Eric the Marxist

Moderation Also of note, please do not feed the troll. El Gato was doing the same thing last month when The Batman came out, and we're not doing this stuff again.

Moderation @Noctis has been threadbanned for their "American critics are jumping on the bandwagon" posts. This falls against what the opening post has laid out as something we will not allow, even if Noctis claims that it isn't conspiratorial.

I mean if you think a mid-80s RT Aud. score and a future B Cinemascore is "well-received", then okay. I'm also not sure why you're all "let's wait until the weekend is over before we say anything". We're a weekend thread. That's what we do. We predict based off historical evidence what will happen and discuss it. Sure, we might be wrong, but then what else are we going to talk about? Cool. George Lucas was also set to own Star Wars forever. Warner will find a way to improve their bottom line and get rid of people they find toxic. Garbage capitalism always wins. And regardless on what we feel about the Sequel Trilogy and what they could have grossed, they all made a billion dollars. Mandalorian made billions off Baby Yoda merch. Those other Star Wars shows will make big bucks too. And I'm sure when the movies come back, they'll make tons of money too. And at the end of the day, studios don't give a damn about how high-quality or interesting a film can be, but how much money they can make. And if they think they'll make more if Rowling is away from the project, then that's that. Sorry, but that's the truth.

I can already predict the next 10 years: First, we'll probably get Fantastic Beasts 4 and 5 jumbled up into a 6-episode HBO Max miniseries. It will be overlong and feature janky pacing, but that's just how miniseries roll these days. After that, JK Rowling basically gets yeeted out from Heyman/Warner from all future Potter projects. They'll probably try to find a way to cut out Joanne entirely to rinse their hands of the whole thing, though they'll probably still be forced her in an executive producer role and make sure they alert the press and let them know she has zero creative input on this stuff. After that we get some random HBO Max spin-off about Hogwarts founders or Hagrid or whoever that will last like 3 or 4 seasons. Then in the 2030s, when the nostalgia cycle is just right, we finally get that legacyquel with the whole cast doing their thing. We all think it's stupid, yes, but we all know it will make big bucks. It becomes a ludicrously successful trilogy, some HBO Max show will tie into these movies like what Disney+ is doing, the last movie will set up a bunch of other shows, and we'll get a really fun press tour over all these projects, with everybody ensuring Rowling doesn't actually have her fingerprints on any of this crap. I'm like Nostradamus. Ericstradamus!

Then I guess America is just built differently.

America doesn't care about theaters anymore. It's all about that home viewing/streaming now. Welcome to the future. (Before anybody comes after me, yes there will be plenty more theatrical hits. No theaters aren't dead. Yes I am slightly exaggerating. Please don't give me a lecture about this)

No Way Home is a Disney movie in Sony's clothing. And Uncharted is basically another Spider-Man movie. The Law exempts Spider-Man-type movies. The Law works in shifty, mysterious ways. Do not fall for their tricks.

Mickey's Law. For the non-Disney studios, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Here's something that legit bugs me with these Morbius Sweep memes. Why are fries and beans part of these GIFs? Is there a joke I'm missing?

I legit got a hearty laugh from this. Tip of the hat, my good sir.

I should have gotten a BOFFY for ridding us of the Fanboy Wars thread 😒

Honestly even the anomalies make me anxious. Dog was probably going to do 60M no matter what, maybe 75M back in 2016. But Lost City, even with its mediocre reception, would have gone past 100M easily in 2016. It only makes the box office for stuff like Northman or Crawdads or Bullet Train or The Woman King or Thirteen Lives more vulnerable in my eyes and more likely films like these will just be streaming fodder at worst or day-and-date films at best. Even now, the studios are still plopping films (albeit ones that probably wouldn't make much) onto Netflix or Amazon. And again, there's nothing that indicates today's audiences want non-IP stuff in theaters. I don't think things are unpredictable at all. It's just following a trend that was only accelerating due to COVID normalizing home viewing.

I like to imagine they put it there to confuse and trick all the people who are fans of the other Crash. What I'd give to see their reactions lmao

About two hours from now

Yes. This is entirely because of just how one-sided the box office is. If you aren't Disney, or a Disney-type film, your film will 9 times out of 10 suffer. Beforehand, you had every studio having at least a couple hits, a surprise indie sensation, some big award contenders that had interesting and exciting runs, and a lot of other fun surprises. Now...I guess things are a bit better in terms of variety, but not that much better, with a lot of people simply incurious and refusing to see anything that isn't a sequel or nostalgic or toyetic. I know people hate when I say this, but...that's just what is happening. And it sucks. 🤷‍♂️

Doctor Strange 2 Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-21 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 234 8530 45297 18.83% Total Seats Sold Today: 215 Comp 2.366x of The Batman T-21 (51.11M) Before people ask, yes this includes the Tuesday and Wednesday sneaks

Honestly I get why Northman was greenlit. The Witch was a big hit, and while The Lighthouse wasn't as successful, it and Witch probably got bigger followings on VOD/streaming. Eggers is a rising name within the cinephile community, so you get prestige that Focus can legitimize when they're selling it to premium/cable networks or to give Peacock more clout. Netflix got to where it was first by copying what HBO was doing for decades, and services love prestigious titles like this. You also had a good ensemble that's easy to market, with Skarsgard fresh off Big Little Lies, Anya a rising star with a bunch of stuff lined up, and a lot of appealing actors like Kidman, Hawke, DaFoe, and Bjork. And on the basic concept, a historical action revenge story, that's a very easy thing to sell to executives as a compelling story. "It's like The Revenant! It's like Gladiator! Those were big hits, and this is in the same vein!" Plus at $70-90 million...sure that's a lot, but not this massive bank-breaking investment that will force Eggers out of a job if it does poorly. And frankly, Universal's always been a riskier company, at least in terms of greenlighting projects that aren't big franchise features designed to milk a zillion sequels out of. A lot of them have missed over the past couple years, but there's little indication they're stopping.

Fantastic Beasts 3 Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report Final Count Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 118 2356 22598 10.43% Total Seats Sold Today: 637 Comp 0.496x of Shang-Chi (4.36M) 0.810x of No Time to Die (5.1M) 1.008x of Dune (5.14M) 0.447x of Eternals (4.24M) 1.062x of Ghostbusters: Afterlife (4.78M) Still seems a lot lower than everybody else, but we'll see if this muted final finish is a trend elsewhere.

And Mickey's Law. As confirmed today, Mickey's Law will always be around.

https://deadline.com/2022/04/fantastic-beasts-3-box-office-father-stu-mark-wahlberg-1235002445/

Also just having this here out of obligation lmao