish, if not all that might be hoped for from a 100th anniversary event, or even a run-of-the-mill Disney release, could be a moneymaker in the end--while it would do still better than that should it perform at the high end of the range and get an Elemental-like international response. Were the near $300 million gross that now seems within the range of the possible was doubled or better internationally (as was the case with Elemental) Disney would be within range of a billion dollars. Of course, even if it crosses that line some will compare it unfavorably to other films that had made still more than that--like Frozen 2's $1.45 billion back in 2019 (which works out to more like $1.75 billion today after adjustment for inflation). Still, especially in today's market it is very hard to deny that a billion dollar hit is a hit, and the folks at Disney could sure use one about now.
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Will Barbie Win Best Picture at this Year's Oscars?
It may seem premature to ask the question of this piece's title. After all, the year still has two months to go--with those last two months tending to be particularly rich in the sorts of critical darlings that usually take home little statuettes, the actual quality of which we can only speculate about as yet.
However, there is a politics to the Academy Awards that, just as it makes clear that some of those upcoming films will have their claims and their backers (Bradley Cooper's Maestro, Ava Duvernay's Origin, Blitz Bazawule's The Color Purple, and conventionally films like Ridley Scott's Napoleon, George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat and Michael Mann's Ferrari), allows us to slight such matters as actual "quality." And considering just a few of the more obvious aspects of that politics makes it easy to picture things working out this way.
There is, especially in this era of sinking public interest in the Oscars (such that probably the only thing anyone remembers from any recent ceremony is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air slapping Cheap Pete live before a global audience), a desire to appeal to a more general audience reflected in their paying more attention to widely seen movies.
This year, none has been more widely seen, or likely to be more widely seen, than Barbie, still the #1 hit of the year.
Moreover, unlike other widely watched movies that get nominated for Best Picture even though everyone knows they are not going to win in their category (did anyone seriously expect Top Gun 2 or Avatar 2 to take home the prize last year?), Barbie seems to have been a genuine, not-graded-on-a-curve-as-just-pretty-good-by-blockbuster standards, unqualified critical darling, helmed by a critics' darling of a director with a very loud cheering section of her own who has already been nominated for a Best Director and two Best Screenplay Oscars and not got any of them. This will add to the film's advantages as a box office success enjoying the benefit of critical opinion and the backing of a formidable lobby insistent that it is her "turn" after the disappointments of 2018 and 2020 (and in light of the foregoing, what better time than this for it?).
And of course, there is the more conventionally political aspect of the film. Much as we hear about Hollywood's supposed liberalism, the fact remains that its liberalism has generally been confined to culture war/status politics issues, and much less in evidence on anything else, with the Academy no exception. Thus Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, with its themes of the politics of Big Science, war, the nuclear age and McCarthyism a movie that a genuinely left observer could find compelling if treated the right way (indeed, David Walsh, who seems to have never had a good word for Nolan for two decades, gave this film a strongly positive review), is the kind of thing that these days would make the Academy squeamish indeed. By contrast a movie about the gender politics of plastic toys is more their speed.
That said, not everyone will be happy with the choice. Some will be very unhappy indeed--and very vocal about their unhappiness, in those ways that led to the kind of intriguing of which Andrea Riseborough's Oscar nomination became a target last year, against which a giant major studio production like Barbie will be absolutely proof, but to which other films might be vulnerable. Still, for the time being Barbie is the movie that, whether or not one thinks it most deserving, seems to me most likely to take Best Picture next year, with very little chance of that changing in the months between now and the ceremony.
However, there is a politics to the Academy Awards that, just as it makes clear that some of those upcoming films will have their claims and their backers (Bradley Cooper's Maestro, Ava Duvernay's Origin, Blitz Bazawule's The Color Purple, and conventionally films like Ridley Scott's Napoleon, George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat and Michael Mann's Ferrari), allows us to slight such matters as actual "quality." And considering just a few of the more obvious aspects of that politics makes it easy to picture things working out this way.
There is, especially in this era of sinking public interest in the Oscars (such that probably the only thing anyone remembers from any recent ceremony is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air slapping Cheap Pete live before a global audience), a desire to appeal to a more general audience reflected in their paying more attention to widely seen movies.
This year, none has been more widely seen, or likely to be more widely seen, than Barbie, still the #1 hit of the year.
Moreover, unlike other widely watched movies that get nominated for Best Picture even though everyone knows they are not going to win in their category (did anyone seriously expect Top Gun 2 or Avatar 2 to take home the prize last year?), Barbie seems to have been a genuine, not-graded-on-a-curve-as-just-pretty-good-by-blockbuster standards, unqualified critical darling, helmed by a critics' darling of a director with a very loud cheering section of her own who has already been nominated for a Best Director and two Best Screenplay Oscars and not got any of them. This will add to the film's advantages as a box office success enjoying the benefit of critical opinion and the backing of a formidable lobby insistent that it is her "turn" after the disappointments of 2018 and 2020 (and in light of the foregoing, what better time than this for it?).
And of course, there is the more conventionally political aspect of the film. Much as we hear about Hollywood's supposed liberalism, the fact remains that its liberalism has generally been confined to culture war/status politics issues, and much less in evidence on anything else, with the Academy no exception. Thus Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, with its themes of the politics of Big Science, war, the nuclear age and McCarthyism a movie that a genuinely left observer could find compelling if treated the right way (indeed, David Walsh, who seems to have never had a good word for Nolan for two decades, gave this film a strongly positive review), is the kind of thing that these days would make the Academy squeamish indeed. By contrast a movie about the gender politics of plastic toys is more their speed.
That said, not everyone will be happy with the choice. Some will be very unhappy indeed--and very vocal about their unhappiness, in those ways that led to the kind of intriguing of which Andrea Riseborough's Oscar nomination became a target last year, against which a giant major studio production like Barbie will be absolutely proof, but to which other films might be vulnerable. Still, for the time being Barbie is the movie that, whether or not one thinks it most deserving, seems to me most likely to take Best Picture next year, with very little chance of that changing in the months between now and the ceremony.
Can Napoleon Be Another Oppenheimer?
As a biographical film about a historical personage Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer seemed an unpromising commercial prospect to me even before I learned how unconventionally structured it was (that at least at a glance it was a "weirdo art film"). As a result I did not think it likely to match the relatively high projections for its gross some had suggested ($164-$194 million in Boxoffice Pro's final long-range forecast a week before release), and even after the strong opening weekend beat prior expectations for that ($82 million vs. the $52-$72 million projected) wondered if the film would not collapse in its second weekend as audience reactions came to matter more than the cacophonous claquing. However, the movie actually displayed extraordinarily legs at the box office, quadrupling its already high weekend gross to beat the high end of Boxoffice Pro's prediction by 67 percent (taking in $324 million at last count), while taking in nearly twice as much internationally, making of the movie a near-billion dollar hit.
The result is that when looking at Ridley Scott's Napoleon my first reaction was to dismiss it the way I dismissed Oppenheimer--as the kind of biographical-historical period piece for which American audiences in particular have had little appetite for a long time, but then am given pause by how Oppenheimer actually did.
As I said before, I cannot altogether account for Oppenheimer's success with general audiences, who not only came out in those extraordinary numbers on the opening weekend, but kept on coming in the weeks afterward in that way suggestive of a really positive reaction. Still, I can think of at least two advantages that Oppenheimer had that Napoleon does not.
1. Napoleon director Ridley Scott is an established, respected, director with many a hit behind him--notably including one of the biggest commercial successes for the historical drama genre since its collapse in the '60s, Gladiator. Still, he does not have the kind of vocal and effective cheering section that Nolan does--which probably helped to bring audiences out for the unlikely Oppenheimer, and whose lack will not be helpful to the risky Napoleon.
2. Whatever one makes of their handling, Oppenheimer's themes were quite plausibly presented as having contemporary relevance. I do not think that relevance was as fully acknowledged by the media as it ought to have been (it still seems to be pretending nuclear war is irrelevant to our situation in 2023, for example, and does not seem to have given much thought to the portions of the film dealing with McCarthyism), but it seemed common to draw analogies between the development of the nuclear bomb and artificial intelligence in a moment in which the mass media, stupid, irresponsible and reactionary as ever, were working very, very hard to drive the public into hysterics over artificial intelligence research. Accordingly, important as the subject matter of Napoleon's life was, and relevant as it could be made to seem to audiences today (revolution, the descent of democracy into dictatorship, a world war, etc.), I do not see any sign of the press or anyone else doing anything likely to similarly work on the film's behalf.
The result is that it is easy to see Napoleon confirming rather than defying the view that the American public is not up for period pieces like this one--with the tracking information Boxoffice Pro has made available doing little to contradict that reading at the moment. The publication's first long-range forecast for the film anticipates a $16-$21 million opening weekend and a $46-$74 million longer run--which especially in the absence of the film absolutely exploding in the international markets, leaves it a very long way from recouping the doubtless considerable outlay for a lavish production such as one would expect of a Ridley Scott period film, or simply from looking at the commercials. Still, I will be watching how things go for the movie in the coming weeks.
The result is that when looking at Ridley Scott's Napoleon my first reaction was to dismiss it the way I dismissed Oppenheimer--as the kind of biographical-historical period piece for which American audiences in particular have had little appetite for a long time, but then am given pause by how Oppenheimer actually did.
As I said before, I cannot altogether account for Oppenheimer's success with general audiences, who not only came out in those extraordinary numbers on the opening weekend, but kept on coming in the weeks afterward in that way suggestive of a really positive reaction. Still, I can think of at least two advantages that Oppenheimer had that Napoleon does not.
1. Napoleon director Ridley Scott is an established, respected, director with many a hit behind him--notably including one of the biggest commercial successes for the historical drama genre since its collapse in the '60s, Gladiator. Still, he does not have the kind of vocal and effective cheering section that Nolan does--which probably helped to bring audiences out for the unlikely Oppenheimer, and whose lack will not be helpful to the risky Napoleon.
2. Whatever one makes of their handling, Oppenheimer's themes were quite plausibly presented as having contemporary relevance. I do not think that relevance was as fully acknowledged by the media as it ought to have been (it still seems to be pretending nuclear war is irrelevant to our situation in 2023, for example, and does not seem to have given much thought to the portions of the film dealing with McCarthyism), but it seemed common to draw analogies between the development of the nuclear bomb and artificial intelligence in a moment in which the mass media, stupid, irresponsible and reactionary as ever, were working very, very hard to drive the public into hysterics over artificial intelligence research. Accordingly, important as the subject matter of Napoleon's life was, and relevant as it could be made to seem to audiences today (revolution, the descent of democracy into dictatorship, a world war, etc.), I do not see any sign of the press or anyone else doing anything likely to similarly work on the film's behalf.
The result is that it is easy to see Napoleon confirming rather than defying the view that the American public is not up for period pieces like this one--with the tracking information Boxoffice Pro has made available doing little to contradict that reading at the moment. The publication's first long-range forecast for the film anticipates a $16-$21 million opening weekend and a $46-$74 million longer run--which especially in the absence of the film absolutely exploding in the international markets, leaves it a very long way from recouping the doubtless considerable outlay for a lavish production such as one would expect of a Ridley Scott period film, or simply from looking at the commercials. Still, I will be watching how things go for the movie in the coming weeks.
The Opening Weekend Gross of Five Nights at Freddy's: A Few Thoughts
Just as was the case with the upcoming Hunger Games prequel Five Nights at Freddy's was not on my radar until very recently, and I had even less idea as to what to make of it than I did Hunger Games--this being an original film rather than part of a franchise, and the box office dynamics of horror films less familiar to me than those of big action movies, while even by horror film standards Freddy's was atypical. (In contrast with the blood-soaked horror films that usually make a splash, this one kept it PG-13 in what was seen as a risky move.)
Still, the trajectory of the commercial expectations surrounding the film has been more than usually interesting. Just four weeks before Freddy's opened Boxoffice Pro projected an opening weekend of $33-$42 million and the film's finishing in the $60-$90 million range. All things considered this was respectable, but then each of their three subsequent forecasts had the movie edging upward--by 25 percent the immediately following week, 13 percent the week after that, and an amazing 43 percent more after that, on the way up to their right before the opening weekend giving the likely range as $65-$85 million--the kind of numbers conventionally associated not with even successful horror films, but blockbusters.
In the event the movie had a $78 million opening--closer to the high end of the range than the low, a figure which put its debut well ahead of the latest Fast and Furious, Transformers, DCEU, Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible films this past summer (all of which opened in the $54-$67 million range). That debut, moreover, would seem consistent with even a front-loaded run having the film cross the $150 million mark domestically, while it is supplementing its domestic gross with significant international revenues (equaling about two-thirds the North American take), suggesting a global gross well north of $200 million for the $20 million movie.
An undeniable commercial success, it seems worth remarking Freddy's as affirming two developments seen this year. One is the way that while the familiar franchises flop movies that look less promising by the usual standard are not just finding audiences but overperforming significantly--so that one can identify Freddy's with the same pattern of success as Barbie, Oppenheimer, Taylor Swift's concert film The Era's Tour (the #2 movie at the box office this weekend, after two weeks at #1), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The other is that, just like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Freddy's, if no Mario for name recognition, is based on a popular video game series--and so (likewise, in spite of critical sneers) delivered another big box office success for that long-mocked category of film, the video game-to-feature film adaptation.
In a pop cultural moment in which people are reading LitRPG novels, and producers look for less exploited types of material to back, these two films could be just the beginning of a whole wave of hit films of the kind.
Still, the trajectory of the commercial expectations surrounding the film has been more than usually interesting. Just four weeks before Freddy's opened Boxoffice Pro projected an opening weekend of $33-$42 million and the film's finishing in the $60-$90 million range. All things considered this was respectable, but then each of their three subsequent forecasts had the movie edging upward--by 25 percent the immediately following week, 13 percent the week after that, and an amazing 43 percent more after that, on the way up to their right before the opening weekend giving the likely range as $65-$85 million--the kind of numbers conventionally associated not with even successful horror films, but blockbusters.
In the event the movie had a $78 million opening--closer to the high end of the range than the low, a figure which put its debut well ahead of the latest Fast and Furious, Transformers, DCEU, Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible films this past summer (all of which opened in the $54-$67 million range). That debut, moreover, would seem consistent with even a front-loaded run having the film cross the $150 million mark domestically, while it is supplementing its domestic gross with significant international revenues (equaling about two-thirds the North American take), suggesting a global gross well north of $200 million for the $20 million movie.
An undeniable commercial success, it seems worth remarking Freddy's as affirming two developments seen this year. One is the way that while the familiar franchises flop movies that look less promising by the usual standard are not just finding audiences but overperforming significantly--so that one can identify Freddy's with the same pattern of success as Barbie, Oppenheimer, Taylor Swift's concert film The Era's Tour (the #2 movie at the box office this weekend, after two weeks at #1), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The other is that, just like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Freddy's, if no Mario for name recognition, is based on a popular video game series--and so (likewise, in spite of critical sneers) delivered another big box office success for that long-mocked category of film, the video game-to-feature film adaptation.
In a pop cultural moment in which people are reading LitRPG novels, and producers look for less exploited types of material to back, these two films could be just the beginning of a whole wave of hit films of the kind.
Monday, October 30, 2023
James Bond at the Beginning--and Possible End--of the Age of the Action Movie
It is thus a rather inauspicious time to think about "making more Bond movies"--one reason why the producers are apparently taking their time, though I think another way of thinking about the issue would be to say Bond 26 is stuck in development hell, and people will realize it as the years continue to go by without any new film. Already we have hints that the next Bond film might not arrive until 2027 or 2028--and I think there is a good chance that in 2028 people will still wonder if there is ever going to be a new movie. After all, the idea is not just to create something new, but something that will be appealing to the public, and that in a way that will once more enable a routine output of colossal hits--in a moment in which the era of the kind of film the Bond movies pioneered has passed.
Fundamental reinvention that would give the series sustained, blockbuster-level success a second time is probably too much to ask of any franchise in even the best of times--and these show every evidence of being far from that.
Can Joker 2 be a Hit?
Todd Phillips' Joker was the kind of unconventional movie that somehow gets made every now and then--and once in a while proves a surprise blockbuster, 2019's equivalent of Oppenheimer or Barbie. Still, there has been a good deal of argument over why the relatively small, dark, unconventional film became a billion-dollar hit--whether it was a matter of its genuine cinematic merits, or rather the way that the coprophages and claqueurs of the entertainment press generated around it the biggest moral panic over a major feature film in many years in which they disgraced themselves with their advertisement of their own stupidity, and disgraced themselves yet again with their not always thinly veiled calls for censorship.
This in itself raises questions about how the sequel (Joker: Folie à Deux) coming a whole five years after that arguably unrepeatable moment could be expected to do--with this all the more the case in as there is a shift of genre, from gritty urban drama with a socially critical edge, to offbeat musical love story. What gave the film, for all its imperfections, a real charge in its best moments, could easily fall by the wayside here--all as the shift has me in mind of how Martin Scorsese, of whose work Joker was derivative to a fault, followed up his huge success with Taxi Driver with his big-budget musical flop, New York, New York.* But then again this franchise might just pull off the rare feat of surprising us all a second time.
* Peter Biskind recounts the tale in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.
This in itself raises questions about how the sequel (Joker: Folie à Deux) coming a whole five years after that arguably unrepeatable moment could be expected to do--with this all the more the case in as there is a shift of genre, from gritty urban drama with a socially critical edge, to offbeat musical love story. What gave the film, for all its imperfections, a real charge in its best moments, could easily fall by the wayside here--all as the shift has me in mind of how Martin Scorsese, of whose work Joker was derivative to a fault, followed up his huge success with Taxi Driver with his big-budget musical flop, New York, New York.* But then again this franchise might just pull off the rare feat of surprising us all a second time.
* Peter Biskind recounts the tale in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.
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