Eastwood47

Why such a low number? Do we have estimates yet from last night or did you see it and can report audience responses? One thing is for sure. Its getting interesting on the low end.

Far From Home had , for me, a tough task of unpacking the traumatic events of Endgame while attempting to move on to a more ordinary (Day-in-the-Life) story for our friendly neighborhood hero. First my disbelief buttons are taxed to the max when its revealed that when half of the population was instantly dusted, somehow that equated to EVERYONE important to Parker somehow going with him?! What were the odds that 50% of the universe meant 100% for Peter? As Deadpool would say, "That's just lazy writing." Even worse, every kid (or teacher) that had a funny moment in Homecoming suddenly is forced to become comic relief for the first half of this film. The teacher specifically on the field trip is reduced to a caricature of his Home Coming profile, as he suddenly possesses every social tick and character flaw imaginable. It's like the writers had nothing new to offer, so they just recycled old gags and gave them added life that at times felt very forced and more Lampoon-ish than charming. And therein lies the strain that seems to run throughout this film. There's real lack of logic, even when we're applying the rules of reason in this universe. Take the justification of the black Spider-man suit. Parker insists he can't wear his regular suit because somehow , everyone on his class will realize its him after the incident in Washington. Ooooookay. So why does he still LOOK like Spider-man and use the same weaponry as Spider-man if the suggestion was he had to LOOK like someone else? Was anyone really going to think Parker was Spider-man when they never gave that consideration in Washington? The end result just didn't stick with the explanation given. In terms of Mysterio, it was a long wait for his villainy reveal since it was abundantly clear the only people fooled by the illusions were the characters in the story. So there was no tension build for the plot twist. One big surprise is that once Mysterio became bad, he was excellent. I think Marvel delivered the goods in making him everything anyone could have hoped for. Those illusion battles were absolutely worth the price of admission and made up for an otherwise pedestrian script. Tom Holland was excellent as Peter and made the material better than what it actually was. Zendaya was charming as MJ and did not disappoint as that relationship advanced with Peter. Jacob Batalon was more annoying than fun as Ned Leeds. Favreau felt misplaced as Happy Hogan, but Jake Gyllenhaal chewed up the scenery with his performance as Mysterio. He too gave more weight to an otherwise unimaginative script. I give it a B for offering great battle sequences between Mysterio and Spider-man, but throwing away a charming cast that mostly had B-grade material to wrestle with. The two credit sequences are fun but nothing earth shattering that wasn't either long overdue or evident after Captain Marvel.

It seems Avatar might be an easier goal to pass worldwide than TFA domestically.

Got up this morning to see what the audience is scoring it on RT and it's definitely a divisive film. You either drank the Kool-aid and love it, despite its laughable lapses in logic and story direction or you hate it. There doesn't seem to be too many who just thought it was pretty good or okay.

This is SPOILER heavy so if you want to know nothing about this film, please do not read further. First let me say if you're going to make the bold step of removing EVERY sequel ever produced on an anniversary installment, you better have a story that really justifies it. They didn't do anything here. Instead of Michael chasing Laurie because she's his sister, now he's just "staying alive" to get one more opportunity to find her. YEAH... that makes allot more sense. Either way he's still chasing HER, so the motivation never gets any more grounded. Now lets cover the unending plot treatments that offer more laughs than screams in this comedy of terrors. First the director tries endlessly to reverse treatments on Laurie Strode and give her the Michael Myers moments. How? Lets count the ways... Instead of Michael stalking people, they have Laurie watching her granddaughter through the same classroom window Myers watched her. That made my audience snicker because its handled too heavy handed as a plot device. It's hard to see this old woman just standing there and derive anything from it except what its intended to do. As Deadpool would say, "Lazy writing." Instead of Michael fading in and out of darkness, we have Laurie doing this and at the most inopportune times when she should be looking out for the people he's trying to kill. This time SHE gets knocked off the balcony and nails the ground. Only this time, Michael looks down and SHES gone. OH BROTHER. Instead of Michael busting through closet doors, you have Laurie tearing down those poorly built structures. And if none of that is enough, she spends more time wielding a knife than Myers and does about as much, if not more, damage to him between that and the shotgun that blows off the fingers on his left hand. Some noted lapse in logic that are painful to watch surround Laurie Strode's Fortress of Solitude. The house has every conceivable barrier to keep a person from entering the house, including a heavily gated entry. Yet at every turn, all of these defenses are inexplicably down when they shouldn't be. The first massive oversight is when the family is gather back at her house and she is locking down her house in preparation. Yet somehow, incredibly, the "NEW" Dr Loomis (accompanied by Myers and Strode's granddaughter) drives straight into the drive way unabated. So Myers is loose, but the front gate is left open? Ah, but it gets better... After the house is locked down, her daughter's husband inexplicably walks out an OPEN front door to approach a squad car. What happen to the fifteen locks on that entrance? Myers is outside and yet the front door is left swinging open?!! REALLY?! Even more so Laurie NEVER notices him once on the endless television screens inside the house connected to close circuit cameras surrounding the property. Great... Even funnier, the front door that Michael enters has GLASS PANES ON IT!! Uhm... Laurie what is the point of having a heavy secure door if you're going to have brittle glass as door decorum? Utterly idiotic. But the best part? None of these devices built to keep him out are adequate, so she creates the most ridiculous trap made since her feat in Resurrection with the loop of rope. Here she decides her house can become one big gas tank waiting for a spark to set it ablaze...sans Halloween II. It's just ridiculous folks. Nothing makes any sense and things happen just because they can, not because it makes any sense. Hell his new doctor even looses his mind and stabs a police officer after hitting Myers with his car (another nod to Halloween II). If that isn't bizarre enough, the doctor says, " So that's what Michael feels," and puts on the mask! SIGH... If you were looking for a review of the story, you won;t find it here, because there isn't one. Outside of establishing new characters, all of them just become moving targets for Myers. Need I also add, Myers first victim is a CHILD. So the film has no sense of direction, class, or even a desire to hold a moment. Everything is just one sequel nod after another or one laugh, intended or not, after another. The best original scare in the whole film is when a boy sees Michael because of motion lights being on. But as they cut off, and come back on, he gets closer. That's done well. The boy who is being babysat is terrific and probably the most realistic character in the whole affair. Carpenter's iconic score is there, but it pops up at odd moments where it never seems to fit. Some of his new material IS good, but only serves to remind me how much those scenes need help just to sustain the moment under the dead weight of a weak script. I know how the trailers look and I see what many a critic have said. That's why I went to see this tonight. I thought we actually had something new. I'm here to tell you there is NOTHING new. The pieces are just moved around on the same predictable playing board with the same cliche kills, not to mention ending that the first Halloween sequel got right. This one just set the house ablaze and went straight to a title card as they're leaving. Hmmmm. I wonder if Myers survived? Duh... Here we go again.

Just got back from seeing a 7:00 showing. Theater about a quarter full. Audience laughed in allot of places where it wasn't intended. Laurie Strode was too over-the-top. The doctor is RIDICULOUS, and the best actor in the film is the kid being baby-sat. HE was great! Absolutely a front loaded film. I have no idea what the critics were drinking, but this movie is not REMOTELY deserving of it's score on RT. Audiences were very quiet walking out.

Nice overseas return on DP2. That certainly helps on the bigger picture of things. Hopefully it stabilizes after the holiday domestically.

I thought Grace was a guy in drag.

The worst part about Grace is she takes it over to her Youtube channel for click bait titles. She'll purposely make provocative statements to bait people. I use to respect her opinion on movies, but it's clear she has a financial interest in views so she can collect on that Google paycheck. I think she comes here to see who she can engage, then uses that as material for her videos. It's sad that people can't just love their craft and talk thoughtfully about these topics instead of jabbing at fans who enjoy these films, just to make a cheap buck. Deadpool 2 is already in the black it's second weekend and because it's performing like most sequels, it's "over"? Such hyperbole. I guess it's "over" for Star Wars too huh Grace? Great analytics.

If that makes you feel better about your Star Wars movie bombing. DP2 will be profitable. Solo? Tax write off. I guess it makes for good click bait on your Youtube channel.

Fans of this series have short memories. From a business perspective Lucas was brilliant with how he masterminded the prequels. The first thing he did is micro-manage the budget so all of these came in at an extremely low cost, even for their day. I doubt he spent much on marketing because he had so many deals with licensed goods, those likely footed the bills. But more importantly he understood how to rebuild anticipation. People can hoot and holler all they want about Phantom Menace today, but the majority of fans sucked on the bone marrow of that film when it came out. Lucas waited for technology to reach a point where he could make the stories he wanted to tell and rebuilt demand through remastering and updating effects on the old trilogy. So by the time Phantom Menace came out, people were quitting or getting fired from their jobs just to sit on a sidewalk and wait for this movie. The Force Awakens played to a somewhat similar response but perhaps without as many career suicides since fans had learned their lesson. But again that was more Lucas' doing than Disney because he was in the midst of rebuilding the brand again when he threw up his arms and sold the franchise ( another brilliant move on his part). Now Disney is stuck with the bill and what on the surface looked like a no brainer for success, is quickly becoming a financial liability because they're making them at a cookie cutter pace which the public never desired. And while some want to point to the prequels as the low water mark of the franchise, truth is Disney has spent more than double the money, and tripled the output of product, but remains without any Oscar award and carries the shame of the first commercial failure in franchise history. The most important component to the Lucas Empire was the one element Disney didn't get in the purchase - Marketing and Building Demand 101. There's not a story in this franchise that is brilliant on paper, so I'm not sure where you get the quality compare. What is sadly missing from Disney is customer awareness, branding to demand, and budgetary discipline. Disney is making these like one of their cartoons and the demand is drying up. Solo is just symptomatic of that problem. The prequels were extremely profitable, sold a boat load of merchandise, and exposed a new generation to the brand. The Disney era movies are divisive, drying up consumer demand in film and merchandise, and have now added a financial flop to their list of growing problems. George Lucas is sitting pretty with his choices. Disney and Star Wars? Not so much. You can have your story argument. I'll take the Lucas legacy which is far more impressive than Disney Wars.

If an industry site becomes nothing but a propaganda machine for a studio then what's the merit in reading their reflections on the business? Even worse, if that influence holds true, then imagine how far reaching a studio's impact would be on a movie critic who could use a financial supplement so their family gets a vacation this year? I think it's safe to assume Disney has a number of rubber stampers out there faithfully kneeling at the throne for a sad hand out. It kind of goes back to the original idea that everyone should just vote with their wallet from their own assessment and ignore the franchise groupies in the industry.

But it's been my understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong), that Memorial weekend is traditionally bad for films. So would that be one instance where a holiday weekend hurts a tally?

I checked the first Deadpool to see how it compared on it's sophomore weekend and I was surprised to see it dropped 57.5%. So if the sequel can get relatively close to that, then I think it would be fair to say it's operating within normal expectations. I've seen it twice and felt it was even better the second time. I'm not getting the notion it doesn't have re-watchability. If those numbers stay somewhat depressed we might have to give some of it to the Memorial weekend that is soft on movies. Plus you have the NBA playoffs which have been epic this year. I just didn't catch any measurable loss of interest in the franchise or the exit polls from audience members who rated the new movie. I definitely want a trilogy.

That would be glorious. Hope you're right. I have to say you pretty much nailed the Solo debacle before anyone else embraced it fully. So I hope your instincts are equally strong with DP2. Great work!!

Would like to see if Deadpool 2 got a nice Saturday bump. With so much in play with Solo not doing so well, it would be good to start getting some estimates as to whether those weekend predictions are holding or not.

I don't think that's the reason. It might be in the "superhero" genre, but it's definitely a rated R film and they never should have put it in this kind of traffic with big tent-poll movies coming out all around it. You have allot of fans of all of these big movies out right now, which means they all suffer for that. I honestly thought Deadpool should have kept the tradition of coming out on Valentines Day. Sticking it in a crowded summer schedule was a huge mistake. Solo suffers in the same way. And Infinity Wars is missing financial goals some here expected it to make with ease. Some day these studios (or in this case Disney) will learn to put some space between these projects to maximize profit.

What are your thoughts on Deadpool 2? Surely it's not crashing 65 to 70%

I think that is far more realistic. Deadline has shown an utter bias for the Star Wars brand, so they try their best to spin warm and fuzzy on bad numbers and cast shade on the competition.

Same here. The audience score is not anything I truly see as a fair sampling of the public. It's clearly become weaponized by individuals who need to "punish" things they don't like. It's hard for me to see it any other way. If we look at Solo, it already has nearly 18,000 votes from Thursday previews alone! Deadpool 2 has been out a week and has amassed 21,000? Yeah, somethings off. I doubt 17,000 people got up this morning and voted on Solo just for the heck of it. Clearly motive was involved here. Even the critical score is becoming suspect because Rotten Tomatoes manipulates what people see, when they see it, and trickles in reviews to keep people checking back to entice high traffic to their website. The whole thing just feels disingenuous. So even the fundamentals of what it was meant to offer the public is getting compromised.

From everything I have read Disney has abandoned the "trilogy" format, so this next film will not be the finale.

At the end of the day your own opinion is really all that matters from an anecdotal perspective. But I'm having a hard time seeing Solo become a sleeper hit when it's core audience is heavily mixed on it's merits, as are critics. It doesn't read like the little movie that could, because it already has a high bar to meet due to it's brand and the fact it cost more than any other Star Wars film in history. How can we overstate a soft opening as something to celebrate when it lost all of it's momentum from heavily mixed reviews that continue to the present? I think if you have to hunt for a category to rate Solo a success, then the film has already taken a knee which is a foreboding sign in a VERY crowded marketplace.

Is this film even a lock for $13 million from Thursday previews? All of our local theaters were empty last night. One theater had it's one and only IMAX showing at 10:15 and had sold only ten tickets a half hour before show time. Light turn out seem to be the trend coast to coast from reading reports.

I think people give the keyboard warriors too much credit (which only emboldens them BTW). The general public who mostly piles in to fund these films are a key component. And the die-hard fans will be there no matter what, which pretty much eliminates anything a troll can do. So what's hurting the business is this saturation effect. It took Lucas 28 years to make six movies. Disney has made 4 in three years. That's too much. These things use to get rolled out with so much pomp and circumstance. You get the first BIG trailer. Then you would get the BIG announcement for merchandise. Fans had time to rebuild anticipation between movies. All of that is passe' now.You barely get to catch you're breath before something else is rolling out. These days Disney is feeding the brand through a fire hose like it's a Netflix series. We just had a Star Wars movie this past Christmas which hit a sour note with a number of people, then the DVD came out less than two months ago. Now we have another one? I'm sorry but as much as these films can engage the public's interest, they didn't get there by being rammed down their throats. Rogue One was an interesting experiment, but in no way should it have green lit this new foray into endless spin-offs. This brand needs a rest and I think Solo is going to underscore that.

I was stunned that a film with so many issues in production lifted it's embargo so early. I have to believe someone high up in Lucasfilm felt the movie would review better, but that was a huge gamble that never came to pass. And now the mixed scores along with all of the leaks in the story pretty much removed all of it's momentum. Had they kept it under wraps until yesterday and let the marketing drive the message I think we would have had a very different weekend than what this is wrapping up to be.