SLAM!

Same!

I won't be predicting him until he gains legitimate traction in the race, but I think Michael B. Jordan really did do something special in Black Panther. His performance was very thoughtful, very deep, very adept, very powerful. I'm rooting for him to go as far as he can.

Of the new shows of the season, you should consider trying these unique selections: Golden Kamuy Hinamatsuri Megalo Box Ans if you've never seen Mob Psycho 100, that's essential viewing in my opinion and it's already been confirmed to have a second season in the works.

I think there is a proven market of hardcore fans of these superhero films that will go to anything remotely related to Marvel and DC at this point thanks to a boom in nerd culture. So I don't think we need to worry about any Marvel or DC films bombing in an egregious way at the current moment. But I think Sony is certainly still on the bubble. They need this ti succeed, and thankfully, due to the booming nerd culture, it kind of already is.

I'm not surprised.

(That's one of the best typos I've ever seen! XD)

1. Tully 2. Breaking In 3. Solo: A Star Wars Story 4. The Incredibles 2 5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 6. Won't You Be My Neighbor? 7. Hereditary 8. Ocean's Eight 9. Upgrade 10. Sanju

Things just got much easier for A Simple Favor.

My predictions: Amy Adams, Cheney Cynthia Erivo, Widows Nicole Kidman, Boy Erased Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk Margot Robbie, Mary, Queen of Scots

My predictions: Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy Adam Driver, BlacKKKlansmen Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me? Oscar Isaac, At Eternity's Gate Jonathan Pryce, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

My predictions: Toni Collette, Hereditary Viola Davis, Widows Stefani Germanotta, A Star is Born Felicity Jones, On the Basis of Sex Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

My predictions: Christian Bale, Cheney Willem Dafoe, At Eternity's Gate Lucas Hedges, Boy Erased Rami Malek, Bohemian Rapsody Brad Pitt, AD Astra

Huh.

This seems like a truly eclectic year for film, one with a lot of potential for great films and a lot of potential for the award shows. I'm not sure if I've done predictions yet so I'll go ahead and post a Best Picture prediction now. 1. First Man 2. Widows 3. Mary, Queen of Scots 4. Can You Ever Forgive Me? 5. If Beale Street Could Talk 6. The Favourite 7. The Front Runner 8. Bad Times at the El Royale 9. Black Panther 10. Cheney Annapurna films are sort of low on my list because, while they certainly have a knack for choosing good projects to distribute, they really haven't proved that they can launch their films in a way that can garner Academy attention. They certainly picked some of the hottest commodities of this year's race, but it's up to them to leaen from their mistakes. Also, Cheney is one of those that sounds great on paper but might be less enthralling on celluloid. I think that film might go the way of All The Money in the World -- chances for acting categories, with that being it.

Part A: 1. Will Avengers Open to more than $210M? 1000 YES 2. Will Avengers Open to more than $250M? 2000 YES 3. Will Avengers Open to more than $230M? 3000 YES 4. Will Avengers Saturday increase from its true Friday (excluding Thursday previews)? 4000 YES 5. Will Will Avengers' Sunday be more than 5 times higher than second place's weekend gross? 5000 YES 6. Will Black Panther finish in a higher position this weekend than last weekend? 1000 NO 7. Will Rampage drop less than 50%? 2000 NO 8. Will truth or dare stay above blockers? 3000 NO 9. Will any film in the top 10 drop more than 70%? 4000 NO 10. Will Ready player One's PTA stay above $2000? 5000 YES 11. Will Super Troopers increase more than 40% on Saturday? 1000 NO 12. Will Quiet Place drop more than 33% on Sunday? 2000 YES 13. Will I Feel pretty make more than $9M? 3000 YES 14. Will Isle of Dogs increase more than 175% on Friday? 4000 YES 15. Will the top 12 make more than $300M? 5000 YES 16. Will Traffic stay above Isle of Dogs? 1000 YES 17. Will I feel Pretty have the worst PTA in the top 5? 2000 NO 18. Will Bharat Ane Nenu drop less than 60%? 3000 YES 19. Will Blockers make more than $1.25M on Saturday? 4000 YES 20. Will there be rioting in the streets when IW 'only' makes $185M? 5000 NO Bonus: 12/20 3000 13/20 5000 14/20 8000 15/20 12000 16/20 16,000 17/20 20,000 18/20 26,000 19/20 32,000 20/20 40,000 Part B: The top 3 predictions will score points as follows: Closest: Within 1% - 15,000, Within 2,5% - 12000, Within 5% 9,000, Within 10% - 6000 Outside 10% - 3000 points 2nd Closest: Within 1% - 12,000, Within 2,5% - 10000, Within 5% 7,000, Within 10% - 4000 Outside 10% - 2000 points 3rd Closest: Within 1% - 10,000, Within 2,5% - 8000, Within 5% 5,000, Within 10% - 2000 Outside 10% - 1000 points 1. What will Avengers make for its 3 day OW? $271M 2. What will Ready Player One's Sunday gross be? $1.4M 3. What will Black Panther's PTA be for the 3 day weekend? $1,894 Part C: There will be 6 films to place and points are expanded because traditionally people haven't scored well here: 1. Avengers 3. Rampage 6. Super Troopers 2 8. Truth or Dare 9. Bharat Ane Nenu 11. Isle of Dogs Because I realised bonuses are stupid... 1/6 4,000 2/6 10,000 3/6 18,000 4/6 25,000 5/6 36,000 6/6 - 50,000

I agree. This seems like it could be good and A24 tends to distribute eclectic films. Ethan Hawke has a good eye for niche films. I wonder if this is gonna be on the higher end or lower end of the smaller A24 releases. It's not getting much buzz but I still think this could easily gross over $100,000. Not every small A24 film is able to do that.

This comment spurred me to research films that were released on labor day weekend in the past, and here's what I found. (*All grosses are three-day grosses.*) In 2010, the George Clooney actioner The American debuted in first with $16M, while the hardcore Robert Rodriguez action film Machete debuted in second with $14M. Both films doubled their budgets, the former worldwide, and the latter domestically. In 2011, Focus Features' drama The Debt and Weinstein's found footage film Apollo 18 both managed to have healthy debuts that were above $10M, though it was understandably beaten by The Help, which was in its fourth weekend. In 2012, Lionsgate's horror film The Possession debuted in first with $21M, while the Weinstein western Lawless debuted in second with $12M. Both films eventually doubled their budgets, though Lawless doubled its budget with its worldwide gross. In 2013, Lee Daniel's The Butler was in its third weekend, where it got $20M and first place. But the concert documentary One Direction: This is Us debuted in second place with $18M. The comedy film Instructions Not Included debuted in fifth with $10M, before impressively legging its way above $40M in the domestic market alone. In 2014, while four holdovers (Guardians of the Galaxy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, If I Stay, and Let's Be Cops) were above them, the found footage horror film As Above / So Below and the Pierce Brosnan action film The November Man both scored $10M debuts. Both films went on to double their budgets, though November Man did in the worldwide context. In 2015, the faith-based holdover War Room lept above its first weekend total for an astounding hold, and took the number one spot with $13M when, just in the last weekend, it had debuted in second with $11M. Broad Green Pictures' dramedy A Walk in the Woods had a $10M debut, and the film went on to have the best gross in the distributor's history before they went bankrupt last year. So there's been plenty of films releasing on labor day weekend that have been relative successes in their own right, grossing above the $10M milestone for mid-budget films. Upon closer examination, it's only been the past two years where labor day has *truly, unequivocally* been an off period. In 2016, The Light Between Oceans wasn't a success, and Morgan outright bombed. And in 2017, Tulip Fever bombed, while the Close Encounters of the Third Kind remake was not what people were interested in at the time. We can simply chalk those weekend's failures down to not having the films that people would actually see on that weekend, not being the kind of films that people actually have seen on that weekend. But looking at Kin, then looking back at other mid-budget films that have done fairly well on this weekend, then looking at Kin's 'competition' from the weekend before (Replicas and Slender Man) that will surely leave audiences searching for a better film, then looking back at Kin, we see that Kin is a film that is certainly capable of having a healthy gross on its weekend. Lionsgate has successful experience with late August releases and Labor Day releases, and they likely know exactly what they are doing with this film where it is. So to suggest that all Labor Day releases are hereby condemned to performing Tulip Fever numbers is to forgo historical evidences.

[nvm]

Deniz Gamze Egruven's newest film, Kings, is 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and is largely considered to be a tonal disaster, but I think it at least suggests that she is interested in doing a Hollywood-type project. I heard that Chloe Zhao's film, The Rider, is very good. And A United Kingdom seemed pretty good in its own right, so Amma Asante wouldn't be a half-bad choice, either. Maggie Betts seems like a great director, and the trailer for Novitiate really enticed me, though I never did get to see it. Angela Robinson has improved a lot since directing Herbie: Fully Loaded, most recently making Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. They have a great pool of talented directors here. I could see a good film coming from any of these directors. Personally, I'd go for Maggie Betts.

I'm not going to see this film, but I'm rooting for her to get that nomination. The images of her facial expressions alone convince me that she a: deserves it, and b: worked extremely hard on this role.

This looks extremely impressive for a directorial debut. This is the kind of film where people who shout for original content need to put their money where their mouth is. This looks very well executed. I'm also fairly happy that the film is no longer releasing a week before The Darkest Minds, which would have been direct competition. This kind of film is the reason why I still have hope for the industry as a whole.

Great conference! This was my first time keeping a close eye on what was announced so it's interesting to put the releases in perspective. Every conference had at least a few outstanding films to show. I am really confident that 2018 is going to be a very special year for the industry.

It was announced before but it may not have had a distributor. It probably did to be honest; but this announcement is a good thing for the project.

Suspiria is actually a remake of a horror film from 1977. But at the very least, the film seems to be a great one.

Amazon is just... awesome.