Talkie

Ratings: ‘Empire’ Strikes Back With 16 Million Viewers for Season 2 Premiere Fox hip-hop soap opera dominates Wednesday night with a 6.5 rating in key 18-49 demographic “Empire” is back — and it has returned with a vengeance. The Fox hip-hop soap opera scored 16 million total viewers on its Wednesday Season 2 premiere, hauling in a 6.5 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. That viewer number may not be quite as massive as the Season 1 finale’s gaudy 16.7 million, but it is way up from its series debut. The 6.5 demo rating matches the freshman year finale. The Season 1 premiere of Lee Daniels‘ “Empire” had netted a very strong 3.8 demo rating and 9.9 million viewers, per final Live Plus Same Day Nielsen numbers. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that last night’s sophomore start nearly doubled that demo number, and was a huge improvement among total audience.

The crew was stupid.

With Lindelof apparently writing the sequel there's no hope for any fixes. Frankly, I don't want Scott to fix a damned thing anyway. Prometheus was the most unintentionally hilarious film I've ever seen. I'd gladly buy a ticket to PToo just to see more scientists enticing genital-shaped aliens, comically stupid sprints in front of rolling spaceships, inexplicable poisonings and the like. The first one made me laugh until tears were streaming down my face. If the second is even half as funny it'll be money well spent. The Martian looks great, but I wish that Scott would give up on this and the Blade Runner reboot/sequel. The originals were masterpieces. It's best not to sully them with inferior follow-ups.

ALL HAIL QUEEN VIOLA!

The stinginess came directly from Perlmutter. He insisted upon keeping salaries as low as possible and constantly fought Feige's attempts to make deals with the cast. There was a report by THR that some of the lead actors wanted to leave because they felt that the weren't getting their due. Perlmutter has also been blamed for the lack of awards season support for Marvel's films. He has allegedly refused to mount campaigns even when the studio has received VFX and other technical nominations. He just refused to pay for ads in the trades or a PR push. At one point, Ike supposedly forbade Disney from paying for Oscar campaigns and Bob Iger backed down out of fear of angering the Marvel chief. Now that Perlmutter isn't making those decisions any more, Disney may step in and mount vigorous campaigns for nominations in the future.

What I don't understand is why so many in Hollywood are offended by Tull's ego. As THR put it, no studio ever refused to cash his checks, so why care so much about Tull "taking too much credit" for the movies? Aside from people like us, the public doesn't care who gets credit for making films beyond the stars and (maybe) the directors. Jettisoning an investor who brings hundreds of millions to the table for such a petty reason is just ridiculous. Speaking of which, it's hilarious that Tull is right back at WB with a 5-picture deal so soon after being ousted. His arch-nemesis, Jeff Robinov, is nowhere to be found. Robinov also took issue with Tull's style, but his successor obviously likes the cash.

Ironically, Pacific Rim is on right now. Watching the murky underwater battle and obligatory sacrificial Black man ploy, I am reminded of all of the movie's flaws. It's simply lackluster and never engages the viewer. Maybe the script for the sequel would have solved some of the problems, but with the same cast and director I doubt that it would have worked much better. It's a pity because PR should have been much more fun than it was.

Once JLaw takes the role of Eva Braun, you'll come around.

One of the best parts of the SOC success story is that Universal only picked it up after WB passed on the film and put it in turnaround. WB execs were concerned about the $29M budget being too high and so let it go. Now Uni and Legendary are reaping the benefits of SOC, in which WB's former partner has a 50% stake. What a change from when Jeff Robinov drove Legendary's Thomas Tull off because he felt that Tull was stealing his thunder. Ironically, WB hasn't had a major hit this summer, which leaves Tsujihara promising that things will get better. Eventually. FF's anemic numbers are an even better story. Fux's fuck up is now making less than Ant-Man. The plunge will surely accelerate next week as Fant4stic continues to bleed theaters. China isn't going to pull this turkey out of its death spiral.

Happy Birthday, Terrestrial!

The interminable Marvel rankings aren't about nerds loving stuff so much as they're about some nerds quantifying their hate to get brownie points. Marvel Studios is doing well now, hence we never see "Rank the DC/WB movies!" on this forum. If we ranked WB's output it'd be a couple of Superman and Batman movies at the top, followed by varying levels of mediocrity/horrendousness for the rest. No fun in that.

In quality? It varies. All of these theaters are older ones from the pre-stadium seating era. The one near my house is about as good as some first run theaters in terms of image quality, a bit lower for audio. It helps that this theater is a busy one that is well-kept. The chain keeps its equipment in good working order. The staff also lets patrons bring in food and drinks, which is much appreciated and adds to its popularity.

It disappeared into the night like Cara Delavingne, taking Ethan's heart with it.

FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK! Thanks! MMFR already came and went at the discount theater here. Surprisingly enough, JW just opened there this past weekend and is playing on two screens, 3D & standard. AOU is also still chugging along with four shows a day.

So, is Fant4stic's $8M just an estimate? Do I still have hope?

That Fant4stic number makes me sad . I had hoped for so much less.

You are Ethan's soulmate.

Because Fux is desperate for the nine extra dollars it can make from those screens.

I am a panda and I find this offensive.

Some have, others are still on vacation.

Count Dokoo (or however it's spelled) vs. Yoda is my favorite part of the prequels. In fact, that's about all I enjoyed about those movies.

Same here. When you've lived through Jim Crow, segregation, integration, assassinations, the '68 riots, Klan attacks and a whole lot more, you know what real racism and its effects are. My town damn near burned itself to the ground because of institutionalized racism. People on the Internet disagreeing over a fictional character doesn't even rate against that.

Tele is readying his banhammer for the both of you. MM is Miranda Otto to Tele's fishnets. What can one do in the face of such reckless hate?

Water has a point, though. Rth over-predicted every single day of AOU's OW. Folks round these parts were mighty defensive about that at yhe time and it still seems a touchy subject. Early numbers are nice but finals are what I'm waiting for. JW has sailed far past the $130M I privately thought it would make, though it seemed others had it pegged much lower. It's nice to watch Chris Pratt's career riding his raptor-pack to the top.