Biggest Flops & Most Profitable Hits from Summer 2013 (so far)

This thread says 'flop' a lot.  

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

This thread says 'flop' a lot.  

It's a fun word....

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I haven't set foot in a movie theatre since 2007 but usually every year there are several "summer" movies I look forward to checking out when they hit DVD. This summer just seems like a pretty weak crop all around... Aside from the usual comic book flicks that I feel honor bound to watch since I'm a retired comic nerd ("Man of Steel," "The Wolverine," "Iron Man 3"), there really haven't been many things that made me go "I gotta see that." Maybe "Pacific Rim" and "The Purge," but that's about all.

It has been a fairly lackluster summer for the major studio releases.  I would recommend checking out Oblivion and I think you'd really dig This Is The End.  Plus I'm sure The Conjuring would satisfy your appreciation of retro horror.

i rarely go the movies at all - summer or otherwise. I might go once or twice a year but it has to be something I really want to see. I am happy and content to watch stuff at home. The price is much better and I have all the comforts of home.

exact33 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I haven't set foot in a movie theatre since 2007 but usually every year there are several "summer" movies I look forward to checking out when they hit DVD. This summer just seems like a pretty weak crop all around... Aside from the usual comic book flicks that I feel honor bound to watch since I'm a retired comic nerd ("Man of Steel," "The Wolverine," "Iron Man 3"), there really haven't been many things that made me go "I gotta see that." Maybe "Pacific Rim" and "The Purge," but that's about all.

It has been a fairly lackluster summer for the major studio releases.  I would recommend checking out Oblivion and I think you'd really dig This Is The End.  Plus I'm sure The Conjuring would satisfy your appreciation of retro horror.

i rarely go the movies at all - summer or otherwise. I might go once or twice a year but it has to be something I really want to see. I am happy and content to watch stuff at home. The price is much better and I have all the comforts of home.

Same here. Plus the past dozen experiences I had at theaters were awful--kids texting, being loud, fanboys' intense chatter, dim pictures to satisfy theater budgets--a whole slew of shit that just gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I prefer my own home for watching movies.

You can add The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones to the near-flop list. This is the 3rd YA film adaptation to sputter at the box office this year following the disappointments of both Beautiful Creatures and The Host (actually, neither of those films were that bad, I found them both mildly entertaining).

The upcoming Hunger Games sequel should do monstrous business however.

Quote :

This is the 3rd YA film adaptation to sputter at the box office this year following the disappointments of both Beautiful Creatures and The Host (actually, neither of those films were that bad, I found them both mildly entertaining).

Make that four. The "Percy Jackson" sequel did a pretty fast fade too.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Make that four. The "Percy Jackson" sequel did a pretty fast fade too.

I had completely forgotten about that one. Let's see how these films fared...

Beautiful Creatures - Budget = $60 million. Worldwide box office = $60 million. A film in Hollywood breaks even at 2.5x the negative cost so it would have to have made $150 million.

The Host - Budget = $40 million. Worldwide box office = $48 million. Needed to make $100 million.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters - Budget = $90 million. Worldwide box office = $111 million. Needed to make $225 million.

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones (still in theaters) - Budget = $60 million. Box office so far: $25 million. It premiered slightly higher than Beautiful Creatures but slightly behind The Host which doesn't bode well for the $150 million it needs to make.

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Make that four. The "Percy Jackson" sequel did a pretty fast fade too.

I had completely forgotten about that one.  Let's see how these films fared...

I think everyone had completely forgotten about that one except my ten year old, who loves the book series...haha. We just watched the first one recently and enjoyed it.

I should probably point out that no matter how The Mortal Instruments fares at the box office the sequel has already been green-lit and will be ready by next summer.

Planned sequels for Beautiful Creatures and The Host have been shelved (at this moment anyway).

Here's my take on YA adaptations, written during a FB discussion on the new "Divergent" movie arriving soon with Shailene Woodly:

"I think my gripe isn't necessarily with the various novels/novellas--since I've read so few of them--but with Big Hollywood's take on them. There seems to be a creative bankruptcy going on in lieu of this recent influx of YA adaptations. The themes, ideas, and even story arcs are lifted from so many other sources that's it's akin to mass deja vu. So I'm seeing zero originality (read: ennui) on screen and wondering, "how good can these books really be to be so popular??" But what I've heard of Hunger Games is that most of the violence and provocative undertones of the book were neutered for a more conventional and PG-friendly movie. Perhaps I'm missing out."

My wife reads them as though they were holy scripture. I myself am more of a Hemingway fan, but honestly their celluloid stampede is getting tiresome and derivative.

corplhicks wrote:

Here's my take on YA adaptations, written during a FB discussion on the new "Divergent" movie arriving soon with Shailene Woodly:

"I think my gripe isn't necessarily with the various novels/novellas--since I've read so few of them--but with Big Hollywood's take on them. There seems to be a creative bankruptcy going on in lieu of this recent influx of YA adaptations. The themes, ideas, and even story arcs are lifted from so many other sources that's it's akin to mass deja vu. So I'm seeing zero originality (read: ennui) on screen and wondering, "how good can these books really be to be so popular??" But what I've heard of Hunger Games is that most of the violence and provocative undertones of the book were neutered for a more conventional and PG-friendly movie. Perhaps I'm missing out."

My wife reads them as though they were holy scripture. I myself am more of a Hemingway fan, but honestly their celluloid stampede is getting tiresome and derivative.

I do agree with elements of what you said, but I also think that it's important to note that you are not the target audience for these films. I'm not the target audience for these films either, though I will admit to enjoying some of them anyway.

The Hunger Games is really just a riff on Roman gladiators. You can trace film variations back to 1932 and The Most Dangerous Game. So definitely not original, but the idea of humans killing humans for sport is an idea so ingrained in our DNA that it's basically a timeless scenario. The key is what you do with that idea. I watched the film because of Jennifer Lawrence, I had just seen Silver Linings Playbook in the theater and decided to take a chance on it. I enjoyed the film very much, even with a PG-13 rating they managed to make it sufficiently harrowing. A well-worn idea dusted off in a convincing and entertaining fashion. I will most likely catch the next one in the theater.

I went into The Host with considerably lower expectations (after all it is the same writer as Twilight), but there were a few things helping it out. Primarily Andrew Niccol the director who had previously made moody sci-fi outings Gattaca and In Time. While many of these YA adaptations tend to be ridiculously fast-paced and very "busy", The Host is actually leisurely paced and takes the requisite time to create actual mood and tension. He also made good use of a modest budget and it looks like a more expensive film than it actually is. Another bonus was a decent cast including Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, The Lovely Bones), Diane Kruger and William Hurt. Is it sometimes clumsy in plotting and also features the requisite love triangle? Yes. But I enjoyed the premise and main characters enough to forgive it for some of the overt teenage cliches.

Neither film is great art for the ages, but neither were quite a few of the 80s movies I watched as a teenager.

I really enjoyed the Hunger Games and enjoyed the toned down violence, they could have turned it into Battle Royale but they didn't and it was a better film for it. The Host is okay, nothing to get excited about but both are better films than most of the superhero rubbish flooding the cinemas.

Out of all of the films mentioned, I really like In Time.

Boris2008 wrote:

The Host is okay, nothing to get excited about but both are better films than most of the superhero rubbish flooding the cinemas.

The phrase that was eluding me earlier when describing The Host was "low-key". I found that a refreshing tone for a film of this type. It was also nice to see a modern sci-fi tale where there aren't gun battles every 5 seconds.

Here's the Top 20 box office performers from 2013. Keep an eye on the "production budget" column to see how well the film actually did.

The sad state of affairs? 11 of the 20 films on this list are either sequels or remakes. We keep bitching about Hollywood not making original films...but as long as the general public keeps plunking down their money for these in droves we will continue to see them.

I don't mind sequels too much (as long as they're enjoyable) but the remakes always kind of bugged me. I mean, remakes have been done since the early days of Hollywood but they never seem to be any improvement over the originals. I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't even think of one off the top of my head.

007 wrote:

I don't mind sequels too much (as long as they're enjoyable) but the remakes always kind of bugged me. I mean, remakes have been done since the early days of Hollywood but they never seem to be any improvement over the originals. I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't even think of one off the top of my head.

The goal isn't to improve anything. The thinking is if an idea was profitable in the past then if you wait until the next generation comes along you can remake that idea (which you already own the rights to so it saves money) and make even more money on it.

As long as they sell, they will be made.

S.D. wrote:

007 wrote:

I don't mind sequels too much (as long as they're enjoyable) but the remakes always kind of bugged me. I mean, remakes have been done since the early days of Hollywood but they never seem to be any improvement over the originals. I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't even think of one off the top of my head.

The goal isn't to improve anything.  The thinking is if an idea was profitable in the past then if you wait until the next generation comes along you can remake that idea (which you already own the rights to so it saves money) and make even more money on it.  

As long as they sell, they will be made.

Oh sure. Money's the driving force behind the whole thing. I guess I worded my sentence wrong, but improvement isn't the right term. Different ? It just seems to me if I saw the original (or just an earlier version) I don't see the point in watching the same movie again with better effects, production values, etc. I'm sure there always exceptions to the rule, though.
That said, I love James Bond and most of those movies are almost remakes of themselves.
 

007 wrote:

It just seems to me if I saw the original (or just an earlier version) I don't see the point in watching the same movie again with better effects, production values, etc. I'm sure there always exceptions to the rule, though.

The general consensus right now in Hollywood is that young people (and the studios really only care about people 25 years old and younger, especially in the summer) just aren't interested in watching older movies...and when I say "older" I mean movies made prior to 1990. So as far as they are concerned any films that made a good profit from 1989 or earlier are fare game for a remake.

Eagerly awaiting the Howard the Duck reboot  

Boris2008 wrote:

Eagerly awaiting the Howard the Duck reboot  

If Marvel keeps churning out blockbusters that pull in money hand over fist, I wouldn't be surprised that it happens.

I was hoping for a Devil Dinosaur adaptation..

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

I was hoping for a Devil Dinosaur adaptation..

I would totally pay to see that. I picture Nicolas Cage as Moon-Boy

Boris2008 wrote:

Eagerly awaiting the Howard the Duck reboot  

aacckkk!!!

Boris2008 wrote:

Eagerly awaiting the Howard the Duck reboot  

You seem to have missed the part where I said "profitable".  

S.D. wrote:

Boris2008 wrote:

Eagerly awaiting the Howard the Duck reboot  

You seem to have missed the part where I said "profitable".   

They remade Judge Dredd and the Stallone version is right up there with HTD as far as big money losers go!