Summer Movies

posts about #summermovies more →
What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Summer 2009: What Just Happened?
Which Underdog Movie Will Be The Summer's Biggest Sleeper Hit?
Which Summer Movie Will Be The Biggest Surprise Flop?
Which Summer Movie Franchise Has Earned A Nice Rest?
Which Summer Movie Chick Could Carry Her Own Spinoff?
Which Big Summer Movie Ruined Science Fiction Forever?
When Did Summer Become Science Fiction Overkill Season?
What'll Be The Most Surprising Hit Movie Of The Summer?
Which Summer Movie Will Be The Biggest Flop?

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disatess
09/28/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
the hangover was great success too. 35million dollar budget , and made 274 million .
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Trystero
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
I expect Moon to get a wider (if not, say, Transformers wide) release during fall or the post-holiday winter doldrums. Any money if makes would be gravy and that's generally the time when studios role out any Oscar bait / whatever they have lying around in order to make a little prestige/money between blockbuster seasons.
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Jesse Astle
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
I almost think that they should just put a cap on movie budgets. Something like, fifty million per movie or something like that. See what happens.
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Trystero promoted this comment Jesse Astle was starred Jesse Astle was unstarred

Trystero
09/27/09

@Jesse Astle: The 1980s. Take that for what you will.
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Jesse Astle
09/27/09

@Trystero: Don't knock the 80's. They had Star Wars and all the good John Carpenter movies. All you had to deal with was bad hair and Reaganomics.
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EellenValdorf
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't 'The Hangover' the most profitable movie of the summer? Anyone want to run those numbers?
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Allen_Richards promoted this comment EellenValdorf was starred EellenValdorf was unstarred

Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@EellenValdorf: 35 million budget vs. 274 domestic and 453 total worldwide.
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CodenameV
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
narrows down to District 9 or Star Trek....ultimately Star Trek
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HowIsYourFlat
09/27/09

@CodenameV: I will go for District 9. As much as I love Star Trek Universe, it needs to take a break. I don't want to see the rehash of old stuff and start develop something new already.

District 9 was nothing new, but at least it felt fresh.
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Brisco_County_Jr promoted this comment HowIsYourFlat was starred HowIsYourFlat was unstarred

Vexxarr
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Typically the film is considered profitable when the domestic take is 50% of the budget. I'm sure Moon did far better than five million worldwide.
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Allen_Richards promoted this comment Vexxarr was starred Vexxarr was unstarred

Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@Vexxarr: It looks like it just opened in other territories and to date has amassed 1.8 million foreign.
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FlannaMaynard
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Most Successful Summer Movie? Ice Age : Dawn of the Dinosaurs of course. $90 mil budget, $870 mil worldwide gross!
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Allen_Richards promoted this comment FlannaMaynard was starred FlannaMaynard was unstarred

Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@FlannaMaynard: isn't that shit crazy? i started reading articles on this one a few weeks ago when the foreign numbers swelled past 500 million. The current total, 675 foreign is the third hightest behind TITANIC and RETURN OF THE KING. Of course, those number don't factor in inflation....
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
09/27/09

@FlannaMaynard: W.T.F. When did that come out? It'll make a lot on DVD too.
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Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: July.
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AngriestGeek
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
You do realize that's not how movie profit works, right? The late Don Simpson who never made a movie for any reason but money said you have to make 3x your budget before a film really achieves profitability. I won't even get into how profit-sharing cuts into that. Because of the deals Bruce Willis and Michael Bay had, Armageddon, which cost $140 and made over $500M worldwide didn't make money until it hit video.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment Edited by AngriestGeek at 09/27/09 12:52 PM AngriestGeek was starred AngriestGeek was unstarred

geesejuggler
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Rating of the movies I saw this summer:

Star Trek XI: 7. I think Abrams is overrated and the plot itself sucked, good acting, though.

Transformers II: 6. Why are all the humans taking up all the Awesome-Robot time? Gimme some Prime!

Ice Age 3: 6 1/2. Buck was danged funny.

G.I. Joe: 8. Okay acting, Rugged Dennis Quaid, shirtless ninja fight. My standards were so low, it actually surpassed them.
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Magicant
09/27/09

@geesejuggler: I shudder to think what you would rate below a 4.

*shudder*
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geesejuggler
09/27/09

@Magicant: LOL, I have a weird taste in movies. I know.
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thexpert
09/27/09

@Magicant: The Godfather, Empire Strikes Back...
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geesejuggler promoted this comment thexpert was starred thexpert was unstarred

geesejuggler
09/28/09

@thexpert: I love both of those movies, actually. I guess that if I know it's gonna suck, I'm okay with it.

A movie that's a four to me is any movie with Jessica Alba.
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geesejuggler was starred geesejuggler was unstarred

SheetalApis
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
I'm not really sure how you can really put Moon on this listing. It was never released widely - in fact, it's not even playing anywhere nearby here until the end of October. I'd struggle to give it the definition of a summer movie. The rest on the list are all "blockbusters".
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Brisco_County_Jr promoted this comment Charlie Jane Anders approved this comment SheetalApis was starred SheetalApis was unstarred

Kpibca
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
District 9 deserves to make even more money than that. An ambitious, thoughtful, and intelligent movie doesn't come along every summer, and I'm overjoyed to see that it's paid off for both Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp. It just reassures me to know that once in a while you can be creative and still be successful.
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Allen_Richards
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Greame, try factoring in foreign box off and you'll see most of the profit percentanges rise dramatically.
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Cash907Censored
09/27/09

@Allen_Richards:
I was just thinking the same thing... why would you leave out the foreign box office take? Transformers 2 made over 800 million world wide. Yes the film was crap, but in all fairness, give the devil his due.
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Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@Cash907Censored: Terminator 4's domestic take only accounted for 1/3 of its total boxoffice, about 370 million. Not the 830 million Transformers banked, but nothing to be ashamed of. If you want to move away from Sci-fi, 500 Days of Summer cost 7.5 million and has banked over 30 million. Not bad for an indie-flick.

@CParis: The equation gets even more complicated when you start breaking down exactly how much of the boxoffice take from week to week goes back to cover the studio's production costs vs. the distributors' take, which I think was mentioned teh last time we started talking boxoffice numbers. Since so many of these numbers aren't disclosed, it would be almost impossible for Greame to do something more in depth.
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CParis
09/27/09

@Allen_Richards:
Agree! But then it sort of defeats the purpose of the article when everyone makes the assumption that Movie X with a low budget had better ROI than Movie Y with a big budget, so that proves why more "small" films should be made.
Everyone will just be crying again next year when YARM or 'Splodyfest gets the greenlight.
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Allen_Richards promoted this comment CParis was starred CParis was unstarred

Allen_Richards
09/27/09

@CParis: And that's the problem with the concept of "roi", which is really only used when attracting financial backers. A great current example of how complicated this can be is INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, a 70 million budget versus totals of 114 million domestic and 231 world wide. In order to calculate a proper return on investment, you have to decide how you want to approach the question. Wiensten Co. only funded $35 million of the project and receives the U.S. boxoffice coin. Another company funded the other 35 and gets the foreign loot.

hell, we could all night and break these numbers, but since we aren't the accountants we'll never know exactly where the money goes and a true ROI.
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atrus123
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
This summer was a bust for me. I wanted to see District 9, but never went. I wanted to see Moon, but never went. I had high hopes for Terminator, but read the reviews beforehand, so never went to see it. The only sci-fi movie I saw all summer long was Star Trek, which I thought was ok but severely overrated. My best movie experience overall was Up.
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kolacek
09/27/09

@atrus123: Ouch. I'm sincerely sorry. No fun nights eating $10 popcorn pretty much makes for a crappy summer.
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atrus123 promoted this comment kolacek was starred kolacek was unstarred

spidyredneckjedi
09/27/09

@atrus123: Up, however, surpasses most of he sci-fi films listed here, wit the exception of District 9.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment spidyredneckjedi was starred spidyredneckjedi was unstarred

Xicer
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
Only about half of those movies were actually good (Star Trek XI, Moon, District 9), which is pretty awesome since we're talking about summer movies. Though I don't know if I'd count Star Trek XI as a summer movie since it came out in early May.
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Brisco_County_Jr promoted this comment Xicer was starred Xicer was unstarred

spinning_piledriver
09/27/09

In reply to What Was The Most Successful Summer Movie?
G.I. Joe was so bad and such a grab for nostalgia dollars it shouldn't have taken in as much $ as it did. I'm ashamed I went to go see it.
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atrus123 approved this comment

CParis
09/27/09

@spinning_piledriver:
Now we know who to blame for G.I. Joe II-IX !!
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Brisco_County_Jr promoted this comment CParis was starred CParis was unstarred

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