Box Office Showdown (12/10-12/12) West Side Story

[Bugg]

Surprising WSS already dropped out of the number 1 spot on Saturday and Sunday, coming in behind week 3 of Encanto.

[StarWarsIsAwesome123]

WSS might crawl past $50M total with the holiday season, but I'd say it's not a guarantee with those other movies coming out.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Bugg

Surprising WSS already dropped out of the number 1 spot on Saturday and Sunday, coming in behind week 3 of Encanto.

Only surprising if you don't think Disney is self-sabotaging its Fox titles to favor their own movies....

[Jennifer Lawrence Fan]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Only surprising if you don't think Disney is self-sabotaging its Fox titles to favor their own movies....

[John1701D]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Only surprising if you don't think Disney is self-sabotaging its Fox titles to favor their own movies....

[CyberpunkCentral]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Only surprising if you don't think Disney is self-sabotaging its Fox titles to favor their own movies....

[DrWally]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Only surprising if you don't think Disney is self-sabotaging its Fox titles to favor their own movies....

Free Guy was a respectable hit that exceeded expectations. The French Dispatch has done fine albeit over a smaller base. Ron's Gone Wrong was a write-off anyway.

You're really just basing this on The Last Duel and three days of West Side Story.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by DrWally

You're really just basing this on The Last Duel and three days of West Side Story.

First of all, I'm not the one who pointed it out originally. And the industry analyst who did was looking specifically at the last 4 Fox movies of the year -- The Last Duel, WSS, Nightmare Alley and The King's Man. All of them sure to get buried.

[RossyG]

Originally Posted by John1701D

It’s true though. For reasons of ego and office politics, studio heads have been known to underpromote films they’ve inherited. After all, what’s in it for them?

If they bomb, people will blame their predecessor. If they’re hits, people will praise their predecessor and wonder why they were let go.

[DrWally]

Originally Posted by RossyG

It’s true though. For reasons of ego and office politics, studio heads have been known to underpromote films they’ve inherited. After all, what’s in it for them?

A duty of care to cultivate relationships with A-list creative talent. If you've inherited projects from Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Guillermo Del Toro and Wes Anderson among others, then you best look after their movies if you're serious about filmmaking.

On the other hand, however, one can reasonably say that there's a strong case to be made that Chapek-era Disney ISN'T serious about filmmaking, only about IP.

[BloodshotUSA]

Originally Posted by RossyG

It’s true though. For reasons of ego and office politics, studio heads have been known to underpromote films they’ve inherited. After all, what’s in it for them?

If they bomb, people will blame their predecessor. If they’re hits, people will praise their predecessor and wonder why they were let go.

A director like Spielberg usually has it built into his contracts that the studio is going to promote the movie to a certain level. Probably already had a budget for P&A in the contract before they started filming.

[slumcat]

Originally Posted by RossyG

It’s true though. For reasons of ego and office politics, studio heads have been known to underpromote films they’ve inherited. After all, what’s in it for them?

If they bomb, people will blame their predecessor. If they’re hits, people will praise their predecessor and wonder why they were let go.

This is absolutely absurd.

If execs in big corporation have one purpose in life - it is to make money. As much money as possible. Their bonuses are tied to it. The lust of money infects their very soul.

If you think execs won't work to squeeze as much money out of a property as possible then you don't know how businesses work. Or humanity. Or both.

[profholt82]

I saw a ton of WSS adverts on tv the past couple weeks, particularly on Disney's ESPN channels, but in other places as well. I don't think they've held back on promoting it, the audience just isn't there for it.

[lonercollector]

West Side seems to still hold out at my theater with Spider-Man, but Don’t Look Up and National Champions will be gone by Friday.

The former is gonna be on Netflix soon, so I can just watch it there, and I didn’t care for the latyer

[slumcat]

Originally Posted by profholt82

I saw a ton of WSS adverts on tv the past couple weeks, particularly on Disney's ESPN channels, but in other places as well. I don't think they've held back on promoting it, the audience just isn't there for it.

Oh the movie has been marketed very well. Its fans will have to find another strawman to rail against to justify its devastating failure.

[Cremildo]

WSS grossed 1.3 million yesterday, up 28% from Monday.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by slumcat

This is absolutely absurd.

If execs in big corporation have one purpose in life - it is to make money. As much money as possible. Their bonuses are tied to it. The lust of money infects their very soul.

If you think execs won't work to squeeze as much money out of a property as possible then you don't know how businesses work. Or humanity. Or both.

Except in the highly-competitive revolving-door world of studio executives, this is a known phenomenon, the idea being you let movies fail if not downright subvert them as job security..."See? That last guy was a nincompoop, that's why you need me to right the ship." At least, that's what I heard about high-up corporate culture in the film industry waaaay back in the early 90's. In the case of Chapek, it's a bad theory because with all the problems the company is facing, he's already under a white-hot spotlight and people are already unhappy with him, and rightly or wrongly, might be the shortest-termed Disney CEO since the post-Walt/pre-Eisner Days of Tatum, Walker and Miller. Intentionally sandbagging anything right now could only lead to a quick exit, so I don't buy it.

[slumcat]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Except in the highly-competitive revolving-door world of studio executives, this is a known phenomenon, the idea being you let movies fail if not downright subvert them as job security..."See? That last guy was a nincompoop, that's why you need me to right the ship." At least, that's what I heard about high-up corporate culture in the film industry waaaay back in the early 90's. In the case of Chapek, it's a bad theory because with all the problems the company is facing, he's already under a white-hot spotlight and people are already unhappy with him, and rightly or wrongly, might be the shortest-termed Disney CEO since the post-Walt/pre-Eisner Days of Tatum, Walker and Miller. Intentionally sandbagging anything right now could only lead to a quick exit, so I don't buy it.

The simplest explanations are often the best ones and the most accurate.

Problem: WSS 2021 bombed

Explantation 1: Did not connect with the current theater-going audience, not what they were looking for.

Explanation 2: Convoluted head-spinning conspiracy theory about a vendetta against this and other films for egotistical purposes by vain and maniacal business execs to play a terrifying game of thrones for power-play purposes, job security, and some underhand unknown scheme apart from making money yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, I'll take explanation 1 all day long.

[50strat54]

guess it's going to be a financial flop, doesn't mean the movie isn't good
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-west-...143527461.html

I still want to see it maybe on D+?

The original is still a classic regardless of what Pauline Kael wrote and I love the film.

Overall doing remakes is always risky. I know a lot of people loved the True Grit remake but I absolutely hated it. Give me hokum Hollywood endings and watch a fat man jump a four rail fence any day of the week.