Don't get me wrong, guys, I'm not saying that Fantastic Four IS the next POTC, I'm just saying that it's in the same exact position. The movie that almost everybody (including me) is predicting in the 120-180 type range, that very well could become the feel good movie of the summer. It's the one franchise movie that plays to all audiences this summer. Sith, Batman, and War of the Worlds probably aren't as kid friendly. Fantastic Four also taps into the most genres, superhero, sci-fi, fantasy, action, drama, and comedy. It's in a position to surprise like none of the other movies are, and much like POTC was. DP07 made his comments in such a matter of fact way , as if he called POTC being the kind of hit it was, that it needed to be reminded how everybody would have said the exact same things if anybody had said POTC would top 300 million, or even 200 million. Everybody would have said "Um....No, just no." , and looked the fool for saying it.

True ... but its problem is that its still creating mix feelings. Theres the crowd that that thinks it looks great, theres the crowd that acknowledges it as nothing more than fun, theres the crowd that acknowledges it to be no more than fun and still thinks it looks bad and theres a crowd thats clearly not impressed.

PoTC is a bad example JUST because no one expected it to do what it did. And using it as an example means I can say that about just any movie of its type. Island has a chance at 310 million, so does Sahara, or anything thats meant to be 'fun'. That's my only problem with it. and remember, POTC pulled this off with a massive multiplier ... MASSIVE for a summer movie. I don't think anyone predicted that and I still wont predict that for any summer movie

As far as Sith and Batman go, they're kid friendly. I don't buy into this whole 'dark' shit. We grew up watching arnold, sly, van damme kicking people's asses 24/7 and parents today with their whole "ooooh, dr Octopus was scary for my kids and all .." I don't buy into that. Kids today are still watching whatever they want to.

When I say "kid friendly" , I'm actually referring to small children, not 10 year olds and the like. The audience that propelled Shrek 2 to well over 400 million at the box office, something that nobody was predicting, I might add. "Um..no, just no" would have been said if somebody even suggested such a thing.

POTC had lots of mixed feelings. Just go back to BOM and look at those old threads before it came out. Read the trailer reports. Read the reactions that people claimed the people in their theaters had when it was shown. Pirates shocked people, not just with it's total, but with it's opening, and now, of course, everybody treats it as if it was clear to see all along that it had the slimmest of chances to accomplish what it did. I wish Cujoy would come on today, as I'm sure she would be the first to tell you what the consensus of POTC was , both in reaction and predictions before it came out.

Hmm, i would love Fantastic Four to be that big hehe. But i seriously doubt it. It's gonna be more Daredevil than Spider-Man.

Chris Evans is soo bloody hot, and Jessica Alba rocks, this movie deserves $100,000,000 just for that. But i have a horrible feeling it's not going to pass $100,000,000.

I still maintain that PotC was one of a kind, it's box office gross still an anomaly. Shrek's gross is also an anomaly. An anomaly can occur with just about any movie which is why I believe that they should not be considered in arguments.

@mansonmyers: No movie should deserve anything just because people in a movie are hot or hell, even have talent. Put in a good performance in THIS movie and we'll talk

Y'know I actually think it has the potential to be that big as well. It'll have good legs because it has more humor in it, that's why POTC did so well. If it's really good, it could have serious staying power.

Actually, the average prediction for the 3 day weekend for POTC was over 40m at the time. Mine was 44m for the 3 day and 65m for the 5 day. Predictions for Pirates were low until the final trailer, at which point they dramatically increased.

The shock with Pirates was the legs. A multiplier of 6 for a blockbuster like that in the summer might not ever happen again. It was the WOM that was shocking.

The Fantastic 4 is the type of film to be frontloaded. It won't, it can't have the legs the Pirates did. The only way it would earn 300m would be for it to open like X2. I can't imagine that happening with the trailer and hype as of now. Besides, I'm pretty sure you have a better chance of great wom with the director of The Ring rather then the director of Taxi.

Also, F4 does not have the widespread appeal of POTC. It doesn't appeal anymore to children the most PG13 comic book films. Certainly less then POTC which had the Disney marketing machine targeting kids. It also does not have the comedy, and it does not nearly appeal as much to women.

I was actually predicting 180m+. Also, in general, it's the non-franchise films, the unknown properties that tend to be the least predictable.

Correct for everything but Comedy. The trailer was packed full of it, and I dont think most of it was meant to be funny, such as "Lest not figh", "No lets". And "Its clobbering time", and "Flame on". I dont think any of those linew sere meant to be funny but I found them so. I expect a lot of comedy in F4, most of it being unintentional.

Oh man, POTC had to be the hottest movie I've seen in ages. Lots of cheek-bones from every direction. Sure made me a very happy person!

FF. I've not really even heard much about it except for in passing here. When is it even getting released? I have to agree with Ahmed that super-hero movies in general are not going to be seeing the massive numbers with so many of them out of the market. Pirates was an action genre we hadn't heard anything (good) from since the 3 muskateers over a decade ago. People were just very pleasantly surprised. Even if FF is superb, I just don't see it having the same wom. But I guess to me its still a pretty unpredicatable movie because it doesn't seem like they've marketed it well. It could do 200 million like bABA said, but at this point, it could do a Daredevil lower 100's. Not as hard to place as Narnia, but its still a wide range. I'll have to wait until I see a trailer or something.

Lets not fight. No lets.

hehe. They should have learnt from Catwoman. Remember that one?

Times over. No, its over time!! priceless. That goes down in the history books.

And here I am :razz:

POTC was my finest hour as a movie forum participant. I was championing it as early as the January before. At that time, most other posters were laughing and scoffing and crying, "Pirate movies ALWAYS bomb!". I think that 60 million was the highest anyone else would go with for it. I predicted it to be the number 10 movie of the year, with a gross of 150M.

I thought from the beginning that POTC looked like a four quadrant picture, and that it would have a ton of female appeal because of Orlando Bloom, and because (generalizing) women tend to like romantic costume period movies. I also thought it would have adult appeal based on Disney nostalgia. And if you can get women and older folks going to a summer eye-candy action movie along with the kids and the guys... You are going to make a ton of money.

DP7 is right that most posters predictions for the movie increased as the trailers came out and as the summer progressed. That is in part because Disney marketed the movie brilliantly. But the most important thing about POTC was that it totally delivered with the comedy, the action, the touch of romance and of course, Johnny Depp's brilliant performance.

I would love for FF to be another POTC. But I think that it's best hope is to be an X-Men I. But it could just as easily be another Daredevil or even an Elektra, if it sucks. The keys here are Michael Chiklis and Julian McMahon. Both those men are very good actors with a lot of charisma. If they can pull off The Thing, and Dr. Doom, FF will do fine.

The movie I think has a chance to rack up a four quadrant audience that no one is expecting... is BEWITCHED. (Not that I'm saying it will, just that it has the ingredients if it can deliver on them.)

Or FF can be the next He-Man:Master of the Universe movie. Both movies had popular characters and no name director. Seriously, F4 doesnt really have any name to sell the movie except for Alba and they wont even include the directors name when advertising the movie. Is F4 really that popular to warrant a gross higher than say Daredevil? Some may say that the movie looks accessible to kids of all ages but so does LXG and Hellboy in some extent, they both didnt pan out that well

Maybe I need to see the final trailer, but it doesn't really seem to me like Bewitched will appeal to guys. It probably depends on the humor, but to really be huge I think just about any movie needs to either be the family event film of the season, or have some action. The Passion has been the only 300m+ film this decade that didn't have either, and that was an exception.

Pirates was nearly split even between men and women, Bewitched will probably pull in a significantly higher percentage of women IMO. It should do better then say The Stepford Wives, but it doesn't really look like a blockbuster to me.

I agree with Dolcevita, Fans could still be jaded after the Last 2 horrible Batman Films. I for one see Batman Returns makings somewhere between 80-125M.

I've hardly heard or familiar with of the book series for Narina. But they might have a decent fan base. so I see it between 70-110M.


As for ROTS I've already decided for myself to see it at least 2 times whether it's good or bad just so I can make a good judgement. But I can't see it making any less than 300M or anymore than 430M

Narnia has a massive fanbase.

Maybe a better comparison for Bewitched's potential is Bruce Almighty rather then POTC. Bewitched will not have the kid appeal that POTC had, but if it's well done and funny, Will Farrell will draw in the guys. (And besides, we girls always end up dragging you along anyway )

There's pretty solid facts on this "dark shit". Let me ring up a quick comparison between expected huge blockbusters that were dark and lacking in humor versus ones that had some comedic elements to remove the tension and were bigger crowdpleasers. Here's the movies that have grossed over 200 million this decade. The ones that lacked much comedy and in blue, and ones that I think are debatable either way are green. Otherwise, I left the rest normal:

Shrek 441 million
Spider-Man 403 million
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 377 million
Spider-Man 2 373 million
The Passion of the Christ 370 million
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 339 million
Finding Nemo 339 million
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone 317 million
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 313 million
Pirates of the Carribean 305 million
Star Wars: Episode II 302 million
The Matrix Reloaded 281 million
Meet the Fockers 278 million
Shrek 267 million
The Incredibles 261 million
How the Grinch Stole Christmas 261 million
Monster's Inc 255 million
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 249 million
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 249 million
Bruce Almighty 242 million
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 241 million
Cast Away 233 million
Signs 227 million
Rush Hour 2 226 million
Million Impossible 2 215 million
X-Men 2 214 million
Austin Powers in Goldmember 213 million
The Mummy Returns 202 million

See, right off the bat look at the decline in the Harry Potter movies. Unlike the Lord of the Rings movies, despite getting good/great WOM they've steadily declined in box office take. What other pattern do they share? They've been progressively darker and less kid friendly. I saw several parents have to leave Chamber of Secrets, and over 10 with The Prizoner of Azkaban. Or how about the Matrix movies? Reloaded could be considered darker, but it made almost half it's total in the first four days since the first one had some comic relief every now and then to relieve the tension. The result was Matrix Revolutions could barely even pass those first four days of Reloaded - total. Hulk, Troy, AVP and The Village all had big openings but relatively shitty legs due to having bad WOM due to being downers or so lacking in anything funny in them that they became unintentionally funny for audiences. Star Wars Episode II opened higher then Episode 1 but made over 120 million less (150 million with inflation) since it had much less appeal to kids due to being darker. The last movie to be #1 for the year and not have side comic relief was Saving Private Ryan in 1998. And this is just 200 million. Of the movies in this decade that have made 150-200 million, all but 4 of over 30 movies (and five debatable ones) weren't dark and tragic, and many of those were surprise hits like National Treasure, Elf, Hitch, Ice Age, Catch Me If You Can, What Women Want, Scary Movie and Meet the Parents. However, a number of those were also darker movies like Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes and The Perfect Storm which people were predicting 200+ million for ahead of time. Some of the expected huge blockbusters couldn't even clear that margin, such as The Matrix Revolutions, The Patriot, Minority Report, Hulk The Last Samurai and Troy. And with about two rare occasions... er, anomalies , they always have terrible multipliers too. Like it or not, all the arguing in the world can't deny the simple plain truth: Dark don't sell.

I'm gonna have to go with DP on this one. While Bruce Almighty had great mixed appeal too, Bewitched makes Nicole Kidman definitely come off as the main character, and all the painful humor comes out of the male lead - Will Ferrell. Meet the Parents at least the person dealing out the punishment was Robert DeNiro. I'm way too tired to make another long chart, but the big comedy surprises almost always attract both genders equally rather then one more then the other, and Bewitched definitely falls in the latter category.

Good, now that you're here, any chance of starting up your wacky predictions thread like you used to do at BOM? Summer is right around the corner, after all , and I have a few of them myself. \:D/

moviedude. The darkness of any of those movies had absolutely nothing at all to do with the steady decline of any of those franchises. There were perfectly good reasons. Almost all the examples you have cited are not valid as the primary market was not people under the age of 15.

There is a difference between funny and dark and are not mutually exclusive. I laughed at quite a few intentional parts of harry potter as well. Your decline list makes little sense to me in relation to the darkness each of them see to have/not have.

They did a good job of it recently with Lemony Snicket.

I think Batman's a lock for $170+ million dollars, but I see it topping out at around X2 numbers. War of the Worlds could be anything from $150 to $200 million. Star Wars won't break $300 million, but it'll come close. Fantastic Four will be lucky to get $150 million...

I agree that Charlie's a bit of an enigma. I'd love to see it blow past $200 million dollars, but it's just as likely it'll barely squeeze past $100. Kingdom of Heaven's not going to open any bigger than Troy, how good it is is going to dictate its final gross. Hitchhiker's Guide will easily pass $100 million (though i don't think it'll pass 200). Domino will be lucky to hit $50 mil.

Of the lot I think Charlie's the hardest to fathom - though I hope it beats everything else out of the water.

Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy will not pass $100 million.

I agree, but I think 75M+ is possible if it has a 30M+ opening weekend. After seeing the latest trailer it kinda reminds me of "The Fifth Element".

LOL, man did catwoman suck :laugh: My hopes for F4 are still stronge but I dont see a gross over even 150m for this film, infact it could be a complete dud like Catwoman was with all the horible dialogue.