DAJK

Out for dinner right now, can check later tonight but not great. About on par with the other Xmas day openers.

Yea... Migration was higher than Trolls 3 for true Thursday previews pretty much everywhere I tracked tonight. Wouldn't be surprised with 1.2-1.3 tomorrow morning.

Too early in the afternoon on the WC for me to say anything definitive but Aquaman’s walkups are pretty solid so far. Migration I’ll have a bit of an idea in a half hour or so.

Much love to you and your family. Take care!

Hidden Figures is probably the best this movie could hope for.

Reminiscing on the DCEU, it’s got a ton of misses but also some pretty solid entries. Man of Steel I will defend forever I think it’s great. Wonder Woman is awesome, as is Shazam 1. Birds of Prey is fun, as is TSS. I even argue that, VFX aside, The Flash is a great movie (mostly due to its script). Although Flash feels like it would have been a much better “end” to the DCEU since it sorta ended where it began. Batfleck was a good choice, Cavill was born to play Superman, Gadot is a great Wonder Woman and Momoa killed it as Aquaman. And Robbie as Harley obviously.

Glad to see TCP getting good reviews! Sky’s really the limit. I’m not able to see any numbers yet in Canada, but I’m not expecting it to be as strong as USA.

Fair. What I meant was that Revenant is able to play/market itself as an action or adventure movie, whereas Killers is more of a historical drama. Both are seeped in uniquely American history, but since Revenant is more of an “action” film, Killers would be perceived as less accessible to OS audiences.

I got a lot of pushback lol. But I was right

Colour Purple is a very American story. It was like a couple months back when I was saying that KOTFM won’t do more than 100-200M internationally because the story is steeped in American history as opposed to something like The Revenant which has more international appeal as an action blockbuster. Same way American audiences (by and large) wouldn’t give two shits about a story largely centred around the history of another country.

Not sure what’s been going on with universal’s marketing lately. Illumination buzz is literally EVERYWHERE for months before one of their films releases. To boot, with what I’m hearing about Migration being one of their better films, not to mention that this holiday is barren in terms of massive hits (Wonka TBA) I feel like there should have been a marketing blitz for this. Same with Trolls… they really dropped the ball. N’Sync reunion, plus the first movie was everywhere for months before it released. No catchy song tie-in, no big merchandising… wtf is going on? And now Kung Fu Panda? Sure the trailer got a lot of views, but that just shows that interest is there. Nothing about it screamed “epic” or “must see” and I have a hunch marketing is just going to Peter out until release. 140M grosser that could have done 250+. If Dreamworks does do a Shrek 5, I have my doubts it’ll do any more than 200 DOM at this point, if universal doesn’t get its act together in terms of marketing it’s animated product.

Finally watched Priscilla, good movie! And good companion piece to last year’s Elvis. Third act deflates a bit, feels a bit too rushed, but it comes together in a solid closing scene. All the tiktok chatter about Elordi being much better than Butler in the role is dead wrong though. He’s solid as Elvis, but he’s easily outshined by Spaeny in nearly every scene they’re in. Plus the role is a lot less demanding of Elordi than Butler. One of those “the internet has a crush on someone” things lol.

Migration gives me serious Ferdinand vibes, not sure if anyone else is expecting a similar run. Maybe quite a bit less OS but I'm pretty much expecting an identical domestic run.

Not sure I want to open this can of worms, but I really, really liked The Flash. Visual effects aside, I thought the screenplay was really solid.

I can attest to this.

Watched -1 yesterday, it is easily the best Godzilla movie I’ve ever seen!

Wonka insane walkups. Very busy all around BC tonight, wouldn’t be surprised with 11M true Friday. Also deadline is very wrong about either Godzilla or Heron (probably Godzilla). It’s 300 tix above Heron at a certain Canadian theater chain today, and considering Heron was far higher than it last weekend, that’s excellent.

Apes. Not sure why, but I have a feeling.

Pro predicting 20-40 opening for Mean Girls. I feel like the low end is much more likely, but damn wouldn’t it be great if it hit a 40M opening.

Won't have time to do a full track of Wonka tonight but looking right now, pre-sales for tonight are relatively strong. Would be surprised if it went under 3. Expecting 3.3-3.5. If walkups are really strong I might be willing to say close to 4 but I won't be able to check.

I could see this really being something special. The BTS featurette calling it a “live action pixar movie” feels pretty apt. I didn’t love the trailer, but I love the concept and the creative team behind it.

Really excited to watch The Iron Claw. Doubt it grosses more than 10M unfortunately but I think it looks great.

I remember marketing for it being everywhere when I was a kid.

I don’t like being the “negative one” in a thread but I wasn’t a fan of Heron. Looked and sounded beautiful, but the story and characters just didn’t work for me the way most Ghibli films do. Other than a few chuckles here and there, the audience I saw it with was also pretty subdued. I don’t think my experience is going to be indicative of WOM but I also don’t expect the same holds as -1

Hahahahahaha oops