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I'm glad I qualified my statement above from a few days ago, otherwise I'd be eating humble pie here today.
Then at least it will achieve what its obvious intention was.....to sell records....rather than leave any lasting musical legacy for this storied franchise, imho.
It's just the iTunes charts. They don't count for me. Sorry :-).
I do agree that the lacklustre reviews of "Writing's On The Wall" could have a slight influence on the global box office earnings. But to say this will hurt the box office of "SPECTRE" with a whopping $100 to $200 Million is just an exaggeration beyond imagination. Moreover, I still believe the song "Skyfall" didn't 'help' the global box of "SkyFall" just slightly. Bond songs always create awareness/publicity for the actual film. The reason "Skyfall" as a film did so well, is because the film itself got universal praise, combined with an insane amount of media exposure (Olympics, Adele, etc.).
"SPECTRE" is not that different to that respect. With one important advantage "Skyfall" did not have: It can ride the waves of success of its immediate predecessor. That 'wave of riding the success of its predecessor' is quite unique in Bond history, as it is a very big wave....a 2012-tsunami so to say that didn't end just yet.
You're wrong, it counts more than anything else.
In Switzerland and most European countries, physical CD singles sales have practically vanished.
85% of the sales are downloads and almost the rest is streaming which is counted in the charts as well since July 2014.
iTunes is by far the biggest seller of downloads closely followed by Amazon. All others are just odds and sods.
Sam Smith being almost at No 1 after only 5 hours is unprecedented.
Only the American Idol winner songs or Voice winner songs are that fast too and only because there is the much viewed finals of that show before it.
The thing is........so many artists get a nr.1 placing on these iTunes charts, because it's solely related to downloading. And good music taste is a bit less pronounced with these internet charts, as compared to physical charts. For the latter charts one needs to go out, do some walking, to find the nearest music shop. Those are slightly more 'real lovers'.
Also important, and even more important with iTunes charts: How LONG does it stay on no #1. I bet "Skyfall" did better in that sense. I expect "WOTW" to leave the no#1 spot pretty fast....
yes, easily
interesting
It received generally mixed to negative reviews, especially when compared to Adele's "Skyfall"
THIS IS BAD NEWS FOR SPECTRE
Because Spectre the movie will be compared to Skyfall as well by critics and Spectre will therefore not be treated nicely by critics. Practically all critics praised Skyfall and they have put Skyfall on a pedestal. They just can't do it again with Spectre and it even hasn't to do with the quality of the movie, that's simple psychological mechanics.
Yes, you're correct. This much was inevitable. They will make the comparison and look for a reason to knock SP down (the media is always like this anyway). Sam Smith, unfortunately, just gave them a reason on a silver platter.
I always thought they should have taken a different approach to Adele and gone rock or harder edged, to remove the obvious comparisons, and obfuscate the media looking for an excuse to knock it down a few pegs.
The lackluster reviews of the song does NOT result in bad reviews of the film. Simply because movie critics are not music critics. Ykmn had a rather lackluster
60% of the time, I'm correct every time.
Agreed. The problem with Bond fans is, they can become overzealous and as soon as the boat is rocked a little, it's all doom and gloom and the sky is falling. Can you imagine if @Panchito was here? Bloody hell.
So it's calling the kettle black when all that negative whining goes on in the tabloids as well as in here.
Choosing a rock song instead of a slow ballad? Sorry @Bondjames. Also a bullocks remark. If "AWTD" premiered today after "SF" received that we'll deserved Oscar, then we would have been navel gazing as well and use the same flawed arguments.
And finally, there's no proof whatsoever that a theme song has a big influence on box office figures. YES probably that lovely combination of publicity factors helped "Skyfall" propelled it towards that big $1.1 Billion box office gross, but nowhere there are statistical facts that Adele 'gave' "Skyfall" another $150 Million extra box office gross.
"SPECTRE" will still gross more than $1.2 Billion. And next month movie critics will go insane how good "SPECTRE" is as a film. In the end "Skyfall" 'helps' "SPECTRE", not destroying it. End of story!
What does that stand for? What In The Hell?
I was in the metro hehe. Sorry ;-). The acronym WOTW automatically corrected into WITH. In 100 years time from now....robots will completely auto-correct us, LOL. Watch the good movie "Ex-Machina" ;-).
Yes that bloody auto-erection plays me tricks too... correction!
Everytime I wank a Bond movie RANK!.... I'm getting fisted now frustrated damn it...
:-SS
It's the same in everything. New novels, new songs, new albums, new cars etc. etc.
AWTD proves my point. It was in the same genre/vein as YKMN but clearly inferior. So it was an easy target for the ruthless media, and would have been even if it was good because it was in the same vein..
The same goes for WOTW. It would have been prudent for EON to have gone the rock route to avoid direct comparisons between the SP song and Adele's highly praised previous entry, creatively. One must try to avoid the Moonraker scenario (vs. TSWLM) and it's unfortunate that EON did not take this into consideration. No matter how good WOTW could have been, it would have still been a target for the media, following a successful prior entry (Bad vs Thriller if you will).
They just played into it. Nobody beats Adele (at present) for this kind of sound (the slow ballad).
As I said somewhere else, even Adele would have been blasted, no matter how good her song could have been, had she done the song for SP, unless it was an upbeat different sounding entry.
Let's agree to disagree then :-). And then end of this year we talk again about the box office gross of "SPECTRE".
A comparison I just made:
It's now pretty safe to say "Rogue Nation" won't beat "Ghost Protocol"s impressive box office run. So I was wrong with my predicition that it could outperform "Ghost Protocol" :-(.
Don't count Kingsman because it had a clear run of the theatres for ages in North America with no competition whatsoever.
Although I really don't care, I'm pretty sure SP comes in at my original prediction range of between $900M to $1BN. Most likely around $950M.
I'd be very happy with that result personally, because it will still be considered a success and will exorcise the demon/expectations set by SF.
Then we can move forward with something more creative and inventive without having to live up to any silly expectations with B25.
What does 'underperforming' means in such an insane heavy box-office year, where Disney considers its $1.4 Billion for "Avengers 2" as an 'underperforming' figure? And let's not forget China, because there they don't know what 'underperforming' means...so far :-).
Underperforming means not living up to 'our' expectations, no matter how unrealistic (and they are) they may be. As you just said, MI-RN is underperforming and everything else in the spy genre is too. That's what I see.
As I said, I don't care, and would prefer a gross under $1bn to kill off the curse of SF expectations. Yesterday's song has made me realize that we need to get back to being creative again, and as long as EON is stuck in the 'live up to SF bo' nonsense we will not see the creative risks that we saw with CR and QoS. That's my view.
You don't care a little bit to see "SPECTRE" performing well? I remember very well the box-office topic of "SkyFall" in 2012. Everyone, MI6-HQ included, were completely thrilled and excited about how it performed.....
Of course I want it to perform 'well'. However, 'well' is a relative term. I think wanting it to beat SF is just asking for trouble because it will set up even more unrealistic expectations for B25. The more one feels the need to 'top' the previous film box office wise (especially something as successful as SF), the less creative one becomes and the less risks one takes.
I think CR was a masterstroke. I want EON to feel the need to take those kind of risks again. I don't think they will with SP to be quite honest (I think they will draw from their storied past from what I can see......but that is a different thing from what we got with CR and even QoS). I think SP will play it safe (I may be wrong, but that's my guess based on what I've seen to date, which is admittedly limited). As I said, yesterday's song made me realize this. This is not the same EON that had the balls to get Chris Cornell for YKMN (a far cry from selecting almost sure fire critical success until she wasn't....Madonna). This is an EON that wants to live up to Adele.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/09/28/box-office-spectre-is-not-a-bomb-if-it-fails-to-top-skyfall/
I can't wait to read all the excuses people are going to dream up here once SP doesn't reach the billion.
If SP is perceived as well as SF it will make 1.1 billion as well or more, no matter any Peanut or Star Wars movie let alone Hunger Games!
"The Peanuts Movie" will be big, but I think it's audience is slightly smaller as compared to bigger animated films from Pixar or 20th Fox. Therefore I think it will appeal more to older audiences. It's also a rather 'alternative' animated film, like "Paddington" earlier this year. Wonderfully crafted. But even for those young kiddo's.....simplicity and mindless fun counts more than a retor-vibe one will have with the "Peanuts". "Peanuts" also doesn't have the 'brand image' original films from Pixar have.
So for the first weekend of "SPECTRE" I'm not worried at all really. It's only the 2nd big non-scifi. non-3D, real-life-action film after "Furious 7" this year ("Mission: Impossible 5" excluded).
What Scott Mendelson from Forbes also fails to address is the uplift of the "star power" associated with the cast and crew since "SkyFall". Director Sam Mendes has got a new 'status' now. It's not that he's as 'big' as Tarantino or Nolan. But Sam Mendes' name does attract fans. He's a hot-sought director now in Hollywood. And I wouldn't be surprised if Warner or Marvel are going to ask him....to urge him to direct one of their more 'realistic' comic book adaptations.
And let's not forget the actors. Javier Bardem was indeed a wonderful villain. But I'm sure audiences wanted to give "SkyFall" a try simply because this actor was in it. And that's not that different with Dave Bautista and Christoph Waltz new. They will draw in some Marvel-fans and Tranatino-fans.
The fact that "SPECTRE" is now actually seen as a sequel to "SkyFall" I call an advantage really. Similar to how "TDKR" profitted from "TDK". If you really want to avoid assured box office success, you should have come up with a total new Bond film, without Mendes, and returning to unknown actors.
It will be more interesting to see what "The Good Dinosaur" will do. It's the 2nd Pixar film of this year, and it can lift on the recent dino-craze from "Jurassic World".
By the way, I do like the fact that Scott Mendelson stays positive and realistic in his article. IF "SPECTRE" doesn't outperform "SkyFall", which I doubt will happen, than that's by no means a failure. Then that's again an impressive box office story.