BoxOfficeFangrl

Anyone check out this gem? Theaters are really hard up if straight to Tubi movies are getting released in hundreds of locations!

Taylor and Luca with their Venice awards (he won the Silver Lion for Best Director).

Not about wish.com? Pass!

Most women who direct strive to be taken seriously, especially an actress/director. Wilde had her custody case spill into movie promotion; the former leading man says she lied about firing him; her current leading man/boyfriend made a complete idiot of himself at a prestigious film festival; the lead actress isn't even disguising her contempt for the director while barely promoting the movie. Oh, and the movie itself is not very deep, or good. The "attention" Olivia's gotten from the movie hits every negative stereotype about women in charge: can't maintain control, unprofessional, can't get along with other women, and a liar, with hints of "bad mother" thrown in. Director jail is real and the sentences tend to be longer for women. Making your major studio movie appear to be a messy trainwreck for social media clout isn't actually a thing, outside the imaginings of Deuxmoi readers. IDK, Venice has been a huge boost for Pine in the Battle of the Chrises. Pugh has also gotten kudos for her unbothered ways, though some may think she's milking it.

Winston Chruchill was born in 1874 and Liz Truss was born in 1975, both were PMs during the Queen's tenure. People can change their views a lot from 19 to 47, but for the Queen to die two days after they met...oof. The conspiracy theorists will be running wild with imagination.

LOL, was the video of Olivia begging Shia to stay on part of the ruse to spare his feelings? She will really just say anything to make herself sound good and it normally goes unchallenged by reporters, because feminism and the patriarchy, or something. In this interview, Wilde also clears up the timeline with Sudeikis and Styles, so if her word is as trustworthy about that, as it about Shia's departure from the film...

Don't Worry Darling is an original drama from a major studiio with a premiere at Venice. How many movies like that even get greenlit anymore, without some Oscar hopes? Other movies WB has premiered at Venice in the last 10 years: Gravity, Black Mass, A Star Is Born, Joker, Dune. Sure, they want to appeal to fans of the leads (otherwise, they'd cast no names and save even more money), but awards hype was at least part of the plan for DWD's success. Now, they just have to hope the messiness going viral will do the trick.

What's a case where bad reviews helped a movie's box office? People hopedicted that for Cats, and it opened under $7 million the weekend before Christmas. It was deeply weird and not just bad, to be fair. Awareness has been boosted by the drama, and maybe there's time to cut some last minute ads saying, "See the movie everyone's talking about!" WB can't trumpet the good reviews like they'd hoped, so they might as well lean into what they do have (controversy). From Harry's concert tonight:

Welp, even People Magazine is reporting it... Guess Brady really wants to die playing football... Man, you're 45, an eighth Super Bowl ring is not worth seeing all of your kids half the time. * LOL, I was joking! BRB, off to swoon at the romance of, "They're already stuck dealing with each other, so..."

No Chris Pine, either, LMAO... I guess they told the studio that if they took part, they'd be brutally honest with their answers and WB was like, "Never mind..." Miss Flo finally did post photos from the Venice premiere to her Instagram and one of the group shots did include Wilde. The caption failed to mention her director by name, just a generic reference to the cast and crew. Florence did single out Chris for praise and also shared a shot of herself hugging Gemma on the red carpet. Will anyone get to ask Wilde why she thinks Pugh has done zilch to dispell the feud speculation? IMO she's kind of reveling in it. I wouldn’t have expected such shady diva antics from her before now. The DWD promo tour has been an amazing pop culture moment, but I can't say Pugh is exhibiting the height of professionalism here.

If the reviews are strong, I think they could get the new All Quiet on the Western Front into the lineup. There’s usually at least one international movie in Best Picture. It's in German, so that should help differentiate it from the other versions and blunt some of the anti-remake sentiments.

Even the bad reviews said the visuals were good, but will people really splash out for IMAX on this kind of drama? Even airlines are clowning on *that* Harry Styles interview:

They'd never remake GWTW now but yeah, people now really have an issue with "complicated" women characters. The "Rose from Titanic is the worst!" people couldn't deal with a Scarlett type. * In the adjusted numbers arguments, some people will say that movies of the past have unfair advantages: less technology, no home market, fewer movies. About the latter, the historical release schedules of all the big studios are listed on Wikipedia. So I thought, how many other movies were released in December 1939? GWTW played as a "roadshow" for months, other movies also might have been in limited release, but it gives an idea of the competition: Movies released in December 1939, by studio: 20th Century Fox: 7 Columbia: 7 MGM: 7 (includes GWTW) Paramount: 5 RKO: 4 United Artists: 3 Universal: 5 Warner Bros: 6 Some of these other movies were even in color! People had options, even back then.

Chris is not here for the foolishness: An actual, unequivocal denial, how refreshing! Of course, if something's actually not true, it's easier to simply say so. If you pay attention, so many celebrity denials are not actually denials but evasions/obfuscations/etc. Someone addresses a rumor, but doesn't actually say the controversy isn’t true. Half the media will still report this as a denial or "[X] shuts down the rumors!" anyway. The effect of lying without actually committing to the lie, essentially.

Best movie publicity tour EVER! As a vehicle of unseriousness, DWD has been top tier! Any word on the quality of Harry's original song in the movie? Even bad movies can get Best Song nominations, though DWD has the stench of failed Oscar bait radiating from it, which never helps.

Everyone and their grandmother in that cinema has a phone, many more videos will surface online in the coming days/weeks as people get around to posting them. You're going to see that row of seats from all the angles soon enough, LOL...

Directors cast romantic partners in lead roles, singers date backup dancers, actresses hook up with bodyguards- these things go on to this day. Apply these boss/employee scenarios to a regular multi-million corporation and HR is all over it. In showbiz, not so much, as long as they're all consenting adults who people like, hotness also helps. Anyone who's brought up that Wilde was Styles' boss in a way on DWD, and questioned the propriety of their involvement during filming, as a result... Any criticism of that gets brushed aside as being a private matter that's no one's business, tabloid nonsense, or jealous/bitter fangirls. "They're consenting adults, it's fine!" has fallen out of favor as a defense of boss/employee flings in the real world, but for Hollywood, you're supposed to be all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it, or else you're a moral scold. Even to people who are generally pearl-clutchy about these issues in other, non-showbiz workplaces. It's just an interesting phenomenon. As for the press conference, it sounds like maybe Styles should have skipped it? Maybe Florence really just couldn't deal with listening to Harry talk, LOL...

Wilde and Sudekis weren't married, and the official story is that there's no overlap with Styles, but... I feel if this was the 2010s and Drew Barrymore was directing/acting in something with Justin Timberlake and started dating him a couple months after splitting from her husband, the pop culture media would've destroyed her over it. The mainstream "feminist" view would've been she was unprofessional and giving women directors a bad name. Now, they say we've reached true equality because male auteurs have been hooking up with questionably-talented actresses in their movies for decades, so the tables have turned! But don't they want to cancel men of the past for such actions? I digress... We live in a time where social media questions power dynamics of all sorts, if people under 25 are really capable of consent, but it seems actor/directors get a free pass on these things. The lines are kind of blurred to begin with, but I do wonder how much of it is due to the actor/director being viewed as attractive or desirable in a way that typical movie directors are not. Like, if that had been James Gunn and Karen Gillan cuddled up in those pap photos instead of Taika and Tessa, people would've been way less chill about it. Maybe he's trying to say he has way less experience/comfort with acting, compared to music, so it's a different sort of challenge? But if an actor says they don't know what they're doing, then the critics don't like the performance...

I guess WB has bigger concerns? Or they are barely paying Florence to do publicity, because even stars of dumped Oscar bait that comes out in February will make the press rounds on some level. They're actors, they fake enthusiasm during publicity runs the time. I know a film festival press conference is much longer than a junket interview, and this one would've been analyzed to death. But as rough as the "Miss Flo" video must have been for Pugh, I think if she were taking part in the press conference, it would make Olivia sweat a bit. She has a narrative she's trying to sell about herself and DWD, but what if Florence were right there, poised to contradict her at every response? I don't mean Pugh screaming out, "Liar!" or anything like that, but one example is how Wilde keeps talking up the sex scenes as empowering, while Pugh disliked how much they were hyped up. How would Olivia react to potentially being contradicted to her face? But I get it, if Pugh wants to avoid a scene that would inevitably be made out to be some sort of catfight/showdown between women. People will try their best to make drama out of the red carpet, even if they totally avoid each other.

Apparently, some texts between Shia and Florence have leaked, and they don't seem to show any bad vibes or combative energy between them. The original hosting source seems to be Tumblr but Florence sent Shia a photo of herself holding her dog. Supposedly, Shia's friends leaked them. Anyway, now the Olivia supporters are using this against Florence and saying she's allowed a (false) victim narrative to build around her, and they're mad. Another wrinkle to the saga...

That's going to make the actual press conference extremely awkward, so well played, Florence... At Venice premieres, the leads of the movie normally sit right next to each other and at the end, bask in the standing ovation, surrounded by the attendees. There usually end up being several cell phone videos of the stars inside the theater, as well as official footage. So, I guess it'll be Harry and Olivia, while Florence dips as soon as the lights go down? #Mess, can't wait for the oral histories/making of documentaries that come out about DWD someday.

"I See You" absolutely wilted in comparison to "My Heart Will Go On". You forget that the release of Titanic and Avatar were closer in time than the release of Avatar and Avatar 2 will be. Maybe an Avatar 2 song would have an easier go at the Oscar. "All the Stars" was a credits song but given the events of the trailer, it wouldn't surprise me if Black Panther 2 features an original song within the movie.