BoxOfficeFangrl

I agree, the geek stuff is likely to be implied, the double R-ratedness will happen in other areas. Finding it difficult to believe that Bradley and Cate and Rooney are going to bare all (or even most) for a film noir remake, but then again, we live in a strange timeline...

The 1947 movie was made during the days of the Hays Code, so a version of this story can be told while only going so far. This movie could be grittier with the drinking issues, really linger on the whole "geek" thing, and the book has a lot more sex plus (book spoilers) : among other things which could be shown in enough detail to get the R-rating. But double R-rated? IDK, definitely not the vibe I got from the story. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After the idiot flag controversy with First Man last year, I can see how nervous Universal suits were not interested in one of their movies being attacked by Fox News, again. Especially if it wasn't going to make it that much money, plus look at how Sony got hacked when they were going to release The Interview, and hackers/bots are way more advanced now than they were in 2014. Universal also had to deal with how to advertise The Hunt, this is America, there will be more mass shootings before the release date.

Just last year, Universal lived through First Man being derailed as "unpatriotic" despite showing American flags eleventy hundred times throughout (including on the moon) and clearly calling the space program an American achievement. They could probably see the writing on the wall with The Hunt between the Fox News attacks and the likelihood of more mass shootings making the movie difficult to advertise if not impossible. What was the tracking? If it was not great anyway, maybe Universal decided navigating the PR headaches and risking Russian hackers being sicced on them a la Sony was not worth it. What else might move to its slot right fast?

On one hand, he didn't seem like the sort of person who'd want to spend another 15-20 years in prison and reportedly there was a previous attempt. On the other hand, the timing is awfully convenient. Just yesterday some documents were unsealed and named new prominent people who hadn't been implicated before. Whatever happened there will be a lot of books and documentaries just about his death alone...

This. Emma Stone dropping the role last minute because she would be "too busy" with promoting The Favourite during award season, is all you need to know about how "challenging" Meg is as a character. What kind of BS...Chalamet is in the movie but still did a bunch of Q&As/appearances for Beautiful Boy and just missed out on an Oscar nomination. Brie Larson was filming Kong: Skull Island on a whole other continent between picking up all those Best Actress trophies for Room. LW has a huge legacy and this is a very prestigious project. But, Stone/her team probably took a hard look at all the extra back and forth it would take, bouncing between promo for The Favourite and filming Little Women, and decided that it wasn't worth it just to play Meg while right next to Saoirse Ronan in a way better role.

Not really, how many movies these days star 7 year olds as the lead? In the later versions of the show, Dora is apparently 10-11 years old but you don't get that many movies starring kids that age either, especially not action movies. Lower budget comedies or awards dramas, maybe. It might not have been a bad idea to make a movie cheap, have middle school-ish actors and if it's a success, they could've cranked out a sequel or two before Dora and friends are obviously adults. But a high school story is a safer bet to Hollywood. The Harry Potter movies probably only got to keep the characters as tweens when it started because the books were so popular already, and Rowling had a lot of power compared to most creators.

Lady Gaga got nominated for a slew of acting awards and even won a few (Critics Choice, NBR) less than a year ago. There had been talk of her being billed as "Stefani Germanotta" for A Star Is Born early on, but they ultimately went with the better known stage name. And Lady Gaga was way more famous, with millions of fans around the world, the movie as a whole had a much higher profile, another A-List star in it and would have turned a profit even if she'd been starred as Stefani rather than Gaga. And The Farewell is a much smaller movie in comparison, even if Awkwafina wanted to be Nora Lum for it, A24 might have had some objections. "We have this tiny movie mostly not in English and you want its somewhat famous selling point to go by a completely different name?" It took a while for The Rock to become Dwayne Johnson as an actor, and people still call him by his wrestling name a lot, all these years later.

Buried in the Blachett story from Variety is that filming isn't scheduled to start until the beginning of 2020. Before, it was supposed to be next month, that may have been when it was still going to star Leo, though. Weird that Collider thinks Willem Dafoe would have to be playing Toni Collette's father, even though the characters they are lined up to play are husband and wife in the book/movie. They are less than 20 years apart, for Hollywood that's not even a big age gap for a couple. If Rooney is playing the character I think, this is Lion redux in terms of her feeling almost overqualified for the role. It'll be a bit of a Carol reunion, with Cate in this, too.

That, and the "middle-aged dad fantasizing about his teen daughter's friend" angle is not a good look these days. Read the whole plot on Wikipedia just now for a refresher...yeah, best not to highlight that one in this era of Twitter outrage. The color grading (?) of the 1917 trailer gives it a similar look to They Shall Not Grow Old, which looked better than the first era of colorizing films, but it still isn't as vibrant as real color film can be.

Fun logo, and definitely a hint about the nature of the story/movie. Some fans have postulated this--does The Hollywood Reporter know things or are they just running clickworthy speculation? https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/is-christopher-nolans-tenet-a-secret-inception-sequel-1228880 Obvs, Pattinson and Debicki are Dom and Mal's kids, all grown up! j/k, but mainstream movies are so averse to man/woman pairings where the woman is clearly taller (either it's played like a comedic thing, or the man wears lifts while the woman stands barefoot in a ditch and we pretend RDJ/Goop are the same height). One of my first thoughts about Debicki in Tenet was, "Oh, well, she can't be playing a love interest to RPattz or JDW," though it would be cool if she were. Above all else, though, I just hope her character is interesting in the story.

Read the whole THR review to see if it came off any better...nope, just as creepy/strange. I guess we found the guy who really wanted the sexed up Michael Bay version of Dora that everyone joked about when this movie was announced. Anyway, that review mentions that Diego is played by Jeff Wahlberg-yes, those Wahlbergs, Mark and Donnie are his uncles, and his mother is Dominican. Learned something new!

True, forgot about that one, The Farewell will need a good "hey, remember us!" campaign but it will do well under the BP voting system, at least at the nominating phase.

It's been a few years since there wasn't at least one pre-September release in Best Picture–it's often two. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood seems more up the Academy's alley than Us, which I don't think is going to replicate Get Out's late year resurgence. Of course, it could be neither in the end.

Dion Waiters! I only know who he is because of the Rewatchables podcast. Horrible voice work but they probably figured nobody really bothers with NBA video games because of the non-basketball scenes. James Earl Jones is 88, not surprising his voice isn't what it was 25 years ago. Is interesting to consider that the voice work in the international versions might make a genuine difference in the reception of the overall movie. Most live-action movies are dubbed internationally but I wonder if that's as much of an issue? Even with comedy, it's more about whether the type of humor works in different cultures. Enjoy your break and thanks for all the numbers so far! Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had (slightly) higher previews then Dunkirk and is already $10 million dollars under it for the opening weekend, not an encouraging sign for legs. OUATIH is a longer movie, so fewer showings, and no IMAX boost, either. But first weekend is hardly ever the entire story of a movie's run, so we'll have to wait and see...

Matt and Ben reunited onscreen? Great! Not Striking Vipers: The Movie? Alas... Hoping there is some nuance beyond the plot summary because it really does sound like a story where a woman is raped (allegedly?) but it's primarily about the effect on the men and how they deal with it. Nicole Holofcener being involved with the script gives me some optimism that the movie won't be as regressive as it seems, but I am wary. I also feel like the media will come in with knives sharpened when it's released given the subject matter, and with the people involved? Can already picture Ridley not giving a f--- and loudly saying so, while Matt explains why men being at the forefront of a story like this is actually very feminist! Prayers up in advance to the reps and studio shills, for the fires they are going to have to put out. Maybe this will all turn out well, but even beyond the plot, Matt and Ben as medieval French Knights? Yeah...

There was a detailed plot summary on Wikipedia right after Cannes, that's when I read it. It seemed to fit in with the tone of the reviews, so it was probably legit. I wonder if it was there all this time, or if it kept getting removed and put back, over and over. Anyway after the general release date, having the plot summary on Wikipedia is usually fair game. And yes, I could have gone into the movie without being spoiled, but I didn't want to. What is the big deal? Not everybody enjoys movies the same way. I think the choice is up to the individual, as long as they are respectful and don't ruin someone else's experience.

Of course if OUATIH wasn't a Tarantino movie starring Leo and Brad, the studio would probably advertise it in a different way (but probably wouldn't have greenlit it, at least not this budget). But it is a Tarantino movie with A-list megastars, so that's taken into account when they sell it to the world. Is it lazy or incomplete? Perhaps, out of concern for spoilers or just the fact that the market is so saturated with superhero/Disney remakes that the studio feels OUATIH can stand out by its mere existence. We'll see whether that strategy works or not come Friday afternoon...

I get what you are saying. DiCaprio and Pitt with Margot Robbie (as Sharon Tate!) in a Tarantino joint is enough to put a certain number of butts in seats, but the same players doing a movie with a high-concept premise might generate an even better opening weekend. But this is the kind of movie that should have legs, so I don't think the studio is really concerned. They greenlit the budget and gave it a summer release knowing the subject matter, so they must have confidence it is audience friendly.

The music in the trailer was the one real negative for me, but I guess just going the Spiritual route would be its own cliche. Tubman's story is amazing and I hope this movie does it justice. You never know with awards season but I can't imagine this being compared to Darkest Hour? They both feature an "underground" I guess, but I think Harriet will get measured against things like 12 Years a Slave or maybe Django Unchained, other relatively recent awards hopefuls about American slavery. I don't think awards voters will ultimately care, but there will be people upset Harriet Tubman's being played by someone who isn't American. There was already some of that back when Cynthia Erivo's casting was announced. She is also really...aware of her awards tally, and an Oscar win would make her an EGOT, so she might be a lot on the campaign trail this season.

Poor Denzel, one Roman J Israel Esq on your resume and suddenly you're as local as Kevin Hart (of course Leo is the biggest box office superstar around, this headline is less egregious than the time they did this sort of story about George Clooney back when Will Smith was killing it at the box office). Saw the responses to this story on Twitter, there were slams on Leo because he hasn't worked with a female director in 20 years. A thing like that won't hurt this movie's box office, I do wonder if/when his dating tendencies will start to turn off women 40+ at a certain point. Leo is not doing anything illegal, he's not a Weinstein, he likes what he likes, it's a free country, but his PR people are probably thinking, "Can't he at least bump it up to 29 year olds?" https://www.maxim.com/entertainment/viral-graph-leonardo-dicaprio-doesnt-date-women-25-over-2019-4 At one point when Eastwood was still supposed to direct A Star Is Born, Leo was attached. A role like that still would have been a prestige studio movie with a big-name director, but definitely very different from the norm for him. Wolf of Wall Street was a dark comedy, this one has comedic elements as well but it's still an Oscar hopeful. On one hand, if you're in position to work with the best of the best why wouldn't you, but flip to TCM and it's not just "important" or "worthy" movies that end up being considered classics, many types of movies are represented. I'd love to see him in something that's just fun or sexy, a thriller/horror turn or something totally WTF. I get what people mean when they say that they feel DiCaprio doesn't take risks. Taking risks can mean falling on your face but sticking to the same old thing too often can lead to a movie star falling into a rut. It's nearly imperceptible at the start, but has its roots in a celeb being too wedded to a certain image that eventually gets old for audiences.

Before anyone saw it, people really thought J. Edgar would be Leo's chance to finally get the Oscar. Well-regarded actors can win for roles that aren't among their best, the narrative that it's "their time" just needs to stick. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The Best Actor lineup was pretty weak for 2011, so it seemed like a prime opportunity for Leo coronation...until the critics weighed in and the box office sucked, but even still, I think he ended up getting Golden Globe and SAG nominations that year? So he was probably not very far off from the Top 5 in Oscar voting, even with J. Edgar being a poorly reviewed flop. Tarantino and Margot/Leo/Brad interviewed on the (US) Today Show:

Just watched this and good lord, the flag controversy was so dumb! The characters in general were as patriotic as the ones in any other space race movie, it is just that Neil was more of a withdrawn type and dealing with personal turmoil on top of the stressful job. Should First Man have been released in 2019 to tie in with the Apollo 11 anniversary-not this weekend but sometime in July? It would have been looked at as an awards-season contender regardless of release date given the people involved, but sometimes I think releasing outside of the festival or awards season can take some of the pressure off a prestige film, yet it still stands out from the blockbuster crowd. And maybe with the promotion tie-in to the anniversary itself, the PR shifts, different questions get asked and FM doesn't get embroiled in the flag controversy to start with... Though even without the flag drama, maybe First Man was only ever going to be so successful? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯