Babylon pulls 3.5$ million over the weekend off a 80$+ million budget

Primetime

Superstar
Joined
May 7, 2012
Messages
12,188
Reputation
2,644
Daps
40,185
Reppin
H-Town
Honestly I didn't hear about this movie until two weeks ago, and already is nominated for Academy Awards. I remember the Shape of Water getting buzz and made cash, I remember Parasite getting a ton of buzz and it made bank. This year The Whale is getting all the hype, and I am sure people will want to see it.

This shyt came out of left field, and while it had Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, it's a harsh reminder in a MCU-dominated world, that Big Name stars just aren't enough anymore unless your Tom Cruise, and even then Tom is busting his ass to promote his film.

How did it expect to make cash during a time when AVATAR 2 was coming out?

Cruise ain't enough for nothing either tbh, outside of the nostalgic IPs he starred in 20+ years ago (Mission Impossible, Top Gun) that he'll start/continue milking the same way Vin Diesel milks the Fast & Furious.

Hell, Will Smith probably could've gone a similar path with Bad Boys if Martin had been in better health/mental state this whole time... or with MiB if a little more care was taken to make better movies out of the last couple... or simply not making the last couple, and having a more dramatic reveal in the 2020s of Will returning but in the Agent K mentor role...

All in all, the industry is not so much MCU-dominate, as it is IP-dominant, with the MCU simply being the most notable case.
 

VoxSphere74

Banned
Joined
May 25, 2022
Messages
2,147
Reputation
649
Daps
9,976
This is an Oscar movie

Was always gonna bomb

Basically. And it had the same problem that Amsterdam did. No one even knew what it was about based on the trailers. Because just partying and excess isn't enough.

At least Wolf of Wall Street was based on a real person with a real past.
 
Last edited:

BigBlackSea

All Star
Joined
Mar 11, 2022
Messages
1,473
Reputation
420
Daps
5,846
Literally no advertising other than the sparse amount of billboards sprinkled around LA :mjlol:
 

Diunx

Probably drunk
Joined
Nov 18, 2013
Messages
12,485
Reputation
1,560
Daps
37,657
Reppin
nightset
it was never gonna do gangbusters

the 3 hour length might turn people off...and the trailer doesn't really capture the film

half the trailer are actually scenes from the prologue...and that shyt is like 30mins...before we ever get a title saying what the film is
Wait, that shyt is 3 hours? I downloaded it but now I don't see myself watching it anytime soon.
 

Legal

Superstar
Supporter
Joined
May 7, 2012
Messages
16,213
Reputation
3,193
Daps
61,730
Reppin
NULL
It’s one of my favorites this year. Try to give it a watch when it hits streaming if you want, but I didn’t feel like my time was wasted upon the credit roll.

Really not a shocker to see it performing like it is though. I can see a lot of the audience being fatigued after Amsterdam. Both of these films whose trailers flashed star-studded casts, but not much substance. That movie deserved to lose money. This one…not so much. The budget is showcased right away in the production design that I’m positive will earn an Oscar nom. It felt like the actors each had a place in the film and weren’t there just to be there.

Babylon is a movie that I could actually see aging well down the road and reevaluated in a better light.

This makes sense.

When the trailer came out, I said there's a decent chance this flops. The day of the ensemble film, sold on "These people are in the movie," is over. People want to have some idea of what they're going to be paying money for before they bother stepping out and putting money down to watch. That's why established IP are sucking so much air out of the room right now. It's not necessarily that that's all that audiences want, it's just that most of those movies are essentially making the decision as simple as "Do you like Marvel/Top Gun/Fast and Furious?" And then beyond that, they're just good enough for word of mouth from the audience to do the rest of the heavy lifting when the movie's out.

With this, and Amsterdam, they didn't give audiences a whole lot to make their decision off of. Amsterdam leaned into the cast over the plot, which to be fair, was probably all they really had, since what I saw of it (I ejected something like halfway through) wasn't particularly good. Babylon leaned into scenes from what apparently is a small portion of the movie, and Damien Chazelle's name, despite the fact that La La Land is the only real hit to his name. That's just not gonna fly these days.
 

Deltron

The Return
Top Supporter
Supporter
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
49,074
Reputation
21,228
Daps
149,374
Reppin
The year 3030
I’ve actually seen a lot of ads for Babylon but the problem is I have no idea what’s it’s about and big name actors aren’t enough to generate interest anymore.

trailer frames it on some great gatsby shyt...but that's not even a big portion of the film
 
Top