Is it possible that Interstellar will do better than Big Hero 6 during the week? I understand a lot of younger children are going to movies during the weekend days, but Interstellar made more money on Friday (a work day where most of the viewings are at night). Thoughts?bootsy wrote:1. Opening in November doesn't scream Oscar bait anymore. The movie is more of a fall movie than a summer movie. I also don't think critics looked at this with an Oscar eye. This movie has all of the Nolan narratives that his previous movies have.Vesh wrote:I think releasing it in November was a mistake for a number of compounding reasons.
1) A November release date basically screams Oscar-bait. There is nothing subtle about that, and as such, pretty much all the critics watched it with that lens on. There are obviously problems with the film, but a lot of the criticisms are only the type that are levied at "high-brow" films. A number of critics watched this hyper-critically because of its designation as an "Oscar-favorite" (Anne Thompson admitted as such). Just from the a lot of the reviewers that I follow, it is obvious that the expectations they put on this film influenced their reviews (because they don't lob these same criticisms at tons of other films that came out this year with similar "problems").
2) The poor reviews hurt this film. Now 74% on RT isn't horrible, but it is enough to push Interstellar from a "must-see" event, to a "cool movie to see on the weekend". Gravity would have never made as much as it did if it didn't have universal praise. Again, the Oscar lens didn't help the reviews at all.
3) Opening against an animated movie is always risky. They never lose. It's an easy solution for parents on the weekends to entertain their kids. Considering since it is a Disney movie, it has a certain guarantee.
4) Hunger Games is coming out. I don't know if much more needs to be said.
$48 million out of context is exceptional for an original property, but it is pretty underwhelming for Interstellar.
2. Poor reviews may have hurt a little bit but as you said the movie wasn't a consensus poorly reviewed movie.
3. Animated movies lose a lot. It just so happens BH6 did get great reviews and was highly anticipated.
4. hunger Games opens on Nov.21 so there is still time for Interstellar to establish itself.
Interstellar Box Office Predictions
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Aili, Vesh, and Vader all make good points. I think it would have been smarter to have released end of October when there was less competition, less expectations as an "Oscar bait" release, and allowed the major critics to be the first to view it and post/print their reviews; now perhaps that's just cause we have the hindsight of which sources the best reviews have come from, but all it would have taken is a little research like I did to figure out who's looked most favorably on Nolan in the past. 
If the first wave of reviews had been from Turan, Travers, Lumenick, Roeper, Corliss, Berardinelli, Variety, and the British film mags Empire and Total Film...yeah it might have received some backlash like Inception did after the first wave of "masterpiece" proclaiming reviews, but people trust these sources and I think it would have set the film up for better success, despite what anyone else had to say later on. It was a major mistake I think to let generic industry people and some civilians see it first, jizz about it on twitter and then we see the first critics reacting to all this with their knives out trying to assert some authority and saying "nah, it's not really that good", "it's lost in space", etc and then the general public just see the RT% and the early articles about how the film is getting "poor" to "mixed" reviews...
If the first wave of reviews had been from Turan, Travers, Lumenick, Roeper, Corliss, Berardinelli, Variety, and the British film mags Empire and Total Film...yeah it might have received some backlash like Inception did after the first wave of "masterpiece" proclaiming reviews, but people trust these sources and I think it would have set the film up for better success, despite what anyone else had to say later on. It was a major mistake I think to let generic industry people and some civilians see it first, jizz about it on twitter and then we see the first critics reacting to all this with their knives out trying to assert some authority and saying "nah, it's not really that good", "it's lost in space", etc and then the general public just see the RT% and the early articles about how the film is getting "poor" to "mixed" reviews...
Last edited by lcbaseball22 on November 10th, 2014, 4:21 pm, edited 5 times in total.
It's very possible.braungeo123 wrote:Is it possible that Interstellar will do better than Big Hero 6 during the week? I understand a lot of younger children are going to movies during the weekend days, but Interstellar made more money on Friday (a work day where most of the viewings are at night). Thoughts?bootsy wrote:1. Opening in November doesn't scream Oscar bait anymore. The movie is more of a fall movie than a summer movie. I also don't think critics looked at this with an Oscar eye. This movie has all of the Nolan narratives that his previous movies have.Vesh wrote:I think releasing it in November was a mistake for a number of compounding reasons.
1) A November release date basically screams Oscar-bait. There is nothing subtle about that, and as such, pretty much all the critics watched it with that lens on. There are obviously problems with the film, but a lot of the criticisms are only the type that are levied at "high-brow" films. A number of critics watched this hyper-critically because of its designation as an "Oscar-favorite" (Anne Thompson admitted as such). Just from the a lot of the reviewers that I follow, it is obvious that the expectations they put on this film influenced their reviews (because they don't lob these same criticisms at tons of other films that came out this year with similar "problems").
2) The poor reviews hurt this film. Now 74% on RT isn't horrible, but it is enough to push Interstellar from a "must-see" event, to a "cool movie to see on the weekend". Gravity would have never made as much as it did if it didn't have universal praise. Again, the Oscar lens didn't help the reviews at all.
3) Opening against an animated movie is always risky. They never lose. It's an easy solution for parents on the weekends to entertain their kids. Considering since it is a Disney movie, it has a certain guarantee.
4) Hunger Games is coming out. I don't know if much more needs to be said.
$48 million out of context is exceptional for an original property, but it is pretty underwhelming for Interstellar.
2. Poor reviews may have hurt a little bit but as you said the movie wasn't a consensus poorly reviewed movie.
3. Animated movies lose a lot. It just so happens BH6 did get great reviews and was highly anticipated.
4. hunger Games opens on Nov.21 so there is still time for Interstellar to establish itself.
Don´t forget that Big Hero 6 is not only a Disney movie but also a Marvel property adaptation. It probably caught up not only kids attention but also teenagers.
I feel confident that in the long run Interstellar will be very close to BH6 or even surprass it.
I feel confident that in the long run Interstellar will be very close to BH6 or even surprass it.
No. Anyway, the comments from the bloggers would have to be published. Make them wait to watch it would have been worse, they would start spreading that this is not a good sign.lcbaseball22 wrote:Aili, Vesh, and Vader all make good points. I think it would have been smarter to have released end of October when there was less competition, less expectations as an "Oscar bait" release, and allowed the major critics to be the first to view it and post/print their reviews; now perhaps that's just cause we have the hindsight of which sources the best reviews have come from, but all it would have taken is a little research like I did to figure out who's looked most favorably on Nolan in the past.
If the first wave of reviews had been from Turan, Travers, Lumenick, Roeper, Corliss, Berardinelli, Variety, and the British film mags Empire and Total Film...yeah it might have received some backlash like Inception did after the first wave of "masterpiece" proclaiming reviews, but people trust these sources and I think it would have set the film up for better success, despite what anyone else had to say later on. It was a major mistake I think to let generic industry people and some civilians see it first, jizz about it on twitter and then we see the first critics reacting to all this with their knives out trying to assert some authority and saying "nah, it's not really that good", "it's lost in space", etc and then the general public just see the RT% and the early articles about how the film is getting "poor" to "mixed" reviews...
In no way Nolan would have known if a vehicle was going to give a positive or negative review, he knows about his enemies, but those negative comments come also from people who supported Nolan in the past.
Say that bloggers would have felt intimidated by positive reviews from the New York Times or Los Angeles Times is nonsense.
Scott Mendelson, who like Nolan, but gave a negative review to Interstellar made a good analysis on the box office:
$49.7M For 'Interstellar' Is Not A Disappointment
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendel ... pointment/
Um, so you don't think it would have helped generate more positive buzz if say Peter Travers had been allowed to release his review earlier? Or the LA Times Kenneth Turan? It came as no surprise that these guys gave Interstellar the thumbs up because they had loved all of Nolan's past work and accounted for a number of 100 point Metacritic reviews. The same goes for the Empire magazine and others I mentioned. No, you can never be certain but it would have been a lot better bet than how they chose to go about screening the film...
As it turned out pretty much all the big time critics who didn't have a history of trashing Nolan's films gave Interstellar at least a 75 or higher and if they didn't consider it a masterpiece thought it came darn close with some flaws here and there. This would have been a much better initial impression to spread around the media than the poor to mixed reviews that surfaced when the embargo lifted, and the major publications not posting until a week later...well by then the damage was already done
As it turned out pretty much all the big time critics who didn't have a history of trashing Nolan's films gave Interstellar at least a 75 or higher and if they didn't consider it a masterpiece thought it came darn close with some flaws here and there. This would have been a much better initial impression to spread around the media than the poor to mixed reviews that surfaced when the embargo lifted, and the major publications not posting until a week later...well by then the damage was already done
I actually agree.Allstar wrote:I think the difference between this and Inception is DiCaprio is a much bigger draw than McC.
Anyway, regardless how much money Interstellar will make, i'm just glad Interstellar was released during November. If it was any other month i wouldn't been able to see Interstellar in cinemas, if not during the opening day.
So for that i'm grateful that Interstellar was released during November.
Also i'm not trying to sound selfish.
The film began with a positive buzz. There were many people commenting on the movie being great, like Edgar Wright and others in the industry.lcbaseball22 wrote:Um, so you don't think it would have helped generate more positive buzz if say Peter Travers had been allowed to release his review earlier? Or the LA Times Kenneth Turan? It came as no surprise that these guys gave Interstellar the thumbs up because they had loved all of Nolan's past work and accounted for a number of 100 point Metacritic reviews. The same goes for the Empire magazine and others I mentioned. No, you can never be certain but it would have been a lot better bet than how they chose to go about screening the film...
As it turned out pretty much all the big time critics who didn't have a history of trashing Nolan's films gave Interstellar at least a 75 or higher and if they didn't consider it a masterpiece thought it came darn close with some flaws here and there. This would have been a much better initial impression to spread around the media than the poor to mixed reviews that surfaced when the embargo lifted, and the major publications not posting until a week later...well by then the damage was already done
Yes, could have helped with positive buzz, but anyway the negative comments would be seen until the debut, people would be oh, it's not so great. Do you think he should have shown only for those guys who gave positive review?
With almost three hours long, it may be that people are waiting to know if it's good enough to see it.
I always thought that this movie will depend more WOM than anything else.
If people are enjoying it, they will say it to friends, family, etc.
Inception opened big, but the WOM was crucial to the film's success.
Seems Interstellar's USA weekend box office was downgraded from $50 million to $47.5 million. Was international box office downgraded too? Or, why did I see $50 and now it's $47.5?
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I feel like the problem is to get people to go in the movie theatres to watch it (no duh).
Because from what I've heard around me, most people who went in enjoyed the movie.
I wouldn't say Interstellar is even on the top three of my favourite movies, but I was more engaged in this movie than any of the other ones.
And I would agree with what people said above.
Leo brings in a larger crowd than Matt that's why Inception was a big hit.
I have been trying to tell my friends how great Interstellar is and half of them haven't even heard of the movie.
During Inception everyone around me wanted to go watch it...
It just surprises me so much that the box office has been sort of a disappointment so far because you can literally hear a lot of people sobbing during the movie.
I mean if you manage to get that kind of reaction from people it must mean something right...
Because from what I've heard around me, most people who went in enjoyed the movie.
I wouldn't say Interstellar is even on the top three of my favourite movies, but I was more engaged in this movie than any of the other ones.
And I would agree with what people said above.
Leo brings in a larger crowd than Matt that's why Inception was a big hit.
I have been trying to tell my friends how great Interstellar is and half of them haven't even heard of the movie.
During Inception everyone around me wanted to go watch it...
It just surprises me so much that the box office has been sort of a disappointment so far because you can literally hear a lot of people sobbing during the movie.
I mean if you manage to get that kind of reaction from people it must mean something right...
