Eric Quinn

March 29 Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: Afterlife was well-liked, but I feel like it was more in the Shazam/Captain Marvel camp where people thought it was fine, but it didn’t really get anybody all that excited or hyped for another one. And the new trailer hasn’t really moved the needle when it comes to The Quorum. If anything, having a winter-themed movie play in the Spring like this might actually kind of ding it a bit. It's like if Frozen came out on Arbor Day. This will only appeal to the diehard fans and Sony has another dead franchise once again. Oh well. 35/88 (2.51x) Mickey 17: The lack of promo on this compared to all the other WB spring movies means this is getting a delay, or this is Bong's first dud and WB's trying to bury it. Either way...well, it’s not a nostalgic toy commercial. 13/35 (2.69x)

March 22 Arthur the King: Mark Wahlberg's starpower will help it a bit, and there's always a market for these cheesy dog movies, but with Lionsgate delivering more misses than hits and non-NTCs still struggling to find success, I don't expect much out of this. Definitely not as much as Channing Tatum's Dog. 8/33 (4.12x)

March 8 Cabrini: Angel Studios movies do about 10M apiece, so I guess that sounds about right for this one. 4/13 (3.25x) Imaginary: Saw the trailer for this and it looked pretty dumb and cliched. Even with Blumhouse connections, this just seems like a movie that will get lost in the shuffle, and the director does not inspire confidence. Add on poor Quorum metrics, and we'll all forget this even existed after a couple months. 8/18 (2.25x) Kung Fu Panda 4: The franchise never became that huge since the first movie, but the movies have been on every streaming service under the sun for years and is still a fairly recognizable name amongst nostalgic Gen Zers and kids today. The Universal marketing machine is also a strong one, especially for animated movies. It’s not going that huge, since kids don’t care about movie theaters anymore, but this should get close to stuff like Puss in Boots 2 or Sing 2 off of being a nostalgic toy commercial. Kung Fu Panda 3 adjusts to 175M, so let’s go slightly below that. 50/165 (3.3x)

March 1 Dune Part Two: Finally, some good fucking food. While not necessarily universally beloved, Denis’ first film is still well-regarded and brought in tons of new fans to the property who have likely gone on to read the books in anticipation for its follow-up. I know I have. Plus, it basically has all of March to itself, Timothee is fresh off the Wonka buzz, there's nothing else out to watch. It’s still too insular and cerebeal to really break out and do bonkers blockbuster numbers, and Quorum numbers are a bit shaky, but it should still be comfortably above the last movie. Songbirds and Snakes numbers feel about right all things considered. 55/170 (3.09x)

I mean it's not just Frozen. She wrote the screenplay for Wreck-It Ralph, developed the story for Zootopia, and was on the creative teams for Big Hero 6 and Moana, all of which became Disney's hits. When you have insights and creative inputs on all those movies and clearly have a passion for where you work...yeah, I don't blame Iger appointing her the job back in 2018. It's not like he has a crystal ball where he can see the future. And even after that, regardless on how you feel on these movies, and I know people have their weird hot takes, Ralph 2 and Frozen 2 earned solid reviews and more than solid box office, Raya was a critical success that will forever be a part of the Disney Princess machine, and Encanto has almost immediately become one of Disney's S-tier properties. So really, she's had more hits than misses.

Cancel culture isn't real. It's a term that was made up by conservatives and rich folk so they don't have to worry about being held accountable for their actions. Just create some false boogeyman that makes it easier for them to not actually get in trouble. It's always funny to me how people decry cancel culture and how it ruins lives, yet every time it happens, either increased sales happen, or said figures, who 9 times out of 9 are richer than we will ever be, are given a new opportunity a few months later. Like it doesn't actually matter or something.

Discuss

Well I don’t watch wrestling and haven’t seen Mindhunter and I liked it too. But I may also be biased, because movies with hot people are my kryptonite. And Zac and Lily and Jeremy are all cuties.

Can’t wait for people to pretend that this number is bad actually. Totally not gonna be obnoxious and irritating no siree

Believe me. I know. You're gonna see 10 more of these kinds of posts lmao

Who would win in a fight with nothing but their bare fists? Those boys in the boat, or the boy and his heron?

Wow. What a lineup. And people wonder why I’m all Eeyore and doom and gloom these days.

February 23 Drive Away Dolls: Not a nostalgic toy commercial. 5/20 (4x) Ordinary Angels: Not a nostalgic toy commercial, and it’s not Angel Studios. 3/8 (2.67x)

February 16 Bob Marley: One Love: The minimal advertising and the lack of a platform release in 2022 to get Oscar noms tells you everything you need to know about this film’s quality. And I don’t think Bob Marley is all that popular these days to help bring in a lot of people just on brand value. This is going low, even for music biopics. 10/14/30 Madame Web: Superhero movies are dead, so Sony superhero movies are like...dead dead. And like...y'all saw the trailer. The only question is how low this could go. Let’s say.....30M? Sure, slightly less than half of Morbius. 15/18/30

February 9 It Ends With Us: There's no trailer, so I'm assuming it's a delay. But it's not an NTC, so... Lisa Frankenstein: Wow, a new Diablo Cody screenplay! Too bad it's not an NTC, so nobody will watch this. Oh well. 4/12 (3x)

February 2 Argylle: Even with the trailer playing before every movie, Quorum awareness is still nonexistent. And frankly, these kinds of action comedy movies need a Ryan Reynolds or Sandra Bullock or Brad Pitt-style movie star to help sell it. I like Sam Rockwell, but he just ain’t it. People may predict this as a wild card, but I know this is yet another dud for the year. Maybe this does better on Apple TV+. 7/20 (2.86x)

Boy, this month sucks...now onto the next month that will also suck.

January 19 I.S.S.: No clue what this is, but it’s not a nostalgic toy commercial, so nobody will show up. 2/4 (2x)

January 12 The Beekeeper: Plane numbers I guess? Sure, why not? These cheesy action movies usually make these kinds of numbers. 10/30 (3x) The Book of Clarence: Quorum metrics are in the toilet, and this seems like a movie ripe for controversy. Controversy that’s against a lot of the major audience sectors that still go to the movies. Don’t expect much from this. 6/18 (3x) Mean Girls: I’m not sure why they are hiding the musical aspects of this. Because without that hook to bring people in, this just looks like a cheap direct-to-video remake of the original classic. However, I guess that doesn’t matter anymore. If anything, audiences would rather just have something that’s exactly the same as what they saw 20 years ago. With both Quorum and traditional tracking being strong, this has breakout potential, though maybe dinged a bit from false advertising. 35/115 (3.29x)

January 5 Night Swim: While Quorum awareness isn’t the greatest, only 36% chance of 10M when using horror comparables, I think it could comfortably reach double digits like most first weekend of January horror movies. Not much more than that however. It’s just not as fun a concept or as TikTok friendly as M3GAN, and the concept isn’t the greatest hook. But again, could be worse. And trust me, things will get worse. 13/35 (2.69x)

That GIF? Couldn't have said it better myself. 2022 was already pretty rough for the industry and signaled the death of the box office as we used to know it. But there was at least the caveat, the benefit of the doubt that things were at least good enough for the tentpoles. That Hollywood could build on top of that momentum, and that the big movies would still make the numbers they always made. And I mean...they kind of did, since 2023 is still ahead of 2022 at the box office. But that doesn’t really mean much of anything. Because once again, 2023 was a disaster for Hollywood and shows once again that the peaks we saw only a couple years ago? The $11B+ numbers we consistently saw? They are never coming back. Ever. Disney completely bellyflopped last year with one bomb after the other, audiences are still piss-scared to watch anything that isn’t a nostalgic toy commercial or a schlocky horror movie, and capitalist greed resulted in two of the biggest strikes in Hollywood history. And even then, people are sick of the current crop of nostalgic toy commercials, but can’t bring themselves to watch anything that isn’t in that group. So really, nothing appeals to anybody. Right-wing garbage like Sound of Freedom is potentially our future, as our world continues to fall into the evils of both nationalism and conservatism. Audiences who were always reliable have now deserted movie theaters forever. Kids only want to watch stuff on streaming now. Everything is priced to the max, so you’re paying an arm and a leg to see a movie that's probably going to suck. Movie theaters...are done. They’ll still exist, don't you worry, but their heyday? It's over. And things will only get worse as time goes on. 2024? It’s gonna be another rough one. The strikes delayed tons of potentially strong projects, audiences don't care for these modern prices, and, as I mentioned years ago, it turns out being reliant on the enduring success and popularity of one single genre/movie franchise wasn't a smart idea after all. Everything sucks, nothing will ever get better, it's all a mess. But I mean...Han and I do this every year, so I guess we’ll have to do this again. But, spoiler alert, this is going to be pretty doom and gloom. So if you don’t like BOT users for daring to say the truth, you may have to leave. Let's do this.

Anyways, I'm going to bed @WrathOfHan get ready to be #CONTROVERSIAL when I wake up. It's time for us to have our annual fun 😈

Honestly feel like most of the "Greatest Showman legs vibes" feel like they're coming from one person. Might be missing some other posts, but everybody else has been pushing for around the same numbers that every other non-Disney musical has gotten, if not slightly more than that (I think the biggest in that camp is still Grease at 180M?) and people seem happy and excited over that.

Thought it would have been fun, for old times sake, to look at how every movie is selling at my local 22-screen Regal on Christmas Day. I'm not looking to actually extrapolate anything or determine what the numbers will actually be, just a fun thing to chew on while we all wait around, twiddling our thumbs. The Color Purple - 535 tickets (10 shows) Aquaman 2 - 129 tickets (18 shows) Wonka - 125 tickets (7 shows) The Boys in the Boat - 117 tickets (4 shows) Migration - 62 tickets (10 shows) Ferrari - 50 tickets (4 shows) Hunger Games: BOSS - 30 tickets (4 shows) Anyone But You - 24 tickets (5 shows) Trolls 3 - 21 tickets (2 shows) Napoleon - 17 tickets (1 show) Wish - 14 tickets (3 shows) The Iron Claw - 13 tickets (4 shows) Dunki - 11 tickets (3 shows) Poor Things - 9 tickets (4 shows) The Boy and the Heron - 5 tickets (2 shows) Godzilla Minus One - 2 tickets (2 shows) Salaar: Part 1 - 3 tickets (1 show)