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'Blade Runner 2049' Is A Box Office Disaster With Poor $13M Friday

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Movie ads seemed way too ambitious, not grim and dark enough, and kind of bland and I got annoyed by it as they went on since I go to the theaters almost every weekend.
Seemed like a pointless entry in the crowded "android" genre this year. Surprised they went all out with making it cost that much.

I dont think it will have staying power either as Ive yet to hear anyone actually suggest others watch it.
 

Tom_Cody

Member
So wait I don't really get how Arrival topped the charts, a very subdued, woolgathering sci-fi film with linguistics porn, but not this thing with the force of a thousand cyberpunk nerds pushing it, Harrison Ford and a known pedigree.

Is cyberpunk dead? Is it lack of tweests? Not enough sentimentality? Marketing?
Arrival made $24M opening weekend, $12M less than 2049. It went on to make $100M domestic and $200M overall.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=arrival2016.htm

My guess is 2049 will probably follow Arrival's box office trajectory and end up somewhere over $100M domestic and around $300M worldwide.
 

Prompto

Banned
OK, time to play.

What's sadder, Scott Pilgrim or this ?
Scott Pilgrim

I mean Blade Runner still had a 30 million opening, high critical acclaim, seems to be doing decent overseas, and probably will at least get some technical nominations during award season.

Scott Pilgrim had none of that.
 
The Matrix was alive!

The Matrix was able to avoid the curse of Cyberpunk always bombing at the box office by being marketed pretty well and having most of its scenes take place in identifiable real world locations.

Films like Blade Runner and GitS with bold art styles for some reason never draw in big audiences, it's like people assume its weird and nerdy and don't want to touch it.
 

duckroll

Member
I’m not saying it was unexpected. But I think being unfamiliar with Blade Runner after so many releases and after over three decades of pop culture presence is on them.

And I’m not saying people are stupid for not liking the movie. I’m saying going into this thing expecting a fast paced action movie is an easily avoidable error. Do three minutes of reflection before plonking down $12 and three hours of your life.

If you're going out with friends and just want to catch a movie after hanging out/dinner/whatever, it doesn't really matter. It's like, the least important decision you make that day. If you end up with a bad movie, tough, it's not biggie. The only impact will be that they will tell their other friends that they thought it was a piece of shit, and maybe their other friends avoid it the next weekend.

Either way, there isn't really a different in box office impact. If every single person carefully researched the movies they wanted to watch, most would skip this anyway. Still a bomb. You know, there's a reason they tried to market it as an action thriller. Lol.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
So basically you need to take the punk out of cyberpunk.

400 pounds of cyber...
 
The Matrix revolutionized action scenes. It was doing things that other movies couldn't 100% pull off.

That too. It had a really simple hook, I remember the ads just playing the bullet time sequence with quotes saying it revolutionizes the action genre (which it did). Very easy sell for mass audiences.
 

Blade30

Unconfirmed Member
If you google it this is what you get https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZOaI_Fn5o4

Yeah the trailers, tv spots didn't do the movie favors. This trailer makes it look like it's an action sci fi flick.

It's such a shame people are afraid of 3 hours long movies, the length of a movie doesn't matter if its a really well done movie because you are so engaged in the movie that the time flies by which happened to me in Blade Runner 2049.
 
I can't say I'm surprised considering when I looked at tickets on Friday afternoon, there were still a quite a few seats left for that night in one of the main theaters here. I was kind of in disbelief considering there's been so much buzz around it.

Maybe people are just thinking, "oh I'll watch that 3 hour mood piece on my sofa when it comes out on Netflix?"
 

Kieli

Member
The trailers purposefully painted this movie to be more action-packed than it really was.

I personally love slow-burners and character studies. I'm not someone who particularly cares for plot, plot-driven events, or set pieces. But the vast majority of the movie-going audience does, and that is reflected in the poor ticket sales. :(
 
This is why we don't deserve good things..

I still hope it does better world wide.

USA doesnt understand smart movies like these.. but then again look at the elected president at the moment and suddenly this makes sense.
 

Red

Member
If you're going out with friends and just want to catch a movie after hanging out/dinner/whatever, it doesn't really matter. It's like, the least important decision you make that day. If you end up with a bad movie, tough, it's not biggie. The only impact will be that they will tell their other friends that they thought it was a piece of shit, and maybe their other friends avoid it the next weekend.

Either way, there isn't really a different in box office impact. If every single person carefully researched the movies they wanted to watch, most would skip this anyway. Still a bomb. You know, there's a reason they tried to market it as an action thriller. Lol.
I recognize what you’re saying, but I already did before you said it, and that’s why I said what I said.

I never understood why people would take seriously the movie opinions of their friends who aren’t invested in movies. But then, people take seriously medical advice from people with no medical background. It’s the same sort of thoughtless nonsense all the way down.

Again, this isn’t about the box office. There may be no large market for this. My point was about people going in to this expecting something else.

It doesn’t particularly matter how you reframe it. “Let’s all throw $15 in the trash and sit quietly watching a thing we don’t enjoy for three hours” is not a valuable use of time, no matter why it’s being done.
 

jett

D-Member
'Blade Runner' Sequel a Make-Or-Break Moment for Producer Alcon
They admit that Alcon's future depends on Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to Ridley Scott's sci-fi epic that hits theaters Oct. 6. "This is a chips-in-the-center-of-the-table exercise," says Kosove.

oops a daisy

It sounds like they were intending to make Blade Runner a big ol' sequel factory.

The Matrix was alive!

I guess this movie could've used more kung fu and machine guns.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
DADES would've done better. Smaller budget. Less punk. More philosophical. Complete with some mind-blown twists to make people feel really smart for watching it.
 

Dysun

Member
The movie getting made was a big enough miracle, so I'm happy. I haven't seen so many people walk out of the theater as I did for this though. They definitely didn't know what they were signing up for.
 

Tookay

Member
I'm sure that it's underperformed mostly due to the subject matter (this kind of technoir stuff has never gone over with with the mass audience), but I wouldn't lie if the personal reason I haven't seen it yet (though I plan to) is just from the sheer runtime.
 

duckroll

Member

Alcon's Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove are the producers responsible for introducing Denis Villeneuve into Hollywood. They produced Prisoners, his first English feature film, and gave him full creative control on it. It was that relationship that directly led to Blade Runner 2049 happening, because Villeneuve said he would not have taken a blockbuster like this if he didn't trust the producers.

This is the real tears in rain moment.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Give it a few weeks before you write it off completely. It could still kick up to 80 or 90 million domestic if it has good word of mouth.
 

N7.Angel

Member
I don't understand the negative comments about the production budget like it was a mistake, the movie needed it, like it needed a talented director with a vision, great actors and beautiful soundtrack to be amazing, something the movie really is.

This movie isn't a mistake and I'm glad it was made the way it was made by talented people that had a vision for it, the general audience is the real mistake here.
 
So it's just like the first movie. Awesome movie, mediocre box office.

BR2049 is one of a kind, really. Putting so much money into a sequel that you basically expect to bomb... what a weird decision.
 

jett

D-Member
Alcon's Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove are the producers responsible for introducing Denis Villeneuve into Hollywood. They produced Prisoners, his first English feature film, and gave him full creative control on it. It was that relationship that directly led to Blade Runner 2049 happening, because Villeneuve said he would not have taken a blockbuster like this if he didn't trust the producers.

This is the real tears in rain moment.

That's actually pretty sad. I have mixed feelings on 2049, but it doesn't deserve to be a failure.
 
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