I'd go with #1 Winter Soldier then more of a tier system after that over absolute rankings. With my top tier being:
definitely looking at the law of diminishing returns with this threequel, but megambomb? I’ll be stunned. People always seem to expect these movies to bomb when they don't race out to huge opening weekend box office numbers and get good to tepid reviews, but these movies are relatively critic proof, it's gonna have Xmas break legs, it got an A cinemascore from people leaving the theater, it's the only big ticket blockbuster of the Xmas season and everyone at this point knows what they're getting from an Avatar movie... a theatrical ride.
We've got a rare 5 day weekend coming up, so we'll see if it has legs over the holiday. I know I'll probably be seeing it on Christmas Eve.
Gotta figure this is the weekend a lot of people are travelling too. I also think there is Avatar fatigue, which is crazy considering this is only the 3rd movie. But considering the first one came out 14 years ago...
Had the second biggest opening of the year worldwide at 345 million. Which isn’t bad either.
Ferngully was released in 1992.
I also think that because there isn’t such a huge wait between movies, Cameron hasn’t been able to do what he’s always done which is bring the promise of advancing technology in movies to be part of the shock and awe that drew more people out the second time around.
Ferngully was released in 1992.
That said, this could still easily be a relative disappointment without being a megabomb. Despite this astronomical budget, these movies are expected to be the big breadwinners for a studio and the law of diminishing returns is definitely in effect.
God, they messed everything about that movie up, including the title. The movie legit sucked, too. I got to watch it for free and wanted my money back. What a waste of a glorious book series.
This could end up that bad if it doesn't grow legs this week. The reported budget is $400m which always seem to be less than what they end up with reshoots and the like. Then it was only $88m domestically with the largest international market being China which has the worst box office split for the studio. It's probably looking close to $1.3-1.4b to break even at that pace.
the other thing that is hurting this is back actual competition in the market. Back in 2022, everyone got the hell out of The Way Water and pretty much gave Avatar 2 three weeks all by it's lonesome to dominate multiplexes.
It's crazy that a billion dollar box office could be a bomb due to how big the budget was. I've been saying for a while that Hollywood needs to get the budgets back under control and this could end up being a poster child for it.
But you can’t really fault anyone for letting Cameron do what he wanted at the point he made this considering his last three movies were the 1, 3 and 4th biggest movies of all time.
Yeah, Cameron gets a longer leash than others. I meant that more in general with the budgets that seem to have little constraints. I'm tired of the special effects bonanza with 5 bucks spent on the story and writing. I'd like to see Hollywood get more balance back where we get more of an emphasis, and money*, on good writing and some constraints on the effects budgets so that directors have to be more creative again with the money they have. A balance more like it used to be than what it is now.
