BoxOfficeFangrl

July 4th being on a Tuesday must have ruined the opportunity for a good old-fashioned holiday weekend celebrity news dump...

Cooper had a "difficult" interview with the New York Times during the promo for A Star Is Born, when the industry wasn't even on strike. I think a lot of the SAG rank and file would see him as a scab this time, even if the promo was technically allowed. That wouldn't help the Oscar votes. And if he sits out the PR tour for Maestro, then he also gets to dodge questions about the casting/makeup debates that will happen. I can't remember if Nolan specifically talked about the Oppenheimer script being in the first person in these recent interviews, but I think he did? The WGA strike has been going on since May. There seemed to be more Twitter grumbling about Gerwig doing promo vs Nolan, surprise surprise. Yellowstone and Succession premiered in the same month; you'd never know it if you used "cultural conversation" as a guide to actual popularity. It took about 3 seasons for the tastemakers who write about TV to even notice and acknowledge Yellowstone's massive reach. Not to say that The Chosen is as big Yellowstone but they've done limited theatrical releases of some episodes. It wasn't Passion of the Christ money, but several Best Picture nominees in recent years made less than Christmas with the Chosen. It's not like CW survived due to its mass appeal. However going with a Jesus series is quite the 180 from their recent slate.

Too bad Paul Mescal just wasn't prominent enough back when Napoleon was in pre-production, Scott could have cast him there instead of as the lead in the Gladiator sequel. But if they'd actually cast a twentysomething Napoleon--especially a guy who was short--there would have been a lot of freaking out and complaining that he was just too young. They'd argue that people matured earlier in the past, so to capture Napoleon's gravitas in a modern movie you "have to" cast a much older actor. Perhaps it's just reflecting society, where there are daily arguments on Twitter that anyone under 25 is a literal baby because brain development, or something...

A-List basically eliminates (for members) the part of the ticket cost that AMC keeps for themselves. AMC just pays the studio their portion for each admission. They hope to make it up between concessions (always the big moneymaker for theaters) and members who skip a month or two. If the same number of A-List members paid for tickets the regular way, the box office in theory would be higher because regular ticket prices cover what the theater keeps AND the part that the studio gets back. In practice, the admissions would decrease because the cost wouldn't be discounted. It's a trade off. Sound of Freedom is a wild enough run on its own but even Deadline is saying it pulled attendance from Dead Reckoning in certain regions. And to think Cruise spent all that time calling up theaters and IMAX to demand they break their exclusive windows, then having to play nice about Barbenheimer in public! If only he'd known the real enemy, LOL...

I always thought those discount codes with ticketing services were funded by the studios in some roundabout way; is that not the case? Especially with The Flash having a "buy 3, get 1 free" the first weekend through Fandango, and an outright BOGO for the second weekend. To me that seemed like WB trying to give it increasingly desperate nudges to improve the box office, so someone at the studio pulled their "emergency lever" with Fandango. In the tracking threads, Atom codes get brought up and sometimes it seems like the offers can be strategic in when they happen. Some big movie's box office forecast is weak? Here comes Atom to save the day! Maybe it's a simple loss leader on the ticketing service's side but can we be entirely sure?

Maybe someone can make a YouTube video about it... There's a subreddit of movie theater employees, Sound of Freedom seems like a very colorful experience for them.

Production on Part 2 isn't done, there's still time to work in changes. Can't see Cruise really bringing back Henry, though. Is Miles Teller busy once the strike is over? Had totally forgotten the drama over Cavill's facial hair in Fallout and the horrible CGI in Justice League.

I think when actors got around to unionizing in the UK, their film and stage industries were both based in London. It probably made organizing easier and the British film industry was probably smaller than its US counterpart. In America, SAG wasn't formed until the 1930s, when movie studios were firmly in Hollywood while Broadway was 3,000 miles away. The industries just developed on their own separate paths here, SAG and Actors Equity still can't even reconcile enough to play recordings of Broadway shows in movie theaters. This is a regular thing in the UK and helps both cinemas and the West End. Fran invoking Versailles, Hellboy saying we know where you execs live... Yeah, this strike won't be over any time soon.

"Here's how Jim Caviezel gets nominated for Best Actor..." But seriously, I think a prolonged strike would affect the release schedule for any hopefuls scheduled to come out from September to December. Even something like Killers of the Flower Moon, which already screened at Cannes, was surely going to have more premieres and profiles and Q&As with the stars closer to its release date, to build hype. Scorsese can still do those things as the director at least; smaller movies that were hoping to ride festival buzz to nominations will be in a much worse position. Maybe titles get pushed and held for a better climate. Most unexpected awards successes get there via heavy campaigning. Will there even be festivals or awards shows, if no SAG members can come? Media and fans show up to Venice and Telluride to see/talk to stars. If this really goes to December... The Golden Globes were a press conference during the last writers' strike. ABC pays AMPAS millions for a glitzy telecast. They'd move the date before sacrificing their big show, especially if the fall release schedule had thinned out.

If the strike isn't resolved quickly, fall festivals and awards season are SCREWED...

The prohibition on "piloting on-camera aircraft" seems incredibly specific, like SAG was worried Cruise would find a strike loophole to make Top Gun 3 somehow...

I used to follow the music charts, and there was a phase of artists boosting their album sales by automatically including an album copy when you bought a concert ticket. Then, the chart rules changed to make that harder, and singers had to find new ways to game the charts. Block booking in the movie exhibition business historically meant an entirely different thing than one party buying movie tickets for others: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_booking Pay It Forward is a bit different than businesses/churches/schools/etc buying group tickets and/or renting out theaters for current movies...but not entirely? I guess technically the studio isn't involved there, but what about stars who rent out theaters for disadvantaged communities? For example, Octavia Spencer rented out a theater for free screenings of Black Panther, which she was not a part of, but also Hidden Figures, in which she starred. Wouldn't that be a business expense or a charity write-off? And a theater rental for a current movie would count toward its box office. That link also mentions individual GoFundMe drives for similar screenings. So, people have already been doing less centralized versions of buying tickets for strangers for years.

The director of the Hunter Biden movie made by Breitbart News was just invited into the Academy, so who even knows anymore? Angel Studios did a breakdown of the Pay It Forward tickets vs the rest, at least for the first day. The majority of the first day figure was typical sales, like 80 percent. Dan Murrell's box office video brought up the question of whether Angel Studios is including the ticket money when it is donated or at the time of redemption by the moviegoer.

Maybe this franchise was always a one-hit wonder but the TV series without John Corbett was a huge fumble. They should have just kept pumping out movies in the aughts: My Big Fat Greek Christmas, My Big Fat Greek Baby, My Big Fat Greek Vacation, etc. It would’ve gotten old eventually, but a sequel in November 2003 would’ve made more money than in 2016. Then they could've milked the 20-year nostalgia much harder last year. If attendance for Sound of Freedom was about the same on Tuesday vs Wednesday the box office would go up. My local AMC has been pretty much at capacity for evening shows throughout the week (sold out for all but 4-5 accessible seats) and there was no discount yesterday. For M:I 7, the preview-to-opening day ratio won't work like a normal Thursday night/Friday opening. It's two random non-holiday weekdays and appeals to an older audience. Also previews started at 2 PM, the "full" Wednesday just meant an extra showtime per screen. Plus demand has been burned off with Sunday and Monday early access screenings. Why so chaotic, Paramount? Oppenheimer announced its release date in October 2021. Anyway, Friday and Saturday numbers will be interesting to watch.

Gerwig talks to Letterboxd:

It looks like the Barbie release date was announced rhe same month as the WB Discovery merger was completed, April 2022 (Oppenheimer's release date was announced in October 2021). The real forces in trying to get Nolan back to WB appear to be the current co-CEOs of the Warner Bros Film Group, who weren't officially in those roles until June 2022. Reports emerged last month about WB giving Nolan getting a seven-figure royalty check for Tenet. My read is that WB--or certain people under Zaslav--want Nolan back, but they do have other major issues to contend with and promoting Barbie is also their job. They have to work with the hand their predecessors dealt. Best Supporting Actor might end up being quite the showdown.

WB has completely changed course since the day-and-date era that drew Nolan's ire (even if Tenet wasn't directly affected). The news of WB trying to woo back Nolan is relatively recent, well after Barbie's release date had been established. I'm sure Zaslav would love to have Nolan back in the fold, but not enough to interfere with all the brand deals Mattel has in place. Oppenheimer has quite the ensemble, I guess we'll see the title cards soon enough to know who will be campaigned for Outstanding Cast at SAG.

Unsurprising, placing Barbie on that date was an obviously spiteful move on WB's part. Nolan wasn't the most diplomatic in his departure, so I'm not sure what else he expected? Even disregarding the third weekend of July being "Nolan's weekend", box office watchers were questioning if the scheduling is ideal given the PLF situation since theaters reopened. It's going to work out great for both movies, but a few months ago no one was entirely sure. I personally think the memes have helped Oppenheimer awareness, especially when every glimpse of Barbie was going viral vs Universal just releasing different stills of Cillian Murphy in that hat. The movie got publicity while Nolan got to maintain his secretive, tight-lipped ways. A win-win for everyone, really.

On one hand, Pay It Forward is not so different from stars/prominent people buying out screenings for "worthy" movies for schoolkids/neighborhoods, just on a more individualized scale. OTOH, Angel's strategy works because they're a small, new studio releasing mostly faith-based material when pop culture often frowns upon that. Many in the fanbase are churchgoers used to proselytizing and tithing already, and Pay It Forward aligns with that history. If Neon had appealed to their fans to crowdfund tickets to, IDK, Spencer, would it have worked? A24 fans buy merch but might push back more on donating to them directly, especially since Pay It Forward prices are inflated (it would likely be more than $15 for projects with more coastal appeal). Maybe if they framed it as a "cultural exchange"...

I think it was Deadline who called Sound of Freedom a mini-American Sniper and that seems about right. The funny thing was that one premiered at a film festival in November to mid reviews, so it was dismissed as an awards player and its content went largely undebated. Then it went wide in January to enormous box office, and suddenly there was all this controversy online about the accuracy and the politics and what a dangerous message it was sending, often from people who hadn't seen the movie. That was a mainstream studio film, and no one in the production was promoting it on social media with conspiracy theories, at least. But overall the beats are very familiar.

The NBC Universal corporate synergy in action: a NBC News documentary about J. Robert Oppenheimer debuting in July, and MSNBC hosts hyping up the early screenings they saw. The Today Show is probably a bit lighthearted for "Oppenheimer Week", not a great fit between the cooking and shopping segments.

Because they're broke! How many theaters will The Flash even be in for Barbenheimer weekend? How much will it make July 21-23?

Gosling wimped out on performing City of Stars when it got nominated and it's not like that was a vocally challenging song. From that Ken clip, either he's gotten singing lessons, there's more advanced Autotune at work, or he's tapped back into his Mickey Mouse Club days.

She starred in the miniseries Human Trafficking back in 2005, with Donald Sutherland. BTW, was looking for the trailer on YouTube and it pulled a lot of different movies on the subject, mostly indie stuff or from other countries possibly. It's easy to read something nefarious into Disney not wanting to release Sound of Freedom after the Fox merger, but a thriller like this hardly fits in with the big franchises and $200M animation they're known for now. Maybe under 20th Century, but that's mostly been moderate budget horror and the awards hopefuls too expensive for Searchlight. Anyway, landing outside of a major studio ended up working in SoF's favor in the end.

On the Regal subreddit, the big guess is Talk To Me.