Eric is Quiet

I know that Leto is #TheWorst, but Morbius will probably breakout bigly. People are slaves to the Marvel name and will ride NWH’s coattails hardcore

Dude it’s Christmas Eve

Another year has passed, and after all that happened in 2020, things are...interesting. Everybody's 2021 is different. Some had a happy one, some were miserable, and for the majority, they were complicated. I was lucky enough to have a happy one. I left my stressful, exhaustive Bed Bath and Beyond job in favor of a very comfortable and relaxing analyst role for a local recruiting agency. One that was far more flexible with my schedule and deadlines, and have a whole bunch of new friends to boot. And while I didn't do anything else too exciting, pandemic and all, I got to enjoy the movies again, enjoy some Hulu and Disney+, and be one step closer to financial independence and my own place. Of course, my experience doesn't match everybody. And at least for our purposes, 2021 was a very mixed bag at the box office. Theaters are alive...but streaming is still the dominant form of entertainment. Marvel's big...except everything else isn't. It's okay Marvel is the only big thing...except it's really not. But we can all agree that within this hellish landscape of NFTs and climate change that capitalism will still kill us faster than the virus will. But like I said last year, the hardships of 2021 will still leave scars, but we still made it through the end. And we can soon start anew with a whole new perspective, a whole new set of life goals, and hopefully an improved box office that is diverse and exciting for everybody. I know it may seem like I'm very jaded and frustrated a lot, but know that I really do appreciate every single one of you for making my life interesting, exciting, and always dramatic. It's always fun to crack jokes with you weirdos and I hope you love what I and the staff do everyday to make this forum a fun environment to be in. So thank you all for making life great. And to end things off: get vaccinated or boostered, wash your hands, wear a mask, trans rights are human rights, all cops are bastards, Stop Asian Hate, and Black Lives Matter, and happy holidays to all. We're all in this together folks!

Scream Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-20 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 27 238 6254 3.81% Total Seats Sold Today: 7 Comp 1.315x of A Quiet Place Part II Thu+Fri T-20 (25.47M) 6.263x of The Conjuring 3 T-20 (61.41M)

Yeah. Daniel Craig and Marc Forster, silly.

The ratings boost was more because of the Kevin Hart drama and the hype over there being no host than anything else.

With how awful the ratings have been and how dire the box office for awards hopefuls are this year and probably will be from then on, there's probably going to be a huge shift towards the blockbusters in the next few years a la the 1970s. Emmys increased from last year solely because people actually watched Queen's Gambit and The Crown. You all may complain about this, but you know it to be true. Watch next year have like Avatar 2, Black Panther 2, Thor 4, and Top Gun 2 all invade the Best Picture lineup.

Scream Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-21 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 27 231 6254 3.69% Total Seats Sold Today: 16 Comp 1.540x of A Quiet Place Part II Thu+Fri T-21 (29.83M) 10.043x of The Conjuring 3 T-21 (98.48M) So to clarify, the reason why Quiet Place 2 dropped so hard was because tickets went on sale one day before they were officially announced on Paramount's social medias, meaning it had a massive 118-ticket jump. I have zero clue why Paramount/theaters put up tickets the day before the official announcement, but you can see why there was such a big boost. And...yeah, expect things to crumble down just a bit more over the next few days.

You guys do know I like Marvel right? 😂 I can enjoy them while also critiquing them from a business standpoint.

To be fair Netflix is now putting out top 10 lists showing how many hours are viewed each week, and from country to country too: https://top10.netflix.com I don’t know if the other streamers will do something like this right now, but it wouldn’t surprise me, since I’m sure producers want transparency and affirmation if their new Disney+ show or Amazon movie is doing well. I also think Nielsen might be strong armed to get streaming data out later because producers want this kind of transparency.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/tarantino-miramax-pulp-fiction-nft-1235052378/ Says here he's putting up his Pulp Fiction script for sale as an NFT. And honestly, it makes sense to me. He's basically a douchey dudebro in real life, so he would probably be all over this crypto shit.

Ehh screw it. Everything is terrible, I like to write, and I've got time to kill before I head off on my errands. Here's how the next 10 years will go down. Not all of this will become true, but this seems like a good roadmap of how things will go down: - Grosses will be depressed. 350 is the new 500, 250 is the new 400, etc. There will be one or two NWH/Avatar 2-esque juggernauts that will pop up into the 400-700 range, but they won’t be anywhere near as common as they were back in 2015-19. We'll probably be in a Cold War with China too, which means more movies will be blocked there and hurt grosses even more. -Barring any potential MCU collapse (Not impossible tbh. Sorry, I’m still unconvinced these Disney+ shows are not oversaturating the brand), the biggest movies will likely continue to be from Disney. I know some will be annoyed by that, but you know it to be true. The others will put out their usual hitters, but they won’t be the big sellers. - There’s going to be a huge push towards PLFs. The people that are going are almost exclusively going towards the biggest, loudest screen possible. The giant multiplexes will probably get two or three IMAXes, all of which will play separate movies or just one depending on the demand. There will also be two Dolbys/RPXs/4DXs in one theater. All of this will only cause ticket price increases, the one thing nobody wants, as well as limiting auditorium space for non-tentpoles. - The other big downside is that not all theaters have the funds or infrastructure to get these kinds of premium screens. So smaller 6-screen theaters or even 12-screeners, especially ones in suburban or rural areas, will probably close down. - All told, the theatrical experience will be way more expensive and way more limiting in options and locations. So the costs and travel to get there will make a trip to the movies more like...a trip to a theme park. Scorsese was right all along and nobody cared to listen. - With the Paramount Decrees gone, some of the studios will own certain chains. AMC’s getting helped by some Reddit meme stocks and crypto bros, but that will only get you so far in life. Movies owned by said studio will get greater precedent, promotion, and auditorium space, while stuff like AMC A-List and Regal Unlimited will probably be tie-ins to other services. Get AMC A-List and get one year of Disney+ for free and/or an annual pass to Disneyland. - For theater-exclusive films, the 45-day window will stay in tact. Maybe 30 days if the studios really want to push at-home viewing. While legs are fine with this window right now, it could become a problem once this stuff becomes more and more normalized. Why pay $12 to watch a movie one time when it’ll be available at home in a couple weeks? - Day-and-date releases will still be a thing, though specifically for comedies, indies, awards hopefuls, and kids movies. Sing 2 still has a chance to hold up well and make great numbers, and I'm sure Lightyear and Spider-Verse will do well, but I feel a lot of kids conditioned themselves to prefer watching stuff home, plus parents loved saving money for their kids' entertainment this pandemic. A $20 rental or HBO Max subscription for home viewing is simply more enticing. For the other genres, it’s not ideal for traditionalists like us. But it is good for studios like Searchlight or Focus and at least we’re getting these movies made somehow. Better than nothing. - Maybe this time, we’ll actually have VOD sale numbers to help paint a clearer picture. It’ll be annoying to determine how much a movie truly made theatrically, but at least things are a bit rosier in terms of press coverage for those films and somebody could find a way to track pre-orders or whatever. Again, better than nothing. - Some movies will probably get released as NFTs. Tarantino's already into it and even though this crypto bullshit is destroying the world, garbage capitalism, the thing that will kill us faster than the virus will, always wins in the end. - Premier Access will come back, but in a slightly different state. It won’t be day-and-date, though perhaps it will happen to some of their animated movies or stuff like Jungle Cruise. After the movie plays in theaters for 30 days, you can pay $20-30 to get it on D+ early. HBO Max and Paramount+ and the like will do a similar venture for their movies. - There’s gonna be a bigger crackdown on piracy to account for all these changes. I don’t know how it’ll be done, but the studios will pressure the government to take down pirates and torrent sites. Like I said, garbage capitalism always wins. Expect this to happen to other major markets too. It may sound like a good thing from a “law-abiding citizen” standpoint, but it’s not ideal. There’s still plenty of movies and TV shows that have physical media long out of print, or are just inaccessible altogether unless through piracy. Media will get hurt by this. - One or two mergers or acquisitions will happen in order to stay competitive against the Disney and Netflix behemoths. Maybe Netflix or Apple buys ViacomCBS, maybe Warner and Universal merges together, maybe Sony sells off their entertainment assets, maybe A24 and Neon go under some giant parent company, maybe some Chinese company will take over and buy a studio. At the very least, something will happen and will probably lead to some services like Paramount+ or Peacock getting absorbed into bigger streamers. And honestly, that would be for the best. - With the way global warming is going, we probably can't even leave our house because it's too hot. No point going to the movies if you’re going to get a heat stroke by the time you get to your car or get drenched by the rising sea levels. - All told, this will only lead to the box office being considered less important to the studios and overall more of a vinyl-style niche towards film buffs like us. At the very least, we still have theaters, and less casuals will probably make the experience better. - I don’t know how all this will impact budgets or actor royalties/backend deals. Maybe movies will be cheaper to compensate for the decreased theatrical revenue. Maybe it’ll stay the same since streaming services cut out the middleman of exhibitors. Maybe these movies are just produced at a loss forever now. This is the real tough nut to crack, but I’m sure something will be figured out. Again, garbage capitalism always wins. I don’t think everything listed here will happen, but I don’t have much faith in the box office or the current Hollywood system, at least what we were used to pre-2020, and I think it’ll suck for traditionalists like us. inb4 I get "Hahaed"/yelled at for daring to say streaming won by the usual suspects, as if everything will be just fine in a year.

I've already got like a 12-paragraph-long rant planned to complain about the state of moviegoing and how bleak AF things will be 10 years from now. Don't know if I'm going to use it now though. Probably if Sing 2 really stinks by the end of the holiday. See I do agree here, but even then it's still basically another superhero title and like a good chunk of people watching probably think it's from Marvel anyways. For like 5 years, I've explained to my Dad that Batman/Wonder Woman/Superman/whoever is not a Marvel character.

I guess Mickey's Law, not COVID, is what will kill theaters. This year sucked big time.

Scream Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-22 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 27 215 6254 3.44% Total Seats Sold Today: 15 Comp 6.719x of A Quiet Place Part II Thu+Fri T-22 (130.13M) 15.357x of The Conjuring 3 T-22 (150.58M) So yeah, you probably understand why I said comps tomorrow will still be useless. At the very least, this will probably give you guys a good laugh before it comes down to earth over the next few days.

Well...yeah. That's also what I'm saying. If you have to see something in a PLF or even on a generic 2D big screen to get anything out of it, then either the movie doesn't hold up, or you just plain straight up don't like watching movies, but rather the specific experience of seeing a movie in a format you like. Everybody and their grandma was saying that Gravity had to be watched in IMAX 3D, otherwise you're losing the experience. But I saw Gravity on HBO on an HD TV. And wouldn't you know it, I still adored the movie, despite not having the big IMAX bells and whistles. Because Gravity is a great movie that holds up on its own regardless of format. Anyways, I know that this isn't a popular opinion, and I can already tell that we're going to talk in circles, so I'll just end this argument here. What I think doesn't matter anyways. PLF is the future and theaters will probably construct a lot more of these screens in their buildings within the next couple years.

See I'm still the stalwart when it comes to PLFs. You guys know me as the psycho Timothee fan, and even I didn't shell out extra for Dune in IMAX. Outside of the costs, if you feel you have to see a movie on the biggest, loudest screen to get anything out of it, then do you really like the movie in the first place? I feel a movie should stand on its own without those bells and whistles. Of course, I'm the only one who thinks this way, and I can't deny this is what the future holds. Which again, is just not good for anybody in the long run, as things are way more expensive and more limiting in terms of both options and locations. So now a trip to the movies will be like...a trip to a theme park. Martin was right all along and nobody cared to listen. 🙃

To be fair to Dune, the movie also had rave reviews, festival screenings that emphasized big-screen fun, and just had a much bigger campaign that emphasized "see it on the biggest screen possible". It felt like the latter promotion for Dune was everywhere, while Matrix felt like they did little to promote the "see it on the biggest screen" aspect of it. And that's another big issue plaguing Matrix and every other movie this year. The IMAX/PLF skews this year are obscene and judging by a lot of this year's holds, folks now basically refuse to watch a movie if it isn't on a premium screen. Which yeah, is really awful when it comes to new films like Matrix and breakouts like Spidey. How do you account/retain certain screens/formats? I guess the heavy skew is because home theater systems are more accessible for people? At this rate, theaters need to have like 2 or 3 IMAX auditoriums and like 2 Dolbys/4DXs/RPXs/ScreenXs/SpandeXs in order to get people out of the house. Which yeah, that would cause a lot of issues from both a competition and infrastructure standpoint.

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