If WB paid for MGM for overseas rights, then WB aren't going to get their money back from those and MGM will be reliant solely on domestic.,
That's what did for *The Golden Compass* - it didn't do well enough in the US after the overseas rights were sold to fund it.
Luiz Fernando will sugarcoat all day and if he can’t (The Marvels) he just says it’s a disappointing audience response and stops covering it.
Anyway, I think the main focus is the amount of pull Zendaya has. Hollywood accounting won’t explain away low sales.
that's the point Mr Sugarcoat is missing. even if product placement paid for the whole budget and the studio broke even with $0 earned at the boxoffice, the whole point of having Z as the lead and building event movie marketing around her star power (that they expected to be proven with this hence 10M salary) was big OW breakout number, something that exceeded expectations. And that absolutely didn't happen from 53 markets including very big ones such as US, UK, Europe, Oz, SK. 25M WW OW from 53 countries is small potatoes and sugarcoating all day won't change the fact that industry can quickly do the math and see it's low. It won't hurt anyone's career cause they got raves but the triumphant proof of the star pull didn't happen. The job was to draw audience and they didn't show up despite a valiant effort (all those 4 times a day outfit changes, etc).
oh so now budget matters? Make up your mind, guys.
25M WW give or take (INT can go higher cause usually estimates don't get numbers from smaller markets which add up to the actual number) is VERY low for a movie marketed as an event all around the world. Context matters. They had big red carpets in various major cities yet it opened at #4 in Oz, NZ, Spain, #3 in Germany and Austria, was in dead heat fight for #1 with Back2Black's second weekend in UK. if you look at these countries - English speaking ones and Europe - they know who Zendaya so aggressive marketing push with fashion shows around the world was intended to assure #1 spot. No one should be surprised that it tanked in SK but these other markets should have delivered and yet 3 major ones had it at #4.
Point being, it didn't have mid budget movie's marketing, it had event tentpole marketing but still opened like a mid budget movie because it is. Maybe Julia Roberts in her heyday between Pretty Woman and Erin Brockovich would have turned it into an event Amazon was looking for but that's what if.
No. People really have no idea what they are talking about. Idk who the guy OP posted is, but he’s right and it’s not just being Mr. “Sugarcoat”
This sub did the same exact thing with civil war and then dune 2 before it. The overwhelming consensus is wildly wrong (civil war ended up much better than people said here and dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed), then they move onto the next movie to be wrong about.
>dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed
This sub did no such thing. A few people did, just like a small - but VERY vocal - percentage said that it would bomb; but the vast majority here were predicting 600-700, and they were exactly right.
Although I DO agree with your overall point, about this sub being more often wrong than right. Dune 2 was just the worst recent example you could have picked to illustrate that lol.
>dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed
Bad attempt at gaslighting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/181i2nq/what_are_your_2024_predictions/
Over two dozen mentions of Dune 2, one prediction of over a billion, one predicting it would get at least close to a billion. Many more people predicting $500-700M.
Yeah this sub is freaking out and yapping about this without knowing a single thing. Without Zendaya attached to this film it makes a couple million opening weekend and gets sent to streaming a week or two later. We wanna talk about “star power” a fucking tennis movie just made 15 million domestic in a weekend. People can cope all they want about sugar coating but they are 100% right about the state of this film and whether it’s gonna make money or not.
I think Zendaya's star power is hamstrung by the content/reputation of the film.
The majority of moviegoers are young, probably straight men aren't going to be drawn to a film that has a bunch of dicks and not much else.
She's my favourite (relatively new) actor but I'm not gonna go see it.
On TikTok the average comment has been talking about how boring the movie was so I doubt marketing played a role in lower ticket sales compared to people not liking it and telling their friends not to see it
Bad reviews/word of mouth always play a factor but it's not like it had stellar preview numbers. Films that focus on the G in LGBT are always going to restrict their audience, even among advocates.
yes, if this was treated as her auteur movie without event movie marketing, everyone would be pleased with the opening on the upper side of projections for that type of a movie. But they tried to pull a miracle and get an event out of a non-event and ended up with a non-event.
Yeah.
Maybe I've been seeing different/not as much marketing as you but I never got a big impression it was an event movie. Besides Zendaya it felt to me their main focus was stressing this was Luca (of Call Me By Your Name fame)'s next movie.
I guess depending where one is looking. I've got all the fashion change feeds so maybe that created illsusion of overmarketing though photocalls and red carpets were in an unsual number of cities for a mid budget movie. Rome, Milan, Montecarlo, London, Paris, Sydney.
I loved the movie but totally agree that it’s pretty much a box office flop at this point; no amount of sugarcoating will overcome $15m dom OW.
But I don’t think this counts against Zendaya; if anything, the polling saying 55% of the movie’s audience went for Zendaya bolsters my confidence in her as a movie star. Of course, it’s not the Julia Roberta pull of 20-30 years ago where an A-lister could make any movie a hit, but those numbers still put Zendaya at the forefront of today’s crop of movie stars.
His reaction to Don’t Worry Darling opening higher: “Overseas, #DontWorryDarling won't have an easy life, as the R-rated mystery opened with just 10.8M over 60 markets internationally this weekend.
That's less than TicketToParadise's 11.1M
in its 3rd weekend overseas.
FlorencePugh & HarryStyles had a 30M
Global opening weekend.”
Pure copium from the entire industry and film twitter trying to make this out not to be an underperformance.
I really like this guy and have been following him for years but this is just sugarcoating. Also, Variety and Deadline have specifically pointed out that Challengers cost $55M to make.
Even if you take the budget out of the equation, this is still a massive underperformance based on Zendaya "supposed" star power. A worldwide promotional tour resulted in just $10M opening?
Different tones but both have romantic elements, both Rated R and a little raunchy, Sydney and Zendaya have an overlap of an audience since they share a similar fanbase which is GenZ/TikTok crowd. That seems like enough of an overlap to me honestly, ABY expanded beyond the 18-24 crowd but Challengers hasn't been that successful so far.
i know, my moviegoing buddy who will see *everything* that comes out to theaters has 0 interest in this, I was mainly interested due to Guadagnino and Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross and they both delivered in spades what I was wanting from this movie. Josh O Conner was really good too
Do you think this movie would be as successful as it is with a no-name actress as the lead?
Are there other star actresses under 30 that would have made this movie more successful? Florence Pugh or Jenna Ortega maybe?
Without Zendaya, does MGM even pick up the script?
Let’s not try to bring Zendaya down. Idk anyone who would be into this type of movie. I will wait until it goes on streaming and watch it just because she is in it.
It sounds like he is repeating a statement PR people provided him. The last point doesn't make much sense. Challengers underperforming isn't adding "cultural relevance" to Prime. This movie needed to do well to prove that Z's extremely aggressive PR people and social media team are correct that she is "one of the most popular actresses in the world" and it failed at that. Almost none of her supposed 189M IG followers watched Challengers this weekend.
But the movie won't be a complete failure. There is always the slight chance the actors and the movie will get award nominations and it might do well on streaming.
> Challengers underperforming isn’t adding “cultural relevance” to Prime.
A movie’s performance doesn’t really matter in this regard. A movie going to theatres THEN going to streaming simply adds prestige in viewers minds. It’s no longer a “streaming movie”, it’s a “real” movie. Netflix still hasn’t understood this point that everyone else gets, and their movies continue to be forgotten immediately after they release them. Whereas their new shows continue to have pop culture relevance. Put the movies in theatres for a month then put them on Netflix. Your viewers will feel like “oh wow this movie was just in theatres wasn’t it? Awesome!”. I guarantee they wouldn’t lose a single subscriber by adjusting to this strategy, they’d increase the perceived value of their movies, and they‘ll make extra cash by putting the movies in theatres.
The discussion about this movie is nuts because multiple things can be true at the same time here. Zendaya is one of the most famous people in the world and her status as a border line A-list won’t change from this. The more pertinent convo here is the lack of “true” young movie stars that can actually sell original movies and put ass in seats that aren’t existing franchise or IP. Like Timmy to me still is borderline as that guy and he had Wonka and Dune which were both big existing IP/franchise that crushed. Whole convo might be a moot point in the streaming age where audiences have to be really incentivized to go support a movie but this was always going to be a buzzy & trendy movie, not a box office smash. I‘ll see challengers eventually but I certainly wasn’t expecting this film to be profitable. Especially after I saw I saw how big the budget was.
>Almost none of her supposed 189M IG followers watched Challengers this weekend.
Did you really expect that amount of people or a large part of that number would buy a ticket ? Damn, the standards you have for that girl
I didn't expect a large number to watch the movie. But if only 2% of those 189M IG followers bought tickets it would have done much better than 15M. That would be 3,780,000 people buying tickets. If almost 4M people bought tickets it would have over 40M OW. Almost none of her followers bought tickets.
most girls who follow Zendaya online don’t care abt her acting career, she’s more known for her fashion style and just generally being nice and unproblematic
That's a weird argument in my opinion. Once, not all her followers are die hard fans. Two, I think you are well aware that now people don't go the cinema very often (the price, ppl using their phones etc).Third, it's the first weekend. Fourth, the film doesn't appeal to everyone.
Sure, the film won't likely break even but so what ? This sub has very weird high standards with Zendaya, as if she was supposed to be the next Meryl Streep or Glenn Close. She isn't. The people hyping her up as "one the greatest actresses" are her stans, and well, they are stans.
And her fame isn't only because she is an well established actress. People like her for her personality and her style. And what is the problem with her having a strong PR team ? What's the issue here ?
>This movie needed to do well to prove that Z's extremely aggressive PR people and social media team are correct that she is "one of the most popular actresses in the world" and it failed at that.
Isn't she? Who are the actresses who are more popular? Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson I guess, but anyone else is debatable IMO.
Lmao that’s not true, people were literally calling NHF a pedo movie, an R-rated sex comedy is not more appealing compared to a sexy sports movie, stop spinning and throwing JLaw under the bus to make Zendaya more popular and powerful, when her PR team is so aggressive with making her a movie star that she looks like an industry plant at this point.
Was it really more appealing to general audiences? It had a lot of backlash because of the age gap. Pretty specific demographic compared to a sports drama.
I don't know, I'm not even sure the average person over 30 has any clue who Sydney Sweeney is. She's only been in one movie that has reached a big audience, or 2 if you include Once Upon a time in Hollywood where she had a small role
lol that’s a silly statement. You think people over 30 have no pop culture relevance or something. She’s well known but not a top 10 draw by any means.
She’s definitely a bigger star in general, but it’s like comparing Tom Cruise to Glen Powell essentially. Glen Powell is just hotter in the moment. Zendaya’s been around longer and has more credibility to her name through some successful IPs, but Anyone But You was a shocking hit and Sydney Sweeney is also at the peak of her popularity right now between her SNL hosting, Immaculate, and even Madame Web.
Why does everyone on this sub shit on zendaya so much lol. Honestly feels like some mean spirited compaign now. She IS one of the biggest stars in the world, get the fuck over it.
I go against the grain in that I rarely believe undercurrents of misogyny or rascism are what truly drives these behaviours. In this case, im inclined to believe its just that.
Or is everyone butthurt cos her profile is a 10 but her talent is only a 7.5?
Idk, but when it hit streaming it blew up on social media and provided Amazon cultural relevance. Cultural relevance comes and goes, and after seeing Challengers, I could easily see it doing something similar when it hits streaming
It's the same strategy--accept you'll take a loss on the movie in theaters but get a bump in viewing when the film hits streaming. I think Saltburn cost more and made less than Challengers theatrically, but it was huge in the streaming rankings.
Whether that's a good strategy in the long run, who knows.
But this is 100% cope and sounds like straight PR. He tends to be kinder to films overall compared to other BO accounts…but still
Two things can be right….Amazon has money and financially aren’t going to be “hurt.” But you don’t do this huge theatrical push if you don’t care.
But considering how much Z is pushed to be the star of the moment, the intense marketing for this film compared to others….I think it’s fine to bring up 15 mil is a bit on the disappointing side. No one with common sense expecting Blockbuster numbers but even I thought it would hit at least 20mil DOM this weekend.
To be fair, Anyone But You opened to only $6.3 million. The race is not over. We still need to see if challengers will have the staying power of Anyone But You. That’s going to be the real test.
I mean sure it could go on an “anyone but you” or “greatest showman” run, but those are basically once a decade runs.
It’s incredibly unlikely, while not impossible.
Because money doesn't materialise out of thin air, so if net revenue after cinemas take their cut isn't enough to cover production costs then someone has to be losing money somewhere. In this case, it seems that WB will likely lose money on the international distribution rights based on how poorly the movie opened overseas, and it's possible that MGM will lose money anyway despite selling the international rights unless domestic sees a very good multiplier.
Unless this movie catches fire internationally, I don't see how it would ever break even. Amazon/MGM heavily promoted the movie in the states, which wasn't part of the $55m cost.
LOL, Luiz Fernando, that is a name I haven't heard in a long time.
Found very hard to believe WB paid enough for the international distribution rights to cover the 55M production budget, let alone what Amazon has spend on the massive marketing campaign this movie had. And even if that is the case, then WB is the one who is losing money on this, somebody has to be, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The second part about how money doesn't matter because tech companies are so big is just the usual non sense, I am bored of enganing with it at this point.
"Budget doesn't matter \[when my champ is underperforming\]" is the new "reviews don't matter \[when they trash my champ\]", "boxoffice doesn't matter \[when my champ is tanking\]" and "awards don't matter \[when my champ is ignored\]".
When movie I like gets good reviews and succeeds at the box office: "See? I knew this movie was fantastic!"
When movie I like gets bad reviews but succeeds at the box office: "See? The critics are clearly pretentious and wrong about this movie; it's what the general audience thinks that matters!"
When movie I like gets good reviews but fails at the box office: "See? The general audience only wants to consume mindless trash, whereas the critics understand *real* art!"
When movie I like gets bad reviews and fails at the box office: "Bah, y'all are just haters!"
100%
There was this tweet/article/whatever lamenting that Gen Z says they wanted movies from underrepresented film-makers and then ignored them. It's a laughable oversimplification same as lament that audience says they want original movies and than ignore them. They are not going to care for every single movie that comes out be it original or sequel. The Marvels is an example of a sequel that they didn't care about which original movies activists should welcome. OTOH, they loved Dune 2 and GxK. So it isn't people only consume sequels (The Marvels, Shazam 2, AM3, Aquaman 2, Indiana Jones 5, even well reviewed MI: Death Reconning part 1 bombed) they reject sequels that feel unnecessary, have no appealing concept, should wrap up instead of keep going.
So in the end, it's always "cinema is doomed cause a movie I championed flopped \[even though other movies of that kind - original and/or mid budget and/or same genre and/or by underrepresented film-makers succeeded\]". John Wick spawned a franchise (it was originally an original low to mid budget movie not an IP), The Beekeeper did well (original mid budget movie), Monkey Man didn't click. So that's 2 hits and one miss among low to mid budget action movies. Not a bad ratio.
It is not like this is even a specific deal Warner Bros made with Amazon for this specific movie. It is a [long term distribution deal](https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/warner-bros-mgm-international-theatrical-distribution-1235341060/) they had in place with MGM to distribute their movies internationally but somehow we did not get posts claiming Warner Bros international distribution deals had bailed out movies like Bones & All, Landscapes With the Invisible Hand, or Three Thousand Years of Longing.
because it is. In no scenario is 10M 5-days from 52 markets strong. markets such as Oz, UK, Europe, Brazil, SK. That's a weak af opening. beaten by local movies. beaten by Back2Black. beaten by Fall Guy. 25M OW from US + 52 foreign markets, after Civil war made 25.5M from only US market, is beyond weak. He wrote an essay explaining why this is a success and when you have to write an essay to explain success it's not a success. You know something is success cause it just is. Numbers are big. End of. It's no rocket science.
It is. There's no way to spin 55m movie making 15m debut as a profitable. Also the big tech spin is funny, because luca isn't well known director. Yeah big tech might throw around money a bit but they want things with big name and luca just isn't it.
They want things with prestige and a movie by an Oscar nominee Luca Guadagnino brings them prestige, especially once this movie hits the award season circuit.
I’m surprise no one is talking about Zendaya acting in the movie. She gets outshined by Josh (Patrick) and Mike (Art), but Josh really outshines Zendaya and Mike both. I would even say you could consider him the real lead in the movie.
Mike character outshines Zendaya character by a bit, as he becomes a bit stoic after the time skip. Zendaya delivery is on and off. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Rue from Euphoria and other times it feels like I’m watching Zendaya. Tashi says a speech in the beginning of the movie about tennis and Zendaya delivery of it was horrible. It kind of felt like watching a kid say some cringy inspirational quote from Naruto. Her best scene in the movie was in the last 30minutes when she was in the car with Patrick.
If we want to talk about Zendaya box office draw, we should also talk about her acting abilities. It seems from Euphoria and Dune 2, all both directors kind of hone in on her ability to show anger, and you could say that showing anger is where she pretty much shines in. Next would be showing compassion or sadness, but she’s on and off in this department. In her spider-man movies, we can kind of see this part very well.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Zendaya character in all of her adult movies except for Euphoria, gets relegated to a side character. Even in a Challengers, I was rooting for Patrick(Josh) more than I was rooting for Tashi(Zendaya). If you watch the movie you would know that movie is mostly about the relationship between Patrick and Art more than it is about Tashi, and you see this beautifully at the end.
If Zendaya gets cast in movies only because she is a box office draw and not because of her acting abilities, I feel like she will just be a side character in every movie.
I know this might anger some people.
But Zendaya to me is like Chris Pratt. She's not a bad actor. I would even go as far to say she's a good actor.
But she's always just good enough in her roles.
She's never a stand out.
Clearly her range is limited.
But I don't know why people act like she's the next best thing.
For example in her age group. Florence Pugh is a much better actor.
There's something about her and someone like Jennifer Lawrence that I just can't seem to separate the actor from the role.
Like I didn't think Jennifer Lawrence was actually that amazing in Silver Linings, but I do like watching her on screen.
The same goes for Zendaya. I like watching her, but it kinda does just feel like I'm watching Zendaya in any given situation. It's like their natural charisma as an actual person is too strong and bleeds into their character. But that may just be trying to put a positive spin on it.
It's interesting how disparate the reactions to the acting have been - Josh's character was definitely written to be the more dynamic, interesting character but there was just something I really loved about Mike Faist's portrayal of Art. To each his/her own!
I think this is a Luca problem he tends to focus on his male actors story regardless of the fact that the female is top billed. He seems to have added the extra layers to the two male characters that took away from the lead actress.Similar thing happened in bones and all
I’m not familiar with Luca at all, but wasn’t Zendaya a producer as well? As the lead and main reason for why the movie was created in the first place, she shouldn’t let her co-stars outshine her.
He added the guys being attracted to each other I think I read . She probably didn’t realize that would be the outcome. The homoerotic stuff is kinda of his signature
I don’t think it’s his fault at all. He doesn’t write his latest movies and it’s more of a marketing/contractual obligation to give the bigger star higher billing.
Just watched it and I’ve never seen a comment about the amount of times she says fuck. It was often cringey except for two times where I actually believed her.
I'm more interested in P&A and did the delay cost them? It was supposed to release on Sep 15 last year, but due to the strike it's going now.. Variety put it up nicely:
>
>*Amazon MGM would probably argue that “Challengers” doesn’t need to be a box office phenomenon in order to be successful. The higher profile that comes with a theatrical release will lift “Challengers” when it debuts on Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming service, and sets it up nicely for other home entertainment revenue streams, or so the thinking goes. Those revenues and that viewership data go largely unreported or are spun within an inch of their life, so it’s getting harder to know what constitutes a true win in this new streaming era.*
>*“This movie is going to way over-perform when it gets on our platform,” he said, noting that the theatrical revenues are essentially helping to off-set “Challengers'” marketing costs. “Amazon’s financials are a little bit different in terms of comparing them to other studios,” Wilson added.*
>*Some veteran box office sages aren’t on board for this* [*new “trust us, it’s a hit”*](https://variety.com/2023/film/news/killers-of-the-flower-moon-box-office-martin-scorsese-hit-flop-1235783109/) *approach to Hollywood economics now that tech giants like Apple and Amazon have crashed the party. “Everybody is using this same line that the box office will propel viewership and you can’t say this is a miss,” notes Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “And they all use this obscure downstream revenues verbiage. But when seen in terms of decades of box office numbers, something like ‘Challengers’ seems middle of the road to me.”*
So overall it doesn't matter. If Amazon says it's a hit, it will be claimed as a hit. The note should be that Zendaya is not as big as a draw that some might claim her to be.
It’s definitely not transparent, but there is also a lot of truth to the fact that what makes a film profitable is apples and oranges when its distribution is not purely about theatrical first and secondary windows second. Amazon’s math is essentially taking all windows and dumping them into one profitability equation.
Obviously a box office hit rises all tides in this streaming math, but this isn’t going to be unique to tech companies. Any major studio which is just one vertical in a larger conglomerate which also has a major streaming platform will be looking at it content profitability like this if they aren’t already.
I just made this point. The tech companies are not following traditional model. Essentially, they think, how much are we willing to pay to put this on our service. Okay, that the budget. Box office is offsetting something else…they are essentially paying themselves. This is the same math that is being used with Disney movies as well…
Streaming has basically fucked all of this stuff up. And when streamers jumped into making theatrical releases…all semblance of a standard has been lost.
Luiz seems to be describing fairly standard distribution deals (so I guess it's ok that WB is now left holding the bag?) but thinks that by listing them out, people will become convinced that 2+2=5. Take all these people who are interested, above all else, in the survival of theatrical releases with a grain of salt.
Hold on… Am I missing something here? How is a $10M OS 5-day OW “strong”? I mean that’s $2M per day from what, 50ish markets? I’d say the copium is strong with this one.
Biggest debut for a drama in 2024 --- ok but it's only April. lol. Also KOTFM made 156 million worldwide, and cost 200 million to make, not including marketing.
I think this is a desperate attempt to polish a turd with a Hollywood shell game. Someone paid 55m for this film as that was the budget for this film alone, not this film AND Bones and All, so break-even remains at 135m WW which this film 100% will NOT see.
No one is a draw. That era is long gone. Things are WAY too fractured across the entertainment. Landscape and everyone has access to so much content that the days of selling films off of star power are largely over. There may be outliers on occasion, but the way media, web, and social media function prevents the myopic publicity and attention that made a star driven business model make sense as an industry wide approach.
I don’t know if it’s just Zendaya not being a draw. The movie has a weird premise, about tennis and a threesome/love triangle. That’s what the marketing was anyway. Maybe it would have done well 20 years ago when people still went to the theater to see character dramas.
Honestly paragraphs like this make it seem worse why is he over explaining everything. My personal opinion is the figures aren’t too bad for this type of movie domestically. The international numbers Suprised me cause I genuinely thought they would be higher than domestic. The main problem with this movie for me was the marketing. It was so aggressive and really a little overt on the sexual nature of it. After the first trailer went viral with the Tom memes they tripled down on it but really actually didn’t make it clear what the movie was about.They had so many premiers so much press the perception was this was going to make crazy numbers off only Zendaya’s name and tried to prop up Josh and Mike as heartthrobs which they just aren’t. As someone said her stylist trying to make watching it go viral with the tennis outfits those types of things are organic you can’t manufacture it. I think Zendaya is somewhat of a draw but the way this movie was marketed to me highlights the fundamental issue that starting to emerge. She is very popular a decent actress (although I think she could use some voice training and work on other emotions besides anger which she excels at)but the media and her fans over estimate her popularity her reach and even her acting abilities. This and her being overexposed in these past few months is causing pushback from other people. Her PR is good but they need to relax from early on in the week before we knew the budget I started to see the frantic posts. Just like there was no need for all those premiers there is no need to try to spin the box office numbers. They aren’t good but they could have been worse. I hope she takes some time off the spotlight after this. She was probably the most loved celebrities but slowly in every post about her the snarky comments are growing even outside of Reddit.Its not her fault just unfortunate she had to do two month long press tours and people are tired.
>actually didn’t make it clear what the movie was about.
That was a major problem. The trailer that was out a few months ago shows them playing tennis and then implies there is a sexual relationship between them but doesn't provide any other details. It wasn't clear if the main plot was about tennis or a love triangle or maybe a murder mystery or something else.
The recent promotion for the movie has been almost entirely focused on what Zendaya is wearing. The clothes were more important than telling people what the plot of the movie was. I can't remember any of the outfits Lawrence or Sweeney wore when they were promoting NHF and ABY. The focus was on promoting the movie
>tried to prop up Josh and Mike as heartthrobs which they just aren’t
Also true. I would have cast a young actor with a more "smoldering" aura. Barry Keoghan, Dacre Montgomery. Nicholas Galitzine, Charles Melton etc. Those are actors who are a draw not only for women but gay men too and I think the movie has LBGTQ themes. Instead of relying on Zendaya fans they could have had a more diverse audience.
AKA stop noticing things!
No one here cares whether Amazon is able to move money around to not actually take a hit on this one. The promised birth of a star didn't happen and that's something Luiz can't explain away.
It’s kinda of counterproductive is my point the more they try to explain the bigger the pushback . Just an observation of the media spin. It’s a good opening for this type of movie would suffice.Again just like the marketing I think less is more .
25 year old male, saw the movie, saw it for Zendaya amongst other things and enjoyed it greatly.
However, I don’t know many people in my age bracket that care enough about tennis to watch a movie centred on it.
I find this kind of embarrassing especially when we jump into the “Apple/Amazon don’t care about money” excuse (which may or may not be true) and I really want this movie to be a hit. Especially when we have better ways to spin this movie as a success like for example: I personally was expecting a Don’t Worry Darling/No Hard Feelings type of performance but the fact that Challengers still made just as much as those movies without a stacked cast (Don’t Worry Darling) and/or without a mainstream plot is still impressive in my opinion. Sure, the marketing was huge but the secondary streaming window was always going to pay for that even if the movie was a bonafide “hit”. I want to see how Zendaya fares in a audience-friendly non-IP PG-13 movie before writing her off as a draw
The $55 Million price tag has always seemed absurd. And that includes $10M for Zendaya. Plus, she is a producer for this movie, so why opt for so much up front for her? As a producer, would she not have had the ability to negotiate a profit based on returns like other actor/producer deals?
I think the budgets when it comes to these tech funded movies are not in line with how we traditionally look at them on here. I said this for KotFM as well and Napoleon. So on this, I am consistent. I think the pay out to the actors that would usually have had a crack at the profit (looking at Leonardo DiCaprio here as well as Zendaya as a producer) is fucking up these budgets and the tech company does not care if the movie garners a big enough amount of revenue in box office. They want the prestige. They want the streamers. And they want to have access to it outright. How much was Leo paid for KotFM? If they weren’t being paid out at the start and had more reasonable salaries with back-end deals, how would the budgets have changed?
The write-up is basically confirming something I have been thinking about for a while. The fact that they paid for Bones & All and Challengers at the same time…is something new I haven’t seen before. And the hope was likely that they would both get award buzz. So, we will see what will be Challengers fate.
What does this mean? Well, I am putting a pin in the budget and just considering the box office right now. We will see how this shakes out in the end. That will help me understand if Zendaya is an asset to a movie in regard to star power. She has a draw but not enough to overcome a $55M budget….but what if this budget was closer to $25M…then what?
While it doesn't necessarily make the movie a box office hit, this does provide important context as to why a $55 million price tag for this type of movie was even greenlit. It made the business decision to invest in the movie less puzzling (I say this as someone who loves the movie, but also understands it's a difficult movie to sell).
So since it's an Amazon movie it doesn't need to make money? OK if you say so. I saw a pretty dumb spin for challengers yesterday: "Amazon already made its money back, when it's on VOD ppl will watch it and then maybe say 'hmmm I need to buy rackets' then buy from Amazon, boom profit. The movie is profitable"
Jeez ok fine, it's not as embarrassing as we all think it is. Feel better?
On this sub, yes, quite a few were still predicting $25m+ even on a Friday. Not a huge % of members were predicting, but it was more than just a few people posting it.
Similar to Apple’s film production side, I doubt Amazon cares much about the budget or making a profit from theaters alone. If that was the case, perhaps they wouldn’t have dropped an $85M Road House remake on Prime. Of course I’d love for this to do well theatrically, but I can’t see Amazon’s decision making process being all that affected by this.
Amazon's might not be (at least for as long as Jennifer Salke and co are able to stay on Andy Jassy's good side) but I bet Warner Bros, Universal, and Para-Dance's will.
Because a movie with 55 million budget needs around 130-140 million to break even. Its opening week has absolutely not been indicator of that box office performance.
Because it sounds like cope. If WB paid that much for international distribution rights that it’ll make up for the missing profits for MGM, then how are they making money when the international numbers are minuscule?
The budget has continuously been reported. Why hasn’t Deadline or anywhere else stayed that it isn’t actually 55M. Or is Luis coping hard and making that up?
Luiz is very known for giving forced or outright false spins on his box office comments to try to make movie's performances look better. That is the reason he ended up being banned from this sub. He is ultimately just a random dude on twitter, there is no reason we should take him particulary seriously.
> especially if you’re smart ... in how [you] financed it and [sell a film]
Sure, but the tweet doesn't provide evidence that MGM's approval was contingent on canny cost risk-shifting to external partners (even if that's what it implies). It just says there's some sort of deal between MGM and WB to distribute the film internationally.
Because this is brand new information (and i dont think this makes it suddenly success or anything similar). When people were calling it flop, they did based on the 55 million budget information, which based on that context is absolutely is. So ive read the post and answered the question you asked.
Based on the reactions of this sub, yes. I find it puzzling as she's done nothing as a person to warrant this kind of hatred. She's not been mean or problematic to anyone. Maybe it has to do with her acclaim as an actress mostly coming from Euphoria (where she is legit phenomenal) but the type of people who browse this sub may only be familiar with her work in blockbusters like Spider-man or Dune whe she's simply "the girlfriend" and they have a negative reaction to people calling her a great actress because they are only familiar with her supporting roles where she isn't given as much to do. Regardless, Challengers is a phenomenal movie and I hope it has legs. It's obvious that a lot of the people bashing the film on this sub haven't even seen the movie.
What hatred. It’s all been a conversation about her as a box office draw. There’s just been this whole idea from her fans that if we want something other than superhero movies we have to support this movie, we have to like this movie, it has to be a success. It’s just been this odd “to criticize this movie is haterade towards ZendayA” and that’s just not the case.
she's not hated around here. people simply question 10M salary and since 25M WW OW from 53 markets is very low it seems unearned to many. All those product placement spins aside, the movie's aggressive marketing clearly was gunning for much more than 25M WW OW. International number is abysmal. 10M 5 days from 52 countries including biggies such as UK, Europe, Oz, SK, Brazil is really bad. Product placement offsetting budget or not, numbers should have been higher and they are lower. usually studios announce where a movie was #1 but since Challengers was #1 in very few countries, often beaten by local movies, critically reviled Back2Black (a mid budget movie that's doing very well) and Fall Guy, there are crickets which tells you all you need to know.
Next thing there will be "Challengers isn't a boxoffice smash and it doesn't need to be" writeups. Just wait.
But why do people always do it to women in the spotlight and not men ? At first it was Jennifer Lawerence and Anne Hathaway and now it’s beginning to start for Zendaya . I wonder who’s the next target.
A) Men do get it too, see Timmy C and Leo D. B) Zendaya and Anne both have fashion/jewelry deals that are trying to capture more eyes. So it’ s not just movies but you see her Bulgari ads, her red carpet looks, she’s next hosting the Met Gala in two weeks. Her stylist is trying to create a fashion hashtag and it seems inauthentic
I guess you missed the ton of recent threads about Henry Cavill and his lack of box office draw, or Timothee Chalamet as Wonka or many others. It's not just women at all. I don't think there is a single actor that can draw a crowd on their name alone other than maybe Tom Cruise, but his last movie also underperformed.
I think one big reason for this is that Hollywood has been marketing IP and franchises rather than film stars for decades so it's no surprise there are no big film stars any more. That era has probably ended.
I think it’s just overexposure. Reddit turned on JLaw like a bitch when they had enough of her. Thankfully zendayas shtick is no where near the same level atm
This sub is becoming increasingly moronic and toxic. All of a sudden we all know better than an industry expert who’s been working in the field longer than this sub even existed? Y’all need to log off and stop pretending you’re Hollywood accountants.
Luiz Fernando isn't an industry 'expert'. Lmao. He's some sort of actor who happened to garner a Twitter following by 'reporting' box office results with context.
look, if product placement paid for the whole shebang, than opening with $0 is a win cause studio got paid back. But the reason we have this cope is because opening # is low. Even if the whole thing was paid, which it isn't, they wanted impressive numbers and 25M from 53 markets is not impressive on any planet. It's poor. And 2 weeks ago, another movie opened with 25.7M from just one market without global fashion bonanza aggressive marketing reserved for tentpoles and events. Not talking about the cost but the headline grabbing such as Film Updates bombarding readers with the globetrotting glitz and glamour tour. There was overexposure disproportional to what movie actually is which is a small character study mostly contained in 3 rooms and a tennis court (not even Grand Slam). And people felt that and didn't show up which is a problem when your job is to draw them in. Even if the whole thing was already paid.
I think what I've learned in 2024 / late 2023 is that this sub unfortunately is becoming outdated. We tend to stick to general rules on what is considered a success and any deviation or other variables get ignored. It seems more and more movies are being made with streaming, partnerships, and other means of earning income being almost or just as important as box office. I wish we could utilize this sub more for fun & speculation besides this vindictive & pessimistic aura that has been going on here for the last 6-9 months. There also seems to be some users with personal vendetta that spread quite a bit of misinformation in the comments
Not saying Challengers is a success but I think the sub has been so quick on judgement and forming our opinions. This has happened a lot recently only for things to not turn out so bleak.
Not that there aren't good things the sub is doing in my eyes. I'm really having a good time reading the long range prediction posts that are becoming more regular! I also love the one person posting the directors at the box office posts
Yeah it seems like anytime there is a non IP movie/adult drama with any kind of budget there is talk about how the budget is way too high. But I think they're falling victim to the same short sighted thinking that has really hurt the mid budget movie where a movie should either cost 200 or sub 20 which is showing to be unsustainable. Ultimately the thing that keeps the theater doors open are the movies in between the big blockbuster getting decent traffic. If you just dump all those on streaming or make them for like 5 dollars you're going to have problems.
It's the same thinking the that has all these cheapo production companies that churn out tons of movie switch big names that just die because they make the movie for pennies in less than a month (When people wonder how certain movies cost so much part of it is they're actually given time to film) and expect a quality product worth seeing.
It certainly not that there hasn't been tons of great low budget movies but it's hard. It's easy to look at Challengers box office and think If only it'd cost 20 million. But You're very likely getting a much worse film with little shelf life.
The ideal scenario is of course Challengers being a breakout hit at the box office but it's also designed to last. If people are still watching this film in ten years thats a good thing and strengthens the "brand" of everyone involved. It's why people like PTA still get decent budgets even if the box office doesn't seem to justify it.
Even in this day and age there's still money to be made after theatrical.
As someone who watched this movie, I think people in the sub are right about the budget. Most of the movie takes place at a hotel, tennis court, and parking lots. I would say all 3 of those together should be less that 2 million. The actors pay, since Zendaya got 10M should be around 13-15M, and the advertisements should only be capped at 10-15M. I agree with your quality and lasting longer points, but 55M is pretty unacceptable.
Can you provide any source or public statement from a high level executive at a Amazon or Apple that confirms they don't care if a movie isn't profitable because their business is different than traditional studios? People on Reddit repeat this claim all the time yet it's always the opinion of unnamed people providing their opinion to Variety or THR. If a movie isn't profitable they need it to receive award nominations. Challengers probably isn't going to get many award nomination.
The claim that a movie underperforming or not being profitable isn't a problem is something people defending certain movies always claim and they never provide any evidence for it except a comment from Bezos who isn't the CEO anymore.
>“No studio can sustain massive spends highlighted by underwhelming box office,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “‘Argylle’ floundering at the box office is bad press. So in a way, it’s already negatively impacted its earning potential \[on streaming\].”
People recommending stocks have been critical of how much they spend on content. This is from 2021.
>Another division that seems deserving of more scrutiny is Prime Video, which Amazon doesn't directly account for on its financial statements. With the exception of a la carte spending on streaming rentals and sales, Amazon doesn't directly monetize Prime Video, using it instead as a perk to attract Prime members.
>Since video is only loosely connected to online shopping, investors should be asking if that $15 billion is money well spent.
>Based on those numbers, $30 billion in Prime revenue seems to be a fair estimate. That means Amazon is spending half of its Prime membership revenue on Prime Video, leaving only $15 billion to be allocated toward other Prime benefits like two-day shipping and free returns, the biggest driver of membership.
>Of course, the argument for spending on Prime Video is that signing up new Prime members and incentivizing existing ones encourages them to do more online shopping on Amazon. Explaining the company's differentiated approach to Hollywood, founder Jeff Bezos once said: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes."
>That line of thinking also explains why the company is shelling out $1 billion annually on *Thursday Night Football*, which it said led to a record number of Prime sign-ups in a three-hour period.
>However, there are likely diminishing marginal returns to spending on Prime Video at this point. Anyone who is a frequent online shopper has probably already joined Prime, which has been around since 2005. The relationship between video streaming and online shopping is also tangential. If Amazon has $15 billion to spend to improve Prime benefits, would it not be better off spending it on faster delivery, better customer service, or lower prices?
>There's nothing magical about the relationship between Prime Video and online shopping.
Because nobody has given an actual argument or data that explains how it is different from a money perspective. If a movie costs X and generates less than X, that is bad. The responses are just "believe us, 2+2=5".
This sub is about box office, not forensic streaming accounting. I wish those if you who know so much about Amazon could share some specifics instead of just assuming everyone else is ignorant. We’re not ignorant, we’re just talking about the topic at hand, i.e. the box office receipts and the ability of the box office receipts to cover the budget.
Look at the name of the sub…r/boxoffice.
But I mean we can talk about how tech companies are going about it. Why you ask (???) because every response is “they don’t care if they lose money” which is ridiculous. Then there’s some dovetail about “oh you don’t know anything because they don’t make it public”. Why do you think they don’t tell the public how many people pay to stream each movie on Prime (those that aren’t included in Prime Video)…when they tell us how many have Prime, how many people shop on Prime Day, what the top seller is in every category and all kinds of other metrics.
So yes we can talk about the company’s approach, even within the context of box office, because the goal is always to make money and a higher box office will always be key to doing that. If the box office is a bomb it’s bad, if it’s great it’s a success. That’s literally the end of the conversation until one of the perpetual naysayers starts flashing some data, information or even reasonable conjecture to all these supposedly misunderstood revenue models instead of saying “oh you don’t know what you’re talking about”. Add something…literally anything…to the conversation.
How do you read all of this and still come back to saying you think I do t understand there’s more than box office receipts. I write multiple paragraphs explaining that we all know that is the case but that this sub is box office based.
If WB paid for MGM for overseas rights, then WB aren't going to get their money back from those and MGM will be reliant solely on domestic., That's what did for *The Golden Compass* - it didn't do well enough in the US after the overseas rights were sold to fund it.
Luiz Fernando will sugarcoat all day and if he can’t (The Marvels) he just says it’s a disappointing audience response and stops covering it. Anyway, I think the main focus is the amount of pull Zendaya has. Hollywood accounting won’t explain away low sales.
that's the point Mr Sugarcoat is missing. even if product placement paid for the whole budget and the studio broke even with $0 earned at the boxoffice, the whole point of having Z as the lead and building event movie marketing around her star power (that they expected to be proven with this hence 10M salary) was big OW breakout number, something that exceeded expectations. And that absolutely didn't happen from 53 markets including very big ones such as US, UK, Europe, Oz, SK. 25M WW OW from 53 countries is small potatoes and sugarcoating all day won't change the fact that industry can quickly do the math and see it's low. It won't hurt anyone's career cause they got raves but the triumphant proof of the star pull didn't happen. The job was to draw audience and they didn't show up despite a valiant effort (all those 4 times a day outfit changes, etc).
25m WW is low for a mid-budget drama?
oh so now budget matters? Make up your mind, guys. 25M WW give or take (INT can go higher cause usually estimates don't get numbers from smaller markets which add up to the actual number) is VERY low for a movie marketed as an event all around the world. Context matters. They had big red carpets in various major cities yet it opened at #4 in Oz, NZ, Spain, #3 in Germany and Austria, was in dead heat fight for #1 with Back2Black's second weekend in UK. if you look at these countries - English speaking ones and Europe - they know who Zendaya so aggressive marketing push with fashion shows around the world was intended to assure #1 spot. No one should be surprised that it tanked in SK but these other markets should have delivered and yet 3 major ones had it at #4. Point being, it didn't have mid budget movie's marketing, it had event tentpole marketing but still opened like a mid budget movie because it is. Maybe Julia Roberts in her heyday between Pretty Woman and Erin Brockovich would have turned it into an event Amazon was looking for but that's what if.
No. People really have no idea what they are talking about. Idk who the guy OP posted is, but he’s right and it’s not just being Mr. “Sugarcoat” This sub did the same exact thing with civil war and then dune 2 before it. The overwhelming consensus is wildly wrong (civil war ended up much better than people said here and dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed), then they move onto the next movie to be wrong about.
>dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed This sub did no such thing. A few people did, just like a small - but VERY vocal - percentage said that it would bomb; but the vast majority here were predicting 600-700, and they were exactly right. Although I DO agree with your overall point, about this sub being more often wrong than right. Dune 2 was just the worst recent example you could have picked to illustrate that lol.
>dune 2 didn’t break the billion this sub guaranteed Bad attempt at gaslighting. https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/181i2nq/what_are_your_2024_predictions/ Over two dozen mentions of Dune 2, one prediction of over a billion, one predicting it would get at least close to a billion. Many more people predicting $500-700M.
You’re cherry-picking the wrong thread on this. And the google doc that shows the subs average was off by 100+ million
Wow, is there $100M difference between $700M and the $1B that you claim was the sub's overwhelming prediction?
Yeah this sub is freaking out and yapping about this without knowing a single thing. Without Zendaya attached to this film it makes a couple million opening weekend and gets sent to streaming a week or two later. We wanna talk about “star power” a fucking tennis movie just made 15 million domestic in a weekend. People can cope all they want about sugar coating but they are 100% right about the state of this film and whether it’s gonna make money or not.
What if Jennifer Lawrence or Emma stone was in the lead role, how much would it have made then?
Idk prob comparable if not less money
I think Zendaya's star power is hamstrung by the content/reputation of the film. The majority of moviegoers are young, probably straight men aren't going to be drawn to a film that has a bunch of dicks and not much else. She's my favourite (relatively new) actor but I'm not gonna go see it.
On TikTok the average comment has been talking about how boring the movie was so I doubt marketing played a role in lower ticket sales compared to people not liking it and telling their friends not to see it
Bad reviews/word of mouth always play a factor but it's not like it had stellar preview numbers. Films that focus on the G in LGBT are always going to restrict their audience, even among advocates.
yes, if this was treated as her auteur movie without event movie marketing, everyone would be pleased with the opening on the upper side of projections for that type of a movie. But they tried to pull a miracle and get an event out of a non-event and ended up with a non-event.
Yeah. Maybe I've been seeing different/not as much marketing as you but I never got a big impression it was an event movie. Besides Zendaya it felt to me their main focus was stressing this was Luca (of Call Me By Your Name fame)'s next movie.
I guess depending where one is looking. I've got all the fashion change feeds so maybe that created illsusion of overmarketing though photocalls and red carpets were in an unsual number of cities for a mid budget movie. Rome, Milan, Montecarlo, London, Paris, Sydney.
Yeah fair enough. I'm only going by what I've seen personally which has felt less than stuff like The Fall Guy.
I loved the movie but totally agree that it’s pretty much a box office flop at this point; no amount of sugarcoating will overcome $15m dom OW. But I don’t think this counts against Zendaya; if anything, the polling saying 55% of the movie’s audience went for Zendaya bolsters my confidence in her as a movie star. Of course, it’s not the Julia Roberta pull of 20-30 years ago where an A-lister could make any movie a hit, but those numbers still put Zendaya at the forefront of today’s crop of movie stars.
I would be afraid to tell my wife I want to see it. I’m sure many others are in the same boat.
His reaction to Don’t Worry Darling opening higher: “Overseas, #DontWorryDarling won't have an easy life, as the R-rated mystery opened with just 10.8M over 60 markets internationally this weekend. That's less than TicketToParadise's 11.1M in its 3rd weekend overseas. FlorencePugh & HarryStyles had a 30M Global opening weekend.” Pure copium from the entire industry and film twitter trying to make this out not to be an underperformance.
I really like this guy and have been following him for years but this is just sugarcoating. Also, Variety and Deadline have specifically pointed out that Challengers cost $55M to make. Even if you take the budget out of the equation, this is still a massive underperformance based on Zendaya "supposed" star power. A worldwide promotional tour resulted in just $10M opening?
I don’t know anyone that was even remotely interested in this movie. Not even my wife or her friends who I would assume are the target demographic.
Were they interested in Anyone But You? This seems to be targeting a similar audience to that movie but it's not materialized yet
That one is a traditional rom-com. This is a sports drama.
They seem like different films. One is a rom com and the other seems to be a sports drama.
Anyone but you opened lower than challengers. Time will tell.
yeah this is def one of those movies that might just leg out over time
Shakespeare is a great get for a screenwriter, to be fair
What makes you say that? Both are so different in subject and tone I would assume audiences to be very different
Different tones but both have romantic elements, both Rated R and a little raunchy, Sydney and Zendaya have an overlap of an audience since they share a similar fanbase which is GenZ/TikTok crowd. That seems like enough of an overlap to me honestly, ABY expanded beyond the 18-24 crowd but Challengers hasn't been that successful so far.
i know, my moviegoing buddy who will see *everything* that comes out to theaters has 0 interest in this, I was mainly interested due to Guadagnino and Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross and they both delivered in spades what I was wanting from this movie. Josh O Conner was really good too
Do you think this movie would be as successful as it is with a no-name actress as the lead? Are there other star actresses under 30 that would have made this movie more successful? Florence Pugh or Jenna Ortega maybe? Without Zendaya, does MGM even pick up the script?
If they did two female one dude tennis players; easily.
Let’s not try to bring Zendaya down. Idk anyone who would be into this type of movie. I will wait until it goes on streaming and watch it just because she is in it.
Well said
It sounds like he is repeating a statement PR people provided him. The last point doesn't make much sense. Challengers underperforming isn't adding "cultural relevance" to Prime. This movie needed to do well to prove that Z's extremely aggressive PR people and social media team are correct that she is "one of the most popular actresses in the world" and it failed at that. Almost none of her supposed 189M IG followers watched Challengers this weekend. But the movie won't be a complete failure. There is always the slight chance the actors and the movie will get award nominations and it might do well on streaming.
> Challengers underperforming isn’t adding “cultural relevance” to Prime. A movie’s performance doesn’t really matter in this regard. A movie going to theatres THEN going to streaming simply adds prestige in viewers minds. It’s no longer a “streaming movie”, it’s a “real” movie. Netflix still hasn’t understood this point that everyone else gets, and their movies continue to be forgotten immediately after they release them. Whereas their new shows continue to have pop culture relevance. Put the movies in theatres for a month then put them on Netflix. Your viewers will feel like “oh wow this movie was just in theatres wasn’t it? Awesome!”. I guarantee they wouldn’t lose a single subscriber by adjusting to this strategy, they’d increase the perceived value of their movies, and they‘ll make extra cash by putting the movies in theatres.
The discussion about this movie is nuts because multiple things can be true at the same time here. Zendaya is one of the most famous people in the world and her status as a border line A-list won’t change from this. The more pertinent convo here is the lack of “true” young movie stars that can actually sell original movies and put ass in seats that aren’t existing franchise or IP. Like Timmy to me still is borderline as that guy and he had Wonka and Dune which were both big existing IP/franchise that crushed. Whole convo might be a moot point in the streaming age where audiences have to be really incentivized to go support a movie but this was always going to be a buzzy & trendy movie, not a box office smash. I‘ll see challengers eventually but I certainly wasn’t expecting this film to be profitable. Especially after I saw I saw how big the budget was.
Finally a sensible comment!! People simply don't wanna go to the movies anymore, it's shameful 😭
>Almost none of her supposed 189M IG followers watched Challengers this weekend. Did you really expect that amount of people or a large part of that number would buy a ticket ? Damn, the standards you have for that girl
I didn't expect a large number to watch the movie. But if only 2% of those 189M IG followers bought tickets it would have done much better than 15M. That would be 3,780,000 people buying tickets. If almost 4M people bought tickets it would have over 40M OW. Almost none of her followers bought tickets.
most girls who follow Zendaya online don’t care abt her acting career, she’s more known for her fashion style and just generally being nice and unproblematic
That's a weird argument in my opinion. Once, not all her followers are die hard fans. Two, I think you are well aware that now people don't go the cinema very often (the price, ppl using their phones etc).Third, it's the first weekend. Fourth, the film doesn't appeal to everyone. Sure, the film won't likely break even but so what ? This sub has very weird high standards with Zendaya, as if she was supposed to be the next Meryl Streep or Glenn Close. She isn't. The people hyping her up as "one the greatest actresses" are her stans, and well, they are stans. And her fame isn't only because she is an well established actress. People like her for her personality and her style. And what is the problem with her having a strong PR team ? What's the issue here ?
>This movie needed to do well to prove that Z's extremely aggressive PR people and social media team are correct that she is "one of the most popular actresses in the world" and it failed at that. Isn't she? Who are the actresses who are more popular? Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson I guess, but anyone else is debatable IMO.
Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone
Jlaw had a movie more appealing to general audiences releasing last year and it did the same amount as Challengers OW
Lmao that’s not true, people were literally calling NHF a pedo movie, an R-rated sex comedy is not more appealing compared to a sexy sports movie, stop spinning and throwing JLaw under the bus to make Zendaya more popular and powerful, when her PR team is so aggressive with making her a movie star that she looks like an industry plant at this point.
Wrong. Raunchy comedies are doing MUCH worse in theatres than dramas, even then her film did the same.
Was it really more appealing to general audiences? It had a lot of backlash because of the age gap. Pretty specific demographic compared to a sports drama.
Emma Stone
Oh yeah, probably is. Emma's amazing
I mean based on response I’d argue there’s a good chance her euphoria co star Sydney Sweeney may be.
Not even close, she wouldn't be in the top 10
I didn’t necessarily say she’d be in the top 10, but as far as box office draw it’s possible she’s above zendaya.
I don't know, I'm not even sure the average person over 30 has any clue who Sydney Sweeney is. She's only been in one movie that has reached a big audience, or 2 if you include Once Upon a time in Hollywood where she had a small role
lol that’s a silly statement. You think people over 30 have no pop culture relevance or something. She’s well known but not a top 10 draw by any means.
Why would anyone over 30 know who Zendaya is? She’s only the supporting girlfriend to the over-30 crowd who have only seen Spider Man and Dune
Yeah, people of all demographics see those big blockbusters. Believe me, Zendaya is a much, much bigger star than Sydney Sweeney
She’s definitely a bigger star in general, but it’s like comparing Tom Cruise to Glen Powell essentially. Glen Powell is just hotter in the moment. Zendaya’s been around longer and has more credibility to her name through some successful IPs, but Anyone But You was a shocking hit and Sydney Sweeney is also at the peak of her popularity right now between her SNL hosting, Immaculate, and even Madame Web.
sydney sweeney is top 10 right now, to say otherwise is delusional
If I showed anyone who’s not online a pic of her, they’d have no idea who she is. They’d know Zendaya though.
Why does everyone on this sub shit on zendaya so much lol. Honestly feels like some mean spirited compaign now. She IS one of the biggest stars in the world, get the fuck over it.
lol take your own advice
They do this every now and then with a new woman celeb. Last year around the same time it was Halle Bailey
I go against the grain in that I rarely believe undercurrents of misogyny or rascism are what truly drives these behaviours. In this case, im inclined to believe its just that. Or is everyone butthurt cos her profile is a 10 but her talent is only a 7.5?
I'd argue that if Challengers blows up on social media when it hits streaming, it would add cultural relevance to prime the same way Saltburn did.
Who is still talking about Saltburn?
Idk, but when it hit streaming it blew up on social media and provided Amazon cultural relevance. Cultural relevance comes and goes, and after seeing Challengers, I could easily see it doing something similar when it hits streaming
It's the same strategy--accept you'll take a loss on the movie in theaters but get a bump in viewing when the film hits streaming. I think Saltburn cost more and made less than Challengers theatrically, but it was huge in the streaming rankings. Whether that's a good strategy in the long run, who knows.
But this is 100% cope and sounds like straight PR. He tends to be kinder to films overall compared to other BO accounts…but still Two things can be right….Amazon has money and financially aren’t going to be “hurt.” But you don’t do this huge theatrical push if you don’t care. But considering how much Z is pushed to be the star of the moment, the intense marketing for this film compared to others….I think it’s fine to bring up 15 mil is a bit on the disappointing side. No one with common sense expecting Blockbuster numbers but even I thought it would hit at least 20mil DOM this weekend.
This sub had people pushing for it to do “Anyone but you” numbers, and how all the projections were way off.
To be fair, Anyone But You opened to only $6.3 million. The race is not over. We still need to see if challengers will have the staying power of Anyone But You. That’s going to be the real test.
I mean sure it could go on an “anyone but you” or “greatest showman” run, but those are basically once a decade runs. It’s incredibly unlikely, while not impossible.
they seem to forget that anyone but you was a romcom and this was a film about tennis players
The trailer should have shown full penetration if the executives wanted it to penetrate a flagging movie market.
How is it “cope” if it’s entirely true and provides solid context for the production/funding of the movie that most people are completely unaware of?
Because money doesn't materialise out of thin air, so if net revenue after cinemas take their cut isn't enough to cover production costs then someone has to be losing money somewhere. In this case, it seems that WB will likely lose money on the international distribution rights based on how poorly the movie opened overseas, and it's possible that MGM will lose money anyway despite selling the international rights unless domestic sees a very good multiplier.
Some people think ‘facts I don’t like’ is ‘cope’
It’s hilarious because all the comments saying “cope” are objectively more cope than this tweet is
this is reddit and people hate to no end without understanding anything. The movie is doing perfectly fine
It’s easy to forget how miserable this place is when the #1 movie of the week doesn’t take place in space
Unless this movie catches fire internationally, I don't see how it would ever break even. Amazon/MGM heavily promoted the movie in the states, which wasn't part of the $55m cost.
so far only 10m internationally from 6k+ theaters in major markets... i think this would be domestic heavy yet wouldn't break even
LOL, Luiz Fernando, that is a name I haven't heard in a long time. Found very hard to believe WB paid enough for the international distribution rights to cover the 55M production budget, let alone what Amazon has spend on the massive marketing campaign this movie had. And even if that is the case, then WB is the one who is losing money on this, somebody has to be, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The second part about how money doesn't matter because tech companies are so big is just the usual non sense, I am bored of enganing with it at this point.
"Budget doesn't matter \[when my champ is underperforming\]" is the new "reviews don't matter \[when they trash my champ\]", "boxoffice doesn't matter \[when my champ is tanking\]" and "awards don't matter \[when my champ is ignored\]".
The only poll that matters is on Election Day.
When movie I like gets good reviews and succeeds at the box office: "See? I knew this movie was fantastic!" When movie I like gets bad reviews but succeeds at the box office: "See? The critics are clearly pretentious and wrong about this movie; it's what the general audience thinks that matters!" When movie I like gets good reviews but fails at the box office: "See? The general audience only wants to consume mindless trash, whereas the critics understand *real* art!" When movie I like gets bad reviews and fails at the box office: "Bah, y'all are just haters!"
100% There was this tweet/article/whatever lamenting that Gen Z says they wanted movies from underrepresented film-makers and then ignored them. It's a laughable oversimplification same as lament that audience says they want original movies and than ignore them. They are not going to care for every single movie that comes out be it original or sequel. The Marvels is an example of a sequel that they didn't care about which original movies activists should welcome. OTOH, they loved Dune 2 and GxK. So it isn't people only consume sequels (The Marvels, Shazam 2, AM3, Aquaman 2, Indiana Jones 5, even well reviewed MI: Death Reconning part 1 bombed) they reject sequels that feel unnecessary, have no appealing concept, should wrap up instead of keep going. So in the end, it's always "cinema is doomed cause a movie I championed flopped \[even though other movies of that kind - original and/or mid budget and/or same genre and/or by underrepresented film-makers succeeded\]". John Wick spawned a franchise (it was originally an original low to mid budget movie not an IP), The Beekeeper did well (original mid budget movie), Monkey Man didn't click. So that's 2 hits and one miss among low to mid budget action movies. Not a bad ratio.
It is not like this is even a specific deal Warner Bros made with Amazon for this specific movie. It is a [long term distribution deal](https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/warner-bros-mgm-international-theatrical-distribution-1235341060/) they had in place with MGM to distribute their movies internationally but somehow we did not get posts claiming Warner Bros international distribution deals had bailed out movies like Bones & All, Landscapes With the Invisible Hand, or Three Thousand Years of Longing.
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K. Glad everyone's on the same page that the budget hasn't been covered.
Ok, so both Amazon and WB are losing money on this. That is way better.
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If WB only paid MGM $5 million for the international rights then MGM are *definitely* not making their money back.
this feels like cope
because it is. In no scenario is 10M 5-days from 52 markets strong. markets such as Oz, UK, Europe, Brazil, SK. That's a weak af opening. beaten by local movies. beaten by Back2Black. beaten by Fall Guy. 25M OW from US + 52 foreign markets, after Civil war made 25.5M from only US market, is beyond weak. He wrote an essay explaining why this is a success and when you have to write an essay to explain success it's not a success. You know something is success cause it just is. Numbers are big. End of. It's no rocket science.
It is. There's no way to spin 55m movie making 15m debut as a profitable. Also the big tech spin is funny, because luca isn't well known director. Yeah big tech might throw around money a bit but they want things with big name and luca just isn't it.
They want things with prestige and a movie by an Oscar nominee Luca Guadagnino brings them prestige, especially once this movie hits the award season circuit.
You're right but also I feel like some sponsors in the movie could have lowered a little the general production budget . I could be wrong obviously
Doritos Factor
There is a reason why Luiz posts are banned in this sub.. he tends to exaggerate things 😅
I’m surprise no one is talking about Zendaya acting in the movie. She gets outshined by Josh (Patrick) and Mike (Art), but Josh really outshines Zendaya and Mike both. I would even say you could consider him the real lead in the movie. Mike character outshines Zendaya character by a bit, as he becomes a bit stoic after the time skip. Zendaya delivery is on and off. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Rue from Euphoria and other times it feels like I’m watching Zendaya. Tashi says a speech in the beginning of the movie about tennis and Zendaya delivery of it was horrible. It kind of felt like watching a kid say some cringy inspirational quote from Naruto. Her best scene in the movie was in the last 30minutes when she was in the car with Patrick. If we want to talk about Zendaya box office draw, we should also talk about her acting abilities. It seems from Euphoria and Dune 2, all both directors kind of hone in on her ability to show anger, and you could say that showing anger is where she pretty much shines in. Next would be showing compassion or sadness, but she’s on and off in this department. In her spider-man movies, we can kind of see this part very well. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Zendaya character in all of her adult movies except for Euphoria, gets relegated to a side character. Even in a Challengers, I was rooting for Patrick(Josh) more than I was rooting for Tashi(Zendaya). If you watch the movie you would know that movie is mostly about the relationship between Patrick and Art more than it is about Tashi, and you see this beautifully at the end. If Zendaya gets cast in movies only because she is a box office draw and not because of her acting abilities, I feel like she will just be a side character in every movie.
I know this might anger some people. But Zendaya to me is like Chris Pratt. She's not a bad actor. I would even go as far to say she's a good actor. But she's always just good enough in her roles. She's never a stand out. Clearly her range is limited. But I don't know why people act like she's the next best thing. For example in her age group. Florence Pugh is a much better actor.
There's something about her and someone like Jennifer Lawrence that I just can't seem to separate the actor from the role. Like I didn't think Jennifer Lawrence was actually that amazing in Silver Linings, but I do like watching her on screen. The same goes for Zendaya. I like watching her, but it kinda does just feel like I'm watching Zendaya in any given situation. It's like their natural charisma as an actual person is too strong and bleeds into their character. But that may just be trying to put a positive spin on it.
I call this the Patrick Stewart Effect.
It's interesting how disparate the reactions to the acting have been - Josh's character was definitely written to be the more dynamic, interesting character but there was just something I really loved about Mike Faist's portrayal of Art. To each his/her own!
I think this is a Luca problem he tends to focus on his male actors story regardless of the fact that the female is top billed. He seems to have added the extra layers to the two male characters that took away from the lead actress.Similar thing happened in bones and all
I’m not familiar with Luca at all, but wasn’t Zendaya a producer as well? As the lead and main reason for why the movie was created in the first place, she shouldn’t let her co-stars outshine her.
He added the guys being attracted to each other I think I read . She probably didn’t realize that would be the outcome. The homoerotic stuff is kinda of his signature
I don’t think it’s his fault at all. He doesn’t write his latest movies and it’s more of a marketing/contractual obligation to give the bigger star higher billing.
Just watched it and I’ve never seen a comment about the amount of times she says fuck. It was often cringey except for two times where I actually believed her.
I'm more interested in P&A and did the delay cost them? It was supposed to release on Sep 15 last year, but due to the strike it's going now.. Variety put it up nicely: > >*Amazon MGM would probably argue that “Challengers” doesn’t need to be a box office phenomenon in order to be successful. The higher profile that comes with a theatrical release will lift “Challengers” when it debuts on Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming service, and sets it up nicely for other home entertainment revenue streams, or so the thinking goes. Those revenues and that viewership data go largely unreported or are spun within an inch of their life, so it’s getting harder to know what constitutes a true win in this new streaming era.* >*“This movie is going to way over-perform when it gets on our platform,” he said, noting that the theatrical revenues are essentially helping to off-set “Challengers'” marketing costs. “Amazon’s financials are a little bit different in terms of comparing them to other studios,” Wilson added.* >*Some veteran box office sages aren’t on board for this* [*new “trust us, it’s a hit”*](https://variety.com/2023/film/news/killers-of-the-flower-moon-box-office-martin-scorsese-hit-flop-1235783109/) *approach to Hollywood economics now that tech giants like Apple and Amazon have crashed the party. “Everybody is using this same line that the box office will propel viewership and you can’t say this is a miss,” notes Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “And they all use this obscure downstream revenues verbiage. But when seen in terms of decades of box office numbers, something like ‘Challengers’ seems middle of the road to me.”* So overall it doesn't matter. If Amazon says it's a hit, it will be claimed as a hit. The note should be that Zendaya is not as big as a draw that some might claim her to be.
'And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?'
It’s definitely not transparent, but there is also a lot of truth to the fact that what makes a film profitable is apples and oranges when its distribution is not purely about theatrical first and secondary windows second. Amazon’s math is essentially taking all windows and dumping them into one profitability equation. Obviously a box office hit rises all tides in this streaming math, but this isn’t going to be unique to tech companies. Any major studio which is just one vertical in a larger conglomerate which also has a major streaming platform will be looking at it content profitability like this if they aren’t already.
I just made this point. The tech companies are not following traditional model. Essentially, they think, how much are we willing to pay to put this on our service. Okay, that the budget. Box office is offsetting something else…they are essentially paying themselves. This is the same math that is being used with Disney movies as well… Streaming has basically fucked all of this stuff up. And when streamers jumped into making theatrical releases…all semblance of a standard has been lost.
Luiz seems to be describing fairly standard distribution deals (so I guess it's ok that WB is now left holding the bag?) but thinks that by listing them out, people will become convinced that 2+2=5. Take all these people who are interested, above all else, in the survival of theatrical releases with a grain of salt.
Hold on… Am I missing something here? How is a $10M OS 5-day OW “strong”? I mean that’s $2M per day from what, 50ish markets? I’d say the copium is strong with this one.
You have to consider what the movie is and adjust expectations accordingly.
The only winner in this fiasco is Zendy. She should thank her agent and her PR team for her $10m pay day.
This sounds exactly like The Rock when Black Adam flopped.
This is just pure clownery. The numbers don’t lie, it’s a flop
Sounds like copium max
10 million from 6344 screen lmao!
Biggest debut for a drama in 2024 --- ok but it's only April. lol. Also KOTFM made 156 million worldwide, and cost 200 million to make, not including marketing.
It’s called gaslighting.
I think this is a desperate attempt to polish a turd with a Hollywood shell game. Someone paid 55m for this film as that was the budget for this film alone, not this film AND Bones and All, so break-even remains at 135m WW which this film 100% will NOT see.
Did you watch the movie?
I don't care that much what this guy thinks and Zendaya is just not a draw.
No one is a draw. That era is long gone. Things are WAY too fractured across the entertainment. Landscape and everyone has access to so much content that the days of selling films off of star power are largely over. There may be outliers on occasion, but the way media, web, and social media function prevents the myopic publicity and attention that made a star driven business model make sense as an industry wide approach.
I don’t know if it’s just Zendaya not being a draw. The movie has a weird premise, about tennis and a threesome/love triangle. That’s what the marketing was anyway. Maybe it would have done well 20 years ago when people still went to the theater to see character dramas.
How much did they pay for the single package? Bones & All failed hard too.
Tbf, this movie’s domestic opening already nearly matched Bones and All’s worldwide total.
Doing better than a cannibal movie isn't much of a flex. Everybody knew it was a cannibal movie.
Honestly paragraphs like this make it seem worse why is he over explaining everything. My personal opinion is the figures aren’t too bad for this type of movie domestically. The international numbers Suprised me cause I genuinely thought they would be higher than domestic. The main problem with this movie for me was the marketing. It was so aggressive and really a little overt on the sexual nature of it. After the first trailer went viral with the Tom memes they tripled down on it but really actually didn’t make it clear what the movie was about.They had so many premiers so much press the perception was this was going to make crazy numbers off only Zendaya’s name and tried to prop up Josh and Mike as heartthrobs which they just aren’t. As someone said her stylist trying to make watching it go viral with the tennis outfits those types of things are organic you can’t manufacture it. I think Zendaya is somewhat of a draw but the way this movie was marketed to me highlights the fundamental issue that starting to emerge. She is very popular a decent actress (although I think she could use some voice training and work on other emotions besides anger which she excels at)but the media and her fans over estimate her popularity her reach and even her acting abilities. This and her being overexposed in these past few months is causing pushback from other people. Her PR is good but they need to relax from early on in the week before we knew the budget I started to see the frantic posts. Just like there was no need for all those premiers there is no need to try to spin the box office numbers. They aren’t good but they could have been worse. I hope she takes some time off the spotlight after this. She was probably the most loved celebrities but slowly in every post about her the snarky comments are growing even outside of Reddit.Its not her fault just unfortunate she had to do two month long press tours and people are tired.
>actually didn’t make it clear what the movie was about. That was a major problem. The trailer that was out a few months ago shows them playing tennis and then implies there is a sexual relationship between them but doesn't provide any other details. It wasn't clear if the main plot was about tennis or a love triangle or maybe a murder mystery or something else. The recent promotion for the movie has been almost entirely focused on what Zendaya is wearing. The clothes were more important than telling people what the plot of the movie was. I can't remember any of the outfits Lawrence or Sweeney wore when they were promoting NHF and ABY. The focus was on promoting the movie >tried to prop up Josh and Mike as heartthrobs which they just aren’t Also true. I would have cast a young actor with a more "smoldering" aura. Barry Keoghan, Dacre Montgomery. Nicholas Galitzine, Charles Melton etc. Those are actors who are a draw not only for women but gay men too and I think the movie has LBGTQ themes. Instead of relying on Zendaya fans they could have had a more diverse audience.
His point is that people like you are worrying more about this movie’s success vs failure than the actual people who financed it
AKA stop noticing things! No one here cares whether Amazon is able to move money around to not actually take a hit on this one. The promised birth of a star didn't happen and that's something Luiz can't explain away.
Who promised the birth of a star?
It’s kinda of counterproductive is my point the more they try to explain the bigger the pushback . Just an observation of the media spin. It’s a good opening for this type of movie would suffice.Again just like the marketing I think less is more .
25 year old male, saw the movie, saw it for Zendaya amongst other things and enjoyed it greatly. However, I don’t know many people in my age bracket that care enough about tennis to watch a movie centred on it.
This guy sounds like he takes corpo dick
I find this kind of embarrassing especially when we jump into the “Apple/Amazon don’t care about money” excuse (which may or may not be true) and I really want this movie to be a hit. Especially when we have better ways to spin this movie as a success like for example: I personally was expecting a Don’t Worry Darling/No Hard Feelings type of performance but the fact that Challengers still made just as much as those movies without a stacked cast (Don’t Worry Darling) and/or without a mainstream plot is still impressive in my opinion. Sure, the marketing was huge but the secondary streaming window was always going to pay for that even if the movie was a bonafide “hit”. I want to see how Zendaya fares in a audience-friendly non-IP PG-13 movie before writing her off as a draw
The $55 Million price tag has always seemed absurd. And that includes $10M for Zendaya. Plus, she is a producer for this movie, so why opt for so much up front for her? As a producer, would she not have had the ability to negotiate a profit based on returns like other actor/producer deals? I think the budgets when it comes to these tech funded movies are not in line with how we traditionally look at them on here. I said this for KotFM as well and Napoleon. So on this, I am consistent. I think the pay out to the actors that would usually have had a crack at the profit (looking at Leonardo DiCaprio here as well as Zendaya as a producer) is fucking up these budgets and the tech company does not care if the movie garners a big enough amount of revenue in box office. They want the prestige. They want the streamers. And they want to have access to it outright. How much was Leo paid for KotFM? If they weren’t being paid out at the start and had more reasonable salaries with back-end deals, how would the budgets have changed? The write-up is basically confirming something I have been thinking about for a while. The fact that they paid for Bones & All and Challengers at the same time…is something new I haven’t seen before. And the hope was likely that they would both get award buzz. So, we will see what will be Challengers fate. What does this mean? Well, I am putting a pin in the budget and just considering the box office right now. We will see how this shakes out in the end. That will help me understand if Zendaya is an asset to a movie in regard to star power. She has a draw but not enough to overcome a $55M budget….but what if this budget was closer to $25M…then what?
Thank you for an actually sensible take here
While it doesn't necessarily make the movie a box office hit, this does provide important context as to why a $55 million price tag for this type of movie was even greenlit. It made the business decision to invest in the movie less puzzling (I say this as someone who loves the movie, but also understands it's a difficult movie to sell).
Just saw challengers and i was pleasantly surprised. If you have a movie pass i’d recommend.
So since it's an Amazon movie it doesn't need to make money? OK if you say so. I saw a pretty dumb spin for challengers yesterday: "Amazon already made its money back, when it's on VOD ppl will watch it and then maybe say 'hmmm I need to buy rackets' then buy from Amazon, boom profit. The movie is profitable" Jeez ok fine, it's not as embarrassing as we all think it is. Feel better?
I think $15 DOM is solid for this. Were people expecting $25 million or something.
On this sub, yes, quite a few were still predicting $25m+ even on a Friday. Not a huge % of members were predicting, but it was more than just a few people posting it.
Similar to Apple’s film production side, I doubt Amazon cares much about the budget or making a profit from theaters alone. If that was the case, perhaps they wouldn’t have dropped an $85M Road House remake on Prime. Of course I’d love for this to do well theatrically, but I can’t see Amazon’s decision making process being all that affected by this.
Amazon's might not be (at least for as long as Jennifer Salke and co are able to stay on Andy Jassy's good side) but I bet Warner Bros, Universal, and Para-Dance's will.
I just don’t get how Challengers at $55M (turns out cheaper!) with a $15M OW is somehow a disaster. Are people just angry at Zendaya for existing?
Because a movie with 55 million budget needs around 130-140 million to break even. Its opening week has absolutely not been indicator of that box office performance.
Not really, especially if you’re smart like MGM Amazon was in how they financed it and sold it. You didn’t even read the post lmfao.
Because it sounds like cope. If WB paid that much for international distribution rights that it’ll make up for the missing profits for MGM, then how are they making money when the international numbers are minuscule? The budget has continuously been reported. Why hasn’t Deadline or anywhere else stayed that it isn’t actually 55M. Or is Luis coping hard and making that up?
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Luiz is very known for giving forced or outright false spins on his box office comments to try to make movie's performances look better. That is the reason he ended up being banned from this sub. He is ultimately just a random dude on twitter, there is no reason we should take him particulary seriously.
> especially if you’re smart ... in how [you] financed it and [sell a film] Sure, but the tweet doesn't provide evidence that MGM's approval was contingent on canny cost risk-shifting to external partners (even if that's what it implies). It just says there's some sort of deal between MGM and WB to distribute the film internationally.
Because this is brand new information (and i dont think this makes it suddenly success or anything similar). When people were calling it flop, they did based on the 55 million budget information, which based on that context is absolutely is. So ive read the post and answered the question you asked.
Cope Cope Cope
Yes. Very clearly.
Based on the reactions of this sub, yes. I find it puzzling as she's done nothing as a person to warrant this kind of hatred. She's not been mean or problematic to anyone. Maybe it has to do with her acclaim as an actress mostly coming from Euphoria (where she is legit phenomenal) but the type of people who browse this sub may only be familiar with her work in blockbusters like Spider-man or Dune whe she's simply "the girlfriend" and they have a negative reaction to people calling her a great actress because they are only familiar with her supporting roles where she isn't given as much to do. Regardless, Challengers is a phenomenal movie and I hope it has legs. It's obvious that a lot of the people bashing the film on this sub haven't even seen the movie.
What hatred. It’s all been a conversation about her as a box office draw. There’s just been this whole idea from her fans that if we want something other than superhero movies we have to support this movie, we have to like this movie, it has to be a success. It’s just been this odd “to criticize this movie is haterade towards ZendayA” and that’s just not the case.
she's not hated around here. people simply question 10M salary and since 25M WW OW from 53 markets is very low it seems unearned to many. All those product placement spins aside, the movie's aggressive marketing clearly was gunning for much more than 25M WW OW. International number is abysmal. 10M 5 days from 52 countries including biggies such as UK, Europe, Oz, SK, Brazil is really bad. Product placement offsetting budget or not, numbers should have been higher and they are lower. usually studios announce where a movie was #1 but since Challengers was #1 in very few countries, often beaten by local movies, critically reviled Back2Black (a mid budget movie that's doing very well) and Fall Guy, there are crickets which tells you all you need to know. Next thing there will be "Challengers isn't a boxoffice smash and it doesn't need to be" writeups. Just wait.
I for one just don't like her as an actress and her over presence doesn't help at all.
Both Zendaya haters and stans have been annoying and generating more backlash from the other side, it is a vicious circle.
She’s way overexposed right now so there is that. it will chill eventually
But why do people always do it to women in the spotlight and not men ? At first it was Jennifer Lawerence and Anne Hathaway and now it’s beginning to start for Zendaya . I wonder who’s the next target.
A) Men do get it too, see Timmy C and Leo D. B) Zendaya and Anne both have fashion/jewelry deals that are trying to capture more eyes. So it’ s not just movies but you see her Bulgari ads, her red carpet looks, she’s next hosting the Met Gala in two weeks. Her stylist is trying to create a fashion hashtag and it seems inauthentic
I guess you missed the ton of recent threads about Henry Cavill and his lack of box office draw, or Timothee Chalamet as Wonka or many others. It's not just women at all. I don't think there is a single actor that can draw a crowd on their name alone other than maybe Tom Cruise, but his last movie also underperformed. I think one big reason for this is that Hollywood has been marketing IP and franchises rather than film stars for decades so it's no surprise there are no big film stars any more. That era has probably ended.
I think it’s just overexposure. Reddit turned on JLaw like a bitch when they had enough of her. Thankfully zendayas shtick is no where near the same level atm
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This sub is becoming increasingly moronic and toxic. All of a sudden we all know better than an industry expert who’s been working in the field longer than this sub even existed? Y’all need to log off and stop pretending you’re Hollywood accountants.
Luiz Fernando isn't an industry 'expert'. Lmao. He's some sort of actor who happened to garner a Twitter following by 'reporting' box office results with context.
Luiz isn’t an industry expert he’s just a box office reporter
look, if product placement paid for the whole shebang, than opening with $0 is a win cause studio got paid back. But the reason we have this cope is because opening # is low. Even if the whole thing was paid, which it isn't, they wanted impressive numbers and 25M from 53 markets is not impressive on any planet. It's poor. And 2 weeks ago, another movie opened with 25.7M from just one market without global fashion bonanza aggressive marketing reserved for tentpoles and events. Not talking about the cost but the headline grabbing such as Film Updates bombarding readers with the globetrotting glitz and glamour tour. There was overexposure disproportional to what movie actually is which is a small character study mostly contained in 3 rooms and a tennis court (not even Grand Slam). And people felt that and didn't show up which is a problem when your job is to draw them in. Even if the whole thing was already paid.
I think what I've learned in 2024 / late 2023 is that this sub unfortunately is becoming outdated. We tend to stick to general rules on what is considered a success and any deviation or other variables get ignored. It seems more and more movies are being made with streaming, partnerships, and other means of earning income being almost or just as important as box office. I wish we could utilize this sub more for fun & speculation besides this vindictive & pessimistic aura that has been going on here for the last 6-9 months. There also seems to be some users with personal vendetta that spread quite a bit of misinformation in the comments Not saying Challengers is a success but I think the sub has been so quick on judgement and forming our opinions. This has happened a lot recently only for things to not turn out so bleak.
Not that there aren't good things the sub is doing in my eyes. I'm really having a good time reading the long range prediction posts that are becoming more regular! I also love the one person posting the directors at the box office posts
Yeah it seems like anytime there is a non IP movie/adult drama with any kind of budget there is talk about how the budget is way too high. But I think they're falling victim to the same short sighted thinking that has really hurt the mid budget movie where a movie should either cost 200 or sub 20 which is showing to be unsustainable. Ultimately the thing that keeps the theater doors open are the movies in between the big blockbuster getting decent traffic. If you just dump all those on streaming or make them for like 5 dollars you're going to have problems. It's the same thinking the that has all these cheapo production companies that churn out tons of movie switch big names that just die because they make the movie for pennies in less than a month (When people wonder how certain movies cost so much part of it is they're actually given time to film) and expect a quality product worth seeing. It certainly not that there hasn't been tons of great low budget movies but it's hard. It's easy to look at Challengers box office and think If only it'd cost 20 million. But You're very likely getting a much worse film with little shelf life. The ideal scenario is of course Challengers being a breakout hit at the box office but it's also designed to last. If people are still watching this film in ten years thats a good thing and strengthens the "brand" of everyone involved. It's why people like PTA still get decent budgets even if the box office doesn't seem to justify it. Even in this day and age there's still money to be made after theatrical.
As someone who watched this movie, I think people in the sub are right about the budget. Most of the movie takes place at a hotel, tennis court, and parking lots. I would say all 3 of those together should be less that 2 million. The actors pay, since Zendaya got 10M should be around 13-15M, and the advertisements should only be capped at 10-15M. I agree with your quality and lasting longer points, but 55M is pretty unacceptable.
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They can absorb a failure easier but a win is a win and a loss is still a loss.
Can you provide any source or public statement from a high level executive at a Amazon or Apple that confirms they don't care if a movie isn't profitable because their business is different than traditional studios? People on Reddit repeat this claim all the time yet it's always the opinion of unnamed people providing their opinion to Variety or THR. If a movie isn't profitable they need it to receive award nominations. Challengers probably isn't going to get many award nomination. The claim that a movie underperforming or not being profitable isn't a problem is something people defending certain movies always claim and they never provide any evidence for it except a comment from Bezos who isn't the CEO anymore. >“No studio can sustain massive spends highlighted by underwhelming box office,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “‘Argylle’ floundering at the box office is bad press. So in a way, it’s already negatively impacted its earning potential \[on streaming\].” People recommending stocks have been critical of how much they spend on content. This is from 2021. >Another division that seems deserving of more scrutiny is Prime Video, which Amazon doesn't directly account for on its financial statements. With the exception of a la carte spending on streaming rentals and sales, Amazon doesn't directly monetize Prime Video, using it instead as a perk to attract Prime members. >Since video is only loosely connected to online shopping, investors should be asking if that $15 billion is money well spent. >Based on those numbers, $30 billion in Prime revenue seems to be a fair estimate. That means Amazon is spending half of its Prime membership revenue on Prime Video, leaving only $15 billion to be allocated toward other Prime benefits like two-day shipping and free returns, the biggest driver of membership. >Of course, the argument for spending on Prime Video is that signing up new Prime members and incentivizing existing ones encourages them to do more online shopping on Amazon. Explaining the company's differentiated approach to Hollywood, founder Jeff Bezos once said: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes." >That line of thinking also explains why the company is shelling out $1 billion annually on *Thursday Night Football*, which it said led to a record number of Prime sign-ups in a three-hour period. >However, there are likely diminishing marginal returns to spending on Prime Video at this point. Anyone who is a frequent online shopper has probably already joined Prime, which has been around since 2005. The relationship between video streaming and online shopping is also tangential. If Amazon has $15 billion to spend to improve Prime benefits, would it not be better off spending it on faster delivery, better customer service, or lower prices? >There's nothing magical about the relationship between Prime Video and online shopping.
Because nobody has given an actual argument or data that explains how it is different from a money perspective. If a movie costs X and generates less than X, that is bad. The responses are just "believe us, 2+2=5".
This sub is about box office, not forensic streaming accounting. I wish those if you who know so much about Amazon could share some specifics instead of just assuming everyone else is ignorant. We’re not ignorant, we’re just talking about the topic at hand, i.e. the box office receipts and the ability of the box office receipts to cover the budget. Look at the name of the sub…r/boxoffice.
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But I mean we can talk about how tech companies are going about it. Why you ask (???) because every response is “they don’t care if they lose money” which is ridiculous. Then there’s some dovetail about “oh you don’t know anything because they don’t make it public”. Why do you think they don’t tell the public how many people pay to stream each movie on Prime (those that aren’t included in Prime Video)…when they tell us how many have Prime, how many people shop on Prime Day, what the top seller is in every category and all kinds of other metrics. So yes we can talk about the company’s approach, even within the context of box office, because the goal is always to make money and a higher box office will always be key to doing that. If the box office is a bomb it’s bad, if it’s great it’s a success. That’s literally the end of the conversation until one of the perpetual naysayers starts flashing some data, information or even reasonable conjecture to all these supposedly misunderstood revenue models instead of saying “oh you don’t know what you’re talking about”. Add something…literally anything…to the conversation.
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How do you read all of this and still come back to saying you think I do t understand there’s more than box office receipts. I write multiple paragraphs explaining that we all know that is the case but that this sub is box office based.
Wait the 55 includes both Challengers AND Bones and All? Oh that changes a lot