filmlover

lmao Matt Damon's PR nightmare this time around might be even worse than the tone deaf comments he made about #MeToo as it was happening during the Downsizing promo tour (which had many speculating was the reason the cameo he shot for Ocean's 8 ended up cut from the final movie when it came out several months later).

I don't think No Time to Die could survive another delay regardless. It's been a completed movie that was about to come out for almost a year-and-a-half already. At this point they'll just settle for a diminished total instead of raising the bill by keeping it on the shelf for a longer period of time.

I thought Candyman had potential when its trailer first landed pre-COVID but it's now coming at the end of a horror-filled summer and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest actually there as we get closer to release. I dunno, perhaps the movies that were touted to be the surprise hits of the summer 2020 movie season that would have been (Candyman, In the Heights, etc.) were destined to disappoint their studios, we'll never know.

Reminiscence feels like a dump tbh. I'm not expecting much.

Free Guy will be the biggest of the August 13 openers, even if it doesn't do great. Respect will face challenges in the current environment given it's aimed at an older audience (the one demographic that has yet to make much of a return to theaters), while Don't Breathe 2 will be lucky if it even comes close to making half of what the first did.

Stillwater actually did slightly better than I expected but that's because there was never much buzz or interest surrounding it in the first place. Even if it had made its original 2020 date, Matt Damon going full MAGA while trying to free his Amanda Knox stand-in daughter from prison for 2 hours was always going to have a tough time finding an audience.

I think there's enough interest in The Suicide Squad that it would have been a $70-80M opener in normal times with no pandemic and no simultaneous streaming release. But as it stands it'll just have to make do with whatever it ends up making.

I got the trailer for this before Jungle Cruise last night that said "only in theaters September 17" lol not so fast my friend.

Snake Eyes will barely hit $30M at this rate. An official addition to the list of franchise revivals that absolutely no one was asking for.

A- In the Heights Judas and the Black Messiah B+ Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar Luca The Mitchells vs. the Machines No Sudden Move A Quiet Place Part II Raya and the Last Dragon B Black Widow Cruella Godzilla vs. Kong Jungle Cruise Nobody B- Those Who Wish Me Dead Zack Snyder's Justice League C+ F9: The Fast Saga The Tomorrow War C Malcolm & Marie C- The Little Things The Woman in the Window

Fun, if at least 20 minutes too long. What elevates the movie above its cliché-filled script is the combo of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt: they are clearly having a blast playing off of each other, and I'd gladly welcome seeing them team up again in another project in the event this doesn't get a sequel. Jack Whitehall is also surprisingly entertaining (a stark contrast to the usual annoying sidekicks that exist only to provide comic relief in movies like this), while Jesse Plemons and Edgar Ramirez make the most of the generic bad guy roles they get saddled with. It's not an instant classic

Given all the baggage it already has, The Suicide Squad would have to reach truly cataclysmic levels (like worse than Wonder Woman 1984's heavily diminished performance during the worst of the pandemic) to become an actual embarrassment (FWIW I think the only true all-around loser during this summer of recovery and diminished expectations has been, unfortunately, In the Heights, which really went all out touting itself as a must-see event both before and during the pandemic only to end up discovering the interest was never there).

I mean, there's not a whole lot they (or any studio, really) can do now short of delaying everything until the pandemic is officially gone and no more (which won't happen for these finished movies that have already been sitting on the shelf awaiting release for over a year). Especially with fears of the delta variant on the rise, to the point where one movie set to come out over the next two months (Clifford the Big Red Dog) has already blinked away again because of it. At some point you gotta just rip off the band-aid, take the L and move on.

If it manages to hit $100M with everything else has to compete with (a resurgence in pandemic concerns, being available to watch at home even if it's being hidden behind a relatively expensive paywall), they'll be fine with it.

Good for Jungle Cruise, all things considered. With a $200M budget it has a long way to go until it reaches profitability, so good chance Disney won't pursue a franchise here, but the numbers are good enough that their plans to turn their theme park attractions into movies won't be derailed (one has to assume the Tiffany Haddish/LaKeith Stanfield Haunted Mansion movie won't cost anywhere nearly as much). Stillwater will be used as the latest evidence of adult crowds continuing to avoid multiplexes during an ongoing pandemic but it would've been a tough sell in any situation. At lea