Dejana

Of course, American studios don't report ticket sales because dollar figures seem more impressive, but adjusting for inflation is tricky. GWTW was released in a roadshow engagement for its first 7-8 months and didn't go to general release at normal prices until 1941 (it's a 1939 movie). Fifty years ago, box office was more likely to be reported in terms of rentals—what the studio got back from theaters—and not the way it's reported now, i.e. how many dollars' worth of tickets a movie has sold. BOM says they have actual ticket sales numbers for some 1930s and 1940s movies including GWTW, but are they really counting how many premium tickets were sold in 1940 vs. general admissions in 1941? That's like taking the average movie ticket price for 2009 and applying it to Avatar to accurately assess how many people attended it, when it sold a substantial percentage of 3D/IMAX tickets. That's another reason because movie studios stick to dollar figures, because they count their earnings in money, not ticket sales. Two movies can sell the same number of tickets but if one sells half of them in 3D/IMAX/large formats and one is all 2D, the former will have the bigger box office. Post-Avatar, studios rushed to convert movies to 3D in post-production. It cost something like $5 million to do and it meant a $2-3 surcharge per ticket, so the studios cleaned up for a while. American audiences eventually saw through this and won't see 3D for just anything these days, but it's still tacked on for extra money with international releases (Furious 7 for one). Something like GWTW is obviously very popular, but is now also very old. It made a lot of its money with re-releases. How useful is it to consider what GWTW made in 1947 or 1954 or 1961 or 1989 as part of its all-time earnings, when trying to compare it to how popular Titanic was in 1997/1998, or The Force Awakens is now? There were fewer people in the past, but theatrical movie-going had less competition in the days before television, let alone TV, then cable, VHS, DVD and streaming. Movies have become increasingly much easier to see (and in higher and higher quality) outside of movie theaters, the more time goes on. Even the best-received movie now is not going to have the same theatrical shelf-life as something like The Sound of Music (its first run lasted 4.5 years).

December 25–27, 2015 Estimates: 1 (1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens $153,522,000 | 4,134 Theaters | $37,136 Avg. | $544,573,329 2 (N) Daddy's Home $38,800,000 | 3,271 Theaters | $11,862 Avg. | $38,800,000 3 (N) Joy $17,500,000 | 2,896 Theaters | $6,043 Avg. | $17,500,000 4 (3) Sisters $13,880,000 | 2,962 Theaters | $4,686 Avg. | $37,147,930 5 (2) Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip $12,700,000 | 3,705 Theaters | $3,428 Avg. | $39,399,441 6 (N) Concussion $11,000,000 | 2,841 Theaters | $3,872 Avg. | $11,000,000 7 (19) The Big Short $10,520,000 | 1,585 Theaters | $6,637 Avg. | $16,013,455 8 (N) Point Break (2015) $10,220,000 | 2,910 Theaters | $3,512 Avg. | $10,220,000 9 (4) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 $5,300,000 | 1,813 Theaters | $2,923 Avg. | $264,603,061 10 (5) Creed $4,600,000 | 1,518 Theaters | $3,030 Theaters | $96,316,653 11 (N) The Hateful Eight $4,536,591 | 100 Theaters | $45,366 Avg. | $4,536,591 (roadshow = higher ticket prices) 12 (6) The Good Dinosaur $3,785,000 | 2,134 Theaters | $1,774 Avg. | $105,350,155 13 (7) Krampus $2,230,000 | 1,152 Theaters | $1,936 Avg. | $40,532,465 14 (15) The Danish Girl $1,503,000 | 440 Theaters | $3,416 Avg. | $3,201,805 15 (12) Spotlight $1,075,603 | 480 Theaters | $2,241 Avg. | $24,890,686 16 (23) Carol $1,070,000 | 180 Theaters | $5,944 Avg. | $2,854,311 17 (8) In the Heart of the Sea $1,015,000 | 685 Theaters | $1,482 Avg. | $22,355,171 18 (13) Brooklyn $1,000,000 | 288 Theaters | $3,472 Avg. | $18,337,695 19 (11) Spectre $865,000 | 372 Theaters | $2,325 Avg. | $196,249,955 20 (17) The Martian $485,000 | 279 Theaters | $1,738 Avg. | $224,850,733 The Revenant $471,000 | 4 Theaters | $117,750 Avg. | $471,000 Youth $345,000 | 149 Theaters | $2,315 Avg. | $1,000,515 Mr. Six $286,847 | 30 Theaters | $9,562 Avg. | $375,000 Room $86,415 | 100 Theaters | $864 Avg. | $4,756,356 45 Years $69,300 | 3 Theaters | $23,100 Avg. | $93,882

Honestly, if it had been a black Harry or Ron I would've looked at it as the sort of raceblind casting that happens in theater, thought, "Good for them!" and gone on my way. But that it's Hermione, with supporting reasoning that the character's physical description was racially ambiguous in the books...oh, I'm sure this is all completely incidental to the criticisms that he original Harry Potter series and the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie have received about all the major characters being white. For me, "Hermione could be black" goes right along with Rowling's after-the-book revelations that the wizarding world was totes cool with the gays, all the belief systems were represented at Hogwarts, and the Slytherins came back, really...just another attempt to retcon away the criticisms/flaws lobbed toward HP through the years, to make the story seem more inclusive/progressive than what she actually wrote. That Hermione was never described as black in the books is a fairly strong sign that she wasn't. With the white characters, the HP books followed the very non-progressive phenomenon where whiteness didn't have to be stated, because it was the default. There were several black characters in the HP books (Dean, Angelina, Kingsley Shacklebot, Blaise Zabini, son of the black black widow) with race directly mentioned, or strongly alluded to, like a mention of Lee Jordan having dreadlocks. With the Asian characters, the indicators were mostly their names and that these characters with those names had dark/black hair and wore deep colors. Only the most naive and myopic of fans had deluded themselves into thinking Cho Chang was some sort of Nordic goddess (but HP had a very big, very young fanbase, so...). In one of the books, Harry saw Hermione after she'd come back from summer holiday to France and mentally noted how brown her complexion was. I feel that if she'd actually been conceived of as a girl/woman of color by Rowling at the time, this is not something she would have had him think about the character. Not that non-white people don't tan, but having a white person note, "Wow, this brown/black person is looking really brown at the moment!"...too potentially un-PC for a benign kids' book. Also, Rowling released an early sketch she did of the characters from the first book, including Hermione. So, it's not that I have a problem with Stage Hermione being black or Asian or Latina or any other race, but not if it's part of Rowling trying to pat herself on the back for progressiveness, on account of the frizzy-haired white girl she introduced in the 1990s. People always ragged on Emma Watson for being too pretty and posh to play Hermione, but I thought it illustrated how the wizarding world's prejudices were different from ours. Here you had someone who could've been spat out of an English Rose Generator after Kate Winslet or Keira Knightley, yet this is the "impure" one with the questionable heritage in this world. My main problem with the casting is less about race or even hair color than age. I guess this is set in the future but it's really jarring.

It makes sense: if you weren't seeing Star Wars anyway, why bother with the hassle of such crowded parking lots and theater lobbies? Plus when you are selling $247 million in tickets that doesn't leave much room for the other shows. Avatar's biggest weekend was "only" about $77 million. The holiday season has a way of being extremely generous to family films, regardless of quality, but there's clearly a law of diminishing returns happening with the franchise. After this, maybe they will just stick to TV for a while

Global Totals: SPECTRE: $642.2M Overseas Total | $836M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $369.9M Overseas Total | $593.8M Global Total STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS: $279M Overseas Total | $517M Global Total THE GOOD DINOSAUR: $93.1M Overseas Total | $189.6M Global Total THE PEANUTS MOVIE: $18.9M Overseas Total | $145.2M Global Total BRIDGE OF SPIES: $60.3M Overseas Total | $130.3M Global Total IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: $49.6M Overseas Total | $68.2M Global Total KRAMPUS: $12.8M Overseas Total | $60.4M Global Total SISTERS: $1.8M Overseas Total | $15.2M Global Total

December 18–20, 2015 Estimates: 1 (N) Star Wars: The Force Awakens $238,000,000 | 4,134 Theaters | $57,571 Avg. | $238,000,000 2 (N) Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip $14,400,000 | 3,653 Theaters | $3,942 Avg. | $14,400,000 3 (N) Sisters $13,420,000 | 2,962 Theaters | $4,531 Avg. | $13,420,000 4 (1) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 $5,650,000 | 2,653 Theaters | $2,130 Avg. | $254,438,774 5 (4) Creed $5,085,000 | 2,433 Theaters | $2,090 Avg. | $87,900,073 6 (3) The Good Dinosaur $4,232,000 | 2,755 Theaters | $1,536 Avg. | $96,546,068 7 (5) Krampus $3,780,000 | 2,371 Theaters | $1,594 Avg. | $34,810,655 8 (2) In the Heart of the Sea $3,465,000 | 3,103 Theaters | $1,117 Avg. | $18,600,095 9 (N) Dilwale $1,875,000 | 268 Theaters | $6,996 Avg. | $1,875,000 10 (N) Bajirao Mastani $1,660,000 | 304 Theaters | $5,461 Avg. | $1,660,000 Spotlight $1,483,167 | 825 Theaters | $1,798 Avg. | $22,861,193 Brooklyn $1,200,000 | 614 Theaters | $1,954 Avg. | $16,518,413 The Danish Girl $538,000 | 81 Theaters | $6,642 Avg. | $1,325,633 Trumbo $385,240 | 273 Theaters | $1,411 Avg. | $6,252,060 The Big Short $350,000 | 8 Theaters | $43,750 Avg. | $1,291,404 Youth $247,000 | 61 Theaters | $4,049 Avg. | $516,322 Carol $229,893 | 16 Theaters | $14,368 Avg. | $1,626,721 Bridge of Spies $226,000 | 258 Theaters | $876 Avg. | $69,087,000 Room $173,052 | 171 Theaters | $1,012 Avg. | $4,534,916 Son of Saul $38,891 | 3 Theaters | $12,964 Avg. | $38,891

Taylor got her first studio contract at 9 with Universal, but they dropped her less than a year later. The casting director there thought her eyes were too old-looking and that she didn't have the face of a child. Even if she'd started out younger, I don't know if she ever would have been cast in those sorts of impish/adorable little kid roles that are probably harder for the "all grown up" former child star to live down. Aesthetically, I think the features that make for a "cute" kid don't always mature in a way that leads to an adult with the same level of attractiveness. OTOH, there are beautiful kids who grow into nice-looking adults (and kids who were just average, but came out of puberty looking like models). Not that looks are everything for an actor, but when a child performer who had the "star" looks as a kid grows up to be Hollywood's idea of the "best friend" or "sidekick", it's an extra layer of baggage to deal with, compared to another "character actor" who only started working as an adult. People love when it's the other way around, and the goofy kid blossoms into the gorgeous leading lady/man.

Shirley Temple and Macaulay Culkin both played the adorable imp as child stars, were the cutest kids evah! which often takes a different skill set than being a dramatic actor as an adult, and lookswise, cute doesn't always age well. Culkin had a horrible stage father (when Chris Columbus was working on Harry Potter he basically said casting the parents was just as important as the right kids, i.e. he had no time for the next generation Kit Culkin) and in his twenties the drug rumors constantly lingered...maybe the truth was embellished, but you have to wonder if acting was truly a priority for him at that point. With Shirley Temple, it was a very different time when she was a young adult. Now, it's practically a rite of passage to the point of being a cliché, former child stars taking roles involving lots of sex/nudity/drugs, to prove they're "all grown up". OTOH, since the dawn of Hollywood, there have been child actors who could take or leave celebrity, and eventually find fulfillment in other areas. Elizabeth Taylor had such a dramatic life that her child stardom is way down the list of things she's best known for... Maybe she wasn't saving an entire studio like Shirley Temple, but she was definitely a celebrity in her youth and not just an anonymous child acting in bit parts. Honestly, though, nature was nine-tenths of the battle in Taylor shedding her child star image. Even as a child, her appearance and personality kept her from being cast as the cutesy moppet, so that lessened the sort of child star baggage that had to be overcome (compared to someone like Shirley Temple). And then she grew up to look like that.

Biggest Previews Ever!

On ESPN, someone called it Mustard vs. Ketchup.

Ascendant moved to June 9, 2017. As of now, it opens on the same day as the World War Z sequel. The Power Rangers reboot gets the previous March release date. Maybe Lionsgate is trying to stem off franchise fatigue? Or, they could just be lining up a ready-made excuse in the likelihood that it pulls a Mockingjay - Part 2 and is the lowest grossing movie of the Divergent franchise.

Academy Voters Reveal Their Favorites: With no one film dominating the race and the different groups being "all over the place", there's heavy campaigning behind the scenes:

Even I'm not that much of a box office nerd! :) It's really difficult to calculate, without knowing how many screens each of those 4,134 theaters are devoting to Star Wars, the seating capacity where the movie is actually shown, the number of showtimes and operating hours, which can fluctuate wildly based on demand. If enough people are there to show the movie at 6:00 AM on all 24 screens of a multiplex, they're probably going to do it. During the day/night, scheduled showings for other movies might end up being canceled (sometimes there are restrictions about this based on studio/newness of the film) to make more room for The Force Awakens. I've seen predictions of $300 million though from fanboys. The industry publications aren't going that far, but the Jurassic World record looks likely to go down with ease.

With Chris Hemsworth, I think Hollywood just looked at him as this stoic/handsome leading man and believed his stoic handsomeness (plus, Thor!) was enough to get audiences interested. I can't blame anyone for turning down the paychecks he was offered, especially since Marvel doesn't offer the big bucks in the beginning and fame is fickle, but when the movies flop, it's held against the star on all the posters. His career woes (such as they are) remind of how Hollywood first saw The Rock as a modern-day Stallone or Schwarzenegger, but in a time when the public wasn't clamoring for that sort of action hero, so things like Walking Tall or The Rundown underwhelmed at the box office, compared to expectations. So, he resorted to family films and doing comedic/villainous turns in movies where he wasn't necessarily the sole attraction, but always gave solid/good performances in a variety of roles, eventually becoming someone audiences liked to see and whose presence was thought to add to a film. In time, he earned back enough goodwill to be the leading man again, without having to dress like the Tooth Fairy. Chris would do well to follow a similar path, tailored to his strengths. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has made more than $100 million in advance ticket sales. The current December opening weekend record is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with $84 million, so that's going to be obliterated and probably the Jurassic World number from June ($208.8M). The holiday season is known for generous box office legs: barring some sort of outside world catastrophe, a James Cameron movie will no longer be king of the world.

I can't disagree with the analyst who wondered if selling In the Heart of the Sea as the true story that inspired Moby Dick would necessarily help at the box office, since it's often been one of those required readings that students have dreaded for generations. So was The Great Gatsby, but it's a much shorter book, plus that movie had Leo and a hip hop soundtrack. The nautical genre has its fans, but given what happened with Master and Commander, with a much bigger star at the time, it puzzles me that Warner Bros would ever make this sort of movie at all, especially headlined by Chris Hemsworth. The Good Dinosaur is shaping up to be Pixar's first box office failure. The production budget was $200M and the estimate for marketing is another $150M, so it needs half a billion to break even theatrically. Most analysts think it will be lucky to get $400 million worldwide. I can't see the merchandise selling like the Cars stuff; the dinosaurs just look so generic. It's the first time two Pixar films were released in the same year, but TGD was significantly delayed to begin with, so maybe this is actually the best-case scenario for it. The budget for Creed is $35 million, BTW.

Wouldn't Roger be 28 for Dragonfly in Amber? He was 5 in 1945 for Outlander, Claire returned from the stones after three years, then came back to Inverness in 1968. Hmmm, he looks nothing like how I pictured the character, but acting ability is more important.

Soap writing has been its own unique disaster for the past decade, at least. Even before the daytime drama death spiral, most of the writers weren't fans of the genre themselves, regarded the (predominantly female) viewers as stupid and wrote accordingly. There was also severe lack of new blood, so the same terrible writers and producers got chance after chance. Networks spent decades blaming the ratings freefall of soaps entirely on outside factors (OJ trial, cable competition, working women) so shoddy show running got a monumental pass. Primetime TV has its own issues when it comes to women, to be certain, but I have more hopes for them than soaps.

But that's...not how it works. If a business, all on its own, decides to have a promotion or sale on a product to get people into its doors, it's called a "loss leader" and the business is expected to eat the costs. Places like Target, Walmart and Amazon did this back when the Harry Potter books were first being released: they knew they had millions of customers assured of buying one thing, so they'd sell the latest installment for 40-50 percent off and hope to make up for it with people buying a hundred dollars worth of other stuff. I'm pretty sure JK Rowling and the book publishers didn't get stiffed because Barnes & Noble was having a sale, even if she was already really, really rich. The people/corporations who own the stores tend to be even richer. When Amazon sold Lady Gaga's album for 99 cents as part of luring people to their cloud service, I think it was, they didn't just say, welp, Interscope, we're having a sale, sorry about your royalties! If the label agrees to that, fine, but if the music outlet has a sale/promotion on its own, that's really not the problem of the label/aritst and they have every right to expect to get paid at the going rate, whatever it is. Apple just thought they could be cheap when launching their new streaming service and hoped no one would really notice. IMO, it was galling that they even tried. Taylor's last single went Top 5 and pre-Adele comeback, I was pretty sure she'd release single #6. Maybe she will anyway: 1989 is still selling and usually album eras end when the hits dry up, unless it's a rare case where the artist chooses to leave a bit of extra gas in the tank.

Hollywood insiders predict Hemsworth's going rate will decrease...somewhat: After seeing that bit of Hiddleston's Thor audition and considering some of the other contenders, that role could have gone very (very) badly if improperly cast, but outside of Marvel, I don't know how Hemsworth's agents could justify that number.

December 11–13, 2015 Estimates: 1 (1) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 $11,300,000 | 3,651 Theaters | $3,095 Avg. | $244,490,956 2 (N) In the Heart of the Sea $11,005,000 | 3,103 Theaters | $3,547 Avg. | $11,005,000 *bombs away* 3 (3) The Good Dinosaur $10,497,000 | 3,606 Theaters | $2,911 Avg. | $89,660,791 4 (4) Creed $10,120,000 | 3,502 Theaters | $2,890 Avg. | $79,321,018 5 (2) Krampus $8,010,000 | 2,919 Theaters | $2,744 Avg. | $28,151,330 6 (6) The Night Before $4,133,702 | 2,674 Theaters | $1,546 Avg. | $38,439,358 7 (5) Spectre $4,045,109 | 2,640 Theaters | $1,532 Avg. | $190,812,769 8 (7) The Peanuts Movie $2,650,000 | 2,653 Theaters | $999 Avg. | $124,955,585 9 (8) Spotlight $2,508,853 | 1,089 Theaters | $2,304 Avg. | $20,302,802 10 (9) Brooklyn $1,975,000 | 947 Theaters | $2,086 Avg. | $14,330,423 11 (11) The Martian $1,400,000 | 1,041 Theaters | $1,345 Avg. | $222,800,035 12 (12) Love the Coopers $1,350,000 | 1,610 Theaters | $839 Avg. | $24,636,242 13 (10) The Secret in their Eyes (2015) $1,213,000 | 1,661 Theaters | $730 Avg. | $19,250,025 14 (14) Trumbo $810,874 | 554 Theaters | $1,464 Avg. | $5,454,080 15 (N) The Big Short $720,000 | 8 Theaters | $90,000 Avg. | $720,000 16 (17) Bridge of Spies $595,000 | 540 Theaters | $1,102 Avg. | $69,456,000 17 (13) Chi-Raq $573,580 | 285 Theaters | $2,013 Avg. | $2,107,979 18 (25) Carol $336,924 |16 Theaters | $21,058 Avg. | $1,220,737 19 (16) The Letters $327,000 | 779 Theaters | $420 Avg. | $1,388,744 20 (19) Legend $301,000 | 107 Theaters | $2,813 Avg. | $1,379,654 The Danish Girl $259,000 | 24 Theaters | $10,792 Avg. | $653,266 Macbeth (2015) $251,000 | 108 Theaters | $2,324 Avg. | $348,939 Room $246,510 | 198 Theaters | $1,245 Avg. | $4,184,891 Victor Frankenstein $175,000 | 578 Theaters | $303 Avg. | $5,632,569 Youth $100,000 | 17 Theaters | $5,882 Avg. | $211,233 Global Totals: SPECTRE: $629.8M Overseas Total | $820.6M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $366.3M Overseas Total | $589.1M Global Total THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2: $320.1M Overseas Total | $564.6M Global Total HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2: $277.9M Overseas Total | $445.3M Global Total THE GOOD DINOSAUR: $78.2M Overseas Total | $167.86M Global Total THE PEANUTS MOVIE: $16.6M Overseas Total | $141.6M Global Total BRIDGE OF SPIES: $53.2M Overseas Total | $122.7M Global Total GOOSEBUMPS: $38.3M Overseas Total | $116.4M Global Total IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: $39.4M Overseas Total | $50.4M Global Total KRAMPUS: $8.8M Overseas Total | $37.0M Global Total POINT BREAK: $34.5M Overseas Total VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN: $24.8M Overseas Total | $30.4M Global Total BY THE SEA: $2.0M Overseas Total | $2.5M Global Total

Good for Milwaukee, but I thought the 24-1 shirts and the "Nobody gave us a chance!" sort of talk from the players was a bit much. Did they win a game in December or the Super Bowl?

Two back-to-back princesses today, one in Ohio who wanted four closets, one for each season (their budget was 260K) and another in Vegas who wanted at least 4,000 square feet of Rapunzel-inspired splendor complete with balconies, for 400K. In her old house, she had an entire dressing room, so she needed at least a vanity in the master bath, preferably with a wall separating her stuff from his. The husband wanted a medieval meets modern vibe, whatever that means, and they both hoped for a pool and a lawn (in Vegas). The husband complained that what his wife seemed to be getting her way with the real estate agent and what she wanted seemed to matter more. They first met at 16 and he's just noticing this?

Oh, evoking the ghosts of Nazis to make a point about a completely unrelated, far less consequential subject. That always ends well. And here's that "brilliant" Please Welcome To The Stage Parody: Not even thirty seconds in, and I felt the joke being run beneath the ground. I know Taylor Swift has a huge ego, can be a mean girl, and the harem of "friends" she parades around feels like a calculated effort to bolster her fame, but...she's a celebrity. I guess I hold stars to incredibly low standards? I could go to work or church and see a dozen people who claim to be nice and humble but are actually arrogant, vain and/or catty gossips, who paint false-but-cheery pictures of their lives on social media, who surround themselves with weaker personalities in order to reinforce their own perceived fabulousness, and they barely have two nickles to rub together. I guess I'm not terribly surprised to see the same behavior out of people who have millions of dollars and adoring fans. If anything, it makes more sense coming from them. Taylor isn't afraid to speak her mind and exercises a great degree of control of her very lucrative image and career, but she can also not be supportive of women she doesn't like in a very stereotypical way, and the "Girl Squad" seems quite cliquish, with care taken to assure that she is always the queen bee. She has something of a social conscious but is a celebrity first. Before, she would have been judged as imperfect, with good and bad qualities, with some people liking her, but others, not so much. Now we have to have clickbait headlines debating how great or problematic she is, and the dangerous messages allegedly propagated whenever she so much as walks, talks, sings, or Instagrams. I just find that aspect of current pop culture discussion extremely tedious.

Apparently, it came down to one vote, whether it would be allowed in comedy or drama (similar to how the HFPA rejected the bids of Mara and Vikander as supporting actresses). Angling for the Musical/Comedy category boosts the odds for nominations here, but it's a far more defensible classification for The Martian than several M/C nominees within the last decade.

The Cowboys, they of the seven-game losing streak (this year!), are one game out of the lead in the NFC East? Hilarious.