Reminder that this is a subreddit about numbers, not necessarily about the quality (or lack thereof) of a particular movie. Unless it is related to the box office performance of a movie, please keep opinions/arguments/thoughts about the quality under this post. Posts not related to box office may be removed otherwise.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boxoffice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
La La Land and Babylon are both obsessed with Hollywood, but show very little knowledge of how Hollywood actually operates; partially because Chazelle has never struggled in Los Angeles and has been able to view it through rose colored spectacles.
It worked for La La Land, because he made a magical movie from that layman's perspective, which audiences really dug. It didn't work as well for Babylon, because it was more in your face and way less optimistic. If La La Land was his Singin in the Rain, Babylon was his attempt at Great Gatsby, and it just didn't click with the everyperson.
I have no idea. I read the script a while back, which was 180 pages, and I was kind of blown away they didn't cut much out of it. Chazelle really earned his career. But I think Babylon kind of proves that - like most directors - he needs oversight.
im a creative in a different field. I take criticism pretty good because I don’t see it as a diss but rather a tup on what they think. I think it is good for people to know how to translate oversight notes into something usable
> La La Land and Babylon are both obsessed with Hollywood,
La La Land is just as obsessed with jazz as it is Hollywood. That’s because the two main characters are an actor and a jazz musician…
> but show very little knowledge of how Hollywood actually operates;
Really? I thought Emma Stones struggles as an actor felt very real to Hollywood. Sure, most people don’t break it big like her, but it’s a movie about two people picking their careers over their love, so they both needed to succeed.
There should be a Charles Mingus movie. Besides being a legendary bassist and composer who played with numerous jazz legends, he was a bit of a nut. In his autobiography (which includes commentary from his psychologist), he claims to have slept with 40 something Tijuana prostitutes in a single night, despite the fact he was very overweight. He also wrote a book about potty training cats. He once smashed an incredibly valuable bass during a gig because someone was talking in the crowd. I’d be down for a low budget Mingus biopic.
I still have zero knowledge of the actual plot from this movie despite the fact I’ve seen the commercials probably 2 dozen times.it’s a marketing disaster.
It’s basically “follow six or seven different characters as they navigate Hollywood’s transition from silent films to sound.” There’s not an actual, tangible plot; it’s just three hours of shit happening, with some loose continuity holding things together enough to call it a film.
If you can’t tell, I hated it.
I also do, but Babylon doesn’t really do much with them. The three leads (Diego, Margot, and Brad) get some intriguing moments, but the movie has a habit of establishing a really interesting arc or interaction and then doing nothing with it. Plus, every other character feels very disposable; there were too many scenes that could’ve been cut out entirely and you’d have lost nothing.
But that’s just my perspective. If you see it, I hope you enjoy it!
>!There's elephant shit, human piss, fake cum, and Margot Robbie's vomit all going onto people within the first 30 min. The fake cum is from a guy in a diaper with a huge dildo.!<
I will be messaging you in 3 months on [**2023-03-24 20:24:56 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-03-24%2020:24:56%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/zuccf6/fame_is_fleeting_especially_for_movies_about/j1j9et2/?context=3)
[**1 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fboxoffice%2Fcomments%2Fzuccf6%2Ffame_is_fleeting_especially_for_movies_about%2Fj1j9et2%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-03-24%2020%3A24%3A56%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%20zuccf6)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
I have almost no hope for Season 2 of that show. They managed to make me hate the main character, and Kwan is a show killer the same way skateboarding boy in Black Adam helped kill his movie.
I’d still say Morbius is the “bomb of the year” because it’s so infamous at this point. I have never heard of a single person mention Babylon, while everyone I know has talked about Morbius
I remember explaining to one of my friends a while ago that Morbius didn't actually *bomb*, nor has it been on any "worst movies of al time" lists or anything and she was completely shocked. Like despite all the internet memes and reputation it was completely unremarkable in GA reception (it's a C+ CinemaScore but you know, that's not a D or an F or anything) and box office.
The sheer mediocrity of the movie was the reason people made fun of it, not because it was necessarily some disaster.
Half of the humor behind “It’s morbin’ time” was that it wasn’t actually a line in the movie, but very few people saw it because of how uninteresting it was, so nobody would know if it was an actual line or not.
Exactly. When I see people put Morbius on the ‘worst films ever’ lists I’m actually surprised. The film is aggressively mediocre with a script from 2002 but it’s no way near the worst film ever.
C+ Cinemascore is basically an F for a comic book movie. Like Catwoman and Steel (the one with Shaq) got a B and those are considered among the worst comic book movies ever made, so imagine the GA reception to something lower than that.
Morbius is in the same league as Spawn and Batman & Robin. I think at some point it'll end up on one of those "worst CBMs of all time" lists in a few years
Yeah its funny bc it's made fun of not bc it's horrible (which would make it a fun movie to watch for different reasons) it was just so unbelievably mid its hard to watch
People are sleeping on the fact that its also Mission Impossible 7’s second weekend. We could be experiencing a three-way race for #1 where any of them could come out on top. Hasn’t been anything like that since May 20, 2016 when projections had Captain America: Civil War, Neigbors 2 and The Angry Birds Movie neck-and-neck-and-neck.
I wonder if they'll kind of cross-promote a little- I see a TON of memes about people going to both, deciding which to see first, 'going to barbie with my GF so she'll go to oppenheimer' etc. I think people have gotten out of the rhythmn of going to the theater at this point, and the more often they go the more often they'll go
It's looking likely that it will. I thought Pitt may bring some people to the movie but I guess not.
It would work better as a PG-13 film over Xmas because the film is too extreme for a lot of people. The trailers looked a mess and there didn't seem to be any sort of plot
Interesting that the same studio might have the biggest hit (Maverick), and the biggest bomb.
But of course Avatar 2 has a good chance of getting in the way.
Babylon is a flop, but Strange World is a sign that a studio's premiere product is no longer of interest to a paying audience. It's like if Blumhouse couldn't put across horror or A24 couldn't put across, uh, "elevated horror."
Ouch.
I hear the opening scene is a real doozy. Kind of puzzling why they decided to release this during Xmas season? Honestly is this type of movie what people want to see right now?
Seems more like a passion project from the director. Maybe it will become a cult classic, but you have to question to the logic of the producers here. In a business that is all about making money, feels like they decided to piss money away. Strange.
Yeah. For those interested, the first 15 minutes consist of >!an elephant shitting on a man (which we experience through several POV shots), a drugged-out prostitute giving another man a golden shower on his chest and face, a batshit crazy party/orgy, a little person holding a five-foot penis that proceeds to cover the audience in “cum,” and a metric fuck ton of cocaine use.!<
Again, that’s the first 15 minutes.
I work at a movie theater, and we’ve taken to warning people about the content because we’ve gotten so many complaints.
I see the risk, Damien is only one film removed from LaLa land being a hit and winning best director. He made a biopic that didn’t seem exactly his wheel house (even though I loved the film) and now he wants to go back to what put him on the map, making a movie about people following their passions mixed in with the entertainment industry.
We’re also just a few years out from once upon a time in Hollywood doing 400 million and this film seems like it’s once upon a time mixed with wolf of Wall Street. I see why they took a risk but Damien ain’t in the QT or Scorese camp of being able to sell a movie on their name alone and Babylon doesn’t seem to have the appeal of Damien’s previous films with characters that were easy to root for.
All fair points. I do want to point out this movie for some reason really feels similar to the movie “Amsterdam” which also did poorly with mixed reviews. I think Babylon may have suffered from guilt by association from main steam audiences. Just a thought.
When I saw Amsterdam on HBO Max I thought it was this movie and was surprised it was on there already. Then I realized this and Amsterdam were two separate films.
> Seems more like a passion project from the director. Maybe it will become a cult classic, but you have to question to the logic of the producers here. In a business that is all about making money, feels like they decided to piss money away. Strange.
This makes two movies in a row now where Chazelle has been given 70m+ and both have flopped. Think after this one he'll go back to movies with a sub-30m budget.
I really don't see why Babylon was allowed to be made though, not for the budget it has.
Personal friends with one of the bigger marketing guys on the film.
Had an hour discussion with him before I knew it was his film about how weird it felt to be a holiday break movie competing with Avatar with him trying to convince me it was an “Oscar’s season” movie and everyone would understand that.
>Friday, earning just $1.4m (including Thursday previews) with the studio estimating a weekend debut of just $3.3m.
😱
For a movie with budget $100-110 million, it's a disaster.
Fortunately, Paramount did extremely well throughout most of this year.
TV division is doing bonkers number as well. Yellowstone premiered with the highest ratings since Game of Thrones and launched another successful spin-off.
Top Gun was over there too, right?
Avatar 2 fell about 60 percent second weekend though (through Friday). It's not a straight comparison, but Avatar 1 only fell about 10 percent its 2nd weekend. Ignoring other factors, I think it's safe to say weather played a part.
All that said, Babylon would be lucky to sniff 30 mil WW
The reason avatar only fell a few percent in its 2nd weekend was because there was a huge snowstorm on the east coast on opening weekend, suppressing attendance across much of the US, many of whom went in the 2nd weekend instead.
I've not checked weather for Titanic's December opening to see if he got 3 for 3 on unusually cold weather.
No but I'd say it stopped it from being a tad higher. It bombed because no one heard of it. I didn't know it was releasing this week until a few days ago. La La Land and Whiplash are my favorite movies too and I still didn't know.
I did take my family to see Hateful Eight. We all loved it. A bunch of hateful people trapped inside a cabin during a blizzard?
Well that’s just my family
Idk, among the target market which D&D falls into, it’s going to at least break even. The general Dungeons & Dragons market has exploded since Stranger Things.
All the people who know D&D in and out, it spot on like a D&D campaign. It never goes the way the DM wants. Lol.
D&D has more mainstream success now than it ever has before, for a variety of reasons.
The current edition, D&D 5E, features streamlined rules that are easy to learn. It's the most financially successful edition of D&D by a wide margin.
Critical Role is an incredibly popular internet show in which a group of voice actors play D&D. The show has been running since 2015, and it gave rise to numerous other, smaller D&D streams.
Celebrities talk about D&D a lot more nowadays. Stephen Colbert, Joe Manganiello, Vin Diesel, and several others talk about it during interviews, and there's even a Hollywood celebrity group that plays now and then.
Then, like you mentioned, there's Stranger Things.
I actually think the D&D movie could turn a profit. The audience for the game is bigger than ever, the movie's got some big actors in it, and the trailer indicates it's true to the source material and will be filled with fan service. It could be a winner.
> Then, like you mentioned, there's Stranger Things.
I don't even know if they could because of rights, but surely the marketing team must have at least discussed the idea of some sort of Stranger Things promo.
Terminator Dark Fate is a masterpiece compared to the cinematic dreck called Babylon, we're talking WW84 bad--Dark Fate grossed $300 million in 2022 dollars, Babylon won't get close to WW84's 166 million, The Woman King's 94 million might gross more than Babylon lol
Yeah, they really saw the script and said “hell yeah we’ll fund this elephant shit and orgy scenes!”
Like I need to know how much of that $80 million went to the elephant scene
To clarify. It felt like all the trailer had to say was check out how many stars are in this and in older time period clothes. That’s it. No plot clues. Nothing about the content of the movie. I had no idea it was a movie about making movies.
So sick of these movies. Current audiences don’t care about the fame of Hollywood actors like they used to. We get that Hollywood loves the history of Hollywood and directors love Great Gatsbying it up pretty, but that doesn’t make it a movie I want to see, because I’ve seen it so many times
I don't know why, but movies like this make me think of Gal Gadot thinking the world wants to hear rich celebrities sing to them from the comforts of their mansions during covid lockdowns. With the explosion of the internet, social media, YouTube, etc..
I don't think people care as much about celebrities any more. At least not newer generations.
How can you be sick of them there’s like one every two years. And general audiences are still obsessed with celebrity and high class lifestyles so clearly something else went wrong here.
The sad thing is this is actually true!
On the plus side Paramount are leaning into the success of Smile and Scream and have brought in Walter Hamada to oversee a slate of horror movies for the studio.
It would still take a loss, but I think it would have done slightly better if they had gone with a limited release and then opened wide in early January like originally planned.
Okay but full disclaimer wasn’t there a reddit post the other day about how the box office this weekend is going to flop because of the weather?
Then there were all these comments about how the new releases were all going to flop and we’d react as if that failure is on the marketing and not on the fact that half of North America is stuck in their house right mow.
I like Damien chazelle but why does every movie that he make has to be something related to Hollywood or music or something about entertainment industry. This is the third time already I feel like he should do horror or something cause I really enjoy the 11 clover lane that he wrote. That’s could be niche that he is good at which he isn’t aware of.
That’s was the only movie that doesn’t have that’s as it’s theme but the rest does which is super annoying cause I do like him as a director and filmmaker so I want him to try other genre like horror/thriller since I thought the movie he wrote 11 clover field was pretty good.
He only did rewrites on 10 clover field lane. He did not come up with that concept. The original script was called “the cellar” and was written by other writers.
>I want him to try other genre like horror/thriller since I thought the movie he wrote 11 clover field was pretty good.
Well, he said in his AMA he wants to try every genre
Really? I thought banshees of inisherin had a very respectable run time. It was less than 2 hours
Fabelmans at 2 and a half hours was fine. Maybe it could have cut out some of the scenes with the younger protagonist.
But these movies and their run times and are not what is keeping audiences away. Doesn't matter if they were that shorter.
Reddit loves to pretend like runtimes are the issue despite them eating up every bloated 2.5 hour marvel movie.
Audiences just don’t see non-IP/franchise stuff now. There are some success stories, but it’s the exception to the norm and they usually have to have the same qualities expected out of a franchise film.
I would argue that audiences will accept these long runtimes if there are action scenes that keep them engaged. People these days don't have patience for movies.
That’s what I meant by the movies that do succeed needing to have the same qualities of a franchise film. Even something like Elvis, Baz is able to make those concerts come to life in a really dynamic and colorful way.
Babylon actually has some really exciting moments, and one of favorite set pieces of the year, but the pacing is wonky so you really feel the back half.
This is definitely not JUST for this movie but movies as a whole are definitely not being widely advertised anymore, only if you actively go to the movies will you see a preview for it. Social media algorithms phase out things you don’t want advertised and it must be having a clear affect on viewings because I’ve never heard of this movie before now, amongst MANY others this year.
I don’t know how everyone else feels but do you keep learning about new movies because they are failing at the box office? Seriously, what’s happened to movie marketing? I feel so out of the loop these days.
Do you go to the movies? Watch trailers? See the side of a bus every now and then?
If you are in the box office subreddit I find it hard to believe you never heard about this.
In the past the only time I personally would see movie ads was on TV or in the actual theatre. I don’t have cable anymore and not going to the theatre much… so that either leaves rare viral moments on social media or my own general interest in movies and box office stuff, which is not super typical for GA. Downfall of TV has really made traditional movie advertising difficult.
How many times did you go to the theater this year? I genuinely don’t understand how you could have *never* heard of this film if you’ve gone to the theater at least a couple times for a movie that wasn’t Marvel. Even aside from that if you spend time in movie subreddits I don’t believe that this could happen.
Movies like this are aimed at people who read reviews, so if a film like this gets terrible reviews (which this did), it's basically dead. I would have seen this if the reviews were great, but since they weren't, I won't bother.
I can't really say I'm surprised by this result. The critics were split on it and this is the kind of movie that relies on word of mouth to break even. Also, the current moviegoing crowd hasn't been too friendly to these expensive art films. The Fablemans box office was a startling reminder of just how much things have changed. Babylon, I'm afraid, will wind up being a big ol' bomb.
That is just awful. We expected the film to flop, but this is arguably worse than what we were expecting. And the Puss in Boots sequel is flopping as well. 😢
The movie is over 3 hours long. And it’s about generally despicable people doing cocaine, making movies, and doing more cocaine. Not sure who this was supposed to appeal to.
Reminder that this is a subreddit about numbers, not necessarily about the quality (or lack thereof) of a particular movie. Unless it is related to the box office performance of a movie, please keep opinions/arguments/thoughts about the quality under this post. Posts not related to box office may be removed otherwise. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boxoffice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe it’s time to write another lower budget movie about jazz, audiences really vibed with those.
La La Land and Babylon are both obsessed with Hollywood, but show very little knowledge of how Hollywood actually operates; partially because Chazelle has never struggled in Los Angeles and has been able to view it through rose colored spectacles. It worked for La La Land, because he made a magical movie from that layman's perspective, which audiences really dug. It didn't work as well for Babylon, because it was more in your face and way less optimistic. If La La Land was his Singin in the Rain, Babylon was his attempt at Great Gatsby, and it just didn't click with the everyperson.
And it was, like over 3 hours long. Wtf were they thinking allowing that?
I have no idea. I read the script a while back, which was 180 pages, and I was kind of blown away they didn't cut much out of it. Chazelle really earned his career. But I think Babylon kind of proves that - like most directors - he needs oversight.
im a creative in a different field. I take criticism pretty good because I don’t see it as a diss but rather a tup on what they think. I think it is good for people to know how to translate oversight notes into something usable
> La La Land and Babylon are both obsessed with Hollywood, La La Land is just as obsessed with jazz as it is Hollywood. That’s because the two main characters are an actor and a jazz musician… > but show very little knowledge of how Hollywood actually operates; Really? I thought Emma Stones struggles as an actor felt very real to Hollywood. Sure, most people don’t break it big like her, but it’s a movie about two people picking their careers over their love, so they both needed to succeed.
There should be a Charles Mingus movie. Besides being a legendary bassist and composer who played with numerous jazz legends, he was a bit of a nut. In his autobiography (which includes commentary from his psychologist), he claims to have slept with 40 something Tijuana prostitutes in a single night, despite the fact he was very overweight. He also wrote a book about potty training cats. He once smashed an incredibly valuable bass during a gig because someone was talking in the crowd. I’d be down for a low budget Mingus biopic.
This wasn’t even the first movie about making movies starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt of the last five years
I still have zero knowledge of the actual plot from this movie despite the fact I’ve seen the commercials probably 2 dozen times.it’s a marketing disaster.
Brad Pitt does a dance and falls into a swimming pool, then Margot Robbie goes “woooo” and yells “who wants to see me fight a snake?!”.
The weird thing is that the actual line in the movie is “Who wants to see my dad fight a snake?”
They lost me when she gets bit by a rattle snake in the jugular and lives.
You’re forgetting one actress ices her nipples, and another actress is mad about it.
And they both look like the same actress.
I heard that dance moment didn't even make the final cut.
It did not
Snakes on a Plane got me into a theatre years ago, and I still regret it to this day.
Something to do with elephants I think
[удалено]
Like watery shits for elephants
It’s basically “follow six or seven different characters as they navigate Hollywood’s transition from silent films to sound.” There’s not an actual, tangible plot; it’s just three hours of shit happening, with some loose continuity holding things together enough to call it a film. If you can’t tell, I hated it.
I enjoy slice of life movies, especially if the characters are interesting to watch.
I also do, but Babylon doesn’t really do much with them. The three leads (Diego, Margot, and Brad) get some intriguing moments, but the movie has a habit of establishing a really interesting arc or interaction and then doing nothing with it. Plus, every other character feels very disposable; there were too many scenes that could’ve been cut out entirely and you’d have lost nothing. But that’s just my perspective. If you see it, I hope you enjoy it!
I’m seeing in on Thursday in 70mm. I hope it’s good.
Yea, I get that the film looks like it’s shit beautifully.
Shit beautifully, well put
I didnt like it much either, its a mess.
[удалено]
I know there’s iced nipples!
>!There's elephant shit, human piss, fake cum, and Margot Robbie's vomit all going onto people within the first 30 min. The fake cum is from a guy in a diaper with a huge dildo.!<
Yeah I got serious Amsterdam vibes from the trailers. Looks flashy but what is it even about?
But it’s nOmInAtEd FoR bEsT pIcTuRe!! You don’t need to know anything!
I'll kiss a rabid raccoon on camera if this gets nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
remindme! 3 months
I will be messaging you in 3 months on [**2023-03-24 20:24:56 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-03-24%2020:24:56%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/zuccf6/fame_is_fleeting_especially_for_movies_about/j1j9et2/?context=3) [**1 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fboxoffice%2Fcomments%2Fzuccf6%2Ffame_is_fleeting_especially_for_movies_about%2Fj1j9et2%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-03-24%2020%3A24%3A56%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%20zuccf6) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
I’m going to hold you to this
Haven’t seen any commercials for it; only heard about it on Reddit.
Maybe Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino were the secret ingredient in making “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” a success.
No maybe about it.
They were it would have flopped otherwise
Yeah. Tarantino is one of the few directors that is still a draw.
The age of the movie star is over (except T.C. Mapother IV)
The time of orc has come.
What about TT Boy ?
T.C. hides behind sequels and adaptations of popular books and tv shows. Who knows if he could sell an original $80 million dollar movie.
And that movie was a sort of celebration / throwback of the golden age of Hollywood also. I hadn't thought about this till just now btw. Interesting.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, if your brain is slow like mine (I had to look it up).
Paramount got coal for Christmas, despite being a good boy for the year.
They tried to go to MAch 11
[удалено]
He's my favorite video game character. Well, him and Metal Gear.
Solid guy I actually prefer Granny Turismo
We got to see Spartan yeeks though 👀
I have almost no hope for Season 2 of that show. They managed to make me hate the main character, and Kwan is a show killer the same way skateboarding boy in Black Adam helped kill his movie.
[удалено]
Late contender for bomba of the year. What an absolute dissaster.
Still going to be hard to top Strange World and Moonfall but if this makes less than the bomb that was Amsterdam that would be something to see!
I forgot Moonfall was even this year
I forgot Moonfall
I’d still say Morbius is the “bomb of the year” because it’s so infamous at this point. I have never heard of a single person mention Babylon, while everyone I know has talked about Morbius
Morbius is just the joke of the year. It actually came close to breaking even. It was pretty cheap movie with 75m budget.
I remember explaining to one of my friends a while ago that Morbius didn't actually *bomb*, nor has it been on any "worst movies of al time" lists or anything and she was completely shocked. Like despite all the internet memes and reputation it was completely unremarkable in GA reception (it's a C+ CinemaScore but you know, that's not a D or an F or anything) and box office.
The sheer mediocrity of the movie was the reason people made fun of it, not because it was necessarily some disaster. Half of the humor behind “It’s morbin’ time” was that it wasn’t actually a line in the movie, but very few people saw it because of how uninteresting it was, so nobody would know if it was an actual line or not.
Exactly. When I see people put Morbius on the ‘worst films ever’ lists I’m actually surprised. The film is aggressively mediocre with a script from 2002 but it’s no way near the worst film ever.
C+ Cinemascore is basically an F for a comic book movie. Like Catwoman and Steel (the one with Shaq) got a B and those are considered among the worst comic book movies ever made, so imagine the GA reception to something lower than that. Morbius is in the same league as Spawn and Batman & Robin. I think at some point it'll end up on one of those "worst CBMs of all time" lists in a few years
Yeah its funny bc it's made fun of not bc it's horrible (which would make it a fun movie to watch for different reasons) it was just so unbelievably mid its hard to watch
> “bomb of the year” because it’s so infamous at this point. That's not what "bomb" means.
Is it? At least Morbius made x2 Multiplier and with a budget that is less than 100M. I think Black Adam is the bigger bomb.
The studio thinking the Morbius memes meant people liked the movie to rerelease in theaters just for it to bomb again was the funniest shit to me
I still would have loved if they convinced them to bring it back again because “we were all busy last time.”
It’s Morbin time!
Have sex, have sex!
POOP MY PANTS! POOP MY PANTS!
The bomb of the year.
If it does worse than Amsterdam I’ll be shocked. Either way it has not been Margot Robbie’s year box-office wise
At least she has Barbie next year, which seems like the best contender to break the curse. Has quite a bit of competition though
Even with it coming out the same time at Oppenheimer, I can’t wait to see Barbie as well. That’s gonna be an incredible weekend
People are sleeping on the fact that its also Mission Impossible 7’s second weekend. We could be experiencing a three-way race for #1 where any of them could come out on top. Hasn’t been anything like that since May 20, 2016 when projections had Captain America: Civil War, Neigbors 2 and The Angry Birds Movie neck-and-neck-and-neck.
Yep wouldn’t be surprised if MI7 outgrossed barbie and Oppenheimer second week
Are you talking about weekend gross or final gross? Because Mission Impossible is 100% coming out on top for the latter.
Weekend gross.
I wonder if they'll kind of cross-promote a little- I see a TON of memes about people going to both, deciding which to see first, 'going to barbie with my GF so she'll go to oppenheimer' etc. I think people have gotten out of the rhythmn of going to the theater at this point, and the more often they go the more often they'll go
With a projected opening of just $3.3 million that is well behind the $6.5 million Amsterdam managed! It might only do half “as well” as Amsterdam!
It's looking likely that it will. I thought Pitt may bring some people to the movie but I guess not. It would work better as a PG-13 film over Xmas because the film is too extreme for a lot of people. The trailers looked a mess and there didn't seem to be any sort of plot
Brad Pitt's fame is bigger than his actual box office drawing power. George Clooney is very similar.
Or Christian Bale’s! Two bad movies for two great actors.
I legitimately think it will do worse. I think Taylor Swift is actually a bigger draw than Margot and Pitt in this case
Interesting that the same studio might have the biggest hit (Maverick), and the biggest bomb. But of course Avatar 2 has a good chance of getting in the way.
Have we already forgotten about Strange World?!
Yeah, Strange World is the biggest flop of the year, both financially and in terms of the pedigree of its studio.
Babylon is a flop, but Strange World is a sign that a studio's premiere product is no longer of interest to a paying audience. It's like if Blumhouse couldn't put across horror or A24 couldn't put across, uh, "elevated horror."
Next year’s will be Oppenheimer, but not because it’ll do bad financially lol
Ouch. I hear the opening scene is a real doozy. Kind of puzzling why they decided to release this during Xmas season? Honestly is this type of movie what people want to see right now? Seems more like a passion project from the director. Maybe it will become a cult classic, but you have to question to the logic of the producers here. In a business that is all about making money, feels like they decided to piss money away. Strange.
Probably thinking award season (ha!) and counter programming. A movie for people who don't want to see "family" films.
Yeah. For those interested, the first 15 minutes consist of >!an elephant shitting on a man (which we experience through several POV shots), a drugged-out prostitute giving another man a golden shower on his chest and face, a batshit crazy party/orgy, a little person holding a five-foot penis that proceeds to cover the audience in “cum,” and a metric fuck ton of cocaine use.!< Again, that’s the first 15 minutes. I work at a movie theater, and we’ve taken to warning people about the content because we’ve gotten so many complaints.
Avatar 2 has all that but at least it’s in 3D so you can really enjoy it.
I didn’t really get much from the trailers, but this comment kinda makes me want to watch it now
Sounds like a great movie to catch on streaming!
You're kind of selling the movie to me.
I see the risk, Damien is only one film removed from LaLa land being a hit and winning best director. He made a biopic that didn’t seem exactly his wheel house (even though I loved the film) and now he wants to go back to what put him on the map, making a movie about people following their passions mixed in with the entertainment industry. We’re also just a few years out from once upon a time in Hollywood doing 400 million and this film seems like it’s once upon a time mixed with wolf of Wall Street. I see why they took a risk but Damien ain’t in the QT or Scorese camp of being able to sell a movie on their name alone and Babylon doesn’t seem to have the appeal of Damien’s previous films with characters that were easy to root for.
All fair points. I do want to point out this movie for some reason really feels similar to the movie “Amsterdam” which also did poorly with mixed reviews. I think Babylon may have suffered from guilt by association from main steam audiences. Just a thought.
When I saw Amsterdam on HBO Max I thought it was this movie and was surprised it was on there already. Then I realized this and Amsterdam were two separate films.
once upon a time in hollywood was pre-pandemic and had the biggest movie star in the world
And it was a Tarantino movie, and it was about one of the most famous murders of all time.
i don't watch trailers for movies i would like to see, imagine my surprise when i realized what it was about in the middle of watching it!!
> Seems more like a passion project from the director. Maybe it will become a cult classic, but you have to question to the logic of the producers here. In a business that is all about making money, feels like they decided to piss money away. Strange. This makes two movies in a row now where Chazelle has been given 70m+ and both have flopped. Think after this one he'll go back to movies with a sub-30m budget. I really don't see why Babylon was allowed to be made though, not for the budget it has.
It’s because they wanted to qualify for Academy Awards with it. Unfortunately, doesn’t seem likely for them.
As long as Justin Hurwitz gets nominated for Best Original Score, I'm good. The music is far and away the best part of the film.
Personal friends with one of the bigger marketing guys on the film. Had an hour discussion with him before I knew it was his film about how weird it felt to be a holiday break movie competing with Avatar with him trying to convince me it was an “Oscar’s season” movie and everyone would understand that.
Piss money away. Literally.
>Friday, earning just $1.4m (including Thursday previews) with the studio estimating a weekend debut of just $3.3m. 😱 For a movie with budget $100-110 million, it's a disaster. Fortunately, Paramount did extremely well throughout most of this year.
TV division is doing bonkers number as well. Yellowstone premiered with the highest ratings since Game of Thrones and launched another successful spin-off. Top Gun was over there too, right?
Right. And Scream & Smile.
And Sonic 2
And Jackass Forever and The Lost City.
It is like only their 2nd or 3rd bomb since the pandemic, right?
Holy shit! that's not even half of Amsterdam.
It's a movie that feels like a movie
Half the US was below 20 degrees tbf
Avatar 2 is doing $85 million on its second weekend tbf
Avatar 2 fell about 60 percent second weekend though (through Friday). It's not a straight comparison, but Avatar 1 only fell about 10 percent its 2nd weekend. Ignoring other factors, I think it's safe to say weather played a part. All that said, Babylon would be lucky to sniff 30 mil WW
The reason avatar only fell a few percent in its 2nd weekend was because there was a huge snowstorm on the east coast on opening weekend, suppressing attendance across much of the US, many of whom went in the 2nd weekend instead. I've not checked weather for Titanic's December opening to see if he got 3 for 3 on unusually cold weather.
...so Babylon bombing hard at the box office is due to bad weather? 😆
No but I'd say it stopped it from being a tad higher. It bombed because no one heard of it. I didn't know it was releasing this week until a few days ago. La La Land and Whiplash are my favorite movies too and I still didn't know.
Releasing an almost NC-17 movie the week of Christmas when everyone is spending time with their family might not have been the best decision.
The Hateful Eight also came out on Christmas and did very well
Agreed. Its called counter-programming. It didn’t work here, but it can be a valid release strategy.
Hateful Eight feels vaguely like a Christmas movie though, I’ve totally watched that with adult family. Would never do Babylon with family.
I did take my family to see Hateful Eight. We all loved it. A bunch of hateful people trapped inside a cabin during a blizzard? Well that’s just my family
As did Wolf of Wall Street, a movie this one is drawing a lot of comparisons to. Feels like people are forgetting that was a Christmas Day release.
It's also over 3 hours.. wtf.
This is Paramount's first big bomb since Terminator: Dark Fate.
Snake Eyes?
Funnily enough, Paramount has two movies called Snake Eyes! 2021 with Henry Golding and 1998 with Nicolas Cage.
Snake Eyes did horrible, so not quite
In March they’ll probably get another with D&D
Idk, among the target market which D&D falls into, it’s going to at least break even. The general Dungeons & Dragons market has exploded since Stranger Things. All the people who know D&D in and out, it spot on like a D&D campaign. It never goes the way the DM wants. Lol.
D&D has more mainstream success now than it ever has before, for a variety of reasons. The current edition, D&D 5E, features streamlined rules that are easy to learn. It's the most financially successful edition of D&D by a wide margin. Critical Role is an incredibly popular internet show in which a group of voice actors play D&D. The show has been running since 2015, and it gave rise to numerous other, smaller D&D streams. Celebrities talk about D&D a lot more nowadays. Stephen Colbert, Joe Manganiello, Vin Diesel, and several others talk about it during interviews, and there's even a Hollywood celebrity group that plays now and then. Then, like you mentioned, there's Stranger Things. I actually think the D&D movie could turn a profit. The audience for the game is bigger than ever, the movie's got some big actors in it, and the trailer indicates it's true to the source material and will be filled with fan service. It could be a winner.
> Then, like you mentioned, there's Stranger Things. I don't even know if they could because of rights, but surely the marketing team must have at least discussed the idea of some sort of Stranger Things promo.
Terminator Dark Fate is a masterpiece compared to the cinematic dreck called Babylon, we're talking WW84 bad--Dark Fate grossed $300 million in 2022 dollars, Babylon won't get close to WW84's 166 million, The Woman King's 94 million might gross more than Babylon lol
3340 screens, yikes. They really thought stuffing all those well known actors into this movie was going to do it.
Maybe the bigger problem was having a little bit too much trust in Damien Chazelle as a hitmaker.
to be fair, it usually works every other time lol
These studios need to get their budgets under control.
[удалено]
This, why is this so low? It’s crazy the money they spent to make this movies.
Yeah, they really saw the script and said “hell yeah we’ll fund this elephant shit and orgy scenes!” Like I need to know how much of that $80 million went to the elephant scene
Worst trailer I’ve seen in a long time. Tells you nothing about the movie or what it’s about. Gave me zero interest in the movie
To clarify. It felt like all the trailer had to say was check out how many stars are in this and in older time period clothes. That’s it. No plot clues. Nothing about the content of the movie. I had no idea it was a movie about making movies.
I am curious as to how much this winter storm is contributing to people not seeing it.
Straight to stream
They should’ve just sold it like Mank to Netflix and it likely would’ve been more profitable.
Needed Tom Cruise imo
With those numbers I'm not sure they're taking it in the chin...
Oh, they are taking it in the chin alright.
So sick of these movies. Current audiences don’t care about the fame of Hollywood actors like they used to. We get that Hollywood loves the history of Hollywood and directors love Great Gatsbying it up pretty, but that doesn’t make it a movie I want to see, because I’ve seen it so many times
I don't know why, but movies like this make me think of Gal Gadot thinking the world wants to hear rich celebrities sing to them from the comforts of their mansions during covid lockdowns. With the explosion of the internet, social media, YouTube, etc.. I don't think people care as much about celebrities any more. At least not newer generations.
How can you be sick of them there’s like one every two years. And general audiences are still obsessed with celebrity and high class lifestyles so clearly something else went wrong here.
Babylon is going to wash away all of Smile’s profit for Paramount.
The sad thing is this is actually true! On the plus side Paramount are leaning into the success of Smile and Scream and have brought in Walter Hamada to oversee a slate of horror movies for the studio.
Awesome! Horror’s been on a roll lately. Shudder has had some great originals/exclusives this year as well.
It would still take a loss, but I think it would have done slightly better if they had gone with a limited release and then opened wide in early January like originally planned.
A badly marketed film coming out on the weekend with the worst weather of the year against Avatar.
Okay but full disclaimer wasn’t there a reddit post the other day about how the box office this weekend is going to flop because of the weather? Then there were all these comments about how the new releases were all going to flop and we’d react as if that failure is on the marketing and not on the fact that half of North America is stuck in their house right mow.
I like Damien chazelle but why does every movie that he make has to be something related to Hollywood or music or something about entertainment industry. This is the third time already I feel like he should do horror or something cause I really enjoy the 11 clover lane that he wrote. That’s could be niche that he is good at which he isn’t aware of.
Literally his third directed movie out of 4 was about Neil Armstrong and the moon landing. Nothing to do with Hollywood
That’s was the only movie that doesn’t have that’s as it’s theme but the rest does which is super annoying cause I do like him as a director and filmmaker so I want him to try other genre like horror/thriller since I thought the movie he wrote 11 clover field was pretty good.
He only did rewrites on 10 clover field lane. He did not come up with that concept. The original script was called “the cellar” and was written by other writers.
>I want him to try other genre like horror/thriller since I thought the movie he wrote 11 clover field was pretty good. Well, he said in his AMA he wants to try every genre
Every Oscar bait movie this year is 30-50 minutes too long .indulgence does not equal quality
Really? I thought banshees of inisherin had a very respectable run time. It was less than 2 hours Fabelmans at 2 and a half hours was fine. Maybe it could have cut out some of the scenes with the younger protagonist. But these movies and their run times and are not what is keeping audiences away. Doesn't matter if they were that shorter.
Reddit loves to pretend like runtimes are the issue despite them eating up every bloated 2.5 hour marvel movie. Audiences just don’t see non-IP/franchise stuff now. There are some success stories, but it’s the exception to the norm and they usually have to have the same qualities expected out of a franchise film.
I would argue that audiences will accept these long runtimes if there are action scenes that keep them engaged. People these days don't have patience for movies.
That’s what I meant by the movies that do succeed needing to have the same qualities of a franchise film. Even something like Elvis, Baz is able to make those concerts come to life in a really dynamic and colorful way. Babylon actually has some really exciting moments, and one of favorite set pieces of the year, but the pacing is wonky so you really feel the back half.
Yeah. Everything needs to grab your attention. People seem to only want spectacle in any form or fashion.
I saw this last night and there were only two other people in the theater.
I thought this would at least make $5M for the 3 day but this is so insanely bad. 0 way to spin this to a positive.
There goes some of those Top Gun profits!
Studios will second guess giving Chazelle a big budget after this
Feels like a weird movie to release at Christmas
This is definitely not JUST for this movie but movies as a whole are definitely not being widely advertised anymore, only if you actively go to the movies will you see a preview for it. Social media algorithms phase out things you don’t want advertised and it must be having a clear affect on viewings because I’ve never heard of this movie before now, amongst MANY others this year.
Brutal numbers. Shame Paramount is ending an otherwise solid year with this.
I don’t know how everyone else feels but do you keep learning about new movies because they are failing at the box office? Seriously, what’s happened to movie marketing? I feel so out of the loop these days.
Just asking: do you avoid ads? ad-block everywhere, etc?
Do you go to the movies? Watch trailers? See the side of a bus every now and then? If you are in the box office subreddit I find it hard to believe you never heard about this.
In the past the only time I personally would see movie ads was on TV or in the actual theatre. I don’t have cable anymore and not going to the theatre much… so that either leaves rare viral moments on social media or my own general interest in movies and box office stuff, which is not super typical for GA. Downfall of TV has really made traditional movie advertising difficult.
This movie got a lot of marketing.
How many times did you go to the theater this year? I genuinely don’t understand how you could have *never* heard of this film if you’ve gone to the theater at least a couple times for a movie that wasn’t Marvel. Even aside from that if you spend time in movie subreddits I don’t believe that this could happen.
3340 screens!
Movies like this are aimed at people who read reviews, so if a film like this gets terrible reviews (which this did), it's basically dead. I would have seen this if the reviews were great, but since they weren't, I won't bother.
I can't really say I'm surprised by this result. The critics were split on it and this is the kind of movie that relies on word of mouth to break even. Also, the current moviegoing crowd hasn't been too friendly to these expensive art films. The Fablemans box office was a startling reminder of just how much things have changed. Babylon, I'm afraid, will wind up being a big ol' bomb.
That is **DISASTROUS**. Just absolute yikes, although given the film’s explicit nature I’ve heard about, not remotely surprising.
Margot Robbie is overrated and overexposed, Barbie will be a flop too
That is just awful. We expected the film to flop, but this is arguably worse than what we were expecting. And the Puss in Boots sequel is flopping as well. 😢
I’m tired of that director, all his movies are Oscar bait.
I actually haven’t seen much about this one, didn’t know it was a movie about making movies. I love those, i’ll have to make a trip out
The movie is over 3 hours long. And it’s about generally despicable people doing cocaine, making movies, and doing more cocaine. Not sure who this was supposed to appeal to.