I say this with reference to Godzilla's and perhaps most of the May films' runs.

When Godzilla ultimately fails to reach $200m, maybe even $190m, it will be right in line with my original prediction from months ago. In that sense, it has done well enough to my expectations, after all $180m+ is nothing to sniff at, and yet I feel it's had a rather shitty run.

I guess this stems from the multiplier being the last thing we see, so week after week of awful holds leaves a more bitter taste lingering on the run. It's slightly illogical, but I can't help but feel Godzilla is disappointing now. In a sense, it is, in its weekly/weekend holds but in its total, it's still performing to expectations.

I'd like to see an EoT or HTTYD2 massive multiplier run instead of the crash and burn Summer 2014 special.

It's rather disgusting that all three of the $90m+ openers have had 70%+ Friday drops.

Depends

More often the multiplier, but seeing Spider-Man open to $100+ million, The Avengers breaking $200 million and a stunner like 8 Mile opening to $50+ million was undeniably magical.

With big openers, the point where the film's run stops amazing you often comes too quickly. I'm thinking about how TDK's second Friday ending up lower than its first Monday almost elicited "that's all?" reactions, even when it was still friggin $23 million.

What I appreciate about big multipliers is that they can theoretically lead to big openings when the leggy picture is a franchise film. Even if recent years have put a damper on that phenomenon, franchise pics with long legs are in theory the best of both worlds.

It always depends.

The Devil Wears Prada had a $27.5 million opening and a multiplier of around 4.5. The Departed opened to $26.9 million and had a multiplier of around 4.9. Both were way more exciting than Spider-Man 3's $150+ million opening.

Multipliers are far and away the sign of a well received movie.

I prefer massive OWs with impressive multipliers. Why limit yourself to one?
It's even better if it's for a Stallone movie.

In fact, that's not true. I do not like huge OW grosses. I much prefer if a film opens to a reasonable amount then builds on it each week. Oscar time is always a great time to follow movie box office. The Summer? Not so much.

I like both. As long as massive OW is followed by decent legs and when multiplier multiply a good OW for start.

I tend to lean more towards leggy films. Bridesmaids, The Hangover, those runs are just such fun to track.

Then again, big openers who hold on well for the size of their initial weekend (Iron Man, The Avengers, The Dark Knight) compared to others that flounder quickly are enjoyable as well.

I don't care about either. I just want to like the film and couldn't care less how much it grosses.

If a film I like does well at the BO, great, but if not I won't lose any sleep. If a film I don't like does well at the BO, good for whoever was involved, but I won't lose any sleep either.

This.

Well, yes, but you are missing the point of box-office-aficionados.

Nah. Pretty much everyone expected it to break the record and breaking it by $13 million is not that outworldy, considering it was expcted to break it anyway. The first Spider-Man broke the record by over 25%, The Avengers broke the record by oer 20%, DeadMan's Chest broke the record by over 20% (I know, Sith would have broken it, if released on a Friday, but it wasn't so...). That's impressive. Breaking it by 9% when everxyone expects you to break it...that's alright. Obviously it is a great performance, but it is not exciting.

Jabroni

Don't get me wrong. I love following the box office and playing games related to it, it's just that ultimately what interests me more is liking the film. Once Upon a Time in America was a box office disaster, but it's in my Top 10 and no matter its performance, it will probably stay there forever.

Don't get me wrong. I love following the box office and playing games related to it, it's just that ultimately what interests me more is liking the film. Once Upon a Time in America was a box office disaster, but it's in my Top 10 and no matter its performance, it will probably stay there forever.

But that's not what this thread is about, like, at all.

I prefer multipliers but only the ones that are big. The OW's are only interesting if they are a bit of a surprise and open huge like the first THG....the second one ALSO did great but its legs are more impressive than the opening even though both opened to almost same numbers.

In general I'd say I would like a multiplier over a huge OW. The best still stays a HUGE opener with a great multiplier.

My reply to the question that is the title of this thread is the first sentence of my first post. What you quoted is a reply to the comment Lecter made.

Prefer higher OW, since that is more a reflection of how well the studio does its job after the movie is already made. A great movie will do well regardless based on WOM and sell itself and have lengthy run, but it is much work to sell a bad movie to a huge OW. And great movies with great opening will have great legs regardless eg. the Dark Knight.

2005 and 2006 were bad years but had 2 epic all time opening so it was fun box office wise.

Multiplier over Opening Wknd every time.