Apocalypse X-Men: Apocalypse Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 5

[BeholdMe]

Report from yesterday:

Yikes! People aren't just rolling over and taking anything, I'm glad some want quality movies. Though some of them I don't personally think are that bad.

That's not at all true for my age group in my experience (the early 20s). Of the OT, only Hugh Jackman is popular among my friends. One even said if they had a movie with the OT they wouldn't want to watch it. They are watching these movies largely because of Fassbender, Lawrence, Sophie Turner and Evan Peters, and for one friend in particular, Lucas Till.

Though, I'm not American so maybe tastes are different overseas, particularly since X-Men is growing in Asia?

Yesssss!t:

 

[jaymes_e06]

Mediocre/bad/unwanted sequels are underperforming/dissappointing this year. Turtles, Alice, X-Men, Huntsman, BvS, Allegiant.

This year moviegoers have put their money where their mouth is. I can only hope this brings the creative shakeup the franchise needs.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywoods-new-problem-sequels-moviegoers-899765

I would not call X:A mediocre... maybe for critics but fans generally liked this film if not loved it. The biggest thing against it was the critics hatred of the film.

I think it dissuaded people from going to see it.

 

[superweirdo87]

Honestly, I don’t think the FC trilogy cast, good as they were, ever caught on with audiences the way the original cast did. When I went to the early screening for DOFP, the biggest cheer happened when Cyclops showed up at the end. Same with the end credit scene after The Wolverine. And the biggest complaint I heard about DOFP was that the original cast wasn’t in it enough.

Hell, the second time I saw XMA, our crowd cheered when Wolverine showed up.

I’m not convinced they would make MCU money if they did another film with the original cast, but I do think there would still have been an audience for it if they had tried.

We all travel in different circles. I do think the original cast is better liked among audiences and has a bigger fanbase in the states. Also, theatrical movies were more popular in the decade of the original cast. If DOFP had done more with them, it might have not have had less breathing room to tell a meaningful story. And the storytelling and movie itself counts too. DOFP did have an A Cinema Score.

I do, think, though that it's unclear how strong this preference is when Wolverine is out of the OT. And that question matters with box office and production because business is about the net rather the gross. The OT is not under contract and so they have leverage with salary and that drive up costs and cuts into revenue. Deadline found that DOFP made 635 million when all revenue streams come in (theaters, DVDs, digital copies, library, TV rights, PPV, VOD), but the producers, cast, and crew got 100 million dollars in back-end payments after their salaries. The all-star team and Jackman was a big part of that. The studio got 77 million after all the costs involved in the movie and the back-end.

I could picture a movie with the old cast but the same issues as XMA (climate, "generic" plot/villain, mixed or weak reviews) doing in the high 80s OW. With a similar multiplier to X3, the final result would be close to 170 M domestic. And I think this movie will come out to around 150M domestic.

 

[StormC]

I think XMA is in a place like AOU where fans will enjoy seeing the continuation of the characters and storylines in the series but fairweather people will just shrug and say "same old same old."

 

[iacobusleo]

I think XMA is in a place like AOU where fans will enjoy seeing the continuation of the characters and storylines in the series but fairweather people will just shrug and say "same old same old."

Ironically, I found AoU enjoyable, but nothing more, because I was never invested in the MCU so the difference between the good movies and the average ones is not noticeable to me and I don't overthink it. XD I never even knew about the hate it gets online until recently.

I find its the same with this movie as well. A lot of casual fans I know find Apocalypse entertaining, while people like critics who loved Singer's work are left severely disappointed.

 

[Xrated48]

Mediocre/bad/unwanted sequels are underperforming/dissappointing this year. Turtles, Alice, X-Men, Huntsman, BvS, Allegiant.

This year moviegoers have put their money where their mouth is. I can only hope this brings the creative shakeup the franchise needs.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywoods-new-problem-sequels-moviegoers-899765

I read a report at the end of last year that the box office would be down compared to this last year even though this year imo has bigger films when you take into account all the franchise films that are released this year

 

[TheVileOne]

Mediocre/bad/unwanted sequels are underperforming/dissappointing this year. Turtles, Alice, X-Men, Huntsman, BvS, Allegiant.

This year moviegoers have put their money where their mouth is. I can only hope this brings the creative shakeup the franchise needs.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywoods-new-problem-sequels-moviegoers-899765

The Neighbors 2 did bad compared to the original too.

 

[Zarex]

The avengers is mindless action, singer doesn't really like mindless action so thats pretty much the difference but most will complain if they do not get enough action and complain if they get to much.

The Quicksilver scenes in DOFP and XM:A are the very definition of mindless action.

 

[BeholdMe]

Omg can we not compare and contrast Apocalypse with CW their sort of different monsters, it's ok to like one more than the other no need to downplay one.

 

[marvelrobbins]

I would not call X:A mediocre... maybe for critics but fans generally liked this film if not loved it. The biggest thing against it was the critics hatred of the film.

I think it dissuaded people from going to see it.

the hate from critics hurt it box office.

of course some are coming out of woodwork to call apocalypse medicore.

 

[Docker2.0]

Omg can we not compare and contrast Apocalypse with CW their sort of different monsters, it's ok to like one more than the other no need to downplay one.

For some reason, when a fanboy feels "their" movie failed, they have to take shots at the MCU. Same thing happened with BvS. It's a defense mechanism.

 

[superweirdo87]

Matt, you ask about lessons from this. It's interesting that you talk about Wolverine and superhero fatigue, but not the movie itself. Going without Wolverine is a challenge. Superhero fatigue may be real, but it is of interest that many of the other sequels are doing badly too.

Quality matters, and this movie has some problems with its story and villain. The audience seems to want new and different, and this movie did not offer much on that score. It relied heavily on tropes and plot points that were familiar--Professor X is kidnapped, Magneto and Professor X have different views, Magneto switches sides, a villain wants to destroy the world, and cities fall.

 

[superweirdo87]

I think XMA is in a place like AOU where fans will enjoy seeing the continuation of the characters and storylines in the series but fairweather people will just shrug and say "same old same old."

Maybe, and I could understand that perspective. But, I also wonder whether fairweather people would react that way to anything this franchise does. XMA had a generic plot and cliched villain, and involved a lot of plot points in previous movies. Some critics remarked upon how dialogue in this movie is lifted from past X-Men movies or strongly resembles them.

I wonder if casual fans and general audience types would have that reaction to a movie with a story that mixed things up more. A stronger movie with better reviews might also reach some of these people, it seems. Economists and statisticians find that 20 points on metacritic is worth like 15 million dollars at the domestic box office. Not *that* much, but it helps.

 

[Knight_SV]

Omg can we not compare and contrast Apocalypse with CW their sort of different monsters, it's ok to like one more than the other no need to downplay one.

Agree
Context of both film are different. Despite XMA still have the heroes vs heroes element. Because 3 out of 4 horsemen were actually an A-List X-Men members in the sourve material.

 

[Sithborg]

But they didn't play it up as that at all.

 

[Sevprince]

China, please stop trying to rescue this **** franchise. I needed to die.

 

[jaymes_e06]

Stop. Just stop... you sound like a prepubecent child.

 

[Wildcard]

Stop. Just stop... you sound like a prepubecent child.

Agreed. Unfortunately wasn't able to honor my obligation in seeing this but I'm extremely disappointed that it's underperforming. I had really high hopes, especially in light of DOFP.

I don't see how anyone who considers themselves a fan could be rooting for the film to fail. Luckily, even though the numbers aren't mindblowing it's still performing well.

 

[josh8]

After having some time to really think about XM:A's box office underperformance, I've come to a few conclusions. I really don't think the quality of the movie is fully to blame. The movie is not perfect, but it's not bad enough to cause this much of a step down. I think it's an easy knee-jerk reaction to just blame Singer and Kinberg.

DOFP (an arguable franchise high-point) was a movie that was serious, smart, and entertaining. Enjoyable for many demographics. Fox thought that their best option to continue that momentum was to focus on the only true movie star left in the franchise. They wanted the marketing to look a little more like Hunger Games 5. (I mean, WTF was with all that emo girl-band singing in the trailers??) They didn't realize that the Hunger Games franchise slowly dug itself into irrelevance. And so now the movie looked like a light, skippable affair. Nothing kills a movie's box office better than confusing marketing. Was this a serious movie or a tween movie? The marketing didn't focus on any of the X-Men aspects that fans had come to love. Was it a just a disaster flick? No one could tell.

I think Fox's marketing team bungled the job and created a perfect storm that killed the momentum that DOFP worked hard to achieve. The early reviews came out WAY too early and so the general audience were slowly convinced of what to think, rather than having an opportunity to find out for themselves.

 

[DavidHaller]

why is it such a problem to compare movies from the same genre? Do you want people to compare "X-Men: Apocalypse" or "Batman vs. Superman" to Matthew Barney's "Cremaster Circle"??? Of course all the big comic book franchises will be compared.

"Civil:War" very much recycled an old X-Men plot: mutant registration from X-Men 1 and superhero registration in "Civil:War". this directly invites people to compare both franchises...the character Wanda obviously is structurally still threated as if she is a mutant in "Civil:War" although they changed her classification (conversation with Vision during her "house arrest could have been copy pasted from an X-Men comic).

But in general I don't think it is a coincidence that X-Men never reached the financial success of the Avengers movies. Singer obviously never tried to produce easy to digest heteronormative pop movies which are shallow box office fun for the whole family and are mainly catering to a male-centric macho audience...Disney movies are by definition exactly this! Enjoy these movies as much if you like but let's not pretend they are anything more...at least Singer understood that the X-Men are more than superheroes and brought in a strong focus on a social commentary. Judging from social media the X-Men movies also seem to have a strong queer fanbase! (not sure Iron Man and Captain America can pull this off)

"X-Men: Apocalypse" unfortunately was just a bad movie! Social media showed a lot of messages from people who have been just shocked and disappointed that the same creative team who did X2 and Days of Future Past were capable to create this empty melo-dramatic mess of a movie...critical acclaim is central to the franchise in my eyes. The critics have been very much right and the boxoffice result reflect that! It is not embarrassingly bad as "Batman vs Superman" was but it is an extremely disappointing Singer movie for many people!

 

[ImSGirl95]

@DavidHaller

Didn't you get the point of Cap 3?
"We're not better than the bad guys"... "Peope are afraid", etc ...

In other words, The Avengers may be "superheroes" in their own eye, but they are powerfull superbeings that regular people are afraid of.

 

[Zarex]

But in general I don't think it is a coincidence that X-Men never reached the financial success of the Avengers movies. Singer obviously never tried to produce easy to digest heteronormative pop movies which are shallow box office fun for the whole family and are mainly catering to a male-centric macho audience...Disney movies are by definition exactly this! Enjoy these movies as much if you like but let's not pretend they are anything more...at least Singer understood that the X-Men are more than superheroes and brought in a strong focus on a social commentary. Judging from social media the X-Men movies also seem to have a strong queer fanbase! (not sure Iron Man and Captain America can pull this off)

Please. We saw this same garbage on the BvS boards after their precious jewel was rejected by audiences and critics alike. The X-Men films are heteronormative - quick, name an LGBT character in the series! - popcorn films that are just as shallow as every other film featuring guys with laser eyes and wings. Perhaps it's not the fault of the mindless moviegoers that they appear to have moved on from the series.

And are we going to hold up the X-Men series as a bastion of diversity? Outside of silent henchmen and cannon fodder Singer and company have completely dropped the ball in this area.

 

[DavidHaller]

@DavidHaller

Didn't you get the point of Cap 3?
"We're not better than the bad guys"... "Peope are afraid", etc ...

In other words, The Avengers may be "superheroes" in their own eye, but they are powerfull superbeings that regular people are afraid of.

yes sure, I get that. And I think that the Russo brothers clearly have been inspired by Singer's work for the X-Men movies and shifted the tone of this movie in a similar, more realistic direction.

Again, Civil War is very much a recycled X-Men plot!

 

[JEM]

If the rumor is true, Wolverine 3 is Weapon X. So, Sinister and X23 are here baby.

 

[DavidHaller]

Please. We saw this same garbage on the BvS boards after their precious jewel was rejected by audiences and critics alike. The X-Men films are heteronormative - quick, name an LGBT character in the series! - popcorn films that are just as shallow as every other film featuring guys with laser eyes and wings. Perhaps it's not the fault of the mindless moviegoers that they appear to have moved on from the series.

And are we going to hold up the X-Men series as a bastion of diversity? Outside of silent henchmen and cannon fodder Singer and company have completely dropped the ball in this area.

if you say so....I don't think you understand the X-Men franchise as a whole developed by Claremont in the 1980s then. I don't see the shallowness you are refering to in most of Singer's movies...the movies very much function as a "hidden transcript" (in the sense of James Scott) which discuss homosexuality on a metaphorical level in a mainstream setting! The whole cast and crew is EXTREMELY queer: Bryan Singer, Ian McKellan, Ellen Page, Allan Cumming etc. How queer is the cast of The Avengers in comparison? Of course it is a mainstream medium and the studio makes sure that heteronormativity is preserved on the surface but that does not mean that queer people don't get the obvious queer subtext implemented into these movies! (Magneto and Xavier could be easily lovers, just saying)

I doubt that Xavier, Magneto, Jean, Mystique, Storm etc. are similar archetypical like Captain America, Thor and Iron Man. Just look at their ridiculous bodies and typical masculine arrogance. Especially Xavier is extremely vulnerable and super complex as a character.

But yes, I agree that the X-Men movies REALLY need a diversity debate ASAP! The depiction of Jubilee, Storm and Psylocke in "X-Men: Apocalypse" was really shocking to me. At least "Civil War" started to get this right.