Eric Quinn

Um…sure?

Also very true. I'm a big animation fan and try to catch most of them in theaters, and I always feel kind of awkward being the loner adult in an auditorium full of kids. But at least with most Pixar or Illumination movies, they are designed to be all ages things. I can't imagine all the stares I'd get being in my 20s and seeing a movie aimed only at 3 year olds. Nobody would want to do this social suicide for an Internet meme

Yeah, what went wrong for one of the highest-grossing movies of all time?

They tried to make Saw Patrol happen. I think Lionsgate and Paramount even posted their own memes, which basically killed it right there. When corporations begin a meme or try to make a trend happen, it reeks of desperation and nobody participates anymore.

From Deadline:

D'awwww. What's been some of her favorites since then?

At this rate, studios should just make more YT/Twitter-friendly trailers that allow for better compression. Don't know how, but this is just unfair for the animators and filmmakers who put all this effort into these movies.

Take your kid to Saw. Make him the coolest kid on the playground.

They're still doing the Smurfette thing in cartoons?

I'm terrified of this seeping into BOT. Like Marvel vs. DC vs. Star Wars fights are already bad. The Swifties and Beyhive going after each other? I think we'd have to shut down the forum.

Adam Aron recently followed Beyonce on Twitter. Just leaving that here 🌚

Can’t believe America is still wowed by such copaganda smh

This is the most popular kids show in the world right now

Since I know I'm being talked about here as one of the doom and gloomers--yes, it's perhaps overzealous to say that Saw/Creator opening below expectations isn't worth being overly negative. Especially when, frankly, things weren't even looking that great until a week prior. And yeah, Clay is being very hyperbolic with the whole "the end of movie theaters and society as we know it". Like that's not happening. But also there's just not much else to get excited about since theaters have reopened that doesn't make me very happy for the future of box office. And this weekend, despite likely always setting up for failure, doesn't help my emotions and feelings at all. We only get 2-3 huge breakouts each year, every other movie that comes out feels like they are bombing left and right, even if it's more inflated budgets, huge audience demographics have basically abandoned theatrical, and whole entire genres are on the verge of being extinct. It's been about two years since theaters have reopened, and we are still dealing with 65% of movies failing to break even. We still have comedy as a dead art form. We still have specialties and indies failing to leave any impression minus an EEAAO here or there. We still have the issue where the only major breakouts for movies aimed at older audiences consist of like...3 of them. Oppenheimer doesn't even count since it was mainly young people like me going to it. If things haven't changed much since 2021, I don't think it's going to change now. Even if you don't like the constant pessimism from me or Clay or CJohn, I think it's still a stretch to say everything is just fine and dandy or that things will get better. Plus for somebody like me, specialty releases and counterprogramming, the little guys, are my favorite things to look at box office wise. Blockbusters can have fun runs and I'm a big animation nerd, so I like seeing those leggy runs too. But those weird breakouts you didn't see coming or awards hopefuls legging out to 70M+ are the nice cherry on top and typically are the movies I gravitate towards the most. But at this rate, they're destined to be nothing more than Netflix/Amazon fodder that gets buried in the algorithm. And that leads to awful repercussions for the art form in general that we are already seeing. Even if it turns out to be a good movie, did you really want Barry Jenkins, the guy who worked on Moonlight, wasting his time on a prequel to the Lion King reboot nobody liked? Is this really something worth his time? Was this really a project you want him to focus years of his life on? Well it's a shame all these great directors and indie hopefuls are stuck or will soon be stuck as faceless cogs in the nostalgic toy commercial industrial complex. So having yet another bad weekend on another line of bad weekends doesn't make me feel better, nor do I feel satisfied. And hey! Things could be rosier down the line. Maybe Flower Moon really does break out and become a Departed-level hit. Maybe Wish makes Zootopia numbers. Maybe the new Hunger Games revives the series. I'm definitely bullish on Wonka being a huge breakout success. That's a nostalgic toy commercial, yeah, but it's also great for musicals, which was on a comeback before COVID killed off interest for In the Heights and West Side Story. Would have loved to have seen them come out in a non-COVID timeline and be breakout hits like they deserve. And for all I know, 2024 could be an amazing year, especially with the strikes likely making things way better for the people who make the stuff we like. But I'm sorry to say, as of now, I just can't find a good reason to be cheery or happy. And this kind of venting makes me way happier than trying to find a bright side that doesn't seem to be there. So frankly, if you guys don't like me or Clay or CJohn doing this, maybe it's best to just ignore our little pity parties. Just a thought. I dunno.

Quorum Updates Dumb Money T-1: 29.97% Awareness Killers of the Flower Moon T-22: 31.86% The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes T-50: 34.32% Napoleon T-55: 22.42% Wish T-55: 29.14% Wonka T-78: 52.56% The Creator T-1: 33.51% Awareness Final Awareness: 35% chance of 10M, 2% chance of 20M Medium Awareness: 43% chance of 10M Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie T-1: 37.88% Awareness Final Awareness: 35% chance of 10M Animation/Family Awareness: 0% chance of 10M Saw X T-1: 47.26% Awareness Final Awareness: 84% chance of 10M, 55% chance of 20M, 32% chance of 30M, 19% chance of 40M Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 10M, 83% chance of 20M, 33% chance of 40M The Exorcist: Believer T-8: 46.92% Awareness Final Awareness: 84% chance of 10M, 55% chance of 20M, 32% chance of 30M, 19% chance of 40M Horror Awareness: 100% chance of 10M, 83% chance of 20M, 33% chance of 40M

WHAT

The Mario movie made 1.3 billion dollars.

Okay let’s not go that far. There have been a few theater closures here and there, but the big chains are still doing fine enough with the big events. And even bombs like Indy or M:I or Transformers still made 170M, which is still a good amount of revenue for theaters that don’t get impacted by these overinflated studio budgets. Theatrical might not be as big as it was before, but there’s not gonna be any epic collapse. And coming from a fellow doomer and gloomer, that says a lot right there.

Cap brought up a good point earlier this week where having the movie being about protecting and saving an AI robot feels a little out of touch when so many of us are worried about AI replacing writers and actors and other sectors and industries. Which like…I don’t think that’s the main culprit, but it does kind of feel a tad awkward in hindsight, especially when the best, most successful sci-fi is designed to either be escapist or politically progressive. Or in some cases both.