BoxOfficeFangrl

And according to Fandango, Saltburn is playing at 3 theaters in New York, 1 in Austin, and "3" AMCs in the LA area: The Grove, Century City, and "Burbank" (the Burbank 16 and the Burbank Town Center 6). So actually 8 different locations but the per theater average for 7. I wonder if all the AMCs in Burbank count as one theater for wide releases, too. Jacob Elordi, indie box office king? I wasn't impressed with Priscilla (saw the 1980s miniseries adaptation of the memoir on YouTube, it's the same story but lets her have a personality, plus it has Elvis music) but I liked his performance. The Fantastic Beasts book was like an bonus thing JKR released between Harry Potter books, a mini guide of wizarding creatures that came complete with student doodles on the side. Another one was called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neither was really a narrative novel; the movie had to invent a story. Newt Scamander existed as a character in the universe technically but not as someone fans would have been attached to.

2003 Top 10 (domestic) 1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (fantasy epic franchise, based on a book) 2. Finding Nemo (original animation) 3. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (fantasy swashbuckler, based on a Disney ride) 4. The Matrix Reloaded (sci-fi action franchise) 5. Bruce Almighty (original comedy) 6. X2 (comic book franchise) 7. Elf (original Christmas comedy) 8. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (sci-fi action franchise) 9. The Matrix Revolutions (sci-fi action franchise) 10. Cheaper by the Dozen (remake) Four originals, two of which became franchises. The remake spawned a sequel. Two movies from the same franchise within the year. 1993 Top 10 (domestic) 1. Jurassic Park (sci-fi action, based on a book) 2. Mrs. Doubtfire (comedy, based on a book) 3. The Fugitive (action thriller, based on a TV show) 4. The Firm (legal thriller, based on a book) 5. Sleepless in Seattle (original romantic comedy) 6. Indecent Proposal (erotic thriller, based on a book) 7. In the Line of Fire (original action thriller) 8. The Pelican Brief (legal thriller, based on a book) 9. Schindler's List (historical drama, based on a book) 10. Cliffhanger (original action thriller) Three originals, none of which have generated a sequel so far. Not all of the movies based on books were well-known in the US as books (so seemed "original" to audiences), though Jurassic Park and the two John Grisham adaptations were very famous bestsellers. Jurassic has since become a franchise.

I suspect most.people aren't looking at the cost of a movie ticket vs the cost of Subway/DoorDash/takeout/etc and saying, "Wow going to the theater is actually a bargain!" They consider the cost of taking a family to a theater vs the cost of a $20 PVOD rental for the same title later that month, or the cost of a group of friends going to the movie theater together vs splitting $6 for a digital rental of the same movie two months later, or the cost of a couple doing a date night to see No Hard Feelings vs catching it in their Netflix subscription four months later. Unless a movie is an "event", moviegoers seem to be saying a trip to the movie theater is not worth their money or their time. People can say, "Well if you look at inflation, movie tickets aren't any more expensive than 50 years ago!" but it won't change a thing about how most of today's audience approaches moviegoing. They can see new movies at home more quickly and conveniently, even compared to the days of video stores or Redbox. "Must-see" titles will bring them back to theaters, but not much else. And studios are having a tough time figuring out what must-see even means anymore. The best thing that's happened to platform releases post-Covid is someone figuring out that for some reason "AMC Burbank" counts as one location, when it's three distinct multiplexes in Burbank with a total of 30 screens. The new platform releases now will often play at two if not all three of the AMCs in Burbank, but it all gets reported as one location when the per theater averages get published. I first noticed it with Asteroid City, but a lot of the 2023 platform releases do the L.A. part in Burbank now vs. The Grove and The Americana. I suspect it's a factor in the seeming improvement in platform releases this year vs 2021/2022, but why they are still falling flat in wider release.

Of course, you don't direct/star in a movie like Oppenheimer without awards crossing your mind here and there. Nolan was doing interviews/Q&As the whole time since the strike and now the actors can join in. I saw some Oppenheimer stans elsewhere being all, "Cillian is too pure to campaign!" and I was thinking, sure Jan. Many kinds of movies have campaigns, not just the so-called dreaded "Oscar bait". They want to go to these awards shows and win, not just spend weeks clapping politely for someone else.

That reminded me, the Borderlands movie with Cate Blanchett and Kevin Hart still hasn't come out yet! Original principal photography was in 2021. It's scheduled for next August now. There weren't streaming services during the Great Recession. I don’t know if moviegoing still feels like a cheap activity compared to a month's worth of Netflix, Disney+, Prime, etc. and YouTube is free. With the pandemic restrictions, I think that also made people value going out differently. If they're going to go out, they'd rather be out doing stuff where they can talk and be social the whole time and not just sitting in a dark theater. People will come to movie theaters in big numbers for "events" but there's less of just going for the sake of it. Plus they know it will be available at home soon enough, and in the meantime they can just watch a million other titles or listen to podcasts, etc.

Will Gluck "responds": This whole bit has been funnier than the teaser and trailer....

The original plan was to have it open in limited release on November 10 and expand to "wide" on November 22; then the timeline was moved up two weekends. I saw The Holdovers in October and liked it, but felt it was so early for a Christmas movie. But 95% of them die at the box office after Christmas, plus it's not like the audience for a 1970s throwback movie even comes out to movie theaters anymore. I guess the plan now is to put it on PVOD here in another week or two and hope awards buzz carries it in the countries where it comes out in January.

Instagram got blamed for ruining teen girls' self-esteem. Snapchat is being sued by multiple families for facilitating fentanyl sales to minors. TikTok videos are routinely cross-posted as YouTube shorts and IG reels. Twitch isn't just a gamer site, it's full of influential and some would say dangerous politics. Twitter too. Any social media site can be used for good or ill will. Cassie, Sean 'Diddy' Combs settle lawsuit (content warning: abuses of various natures) That was fast but just in a day, more negative Diddy stories and old tweets were being unearthed: The latter account hasn't posted since 2013. And companies just want to delete inactive accounts...

Divergent, which was successful enough for a YA franchise if not at the elite level, got ahead of itself with high budgets and a split finale move that spectacularly backfired. And everyone besides Lionsgate saw it coming... With inflation I think the first Harry Potter is up there with The Hunger Games 1 if not Catching Fire. Potter has a massive fanbase but hit a ceiling as a fantasy movie with magic and kid protagonists. They grow up but Harry Potter will forever be "the boy wizard". The Hunger Games had teen leads but played by young adults, it was sci-fi but not "everyone does spells", and the games themselves were appealing to casual fans. But general audience types can move on with time and get the Battle Royale fix from the next big thing.

That tweet is thankfully a joke (they're really committed to the bit), but someone there did seriously try to argue they were troubled by Taylor befriending Sophie Tumer because it was an older person taking advantage of someone younger at a difficult time in their lives. Even friendships can have problematic age gaps now, lmao...

Golden Globes to Air on CBS: That's the last day of the regular season, can't wait until some West Coast game with playoff implications goes into overtime, delaying the show and earning the ire of awards junkies worldwide! But seriously, talk about the Globes landing on their feet!

Big profile in Variety: Fantasia Returns: The ‘American Idol’ Winner on Turning Down Oprah, Surviving an Overdose and Acting Her Heart Out in ‘The Color Purple’

It's so strange that Sony didn't just push Anyone But You to Valentine's Day. Right now, It Ends With Us is still slated for February 9, but it was only about halfway through filming before the strikes, so it's likely to be delayed. Maybe they think this is the year the "Christmas miracle" box office effect will fully return? Even the prestige market seems to be rebounding finally, so you never know what might make a comeback...

AMC is doing another Screen Unseen on November 27, the same time as Regal's next Monday Mystery Movie. Both are rated R and about 2 hours long. Will there be one movie or two? Already seeing guesses for American Fiction (too prestigious, though Odeon showed Anatomy of a Fall as a mystery movie), Poor Things (lolol), and some horror movie called The Cello with Jeremy Irons and Tobin Bell that's a co-production with Saudi Arabia. Hmmm, which one could it be? 🤔

There just needs to be a misunderstanding that leads to a temporary breakup, their friends contriving to get them back together, and a public reconciliation (at an airport or her concert/his game), and that'll be everything!

Maybe the recent sight of Tim Scott (RIP his campaign) and girlfriend offered us everyone some perspective on a public person trying to get positive PR from a romantic pairing, lol. There will always be the cynics crying, "Fake! I read Deuxmoi and know all about CoNtracT rElaltiOnshipS!" but eh, nothing gets 100 percent approval ratings on the internet. Or maybe Taylor's smackdown about being shipped with female friends sent her worst, most parasocial "fans" retreating to their own private communities of Gaylordom. Anyway... This weekend in Taylor/Travis was straight out of every cheesy romantic comedy from the nineties/aughts and I lapped up every minute. If they're done by the Super Bowl, so what? It's fun to watch in the meantime.

The Sydney Sweeney/Glen Powell romcom that's coming out next month was doing reshoots in Australia on Friday. The SAG strike didn't just mean actors couldn't promote movies, they couldn't do any sort of reshoots or ADR. If your movie is facing narrative challenges and reshoots are impossible, maybe the movie gets hacked to bits in an attempt to salvage what's left. So not only do you have an incoherent film, but since you're not confident in it, your promotion is minimal. It can become kind of a death spiral. I know The Marvels had reshoots but maybe they could have cracked the code with another round earlier this summer. I doubt it but you never know...

Locally, non-discounted evening prices for The Marvels range anywhere from $6.75 (2D, minor theater chain) to $18.00 (IMAX at the biggest AMC), pretax. Why not believe what NATO and the theater chains say about prices? They see the whole country and would know better than most. The price of movie/music streaming services (for what they offer) only contributes to the perception of individual movie tickets costing too much.

The box office was healthier overall, but in any time there are always complaints about movie quality being less than it was in "the good old days", and Hollywood causing moral decay: in the 1920s, in the 2020s. The classics are remembered but a lot of stuff was just so-so, and there were big hits derided as junk by the cinephiles. Today it's comic book movies, 20-30 years ago it was some Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler comedy that was supposedly the degradation of cinema. And some things derided as bad initially get reclaimed and there's nostalgia for movies that weren't well regarded at first. It's interesting to watch it happen.

Green Book had impressive longevity: it opened in mid-November, its biggest weekend was $5.5M domestic and it crossed $85M the next April. Plus China really liked it, so the worldwide box office got to $320M. These kind of "awards movies for grownups" used to make tidy sums theatrically despite the MCU and other CBMs also flourishing, imagine that... The timing of the strike being over is the worst of both worlds for The Marvels, it's kind of spectacularly awful for Brie.

The Holdovers is holiday-themed so Focus might be tempted to have it on PVOD by the end of the month. Apparently it's not opening in the UK until January so maybe they will hold off on sending it to streaming for a while? Ten or twenty years ago, The Holdovers would have done as well as The Descendants or Sideways at the box office. If you look at the demographic data from PostTrak, the problem with theater attendance isn't with people 35 and under.

The Holdovers just expanded to 778 theaters according to The Numbers. Priscilla was in 1,359 theaters last weekend so almost twice as many locations.

Wasting no time now that the strike is over... Glen Powell is also in Australia. Reportedly it's just pickup shots and not major scenes (but they probably wouldn't admit that now anyway). It's still scheduled for release next month

Maybe to churches? Even my mom, who loves these musical Christian movies, didn't seem terribly interested when I mentioned it to her. You know you are getting old when the celebrity babies whose birth announcements you remember, are now young adults with their own careers. Milo is in a good nepo baby zone of growing up in LA around the biz, but not having to live up comparisons to a superstar parent like John David or Meryl's daughter who's always getting dragged for The Gilded Age. Because the headlines screaming, "Superhero fatigue!" predate the pandemic (the Urban Dictionary entry for it was created in 2018) and were trotted out any time any superhero movie underperformed, by people who never liked CBMs and went curiously mum about all the billion-dollar MCU grosses. The term became a source of mockery when it didn't reflect reality. So that made it easier for fans to be in denial once the perennial predictions of box office doom came to pass.