Old Spice

Mr Chris is bad? he's one of the most reliable actors out there. Glad you enjoyed it, I'm seeing it tomorrow and now I'm strangely anticipating the experience of hearing Harry Styles scream, which is not something I ever thought I'd say.

Pretty good final day for DWD in the Salt Lake Valley. Here are the numbers: Total Tix Sold Cinemark Sugarhouse (SLC) 110 Cinemark Draper XD 54 Cinemark Farmington XD 98 Combined Total 262 (up 27% from Wednesday) Sugarhouse Comps 124% of Crawdads (2.84M) 116% of Elvis (4.05) 167% of Lost City (5.42) 126% of Ghostbusters (5.69) Combined Comp 87% of NOPE (5.57M) Friday looks decent as well, with the prime evening shows running 50-70% at this point. Not super bullish on how the weekend is going to play out given those reviews, but tonight and tomorrow should give it a healthy start so I'll say 3.3/24.

A BUNCH of new showtimes added in Salt Lake today as well. And the surge continued in the suburbs, even as SLC had it best day since day 1. LOL at WB predicting $17M in that Deadline article. They know exactly what's happening on the ground.

Yeah, I was pretty sure after I saw it that it would leg out (and even that took a while to get going), but that soft start was a lot to overcome. Still, I think this could be a very successful franchise for WB, and I also think it's important to provide opportunities for young people to fall in love with these characters- not everything has be be Black Adam. (Although I did love it in Pets when Krypto briefly fantasized about going to the dark side with Lois 😂.)

Each look has gotten better, and this one... oh, yeah. We got some good eatin' ahead, DC fans. 🔥 When he says that line at the end... 😃

Whatever the degree to which the EM saga has entered the public consciousness, and not just the twitter echo chamber, by the time June 23rd rolls around most just aren't going to care anymore. You can only get the same stimulus so many times before you habituate to it, and if he stays out of trouble these next 9 mos- probably a tall order- the "Ezra Miller is a freak," angle will be long played out by then.

There's nothing magical about a $100M finish. Its had a solid run after a quiet start; will finish with a 4 multi and WW total of twice its covid-inflated budget. With strong audience scores and a long life ahead on PVOD and streaming, a sequel would easily do better biz.

Those crazy Super Pets!

Salt Lake City suburbs are finally getting in on the act with DWD... strong sales past 18 hours, more than doubling the previous totals. Salt Lake City has actually slowed a bit, but it's already 230% of where Bullet Train ended and dead even with The Lost City final so it's in good shape. Not raising my prediction yet but the trend in the suburbs is making me more confident that 25+ is likely.

That DWD Awareness score still below 30 just a few days out is surprising. Even if it gets a last second bump, it still suggests that all the furor on Twitter over who did what hasn't bled into the GA much at all.

If the stars align, Black Adam. Would love to see Fablemans reach those levels, but I think it's going to be more niche.

Ya know, @Porthos, it's hard for me to think of any other film that has overcome - or even had to deal with- something as comically bad as the lead actor basically going berserk halfway through post, so right away that presents us with a real dilemma: there simply is no historical precedent. My own guess is that WB will come up with a series of interviews with influencers, etc. where Miller does his mea culpas, and the American public, being a forgiving- or at least, forgetful- sort, will accept them and move on. But who knows? It really is uncharted territory. The film clearly has headwinds against it, and as you pointed out, it would be foolish to ignore them when talking about B.O. predictions, but if it's as good as we've been led to believe, I think that will ultimately be its salvation. We'll see. 🤞 P.S. really curious if anybody can think of other films that had to deal with off screen drama as extensive as this before they came out. (DWD feels more like tabloid gossip than anything that would keep execs up at night.) The only situation I can think of where a finished film would have become instant Kryptonite was whatever Fatty Arbuckle had in the can before his career ended overnight in a drunken debauchery, and that was 100 years ago.

DWD is a strange beast. It got off to a torrid start in SLC, similar to a CBM, but since that first day it's only up 35%. Still, its double Bullet Train's final, and just shy of the final count for both Lost City and Morbius. It's about 60% of Elvis's final. I actually think Morbius may be a really good comp- fast start, rotten reviews- although I don't think it will match that film's OW because DWD is still lagging to a pretty significant degree in the suburbs. Going to stick with $25-28 for now, but with room to the upside if it proves to be entertaining-bad vs. just boring-bad.

I could see Super Pets potentially doing a little better than WB's projected 28% Sunday drop. At my theater yesterday, 2/3 of its matinees were lost to the Batman Day screenings. All it was left with was an 11:30 AM and a post-10:00 PM (!) screening. Don't know how common that was nationwide, but it could lead to a better Sunday hold.

With a budget of $16M that Black Phone total is really spectacular when you think about it. I still haven't seen it (not super into horror) but with a $90M finish and great critical/audience scores, is this one that's set up to spawn sequels?

I can't imagine that it would, because while ASIB was critically acclaimed and a great movie, DWD, is by most accounts, terrible. I mean, at some point quality matters, right? Plus, it would sully my user name.

Salt Lake Valley preview night report for Thurs, Sept 15th, 1:00 PM MST. Cinemark Sugarhouse (Salt Lake City), Cinemark Draper XD, and Cinemark Farmington XD. See How They Run over indexing, The Woman King under indexing, but pretty much crickets all around. Many of the holdovers haven't even sold a single ticket for tonight. (TGM, as usual, is the exception.) Total tix sold: (1) See How They Run 29 (7 showings) (2) The Woman King 25 (13 showings) (3) Clerks 19 (3 showings) (4) Pearl 11 (4 showings) (I have a limited data set from these three theaters, but for context, by early afternoon of their previews, Nope had sold 301, Super Pets 121, and Bullet Train 112.) 😴

I didn't even know what it was until this morning. Was surprised to see that it has a strong cast and decent reviews, with a sort of 'Knives Out Lite' vibe to it. Given the dearth of product right now, I find it strange that there's so little push behind it.

Based on what I'm seeing in the Salt Lake Valley, I'd say that mid 20's is the floor, with the caveat that there appears to be a split developing, with significantly more demand in the SL urban area than the suburbs. If I was just looking at Salt Lake proper, I'd be on the $30M train, easy.

Black Adam's awareness isn't in the 30's, it's 47, and it's interest score is 5.9. It's doing just fine.

DWD is off to a strong start at the Salt Lake Cinemark Sugarhouse. Currently 20- edit: make that 28 as of 2:00 PM- tix sold for preview night over two showtimes. This compares to a final pre-sale total of 28 for Bullet Train and 30 for Black Phone, so the old adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity seems to be holding thus far.

Avatar has sold a total of 8 tix across 9 showtimes for Friday the 23rd in the three theaters I track in the Salt Lake Valley. All showings are 3D. Curious to see if Darling generates any heat tomorrow. I normally wouldn't expect something like this to start fast out of the gate, but then, pretty much everything about this movie's history is odd, so...

Nice! Big improvement over the first trailer. Loved seeing more of the JSA. Only thing I didn't like was the music but that's probably my age talking. Six weeks from tonight!

Probably for Poolman, which is currently in post. ("Hapless dreamer and would-be philosopher looks after the pool for his apartment block in L.A.") It's definitely not for his upcoming gig as Walter Cronkite (!) on the day of the Kennedy assassination.

Ye Gods, did Christopher Guest direct this? Because that sure sounds like Nigel Tufnel sitting next to Pine.