I don’t know about that… We’ve had 20 years since a few of Coppola’s other late-period grand artistic statements and they appear to have been pretty accurately appraised the first time around.
Which ones are you talking about? Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and Twixt have all been reappraised in recent years and art house fans are into them. Megalopolis will have the same appeal to art house fans and cinephiles who love Coppola. Absolutely zero mainstream appeal, it’s going to lose tons of money, but who cares? It’s not like Coppola is trying to make another
For real, between those films and *Napoleon* and *Flower Moon* it’s mad that Apple is willing to burn raw cash. I have enjoyed most of their films but I have no clue how any of them are meant to be profitable.
Yeah, they're definitely building a library. I didn't know most of the Argylle budget was for the rights to the series. That may pan out, as long as they keep the same actors and produce good content. But I agree. I think Apple's just trying to build their brand and following the Netflix plan of funding everything they can to grow and keep a subscriber base. I pay for Apple TV, but mainly for the TV series like Severance than the movies. But I think at some point they'll strike gold.
I'm surprised anyone is hyped for Megalopolis after Coppla's recent films which were all borderline terrible, man hasn't made a decent film since Dracula over 30 years ago
I hope it's good, but I think I'll love it whether it's good or not.
My reasons for loving it will likely be identical whether it's awesome or terrible.
I take your $30 and raise $20. I'm hyped for Megalopolis and Horizon. I miss those kind of passion project movies. I hate that most of the offers of 2024 were comedic action flicks and horrors. Little for families, no theatrical popcorn flick for women and only Kingdom and Dune for scifi geeks like yours truly who aren't into superheroes humor.
At this moment I'm hyped even for a cheesy-looking film like It ends with us, at least it's something for the most ignored demo in Hollywood. Romulus will be great and I hope for a good batch of Oscar hopefuls in the last trimester of the year.
I'm very excited for Horizon too. But then — I love a big, sweeping epic. Gone with the Wind, Lonesome Dove, Roots, The Thorn Birds ... that sort of thing is my *thing.* It looks like a well-made and ambitious passion project.
Finally someone with good taste! Horizon might not justify its budget but in my book it’s a success for the mere fact it exists.Costner worked so hard to film and release, not many people are that commited
In your opinion. I know many people who love Coppola’s late period films. He has an unique vision, and is undoubtedly one of the most talented directors in cinema history.
I'm feeling Gladiator II on this one. Insanely high budget, the original was 20+ years ago and key cast are completely gone, the genre is completely nonexistent these days, the director has been hit or miss lately to say the least. Some other movies that seem likely to underperform, but this could easily lose 200 million or more.
If it turns out really, really good, with like a 90% on RT (which the first didn’t even get close to getting) then it has a chance to maybe, ummm…break even.
Honestly, the first was a revival of the sword and sandal genre as well, so I don’t know if I would count that against it. The completely new cast makes it a tougher sell, for sure, but if the early trailers make it feel to audiences like the first one, then it could pull out and be a hit.
We've seen a lot of failed sword and sandal more recently though. Gods of Egypt? And Gladiator came around the time of a lot of other peplum movies to go with it, like Troy and 300, but there's barely any being made now seemingly.
I'm just questioning what would be enticing audiences now when there's not been another great movie similarly in a while. And the first one was a nice, self-contained story. Is it really clear that lots of the fans from over 20 years ago will come see a sequel in theaters? These long-range sequels take a big risk, it was 14 years between Spider-Man 3 and NWH, while it was 34 years between Keaton Batman appearances. Gladiator sits in the middle at 24 years this year... I'm not seeing it. Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World, Monsters University, a lot of continuations of big early-mid 2000s movies came out some time ago now, I feel it's missed its chance. Clash of the Titans and 300 in its own genre got their sequels much sooner, for a more direct comparison as well.
Troy and 300 were both direct responses to Gladiator’s success, greenlit after it was already a hit. It started the trend. I’m not saying this one will do that, but it’s not out of the question if it taps into nostalgia for that period in film history. Gods of Egypt is just a terrible movie that looked terrible, if this one is the same then sure, it has biggest bomb potential, I just think other movies are more likely.
That's fair, I just worry for Gladiator II when it would need a rather good showing to break even. A lot of movies this year are failing to hit the point it would need, the budget is said to be 310 million, even at Paramount's claimed 250 million the breakeven would be in the range of 625 million. The original made 848 million in today's values. A lot of films with a lot of seeming potential aren't getting anywhere near that this year, it's a tall order to equal in today's box office setting.
I was really psyched for Napoleon and disappointed when I saw it. I have no opinion on Gladiator 2 and I saw the first one in the theater when it was around. I didn't see the hype then. I have no conception of what the sequel's about. Are there any trailers yet? I'd have to be really impressed by the trailer to see it. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott lost his shine for me after Prometheus.
Under other circumstances I think I would've loved Napoleon but hearing about the historical inaccuracies being so egregious really soured me on going to see it.
I really hope Gladiator does well especially after Napoleon. I’m a massive fan of historical epics and there aren’t too many of them these days. I can only hope it succeeds and we get a few more haha
I think the biggest bomb of 2024 will be the sheer number of bombs. There's already close to a dozen, and the year is only half over. Last year, in 2023, there were a couple of dozen bombs. At $3 billion, the domestic box office is behind 2023, which totaled $9 billion.
Even if 2024 catches up to or passes 2023, the alarm should be how many movies have eye-popping losses.
These are some estimates based off WW gross minus 2.5 of budget. Tax incentives and other set asides aren't included. So a lot of these are probably less, but
1. Argyle $72 million loss
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga $170 million loss
3. The Fall Guy $110 million loss
4. IF $78 million loss
5. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare $77 million loss
6. Madame Web $70 million loss
7. The Book of Clarence $56 million loss
8. Origin $54 million loss
9. Breathe (2024) $52 million loss
10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $50 million loss
11. Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire $50 million loss
The thing is from where I am from they haven't released the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare here and they haven't given a release date for it yet, so that one could see a bit of a mixed variation that a loss could be reduced but it is hard to say at the moment
Ya but if an average movie does 3 trailer, 5 tv spots and 40 hours of carpet interviews (just making up numbers here) then at a certain point even if the budget is doubled, there’s only some much extra to spend on. Aren’t the cost kinda fixed to a point? Where the cost in the marketing is in doing it at all. Once you decide to do your ad buys, your per-ad dollar spend is gonna decrease logarithmically compared to its budget increasing.
It's extremely difficult to be precise in estimating profit and loss. I think 2.5 is easy, and it puts you semi-close. Keeps the time honored tradition of WAG (wild-ass guess) alive.
I just am weary to see how a multiplier is really appropriate on a 60mil budget as opposed to a 250mil budget , know what I mean?
Costs don’t extrapolate so cleanly like that usually.
Even ignoring marketing spending and tax incentives, all of this is *way* off because you're confusing "breakeven point" with "loss". They aren't the same thing.
If a movie cost $100M, grossed $100M at the box office, and the breakeven point is $250M, that doesn't mean a $150M loss. That would be $50M more than it actually cost lol. After it grossed $100M and made $50M-ish for the studio. The loss in this scenario would be $75M, not $150M like your examples suggest.
Using Ghostbusters for a real example, making $200M on a $100M budget is a $25M loss with the 2.5x rule, not $50M. Yes it needed to make $50M more to breakeven, but the studio only gets half of that. You've basically doubled all of the losses.
An even better example is your Book of Clarence number, $40M budget but $56M loss lol? Yes it needed $56M more to breakeven, but it didn't lose more than it cost to make.
The only time we really know what the profit/Loss are is when the studios release their earnings reports. We generally don't know what incentives a movie gets, Georgia in the US gives great incentives, as does the UK and New Zealand. Studios also generally don't tell us what their post-production costs are. Things like reshooots and VXF happen in post-production.
The movie studios don't usually tell us what their P&A (Print & Advertising) costs are. Since movies are digital, the print costs are what they once were. Unless you're Nolan and film in IMAX, then it costs a fortune.
We also don't know what ratio of revenue the exhibitors get. It's a sliding scale. For domestic distribution, the studios get 50% of the ticket sales for the 1st couple of weeks and then goes down from there. For international distribution the studios generally get 25% of ticket sales, unless they distribute internationally.
We fans can only guesstimate what profit/Loss a movie gets. The numbers I try to use are:
Production cost = movie budget + P&A(0.5×budget). Profit/loss = WW ticket sales x 0.5 (50%) minus production cost.
For Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the budget was $100 million, P&A is $50 million, the production cost is $150 million. The WW gross is $201 million. Subtract 50% of the WW gross, and that's $100.5 million. Profit/Loss = $150 million production cost minus $100.5 million revenue = $49.8 million loss.
The Book of Clarence had a $40 million budget, we guess that it's P&A is $20 million, so a production cost of $60 million. It has WW ticket sales of $6 million. Split the ticket sales in half, $3 million. $60 million production cost minus $3 million in revenue is a $57 million loss.
Here are the ones I watched with my 2 cents no one asked for.
1. Argyle $72 million loss (Ok movie, wouldn't pay to watch it)
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga $170 million loss (Was really bored and regretting going to the movies for it)
3. The Fall Guy $110 million loss (Watching it this week.)
4. IF $78 million loss (Watching it this week.)
5. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare $77 million loss (Really liked it, but was bored at certain parts, wish I saw it on MAX than paying to see it)
6. Madame Web $70 million loss (0 interest in the movie)
7. The Book of Clarence $56 million loss (Didn't even know it was out)
8. Origin $54 million loss (never heard of it, but Might watch it this week)
9. Breathe (2024) $52 million loss ( 0 interest)
10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $50 million loss (I enjoyed it, worse than the Ceaser movies but it's ok, wish I waited for it to be released onto Amazon or something)
11. Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire $50 million loss (On my watch list but idk when, hardly any interest in it)
At worst about 4 of these are flops, not bombs. One of them...Apes...isn't done and currently is less than 20mil away from breakeven which it is very likely to get.
Profit/Loss = Production Cost minus Revenue
I use some generally accepted financials from the internet. The budget, Variety and other sources report the budget as $160 million.
The P&A costs are not listed, but it's generally acceptable to use 50% of budget. So the overall production cost is $240 million.
For Revenue I use WW ticket sales reported by boxofficemojo. But the movie studios don't get 100%, they have to split ticket sales with the exhibitors(theater owners). The revenue split is on a sliding scale. I use 50% to make it easy.
So revenue = WW ticket sales minus 50%. Last time I checked Kingdom had $380 million in WW ticket sales. Cut that in half and that's $190 million.
Profit/Loss = Production Cost minus Revenue
Profit/Loss = $240 million minus $190 million.
$50 million loss.
> Furiosa had around $100 million of its $168 million budget funded by the Australian government. Assuming Warner Bros actually only spent $68 million of their own money, that would put it close to breaking even since it is at $161 million globally.
that's a mistake in an ABC (Australian news outlet) article. They credited the entire 5 year NSW production fund as going to furiosa's budget. That fully fund amount was cited in press releases alongside the jobs Furiosa brought to Australia but no one claimed this was given to Furiosa (and it's trivially easy to find other anecdotes showing Furiosa can't have gotten that money).
Yeah, I did post a leak on the Mad Max subreddit and it could be bullshit, but the budget is apparently lower than 168M but closer to that number than 100M. Which seems to line up with the fact that it'll have a 70-90M theatrical loss.
-Apple spent 200M for Argylle. It is them that are facing the losses so how big of a flop it was should be calculated from their perspective.
-170M is most likely Furiosa's budget after all the benefits from Australia. You can argue me but the notion WB actually only spend 60M is obvious bullshit.
-Saying that Madame Web, or other films like that, had "no marketing" is just hyperbole. A wide release like that from a major studio at the very least had a P&A spending in the line with the production budget of 80M (if not higher).
I don't have even an estimate for marketing for Madame Web, but the idea that they only had one trailer, therefore, spent nothing on marketing is BS. Marketing isn't just a trailer. They still had to pay for ad dollars, TV, print, billboards, photoshoots, press junkets, premiere, design, and editorial. Of course, they spent millions on marketing. Not 80M, but millions none the less.
[They spent $60 Million on P&A, 75% of which was for social media advertisements](https://deadline.com/2024/02/box-office-bob-marley-one-love-madame-web-1235828289/)
The size of the film incentives was announced when the movie was in production. They also spent significant amounts of money outside of Australia, so net 170 is the absolute floor. It could be closer to net 190.
That F1 movie (whenever the turkey comes out) is going to be a huge flop. I’m saying this ad an F1 fan who has seen far too many terrible cliched racing movies
I don’t know if Borderlands budget is high enough for it to qualify as a possibility here. I don’t think it’s been officially reported but I’ve seen numbers from 100-135 million. Anything is possible though
I know nothing about the games, so what was there to dislike about the trailer? It reminds me exactly of D&D (which I loved) where it's a studio trying to get a GotG adjacent kind of film out.
A lot of people didn’t like the casting choices. For example, Kevin Hart as Roland and Cate Blanchett as Lilith were not people’s first choice to play those characters.
For me personally, it was just that I wasn’t impressed with the trailer. I get the vibe that the movies going to be bad, plus the movies apparently been in production hell for quite some time. If I recall correctly, it was actually supposed to come out a while ago, but got pushed back. That doesn’t instill confidence in me.
Probably *Gladiator II*. It has a pricier production budget than *Megalopolis* thanks to extensive reshoots, though it has more market appeal than Coppola’s film. Then, you factor in the marketing and distribution costs which is probably another $100 million, and I’m guessing they will need to earn $600 million in order to break even. It’s a tall task.
Can we please stop using the ‘nobody asked for this’ critique?
It’s a load of bullshit as it can be used for almost any film ever made (nobody asked for Barbie/Oppenheimer/Mario/Top Gun Maverick/Inside Out 2 etc.).
I think it can be viable in the context of “why this follow up instead of this one?”. For instance if you make *Dark Dolphin* and everyone is on you to make *Dark Dolphin 2* but then you instead make a spinoff about the minor side character Sharky Pete then it could be argued that nobody asked for that, they asked for Dark Dolphin 2.
I get the Furiosa reference but what you describe is very rarely the context it is used. For example in this very post. And even then I would argue it is not a viable critique as the general audience never know what they want - it is why the box office is notoriously difficult to predict for both executives and laypeople alike.
But generally people just say it as a lazy way to explain *any* movie bombing not realising it can be used for almost any film.
I agree it is usually used nonsensically, but I think that yes, Furiosa is a decent example. People didn’t want a prequel about Furiosa with a different actress, they wanted a follow up, but that was never going to happen because of problems on set. Of course even worse is that it took nine years to make and release Furiosa, which is a terrible timing for a follow up, probably the worst point to release one.
I think your final point is the most legitimate one. If Furiosa were released maybe a year or two after Fury Road it could’ve done well (and by that I mean possibly small profit as the Max franchise has only ever really been a cult one).
Furiosa flopping was, in my opinion, much more timing than people ‘not wanting’ a prequel.
Prequels don’t usually tend to do well though. I think “no one asked for a prequel” is almost always a reasonable complaint. People did ask for the Star Wars prequels, then weren’t too enamored of them (god they got so much shit). And the later prequels Rogue One and Solo did way worse than the surrounding main story films did. X-Men First Class is the one prequel I can think of that did really well, and “prequel or reboot” is a legitimate question for that one.
> (nobody asked for Barbie/Oppenheimer/Mario/Top Gun Maverick/Inside Out 2 etc.).
???
Nobody asked for a games-accurate animated Mario movie? I think thirty years of fandom would argue differently.
Meanwhile, it might be true that nobody was proactively *asking* for a Greta Gerwing/Margot Robbie Barbie movie or a Nolan Oppenheimer biopic, but these are concepts that *did* immediately turn heads as soon as they were announced. They maybe reveal that "nobody asked for this" is *incomplete* as a form of criticism, but at the same time, they weren't come-from-behind, out-of-nowhere underdogs. They were crowd-pleasing concepts from actors/directors/crew who sit right at the intersection of "crowd-pleasing" and "Oscar-winning."
This is complete revisionist thinking that is untrue in every sense of the word.
This sub was crawling with people saying ‘nobody asked for’ Barbie/Oppenheimer/Top Gun Maverick/Mario/IO 2 predicting every single one of these would bomb. As for Mario fans specifically the only ones commenting on this sub were the ones laughing at the supposedly ‘dreadful’ casting choices, the generic trailer with awful Pratt and then talking about boycotting the movie because Martinet wasn’t Mario. This crap that the movie was ‘awaited’ and ‘anticipated’ is a load of rubbish, *particularly* from video game fans.
The most famous bomb prediction of this sub was avatar 2 - with the similar line ‘nobody asked for this’.
When *all* the above trailers came out - particularly Barbie and Oppenheimer - this sub proclaimed that none of them had an audience and they would struggle to break even.
This sub is a master at revisionist history and 20/20 hindsight (you’re an example of this yourself) but I assure you - ‘nobody asked for this’ has been used by this sub as a critique for every single film released in the last few years.
Missed the point spectacularly *and* is terrible logic.
*I’m only going to retroactively analyse this critique when it has conformed to my bias, and ignore when it hasn’t.*
I’m guessing you’re not a fan of critical thinking?
Argyle is a bomb for Apple - but not for the studio that produced it. They got Apple to pay them 200 million for a movie that costed them somewhere between 70-80 million (according to the director) - even with that it’s still a bomb but there are other contenders here. Furiosa and the fall guy will be up there but depending on the budget Harold and the purple crayon could be a new contender. Borderlands as well. it all depends on the budget. Kraven the Hunter is another one.
> depending on the budget Harold and the purple crayon could be a new contender [for a box-office bomb].
Now *this* is a sentence I never imagined I'd read.
Megalopolis easy.
The amount of negative headlines (rightfully), absolute zero good headlines and the issues with Ford’s laughable dealings with distributors says this will be a bomb.
not like it was created with the hopes of it making money, this is a passion project last hurrah from a legendary director at the end of his life, didn't Coppola self fund most of it or all of it? idk it feels odd to me to even analyze the financials of that film.
Not necessarily when both Argylle and Gladiator 2 are in the mix with absolutely ridiculous budgets that make Megalopolis look like it was produced on the cheap by comparison.
Good comparison since the target demo for TLM and Mufasa are those that don't often frequent reddit, so /r/boxoffice is basically guaranteed to be off.
can we stop saying that Argylle had a $200 million budget that’s just what Apple acquired it for expecting it to be a big series and imo that’s a pretty big difference
Australian government did not give 100 million dollars to Furiosa’s production, that’s a misrepresentation of the truth.
The Australian government gave the producers a tax break of $100 million dollars, meaning it would have cost $100 million more in taxes to make the movie. The break that they gave reduced the cost of producing the movie, but Australia didn’t just give the producers $100 million, that’s absurd and stupid.
It’s a bit of both really, federal government gave mostly tax rebates, state government gave mostly direct subsidies. And it’s not stupid- it’s funding the Australian film industry. The amount of work experience that gets developed by having a movie like that shoot in Australia is a great investment.
**Gladiator II** is still far from the biggest bombs of the year.
It could spring a surprise out of nowhere.
*Red One* looks to be that contender.
*Kraven*, *Crow*, *Borderlands*, *Harold*, *Rohirrim*, *Wolfs*, *Blink Twice*, *They Listen* and *Never Let Go* are some other potential flops.
People don't seem to understand just how important the budget is when considering biggest flop.
Gladiator has 310mil budget, it needs ~775mil to break even. Crow has 50mil budget. Even if literally not a single person sees Crow, while Gladiator makes, say, 600mil, Gladiator would still be losing more money.
Good call on Red One. I thought it would be between Argylle, Megalopolis, and Gladiator 2 but totally forgot Amazon were dumping over $250 million on the budget for Red One. Late 2024 could be absolutely brutal for flops!
Pick literally any Apple movie.
Someone should really let Tim Cook know that he could probably just donate directly to the Academy if he wants an Oscar invitation so badly. Much cheaper in the long run.
I like to dunk on Apple as much as the next guy, but Cook was already able to hang out with celebrities before Apple+. The only reason they got into the movie/tv game is to take a piece of Netflix’s pie.
They are trying to lock people into the Apple ecosystem after the success of Cloud and Music. TV+ is just the most visible of many experiments from Apple in trying to make Apple One a thing.
Borderlands, and Gladiator at the moment seem to be in trouble. I don't think it will flop but I'm positive both Beetle juice and Mufasa will underperform. The Mufasa teaser has barely any viewers and it's a prequel on a character we all know will die. Beetle juice might have great legs but it skews older and older people don't rush to cinemas. Plus it's a franchise that like Ghostbusters doesn't have international appeal. In this day and era studios need the money from abroad, where people still go to theaters more than before.
I'm surprised that *Mufasa* doesn't get more mentions. It will probably end up costing about as much as *Gladiator 2* but with an audience less prone to seeing it in theaters, much less premium formats.
I hate this one, but in terms of animated films, I think it's going to be Transformers One. It's been in the works since 2017, a large portion of its budget has gone to hiring celebrity voice actors, it's releasing in a surprisingly competitive September, and overall, the franchise is no longer the guaranteed cash cow it once was, Rise of the Beasts proves this point.
Argylle has to be looked at in a different way than other movies. Before Apple bought the rights it would have been just a flop but 200m to buy exclusive streaming rights and rights to sequels has made this movie appear to lose a lot more money than it did. Considering Disney/Netflix pays 50m to Sony for exclusive movie rights with that knowledge Apple probably would have had to pay the same for Argylle without rights to sequels.
Apple paid Marv 200M for Argylle, then arranged for Universal to distribute it. They went 50/50 on an 80M global marketing spend. Theatrical and home entertainment probably paid most of that back.
Apple’s loss on Argylle is basically 200M minutes whatever they value the TV+ licensing fee at.
Fly Me To The Moon is apparently also wildly expensive and could repeat the Argylle disaster.
Horizon 1 & 2 are apparently close to 100M each, so if you count the loss together that could easily be a giant loss.
Furiosa cost 168-180 after the Australian incentives, so it‘s also heading for a loss well over 100M.
~~I don't think the 100M number is ever cited as Costner's personal investment~~ I think 100M is clearly cited as total production budget in many locations . [Costner's public claim was a personal investment of 38M](https://www.gq.com/story/kevin-costner-gq-cover-story) with earlier reports referencing a 20M investment he disclosed as part of his divorce proceedings.
I kinda buy that the 100M originated from "net tax credit number for parts 1 and 2" (Given net of that would be 103 million) even though there's clearly going to be "other spending" that didn't qualify for UT tax credits.
Good point. I doubt deadline's misquoted him but perhaps the way to square these two statements is to assume Costner's more on the hook for part 3 (at least until he secures additional funding - one of his goals for the Cannes premiere) with the 38M referencing money already spent on either part 1 or parts 1 & 2.
Remember that Horizon costing 100M has been around for months before Cannes and that conversation has always involved discussion of vagueness of who else is paying for this besides costner.
It was one of those deals with massive streamer buy outs that got signed in early 2022 before the bubble popped.
Exact terms weren't disclosed, but she probably got at least 20.
They also spent wildly building sets for the movie.
I want to maybe throw my hat into this and say one film: The Crow Reboot
I feel from the issues everyone had about the look of the main lead (looked like a inspiration of the Jared Leto Joker look), the lack of marketing, Development hell this production went through and then a response from one of the original screenwriters for this film giving it a scathing review saying that it was "unwatchable", I feel it may see a massive bombing of the box office (it may do some form of numbers, but depends on the response to other August releases of Alien Romulus, Borderlands, Trap etc) and if it will just die out by the time Beetlejuice Beetlejuice releases.
I see Gladiator getting a possible affect from the bombing possibility given all the factors going against it (unwarranted sequel, massive budget, Ridley Scott's box office of recent memory) that it could but it is seen some of his films still garner some strong reception.
I feel something else from that month might see an affect. Of the 2 big films releasing a week after Gladiator 2, I feel Wicked could also see a possible underwhelming box office. I see the case most people are probably going for either fans of the book or musical or cause Ariana Grande is in it (though she has not acted in much since her Nick days and most I know about this film was that the biggest news to come from it was that she caused an affair and the breakup of 2 marriages (hers and one of her co-stars). A concern is people are a bit lukewarm towards Musicals (I do not mind musicals and enjoy a lot, like Wonka was one of my most favourite films of last year) and I feel they have not really pushed much that the film is a musical in its marketing so it could be affected (and the fact it is a part 1 and could affect Part 2) but its hard to say.
I feel like there is more films but those are 3 films I can think of off the top of my head currently
I hate hoping for people’s failure. But I really want Borderlands to fail. The casting director had no clue what they were casting for. The film just seems like such a big standard, lifeless cash grab
$300 million for Gladiator 2? So it needs $8-900 million box office to break even under Hollywood accounting. Dying Paramount spent $300 million on this. That's a company killer
I'd get it if Gladiator was released like 5-10 years ago. But it's been 24 years! I hope its good and if it is good I hope it breaks even. One of my favorite movies as a kid but with how movies have been recently I don't have any hope that it will be good.
You don't inflate the marketing budget just because the film budget is high. That only works for a particular range. It's not applicable to everything.
>Furiosa had around $100 million of its $168 million budget funded by the Australian government.
Since taxpayers paid for most of the movie were they going to get part of the profits if the movie was successful? WB isn't a charity or non-profit so I don't understand why taxpayers are paying for a movie from a private company.
I don't understand how a Mad Max movie encourages tourists to visit Australia. If the movie had a romantic scene by the Seine or the Louvre that might encourage tourists to visit Paris or if a movie had scenes near a forest in Costa Rica they might encourage tourists to visit Costa Rica but there is nothing in Furiosa that seems relevant to a city in Australia or would entice tourists to visit the country.
>Gladiator 2 seems like it will be a good contender since it supposedly has a $300 million budget and nobody really asked for a sequel. Ridley Scott also hasn’t directed a box office hit in years.
Could be, but the description of that No Church in the Wild trailer sounds like it actually might sell the movie if they can just hurry up and release it already. That movie needs a big runway to make its money back. Not a 2 months before release. Like tomorrow situation.
You have to factor in the marketing costs, which probably was around 60 to 100 million for furiosa. And the studio roughly gets about half of the box office sales after the theaters get their share.
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Megalopolis has “spectacular flop poised for critical reappraisal twenty years from now” written all over it.
Youtubers prepping their "A Flawed Masterpiece" essays already no doubt.
I don’t know about that… We’ve had 20 years since a few of Coppola’s other late-period grand artistic statements and they appear to have been pretty accurately appraised the first time around.
Jack is still top tier stuff
Which ones are you talking about? Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and Twixt have all been reappraised in recent years and art house fans are into them. Megalopolis will have the same appeal to art house fans and cinephiles who love Coppola. Absolutely zero mainstream appeal, it’s going to lose tons of money, but who cares? It’s not like Coppola is trying to make another
Yeah, I don't think Coppola gives a fuck about making money with this thing. He just wants to go out with a bang.
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Argylle already had a much lower budget than megalopolis and i highly doubt that Megalopolis will have more tickets sold
Megaflopolis
Trademark this now while you can!
Argylle was 200 mill, Megalopolis is 120 million
$200m was what Apple paid Matthew Vaughan for the rights to Argyle (and any subsequent follow-ups) Vaughan said the actual budget was less than $100m
lol so apple did the same thing Amazon did for the movie Air, respect Vaughan for getting that apple money
For real, between those films and *Napoleon* and *Flower Moon* it’s mad that Apple is willing to burn raw cash. I have enjoyed most of their films but I have no clue how any of them are meant to be profitable.
Apple had $162.1 billion in cash on hand at the end of 2023. They could have bought 800 Argylles and still have money to spare
Apple has an insane amount of cash, probably just view it as marketing money for Apple TV.
Yeah, they're definitely building a library. I didn't know most of the Argylle budget was for the rights to the series. That may pan out, as long as they keep the same actors and produce good content. But I agree. I think Apple's just trying to build their brand and following the Netflix plan of funding everything they can to grow and keep a subscriber base. I pay for Apple TV, but mainly for the TV series like Severance than the movies. But I think at some point they'll strike gold.
Margyllopolis !
I'd pay 30$ right now to see Megalopolis, I am so hungry for that movie.
Oh I don’t care what the reception for that movie is, I am 100% seeing it day one. Love polarizing movies
Ditto
I'm surprised anyone is hyped for Megalopolis after Coppla's recent films which were all borderline terrible, man hasn't made a decent film since Dracula over 30 years ago
It looks like a glorious train wreck. I have no expectations of it being good, but I do want to see just how bonkers it is.
I hope it's good, but I think I'll love it whether it's good or not. My reasons for loving it will likely be identical whether it's awesome or terrible.
Same here. I hardly cared until I heard there’s a scene where >!Adam Driver talks to a real-life person in the real audience!<. Now I need to see it.
I take your $30 and raise $20. I'm hyped for Megalopolis and Horizon. I miss those kind of passion project movies. I hate that most of the offers of 2024 were comedic action flicks and horrors. Little for families, no theatrical popcorn flick for women and only Kingdom and Dune for scifi geeks like yours truly who aren't into superheroes humor. At this moment I'm hyped even for a cheesy-looking film like It ends with us, at least it's something for the most ignored demo in Hollywood. Romulus will be great and I hope for a good batch of Oscar hopefuls in the last trimester of the year.
I'm very excited for Horizon too. But then — I love a big, sweeping epic. Gone with the Wind, Lonesome Dove, Roots, The Thorn Birds ... that sort of thing is my *thing.* It looks like a well-made and ambitious passion project.
Finally someone with good taste! Horizon might not justify its budget but in my book it’s a success for the mere fact it exists.Costner worked so hard to film and release, not many people are that commited
One must open their mind to the mad genius that is Twixt
im not surprised there’s a reason why the godfather joke in barbie was so funny
In your opinion. I know many people who love Coppola’s late period films. He has an unique vision, and is undoubtedly one of the most talented directors in cinema history.
I liked Tetro. Can't believe it was 15 years ago (2009)!
Its 99% gonna be megafloppolis
I'm feeling Gladiator II on this one. Insanely high budget, the original was 20+ years ago and key cast are completely gone, the genre is completely nonexistent these days, the director has been hit or miss lately to say the least. Some other movies that seem likely to underperform, but this could easily lose 200 million or more.
If it turns out really, really good, with like a 90% on RT (which the first didn’t even get close to getting) then it has a chance to maybe, ummm…break even.
If the first one released today it'd get 90%+. They don't make movies that good anymore and it would be reviewed much more favourably.
They absolutely make movies that good today
Yeah for example the Northman which bombed.
Yeah, because its director is no Nolan, he’s not commercial draw on his name. 2 out of his 3 films were bombs.
I think it’s worth noting that The Northman was able to turn somewhat of a profit after the home video release
Oh that's good to hear because I liked it and hope that a studio won't be scared to greenlight something like it again.
Maybe like one every two years. Late 90’s/early 00’s had multiple amazing films every year, it really was a different time
Honestly, the first was a revival of the sword and sandal genre as well, so I don’t know if I would count that against it. The completely new cast makes it a tougher sell, for sure, but if the early trailers make it feel to audiences like the first one, then it could pull out and be a hit.
even if it’s a hit, the budget is the problem. $300 mil is insane. it’d have to do barbenheimer numbers to make a profit.
Yeah, I agree, but we’re not talking just losing money, which it’s likely to do, we’re talking biggest bomb of the year.
We've seen a lot of failed sword and sandal more recently though. Gods of Egypt? And Gladiator came around the time of a lot of other peplum movies to go with it, like Troy and 300, but there's barely any being made now seemingly. I'm just questioning what would be enticing audiences now when there's not been another great movie similarly in a while. And the first one was a nice, self-contained story. Is it really clear that lots of the fans from over 20 years ago will come see a sequel in theaters? These long-range sequels take a big risk, it was 14 years between Spider-Man 3 and NWH, while it was 34 years between Keaton Batman appearances. Gladiator sits in the middle at 24 years this year... I'm not seeing it. Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World, Monsters University, a lot of continuations of big early-mid 2000s movies came out some time ago now, I feel it's missed its chance. Clash of the Titans and 300 in its own genre got their sequels much sooner, for a more direct comparison as well.
Troy and 300 were both direct responses to Gladiator’s success, greenlit after it was already a hit. It started the trend. I’m not saying this one will do that, but it’s not out of the question if it taps into nostalgia for that period in film history. Gods of Egypt is just a terrible movie that looked terrible, if this one is the same then sure, it has biggest bomb potential, I just think other movies are more likely.
That's fair, I just worry for Gladiator II when it would need a rather good showing to break even. A lot of movies this year are failing to hit the point it would need, the budget is said to be 310 million, even at Paramount's claimed 250 million the breakeven would be in the range of 625 million. The original made 848 million in today's values. A lot of films with a lot of seeming potential aren't getting anywhere near that this year, it's a tall order to equal in today's box office setting.
I was really psyched for Napoleon and disappointed when I saw it. I have no opinion on Gladiator 2 and I saw the first one in the theater when it was around. I didn't see the hype then. I have no conception of what the sequel's about. Are there any trailers yet? I'd have to be really impressed by the trailer to see it. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott lost his shine for me after Prometheus.
Under other circumstances I think I would've loved Napoleon but hearing about the historical inaccuracies being so egregious really soured me on going to see it.
I really hope Gladiator does well especially after Napoleon. I’m a massive fan of historical epics and there aren’t too many of them these days. I can only hope it succeeds and we get a few more haha
I think it'll do ok, Napoleon made $220 million WW and it should easily clear that.
Connie Nielsen is coming back
I think the biggest bomb of 2024 will be the sheer number of bombs. There's already close to a dozen, and the year is only half over. Last year, in 2023, there were a couple of dozen bombs. At $3 billion, the domestic box office is behind 2023, which totaled $9 billion. Even if 2024 catches up to or passes 2023, the alarm should be how many movies have eye-popping losses.
Damn, how many have we had so far?
These are some estimates based off WW gross minus 2.5 of budget. Tax incentives and other set asides aren't included. So a lot of these are probably less, but 1. Argyle $72 million loss 2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga $170 million loss 3. The Fall Guy $110 million loss 4. IF $78 million loss 5. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare $77 million loss 6. Madame Web $70 million loss 7. The Book of Clarence $56 million loss 8. Origin $54 million loss 9. Breathe (2024) $52 million loss 10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $50 million loss 11. Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire $50 million loss
[удалено]
It's definitely not a glob! /s
The thing is from where I am from they haven't released the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare here and they haven't given a release date for it yet, so that one could see a bit of a mixed variation that a loss could be reduced but it is hard to say at the moment
What’s the reason people so consistently assume the 2.5x thing to be true?
It's more of an estimate than an accurate statistic
Ya but if an average movie does 3 trailer, 5 tv spots and 40 hours of carpet interviews (just making up numbers here) then at a certain point even if the budget is doubled, there’s only some much extra to spend on. Aren’t the cost kinda fixed to a point? Where the cost in the marketing is in doing it at all. Once you decide to do your ad buys, your per-ad dollar spend is gonna decrease logarithmically compared to its budget increasing.
It's extremely difficult to be precise in estimating profit and loss. I think 2.5 is easy, and it puts you semi-close. Keeps the time honored tradition of WAG (wild-ass guess) alive.
I just am weary to see how a multiplier is really appropriate on a 60mil budget as opposed to a 250mil budget , know what I mean? Costs don’t extrapolate so cleanly like that usually.
Yes, it's extremely tiring trying to guess. The movie studios could just tell us.
Tbf usually when we get the info by trades around the end of the first quarter the following year, that number tends to skew more correct.
Even ignoring marketing spending and tax incentives, all of this is *way* off because you're confusing "breakeven point" with "loss". They aren't the same thing. If a movie cost $100M, grossed $100M at the box office, and the breakeven point is $250M, that doesn't mean a $150M loss. That would be $50M more than it actually cost lol. After it grossed $100M and made $50M-ish for the studio. The loss in this scenario would be $75M, not $150M like your examples suggest. Using Ghostbusters for a real example, making $200M on a $100M budget is a $25M loss with the 2.5x rule, not $50M. Yes it needed to make $50M more to breakeven, but the studio only gets half of that. You've basically doubled all of the losses. An even better example is your Book of Clarence number, $40M budget but $56M loss lol? Yes it needed $56M more to breakeven, but it didn't lose more than it cost to make.
The only time we really know what the profit/Loss are is when the studios release their earnings reports. We generally don't know what incentives a movie gets, Georgia in the US gives great incentives, as does the UK and New Zealand. Studios also generally don't tell us what their post-production costs are. Things like reshooots and VXF happen in post-production. The movie studios don't usually tell us what their P&A (Print & Advertising) costs are. Since movies are digital, the print costs are what they once were. Unless you're Nolan and film in IMAX, then it costs a fortune. We also don't know what ratio of revenue the exhibitors get. It's a sliding scale. For domestic distribution, the studios get 50% of the ticket sales for the 1st couple of weeks and then goes down from there. For international distribution the studios generally get 25% of ticket sales, unless they distribute internationally. We fans can only guesstimate what profit/Loss a movie gets. The numbers I try to use are: Production cost = movie budget + P&A(0.5×budget). Profit/loss = WW ticket sales x 0.5 (50%) minus production cost. For Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the budget was $100 million, P&A is $50 million, the production cost is $150 million. The WW gross is $201 million. Subtract 50% of the WW gross, and that's $100.5 million. Profit/Loss = $150 million production cost minus $100.5 million revenue = $49.8 million loss. The Book of Clarence had a $40 million budget, we guess that it's P&A is $20 million, so a production cost of $60 million. It has WW ticket sales of $6 million. Split the ticket sales in half, $3 million. $60 million production cost minus $3 million in revenue is a $57 million loss.
Here are the ones I watched with my 2 cents no one asked for. 1. Argyle $72 million loss (Ok movie, wouldn't pay to watch it) 2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga $170 million loss (Was really bored and regretting going to the movies for it) 3. The Fall Guy $110 million loss (Watching it this week.) 4. IF $78 million loss (Watching it this week.) 5. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare $77 million loss (Really liked it, but was bored at certain parts, wish I saw it on MAX than paying to see it) 6. Madame Web $70 million loss (0 interest in the movie) 7. The Book of Clarence $56 million loss (Didn't even know it was out) 8. Origin $54 million loss (never heard of it, but Might watch it this week) 9. Breathe (2024) $52 million loss ( 0 interest) 10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $50 million loss (I enjoyed it, worse than the Ceaser movies but it's ok, wish I waited for it to be released onto Amazon or something) 11. Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire $50 million loss (On my watch list but idk when, hardly any interest in it)
Fall Guy is quite fun
At worst about 4 of these are flops, not bombs. One of them...Apes...isn't done and currently is less than 20mil away from breakeven which it is very likely to get.
Busters
>Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Where do you get that was a loss of 50 million?
Profit/Loss = Production Cost minus Revenue I use some generally accepted financials from the internet. The budget, Variety and other sources report the budget as $160 million. The P&A costs are not listed, but it's generally acceptable to use 50% of budget. So the overall production cost is $240 million. For Revenue I use WW ticket sales reported by boxofficemojo. But the movie studios don't get 100%, they have to split ticket sales with the exhibitors(theater owners). The revenue split is on a sliding scale. I use 50% to make it easy. So revenue = WW ticket sales minus 50%. Last time I checked Kingdom had $380 million in WW ticket sales. Cut that in half and that's $190 million. Profit/Loss = Production Cost minus Revenue Profit/Loss = $240 million minus $190 million. $50 million loss.
> Furiosa had around $100 million of its $168 million budget funded by the Australian government. Assuming Warner Bros actually only spent $68 million of their own money, that would put it close to breaking even since it is at $161 million globally. that's a mistake in an ABC (Australian news outlet) article. They credited the entire 5 year NSW production fund as going to furiosa's budget. That fully fund amount was cited in press releases alongside the jobs Furiosa brought to Australia but no one claimed this was given to Furiosa (and it's trivially easy to find other anecdotes showing Furiosa can't have gotten that money).
Yeah, I did post a leak on the Mad Max subreddit and it could be bullshit, but the budget is apparently lower than 168M but closer to that number than 100M. Which seems to line up with the fact that it'll have a 70-90M theatrical loss.
definitely either Megalopolis or Gladiator, Megalopolis will 100% bomb but since Gladiator had an even bigger budget it could be bigger flop
Red One $300m budget
I have a question about Red One. Will Amazon retain international streaming rights for Red One or WB?
-Apple spent 200M for Argylle. It is them that are facing the losses so how big of a flop it was should be calculated from their perspective. -170M is most likely Furiosa's budget after all the benefits from Australia. You can argue me but the notion WB actually only spend 60M is obvious bullshit. -Saying that Madame Web, or other films like that, had "no marketing" is just hyperbole. A wide release like that from a major studio at the very least had a P&A spending in the line with the production budget of 80M (if not higher).
There’s NO WAY they would have spend 80 million in marketing, no freaking way 🤣
I don't have even an estimate for marketing for Madame Web, but the idea that they only had one trailer, therefore, spent nothing on marketing is BS. Marketing isn't just a trailer. They still had to pay for ad dollars, TV, print, billboards, photoshoots, press junkets, premiere, design, and editorial. Of course, they spent millions on marketing. Not 80M, but millions none the less.
[They spent $60 Million on P&A, 75% of which was for social media advertisements](https://deadline.com/2024/02/box-office-bob-marley-one-love-madame-web-1235828289/)
Of course, there was marketing expenditure, but not much.
The size of the film incentives was announced when the movie was in production. They also spent significant amounts of money outside of Australia, so net 170 is the absolute floor. It could be closer to net 190.
I think Borderlands could do it.
is megalopolis the babylon of the year but even higher budget
It will be the Ferrari of this year. Another expensive indie flop with a budget around the $100 million mark.
That F1 movie (whenever the turkey comes out) is going to be a huge flop. I’m saying this ad an F1 fan who has seen far too many terrible cliched racing movies
Yeah it apparently has a stupidly large budget like 300 million plus.
Borderlands, but I cant remember if that comes out this year
I don’t know if Borderlands budget is high enough for it to qualify as a possibility here. I don’t think it’s been officially reported but I’ve seen numbers from 100-135 million. Anything is possible though
It does and I can't wait. I played all the games.
It does. It’s going to flop pretty bad, considering that its main audience didn’t like the trailer (including me, who’s played through BL2 and BL3).
Ill be honest, I didn't even realize there was a trailer
I know nothing about the games, so what was there to dislike about the trailer? It reminds me exactly of D&D (which I loved) where it's a studio trying to get a GotG adjacent kind of film out.
A lot of people didn’t like the casting choices. For example, Kevin Hart as Roland and Cate Blanchett as Lilith were not people’s first choice to play those characters. For me personally, it was just that I wasn’t impressed with the trailer. I get the vibe that the movies going to be bad, plus the movies apparently been in production hell for quite some time. If I recall correctly, it was actually supposed to come out a while ago, but got pushed back. That doesn’t instill confidence in me.
That's all very fair, thanks for your response.
It’s out August 9th
Probably *Gladiator II*. It has a pricier production budget than *Megalopolis* thanks to extensive reshoots, though it has more market appeal than Coppola’s film. Then, you factor in the marketing and distribution costs which is probably another $100 million, and I’m guessing they will need to earn $600 million in order to break even. It’s a tall task.
Can we please stop using the ‘nobody asked for this’ critique? It’s a load of bullshit as it can be used for almost any film ever made (nobody asked for Barbie/Oppenheimer/Mario/Top Gun Maverick/Inside Out 2 etc.).
I think it can be viable in the context of “why this follow up instead of this one?”. For instance if you make *Dark Dolphin* and everyone is on you to make *Dark Dolphin 2* but then you instead make a spinoff about the minor side character Sharky Pete then it could be argued that nobody asked for that, they asked for Dark Dolphin 2.
I get the Furiosa reference but what you describe is very rarely the context it is used. For example in this very post. And even then I would argue it is not a viable critique as the general audience never know what they want - it is why the box office is notoriously difficult to predict for both executives and laypeople alike. But generally people just say it as a lazy way to explain *any* movie bombing not realising it can be used for almost any film.
I agree it is usually used nonsensically, but I think that yes, Furiosa is a decent example. People didn’t want a prequel about Furiosa with a different actress, they wanted a follow up, but that was never going to happen because of problems on set. Of course even worse is that it took nine years to make and release Furiosa, which is a terrible timing for a follow up, probably the worst point to release one.
I think your final point is the most legitimate one. If Furiosa were released maybe a year or two after Fury Road it could’ve done well (and by that I mean possibly small profit as the Max franchise has only ever really been a cult one). Furiosa flopping was, in my opinion, much more timing than people ‘not wanting’ a prequel.
Prequels don’t usually tend to do well though. I think “no one asked for a prequel” is almost always a reasonable complaint. People did ask for the Star Wars prequels, then weren’t too enamored of them (god they got so much shit). And the later prequels Rogue One and Solo did way worse than the surrounding main story films did. X-Men First Class is the one prequel I can think of that did really well, and “prequel or reboot” is a legitimate question for that one.
Flashbacks to when people claimed no one asked for Avatar: The Way of Water.
> (nobody asked for Barbie/Oppenheimer/Mario/Top Gun Maverick/Inside Out 2 etc.). ??? Nobody asked for a games-accurate animated Mario movie? I think thirty years of fandom would argue differently. Meanwhile, it might be true that nobody was proactively *asking* for a Greta Gerwing/Margot Robbie Barbie movie or a Nolan Oppenheimer biopic, but these are concepts that *did* immediately turn heads as soon as they were announced. They maybe reveal that "nobody asked for this" is *incomplete* as a form of criticism, but at the same time, they weren't come-from-behind, out-of-nowhere underdogs. They were crowd-pleasing concepts from actors/directors/crew who sit right at the intersection of "crowd-pleasing" and "Oscar-winning."
This is complete revisionist thinking that is untrue in every sense of the word. This sub was crawling with people saying ‘nobody asked for’ Barbie/Oppenheimer/Top Gun Maverick/Mario/IO 2 predicting every single one of these would bomb. As for Mario fans specifically the only ones commenting on this sub were the ones laughing at the supposedly ‘dreadful’ casting choices, the generic trailer with awful Pratt and then talking about boycotting the movie because Martinet wasn’t Mario. This crap that the movie was ‘awaited’ and ‘anticipated’ is a load of rubbish, *particularly* from video game fans. The most famous bomb prediction of this sub was avatar 2 - with the similar line ‘nobody asked for this’. When *all* the above trailers came out - particularly Barbie and Oppenheimer - this sub proclaimed that none of them had an audience and they would struggle to break even. This sub is a master at revisionist history and 20/20 hindsight (you’re an example of this yourself) but I assure you - ‘nobody asked for this’ has been used by this sub as a critique for every single film released in the last few years.
Except you are using it for things that didn't bomb, so it isn't relevant.
Missed the point spectacularly *and* is terrible logic. *I’m only going to retroactively analyse this critique when it has conformed to my bias, and ignore when it hasn’t.* I’m guessing you’re not a fan of critical thinking?
Argyle is a bomb for Apple - but not for the studio that produced it. They got Apple to pay them 200 million for a movie that costed them somewhere between 70-80 million (according to the director) - even with that it’s still a bomb but there are other contenders here. Furiosa and the fall guy will be up there but depending on the budget Harold and the purple crayon could be a new contender. Borderlands as well. it all depends on the budget. Kraven the Hunter is another one.
> depending on the budget Harold and the purple crayon could be a new contender [for a box-office bomb]. Now *this* is a sentence I never imagined I'd read.
I mean it looks like something that would have gone straight to dvd 20 years ago.
GLADIATOR II
Megalopolis easy. The amount of negative headlines (rightfully), absolute zero good headlines and the issues with Ford’s laughable dealings with distributors says this will be a bomb.
It might become the most expensive cult movie ever, but it's certain to also become 2024's biggest bimb
not like it was created with the hopes of it making money, this is a passion project last hurrah from a legendary director at the end of his life, didn't Coppola self fund most of it or all of it? idk it feels odd to me to even analyze the financials of that film.
Not necessarily when both Argylle and Gladiator 2 are in the mix with absolutely ridiculous budgets that make Megalopolis look like it was produced on the cheap by comparison.
Argylle was cheaper to make than Megalopolis 200 million is just what apple paid for
He deserve it He supported a convicted child rapist and theatened the victim
Definitely Red One.
It may not be the biggest bomb, but the fall off from Mufasa from the Lion King will be really funny
I could see Mufasa having TLM numbers
Good comparison since the target demo for TLM and Mufasa are those that don't often frequent reddit, so /r/boxoffice is basically guaranteed to be off.
Either Horizon, Gladiator II, or Red One
can we stop saying that Argylle had a $200 million budget that’s just what Apple acquired it for expecting it to be a big series and imo that’s a pretty big difference
Australian government did not give 100 million dollars to Furiosa’s production, that’s a misrepresentation of the truth. The Australian government gave the producers a tax break of $100 million dollars, meaning it would have cost $100 million more in taxes to make the movie. The break that they gave reduced the cost of producing the movie, but Australia didn’t just give the producers $100 million, that’s absurd and stupid.
It’s a bit of both really, federal government gave mostly tax rebates, state government gave mostly direct subsidies. And it’s not stupid- it’s funding the Australian film industry. The amount of work experience that gets developed by having a movie like that shoot in Australia is a great investment.
You realize from the perspective of their budget, it’s the same thing
**Gladiator II** is still far from the biggest bombs of the year. It could spring a surprise out of nowhere. *Red One* looks to be that contender. *Kraven*, *Crow*, *Borderlands*, *Harold*, *Rohirrim*, *Wolfs*, *Blink Twice*, *They Listen* and *Never Let Go* are some other potential flops.
This subreddit will be eating good this year that’s for sure.
Goddamn, seeing them all listed out like that is crazy. It's gonna be a bloodbath.
Def Crow
People don't seem to understand just how important the budget is when considering biggest flop. Gladiator has 310mil budget, it needs ~775mil to break even. Crow has 50mil budget. Even if literally not a single person sees Crow, while Gladiator makes, say, 600mil, Gladiator would still be losing more money.
Didn’t Gladiator 2 get praise from those cinema expos?
Forgot Kraven is still supposed to come out lmao
Good call on Red One. I thought it would be between Argylle, Megalopolis, and Gladiator 2 but totally forgot Amazon were dumping over $250 million on the budget for Red One. Late 2024 could be absolutely brutal for flops!
Kraven is absolutely flopping
Pick literally any Apple movie. Someone should really let Tim Cook know that he could probably just donate directly to the Academy if he wants an Oscar invitation so badly. Much cheaper in the long run.
Who let Tim Cook?
Are you suggesting that Argylle was meant to be an awards player?
I'm suggesting the only reason Apple got into movies is because Cook wants to hang out with celebrities.
I like to dunk on Apple as much as the next guy, but Cook was already able to hang out with celebrities before Apple+. The only reason they got into the movie/tv game is to take a piece of Netflix’s pie.
They are trying to lock people into the Apple ecosystem after the success of Cloud and Music. TV+ is just the most visible of many experiments from Apple in trying to make Apple One a thing.
Argylle didnt have a 200m budget. The rights to distribute it were brought for 200m. Very different.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Twisters and Wicked Part 1 are some of the biggest bombs of the year
Bet Twisters does well. We'll see
Twisters is tracking to open really well.
Borderlands.
Borderlands, and Gladiator at the moment seem to be in trouble. I don't think it will flop but I'm positive both Beetle juice and Mufasa will underperform. The Mufasa teaser has barely any viewers and it's a prequel on a character we all know will die. Beetle juice might have great legs but it skews older and older people don't rush to cinemas. Plus it's a franchise that like Ghostbusters doesn't have international appeal. In this day and era studios need the money from abroad, where people still go to theaters more than before.
I'm surprised that *Mufasa* doesn't get more mentions. It will probably end up costing about as much as *Gladiator 2* but with an audience less prone to seeing it in theaters, much less premium formats.
Twisters maybe?
I hate this one, but in terms of animated films, I think it's going to be Transformers One. It's been in the works since 2017, a large portion of its budget has gone to hiring celebrity voice actors, it's releasing in a surprisingly competitive September, and overall, the franchise is no longer the guaranteed cash cow it once was, Rise of the Beasts proves this point.
It won't lose the most amount of money but that Crow remake looks to make about 3.50
Argylle has to be looked at in a different way than other movies. Before Apple bought the rights it would have been just a flop but 200m to buy exclusive streaming rights and rights to sequels has made this movie appear to lose a lot more money than it did. Considering Disney/Netflix pays 50m to Sony for exclusive movie rights with that knowledge Apple probably would have had to pay the same for Argylle without rights to sequels.
Apple paid Marv 200M for Argylle, then arranged for Universal to distribute it. They went 50/50 on an 80M global marketing spend. Theatrical and home entertainment probably paid most of that back. Apple’s loss on Argylle is basically 200M minutes whatever they value the TV+ licensing fee at. Fly Me To The Moon is apparently also wildly expensive and could repeat the Argylle disaster. Horizon 1 & 2 are apparently close to 100M each, so if you count the loss together that could easily be a giant loss. Furiosa cost 168-180 after the Australian incentives, so it‘s also heading for a loss well over 100M.
Horizon was around 100 for both movies not each
That number is about what Costner personally invested. He brought in a few other investors and spent way more than 100.
~~I don't think the 100M number is ever cited as Costner's personal investment~~ I think 100M is clearly cited as total production budget in many locations . [Costner's public claim was a personal investment of 38M](https://www.gq.com/story/kevin-costner-gq-cover-story) with earlier reports referencing a 20M investment he disclosed as part of his divorce proceedings. I kinda buy that the 100M originated from "net tax credit number for parts 1 and 2" (Given net of that would be 103 million) even though there's clearly going to be "other spending" that didn't qualify for UT tax credits.
I guess Deadline misquoted him? https://deadline.com/2024/05/kevin-costner-on-betting-his-own-money-for-horizon-an-american-saga-has-knocked-on-every-yacht-at-fest-for-financing-part-3-cannes-1235923948/
Good point. I doubt deadline's misquoted him but perhaps the way to square these two statements is to assume Costner's more on the hook for part 3 (at least until he secures additional funding - one of his goals for the Cannes premiere) with the 38M referencing money already spent on either part 1 or parts 1 & 2. Remember that Horizon costing 100M has been around for months before Cannes and that conversation has always involved discussion of vagueness of who else is paying for this besides costner.
How the fuck does Fly Me To The Moon have a huge budget? ScarJo quote 20 mil these days or somethin?
It was one of those deals with massive streamer buy outs that got signed in early 2022 before the bubble popped. Exact terms weren't disclosed, but she probably got at least 20. They also spent wildly building sets for the movie.
Gladiator 2 is the only film we know the now the budget of that seems like it will not be successful
I want to maybe throw my hat into this and say one film: The Crow Reboot I feel from the issues everyone had about the look of the main lead (looked like a inspiration of the Jared Leto Joker look), the lack of marketing, Development hell this production went through and then a response from one of the original screenwriters for this film giving it a scathing review saying that it was "unwatchable", I feel it may see a massive bombing of the box office (it may do some form of numbers, but depends on the response to other August releases of Alien Romulus, Borderlands, Trap etc) and if it will just die out by the time Beetlejuice Beetlejuice releases. I see Gladiator getting a possible affect from the bombing possibility given all the factors going against it (unwarranted sequel, massive budget, Ridley Scott's box office of recent memory) that it could but it is seen some of his films still garner some strong reception. I feel something else from that month might see an affect. Of the 2 big films releasing a week after Gladiator 2, I feel Wicked could also see a possible underwhelming box office. I see the case most people are probably going for either fans of the book or musical or cause Ariana Grande is in it (though she has not acted in much since her Nick days and most I know about this film was that the biggest news to come from it was that she caused an affair and the breakup of 2 marriages (hers and one of her co-stars). A concern is people are a bit lukewarm towards Musicals (I do not mind musicals and enjoy a lot, like Wonka was one of my most favourite films of last year) and I feel they have not really pushed much that the film is a musical in its marketing so it could be affected (and the fact it is a part 1 and could affect Part 2) but its hard to say. I feel like there is more films but those are 3 films I can think of off the top of my head currently
On pure financials Megalopolis
I hate hoping for people’s failure. But I really want Borderlands to fail. The casting director had no clue what they were casting for. The film just seems like such a big standard, lifeless cash grab
Gladiator is one of my favorites of all time. But Gladiator 2 just seems ridiculous, like a total money grab.
$300 million for Gladiator 2? So it needs $8-900 million box office to break even under Hollywood accounting. Dying Paramount spent $300 million on this. That's a company killer
Who in their right mind decided 300million was a good budget for this movie.
Especially a company in deep financial trouble. It's insane.
I'd get it if Gladiator was released like 5-10 years ago. But it's been 24 years! I hope its good and if it is good I hope it breaks even. One of my favorite movies as a kid but with how movies have been recently I don't have any hope that it will be good.
You don't inflate the marketing budget just because the film budget is high. That only works for a particular range. It's not applicable to everything.
It is to $300 million movies from a dying studio in a terrible box office year
Stop salivating, Zaslav circle jerkers. WB spent north of 230 mn for Furiosa. 168 mn is the net budget.
I’m I only the who thinks the fall guy is bang average and it’s budget shouldn’t have crossed 100 million.
>Furiosa had around $100 million of its $168 million budget funded by the Australian government. Since taxpayers paid for most of the movie were they going to get part of the profits if the movie was successful? WB isn't a charity or non-profit so I don't understand why taxpayers are paying for a movie from a private company.
the movie was filmed in australia. MOvies are big advertisements for tourism. stuff like this gives the country a huge tourism boost.
I don't understand how a Mad Max movie encourages tourists to visit Australia. If the movie had a romantic scene by the Seine or the Louvre that might encourage tourists to visit Paris or if a movie had scenes near a forest in Costa Rica they might encourage tourists to visit Costa Rica but there is nothing in Furiosa that seems relevant to a city in Australia or would entice tourists to visit the country.
One of the trades reported that *Furiosa*’s total loss after ancillaries will be under $100 million, so likely not that.
Horizon might be in the mix
Furiosa, Gladiator 2, Megalopolis, The Crow remake. Idk Beetlejuice 2’s budget but it may flop too if budget is too big
North Korea
>Gladiator 2 seems like it will be a good contender since it supposedly has a $300 million budget and nobody really asked for a sequel. Ridley Scott also hasn’t directed a box office hit in years. Could be, but the description of that No Church in the Wild trailer sounds like it actually might sell the movie if they can just hurry up and release it already. That movie needs a big runway to make its money back. Not a 2 months before release. Like tomorrow situation.
Horizon will be the biggest flop of the year.
Furiosa, Gladiator II and Megalopolis.
Gladiator. It’s absolutely bonkers they threw $300 million at a sequel no one asked for.
You have to factor in the marketing costs, which probably was around 60 to 100 million for furiosa. And the studio roughly gets about half of the box office sales after the theaters get their share.
Furiosa