BoxOfficeFangrl

It's often argued that a movie going to PVOD doesn't hurt the box office much, but those were movies that played 3,000+ theaters for at least 3-5 weekends first. The Holdovers started in limited release and expanded some, but only had two weekends about 1,500-1,600 theaters in weeks 4 and 5, before being offered on PVOD this past Tuesday. The original plan was for the movie to open in limited on Veterans Day weekend and go wide at Thanksgiving, but then the timeline moved up to late October. IMO the studio figured a holiday-themed movie would perform the best on PVOD in the window after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. The limited release numbers for The Holdovers were fine but not great, so I can't blame Focus for making the choices they have. Still it's disappointing not to see it flourish at the box office during an ideal time, when even in 2019 it probably would have made at least 3-4x as much. That assumes no one ever rewatches a theatrical movie release at home, which seems not to follow the Nielsen streaming figures. Netflix's idea seems to be that time in a movie theater is time that a person isn't watching their service, and views theatrical releases as direct competition. Apple TV+ would like their service to be bigger, of course, but it's an offshoot of a much larger company that still makes money if people are connected to Apple services and/or products in some way. They already won Best Picture for CODA and that didn't particularly help it get big views on their service (maybe it got overshadowed by The Slap). Someone at Apple clearly sees the benefit of full theatrical releases for these projects with high profile directors/stars...for now. The streaming numbers for Napoleon and KotFM are another part of the equation, probably even more than the box office. Time will tell if Apple gets bored and changes strategy with their movies, or if it will be like Travis Knight running Laika Studios with Daddy's Nike money.

East Coasters rejoice: the Oscar ceremony is starting earlier than ever... Very optimistic of ABC to think the Oscars will end on time!

I don't think Argo was the frontrunner that whole year, Lincoln just didn't win as much as predicted outside of Daniel Day-Lewis. 12 Years a Slave won ultimately but did fade for a while versus Gravity and American Hustle, which was beneficial in the long run. Nomadland went wire-to-wire but the Covid-era awards seasons are such an anomaly. The Oscars aren't until March, so I expect a newer darling to be the toast of awards season for a time. Maybe The Holdovers or Poor Things, possibly The Color Purple if critics really like it. I think Nolan wins even if the movie doesn't. The critics will likely push smaller films while the industry breaks big for Oppenheimer later on.

There hasn't been a Best Picture winner as popular as Oppenheimer in 20 years and the voting system is totally different now. People are so used to the "little movie that could" winning over the frontrunner. Although last season, I think there was a lot of denial about the eventual winner actually being the frontrunner because it was so unconventional for an Oscar juggernaut. You can't really say the same for Oppenheimer, the awards pedigree is strong all around.

Paramount got several theater chains to participate in "matinee all day" pricing with 80 For Brady. It sounds like "buy 2, get 1free" with PAW Patrol was Cinemark's idea. It makes sense for them to go after the family market since the Regal/AMC membership plans target adults. It seems like lower budget animation can work well enough theatrically if it's attached to a well-known brand. How long before there are Cocomelon and Bluey feature films?

So, Poor Things is going to be this award season's Licorice Pizza? Hooray... /s

Lol, so Grace Randolph has just seen this and tweeted out the premise to her followers (plus everyone else). It's going exactly as well as you'd expect. She also hated Oppenheimer and I don't think its awards chances will be hurt any by Beyond the Trailer's disapproval. Though I agree that Searchlight must have caught the MPA on a good day for Poor Things to get an R rating.

I also saw it tonight. Not a huge crowd (it's a pretty dead theater outside of weekends) but there were lots of laughs throughout and (as far as I could tell) no walkouts. I cackled at the shot at American Fiction won TIFF when The Holdovers was right there, so maybe it can survive Twitter drama. Though maybe the drama will be less right wingers angry about "woke Hollywood" than people who like "hood stories" and feel attacked by this movie.

The little birdies at Reddit are saying this might be the Regal Monday Mystery Movie/AMC Screen Unseen tonight (7 PM local time at participating theaters). These are strong guesses from sources who've previously been in the know with these things, but nothing absolutely 100 percent confirmed. Do with the info what you will...

Oh, I heard Saltburn wasn't as "gay" as people had hoped, as part of the mixed reviews. I've seen it likened to The Talented Mr. Ripley but 25 years later maybe people want something more to happen between the leads. Also, I think Saltburn, Bottoms and Bros were courting edginess and provocation in a way that Brokeback Mountain wasn't, really, though I guess in 2005, having love scenes between the male leads of a Western was pretty edgy stuff. But Brokeback was more of a romantic drama and not caustic or satirical in tone, and each thing can pull in a different audience. With Call Me By Your Name, IIRC there were complaints from fans about its rollout being too slow or not timed in a way to maximize the box office. It made $18m domestic but there was a feeling then of money being left on the table.

Well, egg on my face, the poster in the RegalUnlimited subreddit who's correctly spoiled the other Monday Mystery Movies says tonight's movie is American Fiction. Though there seems to be a little more caginess than usual with the confirmation, so it may actually end up being some terrible horror movie after all. Just passing along the info...

I don't think "The Hanging Tree" was eligible for Best Original Song because the lyrics were preexisting from the books and therefore not specifically written for the movie. The original songs got pushed for awards but only hit precursors like the Golden Globes. I thought it was odd how the original series couldn't even make the crafts categories when other youth fantasy/sci-fi movies like Potter/Narnia/Lemony Snicket could. Maybe the Hunger Games prequel will have better luck with Oscar, like how the first Fantastic Beasts movie finally won an Oscar while the main Potter series never did.

BOM has two lists for each year, Calendar Grosses and In-Year Releases, there's a pull down to toggle between the two. Sometimes there's a slight lag with updates for the In-Year Release list but BOM's 2023 list already has Eras in the Top 10. Dancing with the Stars did their Taylor Swift episode last night. The ahow's audience is not the youngest overall and maybe a few might end up checking out the Eras movie. Also a fan discovered that one of the contestants follows Scooter Braun on Instagram and sent out the bat signal for the Swifties to vote en masse for his competition LMAO.

Dim, dull and lifeless: wasn't a fan. I get what Coppola was going for with the lighting and the exaggerated height difference and Priscilla's meekness, but it just fell flat for me. I hadn't even seen the other adaptation of Elvis and Me yet (a 1980s TV miniseries) but felt underwhelmed leaving the theater. The low verified audience scores are completely unsurprising. And now that I have watched the same story told another way, I'm even less impressed with this movie. Congrats to Cailee Spaeny on the Volpi Cup, but IMO Sofia could've given her so much more to do.

And according to Fandango, Saltburn is playing at 3 theaters in New York, 1 in Austin, and "3" AMCs in the LA area: The Grove, Century City, and "Burbank" (the Burbank 16 and the Burbank Town Center 6). So actually 8 different locations but the per theater average for 7. I wonder if all the AMCs in Burbank count as one theater for wide releases, too. Jacob Elordi, indie box office king? I wasn't impressed with Priscilla (saw the 1980s miniseries adaptation of the memoir on YouTube, it's the same story but lets her have a personality, plus it has Elvis music) but I liked his performance. The Fantastic Beasts book was like an bonus thing JKR released between Harry Potter books, a mini guide of wizarding creatures that came complete with student doodles on the side. Another one was called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neither was really a narrative novel; the movie had to invent a story. Newt Scamander existed as a character in the universe technically but not as someone fans would have been attached to.

2003 Top 10 (domestic) 1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (fantasy epic franchise, based on a book) 2. Finding Nemo (original animation) 3. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (fantasy swashbuckler, based on a Disney ride) 4. The Matrix Reloaded (sci-fi action franchise) 5. Bruce Almighty (original comedy) 6. X2 (comic book franchise) 7. Elf (original Christmas comedy) 8. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (sci-fi action franchise) 9. The Matrix Revolutions (sci-fi action franchise) 10. Cheaper by the Dozen (remake) Four originals, two of which became franchises. The remake spawned a sequel. Two movies from the same franchise within the year. 1993 Top 10 (domestic) 1. Jurassic Park (sci-fi action, based on a book) 2. Mrs. Doubtfire (comedy, based on a book) 3. The Fugitive (action thriller, based on a TV show) 4. The Firm (legal thriller, based on a book) 5. Sleepless in Seattle (original romantic comedy) 6. Indecent Proposal (erotic thriller, based on a book) 7. In the Line of Fire (original action thriller) 8. The Pelican Brief (legal thriller, based on a book) 9. Schindler's List (historical drama, based on a book) 10. Cliffhanger (original action thriller) Three originals, none of which have generated a sequel so far. Not all of the movies based on books were well-known in the US as books (so seemed "original" to audiences), though Jurassic Park and the two John Grisham adaptations were very famous bestsellers. Jurassic has since become a franchise.

I suspect most.people aren't looking at the cost of a movie ticket vs the cost of Subway/DoorDash/takeout/etc and saying, "Wow going to the theater is actually a bargain!" They consider the cost of taking a family to a theater vs the cost of a $20 PVOD rental for the same title later that month, or the cost of a group of friends going to the movie theater together vs splitting $6 for a digital rental of the same movie two months later, or the cost of a couple doing a date night to see No Hard Feelings vs catching it in their Netflix subscription four months later. Unless a movie is an "event", moviegoers seem to be saying a trip to the movie theater is not worth their money or their time. People can say, "Well if you look at inflation, movie tickets aren't any more expensive than 50 years ago!" but it won't change a thing about how most of today's audience approaches moviegoing. They can see new movies at home more quickly and conveniently, even compared to the days of video stores or Redbox. "Must-see" titles will bring them back to theaters, but not much else. And studios are having a tough time figuring out what must-see even means anymore. The best thing that's happened to platform releases post-Covid is someone figuring out that for some reason "AMC Burbank" counts as one location, when it's three distinct multiplexes in Burbank with a total of 30 screens. The new platform releases now will often play at two if not all three of the AMCs in Burbank, but it all gets reported as one location when the per theater averages get published. I first noticed it with Asteroid City, but a lot of the 2023 platform releases do the L.A. part in Burbank now vs. The Grove and The Americana. I suspect it's a factor in the seeming improvement in platform releases this year vs 2021/2022, but why they are still falling flat in wider release.

Of course, you don't direct/star in a movie like Oppenheimer without awards crossing your mind here and there. Nolan was doing interviews/Q&As the whole time since the strike and now the actors can join in. I saw some Oppenheimer stans elsewhere being all, "Cillian is too pure to campaign!" and I was thinking, sure Jan. Many kinds of movies have campaigns, not just the so-called dreaded "Oscar bait". They want to go to these awards shows and win, not just spend weeks clapping politely for someone else.

That reminded me, the Borderlands movie with Cate Blanchett and Kevin Hart still hasn't come out yet! Original principal photography was in 2021. It's scheduled for next August now. There weren't streaming services during the Great Recession. I don’t know if moviegoing still feels like a cheap activity compared to a month's worth of Netflix, Disney+, Prime, etc. and YouTube is free. With the pandemic restrictions, I think that also made people value going out differently. If they're going to go out, they'd rather be out doing stuff where they can talk and be social the whole time and not just sitting in a dark theater. People will come to movie theaters in big numbers for "events" but there's less of just going for the sake of it. Plus they know it will be available at home soon enough, and in the meantime they can just watch a million other titles or listen to podcasts, etc.

Will Gluck "responds": This whole bit has been funnier than the teaser and trailer....

The original plan was to have it open in limited release on November 10 and expand to "wide" on November 22; then the timeline was moved up two weekends. I saw The Holdovers in October and liked it, but felt it was so early for a Christmas movie. But 95% of them die at the box office after Christmas, plus it's not like the audience for a 1970s throwback movie even comes out to movie theaters anymore. I guess the plan now is to put it on PVOD here in another week or two and hope awards buzz carries it in the countries where it comes out in January.

Instagram got blamed for ruining teen girls' self-esteem. Snapchat is being sued by multiple families for facilitating fentanyl sales to minors. TikTok videos are routinely cross-posted as YouTube shorts and IG reels. Twitch isn't just a gamer site, it's full of influential and some would say dangerous politics. Twitter too. Any social media site can be used for good or ill will. Cassie, Sean 'Diddy' Combs settle lawsuit (content warning: abuses of various natures) That was fast but just in a day, more negative Diddy stories and old tweets were being unearthed: The latter account hasn't posted since 2013. And companies just want to delete inactive accounts...

Divergent, which was successful enough for a YA franchise if not at the elite level, got ahead of itself with high budgets and a split finale move that spectacularly backfired. And everyone besides Lionsgate saw it coming... With inflation I think the first Harry Potter is up there with The Hunger Games 1 if not Catching Fire. Potter has a massive fanbase but hit a ceiling as a fantasy movie with magic and kid protagonists. They grow up but Harry Potter will forever be "the boy wizard". The Hunger Games had teen leads but played by young adults, it was sci-fi but not "everyone does spells", and the games themselves were appealing to casual fans. But general audience types can move on with time and get the Battle Royale fix from the next big thing.

That tweet is thankfully a joke (they're really committed to the bit), but someone there did seriously try to argue they were troubled by Taylor befriending Sophie Tumer because it was an older person taking advantage of someone younger at a difficult time in their lives. Even friendships can have problematic age gaps now, lmao...

Golden Globes to Air on CBS: That's the last day of the regular season, can't wait until some West Coast game with playoff implications goes into overtime, delaying the show and earning the ire of awards junkies worldwide! But seriously, talk about the Globes landing on their feet!