BoxOfficeFangrl

People said that about Vice, and it still got all the nominations anyway, so... Different subject matter, but the test screenings have supposedly gone well and the Academy hasn't had issues with McKay's style so far.

But I feel that all the HBO Max movies would have made more as theatrical exclusives: Conjuring 3 opens close to A Quiet Place 2 instead of a $20 million difference in their opening weekends, The Suicide Squad opens over $30 million at least, In the Heights starts at $15-17 million and everything is leggier, because free day-and-date also kills repeat business (at least for theaters). Why wouldn't Godzilla vs Kong have made $150-175 million domestic as a theatrical exclusive? It seems better liked than the last Godzilla movie and it had better legs than most HBO Max releases. IMO the legs would have been even better still as a theatrical exclusive, or at least premium day-and-date. And maybe other HBO Max titles with soft openings and weak multipliers could have risen to "so-so opening with decent legs, underwhelming but not a disastrous total" as exclusives? It's all hypothetical, of course. Mamma Mia and Hairspray did well in the summer, I don't think seasons are really an issue for musical movies so much as the prestige audience for them not fully returning to theaters yet. And bad reviews or limited concepts don't help.

If Green Book still winning Best Picture and Joker making a billion didn't humble Film Twitter, I don't think Dear Evan Hansen being a hit was going to make them any less arrogant. They operate in their own reality as much as the people they criticize. Didn't In the Heights have a big PLF share in its opening weekend? That might explain the difference in box office with DEH now.

Justice for In the Heights!!! How much more would it have made as a theatrical exclusive? There was a limited audience, but HBO Max certainly doesn't help any movie's box office... But really, I thought Dear Evan Hansen was a bit more popular on stage than ITH (longer Broadway run) and is also a theatrical exclusive, so I figured it would do better (at least until recently). The trailer tells you what it's about, but reactions to the Platt casting and the premise have been mixed, at best. As a movie, it had worse reviews, which probably kept away any non-diehards who might have been interested if the reviews had been stronger. I guess we'll see how the legs are. Too bad Sony panicked and moved Venom 2 from this weekend.

Yes, they can make serious $$$$. Since they're on early, the news is fresh and during a time of day when people are getting ready for work/school/etc. and maybe aren't as glued to devices, so they have a morning show on in the background, though cord-cutting has had an impact on the industry. The main hosts can do the tough political interviews, but the shows overall are lighter than other news shows and longer. Audiences also get to know the hosts more, to see them through major life changes (marriage/children/widowhood/etc.), and see them as family. To strike the right balance is hard, if fans hate the hosts they'll tune out, so the networks can pay big bucks to keep the talent happy (as long as they want you around, at least. Develop too much of an ego or start looking too old as a woman, and you're out). This is the kind of money at stake: And that's with the shows being on the downslope, the revenue was even bigger a few years back: That's from the time when Matt Lauer got fired, he'd been a main host on The Today Show for 20 years until #MeToo got him, about a month after Weinstein. There'd been years of rumors, though mostly about womanizing, which is not family-friendly, but as long as he stayed married on paper, he was able to play the "nice guy" on morning TV and make bank. The year before he got fired, Lauer bought Richard Gere's old house in the Hamptons for $36 million (it's selling for more now), while still having his smaller Hamptons mansion, a place in the city (in Bernie Madoff's old building!), plus property overseas. Tl;dr - Network morning shows have been big moneymakers for decades in the US and everyone involved knows it, massive egos and jockeying naturally follow.

So, the DGA finally saw Dune?

Whatever issues the Emmys have, they manage to have a host and present more categories on the main telecast in just over 3 hours (28, to be exact). They even threw a lifetime achievement/honorary award in there! I'm not sure what the Oscars' problem is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And wouldn't it be funny if, the year they are determined not to focus on the nominees, a bunch of fairly popular people/stuff ends up winning: Dune, Will Smith, Gaga, Meryl, Bradley Cooper, Beyonce. I'm guessing the show plans depend on the nominees. They are making a big mistake playing to the loudmouth cranks who say they "don't care" about award shows, but can't stop weighing in on how they should go.

So, the voters watched five shows this past season? Cool cool cool... I mean, Iiked The Crown a lot, but disagree with three out of four of its winners (four out of five, if we include Claire Foy winning Guest Actress for two minutes of airtime). I don't see what the fix is, so long as the present TV environment exists, with such a glut of programming. Voters will just focus on a few shows at the top and pick 99 percent of the winners from there.

It's such a lazy comparison... Every year pundits try to say some frontrunner's poorly reviewed winter cash grab will be their Norbit and ruin their Oscar hopes, but it's only really happened with Eddie Murphy. No Strings Attached didn't stop Natalie Portman, Seventh Son didn’t hurt Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne still won despite hamming it up Jupiter Ascending. Sandra Bullock won a Razzie and an Oscar on the same weekend. Most voters understand what it takes to get anything made and that all movies aren't designed to win awards. That's fine. The "problem" with Norbit was how it reinforced notions that a legacy superstar like Eddie had completely squandered his talent for a decade in crude comedies, and that he'd already gone right back to it. ...whereas Death on the Nile doesn't really feed into a preexisting bad narrative about Branagh. It's just been delayed of a merger, a pandemic and the lead getting canceled after filming had wrapped, not stuff that's the director's fault. Unless Death on the Nile is as bad as Artemis Fowl, and then maybe it undercuts an "overdue" narrative for Best Director. I think the bigger issue for Belfast (in terms of Oscars) will be the frontrunner heat, it's not even October and the ceremony isn't until March. All the studios are sending out their big guns again, it's not like last year's race where an early leader could coast to the win. Film Twitter will be obnoxious with the takedowns, calling it simple and "White Roma" and whatnot. The Discourse will be annoying for sure. I don't know how much Belfast will make at the box office and if that will matter, since prestige movies haven't done well this year.

For this year? I would think AMPAS would have to announce a new category by a certain timeframe and not just spring it on everyone in January. Remember that time Critics Choice added The Force Awakens to their Best Picture lineup after they'd already announced the nominees? So shameless. Dune is opening well internationally, the reviews are good (RT especially), Villeneuve is outspoken about the theatrical experience - people might want to rally around something epic.

Belfast will have to deal with the frontrunner backlash - I already see tweets calling it "White Roma". Film Twitter backlash doesn't stop a film from winning it all, though. I wonder about the box office-the prestige audience is the most reluctant to return to theaters, but how many hits will there even be in this climate? Recently it's seemed like anything too popular at the box office had no chance to win Best Picture, but with how upset a lot of industry heavyweights feel about streaming, maybe voters will rally around the biggest theatrical hit to send a message?

Leo already has his Oscar so he can just do stuff that's meaningful to him. I follow him on Instagram and he mostly posts about the environment, very rarely about himself (only to drop a poster/set photo of a movie he's in, never about his personal life). Also, they say Netflix paid him $30 million for Don't Look Up, I'm sure Nightmare Alley is a good paycheck for Cooper, but not that good... The trailer is very stylish but I wonder how many people are going to think it's a horror/monster movie.

Is that an intentional homage to the "this is fine" meme at the end? Stunning visuals overall. Not sure why Bradley is looking like Indiana Jones but I'm not complaining... Cate will be great I'm sure but I would’ve liked someone more unexpected? "Man or Beast" wasn't exactly my takeaway from the novel or 1947 film, but this is del Toro, that's like every movie of his...

I was really referring to Stonewall with that comment, though that wasn't terribly realistic either. The Patriot was a hit at least, Emmerich's other takes on history, not so much. I wonder if The Asylum has made their ripoff version of Moonfall already...

There's theories the suicide was staged and really a murder because of her relationship with Oppenheimer (she had deep involvement with the US Communist Party, causing issues with his security clearance on the Manhattan Project). Oppenheimer was married to someone else and warned to end it with Tatlock. He was devastated by her death and the "Trinity" codename for the first nuclear test is widely thought to be an reference to her. Other depictions of the Manhattan Project have included Tatlock, so I hope Nolan doesn't exclude her because some people will accuse him of making up a "dead wife" story here, even if that's the actual history. But Nolan seems to do what he wants. Oppenheimer's actual wife worked as a biologist as part of the Manhattan Project so she could be included as a character (and she outlived him). The Wikipedia section on his private life is a lot more interesting than I was expecting, but I don't expect Nolan to portray much of the messiness, even if it's on topic here that's not exactly his comfort zone.

That's been going on with Bond since the Connery days, From Russia With Love is fairly Hitchcockian and even rips off one of his iconic movie scenes. Still, overall I think the first five Connery movies are pretty cohesive and seem like a "set" even without being heavily interconnected. The Roger Moore years really chased trends, he's not a natural fit for a blacksploitation story but it was popular when he was starting out as Bond. Just hoping No Time To Die is worth the wait...

Looked up the man and Cillian Murphy isn't the worst choice, not a total reach... Oppenheimer's personal life was rather messy in this timeframe and involved a couple of scientist women who were very interesting in their own right, Nolan had better not mess that up with his "including my son" level writing for female characters. More Murph and less sad/dead wives, please...

My mom has cable and it comes with Peacock Premium, I wonder how many of the Premium subscribers are like that. It has ads you still get the exclusive content. Halloween Kills would've done fine in theaters so this is definitely about propping up their streaming service. I think HK was always going to worse than the 2018 version even without day and date.

So, the new PTA is not called Soggy Bottom but Licorice Pizza (a real SoCal record store back in the day). It has me thinking, how many Best Picture winners have quirky/unusual titles? Oscar voters can have all kinds of hangups and I can definitely imagine some Anonymous Oscar Ballot cranks dismissing a "Soggy Bottom" out of hand: "I didn't even watch it. I just can't take that seriously. What were they thinking: Wet Ass? In my day, 'Oscar movies' had serious titles!"

Apparently this has a real title now: Someone on the Blank Check subreddit posted about seeing the trailer and also indicated that it wasn't actually called Soggy Bottom.

I think Platt looks too old but I also think there is an audience that really won't care and DEH can still be a success if people find it moving. Realism isn't exactly the point with musicals, and this not going to like In the Heights where the target audience demands the right sort of representation, or else...

Given modern Oscar politics, it's probably better for something mainstream like King Richard not to put too much of a target on its back by being an early frontrunner. Nomadland managed to go wire-to-wire, but I think this will be a more typical season where something shinier will come along when voters really start watching everything. I'm looking forward to Nightmare Alley, but if it's faithful to the book, a Best Picture or lead acting win would be IMO extremely surprising. It's just not what today's Academy seems to reward with the top prizes.

No one's saying popular stage musicals don't fail as movies, but name recognition helps. Mainly, they have to be adapted in a way that lets the story stand on its own on film. Still, you need to draw in a broader audience beyond the Broadway fans. In the Heights was cinematic looking but the trailers couldn't sell a story that enough nonfans cared about. I wouldn't say the trailers didn't capture the movie accurately, but ITH is just not a movie that should have had a $55 million budget and been proclaimed in advance as a blockbuster. Rent, Cats and The Producers all had major issues as movie adaptations: Cats probably shouldn't have been made a movie and definitely not by Tom Hooper. The Producers was too stagey, and the Rent cast was too old by the time they made it, also the story didn't play the same way in 2005 that it had in the nineties. Dear Evan Hansen doesn't have a "dated" plot, at least. Morally questionable, possibly, but that's a different issue.

Grease had ancient looking teenagers and is one of the popular musicals ever, it's not like people didn't notice but it was obviously not a deal-breaker. But Grease is more of a winking satire while Dear Evan Hansen seems very...earnest, so maybe thats why Platt's age being brought up is such a touchy subject with him and the DEH fans. I'd just laugh off the criticisms and point out that realism isn't exactly the selling point of musicals anyway... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I agree Dear Evan Hansen will probably do better than In the Heights, it has a longer Broadway run (bigger fanbase) and the trailer sells a clearer story. There's a crowd that finds the premise moving even though it appalls Film Twitter.