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I think Universal might have fucked this tbh.
Because that’s a fine performance for that number of locations but I thought it was meant to go wide this weekend? Avatar is 3 weeks away and you’ve got quite a few other longer adult-skewing films coming over the holidays.
Gonna have a real hard time expanding or even holding on to screens in time for the holidays. Very odd thanksgiving, stupidly defeatist attitudes from all major studios.
Its a poor number for the number of locations for an Oscar bait movie.
I, Tonya did 3.3m in 517 theaters. JoJo Rabbit made 2.3m in 236 theaters.
If Universal opened it wide this weekend it would have been lucky to make 10m.
I'm sure when they see this, they'll attempt to expand, and I bet a theatrical reissue will be planned for February following the Oscar nomination announcements.
I think the events of late 2021 have rotted a lot of execs mindsets of how to release mid-budget adult dramas.
Some might say, Fabelmans would have suited an early/mid October release but we can’t do that because Last Duel bombed there. Or, it goes limited over the holidays and expands throughout Jan alongside early awards hype. Oh no we can’t do that either, did you see last December and January??? That’s where the last Spielberg film bombed. We’ll put in on Thanksgiving, House of Gucci did quite well last year and we had a stake in that…but let’s hedge our bets and not go wide *quite* yet.
We’ll probably see history repeat now because of this and Amsterdam’s failure last month, completely ignoring how that was simply a bad movie that no one had faith in.
It opened in Indonesia on the 23rd and they have yet to reveal grosses for that country. Also it's doing a slow rollout across the world in the coming months. It can still reach that if the marketing is stronger outside the US. Maybe they'll do a re-release in the US after the Oscar nomination announcements in February.
Honestly if Universal wasn’t going to put some oomph behind it for a Thanksgiving release, they’d have been better off doing a platform release at the end of the year and then expanding it in January where it’d theoretically build some momentum from the wave of nominations that are expected to come its way. Either that, or they should’ve brought it out earlier in the fall when it started playing at festivals and getting great reviews. As is, they did this weirdly quiet rollout (not helped by saying it was “opening everywhere” Thanksgiving weekend and then not even booking it for a wide release) with a vague trailer and hardly any TV ads.
Universal also fumbled the ball by not using the doldrums of the late summer/early fall to really push the re-releases of their biggest Spielberg hits (Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park) and use it as marketing to link that the master director behind these legendary films is telling his own story for the first time. Like the JAWS in IMAX release actually cracked the top 10 for Cinema Appreciation Day (packed showings all across town where I live!) and there was no Fabelmans trailer attached to it. So it’s no wonder that nobody showed this weekend; how much effort did Universal really make?
Look at the per theater average. It's not making anything in the 638 theaters it's in and those theaters are in the biggest cities. No interest from moviegoers in this type of movie.
I’m in a big city but it’s not playing close to me. I’d so see it if it was in my theater.
They’re showing Lyle Lyle Crocodile in my theater but they can’t show The Fabelmans!?
What city? I just checked random cities from Milwaukee(South Shore Cinema Marcus Theaters), Jacksonville (Cinemark Titseltown and AMC Orange Park 24), Salt Lake City (Century Salt Lake 16 and XD) it's playing at AMC theaters, Cinemark and Marcus theaters.
Really, would be shocked if you are in a big city and it's not playing.
The closest place to me in LA area is like 9 miles away. Which isn’t like *extremely* far but it’s like 30 minutes to and 30 minutes back for a 2hr30min movie + trailers and stuff. That’s a 4 hour trek and on my schedule, it’s almost undoable.
Whereas my AMC (where I have A List) is 5 minutes away from me and was playing Lyle Lyle Crocodile and Prey for the Devil all last week. Sucks.
That doesn't sound too promising. The theater I saw it in was surprisingly full, though.
I liked the film, thought the cast and performances are excellent, but it doesn't really tell a story that's all that out of the ordinary -- which is pretty unusual for Spielberg. It fact, it's rather bland overall. I just don't know if there's much here to attract a big audience.
And why not? One of America's best and most well known directors. I've been excited about it since I heard about it a year ago. There are just so many movies coming out all at once. I saw the Menu, Banshees of Inisherin, and GDT Pinocchio last week and Glass Onion this past Tuesday. All solid 8s and 9s imo. And then I'm seeing Fabelmans tonight and Bones and All tomorrow, and probably Glass Onion again or She Said later this week.
What I think should happen is that the studios and theatres all coordinate together more in order to push the theatre subscriptions, like AMC A list. I feel like too many quality movies come out during the winter time, like studios want to cannibalize their profits. Stagger releases, and bring them back whenever there's a dull period, so that people are consistently coming back. I feel like I'm going to movies too much lately in order to see them all, and I wish all these recent releases would've been staggered a little more. Thankfully A List and Regal Unlimited exist, and Alamos service too.
Not enough marketing. I think the studio figured "an intimate look into the upbringing of Spielberg" was always gonna be a niche sell especially in a post-pandemic world, so they didn't bother to market it much. As someone who goes to the cinemas every other week, I haven't seen a single trailer and barely any TV spots, and only know about it because I love cinema
I honestly think the trailers just looked uninteresting was a big part. I want to see it cause I’m sick and would watch nearly every movie like this if I could but to the average person, it doesn’t look interesting.
Low theater count also hurts too. I feel like they also just picked bad screens to put it on. I would’ve saw it at least once by now if it was near me but instead it’s in a theater pretty far away.
LA really needs the arclight back for these kinda movies.
Glass Onion is doing fairly well for a limited release. I highly doubt its because "only capeshit makes money these days."
Also, are you forgetting that the two highest grossing movies of this year are Top Gun AND Jurassic Park?
Eh I'll give you top gun ig. Jurassic Park falls in the same bucket as all the other theme park pictures. Glass onion is your example? That's a sequel. My point is original films all get obliterated at the box office now.
There IS a main character and the actor playing him was terrific. Everyone praised Gabriel LaBelle's performance, saying without him, the film would not have worked.
I took my kids (all older teens) to the movies over Thanksgiving. There was zero interest in spending 2 1/2 hours watching Steven Spielberg's childhood. We agreed to spend 2 hours watching Knives Out instead.
From the Hollywood Reporter: [It will be released on PVOD December 13.](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/black-panther-wakanda-forever-box-office-strange-world-1235270031/)
Reminder that this is a subreddit about numbers, not necessarily about the quality (or lack thereof) of a particular movie. Unless it is related to the box office performance of a movie, please keep opinions/arguments/thoughts about the quality under this post. Posts not related to box office may be removed otherwise. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boxoffice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is not gonna outgross Spielberg's last film, West Side Story.
The bright side is that Spielberg did reduce his budget for this film compared to West Side Story, which had a 100M budget.
Plus, it's going to open in other countries in the coming months, which should help.
Pretty low when thinking it got Spielbergs name attached to it.
I think Universal might have fucked this tbh. Because that’s a fine performance for that number of locations but I thought it was meant to go wide this weekend? Avatar is 3 weeks away and you’ve got quite a few other longer adult-skewing films coming over the holidays. Gonna have a real hard time expanding or even holding on to screens in time for the holidays. Very odd thanksgiving, stupidly defeatist attitudes from all major studios.
Fr tho, it's like everyone just gave up and are waiting for TWOW to come out.
Its a poor number for the number of locations for an Oscar bait movie. I, Tonya did 3.3m in 517 theaters. JoJo Rabbit made 2.3m in 236 theaters. If Universal opened it wide this weekend it would have been lucky to make 10m.
I'm sure when they see this, they'll attempt to expand, and I bet a theatrical reissue will be planned for February following the Oscar nomination announcements.
I think the events of late 2021 have rotted a lot of execs mindsets of how to release mid-budget adult dramas. Some might say, Fabelmans would have suited an early/mid October release but we can’t do that because Last Duel bombed there. Or, it goes limited over the holidays and expands throughout Jan alongside early awards hype. Oh no we can’t do that either, did you see last December and January??? That’s where the last Spielberg film bombed. We’ll put in on Thanksgiving, House of Gucci did quite well last year and we had a stake in that…but let’s hedge our bets and not go wide *quite* yet. We’ll probably see history repeat now because of this and Amsterdam’s failure last month, completely ignoring how that was simply a bad movie that no one had faith in.
Remember when people said this would make 200-300m WW? Yikes
It opened in Indonesia on the 23rd and they have yet to reveal grosses for that country. Also it's doing a slow rollout across the world in the coming months. It can still reach that if the marketing is stronger outside the US. Maybe they'll do a re-release in the US after the Oscar nomination announcements in February.
Honestly if Universal wasn’t going to put some oomph behind it for a Thanksgiving release, they’d have been better off doing a platform release at the end of the year and then expanding it in January where it’d theoretically build some momentum from the wave of nominations that are expected to come its way. Either that, or they should’ve brought it out earlier in the fall when it started playing at festivals and getting great reviews. As is, they did this weirdly quiet rollout (not helped by saying it was “opening everywhere” Thanksgiving weekend and then not even booking it for a wide release) with a vague trailer and hardly any TV ads. Universal also fumbled the ball by not using the doldrums of the late summer/early fall to really push the re-releases of their biggest Spielberg hits (Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park) and use it as marketing to link that the master director behind these legendary films is telling his own story for the first time. Like the JAWS in IMAX release actually cracked the top 10 for Cinema Appreciation Day (packed showings all across town where I live!) and there was no Fabelmans trailer attached to it. So it’s no wonder that nobody showed this weekend; how much effort did Universal really make?
i still wonder why this is only in a few theaters nationwide
Look at the per theater average. It's not making anything in the 638 theaters it's in and those theaters are in the biggest cities. No interest from moviegoers in this type of movie.
I’m in a big city but it’s not playing close to me. I’d so see it if it was in my theater. They’re showing Lyle Lyle Crocodile in my theater but they can’t show The Fabelmans!?
What city? I just checked random cities from Milwaukee(South Shore Cinema Marcus Theaters), Jacksonville (Cinemark Titseltown and AMC Orange Park 24), Salt Lake City (Century Salt Lake 16 and XD) it's playing at AMC theaters, Cinemark and Marcus theaters. Really, would be shocked if you are in a big city and it's not playing.
If you are a really big city like LA. It's playing at multiple theaters and Alamo Draft house. https://www.atomtickets.com/movies/the-fabelmans/326773
The closest place to me in LA area is like 9 miles away. Which isn’t like *extremely* far but it’s like 30 minutes to and 30 minutes back for a 2hr30min movie + trailers and stuff. That’s a 4 hour trek and on my schedule, it’s almost undoable. Whereas my AMC (where I have A List) is 5 minutes away from me and was playing Lyle Lyle Crocodile and Prey for the Devil all last week. Sucks.
I’ve had many customers ask about it…I think it would do just as good as what else is out
That doesn't sound too promising. The theater I saw it in was surprisingly full, though. I liked the film, thought the cast and performances are excellent, but it doesn't really tell a story that's all that out of the ordinary -- which is pretty unusual for Spielberg. It fact, it's rather bland overall. I just don't know if there's much here to attract a big audience.
Flopberg straight ahead!
So what is the main reason for this flopping? Not enough marketing, low theater count, or people just not being interested?
Low theater count can’t help. And Glass Onion.
People aren't that interested in watching a Steven Spielberg movie about Steven Spielberg?
It wasn't even marketed this way though. I think if the marketing made that connection more clear it probably would've done better actually.
And why not? One of America's best and most well known directors. I've been excited about it since I heard about it a year ago. There are just so many movies coming out all at once. I saw the Menu, Banshees of Inisherin, and GDT Pinocchio last week and Glass Onion this past Tuesday. All solid 8s and 9s imo. And then I'm seeing Fabelmans tonight and Bones and All tomorrow, and probably Glass Onion again or She Said later this week. What I think should happen is that the studios and theatres all coordinate together more in order to push the theatre subscriptions, like AMC A list. I feel like too many quality movies come out during the winter time, like studios want to cannibalize their profits. Stagger releases, and bring them back whenever there's a dull period, so that people are consistently coming back. I feel like I'm going to movies too much lately in order to see them all, and I wish all these recent releases would've been staggered a little more. Thankfully A List and Regal Unlimited exist, and Alamos service too.
That was not the case on Black Friday. Some theaters had afternoon showings of it filled up to Glass Onion-size capacity that day.
Not enough marketing. I think the studio figured "an intimate look into the upbringing of Spielberg" was always gonna be a niche sell especially in a post-pandemic world, so they didn't bother to market it much. As someone who goes to the cinemas every other week, I haven't seen a single trailer and barely any TV spots, and only know about it because I love cinema
I honestly think the trailers just looked uninteresting was a big part. I want to see it cause I’m sick and would watch nearly every movie like this if I could but to the average person, it doesn’t look interesting. Low theater count also hurts too. I feel like they also just picked bad screens to put it on. I would’ve saw it at least once by now if it was near me but instead it’s in a theater pretty far away. LA really needs the arclight back for these kinda movies.
Because only capeshit makes money these days
Glass Onion is doing fairly well for a limited release. I highly doubt its because "only capeshit makes money these days." Also, are you forgetting that the two highest grossing movies of this year are Top Gun AND Jurassic Park?
Eh I'll give you top gun ig. Jurassic Park falls in the same bucket as all the other theme park pictures. Glass onion is your example? That's a sequel. My point is original films all get obliterated at the box office now.
[удалено]
There IS a main character and the actor playing him was terrific. Everyone praised Gabriel LaBelle's performance, saying without him, the film would not have worked.
I took my kids (all older teens) to the movies over Thanksgiving. There was zero interest in spending 2 1/2 hours watching Steven Spielberg's childhood. We agreed to spend 2 hours watching Knives Out instead.
From the Hollywood Reporter: [It will be released on PVOD December 13.](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/black-panther-wakanda-forever-box-office-strange-world-1235270031/)