SLAM!

I'm interested in seeing whether Hereditary can surpass Solo on the weekend chart, either this weekend or next weekend. It's holding better and there's a bevy of factors in its favor.

I hope STX can stay in the game... I enjoy having many different distributors in the fold...

Ooh... I like this poster...

1. Sicario: Day of the Soldado 2. Won't You Be My Neighbor? 3. Sorry to Bother You 4. Eighth Grade 5. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! 6. Blindspotting 7. Mission: Impossible - Fallout 8. Searching 9. Disney's Christopher Robin 10. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot

So it's a Christmas day wide release! That's decent! That at least removes it from the blockbuster onslaught eleven days prior. If it's anything special, it can have a Shape of Water style run throughout January.

The Incredibles 2 June 19th, 6:45 pm, 90% full Pointe Theater 14, Wilmington NC Trailers Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck it Ralph 2 (laughs) Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (laughs) How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (laughs) Dog Days (laughs) Bumblebee (laughs; "This better not be a new Herbie...") Bao received a lot of laughs. I'm sure there was some crying at a certain moment -- everyone who's seen the short knows the moment I'm talking about. The short film even got applause, though I had to help facilitate it. The film itself also had constant reception. This plays really well with audiences.

I'm sure this won't be eligible... the live action seems to be where the heart of the film is.

Well, when you put it that way, this new title isn't so bad after all.

It'll go wide alongside five other wide releases... They might be better off releasing wide on November 30th or December 7th -- historically bad release dates, yes, but at least then, they wouldn't have to worry about direct competition.

After watching the trailer, I think I'm rooting for this to be a hit. It doesn't look as bad as some of the Madea films I've seen.

Well, if Box Office Mojo's addressed the release date change, I guess that's when you know it's official.

I'm sure he'll be a villain in the story. There was a pretty prominent teaser with his character last time.

This is the first time I've seen that they've titled the sequel similarly to the way they titled the sequel to Blade Runner. Personally, I don't find the title all that interesting. The film will likely be fine, but I think they could've come up with a better title.

Well, that's great! I can't wait to see how this looks!

They might be going for something like this.

I would absolutely love to play again! Please count me in!

I'll go ahead and cap off the previous weekend here. Incedibles 2, Superfly, and Tag are all closed, and both the Men In Black sequel and the Shaft sequel should be open. I'll start the next week with my new list: 1. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2. Won't You Be My Neighbor? 3. Sicario: Day of the Soldado 4. Ant-Man and The Wasp 5. Sorry to Bother You 6. Eighth Grade 7. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! 8. Blindspotting 9. Mission: Impossible - Fallout 10. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot

I think this can still do decent business in a dry August timeframe. Sony won't just bury this. I'm sure families will see this during previews for The Incredibles 2 and be enticed to see it. Say what you will, but it's making a bolder statement marketing wise than the similarly-themed A.X.L., that much is for sure. If anyone is threatened, it's definitely that film.

Entertainment Studios has decided to release God Bless The Broken Road under the indie distributor they purchased in 2015, FreeStyle Releasing, which happens to be the same distributor that handled the first God's Not Dead. The film is currently scheduled to be released wide on September 21st against Universal's The House With A Clock In Its Walls and Amazon's Life Itself.

A new development: on Box Office Mojo, this film's distributor has been changed from Quality Flix to "Pinnacle Peak". I'm not sure what to make that. Could it be a name change?

According to Box Office Mojo, distribution duties have been handed to FreeStyle Releasing, an indie distributor that Entertainment Studios purchased in 2015.

I don't know whether to feel happy or scared as someone who stands for less franchising in the industry.

Well, it doesn't stop those film from being included as animated, because those films are entirley CGI animated, without any live action. But I would disagree that such a circumstance makes Avatar eligible as an animated film. Sure film has many motion capture CGI set-pieces. But that's not what the film starts with. Pretty much the film's first twenty minutes is pretty standard live-action. It is my personal belief that those introductory scenes, the ones with Jake Sully and Grace and other characters talking to each other as humans, are used as the introduction because James Cameron is wanting to stamp the film as live-action. Here's what I think. Anyone can make an entirely CGI animated film like Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within. That isn't hard. And it probably wouldn't have been hard to make Avatar in the same sort of way. With the animation moniker, sure, the visuals would have been groundbreaking. But with the live-action moniker, that's where the implications of the film's achievements reach new heights. By making sure the film is rooted in a live-action scenario, James Cameron truly pulls viewers into the world of Pandora with the CGI visuals. There is a reason why Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within and other strictly CGI animated films of such nature are largely unpopular, and that is because they rarely pull in the audience. But because of the choices that Cameron made, I feel like calling Avatar a strictly animated film would actually be an insult to Avatar. I believe that Avatar is meant to be viewed as live-action by the audience in order for the film's wow-factor to really seep through and to really present itself, and I believe that Avatar as a film is something that actually surpasses animation as a whole to be something that is more important to cinema than just being an animated film. To me, Toy Story is an animated film. To me, Avatar is something much more. I hope this makes any sense at all.

Meanwhile, the Annecy Film Festival is going on right now. A lot of notable animated films from around the world have screened at the festival before, and many go on to be in the Oscar conversation. Just last year, Lu Over The Wall won their main award, Loving Vincent won the audience award, and In This Corner of the World won the jury award. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a potential independent candidate emerge from the Annecy competition in either this year's race or next year's race. The titles of the films in competition that haven't been submitted for contention in the Oscar's animated category yet are as follows: Virus Tropical (Colombia - Santiago Caicedo) The Wolf House (Chile - Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina) Wall (Canada - Cam Christiansen) Seder-Masochism (USA - Nina Paley) Mirai (Japan - Mamoru Hosoda) **this is probably the biggest film here so far; this was also at Cannes earlier this year, and the director has a strong pedigree** Funan (Belgium, Cambodia, France, Luxembourg - Denis Do) Tito and the Birds (Brazil - Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, and Andre Catoto Dias) Okko's Inn (Japan - Kitaro Kosaka)