Eric Prime

Honestly, Dear Evan Hansen feels like one of those movies where the people saying it will bomb are just saying it because they want it to bomb. The meltdowns and fights over this when it opens to like 25M are gonna be fun.

Top 5 for this weekend: 1.) Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings (Dis) 4,300 theaters Fri $29.6M/3-day $67.8M/4-day $75M-$85M/Wk 1 2.) Candyman (Uni) 3,569 theaters Fri $2.8M/3-day $10.4M/4-day: $13.3M/Total $41.7M/Wk 2 3.) Free Guy (20th/Dis) 3,885 theaters (-55) Fri $2.1M/3-day $8.9M (-32%)/4-day $11.4M/Total $94.5M/Wk 4 4.) Paw Patrol (Par) 3,004 theaters (-185) Fri $960K/3-day $4.1M (-38%)/4-day $5.38M/Total $31.7M/Wk 3 5.) Jungle Cruise (Dis) 3,075 (-295) theaters Fri $885K/3-day $3.7M (-26%)/4-day $5M/Total: $106.7M/Wk 6

Gitesh has been in the business for years. He's been reporting box office before some posters here were even born. I'm sure he also has plenty of sources and insiders in the business.

I mean I think Zookeeper's Wife style expansion is the plan here. Those other movies had more going for them (sorry Oscar and Paul), and this is just a typical "small theaters, build WOM, expand from there" kind of deals. 1,097. Remember that two of my Regals closed on Thursday due to the floods

Yeah I'm still confused by the backlash. I thought it was creative and it does well on building up each moment one after the other. It was cool!

Hold up, you got Comscore back?

Upon an initial read, it seemed that you were implying that the staff was deliberately trying to poison the well and making things worse. But on a reread, I realize I was mistaken and that you just wanted things to be fixed. I'm very sorry for what I said and I should have done a better job understanding what you tried to say.

My dad hasn’t seen any of the Marvel shows, but he’s seen just about all the movies, either with me in theaters or when they pop up on cable. When I took him to see Black Widow, I had to explain for like 10 minutes I imagine this stuff will only get worse and worse and I don’t really like it. These Marvel shows are really making Phase 4 feel like homework IMO

How did Drake's PR team not tell him that getting R Kelly on his album was a bad idea?

Honestly as much as people love to mock Deadline for being off-base on early Friday #s, they've been accurate this summer IIRC. F9 and Widow matched what Deadline was saying mid-day. And really, I think we need to recognize that the MCU is just more insular and fan-driven now. Endgame was a good stopping point for casual Marvel fans who don't watch everything and there's no big Thanos hook to bring folks in. I also think the Disney+ shows especially are diluting the brand. They're forcing people to talk about Marvel basically every week and I think everybody but the diehard fans is starting to get tired of it. Even when they moved on to three movies, you still had a good break of two or three months where Marvel wasn't in the conversation. But now they're trying to put out four movies and five TV seasons a year and it's just so exhausting. Not that it hurts Disney or Papa Feige too much, because Marvel fans have probably the most active fandom ever and will still sell tons of tickets and toys. 2022's slate is also full of big sequels that are supposed to have huge event-shattering stuff in them, so I guess they could bounce back. But I do think we're getting to a point where the series isn't the almighty top dog anymore and that fatigue may at long last be settling in. I guess all those Avatar delays were some 4-D chess shit from Jimbo.

https://deadline.com/2021/09/shang-chi-opening-weekend-box-office-1234826987/

I don't know who did the thread title, but let me say upfront why we had "mixed reviews coming in"...because it started out quite mixed in terms of reactions, including a few negative reviews. Obviously now things are different, but we simply wrote with the material we were given with when the review embargo dropped. This isn't out of malice or "poisoning the well", but just what things looked like. And believe it or not, the mods have other things to worry about. We're not stalking RT scores and reviews. We have jobs to look over, other hobbies that take up our time, site-related issues to take care of. I'm sorry that we didn't change it until now, but I can't drop everything over something as insignificant as a thread title. Please quit it with the condescension and attitude and don't act like we're out to get this movie.

Basically it's the waiting game for Deadline to put out their early Friday numbers, which should be in about 3 or 4 hours from now. After that we just kind of hope either RTH or EC has some numbers for us tonight (Charlie still doesn't have his sources back up and running). Although EC has started publishing them in the morning, so maybe his sources have changed or just give him info later.

It'll be so nice to go back to sleep at a reasonable time...oh what am I saying, I'm always gonna stay up until 1 AM.

Two were Regal, one was MTC1.

Honestly I feel like a lot of folks here just want to have a meltdown just because. I don't know if it's just unrealistic expectations or being largely pessimistic in their lives or just wanting to troll, but I honestly think if Shang-Chi did like 12M in previews, there would still be folks talking about how it's a disappointment and studios would delay everything again.

Of course Denis would waste Timothee 🙄

Just...please tell me Timothee's getting love. That's the only thing I care about. Please!

ayyyyyyy

This and Raya makes me sooooooo glad she's dropping that whole blaccent schtick these days. I absolutely adored her in both. Turns out she can actually be funny and deliver a strong emotional heart to a movie without that lame, gross gimmick. Before folks here ask, yes I know she doesn't do the blaccent stuff in The Farewell, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Don't breathe down my neck