Old Spice

Well, it may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, but at my one little theater in Salt Lake, Elvis, Black Phone, and Maverick are all near sellouts for the prime evening show, and Dominion and Lightyear are running about 70%, so if people are seeking solace from the day's events, it looks to me like a fair number have decided that a movie theater is as good a place as any to find it.

Zazlavs's gonna do what Zazlav's gonna do, but if it's me, I'd bite the bullet and recast. It doesn't matter at this point what percentage of the allegations have merit, the public perception of Miller is now badly tainted and that perception has moved well beyond the twitter bubble. A good Flash movie in a normal environment will easily do $500-600M WW, and that's without even factoring in all the added firepower this one has. So spend $100M if you have to, delay it 4-6 mos, whatever, and get someone in the lead whom audiences can rally around. They literally can't market this film with Ezra as the star, but if they reshoot, that in itself becomes a story that can be framed positively ('WB's New Sherrif says "Enough is Enough,") and the awareness and curiosity levels would be through the roof, even if it did take a torturous path to get there. It's a ridiculous, unprecedented situation, but there is a way out.

SLC Cinemark Sugarhouse Preview Night update for Elvis and Black Phone, 4:15 MST. Elvis Total tix sold 95/278 34.2% 109% of Ghostbusters ($4.9) 114% of Uncharted ($4.2) 144% of Lost City ($4.68) 26% of Dominion ($4.68) Looking solid for Elvis. I'm going with a $3.8 preview night as this theater may skew a bit older than most of the Salt Lake Valley, but I'm also expecting tons of walk ups over the weekend, so let's say 3.8/43.5. Black Phone is doing alright, 30/144 (20.8%). Halloween Kills comp is $1.62, Morbius, $2.48. Don't have any particular feel for this one, but anecdotally the awareness level here seems pretty high.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Daisy Edgar-Jones was phenomenal in Normal People and the book was great. This is gonna rock.

WB marketing gonna be like, "Ezra who? This is a Batman meets Supergirl movie!"

Final showing at my theater tonight has Top Gun running even with the combined sales of LY and JW despite only holding one of the five screens.

Problem is, no one even knows where they are. As someone said earlier, it's almost like they don't have the kind of support staff that one would normally expect from someone who's received millions from a major studio. If Miller does have a PR person, they sure are taking a measured (cough) approach to things so far.

So over this.

Lightyear went into hyper drive this afternoon at my theater with now 132 tix sold for today, almost double yesterday's figure. 155% of Sonic ($9.78) 151% of Ghostbusters ($6.82) 200% of Lost City ($6.50) 159% of Uncharted ($5.88) I'll say $7.8M for true Thursday. LY also looking strong this weekend. Current pre-sales: Friday (1) Lightyear- 167 (2) Dominion- 91 (3) Maverick-57 Saturday (1) Lightyear- 149 (2) Dominion- 64 (3) Maverick- 59 Father's Day (1) Maverick- 85 (2) Lightyear- 51 (3) Dominion- 47

Full report tomorrow, but my theater is going all in on Lightyear for Father's Day weekend. Sunday has 22 screenings with shows starting as early as 8:55 AM. JW has 12 and TG has 9, with Everything, Everywhere and The Thing 40th Anniversary re-release (🤔) each getting a couple. Sunday sales are so far are decent with 45 tix sold (compared to 28 for JW and 55 for TG), but LY has way more room for growth thanks to its huge seat advantage. Preview night is looking solid with 71 tix sold, which puts it just 14 behind Sonic's final, and Friday is already roughly 2x Thursday at this point.

WB is lucky in that they have another compelling angle they can market that has nothing to do with the lead actor- two iconic Batmen, the intro of Supergirl into the DCEU, and this is the movie that resets everything. Miller may wind up being relegated to the role of a plot device in their own movie.

Say hello to the infinite quadrant movie. I was in line today to catch a matinee of Everything, Everywhere and there were two elderly ladies, mid-70's at least, in front of me. Downton Abbey? Nope. Maverick. When I told them how great it was, one of them replied, "Oh we know. It's our second time." This thing really is gonna play all summer. 🔥

Thor First 24 hours at my theater in Salt Lake pretty much mirrors everybody else's data. Final was 124 tix sold after a blistering first 90 minutes that accounted for about 80% of the total sales. Dr. Strange was 247 so .543. (19.54m)

To me, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of/indifference to the character by the people in charge at the time. I'd love to see that documentary and discover who actually made the call. I think Hamada has done a generally good job of righting the ship, but if the buck stopped at his desk, I'd really like to hear his reasoning for not just letting the option expire. Because as you said, Miller was never remotely right for the role in the first place. I'm sure that now, $200M and all sorts of dreadful headlines later, David Zaslav has been asking the same questions.

Thor on fire in Salt Lake City. 93 tix already sold for preview night at the Sugarhouse Cinemark, greater than the entire presale for Sonic, Lost City, Uncharted, Halloween Kills, and Morbidus. Final 24 hour presale for MOM was 247, so I'm not sure how this compares to that, maybe a smidge behind, but I'm also not certain what time tix went on sale for this. (I was surprised when I got home and saw that they were already available.)

This really is approaching the level of the surreal.

Not as good as getting a quart of Cherry Garcia and streaming the original, but not the complete disaster I had feared either. Leave your brain at the door and it's a perfectly passable way to spend a summer afternoon. 3/5

I was thinking the same thing while watching the trailer for MI: Dead Reckoning before Top Gun. I don't know what his pitch was, but I'd rest pretty easy giving Supes to McQuarrie and just letting him run with it. I agree with @cax16 though, I think we'll hear something before the summer is out. Fingers crossed.

Salt Lake City Cinemark Sugarhouse, Preview Night, Jurassic World: Dominion. 1 hour before first showing. Total tix sold 364/787 46.3% Comps: Batman .864 x 21.6 = $18.67 Eternals 1.85 x 9.5 = $17.55 Ghostbusters 4.18 x 4.5 = $18.82 I was out of action in April/May so no DS or TGM comps, but the raptors are looking strong here. And anecdotally, I have talked to several occasional-type moviegoers since the reviews dropped, and not a one has expressed any concern about the low marks. Most just want to see some dinosaurs tear shit up. 18/135

Looking at the seat counts for my theater on Friday, TG still has a sizable advantage over Jurassic, 920 to 635. I can't imagine a JW film has ever opened behind another film in terms of capacity but that probably says more about TG's extraordinary reception than it does the dinosaurs. Preview night report coming tomorrow.

Dr. Fate was introduced in More Fun Comics all the way back in 1940, and has been a regular member of the Justice Society of America (the Golden Age JLA) ever since. Dr. Strange made it to the big screen first so many will think he is D.C.'s answer to DS, but of the two, Fate is the old timer.

Thank you, Grim!

Good to know, I thought that was an entirely separate proceeding still to come.

People may have a short attention span but Heard's appeal of the verdict handed down this week and her own $100M countersuit ensure that the circus will still be ongoing this time next year. It's a distraction that WB doesn't need that can be easily remedied, although my hope is that they recast rather than remove the character entirely.