My Studios

Biggest January opening weekends:

1. Star Wars special edition (1997), $35.9 million
2. Black Hawk Down, $28.6 million
3. Big Momma's House 2, $27.73 million
4. Along Came Polly, $27.72 million
5. Underworld: Evolution, $26.9 million

It's possible Cloverfield could end up higher than that, but I don't think it'll go higher than $40 million, at all. In fact, I personally see it as a box office disappointment. Remember, some projections had Snakes on a Plane at $35 million opening weekend, and what'd it end up with, half that? Cloverfield reminds me of that in that there's tons of Internet hype.

If Narnia can reach 200 million without any established stars, Golden Compass, which is far more popular among today's kids and has several established stars, can definitely do the same. I have my doubts about Legend reaching 200 million...the box office will be saturated with films for Legend's core audience with National Treasure, Walk Hard, AVP2, etc. Golden Compass's only competition will be Water Horse, and that's a guaranteed flop, IMO. I'm picking Compass over Legend in most of my leagues. Even if Legend performs better, I don't think the gap will justify the price difference.

I think Cloverfield can break the January record, and I would pick it over National Treasure. If the first movie sucks as much as NT1 did, there is no guarantee that the second will be successful, no matter how much that first movie made (see Fantastic Four 2...) No way NT2 is worth more than Compass. Not sure who thought Rambo would win the race, I think it will do better than the 55 million projected, but I wouldn't count on it reaching 100 million.

Fantastic Four 2 made $131 million, though; the first one made $154 million. Even if neither film was that great.

Nicolas Cage has said he'd be interested in making both Ghost Rider 2 and National Treasure 3: International Treasure. Yuck.

someone please throw Cage out of hollywood....the man's been in a downward spiral ever since Face/Off....and does anyone else feel like Legend is being over-hyped a bit??

Well, not a complete and total downward spiral. 'Lord of War' and 'The Weather Man' were pretty good, but then he probably ruined that with The Wicker Man and Next.

If "I Am Legend" truly is PG-13, then it will hands-down kick NT2 and Compass' butts. Its high FM price still make me hesitate, and I'll probably wait to see how Disney's marketing campaign for NT2 looks heading into mid-December. After all, this is the same Mouse House marketing machine that powered the freakin' Game Plan and Enchanted to unholy box-office numbers.

Hmm, after thinking a bit about Game Plan, Enchanted, and NT2, wouldn't it be interesting to set up an FM game where we bought entire slates of movies for a season based on the real-life studio that released them? I suppose this might get tricky due to salary cap pricing and also because some studios only release a few flicks a year. But still, imagine a holiday game where your Disney box-office-heavy slate competed with a Miramax PTA-monster slate. Interesting, interesting...

it would be interesting, but then again, the point of the game is to be better than the studios and to pick the combo of movies that would give the max output!!!! i'd say that by pledging with a certain studio, you'd be limiting the potential of FM players....

Miramax actually is a Disney subsidiary (let's substitute... Focus Features) but I like your idea. You could take a "Sony" slate that could feature films from Sony, Columbia, MGM, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Picture Classics. They had a partnership with Revolution Studios as well but I think that distribution deal was concluded with 'Across the Universe.'

Sony and Warner are the two easiest parent studios to pick a slate from. Disney, Fox and Paramount are a challenge but not out of reach. Universal would be more difficult while Indies like Lionsgate and Weinstein could be quite difficult.

I've caught myself linking studio releases and picking many from the same parent. Warner is very easy -- you hear about one of their big feature prospects, watch the attached trailers which often promote other releases in any branch of the pipeline and are hooked.

A_Roode wrote:

I've caught myself linking studio releases and picking many from the same parent. Warner is very easy -- you hear about one of their big feature prospects, watch the attached trailers which often promote other releases in any branch of the pipeline and are hooked.

I know there are a couple FM-ers here who work at theaters, so correct me if I'm wrong, but don't studios automatically get to attach 2-3 of their own studio's trailers to the film in the can? And then the other 2-3 are up to the theater?

And another reason I thought it'd be fun to invest in entire studios was because it'd be similar to buying stock in the studio itself. Granted, nowadays studios are part of mega-behemoth-conglomerates so the BO success of one specific film seldom does much to move the price of a stock, but it's the along the same lines.

la_resistance28 wrote:

I know there are a couple FM-ers here who work at theaters, so correct me if I'm wrong, but don't studios automatically get to attach 2-3 of their own studio's trailers to the film in the can? And then the other 2-3 are up to the theater?

For 35mm film, studios attach only one trailer to the film in the can, but there are usually another one or two loose in there. For us it's generally 2 studio trailers are required, sometimes three (usually if it's three it's the attached trailer plus two shorter ones), and then the rest are decided by a list corporate sends us every week. (The studio trailers are always on the top of said list; e.g., they're given highest priority for placement.)

It was funny back in August/September when we didn't have a trailer for The Mist. It was supposed to be the attached trailer on Halloween, but it didn't come on the digital hard drive for Halloween, for some reason. But the attached trailer has to be a same-studio movie, so in this case it had to be MGM, and pretty much our only choice was Feast of Love. Haha, didn't fit with Halloween at all.

Cage is still a good actor. Just because him and half the other people you used to be a fan of makes movies that you or whoever else doesn't like, doesn't mean they should be kicked out of hollywood. Not that they really care what we think. Considering they're still making a crap load of money.

Anyways. I think it'll be a close call between Compass and Treasure. I am legend will get good ratings but I don't see it dominating BO.

dude, cRAzY, a person's list of fave actors will always be changing....and let's face it....Cage may be rich, he may be talented and the face behind Face/Off, but he's still a fallen star, and lacks the reverence that truly great actors are regarded with....and don't even start to disagree here....i mean, the man's had so many misses in the last 3-4 years that i honestly don't know him anymore....it's like a pro athlete way past his peak being unable to let go....quit on top, or close to it....don't slowly erode the respect you've worked so hard to gain, until no one will employ you and you're forced to quit!!!! and that's the gist of my point with Cage....he may not care, and neither may you, but there are several (ex-)fans who want to see him either bring it again or quit it!!!!

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Diss him all you want. He's still a good actor.
He did good in next.
Ghostrider may not have been amazing but He did a good job in that movie whether you all hated it or not.
And I thought National Treasure was a pretty decent movie itself.
So bash him, travolta, Allen, and all the other over the hill greats. But that doesn't mean they have gotten worse as actors. It just means YOU don't like them or their movies anymore. And some people still enjoy going to the movies and seeing them. Obviously because they are still making a crap load of money. If anything more than they did with the movies you liked.
And if you would like to take the time to post some numbers to prove me wrong, I'd be more than happy to take a look at them.

My Studios

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