BoxOfficeFangrl

The "previews" started before noon in some places, it's essentially 2 whole days of sales.

Angel Studios isn't spending its own money there: they get fans who want to support the movie's message and crowdfund the "free" tickets that way. That doesn't work for the umpteenth $200M comic book movie from a 100 year old movie studio, though I bet some execs from the big 5 will soon be exploring how they could implement such a strategy. Also when the Sony emails were hacked, there was this revelation (among others):

The Kardashian kids got about 3-4 minutes per episode of airtime in that show and people were so outraged! You'd want to discuss Sarah Paulson or Sterling K. Brown's performances or something, but the posts would go and on about how they were so disgusted to see the Ks depicted and that they had ruined pop culture. Like, The Real World was popular before the OJ trial, The Bachelor and Survivor had good 5-7 year head starts on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I just think, Kardashians or not, American TV networks were inevitably headed in the direction of cheaper reality programming if they couldn't create the next sitcom sensation. There were several "trials of the century" in the 20th century before OJ, so I guess you can never say never. The culture is far more fragmented now but life is unpredictable.

Sound of Freedom update from Deadline:

Rated 12A by the BBFC: moderate innuendo, brief sexual harassment, implied strong language Barbie and Ken leave Barbieland and venture to California where they encounter the realities of being human in this lighthearted US comedy. It explores themes of gender roles and patriarchy through a satirical lens.

My mom watched all the news magazine shows when I was a kid, and the Menendez murders were a big true crime story for a few years. I just remember hearing the parents' names a lot and the sons being preppy guys with big hair (but it was a wig with one of them, I think?). The In Popular Culture section on Wikipedia lists a lot of contemporary pop culture references: a "ripped from the headlines" Law & Order episode from 1990, two different TV movies in 1994, plus being "loosely depicted" in Natural Born Killers and Cable Guy parodying the media frenzy of the trial, among other allusions. Over time, I guess the OJ trial overshadowed it as the "high profile LA-area rich people murder" of the late 1980s-mid 1990s. And that was a MUCH bigger circus, a "trial of the century". But the Menendez case wasn't obscure, and there's been a push with new documentaries (and TikToks!) to reexamine it in recent years.

And to think her site's motto used to be, "The trick is not minding." She'll reach new levels of insufferable if Barbie becomes a major awards player. That's because the G rating is virtually dead for all but stuff like Paw Patrol movies. PG is practically the new G, so too many parents see PG-13 for a big IP/franchise movie as "totally fine for kids". Then actual PG-13 stuff happens in Eternals or Multiverse of Madness (for example), and there's so much shock, because the rating has been devalued. I'm old enough to remember when they made a kid friendly RoboCop animated show; it didn't make the original movie any less R rated.

Right, child trafficking is a real thing but a certain segment of the population believes outlandish conspiracies about it or only focuses on the abuse that happens in faraway places, while having nothing to say or do about the same sort of things going on in their own backyards (so to speak). The person Caviezel is playing (Tim Ballard) has been accused of embellishing his organization's role in rescuing people, taking actions that further traumatize victims and really not understanding how human trafficking actually works. The movie's going to present a sanitized version, which, fine, it's a movie. But since Sound of Freedom was made in 2018 I doubt it will be as QAnon heavy as it would be if it were made in 2023 by, IDK, the Daily Wire or Breitbart. Will it appeal to that audience? Absolutely...

Sound of Freedom was filmed in 2018. Content-wise it's probably not going to be on the "Wayfair cabinets" level of conspiracy as a movie, but it might appeal to people who believe in that sort of thing. Jim Caviezel is playing an actual person and the reality is not as flattering as the movie's portrayal will be, but that's nearly everything "based on a true story" in one way or another. Angel Studios has a fascinating set up. I'm interested in seeing how big this one gets.

That's fair, WB was considering a PG cut at certain points. I doubt anything too shocking happens here, but they did go with the higher rating in the end. Lots of 9-12 year olds still watch "family movies" too. But the US doesn't have a PG-8 or PG-10 rating, so with some PG-13 movies, most parents would be fine with a tween watching, but it's too much for a first grader. I think the Barbie movie will fall in that zone, and some less diligent parents out there will bring little kids to this, then be all outraged that they weren't warned! Even though the ads/trailers make it clear that this is not just a live action Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures; it's slightly edgier. I feel the main audience is adults who had Barbie dolls once, but if it appeals to younger people, too, the studio is fine with that.

If only, but that has not been my experience at all. The middle-aged fake baby truthers going on about moonbumps and photoshopped children, the period costume purists still bitterly fuming about the Beauty and the Beast/Little Women remakes, the racists unhappy about the Bridgerton adaptation: they very much exist, they just don't show up in the same fanboy spaces where people rant about The Last Jedi or the ruination of the DCEU or whatever. There's a longtime female awards pundit who spent the Lady Bird and Little Women awards seasons HATING Gerwig and trashing her movies (and dismissing that anyone genuinely liked them). If you don't care for someone's work, fine, but here and there she'd make these comments about the Gerwig/Baumbach relationship and Jennifer Jason Leigh. So, it was really an entertainment journalist holding a grudge about how two people she didn't know allegedly got together, and letting that opinion affect how she did her job. It's definitely not just older men who can go on bitter screeds and dip into conspiracy theories about the entertainment world. Anyway, I think the Barbie trailers/ads make it clear that this film is dealing with slightly more mature areas compared to all those direct-to-video movies Mattel churned out. This Barbie might stay the night with Ken, he makes "beat off" jokes, she thinks about death, she goes to the real world and someone smacks her butt. Yet some people just can't get past the brand, see all the bright colors and think any Barbie movie = fun for all ages. They have an idea of what a Barbie movie is supposed to be like, so don't really see/hear what this movie is signaling itself to be.

They've also let in Robert Davi, former 1980s Bond villain and recent director of My Son Hunter, last year's Brietbart film which also featured Gina Carano as a Secret Service agent who gets her hair sniffed. I remember reading that it secretly screened to several Hollywood VIPs and got a standing ovation. Totally dismissed the report last year but I guess that was true, lol.

People complained about the prices even before they all had Netflix/Disney+/etc. and PVOD three weekends after it hits theaters, for less than the price of two adult tickets in some markets. I feel very lucky that I live in a market where matinees and Cheap Tuesdays mean never paying more than $9/ticket (2D) but usually even less than that. We are just getting Past Lives this weekend, but life's full of trade-offs. But I look at NY/LA prices sometimes, especially the PLFs and just wince to think how much it would cost a family there, especially if you were considering concessions. And the movie will just be on some service you probably already pay for in a few months. Or you can rent it and have a family movie night with grocery store candy and popcorn and pizza for $35 vs $75+ just for 4-5 matinee tickets in a top market (plus another $40+ for concessions). Add in the possibility of a bad theater experience or not enjoying the movie you took 3-4 hours out of everyone's lives to see, and I get why people are increasingly opting out moviegoing as a regular activity. They just don’t see the sanctity of the theatrical experience as worth it for most movies; streaming will do. Studios are going to have to adjust.

To be fair it is a John Grisham adaptation, his books were massive bestsellers with the mid-1990s being the sweet spot for movies based on his books. The Firm was the biggest, though, likely because of Cruise but The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill also adjust to totals impossible to imagine now. Even unadjusted seems unlikely in today's market: now they would all be a limited series for Netflix/Amazon/etc.

Everyone's going to buy Twitter Blue now, it'll be fine! And on a holiday weekend, the advertisers still there will love this development. /s

They'll probably want to combine the Monday-Thursday numbers with the typical OW figures so they'll have a big total number to tout when the box office reports for next Sunday come out. That's been going on for years in the UK market, with extended previews.

I was originally going to post that Angel Studios has quite the grift going but considered that a little harsh. Per Deadline, they give 120 percent back to their patrons so it's not a wasted investment. Anyway, I just wonder how long they can keep up that business model, and if their fans will ever wonder why this studio can't ever fund their own advertising like all the other studiios...

The presales at my local AMCs are absolutely bananas and even looking at the Empire 25, there are already some half full showtimes on Monday. Principal photography wrapped in 2018 and Disney inherited it in the Fox merger, but didn't want it. They wouldn’t have known how to market it anyway. Angel Studios has a nice deal (for them) going where the crowdfund the P&A, the major studios could never...

They're leaving room for the Sound of Freedom sweep: Not Mira Sorvino as The Wife on the Phone... Apparently, principal photography wrapped in 2018, I wonder if they added more conspiracy theory nods in reshoots. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Freedom_(film)

The trailer for Ruby Gillman played before my Little Mermaid screening and someone in the theater just yelled out, "Low budget!" I think if studios want to do lower budget animation features, they'll have to play around with the styles and not just try to do the "mainstream 3D computer animation for kids" look on the cheap, because it shows... It figures his lawyer would try that; she has a pretty terrible track record defending Paul Haggis and Jen Shah. Also, I don't know how/why in the world Meagan Good thought being linked to Jonathan Majors right now was a great idea.

Some interviews are scheduled next weekend according to Variety, but this article is from earlier in the month and publicists may have blinked since:

Age of Adaline had me rooting for Blake Lively and Harrison Ford to make it work somehow, lol. It also introduced me to Anthony Ingruber and wonder if he can only play a young Harrison Ford in short bursts before the impersonation wears on you. Elemental is going to pass The Flash's total and join the ranks of movies that opened on the same weekend, where #2 outgrosses #1 in the end.

Yeah, some stuff is popular when it first comes along and that's it. Like, I was just reading about how Josh Gad was going to do a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reboot but it's dead now...really, this is where we are? It got a sequel that flopped. Can't we just move on? I play the Box Office Game every day and it's not like the past was 100% High Art with no sequels, but there was much more variety in the hits before, even the 2000s vs today, though there was plenty of IP by then. Seems wildly out of character for Nolan but he did do that TikTok about 70mm... Maybe they can call in Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh, they seem a bit less social media averse.

I know it's not the important thing, but there go the global Barbie premieres with Margot and Ryan! This, of course, hinges on whether Sneider is a better insider than he is an Oscars predictor...

Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick: Gene Stupnitsky: