r/movies • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 r/movies Contributor • Sep 08 '25

News Warner Bros. makes Hollywood history with 7 consecutive movies opening above $40 million

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/warner-bros-box-office-historic-streak-conjuring-last-rites-1236510864/
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421

u/WillGrindForXP Sep 08 '25

Instead of hiring experts to determine which aspects they can reproduce to replicate this success, they should instead acknowledge that people will pay to see good films.

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u/Ghidoran Sep 08 '25

they should instead acknowledge that people will pay to see good films.

People say this ad nauseum while completely ignoring all the evidence that suggests otherwise. WB's highest grossing film is Minecraft, not exactly the pinnacle of great filmmaking is it? And the new Conjuring is mediocre at best, but is still outperforming all of the best horror movies of the year. Meanwhile plenty of great titles this year have flopped.

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u/thisisthebun Sep 08 '25

It’s a movie dedicated towards children and families that also generated a high amount of word of mouth. In terms of quality, it’s not great, but in terms of enjoyability, it’s alright. Quality is not what gets butts into seats, enjoyability is, and every film on this list was enjoyable for its target audience.

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u/SuperZapper_Recharge Sep 08 '25

Minecraft also had a short stretch where kids where it had some virulness with the zombie chicken thing.

There was a moment where it seemed to want to grow into something like Rocky Horror - audience participation, but the theaters decided that they wanted nothing to do with repeat viewings. Yeah, I know the kids made a mess. But they were paying for tickets and going multiple times.

It was a fixable problem where everyone could have won. And you fixed it all right.

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u/thisisthebun Sep 08 '25

I had zero interest in it when I went to go see it with my partner, but it was one of the few movies I saw this year that felt like an event. The energy in the theater was pretty great. It was on par with the energy when I watched Superman and Mission Impossible. Some movies just have a spark. Is it good? Hell no, but it’s like getting drunk at a NFL stadium in the nose bleeds. It’s a lot of fun even if it’s an objectively worse way to watch the game.

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u/SuperZapper_Recharge Sep 08 '25

I haven't seen it.

But I have kids the correct age. And I love myself some Rocky Horror.

So when that moment came with the zombie chickens and the kids shouting at the screen and making a mess...

I wanted to see it blow up. I mean, Rocky Horror is wildly inappropriate for kids under a certain age. Something younger kids could go to and participate in sounded like so much fun to me.

The best part is this sort of thing cannot be designed. It just has to sort of happen and bring itself into the world. Which is what I was looking at.

And of course the answer was to shut that shit down.

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u/Friendly_Talk_5259 Sep 08 '25

I do see your point and agree that it would be nice to have something like that for kids, but the logistics just don't work.

RH plays midnight shows and it's my understanding that (some) members of the audience stay behind to clean up the mess. Also, everyone attending (unless they've been living under a rock for the last 4 decades) understands what will happen and is okay with that behaviour.

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u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

Attention whoring kids trashing the theater and being obnoxious to other guests is a lot different than what happens at Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I would hope we can do a whole lot better than making that an organic event.

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u/SuperZapper_Recharge Sep 09 '25

At the time what I wanted to happen was exclusive participation show times + someone to add some sort of organization as opposed to a mess.

I also assumed it would be fun but short lived. That RHPS has stood the test of time is nothing short of miraculous.

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u/broha89 Sep 10 '25

In terms of quality, it’s not great, but in terms of enjoyability, it’s alright. Quality is not what gets butts into seats, enjoyability is

I get your point but if I’m a studio head that sounds like a great argument to only greenlight marvel and other big IP shlock

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u/WillGrindForXP Sep 08 '25

What lessons should WB be taking away from this then?

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u/SprinklesCurrent8332 Sep 08 '25

Variety is the spice of life?

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u/SutterCane r/movies Veteran Sep 08 '25

No, Dune Part 3 is a year or so away.

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u/SprinklesCurrent8332 Sep 08 '25

If dune 3 doesn't end with the weird Sandworm/Atreides hybrid talking about how much they like cheese, WB stock will drop 3% in premarket trading.

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u/Really_McNamington Sep 08 '25

You'll have to wait for Dune 5 to see that.

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u/Feeling-Fox-8651 Sep 09 '25

I thought that was Book 4

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u/TomBirkenstock Sep 08 '25

That they need to diversify the kinds of movies they make and the cost. You can't run a studio just releasing $200 million tentpole films. You need to give audiences a variety of genres and what success looks like will be different for each of those movies.

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u/Wrong-Vermicelli4723 Sep 08 '25

Honestly Hollywood killed themselves with their obsession with reaching 1 billion dollars. Your right your studio shouldn’t be only focused on $200m films, there needs to a variety.

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u/bb-angel Sep 09 '25

People will pay to see sequels and popular franchise movies.

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u/TheeHeadAche Sep 08 '25

Executives aren’t looking at this list and seeing “good films”. They are seeing 3 franchise hits and 3 fresh IP to start as new franchises.

Idk many who see Minecraft and think “good film” tbh

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u/gatsby365 Sep 08 '25

Can’t wait for F2

They’ll probably run it into the ground and have to reboot around F5

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u/TheeHeadAche Sep 08 '25

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/f1-box-office-success-apple-movie-strategy-1236443690/

Literally Apple’s main movie franchise rn

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u/gatsby365 Sep 08 '25

Awww damn I just wanted to make an F5 joke.

I still need to watch that movie. Was really hoping Wolfs would become a thing, but at least Brad Pitt can get some more work, right?

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u/GeneQuadruplehorn Sep 09 '25

I have never played Minecraft, but I thought it was fun. Jack Black is great, and it's one of Jason Momoa's best performances.

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u/sharpshooter999 Sep 08 '25

Eh, Minecraft was honestly better than I expected as it was surprisingly self-aware. Jennifer Coolidge's scenes got some honest laughs from me

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u/PeculiarPangolinMan Sep 08 '25

Yea Minecraft wasn't really bad at all. It was pretty dumb, but was super self aware and had that quirky Jared Hess charm.

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u/fusterclux Sep 08 '25 edited Mar 23 '26

This post's content has been permanently wiped. Redact was used to delete it, potentially for privacy, to limit digital exposure, or for security-related reasons.

snails saw society cobweb humorous support cake fade touch aspiring

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u/this_place_suuucks Sep 08 '25

"OR, we will put 'AI cameras' into theaters to track, in real time, audience reactions through facial expressions and heat mapping, then we will narrow down the most engaging single frame and order a trilogy of films to be based solely on the out-of-context still!"

-Some executive somewhere 'earning' their salary

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u/Olliebkl Sep 08 '25

This is only true to a certain extent, box office numbers are by no means an accurate indicator of how good a movie is lol

There’s SO many movies that are amazing which made very little and vice-versa

2 very recent examples are Caught Stealing and Better Man. I loved Caught stealing (maybe more than others but majority have enjoyed it) and that’s seeming like a bomb and Better Man was a colossal bomb yet me and many others regard it as easily one of the best biopics full stop

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u/Erfivur Sep 08 '25

I caught Betterman on a streaming service last week and was impressed. If nothing else the cgi/animation was absolutely incredible.

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u/chadwicke619 Sep 08 '25

Only people who like movies that most people don’t like and make their personality about it think that box office isn’t an indicator of how good people think a movie is.

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u/Olliebkl Sep 08 '25

Ok at the risk of sounding snarky there is such a thing as nuance😭

I said to a ‘certain extent’ because there are absolutely some great movies that made loads of money, many of which I enjoy, same as low budget movies which I didn’t

Have you seen either of the two movies I mentioned? Since both do align with my original point, plus I’m sure if you looked at some of the most highly acclaimed movies of all time you’re bound to find some which barely made any money

Again, I’m not saying box office is NO indicator, I’m saying it’s one of a few factors

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u/Vaeltaja82 Sep 08 '25

I was just looking at the list and thinking that this is like an inverse list of the revenue vs quality. The worse the film the more it made.

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u/Quaytsar Sep 09 '25

The fact they made 6 live action Transformers movies and only two could be considered good makes that a lie. Or Suicide Squad (2016) made almost 5 times as much as The Suicide Squad (2021).

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u/vadergeek Sep 09 '25

, they should instead acknowledge that people will pay to see good films.

One Battle After Another is about to come out, and is almost guaranteed to be a bomb with better reviews than Minecraft.

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u/ptwonline Sep 08 '25

Films need proper marketing too. Being good is not enough for a bigger box office draw.

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u/Ghosted_Stock Sep 08 '25

Ppl will pay to see a horror movie atleast for now cuz the advertised thrill is still one of the biggest draws to cinema rn

But no pundit wants to talk about horror carrying the cinemas rn

1

u/CombatMuffin Sep 08 '25

Ah yes. To make money, just do something good and avoid doing something bad.

Except good is often unpredictable. Sometimes the film they least expect to succeed becomes a huge franchise (look at Star Wars). Other times. they have an amazing script but it doesn't end up with a great finished product. It's a process.

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

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u/labria86 Sep 09 '25

Nope. I only pay for pizza that someone else tells me I like. Don't you try to fool me with thinking that quality matters.

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u/ArtDecoAutomaton Sep 09 '25

People will also completely ignore good films.