America Has Biggest Three-Day Weekend Box Office Ever (variety.com) 45
It's America's biggest box office for a Memorial Day weekend ever, reports Variety.
And it's been more than a decade since this many Americans went to see a movie during a three-day weekend... Families turned out in force for Disney's live-action "Lilo & Stitch" remake, which collected a blockbuster $145.5 million in its opening weekend and an estimated $183 million through Monday... Meanwhile, older audiences showed up to watch Paramount and Skydance's "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," which earned a series-best $63 million over the weekend and an estimated $77 million through Monday's holiday. This eighth installment just narrowly beat 2018's "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" ($61 million) to score the top debut of the 29-year-old franchise...
Thanks to effective counterprogramming — and a huge assist by holdovers like "Final Destination Bloodlines," "Thunderbolts*" and "Sinners" — this weekend delivered the best collective Memorial Day weekend haul with $322 million... Cinema operators are rejoicing because Memorial Day is the official launch to summer movie season, which is the most profitable stretch for the movie business. (Historically, the four-month period has accounted for $4 billion, or around 40% of the annual box office.)
It's a huge improvement from last year, which started with a whimper rather than a bang as "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" and "Garfield" led the holiday's worst showing in three decades with $132 million collectively. "Every film on the release calendar for the rest of the summer is going to benefit from the momentum created over this monumental record-breaking Memorial weekend in theaters," says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
But the top-earning movie of the year so far is A Minecraft Movie, which has apparently brought in over $940 million.
Meanwhile, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is one of the most expensive films of all time, according to the article, costing $400 million as Tom Cruise and the movie's director "worked through a pandemic and two strikes, all while grappling with inflation." Though the film received a high "A-" grade on CinemaScore, a movie industry analyst tells Variety that the unexpectedly high production costs means the movie "will be lucky to break-even."
Fun fact: A quarter of a century ago, CmdrTaco reviewed a new movie called Mission: Impossible 2, calling it "a fun movie," but "no Gladiator" and sort of a "James Bond for Dummies" movie.
"The 'Plot' is really just an excuse to show us lots of explosions, car/motorcycle/helicoptor chases..."
And it's been more than a decade since this many Americans went to see a movie during a three-day weekend... Families turned out in force for Disney's live-action "Lilo & Stitch" remake, which collected a blockbuster $145.5 million in its opening weekend and an estimated $183 million through Monday... Meanwhile, older audiences showed up to watch Paramount and Skydance's "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," which earned a series-best $63 million over the weekend and an estimated $77 million through Monday's holiday. This eighth installment just narrowly beat 2018's "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" ($61 million) to score the top debut of the 29-year-old franchise...
Thanks to effective counterprogramming — and a huge assist by holdovers like "Final Destination Bloodlines," "Thunderbolts*" and "Sinners" — this weekend delivered the best collective Memorial Day weekend haul with $322 million... Cinema operators are rejoicing because Memorial Day is the official launch to summer movie season, which is the most profitable stretch for the movie business. (Historically, the four-month period has accounted for $4 billion, or around 40% of the annual box office.)
It's a huge improvement from last year, which started with a whimper rather than a bang as "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" and "Garfield" led the holiday's worst showing in three decades with $132 million collectively. "Every film on the release calendar for the rest of the summer is going to benefit from the momentum created over this monumental record-breaking Memorial weekend in theaters," says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
But the top-earning movie of the year so far is A Minecraft Movie, which has apparently brought in over $940 million.
Meanwhile, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is one of the most expensive films of all time, according to the article, costing $400 million as Tom Cruise and the movie's director "worked through a pandemic and two strikes, all while grappling with inflation." Though the film received a high "A-" grade on CinemaScore, a movie industry analyst tells Variety that the unexpectedly high production costs means the movie "will be lucky to break-even."
Fun fact: A quarter of a century ago, CmdrTaco reviewed a new movie called Mission: Impossible 2, calling it "a fun movie," but "no Gladiator" and sort of a "James Bond for Dummies" movie.
"The 'Plot' is really just an excuse to show us lots of explosions, car/motorcycle/helicoptor chases..."
Now do that in inflation-adjusted money (Score:5, Insightful)
And rewrite your article to see how things measure up in real terms.
Impossible to watch (Score:3)
Omit the explosions, car chases, stunts, hanging from a helicopter and other in-betweens, the two Mission Impossible moves I'd been included in watching on home video were cardboard plots sanitized to get past the film standards requirements to be shown outside the US and EU.
Worn-out retread cardboard plot, cardboard dialogue, cardboard acting and an idea that explosions, car chases and stunts make a movie.
Mi$$ion Po$$ible. (Score:2)
Worn-out retread cardboard plot, cardboard dialogue, cardboard acting and an idea that explosions, car chases and stunts make a movie.
They don’t make movies. They make money. The mindless worn-out retreaded storylines of Fast N Fasterest proved that over and over again for a decade.
One might even argue Hollywood hasn’t had an original thought for years. Because they haven’t had to. Took recycling to an obscene level. With writers going on..strike? That’s cute coming from the industry delivering Roger ReTread and the Seven Sequels 28 years later.
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The goal is "butts in seats". That's the only number that m
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It's all about managing risk. If you have an experimental film which could lose or make tons of money vs. a recycled movie that would take less tons of money, which would you go for? One that could lose millions but make hundreds of millions, or one guaranteed to make fewer hundreds of millions?
Hollywood was built on imagination. If they are willing to gamble that away on “safe” bets, then they deserve to lose a reputational war for the sake of a financial battle.
Stupid, shortsighted, ignorant, and insanely fucking greedy. The latter is the actual destroyer of worlds. Hollywood doesn’t merely fund payroll for actors. They’re forced to invest in fucking egos now instead. $10,000 a day? Please. They don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 an hour and an intern
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Yes! How did this fare against Gone With the Wind?
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Yes! I like to compare oranges to oranges.
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Re: Now do that in inflation-adjusted money (Score:3)
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Yes, that works too.
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That, too, needs inflation adjustment. Population growth is a thing, too.
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Better, take money out.
What percentage of seats available were sold?
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percentage maybe not, but number of tickets sold is an interesting metric. Number of tickets sold per million pop would be another good one to see how "popular" the movies are compared to past ones.
Re: Now do that in inflation-adjusted money (Score:2)
If you're charging a fixed price per ticket then you could have a full theater at one price or a half full theater at double that price. Wouldn't the owners pick a price that maximizes revenue not capacity?
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I was told years ago by a guy that owned a chain of movie theatres that their money is made on concessions. Ticket prices are pretty much all to the movie distributor companies. That's also why dollar theatres are often quite profitable.
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And adjust for population differences over time.
CmdrTaco sez (Score:2, Insightful)
The 'Plot' is really just an excuse to show us lots of explosions, car/motorcycle/helicoptor chases...
And this is bad because...?
Seriously, it's an ACTION movie! By your definition, Beastie Boys "Sabotage" is a horrible music video, as just one example.
Having watch MI-8 they really went all out showing Cruise doing his own stunts and the use of the best miniature cameras is what allows it. If you're a true nerd, you NEED to check out how they made these "2" movies (MI-7&8 were shot at the same time and are essentially 1 movie like Kill Bill, Matrix 2-3, etc), which is arguably more entertaining than the
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You still could have a writer do better than a children's cartoon and have action. It may not have any more than 30 minutes of plot between action scenes but that just means there is no excuse for not doing better!
I found the movie to be a mess of flashbacks that would get me to stop the stream or change channels if it were on TV. Seriously, they were never serious movies and most didn't make a lot of sense but I don't think most people are going to enjoy the fan boy call backs decades ago. I hardly rememb
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The original show was essentially this. Mr. Phelps, solve this absurd problem, and don't get caught. Okay, team, It'll be tricky, but we can do it. Sneaky, sneaky, look we melted the gold out of the safe, let's go home. All the kids cheer, because the cleverness was the entertainment. No emotional drama, no B story. No long term plot that I recall. I loved that show.
Re: CmdrTaco sez (Score:1)
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... Matrix 2-3 ...
What nonsense talk is that? That yields -1, for starters. And 25 years after The Matrix it's time for a sequel for sure, but good things take time.......
Easily... (Score:2)
Now I know I'm old (Score:2)
I didn't hear boo about any of those movies before they came out.
I was probably too busy attaching an onion to my belt.
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I didn't hear about any of them, either. Maybe I should have asked some of the young punks I shouted off my lawn.
Re: Now I know I'm old (Score:2)
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As an outsider I can say: I am happy you did not shoot them off your lawn!
Mission: Impossible 2 was garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
MI:2 was made for people who thought the original Mission: Impossible movie was too complex, needed a love interest, and needed more action sequences.
That being said, credit where credit is due: The original Mission: Impossible movie stands up really well even now. Complex storytelling with an engaging plot. The flashback where Ethan Hunt is trying to put together what happened while he is being told what happened is a great example of an unreliable narrator. But we need to figure that out. It's not spoon fed to the viewers.
Still my favorite movie in the franchise.
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The problems of wrapping up a franchise are that: 0) the final reckoning doesn't have to leave an opening to a new episode; 1) It doesn't have to introduce any new characters or plot devices; 2) It should not introduce a spin-off. That's just a sequel.
Sequels work. Deal with it. If you go to the theater to see a movie for some reason other than entertainment or information (documentaries etc are real movies duh) you're wasting time and money. Now get out of the way of my popcorn.
Toxic Youtube critics weigh in (Score:3)
But re-writing Snow White with clumsy ideology for a fictional "Modern Audience" didn't work. And a lead Actress that let everyone know exactly who the movie was aimed at - she was the very archetype and embodiment of the group Disney aimed the movie at. The modern audience people failed the movie as they've failed others. Taking notes, Disney?
Lilo and Stitch, cute and goofy, but that can be turned into profit. That's a win. Even the original cartoon was cute and goofy, but very watchable, especially in comparison to drek like "Velma", an animation made for that presumptive modern audience.
Minecraft reviews were pretty much that yeah, the movie is dopey, but it's intended audience, consisting largely of kids, will have it make a billion. That's a win.
So these so-called Toxic Critics don't just pile hate on everything. Many understand what makes a good watchable movie, and how to tell a good story, and how to make a movie appeal to a broad audience, not just people who won't support them by coming to the movie.
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It's strange I had been seeing some very angry takes on X about story changes in Lilo & Stich - but I guess they were not problem enough to drive people away!
Personally I never saw the appeal of the original or Stich himself, but I have to say I have seen that many, many people just LOVE stitch.
Disney really needed a win like that... though I'm sad that may lead to more live action remakes, which I thought were on the way out. But if they can just preserve the heart of the original, I guess they are O
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You really need to pull your head out of whatever news-source's ass it's up, or social-media-echo-chamber you're dwelling in, because many of the YouTubers of which I follow, of which I can safely say you are referring to as "toxic," have the SAME OPINIONS as you do about "Lilo and Stich" and "Minecraft." You share the same opinions as them, so does that make you Toxic?
You don't know what words mean do you.
You see, you cowardly little waste of resources, it takes a really useless subhuman to not get that I was referring to the critics that the far left call Toxic. If you could read more than the first 5 words, that is quite obvious to anyone with at least one functioning brain cell what I was referring to. It isn't even someone getting poe'd.
As me old man told me, the proper reply to cowards is "Bwak, bwak bwak". As a chicken, you know that that means, dontchya?
Collected funds should be adjusted by inflation (Score:1)
Whistling in the Graveyard of Times (Score:1)
movie weekend (Score:1)
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You ain't gonna get it until people stop throwing their money at regurgigated shite.
This is why I stopped going to the cinema, and stopped watching "new release" movies. I refuse to fund them to just produce yet-another in every franchise known to man.
Hell, I've probably seen about 1% of the "superhero" movies out there, and never paid to watch any of them, because... why would I?
We need to break people's fingers from giving their credit card to Hollywood, until then nothing will change.