BoxOfficeFangrl

Best poster ever...

We're back to the flat Top 10 without the "5 percent of number one votes" business. Is there any chance Spider-Man: No Way Home gets into Best Picture? Nominations are always less about merit than what the Academy will actually go for. Sure, it doesn't have the cultural landmark/social issue angle of Black Panther or the "grittiness" of Joker, but NWH "saved theaters"... Stuff like Airport and The Towering Inferno made Top Five lineups in a decade like the 1970s, when there were surely better things to nominate. It would be less unprecedented than people think. AMPAS isn't a monolith-for every voter with the Scorsese mentality, you probably have the Paul Thomas Anderson types who see the merits and acknowledge what's keeping movie theaters from going under, at the moment. Mostly, I just want to see the reactions and meltdowns if a No Way Home nomination happens, though I think the PGA lineup is realistically as far as it goes. No Time to Die did really well with the shortlists, which shows below-the-line support, and it could end up in Best Picture. Skyfall probably would have made a Top 10 lineup.

France made the bold choice but Happening would have been an easy lock for the shortlist and win, given the current political situation in America. Interesting that Lanb wasn't too wild for the Academy but Titane was too out there...

West Side Story had decent Monday-Wednesday holds, it might recover somewhat over the rest of the season. I do worry about the impact of Omicron on the effect of older audiences actually showing up at Christmas. That's typically happened in the past, but it might be another pattern that's changed. Nightmare Alley, I saw on Wednesday night with five other people. I guess over the weekend Spider-Man held it back from making $4-8 million like most other 2021 awards dramas, which is still not great. Guillermo del Toro as a director probably appeals more to men and they've been the ones returning to theaters. Even if the trailers/ads had perfectly sold what the Nightmare Alley is about, it's got a lot of better-known competition with male appeal over Christmas and risked getting lost in the shuffle. It waa going to be a limited release at one point but I guess they decided that would be worse?

The bad faith box office takes from people who pay attention to it (like the types insisting Disney bought up all the Captain Marvel tickets) are obnoxious enough, but the ones from awards/culture writer types who don't really follow it closely...truly abysmal and idiotic. Obviously, No Way Home is from Sony. It also wasn't out last week when West Side Story barely hit the low end of its tracking, and many other awards hopefuls from a variety of studios have mostly underwhelmed all year, playing to more empty seats than theaters and studios would have liked. Things finally hit a boiling point this weekend and it does suck about Nightmare Alley having opening weekend screenings canceled. But looking at the whole year, this weekend was like theaters saying to the prestige audience, "Sorry, but we've given you chance after chance to show up for MONTHS, you didn't, so we've got money to make." I think the intentions in having Nightmare Alley in theaters now were actually good. In the past, even if you we're like the 4th or 5th biggest thing out during the holiday season you could make bank. In hindsight a fatal miscalculation, given the current landscape and the movie itself, a pretty bleak and cynical affair for any time of year, let alone Christmas during a pandemic.

Have this year's awards bait musicals really flopped any more than 2021's awards bait dramas? I mean, In the Heights has made more than most things that were Best Picture hopefuls at any point, besides maybe Dune and House of Gucci. Dear Evan Hansen made more domestically than The Last Duel. Not that either made very much, but there seems to be a perception that live-action musicals are DOOMED while dramas will just...go to streaming? When neither has really been doing much in theaters lately, and at least musicals can do very well with rewatchability on streaming services. And since all the metrics have shifted to hours watched for streamers, wouldn't musicals be more valuable to them vs heavy dramas? The awards watcher types were generally pretty bad at interpreting box office even before the pandemic, and now the takes from that sphere are truly insufferable.

The audience for Downton is older and female and probably pretty white, the opposite the demos who've largely returned to theaters like before. It's Focus, I wouldn't be surprised to see the sequel day-and-date on Peacock.

Wait, Jungle Cruise was PG-13?

It lost its PLF showings, though I think WSS skewed slightly less PLF-heavy than In the Heights; the holds Mon-Wed weren't bad. Even before the pandemic, I think when you're in massive opening weekend territory, fans of other things know the multiplex will be a madhouse and hold off on going to the movies until the tentpole mega-hype wears off. Throw in Covid, and that there are whole demos reluctant about coming back to theaters even when they were pretty empty... It's no surprise that prestige titles aren't performing optimally this weekend. The 18-34 demo at 70 percent of the opening day audience, if I'm reading that right. How does that compare to other MCU titles, especially pre-pandemic?

Last week I heard she was complaining that Google has made her name unsearchable somehow. If you start typing her name in their websites (like YouTube), it doesn't autocomplete or do the suggested searches and this affects visibility. She was like, I just have a podcast now, stop blacklisting me! So the sponcon makes sense. For a slow-starting drama with bloody violence and male nudity, a "B" Cinemascore for Nightmare Alley is not that bad? The ending probably gave it a boost.

I really liked Nightmare Alley but am not surprised it's struggling: It was clearly greenlit/went into production pre-pandemic as an awards bait drama, but the main audience for those has acted like if they step inside a 10 percent occupied movie theater with a mask on, they will drop dead of Covid on the spot. Or, they're not afraid so much as just used to waiting for streaming by now. Either way, people like that are not going to walk through lobbies full of Spider-Man fans this weekend to see something else. Debuted with a meh RT/Metacritic score by awards bait standards, the improvement on later on got much less attention, a la The Last Duel. Great reviews from the start might have helped get it to $6-10 million, but maybe not. Muddled trailers/ads not giving a clear sense of story/tone/genre. The teaser came out, people not in the loop thought it was supernatural/horror, then they saw a synopsis and were like, "Wait, what?" You don't have to spoil everything in the trailer, but in this climate a movie for grown-ups can't afford to be cute and coy in selling itself. "A conman rises in the world, but will he get away with it all or be destroyed by the enemies he makes along the way?" The movie itself can be about more than that, but you have to lure them in. The star seemingly following Emma Watson's Little Women promotional strategy, which if you're unfamiliar, is baffling and not what you want out of a big name with a well-reviewed movie coming out (and actually he has two this season, with Licorice Pizza). He hasn't totally ghosted the PR tour for NA but it looks like he's picked his spots extremely carefully... Lucky for him Spider-Man has overshadowed everything and it just comes off like Searchlight/Disney decided not to bother with much promo. Will Smith skipped the earliest fall film festivals, and awards bloggers decided he had to be an anti-vaxxer (he ended up doing lots of in-person PR for King Richard). And Ben Affleck has really put his foot in it promoting The Tender Bar this week, maybe more stars should skip interviews if they're going to embarrass themselves.

I've read the book and seen the original movie and this version still had some unexpected twists. The book is still seedier in some ways? Anyway, the story did pick up once Cate appeared, but I enjoyed the carnival atmosphere, so I get why del Toro wanted to linger in it. Strong performances all around. Some guy in my screening seemed to find every wisecrack to be the most hilarious thing ever.

If I wasn't interested in Spider-Man, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near a theater playing it to see anything else that weekend. These gigantic $200m OWs don't lead to much spillover these days, do they?

I was reading Wikipedia for the 1961 version and they allegedly approached Elvis for Tony, but Colonel Parker turned it down (of course). Some truly WTF what-ifs with that one: Robert Redford as Tony! Suzanne Pleshette as Maria (she smokes two packs a day)! It seems like he's not interested in musical roles, and Spielberg apparently handpicked Ansel, but I wonder if there was ever any consideration or Harry Styles as Tony. Disney had been trying to land him for something for a while (the Hans Solo rumors and being offered Prince Eric in Little Mermaid before finally ending up in the MCU) and WSS is from the Mouse House, technically... I don't think the Elgort allegations had much of an impact on the box office, I thought he was good in the role, but if one of the leads had been a singer with a big fanbase...

OTOH, Peacock Premium isn't exactly Netflix or HBO Max... If it "underperforms" at the box office, it has the "...but streaming!" out, and if it opens to $15m or more, they can say it's good for the genre, considering the times. I am absolutely going to watch this and also look forward to it airing back-to-back with The Wedding Planner on E! or Bravo in the years to come.

The box office is top heavy, but not because superhero movies are crowding out other titles. Some locations have closed, others have reduced hours, but most weeks there are simply a lot more empty seats than before the pandemic. Social distancing is pretty easy to manage in theaters, most weeks. People complain about certain movies having "no advertsing", but for the prestige titles that have bombed this year it's simply not true. Ads run during live events, online and the stars do morning show/late night promo, premieres, etc. The latest awards hopeful still ends up opening in the $4-8m range, maybe a little more if it's lucky, but nothing like before. I saw In the Heights and West Side Story in theaters opening weekend. The issue isn't that they start out on tiny screens with limited capacity, and that's why the box office is so low. Vaccines for kids have been available for maybe six weeks total and already Encanto is the biggest animation since the pandemic; Sing 2 will probably do even better. Nothing like that's happened for the awards bait circuit-that audience has been vaccinated for months/nearly a year but they've largely written off the moviegoing habit. Maybe for now, maybe forever, but I can't see how superhero movies have much to do with it.

Christmas expansion reduced: I thought 2,000 theaters seemed like a lot, but it would be different if it they'd never announced that to begin with. Now a cutback seems like they know it will flop with the original plan.

Definitely, add in that the production values are great now and that Americans are more willing to give content not in English a try, and it seems obvious that people are getting their grown-up drama fix from television. Even a shortened series has more minutes than the longest movie, and you don't have to leave home to see it. With the way recognizable names can still move the needle on streaming, the adult drama audience overwhelmingly shunning theatrical and streaming metrics rewarding minutes watched...a lot of projects that would’ve been movies in past decades are going to be converted into limited series. It won't be the best creative decision for all of them by any stretch but it's show business, and studios are getting a loud and clear message about what audiences will and won't bother to see, and when...

Release Date Title Production Budget Opening Weekend Domestic Box Office Worldwide Box Office 2020-2029 Praise This Aug 19, 2022 Beast Jan 12, 2021 Hot Mess Feb 14, 2020 The Photograph $15,000,000 $12,181,865 $20,578,185 $20,704,381 Aug 23, 2019 Jacob’s Ladder Apr 12, 2019 Little $15,405,455 $40,860,481 $49,207,917 Feb 8, 2019 What Men Want $20,000,000 $18,232,087 $54,611,903 $69,911,903 Sep 28, 2018 Night School $29,000,000 $27,257,615 $77,339,130 $103,113,446 May 11, 2018 Breaking In $6,000,000 $17,630,285 $46,840,590 $51,485,382 Jul 21, 2017 Girls Trip $28,000,000 $31,201,920 $115,108,515 $140,886,353 Nov 11, 2016 Almost Christmas $17,000,000 $15,134,235 $42,065,185 $42,493,506 Jan 15, 2016 Ride Along 2 $40,000,000 $35,243,095 $90,862,685 $124,827,316 Jan 16, 2015 The Wedding Ringer $23,000,000 $20,649,306 $64,460,211 $80,171,596 Sep 12, 2014 No Good Deed $13,200,000 $24,250,283 $52,543,632 $54,323,210 Jun 20, 2014 Think Like a Man Too $24,000,000 $29,241,911 $65,028,687 $70,027,933 Averages $21,520,000 $22,402,551 $60,936,291 $73,377,540 Totals 15 $215,200,000 $670,299,204 $807,152,943

Not a great opening, but not a surprise at this point, since it feels like adult titles have done worse this fall than the summer (except House of Gucci). I guess we'll see if December legs will apply with the decimated prestige box office. I came home from the theater and watched the 1961 version again, and most of the changes IMO enhanced the story: even Chino was a better drawn character. I was struck much more by the futility of the gang warfare in this version. The 2021 staging is more cinematic, but I'm also glad the Jerome Robbins choreography was immortalized on film. The Maria and Tony love affair itself is still drippy, but it's Romeo & Juliet-what are going to do? Such a strong cast, I wouldn't be surprised if they won the SAG. Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist for all the Oscars! I thought Ansel was...good? I don't know why it had to be him, but I didn't think he was the dead weight/least valuable player some reviews made him out to be.

People complained like this before the pandemic, though, they acted like comic book movies and animation were literally the only things getting into 3,000 theaters. The New York Times was even trying it... Which didn't tell the whole story... Box office patterns were changing but 2019 had Ford v Ferrari, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1917, Little Women making healthy sums (and also getting into Best Picture, but people still complained nothing popular get nominated). I saw Parasite in a multiplex that was playing Frozen 2 on 5-6 screens and counted all the little Elsa and Anna and Olaf costumes on the way. Different types of movies could coexist in theaters. Too many people seem to feel that if comic book movies/Pixar/etc. disappeared from theaters, then everything would be like it was when Kramer vs Kramer could win the year (of course, when American Sniper was huge, Film Twitter wasn't really exactly thrilled). It's obvious now that if it weren't for tentpoles and franchises, the domestic movie theaters would likely be out of business. The domestic market can clearly support movies over the century mark at this point, theaters haven't been flagged as a superspreader source at all, but a third to half the audience is just not interested in coming back. Of course the studios are going to read into the numbers and will adjust what they release into theaters as a result.

Variety with the hard-hitting reporting... Tl:dr AMPAS voters have historically been fine with actresses going full frontal in movies but men, not so much. Apparently, only Viggo Mortensen seems to have escaped the curse in recent years. I would be surprised by a Cumberbatch Oscar snub at this point, but if it happens, there's a reason. Good news for a Big Willie Style win?

Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, I thought of her when I saw photos of the real woman but wondered if she would be a bit too youthful next to Cillian? Pugh and Murphy have a 20 year age difference, while the gap with Tatlock and Oppenheimer was 10 years. But it's Hollywood, a woman's never too young and a man is rarely too old, lol. Haven't been bowled over by Rami in his post BoRhap roles but here's hoping...