26
votes
The biggest box office bombs of 2023; Disney leads with four entries
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Disney Detonates Four Bombs In Deadline's 2023 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament
- Authors
- Anthony D'Alessandro
- Published
- May 3 2024
- Word count
- 1217 words
Why would I take a chance on a film when tickets are $22 CDN a piece? To bring a family of four to the cinema could well cost $150 with snacks and drinks.
I'm not surprised that these flopped - if the reviews are meh then it's not worth the expense for any income bracket.
I've been on Dune part 2 in cinema. The ticket was more than Dune part 1 Blu ray that I bought the very same day.
I consider boh movies great, don't get me wrong. But if the movie isn't really great, I'm not going to cinema to see it. I may (or even may not depending on how good it is) buy it on disc sometime later.
I love that Blu Ray discs are still a big thing. Do you still get extras like director commentary and other items on discs?
With Dune part 1 I got around one hour of extras.
Sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you get adsfor movies that will be released soon (five years ago) and sometimws you get a ton of extras. Star Wars complete saga (before 7, 8 and 9 existed) comes on 9 Blu rays where 6 are movies and 3 are extras.
Once physical media ceases to exist (and digital is not DRM-free buy&download) I'm not getting new media. So - yes, it is great that Blu rays are still a big thing!
Ah damn - it sounds like the glory days of commentaries for old or lesser known movies are a thing of the past. We don't realize how spoiled we were for DVD releases...
Criterion still exists and regularly releases fantastic editions with tons of bonus content, if you're looking for old stuff.
My local theater still charges $10 a ticket, $8 for youth, and $6 for children. It's not a big fancy theater or anything, but it gets the job done.
I still don't go very often because I prefer watching at home but check your smaller local theaters out if you have them.
That's the main issue. In Canada, we have a monopoly situation where the terms are that smaller chains don't have access to new releases until they're out on Blu Ray or streaming. It's infuriating.
I'm in Canada as well, I haven't noticed any issues with availability at the theater I go to. I saw Dune 2 a few weeks after release, for example. This theater isn't part of a chain, it's owned and operated by a community non-profit. It's definitely worth exploring the options in your area, it's not systemically impossible to find something better!
A worthwhile listen when it comes to theatres in our country. Your theatre may have paid for an advanced right to screen it or perhaps Dune isn't being distributed by those who have deals with Cineplex.
https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/monopoly-15-movie-monster/
Eh, there's a bunch of films that failed at the box office that had long afterlives.
Blade Runner, Donnie Darko, Shawshank Redemption, etc etc.
In his Hot Ones interview Matt Damon talked about how the industry has changed. It used to be that if movies didn't do well in theaters it didn't really matter that much since they could still make loads of money off DVD sales afterwards. But with the collapse of the physical media market that is no longer the case, and it's pretty much all or nothing now come box office time, which has caused studios to become far more risk averse.
So, sure, there have been bunch of films in the past that had long and profitable afterlives after flopping in theaters. And that can still happen in terms of a movie's popularity... However, a flop these days means the studio will likely never make their money back, even if the movie eventually becomes a cult classic. And I think that's probably what the author meant about these flops having no afterlives, given the primarily financial focus of the article.
That's the exact definition of "cult classic." Half of the films that have stuck around from the 80s and 90s and are now being milked for every cent weren't phenomenal at the box office but had a following.
Hocus Pocus comes to mind, for a Disney film. It was reported as a loss, but built up a following and was played as cheap filler on TV around Halloween for decades. Disney still doesn't understand what made it liked to begin with, given the truly awful sequel they made to cash in.
That movie was amazing. I don’t know what you were talking about. Its full of quantum camp; its full of moments you can’t tell if its campy on purpose or by accident.
I'd buy quantum camp for Batman and Robin (the best Batman movie ever made) but I still had trouble finishing Hocus Pocus 2. Maybe I'll have to revisit it with alcohol some day...
I know a lot of people didn't like the Dial of Destiny but I thought it was one of the best action flicks of 2023! The Shia edition set my expectations at the floor but I was excited about FWB and they really delivered. It had the same fun energy as Tintin. Say what you will about the ending, I thought it was all in all a perfect piece of Hollywood fluff. I will absolutely be watching it again when I'm sick or need to turn off my brain. Honestly, not unlike Uncharted. I thought attaching Marky Mark would be a death nail for that film but it was really fun!
It was definitely better than Crystal Skull, but it didn't hold a candle to the original trilogy, yes I am including Temple of Doom.
I enjoyed watching it, it wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't amazing either. I would call it very-mid
I don’t understand why people give Temple so much crap. Criticisms about its racist stereotypes are valid, and I agree with those, but it feels like even beyond that the consensus has shifted toward it being just a bad movie. And I disagree, I think it’s a ton of fun with great set pieces and action sequences, and loads of funny and memorable moments. I actually prefer it to Raiders!
But Crusade is the very best, hands down.
I think the action in temple of doom is fucking fantastic but the racial stuff is really hard to move past because it is injected into every part of the movie.
I also think Indy is horribly mischaracterised. We watch him shake off his rough and gruff and slightly misogynistic persona in Raiders so seeing it come back in full force is kinda upsetting imo. Even though it's a prequel.
Not to mention Willie is super fucking annoying and a spit in the face of the people who liked the the strong female representation that was Marion (in the context of the time, she could still be better obviously).
Temple just has too much going against it to be really held up against 1 and 3. Although that shirt getting more ripped towards the end of the movie is peak Indy.
It’s tough when you peak on the first one.
IMHO, even the "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation" is better than The Temple of Doom...
I should probably give it a watch. I remember watching Lone Ranger years later and expecting a total snooze fest but I found it to be a serviceable action-comedy flick. Sometimes people just like to nail shit to the wall, not because of the product but everything surrounding it. Though, Dial of Destiny had its fans even day one I think?
Lone Ranger’s great. Verbinsky knows how to make a good looking movie. One of the best films of 2013.
The film was definitely okay. Not great, but entertaining enough. My biggest annoyance was their lexical abuse of the antikythera mechanism. Ascribing mystical properties to it is all well and good for a turn of the century pulp adventure, but it's called "the antikythera mechanism" because it's a mechanism found off of Antikythera. Which is an island off of Kythira, hence the name.
And yes, I've read the entire "Gears from the Greeks" academic paper (De Solla Price, 1974).
Anyway, the film made me realize we need an Indiana Jones animated series. Hitching it to Harrison Ford forever obviously isn't going to happen, so we might as well have something in a medium that can fully lean into the pulp adventure style and not worry about being compared too closely to the originals. That way we can perpetually stay in the proper time frame instead of continuously pushing forward out of the era the films were intended for.
I could have sworn there was an animated Indiana Jones series. But it looks like that was just in my head.
On the other hand, it looks like someone tried to make it happen themselves.
Yeah it wasn't amazing by any means but I wanted to see Indy again and I got to see Indy again.
If the opening wasn’t a video game cut scene, it probably would have played better but that opening put me in a bad mood so quickly. It took a while to get back into the world.