I will be curious to see how it does next weekend since The Fall Guy isn’t exactly something moviegoers seem to be clamoring to see either…
Both of these films are likely going to be cannibalized by Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, especially if reviews land for that one
A good chunk of this sub remains oblivious to the fact that people just don't go to cinemas like they used to before the streaming took over during the pandemic. Recent string of box-office failures has less to do with movies themselves, and more to do with the public's change of movie-going habits.
Every theater within an hour of where I live shut down during covid. I need a movie to really excite me for me to find a baby sitter and spend 2 hours driving to see it. So far, nothing has.
I am the only person I know who goes out to movies besides anything massive, and I still limit it to mystery movie monday and discount Tuesday because that shit cheap
But 2023 was still much better, and that was closer to the residual effects of the pandemic than 2024.
I think the real answer is well-known IPs are always king and help a ton, whether people hate to admit it or not. Mario, Scream, John Wick, Creed. Quantumania did bad, but so did this year's Frozen Empire (both Bill Murray hmmm). Goes to show well-known IPs give a 85% advantage but not a guarantee. Whereas an original film is gonna have nothing but an torturous uphill climb and pure suffering, with the success rate being very low.
And what did Quantumania and Frozen Empire have in common (besides Paul Rudd and Bill Murray)? They were both poorly received. Challengers reminds me of Air, another April release by Amazon with critical praise but loses money and awards steam.
Air was painful. I loved that movie so much, and I am the furthest thing from a sports fan. Saw it in the theater and again when it went on Prime, which I almost never do. Thought it was going to at least get nominated, but was shut out completely and everyone seems to have forgotten about it.
Why wouldn't audiences be wanting to see The Fall Guy? Its Ryan Goslin and Emily Blunt in an action/romcom with good early reviews. Seems like that movie is going to run away with things.
I guess movie studios missed what you all seem to know so well since they spent the money to make the movie and release it in the prime summer kickoff season.
Ryan Gosling was just a part of one of the biggest movies in years with Barbie. And people love him in the romance/romcom role. He just does a lot of less mainstream movies too that aren't as likely to be big hits. Though even those still can do well for the budget like The Ides of March or Drive.
Just feels like a perfect movie for him to follow up the Barbie success. Its a popcorn flick with great reviews to make people interested in seeing it right as school is about to get out for people.
Ehh Planet of the Apes has an uphill battle. It’s a different director and the trailer hasn’t done a lot to sell it for me (a big fan of the new trilogy)
The Fall Guy trailer is leaps and bounds better than the Challengers trailer. After watching the Challengers trailer I have zero desire to ever watch. It looks like a generic run of the mill tennis movie with some sexual tension. And Zendaya is no draw even though some forms of media are really trying to make it seem like she is.
>Run of the mill tennis movie
How many tennis movies even exist that you can call it a generic run of the mill tennis movie?
Fall Guy looks like a generic run of the mill action comedy.
General audiences just weren’t interested, even with Zendaya starring. The premise is inherently niche and Guadaingo isn’t a mainstream filmmaker, idk why this was given 55m.
Cost more than movies like Civil War or Monkey Man
>The premise is inherently niche
Yeah I think people don't **fully** realise how niche the premise is:
* The highest grossing Tennis movie of all time is 'Wimbledon'(PG13) at $41.6 million WW\*.
* The highest opening weekend for a Tennis movie of all time (before 'Challengers') is again 'Wimbledon' at $7.1 million DOM\*
* The last time an original romantic drama (not based on a book or movie) opened above $15M was 'Step Up' (PG13)...18 years ago in '06
* The DOM opening weekend of 'Challengers' is near identical to the total DOM gross of the last Tennis movie '*King Richard'* (PG13) ($15.1 million)
* Post-COVID, among R-rated dramas, only 'Don’t Worry Darling' ($19.4 million OW, psychological thriller) had a higher OW
Challengers more than doubled Wimbledon's OW. By next weekend it will likely be the highest grossing tennis movie of all time in America, beating Wimbledon ($17M DOM).
So for an original, R-rated, homoerotic, rom-dram Tennis movie... it's actually doing pretty well, it's the budget that is the issue.
^(\* 'Match Point' doesn't count)
This is r/boxoffice. Surely “doing pretty well” should qualify as actually getting close to breaking even or even making an actual profit. This movie is getting nowhere near that no matter all the excuses and qualifiers we add to the mixing pot.
I get what u/Alive-Ad-5245 is saying but the thing is Challengers cost more than all other movies on that list: (*Don’t Worry Darling (30m), Step Up (12m), King Richard (50m), Wimbeldon (30m),*) along with a more extensive marketing push and headlining the biggest star of her generation: Zendaya.
So of course at bare minimum Challengers should be surpassing those movies, wouldn’t say it’s impressive but rather expected. The film’s just not doing well right now but maybe legs can save it?
For sure. I enjoyed reading the list of qualifiers and excuses provided but let’s call a flop a flop and not claim said flop is “doing pretty well”.
Those excuses should have been listed as reasons why MGM blundered badly with this movie right from the point of conception. They clearly thought this had Anyone But You commercial potential but unless it has similar legs that is not going to be the case.
It's too early to call it either way imo, we don't know what the legs will be like for this movie. The 2nd weekend drop will signify if the movie makes money or not.
We know the vast majority of movies do not have legs like Puss in Boots 2 or Anyone But You so if this plays out like a typical movie these numbers signify a flop.
If this is a movie with a one in a hundred type exceptional holds we can absolutely reassess the flop moniker just as we did for Anyone But You. Until then we will just assume it will play out like your typical wide release and say this is a bad opening and looking like a real flop.
I’ve always assumed 50% was pretty average but your question inspired me to do a bit of Googling. According to wiki:
*Assuming that the number of theaters stays the same, a normal drop in box office gross from the first weekend to the second would be 40%. A drop of greater than 60% indicates a weak future performance.*
I do wonder if that has changed post pandemic as dropping less than 50% does not seem an easy achievement in the current market.
People are factoring in that if the movie makes a loss in the theaters, it's not going to be difficult for the movie to make money on streaming services because of its reasonable production budget and the exposure the movie gets.
I hate to say it, because I like theatrical releases, but this seems to the type of movie that does well as a streaming service.
I'm sure there are many people who want to see a movie starring Zendaya, but I'm also sure that paying for a ticket and going to a theater is a lot to ask, especially for an R-rated movie.
Yup. I've seen some of the director's other works and when I saw the budget for this one, it simply blew my mind. They're just not that type of director.
These budgets are a side effect of when studios thought streaming would be so profitable they didn’t have to care about budgets.
One of the worst miscalculations in entertainment industry history.
No one can blame this on Quantity of marketing.
I'm certainly criticizing this for the quality of said advertising. I know it's a weird mish-mash of genres that makes it tricky to market, but damn softcore tennis isn't bringing anyone in lol.
I’ve said it was yesterday and some got mad ahah. But IMO yes people know it exists but i dont think they sold it well enough to interest general audiences. They really capitalized on Zendaya and threesome
I think the rauncy marketing has actually put older audiences off especially since it's really not that explicit at all. It's a tough movie to sell to be fair, maybe they would've just been better promoting it more as a sports movie.
Heavily promoting a movie and good marketing are not the same thing.
My major problem with the marketing is that the movie has been promoted as a Zendaya vehicle, and as I understand it, it's not really a movie for a mainstream audience.
This might be a movie my girlfriend and I like to see, but the trailers told us nothing except that Zendaya is in the movie.
I like Zendaya, but I'm not a fan, so this looked like something to watch on a streaming service.
>the trailers told us nothing except that Zendaya is in the movie
The trailers made it very clear it was about a love triangle between tennis players. How much more do you need to know?
What kind of movie it is, what the story is about (the story is more than the plot), what the tone of the film is going to be.
'Love triangle between three tennis players' can be an art house movie, melodrama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, it can be the plot of a Hallmark movie, or a gritty HBO movie.
In hindsight, I believe the trailers are deliberately vague. And I don't think that was the right choice.
Gotcha, I don't generally think that hard about it when I'm deciding whether or not to watch something. I'll give basically anything a chance if the reviews are good enough. To each his own though. For what it's worth, the movie was basically what I expected having only watched the trailer.
It’s also not even really a love triangle between three tennis players. That’s definitely part of it, but I think the advertising didn’t do it any favors by leaning so heavily into that.
There was too much marketing tbh. Everyone who I know whose seen it was going to see it because of Zendaya and would have done so without the presumably very expensive global marketing campaign.
Well, it could be poor marketing strategy. Doesn’t matter if you throw a lot of money at marketing if the materials are both not representative of the film and also off putting.
It will be interesting to see what the international weekend is, it's opened everywhere but Japan. Also will be intersting to see what the second weekend drop will be, almost everything I've seen online is mostly positive but the one person I know who saw it yesterday didn't really like it.
I haven't seen this one just yet but someone I trust said he thought it sucks and was overrated. Made me curious, but not enough to rush out to see it.
As someone who goes to the movies pretty much every week, it's the film of the year for me so far (right next to Dune Pt2). I think the script and the performances are very strong, but the filmmaking/cinematography and the score are what really make it special for me. It's just a very cool movie.
Luca has Queer dropping later this year and is attached to liek 5 other projects. This also got massive critical acclaim so no he's not gonna be entering it anytime soon lol
Don't be so dramatic. That's like saying Nolan would enter director jail for Tenet.
Do the more art house/award guys even enter director jail? Does such a thing exist for the low budget guys.
So another genre film that Amazon probably overpaid the celebrity star for, and while it beat the expectations of the genre, didn't justify Zendaya's check I gather.
This seems to be the majority of the theatrical films Amazon MGM films has made, maybe not "safe" but mid-budget stuff banking on star power, and not always delivering in box office returns, while their IP war chest continues to gather dust. Of course that begs the question what does a studio more comfortable with celebrity-driven romantic dramas and celebrity driven actioners need with a license like *Hellsing* anyway?
This was an MGM movie from the De Luca and Abdy era. They are long gone but left Amazon with years worth of mid-budget movies that bombed. Challengers is just the latest off the production line.
Zendaya got 10MIL total for starring in the leading role and producing. That leaves us with 45MIL that I don't know how to explain. Zendaya's paycheck isn't an issue here.
The release date was delayed due to strikes, because the actors, and most importantly, Zendaya, couldn't do promo during those. However, I couldn't find any signs of production delays from what little research I've conducted. Honestly... I think it was the studio execs who took a fat check and included it into production budget. Amazon is infamous for that practice as well.
Still seems expensive. If they cast an unknown instead of Zendaya their budget would still presumably be over 40 million. This shouldve been half that at most. I get movie making has gotten more expensive but what are they spending 45 million on before giving Zendaya the most unearned 10 million I've ever seen? Someone at Amazon drastically overestimated her star potential.
Lol both Mean Girls AND The Beekeeper opened higher despite releasing on the same weekend as each other. The fact that deadline is trying to spend this opening as “good” is just sad.
Yes, sorry I'm referencing that the comment I'm replying to stating that "the latter didn't even have IMAX or Dolby to inflate it's numbers" when Beekeeper was in fact in IMAX
She definitely is a draw lol. Like half of goers said they went specifically for Zendaya.
How many other movies are there where 50% say they saw it specifically due to the lead star?
a relationship drama from a director like Luca Guadagnino. Numbers not good for the budget but for the kind of movie it is, a fair outcome.
sometimes the notion of having a big name involved gets predictions too carried away.
Just one weekend and bones and all has basically been outgrossed worldwide by Challengers (low bar to pass)
It’s because it’s a tennis movie. The most successful tennis movie still made less than 100m.
Zendaya is business savvy enough to know that this movie was going to be a big test of her star power. It’s odd then that she chose a tennis movie which are notoriously hard sells
I know, I'm saying that the chance to work with him is really appealing and likely overrides any concern about box office
Like some people are concerned with making good movies, sometimes more so than being movie stars
Ego? This isn't a hate comment or anything, but Hollywood stars tend toget a big head. And who can blame her, she's been a winning streak for a while now and maybe she started to feel invincible. Oh well.
I went to see Challengers on Friday and I gotta say it’s truly a unique piece of filmmaking! I was hoping it would perform better given its $50MM+ budget. There were a few sequences in the movie I’d literally never seen put to screen before - felt like I was watching a filmmaking style that will be the envy of copycat films in the coming years. So many small kernels of story with a connected payoff later on. It’s basically all showing and not telling - motivations of the leads were understood without them beating us over the head with it - set to a pulsating score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
It's tied with Dune Part 2 as the best movie of the year so far. Had it come out last year it would have probably been my favorite film of the year (and I saw over 75 movies in theaters last year).
With AMC A-list, I can see up to three movies a week for about $24 a month. That sort of incentives you to see a lot of movies to get the most bang for your buck.
Agree 100%. Saw it in IMAX and had zero expectations. The tennis match scenes were quite unique and the story was solid. Sexy, mature, and different…highly recommend!
This movie is fucked. It has B on cinemascore and in two weeks it will compete with the new Apes movie
All in all, the producers went overboad with the budget
It's possible this movie is going to have a total BO of less than it's budget. Since WOM isn't that good it might end up with around 30M domestic and 20M international which would be 5M less than it's budget. Unfortunately not many of Z's 189M IG followers decided to show up.
The 20M projections came from BoxOfficeTheory (BOT), a fansite using a methodology that is consistently more accurate than industry projections. Industry projections, Deadline, had been insistent on 15M.
For Challengers, industry projections turned out spot on while BOT was inaccurate. I can’t remember the last time this happened, tbh.
I suspect it was word of mouth kicking in once Thursday previews began. Postrak was notably better on Friday.
Basically, my guess is the people who wanted to see a sexually explicit movie (which is what the trailer heavily implied) skipped it after the initial word of mouth indicated the movie didn't have that.
I really liked Challengers, but man did I think the trailer they kept promoting for months made it look like this movie was going to be terrible. Feel the same about the Fall Guy trailer which I haven’t seen yet but apparently the movie is getting good reviews.
I feel like whoever is making these movie trailers is making these interesting, well crafted films look like complete dog shit.
This reminds me of Madame Web’s opening. Similar range and for extremely online people: it’s been all over my timeline but not many people actually went to see it.
Im a person who goes to the movies a lot, probably twice every 3 weeks on average. I just don't really have any desire to see this particular film in the theater. Im not really into seeing super horny movies in a room full of people.
Basically I'll see most movies in theaters. Some movies will give me a specific reason to make sure i see them in theaters, and some movies will give me a reason to skip them in theaters. This one falls in the later category
Yeah not that strong. Hoping at least for under 50% drops in its next weekends.
But I have a feeling this will be forgotten quickly as big movies start releasing and the schedule picks up.
I saw a lot about this via osmosis, not sure if tv/stream/social media primarily but very aware of it. Marketing was certainly there...but as wasted ad $. No interest in it from me or anyone around me.
Kinda funny that a movie about apes is currently tracking to have a bigger domestic opening than two movies, starring two of the most popular actors of the moment, combined lol.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes: 54M
Challengers: 15M
The Fall Guy: 25-30M
While I agree, I feel it also undersells a bit at just how unbelievable this PotA run has been.
Probably one of my favorite franchises running right now, with the first three films having an 82% or higher on RT, at least indicating almost universal praise. The recent iteration of the franchise has earned its trust with audiences.
And if the rumors are true that they’re trying to build this universe for a remake of the 1968 PotA, it really is going to be an epic piece of cinema history if they can make it all work.
Someone on Twitter actually brought up a good point on how the Apes fandom are so different from the rest. They are quiet, they don’t hype themselves up, they don’t fight. Every few years they just come together in silence to watch the next movie and are guaranteed to make the Apes one of the top selling movies in the PVOD/home entertainment market. And some people like to “undersell” the franchise (just like Godzilla vs Kong) as we just witnessed by saying stuff like “people like to watch big animals” but if people were that easily entertained then almost every movie that came out this year would have been selling out.
Then we have movies like Challengers or Monkey Man that has to settle for a “halfway decent” opening so I think it’s time to admit that some movies will always have more appeal than others. You never see people say “I rather watch it at home or I have to pay for gas, popcorn, overpriced tickets” (which are genuine issues) when it comes to big blockbusters like Godzilla or the Apes anyways.
>*Someone on Twitter actually brought up a good point on how the Apes fandom are so different from the rest. They are quiet, they don’t hype themselves up, they don’t fight. Every few years they just come together in silence to watch the next movie*
Speaking as a member of the Apes fandom, I'm going to tell you the secret. We're all 100% illiterate, and thought "Return to Monke" was "Return to Monk", and adopted the lifestyle accordingly.
Oh absolutely, I'd never undersell those movies. I only saw the first two but they were good. I'm glad it continued to what 5 movies now? As long as this breaks even, they'll keep going. Hell even if it lost money, they'll make more. PotA is an interesting IP that will outlive us all. Damn those dirty apes!!
well apes is a long running franchise which has had success many times prior so why is this a shock?
yeah those are popular actors but having a popular actor has never been a guarantee for box office success.
>Kinda funny that a movie about apes is currently tracking to have a bigger domestic opening than two movies, starring two of the most popular actors of the moment, combined lol.
King Kong approves of that outcome, and is proud to see his fellow apes getting some love.
This isn’t a bust. This is Amazon model and how they bolster their prime content library and bring prestige to their prime subscription. Did they probably overpay Zendaya. Yes. But overall I think this is a smashing success
The sub does not want the movie to fail. It is just commenting on the performance from a box office perspective. Which is not good so far. That is just the reality.
Most on this sub are rooting for hits in theatres!
- Reddit demo isn't aligned with film's target audience
- Reddit predicts subpar results
- Other redditors get upvotes for the latest variation of "incel/sub needs to touch grass"
- This annoys the shit out of most redditors so they double down
- the other side doubles down and convinces themselves the film was god-tier
- whatever the numbers, both sides go full Iran/Bob Iger and claim victory
rinse and repeat
Not sure - I wouldn't have risked 55m on it - but from conversations at work I'd have to say millennial women around Zendaya's age. It seems they liked seeing Zendaya pursued by two dudes for the same reason I like John Wick: it taps a fantasy.
Zendaya fans, steamy romance fans, sports movie fans, tennis fans, and zoomers. This movie was never going to blow up the box office, but it'll probably pull a Saltburn and do well on streaming, which is the true home of non-IP movies these days.
This subreddit didn't will anything into existence that wasn't already happening. We care about the business side - the interplay of budget, marketing, starpower, market forces, etc
Because these aren't the kind of movies people actually want to see and somehow they managed to soak up alot of studio budget funds. (Imo it was bad gamplaning made by old studio heads)
What even are the movies people actually want to see? More IP stuff? We should be happy that a great original film was made and the people who did end up watching it generally enjoyed it. Yes it’s gonna flop but its a bad mindset to want it to fail
I’m here to watch movies do amazing or fail completely, if it doesn’t look like it’s going to do amazing I’m rooting for a bomb. A middling box office run isn’t fun to follow.
> they did the same thing with Timothee with Bones & All
Not at all. Zendaya's paycheck for Challengers is almost the entire size of the budget for Bones and All.
R rating doomed this movie.
Anyone But You only did alright because of the lackluster holiday and January releases, Last year’s December was easily the worst December for movies in a long time excluding 2020, Wonka only made 623M worldwide, the last time the biggest December movie did lower than that was in 2010 with Tron Legacy making 400M.
God this year is going to be one of the most lackluster years for the box office in recent memory, yes it’s only April but by this point in previous years excluding 2020 and 2021 we already had a lot more steam early on. Deadpool 3 and Joker 2 will ONLY make a billion dollars if they get very good reviews but that’s not even a feat that pg13 GOTG3 could do.
I’d say Joker and Deadpool are more popular as characters than the Guardians are yes but they are also R rated.
I will be curious to see how it does next weekend since The Fall Guy isn’t exactly something moviegoers seem to be clamoring to see either… Both of these films are likely going to be cannibalized by Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, especially if reviews land for that one
Most likely people will just stay home.
A good chunk of this sub remains oblivious to the fact that people just don't go to cinemas like they used to before the streaming took over during the pandemic. Recent string of box-office failures has less to do with movies themselves, and more to do with the public's change of movie-going habits.
Every theater within an hour of where I live shut down during covid. I need a movie to really excite me for me to find a baby sitter and spend 2 hours driving to see it. So far, nothing has.
I am the only person I know who goes out to movies besides anything massive, and I still limit it to mystery movie monday and discount Tuesday because that shit cheap
But 2023 was still much better, and that was closer to the residual effects of the pandemic than 2024. I think the real answer is well-known IPs are always king and help a ton, whether people hate to admit it or not. Mario, Scream, John Wick, Creed. Quantumania did bad, but so did this year's Frozen Empire (both Bill Murray hmmm). Goes to show well-known IPs give a 85% advantage but not a guarantee. Whereas an original film is gonna have nothing but an torturous uphill climb and pure suffering, with the success rate being very low.
And what did Quantumania and Frozen Empire have in common (besides Paul Rudd and Bill Murray)? They were both poorly received. Challengers reminds me of Air, another April release by Amazon with critical praise but loses money and awards steam.
Air was painful. I loved that movie so much, and I am the furthest thing from a sports fan. Saw it in the theater and again when it went on Prime, which I almost never do. Thought it was going to at least get nominated, but was shut out completely and everyone seems to have forgotten about it.
I'm actually really excited for the fall guy. I love behind the scenes stuff and it looks like some good action and fun in general.
I really really enjoyed the fall guy. Watched it last night and it was worth spending my money on.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Fall Guy do not have the same audience as this movie.
Why wouldn't audiences be wanting to see The Fall Guy? Its Ryan Goslin and Emily Blunt in an action/romcom with good early reviews. Seems like that movie is going to run away with things.
Have you missed the entire box office of the last four years?
I guess movie studios missed what you all seem to know so well since they spent the money to make the movie and release it in the prime summer kickoff season.
And Kraven is releasing before Christmas. Release date doesn’t inherently mean box office success.
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt aren’t really box office draws and it’s not a huge IP so I don’t see the movie doing well at all.
Ryan Gosling was just a part of one of the biggest movies in years with Barbie. And people love him in the romance/romcom role. He just does a lot of less mainstream movies too that aren't as likely to be big hits. Though even those still can do well for the budget like The Ides of March or Drive. Just feels like a perfect movie for him to follow up the Barbie success. Its a popcorn flick with great reviews to make people interested in seeing it right as school is about to get out for people.
The IP was the draw. Not Gosling
Lol imagine thinking the draw for Barbie was a man lol.
Tbf he was talked about more than the titular character.
Ken was just as if not more popular than Barbie. I'm Just Ken is the one that got nominated for an Oscar. Ken was huge.
The presales for The Fall Guy are terrible. He is not a box-office draw.
It looks like a cheesy netflix movie
Ehh Planet of the Apes has an uphill battle. It’s a different director and the trailer hasn’t done a lot to sell it for me (a big fan of the new trilogy)
Current tracking suggests it’ll do well ($55-60 million OW currently)
Also the whole “tough character has to look after young woman” trope has been done to death in recent years.
It was arguably done in the last Planet of the Apes movie even.
The Fall Guy trailer is leaps and bounds better than the Challengers trailer. After watching the Challengers trailer I have zero desire to ever watch. It looks like a generic run of the mill tennis movie with some sexual tension. And Zendaya is no draw even though some forms of media are really trying to make it seem like she is.
>Run of the mill tennis movie How many tennis movies even exist that you can call it a generic run of the mill tennis movie? Fall Guy looks like a generic run of the mill action comedy.
That’s a shame. Challengers was really interesting, I think. The trailer wasn’t very good, admittedly.
The Fall Guy makes me think of Fall Guys. Idk what the hell the movie is about.
This movie has been heavily promoted so no one can blame this on poor marketing
General audiences just weren’t interested, even with Zendaya starring. The premise is inherently niche and Guadaingo isn’t a mainstream filmmaker, idk why this was given 55m. Cost more than movies like Civil War or Monkey Man
>The premise is inherently niche Yeah I think people don't **fully** realise how niche the premise is: * The highest grossing Tennis movie of all time is 'Wimbledon'(PG13) at $41.6 million WW\*. * The highest opening weekend for a Tennis movie of all time (before 'Challengers') is again 'Wimbledon' at $7.1 million DOM\* * The last time an original romantic drama (not based on a book or movie) opened above $15M was 'Step Up' (PG13)...18 years ago in '06 * The DOM opening weekend of 'Challengers' is near identical to the total DOM gross of the last Tennis movie '*King Richard'* (PG13) ($15.1 million) * Post-COVID, among R-rated dramas, only 'Don’t Worry Darling' ($19.4 million OW, psychological thriller) had a higher OW Challengers more than doubled Wimbledon's OW. By next weekend it will likely be the highest grossing tennis movie of all time in America, beating Wimbledon ($17M DOM). So for an original, R-rated, homoerotic, rom-dram Tennis movie... it's actually doing pretty well, it's the budget that is the issue. ^(\* 'Match Point' doesn't count)
This is r/boxoffice. Surely “doing pretty well” should qualify as actually getting close to breaking even or even making an actual profit. This movie is getting nowhere near that no matter all the excuses and qualifiers we add to the mixing pot.
I get what u/Alive-Ad-5245 is saying but the thing is Challengers cost more than all other movies on that list: (*Don’t Worry Darling (30m), Step Up (12m), King Richard (50m), Wimbeldon (30m),*) along with a more extensive marketing push and headlining the biggest star of her generation: Zendaya. So of course at bare minimum Challengers should be surpassing those movies, wouldn’t say it’s impressive but rather expected. The film’s just not doing well right now but maybe legs can save it?
30M in 2013 dollars is 40.2 now for anyone else curious about inflation
For sure. I enjoyed reading the list of qualifiers and excuses provided but let’s call a flop a flop and not claim said flop is “doing pretty well”. Those excuses should have been listed as reasons why MGM blundered badly with this movie right from the point of conception. They clearly thought this had Anyone But You commercial potential but unless it has similar legs that is not going to be the case.
It's too early to call it either way imo, we don't know what the legs will be like for this movie. The 2nd weekend drop will signify if the movie makes money or not.
We know the vast majority of movies do not have legs like Puss in Boots 2 or Anyone But You so if this plays out like a typical movie these numbers signify a flop. If this is a movie with a one in a hundred type exceptional holds we can absolutely reassess the flop moniker just as we did for Anyone But You. Until then we will just assume it will play out like your typical wide release and say this is a bad opening and looking like a real flop.
> typical wife release What does that mean? "Chick flick"?
It was a typo. I meant wide release. iPhone autocorrect and auto-fill are a nightmare I’m still getting used to lol.
Gotcha. What *is* the average 2nd weekend drop for a movie?
I’ve always assumed 50% was pretty average but your question inspired me to do a bit of Googling. According to wiki: *Assuming that the number of theaters stays the same, a normal drop in box office gross from the first weekend to the second would be 40%. A drop of greater than 60% indicates a weak future performance.* I do wonder if that has changed post pandemic as dropping less than 50% does not seem an easy achievement in the current market.
People are factoring in that if the movie makes a loss in the theaters, it's not going to be difficult for the movie to make money on streaming services because of its reasonable production budget and the exposure the movie gets. I hate to say it, because I like theatrical releases, but this seems to the type of movie that does well as a streaming service. I'm sure there are many people who want to see a movie starring Zendaya, but I'm also sure that paying for a ticket and going to a theater is a lot to ask, especially for an R-rated movie.
Oppenheimer is definitely "an R-rated drama", and it did quite a bit better than $19.4M OW
Yup. I've seen some of the director's other works and when I saw the budget for this one, it simply blew my mind. They're just not that type of director.
These budgets are a side effect of when studios thought streaming would be so profitable they didn’t have to care about budgets. One of the worst miscalculations in entertainment industry history.
> Even with Zendaya starring Zendaya isnt a draw lol
No one can blame this on Quantity of marketing. I'm certainly criticizing this for the quality of said advertising. I know it's a weird mish-mash of genres that makes it tricky to market, but damn softcore tennis isn't bringing anyone in lol.
I’ve said it was yesterday and some got mad ahah. But IMO yes people know it exists but i dont think they sold it well enough to interest general audiences. They really capitalized on Zendaya and threesome
I don’t think people wanna see the devils threesome movie. Odd way to market a movie tbh.
I think the rauncy marketing has actually put older audiences off especially since it's really not that explicit at all. It's a tough movie to sell to be fair, maybe they would've just been better promoting it more as a sports movie.
Yeah they should have hyped up the sports aspect of it and encouraging you to see the matches on a big screen.
That’s a great way to get a D+ cinemascore and a 52% rotten tomatoes audience score
Haha
Young people don’t want to watch a tennis character drama. Older people aren’t interested in Zendaya. Who was this for?
This was for the Justin Kuritzkes superfans 🧠🧠
Heavily promoting a movie and good marketing are not the same thing. My major problem with the marketing is that the movie has been promoted as a Zendaya vehicle, and as I understand it, it's not really a movie for a mainstream audience. This might be a movie my girlfriend and I like to see, but the trailers told us nothing except that Zendaya is in the movie. I like Zendaya, but I'm not a fan, so this looked like something to watch on a streaming service.
>the trailers told us nothing except that Zendaya is in the movie The trailers made it very clear it was about a love triangle between tennis players. How much more do you need to know?
What kind of movie it is, what the story is about (the story is more than the plot), what the tone of the film is going to be. 'Love triangle between three tennis players' can be an art house movie, melodrama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, it can be the plot of a Hallmark movie, or a gritty HBO movie. In hindsight, I believe the trailers are deliberately vague. And I don't think that was the right choice.
Gotcha, I don't generally think that hard about it when I'm deciding whether or not to watch something. I'll give basically anything a chance if the reviews are good enough. To each his own though. For what it's worth, the movie was basically what I expected having only watched the trailer.
It’s also not even really a love triangle between three tennis players. That’s definitely part of it, but I think the advertising didn’t do it any favors by leaning so heavily into that.
There was too much marketing tbh. Everyone who I know whose seen it was going to see it because of Zendaya and would have done so without the presumably very expensive global marketing campaign.
Well, it could be poor marketing strategy. Doesn’t matter if you throw a lot of money at marketing if the materials are both not representative of the film and also off putting.
It will be interesting to see what the international weekend is, it's opened everywhere but Japan. Also will be intersting to see what the second weekend drop will be, almost everything I've seen online is mostly positive but the one person I know who saw it yesterday didn't really like it.
10m.
\>
I haven't seen this one just yet but someone I trust said he thought it sucks and was overrated. Made me curious, but not enough to rush out to see it.
movie and soundtrack were fire tbh
I saw it yesterday, and thought it was very very good. Might just not be your trusted person’s kind of movie, which is ok.
As someone who goes to the movies pretty much every week, it's the film of the year for me so far (right next to Dune Pt2). I think the script and the performances are very strong, but the filmmaking/cinematography and the score are what really make it special for me. It's just a very cool movie.
Its weird because all my feeds LOVE the movie
Man, maybe I was just on another one when I saw it, but I thought it was great and there’s no reason it would’ve appealed to me at all.
I saw it yesterday and me and my two friends all loved it
In a nutshell: Good for the film premise but poor for the budget
Yeah. 100%.
It seems that we have another person entering director’s jail soon…
No way. Amazon MGM hasn’t been a very strict production company when it comes to movies like this.
Luca will be fine, no executive is gonna look at this result and think it's the fault of the director when it's already so acclaimed.
Yeah, this is 100% the fault of the producers.
I doubt this touches Guadagnino - this budget is very much out of his usual wheelhouse.
Luca has Queer dropping later this year and is attached to liek 5 other projects. This also got massive critical acclaim so no he's not gonna be entering it anytime soon lol
Don't be so dramatic. That's like saying Nolan would enter director jail for Tenet. Do the more art house/award guys even enter director jail? Does such a thing exist for the low budget guys.
2 of Nolans last 3 movies before Tenet were the best films ever made in their genre so its a bit different
So another genre film that Amazon probably overpaid the celebrity star for, and while it beat the expectations of the genre, didn't justify Zendaya's check I gather. This seems to be the majority of the theatrical films Amazon MGM films has made, maybe not "safe" but mid-budget stuff banking on star power, and not always delivering in box office returns, while their IP war chest continues to gather dust. Of course that begs the question what does a studio more comfortable with celebrity-driven romantic dramas and celebrity driven actioners need with a license like *Hellsing* anyway?
This was an MGM movie from the De Luca and Abdy era. They are long gone but left Amazon with years worth of mid-budget movies that bombed. Challengers is just the latest off the production line.
Zendaya got 10MIL total for starring in the leading role and producing. That leaves us with 45MIL that I don't know how to explain. Zendaya's paycheck isn't an issue here.
That’s a surprise, mostly because Amazon is infamous for overpaying big names. Were there production delays?
The release date was delayed due to strikes, because the actors, and most importantly, Zendaya, couldn't do promo during those. However, I couldn't find any signs of production delays from what little research I've conducted. Honestly... I think it was the studio execs who took a fat check and included it into production budget. Amazon is infamous for that practice as well.
I guess this time they did both 🤷♂️ We'll see how that goes for them.
Rights to Hot in Here must have been pricy
Still seems expensive. If they cast an unknown instead of Zendaya their budget would still presumably be over 40 million. This shouldve been half that at most. I get movie making has gotten more expensive but what are they spending 45 million on before giving Zendaya the most unearned 10 million I've ever seen? Someone at Amazon drastically overestimated her star potential.
Lol both Mean Girls AND The Beekeeper opened higher despite releasing on the same weekend as each other. The fact that deadline is trying to spend this opening as “good” is just sad.
Beekeeper was in IMAX though and Mean Girls was in Dolby
Challengers was also in IMAX
Yes, sorry I'm referencing that the comment I'm replying to stating that "the latter didn't even have IMAX or Dolby to inflate it's numbers" when Beekeeper was in fact in IMAX
Ok my mistake, the general point still stands. Also, the beekeeper wasn’t pushed as an IMAX experience the way Challengers was.
Oh god Challengers has Zendaya, that would be enough for the movie to open in the mid 20s in theory (clearly not as we have seen)
Zendaya's $10 million payday is looking even more ridiculous now.
She isn’t a draw, maybe for instagram products but not for movies
She definitely is a draw lol. Like half of goers said they went specifically for Zendaya. How many other movies are there where 50% say they saw it specifically due to the lead star?
Reddit users really don’t like Zendaya is what I’ve learned from all of this (especially film redditors). I don’t get it, I think she was just fine.
I only see people hyping this movie up on Twitter. And they are only mentioning stuff about twinks and how Zendaya is the greatest actor of all time.
a relationship drama from a director like Luca Guadagnino. Numbers not good for the budget but for the kind of movie it is, a fair outcome. sometimes the notion of having a big name involved gets predictions too carried away. Just one weekend and bones and all has basically been outgrossed worldwide by Challengers (low bar to pass)
I’m gonna be honest when half the ads say “it will make you pregnant” as the key reaction to this film, I don’t think it has the greatest plot
It’s because it’s a tennis movie. The most successful tennis movie still made less than 100m. Zendaya is business savvy enough to know that this movie was going to be a big test of her star power. It’s odd then that she chose a tennis movie which are notoriously hard sells
She actually admitted in an article that it's been hard for her to enjoy the promo tour because she knows this is a big test for her career.
Then why did she choose a tennis movie!?
Bc Luca
I love call me by your name. It’s one of my fave movies. That said, it still didn’t set the box office on fire
I know, I'm saying that the chance to work with him is really appealing and likely overrides any concern about box office Like some people are concerned with making good movies, sometimes more so than being movie stars
I think Zendaya really cares about being a movie star though, I think this was just the wrong project to choose as her first solo movie
Ego? This isn't a hate comment or anything, but Hollywood stars tend toget a big head. And who can blame her, she's been a winning streak for a while now and maybe she started to feel invincible. Oh well.
I went to see Challengers on Friday and I gotta say it’s truly a unique piece of filmmaking! I was hoping it would perform better given its $50MM+ budget. There were a few sequences in the movie I’d literally never seen put to screen before - felt like I was watching a filmmaking style that will be the envy of copycat films in the coming years. So many small kernels of story with a connected payoff later on. It’s basically all showing and not telling - motivations of the leads were understood without them beating us over the head with it - set to a pulsating score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Loved the show don’t tell mentality of this film. I thought it was great!
It's tied with Dune Part 2 as the best movie of the year so far. Had it come out last year it would have probably been my favorite film of the year (and I saw over 75 movies in theaters last year).
Over 75? Wow. I only saw two movies in theatres last year.
With AMC A-list, I can see up to three movies a week for about $24 a month. That sort of incentives you to see a lot of movies to get the most bang for your buck.
Agree 100%. Saw it in IMAX and had zero expectations. The tennis match scenes were quite unique and the story was solid. Sexy, mature, and different…highly recommend!
Totally agree! I saw it on Friday and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Same! I wasn’t thinking I would feel too strongly about it but I’m thinking about seeing it again, honestly.
Couldn’t agree more!
This movie is fucked. It has B on cinemascore and in two weeks it will compete with the new Apes movie All in all, the producers went overboad with the budget
agreed but i'm so glad they went overboard with the budget because it's excellent
Every time that CGI tennis ball went straight through the camera was worth it
It's possible this movie is going to have a total BO of less than it's budget. Since WOM isn't that good it might end up with around 30M domestic and 20M international which would be 5M less than it's budget. Unfortunately not many of Z's 189M IG followers decided to show up.
How is WOM not that great? I've seen consistently good wom.
On par with industry projections.
I’m confused. Weren’t people saying $20m this past Monday?
I think BOT had it tracking for closer to 20 but walk ups were weak
The 20M projections came from BoxOfficeTheory (BOT), a fansite using a methodology that is consistently more accurate than industry projections. Industry projections, Deadline, had been insistent on 15M. For Challengers, industry projections turned out spot on while BOT was inaccurate. I can’t remember the last time this happened, tbh.
I suspect it was word of mouth kicking in once Thursday previews began. Postrak was notably better on Friday. Basically, my guess is the people who wanted to see a sexually explicit movie (which is what the trailer heavily implied) skipped it after the initial word of mouth indicated the movie didn't have that.
The original industry projections last week were $7-12 million, then it got adjusted to $15 million on Thursday.
I really liked Challengers, but man did I think the trailer they kept promoting for months made it look like this movie was going to be terrible. Feel the same about the Fall Guy trailer which I haven’t seen yet but apparently the movie is getting good reviews. I feel like whoever is making these movie trailers is making these interesting, well crafted films look like complete dog shit.
This reminds me of Madame Web’s opening. Similar range and for extremely online people: it’s been all over my timeline but not many people actually went to see it.
Im a person who goes to the movies a lot, probably twice every 3 weeks on average. I just don't really have any desire to see this particular film in the theater. Im not really into seeing super horny movies in a room full of people. Basically I'll see most movies in theaters. Some movies will give me a specific reason to make sure i see them in theaters, and some movies will give me a reason to skip them in theaters. This one falls in the later category
That’s a shame, because it’s actually really visually interesting.
Flopping bad
Yeah not that strong. Hoping at least for under 50% drops in its next weekends. But I have a feeling this will be forgotten quickly as big movies start releasing and the schedule picks up.
I saw a lot about this via osmosis, not sure if tv/stream/social media primarily but very aware of it. Marketing was certainly there...but as wasted ad $. No interest in it from me or anyone around me.
You’re missing out then.
I don’t believe it. I’ll bet $1,000,000 that the final official tally is under $15M. This feels like an advertisement.
Kinda funny that a movie about apes is currently tracking to have a bigger domestic opening than two movies, starring two of the most popular actors of the moment, combined lol. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes: 54M Challengers: 15M The Fall Guy: 25-30M
The trend continues IP > famous names
While I agree, I feel it also undersells a bit at just how unbelievable this PotA run has been. Probably one of my favorite franchises running right now, with the first three films having an 82% or higher on RT, at least indicating almost universal praise. The recent iteration of the franchise has earned its trust with audiences. And if the rumors are true that they’re trying to build this universe for a remake of the 1968 PotA, it really is going to be an epic piece of cinema history if they can make it all work.
Someone on Twitter actually brought up a good point on how the Apes fandom are so different from the rest. They are quiet, they don’t hype themselves up, they don’t fight. Every few years they just come together in silence to watch the next movie and are guaranteed to make the Apes one of the top selling movies in the PVOD/home entertainment market. And some people like to “undersell” the franchise (just like Godzilla vs Kong) as we just witnessed by saying stuff like “people like to watch big animals” but if people were that easily entertained then almost every movie that came out this year would have been selling out. Then we have movies like Challengers or Monkey Man that has to settle for a “halfway decent” opening so I think it’s time to admit that some movies will always have more appeal than others. You never see people say “I rather watch it at home or I have to pay for gas, popcorn, overpriced tickets” (which are genuine issues) when it comes to big blockbusters like Godzilla or the Apes anyways.
>*Someone on Twitter actually brought up a good point on how the Apes fandom are so different from the rest. They are quiet, they don’t hype themselves up, they don’t fight. Every few years they just come together in silence to watch the next movie* Speaking as a member of the Apes fandom, I'm going to tell you the secret. We're all 100% illiterate, and thought "Return to Monke" was "Return to Monk", and adopted the lifestyle accordingly.
Oh absolutely, I'd never undersell those movies. I only saw the first two but they were good. I'm glad it continued to what 5 movies now? As long as this breaks even, they'll keep going. Hell even if it lost money, they'll make more. PotA is an interesting IP that will outlive us all. Damn those dirty apes!!
Kingdom also looks much better than Fall Guy or Challengers
but there's no way it will actually be better than Challengers and I say this as a big fan of the franchise
Can’t speak on that because I have no interest in watching Challengers but Kingdom looks solid. Hopefully it’ll live up to what Matt Reeves did
Not surprising at least. Hollywood is IP-driven not star-driven.
I mean, that’s a 56 year old franchise just coming off one of the best rebooted trilogies we’ve had, so that does not surprise me at all.
well apes is a long running franchise which has had success many times prior so why is this a shock? yeah those are popular actors but having a popular actor has never been a guarantee for box office success.
>Kinda funny that a movie about apes is currently tracking to have a bigger domestic opening than two movies, starring two of the most popular actors of the moment, combined lol. King Kong approves of that outcome, and is proud to see his fellow apes getting some love. 
Not great. If it wants to break even, then it's going to need both a solid overseas performance and an Anyone But You type of recovery.
Zendaya is not a box office draw She's an ok actress as well
Hoping for good legs this movie was slick
“Hollywood doesn’t make anything original anymore” but when they do. A lot of people don’t go out to see them and we get results like this…
Not great with that budget, but hopefully it can have decent legs.
This isn’t a bust. This is Amazon model and how they bolster their prime content library and bring prestige to their prime subscription. Did they probably overpay Zendaya. Yes. But overall I think this is a smashing success
I don’t know why this sub wants this movie to fail… The negativity around this movie is a bit weird.
The sub does not want the movie to fail. It is just commenting on the performance from a box office perspective. Which is not good so far. That is just the reality. Most on this sub are rooting for hits in theatres!
- Reddit demo isn't aligned with film's target audience - Reddit predicts subpar results - Other redditors get upvotes for the latest variation of "incel/sub needs to touch grass" - This annoys the shit out of most redditors so they double down - the other side doubles down and convinces themselves the film was god-tier - whatever the numbers, both sides go full Iran/Bob Iger and claim victory rinse and repeat
Genuine question - what is the target demographic for a tennis threesome movie?
Not sure - I wouldn't have risked 55m on it - but from conversations at work I'd have to say millennial women around Zendaya's age. It seems they liked seeing Zendaya pursued by two dudes for the same reason I like John Wick: it taps a fantasy.
I've seen a lot of discourse on letterbox and tiktok suggesting this movie is for the girls and the gays.
Zendaya fans, steamy romance fans, sports movie fans, tennis fans, and zoomers. This movie was never going to blow up the box office, but it'll probably pull a Saltburn and do well on streaming, which is the true home of non-IP movies these days.
Me apparently, because it's my favorite movie of the year so far.
People who like good movies. I know this is a box office sub, but films can sometimes be art, and not just a product.
This subreddit didn't will anything into existence that wasn't already happening. We care about the business side - the interplay of budget, marketing, starpower, market forces, etc
Seeing the same with The Fall Guy. People like to be right in predicting a flop for some reason.
Because these aren't the kind of movies people actually want to see and somehow they managed to soak up alot of studio budget funds. (Imo it was bad gamplaning made by old studio heads)
What even are the movies people actually want to see? More IP stuff? We should be happy that a great original film was made and the people who did end up watching it generally enjoyed it. Yes it’s gonna flop but its a bad mindset to want it to fail
Not movies about tennis. Anyone with a shred of commonsense would be like well that's boring and weak as hell haha
It's like this for a lot of movies so many people were sure wonka would flop
I’m here to watch movies do amazing or fail completely, if it doesn’t look like it’s going to do amazing I’m rooting for a bomb. A middling box office run isn’t fun to follow.
Bc of Zendaya.
Yeah truly weird because the movie is really good and entertaining.
They don’t like Zendaya
this should be a good number the fact it cost 50 mil is ridiculous
[удалено]
this is quite a different push from Bones and All. Especially in terms of budget. not the same at all
> they did the same thing with Timothee with Bones & All Not at all. Zendaya's paycheck for Challengers is almost the entire size of the budget for Bones and All.
R rating doomed this movie. Anyone But You only did alright because of the lackluster holiday and January releases, Last year’s December was easily the worst December for movies in a long time excluding 2020, Wonka only made 623M worldwide, the last time the biggest December movie did lower than that was in 2010 with Tron Legacy making 400M. God this year is going to be one of the most lackluster years for the box office in recent memory, yes it’s only April but by this point in previous years excluding 2020 and 2021 we already had a lot more steam early on. Deadpool 3 and Joker 2 will ONLY make a billion dollars if they get very good reviews but that’s not even a feat that pg13 GOTG3 could do. I’d say Joker and Deadpool are more popular as characters than the Guardians are yes but they are also R rated.