BadAtGender

Uh... Rhythm and Hues would probably disagree.

Yeah. And even at the deplorable way a lot of people are treated in the movie industry, it still costs a ton of money to make a tentpole and even then there's no guarantee you're going to see a profit. (To say nothing of the double standard that some films obviously spent too much when they don't make money while others should have spent more, because people would reward quality and it would then make money.)

Purportedly, Variety is working on a story and seeking comment from animators involved or somesuch. It probably won't affect the box office, which unfortunately means a degree of validation for the behavior of Tiernan and Vernon. Even with a bit of bad press, making a ton of money on a low budget is still making a ton of money. The lesson isn't going to be "don't do it again" but rather "don't get caught doing it again." (It's worth noting that shady treatment and payment of animators happens at all levels of the industry. Pixar, DWA, Disney and some others were part of that salary fixing collusion or something. It's arguable that if the animators were paid fairly for their work, the budgets would be considerably higher.)

And half of them weren't even credited. My artist and animator friends are not happy about this. I'll probably skip on seeing it, now.

Something I've been wanting to blog about but haven't had the time, is how the MCU is more or less turning into a TV show on the big screen. It's increasingly involved with its own continuity, and breaking into it requires a larger and larger "marathon" session. If I'm being uncharitable, the MCU has all the drawbacks of TV with few of the benefits. But it's not actually that bad. Even so, it does form a core part of my gripe. I like TV, but I really do want films I go to see in the theater to not be TV. Perhaps all cinematic universes will end up like this, though... that is, of course, if anyone else manages to get a successful CU off the ground. The DCEU is the closest, but they're still too early to tell one way or the other.

Abstain, unless I think of something later and decide to edit this.

1. Will Pete's Dragon Open to more than $22M? YES 2. Will Pete's Dragon Open to more than $27M? 2000 YES 3. Will Pete's Dragon Open to more than $32M? NO 4. Will Sausage Party Open to more than $22M? YES 5. Will Sausage Party Open to more than $27M? 3000 NO 6. Will Sausage Party Open to more than $32M? NO 7. Will Pete's Dragon open higher than Sausage Party? 3000 YES 8. Will FF Jenkins open to more than $8M? NO 9. Will FF Jenkins open to more than $12M? NO 10. Will Suicide Squad drop more than 55%? YES 11. Will Suicide Squad drop more than 61%? YES 12. Will Suicide Squad make more than the three main new entries combined? 2000 NO 13. Will Bad Moms pass $65M total domestic by the end of the weekend? YES 14. Will Lights Out finish above Nine Lives? 3000 YES 15. Will Star Trek have a bigger percentage drop than Bourne? 2000 YES 16. Will Operation Chromite have a PTA above $8,500? NO 17. Will Ghost team have a higher PTA than Hell or High Water? NO 18. Will Finding Dory finish above Cafe Society? YES 19. Will Mike and Dave make less than $100k this weekend? 2000 YES 20. Will Ghostbusters increase 70% or more on Friday? NO 21. Will FF Jenkins Open below Bad Moms? YES 22. Which film will have the lowest percentage drop in the top 8? Bad Moms 23. Will SLOP's Friday, Saturday AND Sunday grosses all be higher than Ice Age's Weekend Gross? 3000 YES 24. Will BFG drop more than Jungle Book (in dollars not percentage)? YES 25. How many mother's will cal for the banning of Sausage party after taking their 6 year old to see it opening day? 3.14159265359... 15/25 - 2000 16/25 - 3000 17/25 - 4000 18/25 - 5000 19/25 - 7000 20-25 - 9000 21/25 - 12000 22/25 - 15000 23/25 - 18000 24/25 - 21000 25/25 - 25000 Part two: 1. What will Sausage Party's OW gross be? 5000 $25.78m 2. What will Bad Mom's Percentage drop be? 5000 45.7% 3. What will Nerve's Sunday gross be? 5000 $876k Part 3: 2. Pete's Dragon 5. Jason Bourne 8. Florence Foster Jenkins 10. Lights Out 13. Ghostbusters 16. Cafe Society 3/6 - 2000 4/6 - 5000 5/6 - 8000 6/6 - 13000

LetoJoker was probably the weakest part of the film. The Joker as a character tends to have three fairly distinct interpretations: Gangster, Anarchist, or Psychopath. In most cases, you need to lean pretty hard on one over the other two in order for the Joker to work in the story. Nicholson's Joker was the first, while Ledger's was the second. I'd hoped that Leto's would be the third, so we could get distinct, live-action interpretations of each aspect, but it felt like a weird amalgamation of Gangster and Psychopath. Since it didn't go hard for one over the other, it leaves the character at a confusing place in the story. But, since his presence was brief, it didn't really undermine the film as a whole.

This is so confusing. I liked it. I liked it a lot. And what's weird is when I ask around my friends, they tend to like it, too. I was chatting with one last night, and she went in with really low expectations. (She was just watching it to get ready for her podcast.) But she found she really enjoyed it. And it's not like she's super invested in the DCEU. She hated BvS. It's not a perfect movie, but it's a perfectly entertaining movie, which is what I mostly ask for. It's got Will Smith being big budget Will Smith again, which is something I didn't realize I really wanted, but it is. The rest of the Squad works in their own quirky ways, and the cast is really into it, which helps a lot. There are some phenomenal visual moments. Enchantress' transformation gave me shivers with the fingers reaching through and then a sort of reality twist. Beautiful and creepy all at the same time. It reminded me of that shot in... The Grudge? Where Sarah Michelle Geller is in the shower and feels a hand coming out of the back of her head or something. (I haven't seen the film, but that shot from the trailer always stuck with me.) The one thing I'd kinda hoped they would have gone harder in was with the music. The opening cut between three scenes and each had their own song as a soundtrack. I loved that. If the film had continued to do that, it would have pushed the American Graffiti sensibility even more. Perhaps that's something that could happen on the video release. It'd be rather cool if they gave two alternate cuts: a more music heavy one and a more stripped-down one that's closer to Ayer's crime/war movie roots. Even with flaws, Suicide Squad works pretty well for me. It's not like BvS, where I saw plenty enough to intrigue me, but hiccups in the structure left me confused as to how I actually felt about the film. I know I like Suicide Squad. 4/5

The key difference is people are interested in Smith because he's Smith, and Robbie because she's playing Harley Quinn. Deadshot is a pretty fantastic character, but he's not a draw.

The Superman arcs in MOS and BVS are really fascinating. You've got a character who starts off not knowing if he should tell the world about himself, and then when he does still finds that he doesn't really have anyone to talk to. He's in an incredibly isolating position, which would play hell with any mental state. There's a reasonably good argument that the story of these Superman films is about dealing with depression. What's really kinda neat is if you look at the other comparable metas, we see that they've isolated themselves from the world. Perhaps they've realized, at least unconsciously, that they need someone who can understand them in order to actually be able to keep doing the hero thing. Flash's line of "I need... friends" is pretty revealing, there. Justice League, seems like it could be setting up that what superheroes need isn't a team to help them fight supervillainy, but a peer group. Of course, what MOS hits a snag at is that Supes' character arc probably asks for a focused and personal climax, but the conventions of the genre need something more, ahem, earth-shattering. So that creates a dissonance.

BvS Ultimate > Suicide Squad > BvS theatrical, imo. I'm curious if they'll do an SS Ultimate or two. Over / under Dory might be really tight.

20m seems really good. GotG had about 10m, right?

Well, I'm at the theater. It'll be interesting to see if I can tell what my opinion is. What fun!

1000 Will Suicide Squad outgross Green Lantern? YES 2000 Will Suicide Squad outgross Batman Begins? YES 4000 Will Suicide Squad outgross Batman Vs Superman? NO 8000 Will Suicide Squad have 3 or more weeks at number 1? NO CUT SHORT 12000 Will Suicide Squad drop more than 55% on week 2? YES 16000 Will Suicide Squad gross more between August 19th and the end of the game than Ben Hur makes? VOID 20000 Will Suicide Squad gross more than $400M? NO LIFESAVER

1. Will Suicide Squad make more than $100M OW? YES 2. Will Suicide Squad make more than $125M OW? 2000 YES 3. Will Suicide Squad make more than $150M OW? NO 4. Will Nine Lives make less than $12M OW? YES 5. Will Nine Lives make less than $9M OW? 3000 YES 6. Will Nine Lives make less than $6M OW? NO 7. Will Suicide Squad make more in Thursday preview than Nine Lives does the whole weekend? YES 8. Will Bourne drop more than 58.2%? YES 9. Will Star Trek stay above Bad Moms? 2000 NO 10. WIll Ice Age stay above Lights Out AND Ghostbusters? YES 11. Will SLOP remain in the top 5? 3000 YES 12. Will Dory increase more than 36% on Saturday? YES 13. Will Mike and Dave have a higher percentage drop than Central Intelligence? YES 14. Will the Purge make more than $250k this weekend? NO 15. Will Nerve make $5M this weekend? NO 16. Will Ice Age have a PTA above $1,850? 2000 YES 17. Will Tarzan stay above the Hilary thing? NO 18. Will any film in the top 15 increase? NO 19. Will Cafe Society stay in the top 12? 3000 YES 20. Am I going to mistakenly lock this thread far too early because UK time confuses me? So long as I get my answers in, it's cool. 14/20 - 2000 15/20 - 3000 16/20 - 5000 17/20 - 7000 18/20 - 9000 19/20 - 12000 20/20 - 15000 Part 2: 1. What will Suicide Squad make OW? 5000 $135.79m 2. What will Lights Out Sunday be? 5000 $2.1m 3. Divide Suicide Squad's OW total by Nine Lives' OW total. (so if SS makes $50M and 9L makes $25M, the answer is 2). 5000 21.15 Part 3. 3. Bad Moms 5. The Secret Life of Pets 7. Ice Age: Collision Course 9. Nerve 12. Cafe Society 15. Captain Fantastic

At this point I'm kinda just hoping I stay vaguely in the mix for the top 5 and have a better pre-season than @Exxdee.

Hmm... Secret Life of Pets - 8000 Central Intelligence - 4000 The Conjuring 2 - 3000 Bad Moms - 2000 The Purge: Anarchy - 2000 The Shallows - 1000

Poopsticks. Planned on going to see Beyond at the Cinerama, but they changed their afternoon showtime from 4 to 3:30, so I was too late. I guess I'll try to see it next week or something. Or maybe catch it at the PacSci IMAX after work tomorrow. Does anyone know if it has actual IMAX ratio footage or not? I guess I'll try to go see Bourne at 5, using my last AMC voucher I got from Costco before they stopped selling them. I also had tickets to a baseball game I can't attend this evening, and I've found out that they're non-exchangeable, except in cases of a rain-out. So here's hoping the weather takes a massive turn for the worse in the next three hours. It's currently sitting around 80 and no chance of precipitation. Curse you for being wonderful, Seattle summer weather.

1. Will Bourne open above $57.5M? NO 2. Will Bourne open above $65M? 2000 NO 3. Will Bourne open above $70M? NO 4. Will Bad Moms open above $17M? YES 5. Will Bad Moms open above $21M? 3000 NO 6. Will Bad Moms open above $25M? NO 7. Will Nerve reach $10M by the end of the weekend? YES 8. Will Secret Life of pets stay in the top 3 this weekend? YES 9. Will Star Trek have a weekend drop above 54.5%? 2000 YES 10. Which will finish highest out of Lights Out, Ice Age and Ghostbusters? 3000 Ice Age 11. Will The Purge finish above Kabali? YES 12. Will Dory have a $5M weekend? NO 13. Will Independence Day finish above BFG? NO 14. Will Train to Busan have a PTA above $3,000? YES 15. Will Star Trek overtake Central Intelligence's Total Gross by the end of the weekend? NO 16. Will the total gross of the three biggest new entries exceed $100M combined? 3000 17. Will the Hilary Clinton thing drop more than 60% this weekend? YES 18. Will any non-expanding film increase more than 70% on Friday? NO 19. Will Mike and Dave have a Saturday increase above 31%? NO 20. Will Bad Moms have any affect on Scrat's Nuts this weekend? (I am very tired, that's the best I can do, sorry) Scrat will never keep his nuts, with or without the efforts of any moms, good or bad. 14/20 - 2000 15/20 - 4000 16/20 - 6000 17/20 - 8000 18/20 - 10000 19/20 - 15000 20-20 - 20000 Part 2 1. What will Bourne's OW be? 5000 $53.1m 2. What will Lights Out's Percentage Drop be? 5000 57.9% 3. What will be the difference in gross between SLOP and Ice Age this weekend? 5000 $7.89m Part 3 4. Bad Moms 5. Ice Age: Collision Course 7. Lights Out 11. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates 13. Central Intelligence 17. Kabali

Well, now I know. The theater did fuck up the projection. It looks SO much better on Blu-Ray. Really glad I did give it a second chance, because the Ultimate Edition is a pretty damn good film. It's possible it doesn't need 3 hours to get the point across, and Batman still feels a little tacked on for the first couple acts, but since it has the room to breathe, all the plotlines and character motivations make sense. I'd give it a 4/5, now.

1. What will Lights Out gross Opening Weekend? 16.5M 2. What will Sausage Party's Opening Day be? 8M 3. How close to $100M will Bad Moms get by the end of the game? 29M 4. What will Nine Lives' 3rd weekend percentage drop be? 60% 5. What will be the difference between Suicide Squad and Batman Vs Superman's total gross by the end of the game? 35M 6. What will Dory's Total be by the end of July? 464.4M 7. What will Ben Hur's Midnights total be? 851k 8. What will Jason Bourne's Opening Saturday gross be? 21.3m

Ok, this is a one off set of weekly questions where there is no part one! Instead there is a giant part 2 and a usual part 3. Every question in part one is a numeric prediction question, not a YES/NO fest. 1. What will Star Trek Make for the 3 Day weekend? 67.8m 2. What will Lights out make on Friday? 5.8m 3. What will Ice Age gross on Saturday? 9.63m 4. What will the three main openers' combined weekend gross be? 105.09m 5. What will Pets' percentage drop be this weekend? 48.12% 6. What will Absolutely Fabulous' PTA be this weekend? $3,579 7. What will Ghostbusters' total gross be by the end of Sunday? 89.1m 8. What will be the difference between Finding Dory and Tarzan's weekend gross? $123k 9. What will The Purge gross on Sunday? $765k 10. What will BFG's Sunday percentage drop be? -24.6% 11. What will Central Intelligence gross over the weekend? $3.57m 12. What will Independence day gross on Friday? $456k 13. What will Xmen Apocalypse's weekend be? $168k 14. How close to $40M will Mike and Dave be after the end of this weekend? $987k 15. How many people will sleep with the lights on, listening to Beastie Boys and rummaging around for their nuts this weekend? 23? Closest prediction for each question: 5000 points 2+3rd Closest prediction for each question: 3000 points 4+5th Closest prediction for each question: 2000 points 6-8th Closest prediction for each question: 1000 points Part thr...umm two: 2. Ice Age: Collision Course 4. Ghostbusters 7. The Legend of Tarzan 10. The Purge: Election Year 12. The BFG 15. Absolutely Fabulous

Might be, but the allure of being able to make History (tm) is probably going to be a lot of incentive to vote for Moana.

Depends. Across companies and films, this is certainly a huge period. Going back three years, we've had seven films crest 300m. That's very, very strong. And we're seeing it across several companies, not one or two. In terms of specific films, though, we've seen bigger peaks. TLK, Shrek 2, FN, BatB, Aladdin, TS2, and possibly even MI, Shrek1, and TS1 were all comparably larger films, probably.