The Box Office Thread

Good afternoon, Seakazoo and the gentlemen. Today is January 22, 2003. Thank you for taking a break from LiveJournal to join us today at ComingSoon.net. Don't forget to visit our sister site, SuperHeroHype, for all the news on the latest X-Men movie.

This was a very active weekend at the box office. M. Night Shyamalan's Split is #1 with $40 million. Vin Diesel is racing behind at #2 with a $20 million for XxX: Return of Xander Cage. These men continue to be a decent source of revenue for Hollywood. They're sure to have a long and bright future ahead of them. Here at ComingSoon we're looking forward to Unbreakable 2 and the newest adventures of Riddick. Don't forget to join our forums, moderated by bbf2 and Rogue, and discuss those promising projects.

Opening next weekend is Resident Evil.

Yeah, as long as your films turn a profit for the studio, they don't really care how badly the general public views them to be.  If you can do it on a low budget, even better.  Lady in the Water is the result of a studio over-indulging one of their favorite sons, and isn't likely to happen again.  I agree about him not getting much blame for After Earth, since that was yet another case of studio over-indulgence (this time for Will Smith's ego).  M. Night needed to have an extra-large helping of humble pie, and Split makes it appear he's done that.  As long as the studio keeps a tight reign on him, even the prospect of an M. Night Cinematic Universe hinted at in Split don't worry me too much.

And I lost 2 hours of my life. That makes us even.

For the third week in a row, M. Night Shyamalan is #1 at the box office. Split is about to cross $100 million domestically. At this point, Doomsday HAS to watch the movie.

And since I know Jibbs is personally invested, The Space Between Us opened all the way at #9. They should have had some dignity and released it in December like they were supposed to.

Opening next weekend are John Wick 2, The Lego Batman Movie and the long-awaited sequel to Fifty Shades.

Beats the alternative, A Dog's Purpose.

Don't ever go to Vegas.

Too bad for them ESPN is a money pit or I'd have bought stock in them years ago.

Will ESPN fix itself? It makes sense that they've lost so many subscribers. For example, why would I sit through an hour of bullshit on SportsCenter if all I want to see is the highlights of a certain game and can go on their website or so many others for that highlight and then not tune into their programming? Plus their highlights are like 15 seconds sometimes, and just of the final play or a crazy dunk. If I want a solid recap of the game, I look elsewhere. I used to be an ESPN junkie, but I'm not a fan of their content anymore. Sure, I use ESPN to watch actual games being broadcast on there, but other than that not really.

Plus, it's not just ESPN.  It's cable subscriptions in general.

ESPN is literally the one thing killing Disney. Their parks, movies, and merchandising have been doing outstanding.

Disney has never understood how to market their products to males over the age of eight effectively.  It's why they had to buy Lucasfilm and Marvel in order to finally get a firm hold of that demographic.  ESPN is just another venture of Disney's aimed at males that they can't get right.  Lucasfilm has Kathleen Kennedy.  Marvel has Kevin Feige.  ESPN needs a guiding hand that knows what they're doing.

Disney has owned ESPN and ABC since 1996 and as recent as 2012 it was the biggest moneymaker for the company. The problem is that over the years they've lost Keith Olberman, Dan Patrick, Rich Eisen, Bill Simmons, etc.

NBC has Bob Costas. TNT has Charles Barkley. Who the fuck does ESPN have? Stephen A. Smith?

The difference is that ESPN is a 24 hour network, so the talents get stretched thinner.  NBA games are TNT's one and only sports programming so they can afford to put all their money into putting Barkley and Shaq in front of them.  NBC has more or less the same situation, they can just put Costas on in front of their one weekly NFL game and drag him out for the Olympics every four years, but they don't need to dilute him by having him on TV for an hour a day every day.  Ditto with Fox and Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan.  ESPN doesn't have that luxury.  They don't really have a prime time slot because any given day they could be broadcasting live sports in the evening so they can't build anyone up that way and they can't really do focused pre-gaming since they don't really have much of an NFL or NBA licence and no one really gives enough of a fuck about baseball outside of their home market.

Remember when summer started in May... and then April... and then March? Now it's fucking February. Fanible , I know you're making mad money these days, but Jesus H. Christ, are movie buffs ever gonna get a break from annoying crowds?

The top three movies this weekend were The LEGO Batman Movie with $55 million, Fifty Shades Darker with $46 million and John Wick 2 with $30 million. A total of $131 million. 15+ million people making a line at concession, talking & texting during the movie and masturbating to Christian Grey & Dakota Johnson and Will Arnett's sexy voice. Stop the madness, Hollywood. It's February. You're supposed to be releasing crappy romantic comedies and maybe a decent horror film.

Opening on Friday are A Cure for Wellness, Fist Fight and The Great Wall.