BoxOfficeFangrl

Saw Babylon today, starting out with six people. One person walked out after an hour, then a theater hopper came in but left after 10 minutes, so we were back to five people. Two hours in, I realized that a couple had also bailed, then another guy walked out at the last montage, but before the scene was over. When "The End" came onscreen, there were just two people left, with the other person standing at the exit. Haven't ever witnessed a 66 percent walkout rate before, not even with free screenings.

I doubt it has anything to do with Pitt's PR team, any media outlet knows they get way more clicks by dragging a young, attractive female celebrity's name into the headlines vs a man, even if he's well known. A famous woman publicly failing (or being in a real or imagined controversy) is like catnip to certain groups of people: it gets lots of engagement from the side roasting her and the defense brigade standing up for their girl. That tactic will never change as long as people keep falling for it. With Babylon, Pitt also skates some blame for this one flopping because he's been in two other movies this year that crossed $100m domestic. And despite the billing on the posters, Margot is a lead (along with Diego Calva, but he's not that famous). The questions of whether Robbie is a draw are going to come up, even though it's a different time and her star vehicles are a lot more challenging and esoteric than romcom star vehicles of the aughts like Maid in Manhattan or The Proposal. Moviegoing has changed; it's hard for anyone who got famous in the last 10-15 years to be a consistent draw outside of established IP (and maybe the franchise is the real draw). Anyway, just got out of theater and there's a better movie within that three hours, and that ending... Singin' in the Rain by way of Boogie Nights but over three hours long, that's just not for the general public in the 2020s, even if it had starred Leo and been directed by Nolan instead. My own screening started with six people and ended with two, by the time "The End" appeared on screen...and that's the reception among people who showed up! I don't get angry about these supposed "Aren't movies magical?" movies, but the thing is, these directors have already conveyed that message a lot better through their other movies? Ultimately, Whiplash is going to be remembered a lot more fondly than Babylon overtly trying glom onto the reputation of certified classics.

The Fabelmans is finally in 1000+ theaters, but it's also already on PVOD. But the 750K revised estimate is like 200K higher than the Sunday estimates, which is better than going the other way.

I like when movies smash expectations, so these come to mind: American Sniper It Get Out Also, Avengers: Age of Ultron, for all the freakouts that the numbers were lower than the first one and debates over how much the big boxing PPV that weekend cut into the OW. Had no idea that was a thing until this weekend! It sounds like something a person would make up based on a steady stream of "Florida Man" stories. Someone needs to make a Killer Frozen Iguana horror movie.

Personally, I don't think of "Oscar bait" as a pejorative term at all. For me, it just means, "Was this movie funded with hopes of drafting off the awards season economy in some fashion?" If the answer is yes...maybe it's not full on "Oscar bait", but the production company/studio had some idea of it being an awards player early on. Like The Departed, it's not what you'd call Oscar bait, but with the cast and director involved, the eventual awards attention/wins wouldn't have been a total shock at any point in the discussion. IMO there's nothing wrong with that: movies get made for all sorts of reasons, Hollywood is a business and the Oscars were made up as a promotional tool, so...

There were TV ads, I saw a billboard IRL, they even started marketing it as "The Whitney Houston Movie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody" a couple of weeks ago. The review embargo was pretty late and they didn't take it to fall film festivals. But it's pretty rare that a movie with "no marketing" was actually not marketed on any level, it's just that people see less ads in general. Elvis had made $137 million domestic before it hit PVOD on August 9, on its way to $150 million domestic and a 4.84x multiplier. It's not like the Minions where the GentleMinions stuff was huge on opening weekend and got news coverage early into the box office run. TikToks and tweets are not the reason Elvis made the bulk of its money in the real world. What Happens in Vegas showed up on a Box Office Game recently and I'd forgotten how well it did: $218 million worldwide in 2008, for a romcom that was seen as just okay at the time. Cameron had a good run, Ashton Kutcher also had more hits than I remembered.

Netflic even had a "shadow" movie of Whitney's early career with the names scrubbed off earlier this year: But there have been a million Elvis movies/miniseries and his life didn't have a happy ending, either. It's interesting to see what audiences end up being sensitive about when it comes to biopics. I wonder what a Baz Luhrmann Whitney movie would've been like (a terrible idea obviously, but a less conventional approach)... Lee Daniels' The Whitney Houston Movie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody?

Downer/lengthy movies with vague premises or titles being rejected on a theatrical level if they're unknown quantities. Counter, there's probably been too much Whitney content (via documentaries and TV movies) since 2012 to make I Wanna Dance With Somebody seem special. The often months-long festival hype/limited release/expansion cycle of awards movies, combined with the decline in traditional advertising, leads to audience confusion about when a prestige movie is actually playing in their market. The particular slice of the audience that propped up prestige releases pre-2020 got used to watching content like that via streaming/PVOD. I think that audience differs a bit from the "older" people who did show up for Top Gun: Maverick or Elvis, for example. Prestige box office used to leg out due to stragglers who heard about an acclaimed title, eventually, which worked when these movies had enough juice to hang in hundreds of theaters for months. This fall’s awards movies have crashed and burned at the box office in 3-4 weeks and are on PVOD pretty quickly. The vicious cycle leads to prestige audiences giving up on seeking out these titles in theaters. Tough times for the specialty market!

Regal saying the Mystery Movie is definitely not from a streamer: Missing has a 1:51 runtime. So far, the mystery movies have had a listed runtime longer than the actual movie's length.

Imagine if the Monday Mystery Movie is 80 for Brady, everyone in Atlanta would boo and walk out, demanding refunds. I'd kind of like to see the bedlam... Seriously, though, it seems like a good idea for a late breaking awards hopeful to gain buzz. If the Mystery Movie is something that goes on to get a typical theatrical release, would the box office from the Monday be counted like a sneak preview (under another title already in theaters) or an early access screening?

FWIW, Regal wants people to think they’ll work with other studios. We'll see if that's the truth. They could just mean Amazon, for all we know...

Before streaming, Christmas movies could get held over to the next holiday season before video release. For one, Christmas with the Kranks was released in theaters on November 24, 2004 and released on home video November 8, 2005. That kind of timeline isn't sensible in today's marketplace. There is a crowd that watches Christmas movies all year, but studios can't count on a huge overlap with Hallmark Channel lovers and slasher movie fans.

The #NepoBaby "debate" has always been reductive and annoying... A bunch of children learned a new word and obliterated it into meaninglessness through obnoxious overuse. Every profession has always had nepotism; the world doesn't care when it's plumbers or family restaurants. But people think of Hollywood like a dream factory where anyone from the sticks could go there and make it, and the presence of "nepo babies" reminds them that the industry is more factory than dream. Take any day of TCM's schedule and pretty much every movie will feature at least one "nepo baby" (by the modern definition, which seems extremely loose) forgotten to time, if not more. Even before there were movies, the stage was the same way. John Wilkes Booth was a nepo baby! When they were coming up, people knew Drew Barrymore, Liza Minnelli, Jeff Bridges, et al came from famous families, but weren't screaming into the void about it all day, or expecting them to publicly flagellate themselves in acknowledgement of their privilege. It was like, "Oh, they're carrying on the family legacy? Cool, let's see if they can hack it." People forget the nepotism cases who got big breaks and couldn't cut it. Remember Cody Horn in Magic Mike? A lot of the nepo babies Gen Z is worked up about now, they're not going to last as stars. A lot of the non-nepo babies pushed as the next big thing in music or acting, also won't live up to the hype and will fade away. And some people who are extremely talented will toil in obscurity. It's the nature of the business. The fame game has never, ever been fair.

Surprised EEAAO missed the shortlists for Visual Effects and Makeup/Hairstyling. OTOH, it's still alive in Score and Original Song (it had a song? ok). A mixed bag for its above the line odds. Blonde, again. Ana is showing up more among non-American groups... LOLOLOL at All Too Well missing the cut here after all that campaigning. Better luck with the feature film!

I want theaters to thrive with all kinds of movies succeeding, but this fall really has me wondering if we will ever get back there. Even if all theatrical releases did have a 70-day exclusive window again, what if prestige movies still don't recover? Habits change, genres can shrink/die off in popularity over time. Musicals used to win the year all the time. Maybe every Oscar drama in the pipeline now is getting converted into a limited series. Someone said that about The Fabelmans in the weekend thread. I liked the movie, but kind of see what they mean. Glass Onion got released in under 700 theaters for a week at Thanksgiving and performed really well, even when it will be on Netflix by Christmas. But that seemed like fun, so a much easier sell than most Oscar hopefuls. The Fabelmans has humor but isn't really a comedy.

Back when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association imploded a couple years ago, Cruise very publicly returned the 3 Golden Globes he'd already won. They've reformed allegedly and have a lot of new voters, but...there's probably still some hard feelings. Cruise is IMO a borderline contender but him getting into Best Actor wouldn't be a total shock on Oscar morning, nor would a miss really be a snub.

I just saw that as I was looking for the NFL Channel. "The Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl" is in its second year? Live long enough and you will truly see everything...

India picked another movie for International Feature, but RRR has been making Top Ten lists and S.S. Rajamouli has won Best Director with some of the critics groups. So, it still may get some Oscar nominations. * The Top Gun franchise owes a lot to Wings, the first Best Picture winner: two guys off to battle, big aviation sequences, romantic subplot shoehorned in between the action but also gay overtones... Back then they had a separate award for the Unique and Artistic movie, Wings was seen as the big budget spectacle. TGM winning would be a huge change from recent Academy trends, but this time last year, who had CODA even getting nominated, let alone winning? * Where the Crawdads Sing legged it out to $90 million. It's based on a book but only had star power behind the scenes (Reese produced it, Taylor did a song), not a guarantee for success these days. The Woman King made $67 million, Sony probably hoped for more but its domestic total isn't completely dire. And imagine if Don't Worry Darling had gotten good reviews (and had a good script), how much better the legs would've been. Three Billboards is probably the outlier of McDonagh's filmography in terms of box office. Banshees of Inisherin might have made Seven Pscyopaths money in the Before Times but IMO not $50 million or anything. I liked The Fabelmans but the "directors looking back on their youthful love of film" genre hasn't been much of a financial success recently. Americans aren't here for it. Universal probably should've sold it more as a family drama and coming of age story. There's a lot happening with it that mainstream audiences might like, it would’ve done well as the Regal Mystery Movie last month.

Because they were going to Avatar or Puss in Boots and accidentally ended up in the wrong auditorium? Babylon is rated R, maybe it'll be too hard an R for some, but The Wolf of Wall Street released at Christmas and got a C Cinemascore. I don't think Babylon will attract enough of a general audience for them to give it an F.

They didn't even know about the movie to bash it until two weeks after it flopped, lol. I'm surprised it's even on the Fox News radar. Movies have a long history of romanticizing violence/murder, and the media has a long history of scolding the morality of movies, so there's truly nothing new under the sun.

She acknowledges that the review wasn't a total rave, but she's mad that the critic wasn't outraged enough about the cannibalism. With the dire straits of specialty releases these days, some studio's PR team should try using the right wing outrage machine for free movie publicity. These movies are having a big awareness problem and a news clip might show up in different types of Twitter feeds than just Actor/Entertainment/Movie/etc. accounts.

The criticism that Spielberg just made this movie to showcase how awesome he is as a director, overall, that's a very uncharitable view of things IMO. Though without getting into spoilers, I can see what they mean? I just happen not to agree.

Have you seen the video?

The actors playing Elvis and Priscilla are the same age. From Sofia Coppola's comments, it seems like the movie is going to get into how Priscilla was a teenager in Graceland but will it really call out for Elvis being predatory without sugarcoating things? With this project being an adaptation of Priscilla Presley's memoir, I have my doubts. I don't approve, but I tip my hat to how this year's Elvis managed to technically mention their age gap while completely dancing around the moral sketchiness of it, I didn't think that was possible.