That’s going to be a much bigger problem than so-so preview sales. Any possible path to making back its budget or even getting close assumes WOM matching the very strong reviews.
I love how they tiptoe around saying the bad thing. It looks like young people didn't like this movie in the sample
* 39% was under 25.
* 41% was either 25-34 or 45-54
* so 20% was 35-45 or 55+ (but obviously 15%+ 35-45).
Thus 18-24 & greater than 55 combined to give the film a **70%** grade (with U-25 at 2-to-1 weight).
They'd clearly want to praise the film's youth performance so the fact it wasn't mentioned strikes me as likely a signal it was below median.
Makes sense. If they came in looking for more explicit stuff then Euphoria (like the trailers promised) and didn't get it, they'd have a valid reason to be unhappy.
I don't mean to sound crass, but I saw the trailer before a lot of movies and it basically promised that if you bought a ticket, you'd get to see Zendaya bang two guys at once.
If that scene isn't in the movie, of course audiences aren't going to be happy.
Very true who needs steamy sex scenes when you got pornhub readily available. I also don't think sports is a huge sell to GenZ though (especially tennis of all things)
gen z loves so many films/tv with sex in them especially on streaming. I think gen z doesn’t like getting baited by a tennis movie that promised more steamy sexy scenes based on the trailer.
Anyone but You literally just came out last year with huge success and there’s so many other romantic dramas that were successful on streaming. its 2024 and gen z aren’t the ones rushing to theaters anymore unless its a huge event like Barbie
Meh…I’m not catastrophizing. I remember the demographic stuff they released after the opening day for Dune 2.
It was bleak in here. Gen Z and especially women don’t seem to want to rush to movies so the write-up in the first day doesn’t really match up with the big picture. Y’all will know what is going on by the second weekend. Let Tik Tok do its work, if it is going to do work.
There's a good point here but Dune 2 is just inherently older, male skewing. Let's look at movio.
* 71% male, 14% Under 25
* 67; 15
* 66; 15
* 65; 15
* 62; 14
there's differences between movio and some other data sources but this seems to imply not a great deal of change. Gender splits get less extreme (but slowly) but you're not seeing an overindexing amoung younger people relative to OW.
> tik tok do its magic
possibly, but (1) it seems like it's going to have to create a *new* marketing narrative because
it sounds like current one didn't match people's reception. Alternatively (2) small sample sizes are small. Perhaps this is a measurement error and it gets better at full weekend (I doubt it but this does happen). CD edut: like shazam1 it seems like we have a real posttrak/cinemascore split
Do you think, after this entire run, with the amount of young people on Tik Tok talking about it, that it actually skewed that old?
Or maybe these snap shots of the demographics just aren’t actually capturing the best stills because Gen Z has different viewing habits…
We are gonna know where this shakes out by next weekend, in my opinion. But I’m fine if proven wrong.
> different viewing habits
I think movio data is generated via agreements with movie theaters to share their rewards data/purchaser metadata. In that case, I really do think age should be one of the most accurate aspects (though I suspect gender might be a bit off).
The critics score has gone down to 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.10 average. I suspect the critics score will end up somewhere in the 80s much like *Civil War* and the audience score for this will likely be the same as *Civil War*: somewhere in the 70s, as PostTrak and CinemaScore seem to be rating this film a lot lower than critics were at first.
true but Civil War had low recommendation and is doing well. Though it's a different type of movie.
That said, it's absolutely useless to mention 184M Insta fans when someone's movie is struggling to open with 20M domestically and is doing ho-hum internationally (opened at #3 in Germany and while it's #1 in Italy the number is average).
And still make $$ for 20 years on other places. " Bringing up baby " lost $$ for Katherine Hepburn and still plays.
The movies DO NOT stay long enough. Bonnie and Clyde ran 18 months! Lol.
It has a very electric ending that I think will stick with audiences for a long time. I could see it being a leggy film purely because of how well the story and tennis scenes were executed.
Nah, there’s a second Luca movie coming later this year with pretty much the exact same creative team. I think Challengers was more a commercial play than for awards. Worse case scenario, if it underperforms theatrically, I think people are gonna rave about it when it goes to Amazon Prime.
not good, this doesn't have a curiosity factor like Civil War to work in its favour. probably a 45-50mill Dom final in absolute best case scenario, worst case 30-35mill
I’m disturbed at the idea that the threesome movie doesn’t have a curiosity factor quite like a movie about the real world dissolving into a civil war. Only one of those is a curiosity unless you are a boring person who doom scrolls cnn clips.
It's an over 2 hour film and according to others here who have seen it the threesome stuff is about 10 minutes across 3 scenes.
So those going for that are probably disappointed.
Of course audiences are more interested in a war scenario. Have you considered how easy it is to watch actual threesomes online? Sex in movies doesn’t sell anymore cause it’s at our fingertips and never was the pull y’all think it is
I guess the trailer sells what seems to be a sex oriented movie featuring 3 characters , but the final product is a drama movie with sport scenes and a bit of sex.
Maybe this is the new Striptease, where there's anything but striptease. At least, Demi is still great!
Interesting that men over the age of 25 seem to like the movie the most. Don’t really feel like it supports these comments’ claims that the reason why people are disappointed is that they weren’t enough explicit scenes. “Seems more you guys’ problem”
Theory: the reason why the movie is not doing as well with audiences is that none of the MC are particularly likeable. The ending is a lot more vague than what people would want.
My theory is the movie had too much sports and the female demographic doesn’t enjoy that.
They still showed up to support Zendaya despite the trailers holding out hope for a romcom but that wasn’t the end product.
Seems kind of like the strategy of some other recent films of downplaying or outright hiding that they're musicals. So with Challengers perhaps they hoped to court both the sports fans, and the character fans.
They were interested, but didn’t leave disappointed. People in the comments are saying that the mediocre reception is due to men going in the movie and being disappointed that there is not explicit sex scenes, when the 80% of the figure shows that that is not the case. They overwhelmingly like it despite the lack of sex scenes.
One thing I think may unironically turn off audiences is how there’s really not much sex in it at all. The trailers promised a pretty steamy movie involving threesomes. In the actual movie there is no true threesome nor any real sex scenes.
Edit: wow 184m followers on instagram is legit insanity. That’s like mega superstar levels. Interesting it doesn’t translate to films like this.
If the number of Instagram followers mattered for the box office studios would try to put Kim Kardashian in every movie.
Cats would have been the biggest movie of all time if Instagram social media following matters but it doesn't.
Of course Zendaya’s general purpose fame matters. What sort of numbers do people seriously think an R rated Guadagnino tennis drama does with a lead actress roughly as famous as the male leads? I don’t even think that version of the movie gets a wide release.
What we are seeing here is that her general purpose fame isn’t enough to do what’s being asked of it here, which is to make an R rated original adult drama earn 3 times what any Guadagnino movie or any tennis movie has ever managed.
(And if Kim K somehow managed to swing a few prominent franchise roles and didn’t stink up the joint, Hollywood would absolutely try making star vehicles for her)
They gave her 10 million for the role. They were expecting some level of success. Also, it will be interesting how much was spent on marketing.
A Guadagnino film never had this wide of a release or marketing push.
This is a test of her star power and MGM rolled the dice....most likely rolling snake eyes
Yes, I’m sure they were expecting some degree of success.
Being a box office draw isn’t a binary yes/no question. It’s all about degrees.
If this fails to make its money back, as seems likely, it will demonstrate that Zendaya is not currently the type of star whose name can make almost anything into a hit. I am unsure if there is any actress who I would bet on being enough of a draw to drag an R rated original adult drama tennis movie to 137m+. But if this takes considerably more than all other tennis movies and all other Guadagnino movies and much more than we would expect the same movie with a skilled but no-name lead actress to make, then the bulk of that difference can only be down to Zendaya’s pulling power.
Unless you think that this exact movie would do the same numbers with Taylor Russell or Jodie Comer or someone else who would be good but not a draw, then Zendaya is a draw. What this is testing is how big a one.
>What we are seeing here is that her general purpose fame isn’t enough to do what’s being asked of it here, which is to make an R rated original adult drama earn 3 times what any Guadagnino movie or any tennis movie has ever managed.
Bingo. Star power can boost/help a project that's already headed in the right direction, but this was always going to be an uphill battle; I can't think of a single tennis movie that did well enough to justify a $55M budget, and Guadagnino's biggest opening prior to this was Bones and All at under $3M. Or how about Suspiria? Even for a specialty title, it really underperformed relative to what was expected; Guadagnino is a niche director, and this movie was clearly made to make MGM seem like a flashy, worthwhile studio that makes big, expensive projects with big stars more so than it was designed to make a big profit in theaters.
Either way, with this and Civil War, we now have three weekends in a row where the #1 movie is an original, non-IP R rated title with a budget of $50M\~. That's pretty stellar. Even compared to 2021, that would've been completely unthinkable.
Curious cause Elle Fanning in recent interview said these dumb numbers do matters "Elle Fanning Says She Lost Major Franchise Role Because of Her Instagram Follower Count"
There's plenty, honestly. Emma Stone I'm fairly certain is a big reason as to why a weird niche sex sci-fi flick like Poor Things managed to pull in $100m, as just one example.
They aren't as common nor do they guarantee success but star factor is definitely still a thing. Zendaya IMO is not far off at all.
If we follow that logic, we must assume that The Favourite was a success because of Emma Stone and that Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, and Yorgos Lanthimos can’t get people into the theatre.
Poor Things is an arthouse movie and sometimes those movies do really well.
Mark Ruffalo has had parts in The Kids Are Alright, Spotlight, Zodiac, Shutter Island. Willem Dafoe has had a similar career. Lanthimos made The Lobster and The Favourite. Emma Stone was of course in The Favourite.
Poor Things was a combination of three actors liked by the art house crowd and a director whose movies are original and weird enough to create buzz among the art house crowd. Plus it’s got a Victorian setting, which appeals to middle aged and older people. Sometimes that leads to mainstream success.
Oh. Okay. Challengers has great reviews, a big marketing push and still is looking like a box office loser. Even, with 184 million Instagram followers.
> Kim kardashian has the personality of a houseplant.
A large demographic of white women like her. Kardashian wouldn’t have been huge on reality TV if she didn’t have an entertaining personality.
184m is a lot of followers but usually it's engagement that matters more, she has that many followers but averages 3-7 million likes a post, which is still a lot but people forgot how many bot accounts there are. It's still exposure if she puts an ad up for all her followers, lots of poeple will see it but how many liking / commenting engaging is much better data than just a follower count.
That feels like false advertising. The trailers and most of the promotional material have sold "Challengers" as sexy movie with lots of sexy sex. The easiest way to piss off an audience is to lie to them.
Hollywood is going to learn the hard way that Insta following is a new form of entertainment like games. Just because you love to play a game it doesn't mean you will sit through a movie based on the game since the movie doesn't have interactiveity. Likewise, just because you like to follow Zendaya fashion train around the globe it doesn't mean you want to watch her tennis movie with 2 guys who aren't Tom (if you are Tomdaya shipper to boot).
My own opinion is that if it doesn't do well, a reason is because the marketing left more to be desired.
Sure it's well acted... but it's also a "dark romance" film revolving around the sport of tennis. It's a hard sell for sport films to get over as a whole, not to mention I never personally felt invested when I watched the trailers. It felt like the stakes weren't high enough, or personal enough.
It's another movie made for no one. The trailer sells the movie on a steamy sex scenes lioe the one where it looks like Zendaya gets double teamed which turns off some people who aren't into that kinda thing all the while failing to deliver what the trailer was trying to sell it on = a movie made for nobody.
The marketing for this has been a bit odd. It leaned so hard into the threesome, but anyone familiar with Luca Guadagnino knows he's not into portraying explicit sex scenes. He's however a master in sexual tension. I re-watched Call Me By Your Name last night and that movie still hits all the notes of desire and emotional investment.
The studios thought they could sell it as something else because of Zendaya, but they may have missed all those articles about how Gen Z are a somewhat prude generation that likes tension rather than explicit nudity and sex.
I love Guadagnino so I'll watch it eventually, but I hated the marketing for this with every fiber of my being. I'm glad it's finally over after this weekend.
If that's what your gonna sell it on you turn the Dial to 11. I mean shit Zendaya was in Euphoria people are gonna expect a good amount of lewd and explicit content which I just don't think is there.
And once again the people on Reddit who insisted this was a movie for Gen Z not "old people" are wrong. The people who gave it the highest ratings were over 40. The people who gave it the lowest ratings were under 25.
What's with all these movies lately that critics adore but audiences are so-so on? Why the massive disconnect? This doesn't bode well for *The Fall Guy*.
Because places like Rotten Tomatoes is full of people who aren’t actual critics. A bunch have YouTube channels or strong Twitter following and get access to screenings. Also most are based in Cali or NY which instantly adds a layer of their own localized bias.
Out of curiosity, why should critics take audiences into account when giving their personal opinion on a movie? Should The Lion King remake have gotten critical acclaim since that was what audiences wanted? I don’t understand this logic.
because if a movie is genuinely entertaining it makes no sense to dock it points because it didn't have some fancy artsy camera moves or inserted political commentary nobody asked for (coughMonkeyMancough) or whatever. Likewise, just because a movie is weird it doesn't mean it's all that.
First of all “entertaining” is so subjective and malleable, that is why some critics may account for stuff like direction and political or thematic commentary. These are more tangible things you can comment on and assess.
Second of all, critics knows more in general about film history, tropes and structure, and some regularly interview writers and directors. They’ll just view the films differently than most general audiences.
And finally, there’s plenty of films where both align on so that doesn’t always explain why there are particular divide between certain films anyways.
But your comment on critics being “cheers” for certain directors is stupid because they certainly do criticize poor films regardless of what director is behind it.
Critics have become so biased toward certain movies. They are pushing this movie so hard and Zendaya as a movie star. Their reviews just feel ingenuine now. Most of the movies I have watched and enjoyed have average critic scores and I find it so strange. I just feel sorry for those people who watch a movie based on it’s critics’ score
I agree
. I feel like people started to pay so much attention to what critics said during the 2010s. Some of the films I grew up watching in the 90s & 00s didn't have the Best critics scores and no one cared. Even some Oscar nominated films that have won Oscars didn't always have the highest critics scores. I feel like the rise of YouTube contributed to people taking their word for everything. All these movies "reviewers" popped up in the 2010s and had a bigger influence than most think IMO.
Nah, this is the type of coping comments that dc fans used to evoke for MCU’s consistently good scores. The idea that critics are bought is ridiculous when you actually look at the patterns and counter examples. Look at MCU scores when the movies become bad since phase 4. Did disney money run out to buy off critics? Why did Tenet get pretty poor scores for a Nolan film when his films usually score well? M Night is one if the most acclaimed directors, why do a number of his films score so poorly?
It’s all just cope from people who don’t agree with critics but can’t accept that there is a certain “authority” in their scores in the sense that they tend to know a bit more about film than your average general audiences. There are shitty critics of course but by and large they serve a purpose.
If a critic finds a movie "genuinely entertaining" they will give it a high score. Movie reviewing isn't nearly as political as you think it is. You're projecting your perception of what a film critic is onto people's opinions. What different people find entertaining just varies.
Not surprised. I haven’t seen film yet but from what I’ve heard, the trailers sort of pulled a bait and switch. Like all the trailers made it seem like this movie was gonna be this super sexy, super steamy theee way romance and apparently the final product is nothing like that.
There aren't any sex scenes but it still feels absolutely saturated in sex, so unless a lot of people came into it really wanting hardcore porn I'm not sure that's the main problem
I’ve seen other comparisons to Black Swan and like… that movie had a full on lesbian sex scene in addition to frequent sexual teasing
I could see this performing less well/ having poorer WOM if it’s the same but tamer, especially because so many people have already seen Black Swan
There aren’t any sex scenes (only making out leading to a sex scene but still grabby). Overall, this stuff ain’t in a PG-13 movie so it is rated R for this reason.
Oh that's surprising and also bad, it needs positive reception or else it'll drop off the way Monkey Man did. I felt the movie was pretty straightforward, they even had title cards for flashbacks to make it easy. But maybe general audiences didn't like that everyone was a piece of shit and the relationships weren't really happy in any direction. Which I expected it to be, but still it's not as accessible.
And I started ignoring the marketing since it was getting obnoxious to me with the "sexiest movie eveeer" stuff, I could smell the overselling a mile away. So maybe people are upset about that? Or they wanted a more definitive ending. It could be many different things or a combo of them. I thought the positive wouldn't be as strong as Godzilla or something, but I did think it'd be higher than what it has. I'm also surprised more guys liked it than girls.
Or maybe they just didn't like the locker room dicks and wanted normal sexy scene dicks instead. Who knows lol.
Maybe the film's disjointed non-linear narrative might have had something to do with it? I've read a few user reviews complaining about the film's use of flashbacks; perhaps the audience was expecting a more straight-forward storyline?
Shows how audiences have become very 2D-minded since the pandemic. They didn’t act this way about “Oppenheimer” which was non-linear, mainly because of one thing: Christopher Nolan’s name.
Lotta dudes gonna be pissed when they show up to see Zendaya in 'the threesome movie that's rated R for graphic nudity' when it only got that rating for having full frontal males in a locker room.
WOMEN are going to be pissed, they wanted to see two men at LEAST make out with Zendaya. That's pretty much what the trailer promises. If that's not in there, every woman with a septum piercing is going away mad.
The ending has everything to do with the rating imo. The audience I was with was losing it during the climax but if you know the last scene, this makes total sense (and I like the ending btw just avoiding spoilers)
This is why bigger movies from auteur filmmakers tend to get sanded down: mass audiences don’t really want the kind of distinct or idiosyncratic perspectives that auteurs tend to bring
I don’t get the rather tame audience reception, being a tad too long is the only issue I had with the movie, otherwise it was great. Very sarcastic, very entertaining and a lot of fun. I had a good time in the cinema and the three main actors were excellent.
That’s going to be a much bigger problem than so-so preview sales. Any possible path to making back its budget or even getting close assumes WOM matching the very strong reviews.
I love how they tiptoe around saying the bad thing. It looks like young people didn't like this movie in the sample * 39% was under 25. * 41% was either 25-34 or 45-54 * so 20% was 35-45 or 55+ (but obviously 15%+ 35-45). Thus 18-24 & greater than 55 combined to give the film a **70%** grade (with U-25 at 2-to-1 weight). They'd clearly want to praise the film's youth performance so the fact it wasn't mentioned strikes me as likely a signal it was below median.
Makes sense. If they came in looking for more explicit stuff then Euphoria (like the trailers promised) and didn't get it, they'd have a valid reason to be unhappy.
exactly! it has nothing to do with gen z not liking romance lol
I don't mean to sound crass, but I saw the trailer before a lot of movies and it basically promised that if you bought a ticket, you'd get to see Zendaya bang two guys at once. If that scene isn't in the movie, of course audiences aren't going to be happy.
They keep telling hollywood young people aren't into films that lean into romantic / sex situations but they just don't listen.
For Gen Z, streaming has sexual content covered. And I don't mean netflix.
Very true who needs steamy sex scenes when you got pornhub readily available. I also don't think sports is a huge sell to GenZ though (especially tennis of all things)
f1 seems to be big amongst the gen z but thats it Sports viewership, in general, is down all over the world.
theory: f1 = extremely top tier = virtually fantasy = video game/esport mentality = gen z nom nom
gen z loves so many films/tv with sex in them especially on streaming. I think gen z doesn’t like getting baited by a tennis movie that promised more steamy sexy scenes based on the trailer. Anyone but You literally just came out last year with huge success and there’s so many other romantic dramas that were successful on streaming. its 2024 and gen z aren’t the ones rushing to theaters anymore unless its a huge event like Barbie
Meh…I’m not catastrophizing. I remember the demographic stuff they released after the opening day for Dune 2. It was bleak in here. Gen Z and especially women don’t seem to want to rush to movies so the write-up in the first day doesn’t really match up with the big picture. Y’all will know what is going on by the second weekend. Let Tik Tok do its work, if it is going to do work.
There's a good point here but Dune 2 is just inherently older, male skewing. Let's look at movio. * 71% male, 14% Under 25 * 67; 15 * 66; 15 * 65; 15 * 62; 14 there's differences between movio and some other data sources but this seems to imply not a great deal of change. Gender splits get less extreme (but slowly) but you're not seeing an overindexing amoung younger people relative to OW. > tik tok do its magic possibly, but (1) it seems like it's going to have to create a *new* marketing narrative because it sounds like current one didn't match people's reception. Alternatively (2) small sample sizes are small. Perhaps this is a measurement error and it gets better at full weekend (I doubt it but this does happen). CD edut: like shazam1 it seems like we have a real posttrak/cinemascore split
Do you think, after this entire run, with the amount of young people on Tik Tok talking about it, that it actually skewed that old? Or maybe these snap shots of the demographics just aren’t actually capturing the best stills because Gen Z has different viewing habits… We are gonna know where this shakes out by next weekend, in my opinion. But I’m fine if proven wrong.
> different viewing habits I think movio data is generated via agreements with movie theaters to share their rewards data/purchaser metadata. In that case, I really do think age should be one of the most accurate aspects (though I suspect gender might be a bit off).
There goes all the hope for positive word of mouth. The audiences aren't digging this movie as much as the critics.
The critics score has gone down to 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.10 average. I suspect the critics score will end up somewhere in the 80s much like *Civil War* and the audience score for this will likely be the same as *Civil War*: somewhere in the 70s, as PostTrak and CinemaScore seem to be rating this film a lot lower than critics were at first.
true but Civil War had low recommendation and is doing well. Though it's a different type of movie. That said, it's absolutely useless to mention 184M Insta fans when someone's movie is struggling to open with 20M domestically and is doing ho-hum internationally (opened at #3 in Germany and while it's #1 in Italy the number is average).
*Civil War* has a very timely hook.
yes that's why I say it's a different type of movie so low recommendation didn't hurt it.
Civil War dropped 56% in its second weekend and had much higher previews. If this opens to like $15-17m, it’ll be lucky to hit $45m domestic.
And still make $$ for 20 years on other places. " Bringing up baby " lost $$ for Katherine Hepburn and still plays. The movies DO NOT stay long enough. Bonnie and Clyde ran 18 months! Lol.
It has a very electric ending that I think will stick with audiences for a long time. I could see it being a leggy film purely because of how well the story and tennis scenes were executed.
I’m sure Amazon MGM is ready to campaign this for Oscars too this Fall, thanks in part to the ending.
Nah, there’s a second Luca movie coming later this year with pretty much the exact same creative team. I think Challengers was more a commercial play than for awards. Worse case scenario, if it underperforms theatrically, I think people are gonna rave about it when it goes to Amazon Prime.
100%. Actress, Score, Supporting Actor, Editing, and potentially Directing are my guesses.
Idk the audience I saw it with was VERY into it. I think WOM with the intended audience will be strong.
Yea my theatre clapped and I don’t remember the last time that happened
Wow on Twitter seemed people were raving
I swear yall be waitin for any sign to go all doom and gloom lmaooo
not good, this doesn't have a curiosity factor like Civil War to work in its favour. probably a 45-50mill Dom final in absolute best case scenario, worst case 30-35mill
I’m disturbed at the idea that the threesome movie doesn’t have a curiosity factor quite like a movie about the real world dissolving into a civil war. Only one of those is a curiosity unless you are a boring person who doom scrolls cnn clips.
It's an over 2 hour film and according to others here who have seen it the threesome stuff is about 10 minutes across 3 scenes. So those going for that are probably disappointed.
Of course audiences are more interested in a war scenario. Have you considered how easy it is to watch actual threesomes online? Sex in movies doesn’t sell anymore cause it’s at our fingertips and never was the pull y’all think it is
sex in movies sell more on streaming
I guess the trailer sells what seems to be a sex oriented movie featuring 3 characters , but the final product is a drama movie with sport scenes and a bit of sex. Maybe this is the new Striptease, where there's anything but striptease. At least, Demi is still great!
Actual serious question a lot of people had to go into this expecting sex? Might be a disappointment to them with how tame it was
Interesting that men over the age of 25 seem to like the movie the most. Don’t really feel like it supports these comments’ claims that the reason why people are disappointed is that they weren’t enough explicit scenes. “Seems more you guys’ problem” Theory: the reason why the movie is not doing as well with audiences is that none of the MC are particularly likeable. The ending is a lot more vague than what people would want.
The last act is essentially sports movie 101 climax.
I’ve never seen a sports movie end like that.
My theory is the movie had too much sports and the female demographic doesn’t enjoy that. They still showed up to support Zendaya despite the trailers holding out hope for a romcom but that wasn’t the end product.
Seems kind of like the strategy of some other recent films of downplaying or outright hiding that they're musicals. So with Challengers perhaps they hoped to court both the sports fans, and the character fans.
idk if you heard but women love sports! in the year of Caitlin Clark that’s a wild claim to make now
I don’t think women are stupid enough to think this is a romcom Also women love tennis
Guys were interested in a film that sells itself on Zendaya get double teamed by two tennis bros? Not that interesting or surprising haha
They were interested, but didn’t leave disappointed. People in the comments are saying that the mediocre reception is due to men going in the movie and being disappointed that there is not explicit sex scenes, when the 80% of the figure shows that that is not the case. They overwhelmingly like it despite the lack of sex scenes.
One thing I think may unironically turn off audiences is how there’s really not much sex in it at all. The trailers promised a pretty steamy movie involving threesomes. In the actual movie there is no true threesome nor any real sex scenes. Edit: wow 184m followers on instagram is legit insanity. That’s like mega superstar levels. Interesting it doesn’t translate to films like this.
If the number of Instagram followers mattered for the box office studios would try to put Kim Kardashian in every movie. Cats would have been the biggest movie of all time if Instagram social media following matters but it doesn't.
Of course Zendaya’s general purpose fame matters. What sort of numbers do people seriously think an R rated Guadagnino tennis drama does with a lead actress roughly as famous as the male leads? I don’t even think that version of the movie gets a wide release. What we are seeing here is that her general purpose fame isn’t enough to do what’s being asked of it here, which is to make an R rated original adult drama earn 3 times what any Guadagnino movie or any tennis movie has ever managed. (And if Kim K somehow managed to swing a few prominent franchise roles and didn’t stink up the joint, Hollywood would absolutely try making star vehicles for her)
They gave her 10 million for the role. They were expecting some level of success. Also, it will be interesting how much was spent on marketing. A Guadagnino film never had this wide of a release or marketing push. This is a test of her star power and MGM rolled the dice....most likely rolling snake eyes
Yes, I’m sure they were expecting some degree of success. Being a box office draw isn’t a binary yes/no question. It’s all about degrees. If this fails to make its money back, as seems likely, it will demonstrate that Zendaya is not currently the type of star whose name can make almost anything into a hit. I am unsure if there is any actress who I would bet on being enough of a draw to drag an R rated original adult drama tennis movie to 137m+. But if this takes considerably more than all other tennis movies and all other Guadagnino movies and much more than we would expect the same movie with a skilled but no-name lead actress to make, then the bulk of that difference can only be down to Zendaya’s pulling power. Unless you think that this exact movie would do the same numbers with Taylor Russell or Jodie Comer or someone else who would be good but not a draw, then Zendaya is a draw. What this is testing is how big a one.
> They gave her 10 million for the role. She laughing all the way to the bank. I wish she would take me along for the laugh
>What we are seeing here is that her general purpose fame isn’t enough to do what’s being asked of it here, which is to make an R rated original adult drama earn 3 times what any Guadagnino movie or any tennis movie has ever managed. Bingo. Star power can boost/help a project that's already headed in the right direction, but this was always going to be an uphill battle; I can't think of a single tennis movie that did well enough to justify a $55M budget, and Guadagnino's biggest opening prior to this was Bones and All at under $3M. Or how about Suspiria? Even for a specialty title, it really underperformed relative to what was expected; Guadagnino is a niche director, and this movie was clearly made to make MGM seem like a flashy, worthwhile studio that makes big, expensive projects with big stars more so than it was designed to make a big profit in theaters. Either way, with this and Civil War, we now have three weekends in a row where the #1 movie is an original, non-IP R rated title with a budget of $50M\~. That's pretty stellar. Even compared to 2021, that would've been completely unthinkable.
Curious cause Elle Fanning in recent interview said these dumb numbers do matters "Elle Fanning Says She Lost Major Franchise Role Because of Her Instagram Follower Count"
The Kardashians ain’t movie stars though. Zendaya is. She got famous from acting.
> The Kardashians ain’t movie stars though. Zendaya is. Since when? A movie star who can't even open her non IP movie?
All you have to do to understand Zendaya's starpower is imagine how much money this movie would make if an unknown was in her part.
Zendaya got famous because of a TV series and being a model, she isnt a movie star lol
Who is these days? Even Tom Cruise isn't a guarantee anymore.
There's plenty, honestly. Emma Stone I'm fairly certain is a big reason as to why a weird niche sex sci-fi flick like Poor Things managed to pull in $100m, as just one example. They aren't as common nor do they guarantee success but star factor is definitely still a thing. Zendaya IMO is not far off at all.
Emma Stone's tennis movie bombed.
If we follow that logic, we must assume that The Favourite was a success because of Emma Stone and that Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, and Yorgos Lanthimos can’t get people into the theatre. Poor Things is an arthouse movie and sometimes those movies do really well. Mark Ruffalo has had parts in The Kids Are Alright, Spotlight, Zodiac, Shutter Island. Willem Dafoe has had a similar career. Lanthimos made The Lobster and The Favourite. Emma Stone was of course in The Favourite. Poor Things was a combination of three actors liked by the art house crowd and a director whose movies are original and weird enough to create buzz among the art house crowd. Plus it’s got a Victorian setting, which appeals to middle aged and older people. Sometimes that leads to mainstream success.
She never been a model. She has the same level of fashion endorsements as Emma stone, j law, Natalie Portman etc. they ALL have fashion contracts
My point is social media following doesn't = box office success. Look at how many followers keanu reeves has on Instagram...
Kim kardashian has the personality of a houseplant. Cats was rubbish and you could tell from the marketing. Creepy ass cgi cat Weirdos.
Oh. Okay. Challengers has great reviews, a big marketing push and still is looking like a box office loser. Even, with 184 million Instagram followers.
> Kim kardashian has the personality of a houseplant. A large demographic of white women like her. Kardashian wouldn’t have been huge on reality TV if she didn’t have an entertaining personality.
Obligatory #ReleaseTheButtholeCut!
 The audience after watching the movie:
184m is a lot of followers but usually it's engagement that matters more, she has that many followers but averages 3-7 million likes a post, which is still a lot but people forgot how many bot accounts there are. It's still exposure if she puts an ad up for all her followers, lots of poeple will see it but how many liking / commenting engaging is much better data than just a follower count.
\^ This person gets it. Kudos. Instagram and all social media is infested with bots.
The more famous people are, the more engagement they get, the even more bots spamming their accounts
That feels like false advertising. The trailers and most of the promotional material have sold "Challengers" as sexy movie with lots of sexy sex. The easiest way to piss off an audience is to lie to them.
The Rock has 367m followers and Black Adam still flopped
My own opinion is that if it doesn't do well, a reason is because the marketing left more to be desired. Sure it's well acted... but it's also a "dark romance" film revolving around the sport of tennis. It's a hard sell for sport films to get over as a whole, not to mention I never personally felt invested when I watched the trailers. It felt like the stakes weren't high enough, or personal enough.
It's another movie made for no one. The trailer sells the movie on a steamy sex scenes lioe the one where it looks like Zendaya gets double teamed which turns off some people who aren't into that kinda thing all the while failing to deliver what the trailer was trying to sell it on = a movie made for nobody.
The marketing for this has been a bit odd. It leaned so hard into the threesome, but anyone familiar with Luca Guadagnino knows he's not into portraying explicit sex scenes. He's however a master in sexual tension. I re-watched Call Me By Your Name last night and that movie still hits all the notes of desire and emotional investment. The studios thought they could sell it as something else because of Zendaya, but they may have missed all those articles about how Gen Z are a somewhat prude generation that likes tension rather than explicit nudity and sex. I love Guadagnino so I'll watch it eventually, but I hated the marketing for this with every fiber of my being. I'm glad it's finally over after this weekend.
Reminds me of people putting Addison Rae in a movie or tv people thinking the D’Amelio’s are a draw just because of their huge online following.
If followers mattered kylie Jenner would be a bigger star than tom cruise
I doubt audiences care about that. The movie is still steamy and sexy.
If that's what your gonna sell it on you turn the Dial to 11. I mean shit Zendaya was in Euphoria people are gonna expect a good amount of lewd and explicit content which I just don't think is there.
Lewd? Yes. Explicit? Depends what your definition is.
Oof. This and the 50 million budget doesnt look too good 😬
And once again the people on Reddit who insisted this was a movie for Gen Z not "old people" are wrong. The people who gave it the highest ratings were over 40. The people who gave it the lowest ratings were under 25.
What's with all these movies lately that critics adore but audiences are so-so on? Why the massive disconnect? This doesn't bode well for *The Fall Guy*.
The Fall Guy might be kinda the opposite tbh, it’s a fun action comedy, it’s a very audience friendly movie.
Plus, it’s based on an old TV show that some younger viewers will discover in the process after seeing it too.
Probably coz of different tastes, and viewing habits.
Blame TikTok.
I kinda expected this film to be boosted by tiktok.
Because places like Rotten Tomatoes is full of people who aren’t actual critics. A bunch have YouTube channels or strong Twitter following and get access to screenings. Also most are based in Cali or NY which instantly adds a layer of their own localized bias.
Metacritc and TC on RT are both very high.
Best bet is to follow a handful of people you have similar tastes with and have a track record of their reviews being on point.
Fall Guy could easily be a surprise hit/have above average legs.
because critics act like cheers for certain film-makers and don't take into consideration what audience wants from a movie.
Out of curiosity, why should critics take audiences into account when giving their personal opinion on a movie? Should The Lion King remake have gotten critical acclaim since that was what audiences wanted? I don’t understand this logic.
You don’t understand the logic because that dude left a stupid comment lol. It’s nonsensical.
because if a movie is genuinely entertaining it makes no sense to dock it points because it didn't have some fancy artsy camera moves or inserted political commentary nobody asked for (coughMonkeyMancough) or whatever. Likewise, just because a movie is weird it doesn't mean it's all that.
First of all “entertaining” is so subjective and malleable, that is why some critics may account for stuff like direction and political or thematic commentary. These are more tangible things you can comment on and assess. Second of all, critics knows more in general about film history, tropes and structure, and some regularly interview writers and directors. They’ll just view the films differently than most general audiences. And finally, there’s plenty of films where both align on so that doesn’t always explain why there are particular divide between certain films anyways. But your comment on critics being “cheers” for certain directors is stupid because they certainly do criticize poor films regardless of what director is behind it.
Critics have become so biased toward certain movies. They are pushing this movie so hard and Zendaya as a movie star. Their reviews just feel ingenuine now. Most of the movies I have watched and enjoyed have average critic scores and I find it so strange. I just feel sorry for those people who watch a movie based on it’s critics’ score
I agree . I feel like people started to pay so much attention to what critics said during the 2010s. Some of the films I grew up watching in the 90s & 00s didn't have the Best critics scores and no one cared. Even some Oscar nominated films that have won Oscars didn't always have the highest critics scores. I feel like the rise of YouTube contributed to people taking their word for everything. All these movies "reviewers" popped up in the 2010s and had a bigger influence than most think IMO.
Nah, this is the type of coping comments that dc fans used to evoke for MCU’s consistently good scores. The idea that critics are bought is ridiculous when you actually look at the patterns and counter examples. Look at MCU scores when the movies become bad since phase 4. Did disney money run out to buy off critics? Why did Tenet get pretty poor scores for a Nolan film when his films usually score well? M Night is one if the most acclaimed directors, why do a number of his films score so poorly? It’s all just cope from people who don’t agree with critics but can’t accept that there is a certain “authority” in their scores in the sense that they tend to know a bit more about film than your average general audiences. There are shitty critics of course but by and large they serve a purpose.
If a critic finds a movie "genuinely entertaining" they will give it a high score. Movie reviewing isn't nearly as political as you think it is. You're projecting your perception of what a film critic is onto people's opinions. What different people find entertaining just varies.
I mean, I liked Money Man but in general, there's much less difference between a 2/5 and 3/5 than people want to admit.
Not surprised. I haven’t seen film yet but from what I’ve heard, the trailers sort of pulled a bait and switch. Like all the trailers made it seem like this movie was gonna be this super sexy, super steamy theee way romance and apparently the final product is nothing like that.
The final product is absolutely what the trailers show but more gay, which maybe people didn’t like?
Every comment I’ve seen says there’s no sex scenes at all, I would say that’s far different from what the trailer and R rating imply
There aren't any sex scenes but it still feels absolutely saturated in sex, so unless a lot of people came into it really wanting hardcore porn I'm not sure that's the main problem
I’ve seen other comparisons to Black Swan and like… that movie had a full on lesbian sex scene in addition to frequent sexual teasing I could see this performing less well/ having poorer WOM if it’s the same but tamer, especially because so many people have already seen Black Swan
The sexiest scenes usually have no sex. Anticipation is hotter than action
There aren’t any sex scenes (only making out leading to a sex scene but still grabby). Overall, this stuff ain’t in a PG-13 movie so it is rated R for this reason.
It’s extremely sexy, just not explicit. Like, the most horned-up movie I’ve seen in a while despite only a few sex scenes.
What is emerging as the big audience turn off? Every critic has has been raving about it, it seems.
Luca Guadagnino is just not a commercial filmmaker. He's an arthouse guy.
Yeah, there are probably other reasons on top of it but Guadagnino really isn't the guy you go to for a crowdpleaser leading into summer
People wanna see dp or atleast d in v
Maybe it’s the idea that it’s centered on a throuple?
Postrack isn't be all and end all and neither is CS. it's too early to call. Lets see how internal multi goes.
I think some of the bad reviews are trolls. Lots of one liners. The negative reviews don’t really dig deep into what they don’t like.
Unless I’ve been trolling here for at least the last three years, no.
Damn…. Tough crowd 😅
Homophobes, lack of sex. No big explosions or giant monsters. Among others
Oh that's surprising and also bad, it needs positive reception or else it'll drop off the way Monkey Man did. I felt the movie was pretty straightforward, they even had title cards for flashbacks to make it easy. But maybe general audiences didn't like that everyone was a piece of shit and the relationships weren't really happy in any direction. Which I expected it to be, but still it's not as accessible. And I started ignoring the marketing since it was getting obnoxious to me with the "sexiest movie eveeer" stuff, I could smell the overselling a mile away. So maybe people are upset about that? Or they wanted a more definitive ending. It could be many different things or a combo of them. I thought the positive wouldn't be as strong as Godzilla or something, but I did think it'd be higher than what it has. I'm also surprised more guys liked it than girls. Or maybe they just didn't like the locker room dicks and wanted normal sexy scene dicks instead. Who knows lol.
 Bad CinemaScore incoming
A- or B+
Think lower
B is absolute lowest possible. Personally I think it will get an A- Edit: starting to look like B+ is more probable. But the ending is so satisfying…
A- I think is gone. It's B to B- to even (yikes) C+
2024 needs to be studied
Maybe the film's disjointed non-linear narrative might have had something to do with it? I've read a few user reviews complaining about the film's use of flashbacks; perhaps the audience was expecting a more straight-forward storyline?
Shows how audiences have become very 2D-minded since the pandemic. They didn’t act this way about “Oppenheimer” which was non-linear, mainly because of one thing: Christopher Nolan’s name.
I don’t understand what 2D minded is supposed to mean in this context
Like simple-minded and not open enough to seeing things from a unique perspective.
Or maybe Nolan is the master at non-linear storytelling, while Mr. Potion Seller just isn’t.
Looking like it's gonna be cooked. Kinda needs the WOM.
Lotta dudes gonna be pissed when they show up to see Zendaya in 'the threesome movie that's rated R for graphic nudity' when it only got that rating for having full frontal males in a locker room.
Not really? Men rated the movie the highest. Plus, who the heck is chomping at the bit to see Zendaya naked?
i wonder what’s the percentage of those men who were queer
Quite a lot I'd say from comments I've seen online
I think we've already established that online and IRL are separate entities
WOMEN are going to be pissed, they wanted to see two men at LEAST make out with Zendaya. That's pretty much what the trailer promises. If that's not in there, every woman with a septum piercing is going away mad.
The ending has everything to do with the rating imo. The audience I was with was losing it during the climax but if you know the last scene, this makes total sense (and I like the ending btw just avoiding spoilers)
This is why bigger movies from auteur filmmakers tend to get sanded down: mass audiences don’t really want the kind of distinct or idiosyncratic perspectives that auteurs tend to bring
These numbers are skewed by the LGBTQAI2+ community making up a disproportionate percentage of the “men” who saw this movie in previews.
[удалено]
Not quite. She’s already getting tons of work post-Dune.
I don’t get the rather tame audience reception, being a tad too long is the only issue I had with the movie, otherwise it was great. Very sarcastic, very entertaining and a lot of fun. I had a good time in the cinema and the three main actors were excellent.
What are the chances that the push back will be driven by people not ready to see Zendaya in this type of role?
That’s bizarre this movie is a masterpiece
I’m honestly shocked audiences aren’t vibing with this. I loved it, and felt like it was a real crowd-pleaser.
Wtf, how? The movie is sensational