Eric Prime

Cancel culture isn't real. This is especially true when it comes to a Hollywood that is a lot more conservative than people like to admit. Even the two most arguable "canceled by Twitter" examples people like to use were extreme, indefensible garbage and were already given to people known for being very problematic and very tough to work with. And honestly, if you're going to defend Roseanne's racism or Gina Carano equating being a Republican to a Jew in Nazi Germany...just shut up. Even James Gunn's firing was more just because Disney was trying to buy Rupert Murdoch's movie studio at that time and the Gunn stuff was started by one of Murdoch's garbage alt-right Pizzagate buddies. If Disney wasn't focused on the Fox deal, those tweets would have blown over and we would have gotten Guardians 3 a couple years earlier. As for the topic at hand, Ezra staying is awful and terrible, but this is sadly Hollywood, they're always about the money, and the average audience member, whether we like it or not, doesn't care about any scandals or people who are #problematic. Again, whether that's a good thing is up to you. And frankly, I'm not optimistic The Flash will be a hit anyways, so this "why are they keeping them on?" drama really won't mean much in the end.

Creed 3, Mario, Little Mermaid, Indy, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Dune 2, Songbirds, Wonka. Two of them are for "my bae" reasons, others just seem like they have something really special going for them, and a couple others because they could do anything from flop to explode and not surprise me (Barbie, Songbirds)

No to Whitney, likely for Babylon. Of the 17 places I track in Philly, Babylon's leaving 6 theaters, while Whitney's only leaving 1. And even then, some of the theaters that still host Babylon only have one showtime, so it's debatable if they even count. Whitney's definitely getting dumped next week when three wide releases hit though.

October 27 Saw X: Jigsaw numbers. Yeah, I don’t have anything else to say. I really don’t care about these movies to think any more or explain more and this franchise has a very specific niche that always turns up. Moving on! 15/30 (2x)

October 13 The Exorcist: The property is still popular, but it’s no Halloween. It also doesn't help that Ellen Burstyn isn’t as big a name as Jamie Lee Curtis, who was a big reason the 2018 Halloween was as big as it was. With this unlikely to be very good either, this will probably do about half of Halloween parentheses 2018. Should still be profitable enough that we’ll get those two sequels, but those films won’t make much of anything. 40/80 (2x) PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie: The last film still did about 40M despite the Delta scares and Paramount+ availability. And judging from some of my friends who have little kids, the franchise hasn’t lost any steam in the past year. There will be enough kids dragging their poor parents to this, but I still think it will make slightly less than the last movie if only because the novelty won't be as strong. 12/36 (3x)

October 6 Kraven the Hunter: Oh Sony, you silly little morons. You try so hard with your silly Spider-Man villain universe that nobody cares about. “It’s Kraven Time” rolls off the tongue better, and the character is more popular, but it’s not as memeable and I doubt this will be anything good. Even with zero competition, this is only going slightly over Morbius. 35/70 (2.14x) True Love: There's no real information about the plot yet, so it's very tough to predict anything. But, and I know I've been a broken record here, audiences only want to see nostalgic toy commercials. And True Love isn't that. Better than Amsterdam, because I'm assuming (or at least hoping) it's better than that travesty, but not that much better than that. 10/30 (3x)

I'll admit that I feel I'm more forgiving of the underwater visuals in this and Wakanda Forever than most and that they aren't as bad as people make them out to be. But frankly, I feel like most people won't care that the underwater visuals are worse than Avatar's. Films and CGI today are the ugliest they have ever been and are rushed like crazy, but the normies still turn up and don't complain about it. People see a brand they recognize and then turn into robots and automatically flock to it. This will be the same case here.

...excuse me?

M3GAN Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-2 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 55 317 8900 3.56% Total Seats Sold Today: 123 Comp 0.210x of The Conjuring 3 T-2 (2.06M) 0.235x of Halloween Kills T-2 (1.14M) 0.297x of Scream T-2 (1.04M) 0.648x of The Black Phone T-2 (1.94M) 0.634x of Smile T-2 (1.27M) 0.222x of Halloween Ends T-2 (1.2M)

The heart replaces nothing. "This!" also replaces nothing

Until we get a confirmed number from the press or one of our Asgards (Charlie, RTH), we have to wait.

September 22 The Expendables 4: I know I got dogged for saying this about Gran Turismo. But honestly, who the hell cares about The Expendables in the year of our lord 2023? It doesn't even seem like the few fans who are out there will get much out of this. The cast has been cut back considerably, what names remain aren't all that exciting, and Stallone was given the "And" credit on the poster, which implies the star will barely even be in this movie. What a waste of time. 11/25 (2.27x) Next Goal Wins: Not a nostalgic toy commercial. And while part of the delays is because of casting Armie Hammer, the tea seems to be that this movie sucks anyways. Next! 4/11 (2.75x)

September 15 A Haunting in Venice: I’m generally not a “who asked for this” kind of guy. There’s almost always an understandable reason a film is greenlit, even if the final product doesn't actually turn out well. But really...who actually asked for this? Even without Omicron and Armie Hammer's allegations, Death on the Nile was always going to drop like a rock from Orient Express. Plus these Poirot films are considered passable at best, and I doubt this movie will be much better. This isn't even based on a popular Christie story anways. Are they just trying to bank on Michelle Yeoh’s potential Oscar win to get people invested? That’s the only reason this film's existence makes any sense. Anyhoo, bombs away, but Branagh will probably get a boring Poirot Hulu show to compensate for all this. 10/35 (3.5x)

September 8 The Nun 2: The first Nun was complete doo-doo and there’s nothing that suggests this sequel will be all that much better, even with Akela Cooper being a credited writer. It’ll drop more than half from the last film and nobody will care. Conjuring 4 can't come soon enough. 25/50 (2x)

September 1 The Equalizer 3: Well, we have...a release for Labor Day. That’s something. It’s no Shang-Chi, but I can see this doing well. A fall from the last two should happen, but it will only be slight. Denzel’s character is a popular one and the Queen Latifah show has kept the popularity of the franchise afloat over the past couple years. Plus September and even October are barren wastelands this year. It's baffling why these studios put in so many heavy-hitters in the summer, cannibalizing each other, but are piss-scared putting big movies in the fall. Still, this will do well and we’ll probably get a fourth one down the road. 25/30/90 (3.6x)

Quorum Updates Women Talking T-4: 12.1% Awareness, 4.44 Interest A Man Called Otto T-11: 34.57%, 5.49 A Good Person T-81: 16.3%, 5.24 Elemental T-165: 29.26%, 5.34 Barbie T-200: 35.8%, 4.65 M3GAN T-4: 48.33% Awareness, 5.98 Interest Final Awareness: 90% chance of 10M, 60% chance of 20M, 40% chance of 30M, 25% chance of 40M Final Interest: 74% chance of 10M, 52% chance of 20M, 35% chance of 30M, 26% chance of 40M Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 20M, 60% chance of 30M, 40% chance of 40M Horror Interest: 83% chance of 10M, 67% chance of 20M, 33% chance of 30M and 40M 80 for Brady T-32: 20.03% Awareness, 4.57 Interest T-30 Awareness: 58% chance of 10M T-30 Interest: 33% chance of 10M Original - Low Awareness: 71% chance of 5M, 29% chance of 10M Original - Low Interest: 33% chance of 5M, 17% chance of 10M Knock at the Cabin T-32: 26.45% Awareness, 5.75 Interest T-30 Awareness: 58% chance of 10M, 25% chance of 20M T-30 Interest: 78% chance of 10M, 72% chance of 20M Horror Awareness: 75% chance of 10M, 50% chance of 20M Horror Interest: 100% chance of 10M, 50% chance of 20M Creed III T-60: 46.5% Awareness, 6.09 Interest T-60 Awareness: 100% chance of 30M, 87% chance of 40M, 62% chance of 50M T-60 Interest: 100% chance of 50M

I mean as others have said, New Year's and Christmas have distracted people from buying advanced tickets, at least for something that's coming in the new year. And horror movies aren't even pre-sales driven in the first place, which was shown in my Philly numbers last night. And even if we want to complain about how it's not "breaking out", a 20M+ opening is still really, really, really good for a totally original Blumhouse horror production and will make the film super profitable no matter what. Like The Black Phone and Smile opened in the 20s and they turned out just fine (yes, I know M3GAN won't leg out the same way as those movies did)