BoxOfficeFangrl

He's an executive producer on Oppenheimer, he will be okay if this work stoppage goes on for a minute. I wonder if The Asylum is part of the AMPTP; it would be mildly surprising if they bothered.

There were literally over 40 other movies released the same month as Gone with the Wind's debut in December 1939: The weekly release schedules for all the major studios are on Wikipedia, going back to the 1910s for Universal and Paramount. it's easy to see that the release schedules in the 1930s were quite packed, far more than today. People have the idea that because there weren't always multiplexes, that every city just had like one theater that only ever played Gone with the Wind or the Sound of Music. Maybe in the smallest towns, but in bigger cities it was basically like a mini-version of how Broadway works now, but with movies instead of stage shows. Lots of one-screen movie theaters in big cities, each showing different titles. Every era had its hits and flops, advantages and disadvantages at the box office. People used to go the movies twice a week before TV was popular, but the US population was much smaller 80 years ago. In theory there are more potential customers for a movie now, but home viewing options have cut into the audience. Older movies can benefit from re-releases but the movie had to be liked enough to get put back into theaters again and again. I mean, Men In Black and Liar Liar were popular in 1997 but they haven't gotten re-released the way Titanic has. It's really not that different for movies on the all-time lists, they all appealed a little more to audiences than most other movies that came out the same year.

Barbie had ONE HUNDRED brand deals?! And I thought the James Bond movies overdid it with the marketing/product placement...

Variety: Marketing budget amounts are even more nebulous than production budget info, but that's an industry source for the $150m number.

A few years back, I remember Nolan saying how much he liked La La Land.(probably when Dunkirk was coming out). Would love to see the Nolan bros stanning for a musical. Absolutely nothing IMO. It would be interesting if Nolan completed a World War II trilogy of films in the least expected way ever, like a musical comedy about the USO or a Rosie the Riveter movie.

Clickbait headline: The article is referring to all "Pay It Forward" purchases as "admissions", which is IMO misleading language at best. "Admissions" in box office reporting has a specific meaning, Variety knows that. The Pay It Forward donation site has disclaimers mentioning what will happen to funds not used for tickets to that specific movie, and how that will fund their creators and future studio endeavors. So, yes, donations for unredeemed Pay It Forward will remain with the distributor, Angel Studios. Does that mean unredeemed Pay It Forward donations are being counted as part of Sound of Freedom’s box office? There is certainly an audience eager to hear that SoF's financial success has been faked somehow. The book world is pretty notorious for the bestseller lists being easy to manipulate. Domestic movie theater attendance, not so much, or other studios would never have flops. They've had a 100-year head start, after all. Angel should have just made a deal for "discount codes" with leading ticket sites like the major studios, then the trades wouldn't be making these digs. Or does everyone really think Fandango just wakes up one morning and decides to offer "Buy One, Get One" tickets to The Flash out of the goodness of their hearts?

Yeah probably, and he will be so minimized from the promo tour when it finally rolls around. I love that for him... I'm surprised that IMAX isn't a bigger part of Oppenheimer's gross, especially domestically. The movie is enjoyable without it but the IMAX run gets the most attention.

I wonder if Ariana getting with her costar will have any affect on turnout. They are trying to claim they were both separated before anything happened, but even her fans aren't entirely buying it (that Mother’s Day post of his "liked by arianagrande" is not helping their case). Audiences can forgive costars who hook up if they were already famous and really hot (Mr & Mrs. Smith). Ethan Slater was largely unknown two weeks ago and he resembles Frankie Grande. Maybe the Other Woman Defense Brigade that's so active on social media will show up on huge numbers to theaters. Though the release date is so long from now, any controversy might all blow over by then. Is that some sort of legal requirement? Things like Chicago and the latest version of A Star Is Born were decades in development, so many different directors/stars were attached to each property over time, yet their reported budgets seem in line with what is onscreen. I wonder if there are tax reasons for reporting such high budgets?

Because Sound of Freedom has been called a "mini American Sniper" and Italy was one of the top overseas markets for AS... But that was directed by Clint Eastwood, his filmmaking has a following there.

Every year is different but Keira Knightley has way less to do in The Imitation Game and got the Oscar nomination. I don't think the testimony is Blunt's only strong scene, but also:

Yeah, a big appeal of those 1950-60s epics about the "ancient world" was to offer a spectacle you couldn't get on a black-and-white TV with a small square screen. There were unqualified successes like The Ten Commandments, The Robe, and Ben-Hur, but Cleopatra's production spiraled out of control in multiple, spectacular ways. If it happened today, I swear TMZ would have created a European bureau just to keep up. I think Oppenheimer's success is being attributed to factors that other movies can't duplicate: Nolan, plus the Barbenheimer phenomenon. I did find the Oppenheimer publicity rather lacking early on, but they deployed RDJ/Matt/Emily/Cillian and Nolan in what seemed like a thousand interviews in the last 2 weeks before it came out. Plus, Universal got a lot of mileage out of NBC News making a new Oppenheimer documentary and plugging the movie on their assorted channels. The first Hocus Pocus was also released in July (and came out on VHS in January). The 2003 Haunted Mansion came out in November as a Thanksgiving release. At least the Disney+ excuse has some logic to it?

It was the Monday Mystery Movie at Regal a few weeks back, those receipts get rolled into the weekend at some point. On the IMAX debate, PLFs can offer a boost but non-PLF tickets still make up a big chunk of the overall box office. Maybe if you have more PLFs you get bigger numbers in Week 3 of some tentpole, but would higher prices drive part of the audience away? Outside of a Nolan or Cameron, I couldn't care less about large formats; the cheap 2D shows will do. Back in the 1950s Hollywood tried to make so many films in Technicolor! and super widescreen to lure audiences away from television and back into theaters. It only worked to a point because the pre-TV and post-TV landscape had just changed the moviegoing equation too much; the PLF push now must be similar to how that felt.

After seeing Oppenheimer, I finally got around to watching Fat Man and Little Boy. I had wondered how the movie managed to flop so badly in 1989...but now I get it. Still, it was interesting to compare how they portrayed the same events and people (at least Nolan was in the ballpark with Jean Tatlock's hair color, the lowest of bars). Some of the differences are due to the focus each story: Fat Man and Little Boy was more about the creation of the atomic bomb; Oppenheimer, the man behind the bomb and the later repercussions. Other differences are due to the era of filmmaking and the talent involved (BTW, what a career trajectory for Roland Joffé).

All the people who want Gerwig to make a DC movie will be thrilled to know she has a similar sense of humor to Gunn.

Gerwig made Little Women, but yeah, wouldn’t have guessed that was her humor.

Might have changed the box office just a little bit...

Well, this might be why some of the test screening reports were so bad... #ReleaseTheFartOperaCut Seriously, how much would the addition of a Fart Opera have changed Barbie's box office? Most pivotal edit of a box office phenomenon since Cameron scrapped that bit with Old Rose in Titanic?

I can picture a bit of awkwardness come next November if Ariana and SpongeBob don't work out, but he would be sidelined in the Wicked promo anyway. It's going to be Cynthia and Ari everywhere, then Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey. If Ari and Ethan are still in twu luv in 16 months, then he'll get to be included in that upper echelon, even if he's not a lead lead character. But if the grand romance flames out...she's the star and also Ms. thank u, next. The studio would probably have to include him in the promo somehow, but, like, he'll be first out on the red carpet at the premiere and only gets cleared to do joint interviews with Bowen Yang...

Soap opera actors aren't under the same contract that primetime TV/movie actors are, so they are still working. If SAG-AFTRA remembers that soap operas exist, I imagine they would object to the actors performing scripts written by "scabs". There might be work stoppage, anyway. I remember during the 2007-08 WGA strike, one of the big issues was DVD residuals, and the soap writers were like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . It just had nothing to do with their job, because soaps have 240+ episodes a year and residuals were never a major part of the pay structure in that genre. I suppose the AI threat now is more existential to all writers, but the current WGA strike seems the most focused on primetime TV problems and movies to some degree.

The article brings up interesting points: On social media, a lot of posters have the notion that all actors are rich, so why are they "whining" about their pay? Superstars getting all the attention on the picket lines wouldn't help with that idea. But some are surely wary of being viewed as "controversial". Some stars are also producers and may have mixed interests in this labor conflict. Calling up your glam squad before hitting the picket lines = bad. Calling up your stylist to supply strike friendly wardrobe items when needed, or using the picket line as a backdrop to your thirst-trap public workout sessions = good?? No wonder The Rock just cut a huge check behind the scenes and kept it moving...

Of course, the WB strategists would want to get away from this year's "serious" contenders in Adapted Screenplay, but will the Academy see Barbie as "original"? Sometimes AMPAS rulings can be more about vibes than anything else, it seems:

Kris Jenner is fuming, we were really getting the "Is he Kim K's new man?" push not too long ago. Also, can't wait for the first "candid" pap shots of Gisele looking super unbothered... TMZ has already dug up the photos of her in at Eagles cap at the New England-Philly Super Bowl, lol. I always wonder how it goes with celebrity exes when they start dating other people. Do they give each other a head's up, like a text: "I'm seeing someone, he's famous, you might have more photographers following you for a few days." Or does Cooper just wake up this morning with a dozen "Are you OK, man?!" messages from his Eagles group chat.

How strange! Watch it turn out to be some dialect of Frisian... I've been on a bit of deep dive since watching the movie. There's a brief scene of Robert and Kitty at the White House receiving the Enrico Fermi Award and being honored by President Lyndon Johnson. Kitty notably snubs Edward Teller's handshake. In reality, Oppenheimer was named to get the honor by John F. Kennedy (whose "no" vote helped block the Strauss appointment to the cabinet), but he was assassinated before the ceremony. It ended up happening a week or two later. Jacqueline Kennedy was still living at the White House and met with Oppenheimer to let him know how much her late husband had wanted to bestow the honor. So, there is an alternate universe where this movie could have included both JFK and Jackie as onscreen characters.

I saw some tweets complaining Robert's Dutch was actually German? That would be a pretty massive error if true, but maybe they were just being mean about his accent.

Was there a Oppenheimer/Mario double bill at a drive-in somewhere? - (-) The Super Mario Bros. Movie Universal $90,000 +13% 134 -27 $672 $574,045,000 16