BoxOfficeFangrl

The Pay It Forward site does mention that in some places, tickets will cost more than $15 and in that case the donor will have to pay the difference, so I suppose it all evens out. The price just stood out to me, because $30 could pay for 5 tickets tomorrow at my hometown Cinemark, with a bit of change left over. There have to be some locals around me seeing the ticket donation site who think, "Hey, wait a minute..." Whereas somebody in a larger market wouldn't think twice. Learning about the financial straits of Angel Studios explains a lot, didn't realize they were a spinoff from VidAngel. Their YouTube launch video from a couple years ago stays away from all that:

I thought so, Rebecca Ferguson is always good. Ilsa is more of a supporting character this time.

I find the $15/ticket for their Pay It Forward program very *interesting* because in many of the markets where this movie is thriving, movie tickets don't cost nearly that much. At my nearest AMC, the evening ticket price for a 2D ticket is a few cents over $12 with tax, and senior ticket is around $10.50. Matinees are cheaper. Then there’s a Phoenix Theater where all tickets are under $7 all day, and the Cinemark where Cheap Tuesday tickets are less than $6 with tax. Group tickets at these places would be even less expensive. People can also buy tickets for themselves through the Angel Studios website, but it just takes you to Atom Tickets and displays local prices. So it's not like the studio is really hiding that Pay It Forward may involve a markup and they say it helps pay creators, but I wonder what the exact breakdown is. How much is cast/crew bonuses vs administrative costs for Angel Studios?

Saw one of the Walmart early screenings today, it wasn't packed but decently full. Incredible action sequences and I really liked the Grace character with Ethan. My theater seemed really into it throughout.

Best Actor hopes saved! But seriously, I love specificity in a ratings guide.

The Rock wasn't in F9 and it made $170M domestic in the fall of 2021. Too many people in this market just think the series has jumped the shark: The replies and quotes to that tweet tell the story. There's a lot of love for the series but a lot of F&F fans have tapped out.

Florence is in the right age range for the person she's playing. Cillian plays Oppenheimer over multiple decades, so it makes sense to cast an actor in the middle of that range. A lot of recent movies deal with the same actor playing 10-20 year span by using digital trickery (touchy subject in these parts), but there's low tech solutions with lighting and makeup. But Jean Tatlock is an important person in Oppenheimer's story. Is Twitter saying Nolan should have skipped that because of "power dynamics", or cast a 45 year old actress even though the real woman died at 29?

Maybe bullying is overstating things, but earlier this week I literally posted the BBFC's rating guidance and plot summary for Barbie--and nothing else--and got a "Not Cool" reaction. Maybe it was a mistake, or someone's seen a screening already and disagrees with the rating, or maybe they hate copy-pasting, IDK (but I even linked the site). What can you do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Pretty sure Sneider/Wells/Ruimy know exactly how the business works w/r/t early screenings and NDAs, but spinning it into something nefarious is much better for their clicks/engagement. Barbie seems not to be like the movies they usually go for anyway, so maybe there is some wishful thinking on their part.

If Cillian is really showing it all here, he probably won't win. Unscientific data but it makes sense if you think about the Academy membership historically, which is probably why women don't have the same "problem" in the Actress categories.

LOL, Jennifer Lopez hooking up with a 19 year old (who looked 30) was basically the plot of The Boy Next Door. The difference in budgets between TBND and No Hard Feelings is wild.

Elemental will pass The Flash today! Domestically, at least though it should outdo the worldwide total in time. That has to be shorter than My Best Friend's Wedding overtaking Batman & Robin.

The Bachelor shows air on ABC but are produced by Warner Bros Television, and many of the old seasons stream on MAX. On HGTV, they are showing a four part Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge that starts July 16: But none of the Discovery cable channels run a live a morning show, and the big 3 US broadcast channels that do have morning shows are aligned with other studios. Universal is probably going to go all in on Oppenheimer on NBC and its other channels. CBS would probably push Mission: Impossible. That just leaves ABC and they could have declined since Barbie isn't a Disney movie, but everything about it seems to go viral. They probably figured, why not get in on the fun (for a price)? They can do Haunted Mansion Week a week later.

The R rating is for "some sexuality" as well: that could include nudity, or not. When the ratings news hit, I think some people got visions of an adult film in IMAX 70mm, characters unconscious in bathtubs will be such a letdown in comparison (though more in character for a Nolan movie). We will hear what's what soon enough...

How long is prolonged, exactly? Some might argue that "Christopher Nolan's strongest love story ever" isn't exactly saying much...

For the two AMCs where I live, one showed Sound of Freedom on 2 screens from July 3, several showtimes sold out that day. The showtime allocation probably differs by market based on local demand. The 1980s had raunchy R-rated comedies but other types as well, even live-action family comedies could be hits. Hollywood could maybe try that if they are too scared of being edgy.

I wouldn't have figured Britney Spears had even heard of Victor Wembanyama, yet here we are...

I know it's based on a book and the fans were angry about the set photos because they didn't like the hair/clothes? Just looked up what It Ends With Us is about, and whew, that was unexpected! I was picturing, IDK, something like The Notebook? And it's directed by Justin Baldoni, who did Five Feet Apart, but I know him as Rafael on Jane the Virgin. Hope he can handle this well.

Another interview, this time Damon and Blunt:

Nolan's calling Oppenheimer the most important person who ever lived, that's a bit of pressure I guess...

Here's the Deadline report from No Time To Die's opening weekend: it mentions 88 percent of US/Canadian theaters were open but only one state (Delaware) had 100 percent of its theaters open. It also reports internal polling that NTTD was the first movie back in 2 years for more than a third of 35+ viewers. Deadline called out OW overpredictons and unfavorable comparisons between NTTD and Venom 2 as that movie skewed younger, with audiences who'd already returned to theaters before October 2021. IMO it's unwise to assume viewing patterns in every country followed the same patterns, at the same rates. Bond was always more popular (relatively) in the UK and NTTD is #3 all-time there in unadjusted box office gross. That was never, ever going to happen for the movie in the US, even Skyfall is over $600M off from The Force Awakens in this market (the difference is just £20m in the UK). Maybe Bond is so huge in the UK that a new movie could motivate people into theaters en masse despite Covid, and domestic audiences didn’t feel the same way. No Way Home appealed to younger people here, and Top Gun Maverick came out several months into 2022, a summer movie. At this point, though, the dropoff in movie theater attendance is due to changes in pandemic habits becoming entrenched.

I forget the name of it but remember the gossip columns doing the "are they/aren't they" dance with Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen back when there was still awards buzz. Then it got moved out Oscar season and there went that "relationship". But the thing about I Saw The Light (looked it up!) is that it was originally scheduled for a November 2015 release and premiered at TIFF that year. It was only after the tepid response that Sony Pictures Classics moved it to the following spring. They didn't start out like Paramount seems to be, from the very first trailer saying, "We're releasing this two weeks after this year's Oscar eligibility window!" I can't help but find that weird and unusual. The director's last movie was a Best Picture nominee that won Best Actor, Kingsley Ben-Adir won some Breakthrough awards for One Night in Miami, Lashana Lynch is a rising star, and everyone behind the scenes is cool with their music biopic not even taking a crack at awards season? Okay... Back when I was a charthead on music boards, someone would post the Soundscan numbers (a huge no-no BTW) and the Legend album would just be there selling thousands week after week. Bohemian Rhapsody numbers will be hard now, pre-pandemic was a whole different era, just getting to Elvis box office would be great for this.

Given the talent involved and subject matter, avoiding an awards play altogether just seems so...unlikely. Movies like this are made to boost an artist's catalog, to earn huge box office, and to get accolades for the cast/crew. Bohemian Rhapsody has a 49 on Metacritic and it won 4 Oscars; how much worse can this be? Maybe Paramount was just that burned by how Rocketman fared for its awards season? And even then, it still won something. That's why I remain skeptical. There's a way for this movie to be released in January but still be in contention as a 2023 release: the qualifying run. Not a limited release that starts in a few markets and slowly expands, but a qualifying release: a movie is shown in one theater for a week to meet the calendar year requirement, but with little-to-no advertising and no box office gets reported. Then, the "real" release date with hype/junkets/ads/etc. is scheduled for January/February. Still Alice did this, but that's a tiny movie compared to a big studio musicIan biopic. Announcing it as a January movie takes it out of awards predictions, removes months of pressure and lowers expectations. But release dates can change, especially 6 months out. Or not, and Paramount can say it's really a movie about peace and love, one for the fans. We will see...

Everyone knows these sorts of movies are Greatest Hits vehicles interspersed with Oscar Clip dramatics, and this trailer isn't trying to pretend it'll be anything else. Poor Walk Hard fans, lol. They're pushing the January 2024 release: is this really not going to do a limited run in December for awards eligibility? Or will they do a qualifying release, but the big push is in January to steer clear of The Color Purple? It would surprise me if this wasn't released in some form anywhere prior to next year.

Deadline says north of 2,600 theaters: https://deadline.com/2023/07/jim-caviezel-box-office-sound-of-freedom-angel-studios-1235428099/

Looks epic: to think there were only those stills at the table and a handful of set photos to go on for like two years. Surprised Brendan Fraser didn't get the "Academy Award Winner" billing here, too. Jesse Plemons has a bigger role, but I get why you might avoid the awkwardness of billing someone as an Oscar nominee next to Oscar winners.