LonePirate

Can you really call five people a battalion?

Here's some interesting news. Fabian Marta, who helped acquire the film from Disney and is credited at the end of the film, was arrested for felony kidnapping of a child in St. Louis back in July.

$15.3M for Barbie would be a 2% increase for $381.7M total. She passes AtSV to claim the summer crown and she will likely pass $400M on Thursday. She is now $193M behind TSMBM. $7M for Oppenheimer would be a 2% increase for $188.4M total. He's locked in at #5 for the summer for now with $109M more to go to catch TLM. He will pass $200M on Thursday or Friday.

At this very moment, President Biden and his wife are sitting in a DC movie theater watching Oppenheimer. Back in the 1970s, he served in the Senate with some of the very same senators portrayed in the movie.

Barbie like hits $400M on Thursday with a slim chance it reaches the milestone on Wednesday if there is a significant Tuesday increase. Oppenheimer looks like it crosses $200M on Thursday as well. So in their 14th day, they will have grossed 2x-3x what some thought their combined total would have been at the beginning of the summer. Amazing!

New domestic totals: Barbie: $366.3M Oppenheimer: $181.5M

Barbie will pass AtSV by Wednesday at the latest and Oppenheimer will pass AM3 by Saturday at the latest. From there, they have long climbs until they reach their next targets.

I want Nolan to direct a sequel to Girls Trip. I'm not sure anything else could be more out of his comfort zone than that.

A Labor Day double feature with Haunted Mansion is all it needs. Have some faith, people!

If Barbie increases with actuals, more likely than not I say, it could hit $400M on Wednesday, its 13th day. It will certainly reach that milestone by Thursday at the latest. WB would likely have been ecstatic with $400M being the global number for all of 2023, let alone the domestic two week total. Still, I have faith that the WB accountants will find a way to show Barbie is not a profitable film on their balance sheets.

2024 is looking pretty bleak right now and the strikes are only going to make it worse if they continue to drag out. Deadpool 3 had to stop filming and it's currently occupying the summer kick-off slot. I could certainly see theaters bringing back classic movies. That one week 40th Anniversary showing of RotJ back in April at a few hundred AMCs grossed a little over $7M total despite being available on Disney+. It would not be surprising if Disney queued up all 11 live action Star Wars films spread over three months nationwide for all theater chains. If timed and marketed right, TFA could be pushed over $1B. They could also try something similar with the MCU films not to mention the deep Disney/Pixar animated library.

This is the Regal IMAX where I saw Oppy and this is current seat chart for the Sunday, July 30 noon showing. The screen is fairly large: roughly 60 feet high and 84 feet wide. It supposedly has a 4K digital projector although Oppy looked closer to 2K. It can render movies in the true IMAX 1.43 ratio. Oppy was not in that ratio/format, though. I may go see it again just to be certain about the 4K vs. 2K. The sound is decent but the massive size of the theater seems to hamper the sound at times. The theater seats 600 people. The central rows of seats are slightly rounded like a smile. The seats on the far left and right are angled maybe 30-45 degrees instead of being completely parallel to the screen. The rounded and angled nature of the seats results in more seats per row the higher you climb to the top. Overall, except for the rows directly in front, there’s not a bad seat, though. It’s not a true 70mm IMAX; but for being a digital IMAX, it’s a decent place to see a film thanks to the very large screen even if it still pales to some of the 80’x100’ behemoths out there.

Looks like Barbie will pass AtSV on Wednesday (or possibly on Tuesday if holds are great the next three days). Not bad at all for 12-13 days of work. From there it's a quick $200M to Mario which should happen sometime in mid-to-late August.

Oppy looks to score the sixth biggest second weekend (wide release) gross for an R-rated film behind the big five: The Passion of the Christ; Deadpool; American Sniper; Joker; and It. Mojo needs to create one of its showdowns tracking the day to day grosses of all six films and maybe Deadpool II as well. Oppy still has a ways to go before it catches those films; but it will gain ground on all of them during the upcoming weekdays. The film will pass $200M sometime next week and $300M looks fairly solid; however I'm not yet sold on the $329M needed to pass It for fifth place on the all time list. Oppy will need to gross north of $30M next weekend to have a chance so we'll see.

That's a very tall order to pull it off a second time. I'm thinking they will drop around 25% to $26M and $14M. Of course I wouldn't be surprised at all if both grossed closer to $30M and $16M.

This is the 8:15 showing of the 70mm IMAX version of Oppenheimer for this Thursday at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco, two weeks after the film arrived for Thursday previews. This is one of the busiest theaters in the US. There’s well over 400 seats in the theater and tickets are just a few pennies under $20 each. Oh this is the 8:15 AM (!!!) showing. There are three other showings later in the day on Thursday which have all sold more seats than this showing. Oppy is not leaving 70mm IMAX screens until Dune arrives. It’s probably going to stay on the regular 70mm non-IMAX screens for a long time as well with only the regular IMAX screens peeling off probably after Labor Day. The closest Blue Beetle is coming to these screens might be the auditorium on the other side of the wall.

$33M Saturday for Barbie would be a 13.8% increase over Friday. $18M Saturday for Oppenheimer would be 34.3% increase over Friday. The Barbenheimer train keeps chugging along.

AMC execs must be kicking themselves by locking HM into most of their Dolby showings this weekend when they are barely reaching 60% capacity in many cities while the 10pm and later Barbie showings in Dolby are selling more tickets and Oppenheimer is reaching 95%+ capacity is almost all of its IMAX showings.

For a film playing in only 250 theaters, that is a bad number. It should have a PTA of 3x-4x that right now if it wants to expand as it is mostly playing in large cities and a few mid-sized cities. Any expansion plans for the film are likely being cancelled.

That Theater Camp number is pretty unremarkable - a PTA of just $813 and change. An expansion does not seem to be in the script for it.

At the start of the summer, those numbers for the Saturday of opening weekend, heck maybe even the entire opening weekend, would have led to champagne bottles being popped. For those to be the Saturday numbers from the second weekend is now simply obscene. Someone is going to earn an MBA by writing a paper on these films' marketing and promotion campaigns coupled with the Barbenheimer event.

IMAX has a lot to learn from this Oppenheimer release. I know they prepared for the 70mm release by sending technicians to numerous (all?) locations; but the reports of problems in several locations shows more preparations or work is needed. Not only that but numerous IMAX theaters are still showing movies in 2K resolution. There is absolutely no excuse for that given the prevalence of 4K screens such as AMC Dolby, Regal RPX, Cinemark XD and every or almost every Harkins screen. Moviegoers are not receiving the best possible visual experience on those 2K screens.

Barbie with $29M takes it to $287M and easily clearing $300M on Saturday. Oppenheimer with $14M brings it to almost $142M. Barbie was essentially flat last Saturday from its true Friday while Oppenheimer was up about 10% from its true Friday. I'm guessing both films increase 20% or more on Saturday; but nothing seems certain with these two films.

Some milestones in the summer race this weekend as the Barbenheimer train rolls on: Barbie will pass TLM on Saturday. GotG3 is on tap for early next week with AtSV sometime later next week. She will be around 60% of Mario by Monday as that chase continues. Oppenheimer will pass MI7 today. It will pass SoF either today or Saturday. It will pass Elemental on Saturday. It will pass RotB on either Saturday or Sunday and it will pass IJ5 on Sunday. From there, TLM is a few weeks away. GotG seems out of reach; but who knows given the likelihood it remains on IMAX screens for many more weeks.

Trying to decide if I want to see Oppenheimer again in IMAX on Saturday. Might have to take the plunge.