Cmasterclay

I'm pro Garfield breaking out, not huge numbers or anything remarkable but it will have been awhile since an animated film and families will remember they want something to do over that weekend. Remember how slow KFP4 and Minions sales were?

Rare correct take from this schmuck.

I think both the Shyamalan joints and Speak No Evil look like very compelling horror fare with tons of trailer views and online buzz - if all THOSE flop, then it's big trouble for any non IP horror film.

Alright Christopher I understand not wanting to be shoehorned but you were turning down some real bangers here my guy.

Does Tom Hardy count as a superhero guy? He wasn't exactly Mr. Famous before he played Bane, but I'd say he's definitely a draw to the point that he circled around and sold ANOTHER superhero role in large part due to his name power.

IDK plenty of my friends seem to know and like Cavill from the Witcher and being a handsome guy, he just has had unbelievably bad choices. Chris Hemsworth kind of the same deal tbh, though at least he's wisened up more lately. I think there's hope for Cavill. People know him and like him generally is my sense of it. I think his role in MI:Fallout was best and worst of him - amazing physical charisma, cool GIFs, totally, laughably unbelievable playing a political philosopher who had anything to say. Get this guy an Extraction type franchise on Prime or something.

I've been having issues with old people just loudly speaking like in outdoor voices for large swaths of the film lately.

I actually really do think this September to December slate looks awesome and stacked, it's no longer a matter of this being a weak box office year and more a concern of whether box office is sustainable as an industry period. In a regular environment where theatrical can survive, I have zero problems with the slate from really mid-June on this year.

That's who goes to movies anymore. I have about as much chance as getting my 38 year old coworkers with kids to go to a movie theater as I have getting them to jump off the Empire State Building, but my 15 year old niece goes all the time with her little friends.

In the classic nostalgia fallacy, I think that technology peaked in terms of "enhancing lives" in 2000-2005 timeframe before smartphones and streaming ruined everything. Isn't it funny that things were the best when I happened to be a kid?

I think the answer is that I work too deeply in structural politics and institutions and each day I'm confronted by the lasting impacts of these changes, so my mood can flip very quickly, which it did based on a couple of conversations this week. That's the honest answer.

There's just too many options in the world now for movies to be a time and cost-effective option for most people to spend three hours. By the way, I also think that most sectors of entertainment, art, and culture have the same problem - not just complaining about movies. The sheer amount of options and content is creating a circular firing squad where nothing can thrive. And "Option excess" isn't just a cultural issue - it's also drained our public schools of students as they go to charter and online options, it's drained our storefronts of shoppers, it's drained our public spaces of the community and investment needed, which is why virtually every downtown in America is flirting with becoming giant outdoor shuttered homeless shelters right now (that's not designed as an attack on the unhoused, to be clear). We weren't meant to be this glug glug glug with options to stay home and live online. It is breaking our politics, commerce, and cultural institutions. It's a pandora's box that got opened too far. Anyway, this is only tangentially about box office anymore. I think after 30 years of no smoking and drinking I need to start getting high. Shit is too bleak baby.

It's one thing if $9 billion a year is the new normal and it just requires more luck and work to get people to the theaters, it's another thing if we are in a death spiral due to a superseding technology that phases out this experience during a generation. I think we all could live with the former, but the more I think about it historically and the more I examine my friends attitudes, the more I start to think we are in the latter. Anyway, this isn't expired by these movies this weekend obviously, it's just gonna be a shitty couple months and I'm bored and bleak.

At my local Regal, they literally don't even check my tickets half the time lol. Could be seeing shit for free, it looks dystopian in there. I don't remember a film there actually being crowded since Top Gun - it's like a fucking ghost town even for opening weekend of Dune and Godzilla. Then again, I see movies much less on Thursday and Friday night than I used to and much more during the weekend afternoons. The theater at the mall does get very crowded sometimes still.

The problem is that people were given a cheaper, more convenient (shitty) alternative that they were conditioned to adopt due to COVID, an option with more convenience especially for those with busy schedules, young children, tight money etc, and they are taking it. Whether small, mid sized, or big movies, streaming was always going to win. Always. It's just a matter of when and how. It'd be like betting on stagecoaches over cars. In recent weeks I've finally moved into acceptance stage of grief and am ready to just take what I can for the few years I anticipate this wonderful technology and experience called theatrical still existing. Dead serious.