Eric Quinn

ALL HAIL ASGARD The Marvel Cinematic Universe has gone through a lot these past few years. In this post-Endgame timeline, we’re now bombarded with TV shows that will totes for sure not oversaturate and dilute the franchise, a slew of divisive features folks are split on, and no real understanding yet on what this Multiverse Saga is building up to. And this confusion and uncertainty is made worse by the fact that the two pillars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, are now gone. The two major leads that made audiences fall in love with this universe and feel certain they would have a good time have now moved on to brighter pastures, with iconic blockbuster epics like Dolittle and Lightyear now under their belt rather than the domain they were safe and comfortable in. But luckily, there’s still one more old guard hero around with another adventure coming this weekend. Thor is a huge fan-favorite, thanks to his numerous appearances throughout the MCU, and Chris Hemsworth’s charming performance and absurdly beautiful looks. Yet for a while, at least amongst the main trio, his films were the ones audiences cared the least about. Branagh’s Thor and Taylor’s The Dark World were both hits, but were left with a meh-tastic reception from critics and audiences alike, a far cry from Downey’s immediate Iron Man smash and Evans’ iconic sequels The Winter Soldier and Civil War. But in 2017, Thor: Ragnarok changed everything. Serving as a goofy, pulpy, 80s cheese-filled fantasy action road movie, Ragnarok was the Thor movie that fans really wanted all along. It served as a fun, creative look around Asgard, featured a lot of new, exciting, and fun characters that audiences immediately loved, and boasted a lot of goofy, sly humor from a rising star in the funky world of New Zealand named Taika Waititi. Becoming far and away the biggest Thor movie ever, it reinvented the character into somebody audiences could get behind, and Taika Waititi becoming one of the busiest filmmakers working today, with his fingerprints appearing on tons of Disney projects both on the big and small screen. And with Ragnarok being such a massive hit, Hemsworth and Taika are back together once again with Love and Thunder. This not only has a lot of the good stuff people loved from Ragnarok, but also has the Guardians of the Galaxy involved, Jane Foster returning, Russell Crowe portraying the almighty Zeus, and Christian Bale himself as a nefarious baddie. Marvel fans are excited, but there’s a lot of uncertainty, both from my fellow trackers, and from the box office community at large. Are reviews for this movie good enough to persuade audience members on the fence? Are they too mixed enough to get people uninterested in checking the film out? Have the more mixed Marvel titles over the past few months made people more weary of the universe? Will these constant Disney+ shows make Thor: Love and Thunder less special? Are people just going to wait until it’s on Disney+ in a couple months? Nobody knows, and frankly, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just all try to enjoy the weekend to the best we can. So of course, a couple rules to follow: 1. ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS. NOT EVEN SPOILERS POSTED UNDER SPOILER TAGS. This rule also applies to other movies in theaters and films/shows recently released on streaming. So no Minions 2 spoilers, no Elvis spoilers, no Sea Beast spoilers, no Stranger Things spoilers, no Ms. Marvel spoilers, etc. If you do spoil something here, you will be banned. No exceptions. However, we do have a spoiler thread for Love and Thunder right here for you to go nuts in. 2. GOOD VIBES! No matter what happens, we don’t need any major meltdowns over this. Marvel movies make more money than any of us will ever make and these movies will be made until long after we are all dead. So no matter what the opening is, just relax and have perspective. If it only opens to 150M, that’s awesome and another increase for the MCU. If it makes around Ragnarok, that’s cool and shows there's still a steady audience. If it opens to less than Ragnarok, we're still getting cool Marvel movies. Just try to be respectful with your posts, and we'll be good. 3. THE REPORT AND IGNORE BUTTONS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. 4. IS OFF-TOPIC DISCUSSION OKAY? Off-topic discussions are okay in situations where there's downtime and there aren't any numbers, so long as they don’t get heated. But when numbers are coming up and things are getting busy, then keep off-topic things down to the minimum. And lastly... 5. DON'T BE A DICK. And now... WITHOUT FURTHER ADO LET'S DO THIS SHIT

Nope Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-15 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 65 286 13040 2.19% Total Seats Sold Today: 13 Comp 0.407x of F9 T-15 (2.89M) 3.446x of Space Jam 2 T-15 (45.14M)

Thor: Love and Thunder Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-1 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 1 223 10650 39959 26.65% Total Sellouts Added Today: 1 Total Seats Sold Today: 1,421 Comp 0.406x of Spider-Man: No Way Home T-1 (20.32M) 1.080x of The Batman T-1 (23.33M) 0.615x of Doctor Strange 2 T-1 (22.13M)

Just get rid of it. We all know we're never getting a Star Wars movie again my dudes lmao

I remember being 13 years old watching this Avatar 2 trailer parody, thinking it was the funniest thing of all time. I was not very bright at 13.

I know Marvel's done this before, but I feel like a recast for a major character like this would always lead to failure. You would have people who are like "Chadwick IS T'Challa" and everybody scrutinizing the new actor's performance and how he stacks up to Chadwick, as well as people arguing casting a new actor is insensitive after he just passed away. Just feels like it would be such a headache and really unfair to whoever they cast that it just wouldn't work. Besides, Feige's already on the record saying T'Challa would never be recast anyways, so this would make things even more controversial.

I'm still confused why this movie called Easter Sunday is coming out in early August? What weirdo Universal exec refused to just sit on this movie and let it come out in March or April?

Nope Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-16 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 65 273 13040 2.09% Total Seats Sold Today: 10 Comp 0.411x of F9 T-16 (2.92M) 4.707x of Space Jam 2 T-16 (61.66M)

Thor: Love and Thunder Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-2 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 217 9229 39390 23.43% Total Seats Sold Today: 958 Comp 0.392x of Spider-Man: No Way Home T-2 (19.58M) 1.057x of The Batman T-2 (22.83M) 0.594x of Doctor Strange 2 T-2 (21.38M)

Yeah I never got why people dogged on Shang-Chi's third act all the time. It's not any major departure from what came before, it has some fun dragons and battles. It's got dodgy CGI yeah, but the whole movie's got dodgy CGI, and I didn't think it was any worse than what came before (not an excuse of course, though I'm admittedly used to movies these days having terrible CGI and I know the people who work in those departments are being treated like slaves). Just feels like people wanted to find something to complain about.

Aw geez.

I'm the only person who cares, but Super Pets has showtimes popped up at Cinemarks, with yet another 2 PM preview start time. @EmpireCity have any word on when tickets for that will drop?

I mean...don't think it will be that hard. We probably only have to wait a few months in fact.

Well in general the post-Endgame track record has been super spotty. Papa Feige now has to oversee 4-5 shows and 3-4 movies a year, which makes quality control a lot harder, which makes everything suffer. We are already seeing this with a good majority of their movies and shows over the past couple years, and I see very little reason to believe otherwise. Even major directors that people love like Raimi and Waititi are now pumping out meh-tastic pictures that frankly probably would have been way better if they cut back on all these shows. Ryan Coogler is not safe here. Plus, while I'm never a "bad production means bad movie" kind of guy, the loss of Chadwick and the Letitia drama, both of which probably meant a ton of last-minute rewrites, just seems like something that is impossible to fix, and will damage the movie in some way. Would love to be proven wrong of course, especially because Black Panther is one of my favorite movies of all time, but there is very little reason to be optimistic or hopeful about...anything these days.

Just because directors have more "freedom" does not automatically mean the movie is inherently good or better. And frankly, while I liked Strange 2, the big issue with that movie, is that I wish Raimi had more freedom and a chance to have more of an auteur vision with the title.

Yeah this is totally gonna be like Strange 2 and Thor 4 and be a 6/10 romp. Good to know that all the movies with the characters I love the most, all in just this year alone, will have such mediocre follow-ups. Oh well. This year's already a trainwreck, might as well make it sting a little bit more for me.

Wait...they were paying full price on Tuesdays still? Why?