TServo2049

This genetically enhanced superman would have a word with you.

During that period when we were getting way-too-late sequels like Scre4m, American Reunion, Scary Movie 5, etc., I’m surprised we didn’t get 3 Fridays From Now.

A thought just crossed my mind. Obviously there was no way EG’s second weekend was going to beat IW’s opening, but did you know that there have been two times where a film not only broke the OW record, but then its 2nd weekend was also over the previous OW record? It happened with Return of the Jedi, then with Batman. Obviously not really relevant to anything with EG, but an interesting tidbit, and one of those BO occurrences that will never happen again.

Somewhere, a cult 80s R-rated horror movie is missing its monster.

This reminds me of the awful Wonder Woman TV pilot from, what was it, 2011? They revealed the costume, it looked like shit, people complained, and they changed it so it only looked marginally less shit after they had already filmed a good deal of the pilot. The leaked workprint even has that infamous note “VFX MISSING: PANTS TO BE DARKENED.” And it didn’t make the pilot any better. It was still crap. I think the damage is done. A redesign won’t save this movie because it seems to already be flawed in so many other ways. It’s just lipstick on the proverbial pig.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time... I still remember seeing that Superman parody teaser over and over throughout the 1999 holiday season. I saw Toy Story 2 and Galaxy Quest multiple times, and I think that damn teaser was always attached to one or both of them. Never saw the movie though. But from what I’ve heard, it’s...okay? Meanwhile, this feels more like Howard the Duck than Rocky and Bullwinkle.

At least his arms are the right color, so no security guards would be in danger of getting pepper sprayed. Seriously, I hope Chris-Chan doesn’t snap and hurt anybody over this movie.

-57% ... They know.

Haha, yes he is (by the traditional definition of the word). I can’t think of a single movie where Marsden “gets the girl.” Surely there must be one. (And no, Enchanted doesn’t count, because he ends up with Idina Menzel’s character, not Amy Adams.)

Yes, adjusting the 221.3m portion at 1977 prices and the 48.3m portion at 1978 prices gets SW/ANH to $1.06B adjusted, just below the original runs of Titanic and E.T., then TFA would probably be fourth. Re-releases had to have contributed to the rest in the top 10, but as established, the info of how much was made in the first-run and how much in re-release (or even when all the re-releases occurred) is not documented well. I just realized there’s a book out there called Coming Back to a Theater Near You detailing the history of Hollywood re-releases up to 2014. I may try to find that in case it has any interesting info (though again, I expect to find more rental numbers than gross numbers).

Ummm...probably Spider-Man: Far From Home. It may be MCU but it’s still a Sony release. If not that, my guess is wherever Jumanji 3 or Secret Life of Pets 2 ends up. Maaaaaybe Hobbs & Shaw. Or maybe BOT ends up right and Pika goes gangbusters. Disney is still most likely not going to be able to secure any more than the top 6, maximum. And Toy Story 4 could still be topped by something else.

When I went to go see Rifftrax Live, we were able to go in during the end of Hellboy. I only saw one couple leave. They may well have been the only people in the showing. Sitting in a completely empty theater, watching a post-credit scene no paying viewer actually cared to stay for, was fitting. I’m not mad, just a little disappointed, but I understand that either choice would have lost money. Maybe in a few years some other studio or producer or streaming service will be foolish enough to think vocal online nostalgia = wide interest, fund a Hellboy 3 with GDT and Perlman, and the fans will love it but nobody else will care. (Hey, with all the cancelled series and long-abandoned film franchises with vocal fanbases getting revived - even if they end up a whiff as far as attracting everyone else - it’s not a total stretch. Though I still wouldn’t bet on it.)

There were 3-4 new releases per week, though. The studios were cranking out movies, both the big ones and the cheap Poverty Row outfits like Republic and Monogram, and before 1948, MGM/WB/Paramount/Fox/RKO owned their own theaters so they had a steady outlet for their product. TV really eroded the market and essentially served as a replacement for a lot of the bread-and-butter theatrical output. A lot of films were essentially situation/procedural type stuff but without recurring characters (though the stuff focused on particular actors and actresses might as well have been - That’s Entertainment even made gentle fun of this with regards to the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals). It was kind of like what’s happening with streaming now, except on a bigger scale.

Is that on Lionsgate, or is it on Avi Lerner? Or both? I forget how the Lionsgate/Millennium relationship actually works.

See, that’s the problem. BOM mostly doesn’t document re-releases prior to 1982. They either adjust their lifetime gross total (which is sometimes just a round estimate for some older films) based on the ticket price of the year of release (Jaws, The Ten Commandments, The Exorcist, The Sting), or they have an estimated number of cumulative admissions which they directly multiply by the current ticket price (GWTW, Snow White, and I think The Sound of Music and/or Doctor Zhivago?) GWTW is estimated to have sold 200 million tickets over its lifetime - but we don’t know when. (And as I’ve said, we just don’t have much gross data prior to the late 70s; before then the industry only paid attention to rentals, the portion returned to the studio.)

A 35th anniversary retrospective article on Jaws at CinemaTreasures.com says it grossed $192 million in original release (but I don’t believe we have data as to which additional releases account for the remaining $68m). That figure would currently adjust to about $844 million, still less than TFA. This site attempts to adjust original runs for inflation, population growth and annual per-capita ticket sales (i.e., how often the average American/Canadian went to the movies that year). It hasn’t been updated since TFA, but it is very interesting. It actually ranks GWTW as 23rd. (And it credits Betty Logan as a data source, she manages a lot of the box office/movie financial history stuff on Wikipedia and from what I hear she’s a very good authority on things.)

I don’t know if anything does. The Sound of Music and Jaws are the most possible, but both of those had re-releases whose grosses are not documented (and at the time, industry news still reported only the rental money returned to the studios by the theaters, not the gross receipts). Also, most places I read consider The Sound of Music’s original run to have lasted four years. From what I understand, it was not fully withdrawn from general release by Fox until 1969 - even longer than GWTW which I believe was playing until 1941 or 1942.

Actually, SW’s original run was $221.3 million. BOM includes the 1978, 1979 and 1981 re-releases in their “first-run” total for reasons unknown. The 1978 re-release (which was technically an extension because it began the day after the film was “withdrawn” from release) brought the total up to $265.1 million. Then 1979 was $22.5 million and 1981 was $17.2 million. I am not sure what makes up the rest of the $307 million but that is apparently the official number pre-1982. (Though even an article on the films’ release history in StarWars.com has misstated it as its total from “ its original 18-month run”.)

Becoming the third biggest Tuesday/second biggest non-OD Tuesday by $3.4 million more than the the previous #3/#2 instead of $5 million more is a hell of a problem for a movie to have.

I caught that and fixed it already. But I should have looked at BOM before I first wrote the reply instead of after.

Actually, it’s the second. Batman Returns was the first.

Big G better be gearing up to jump over The Meg on those water skis.

Jim Henson’s Creature Shop did the godawful puppets for The Neverending Story III, the uncanny valley horrors of Jack Frost and The Country Bears, and that CGI...thing from Lost in Space 1998. Nobody’s perfect.

I read someone somewhere say he said he did intend to start shooting GOTG3 as soon as he finished shooting SS2. That’s not necessarily “full blast,” though I’m sure it is tough. Spielberg was involved with the editing and VFX for Jurassic Park while he was filming Schindler’s List. But I do agree with you. He should make sure to pace himself, lest his work suffer.