JustWatching

Caught this over the weekend, and liked it. In fact I’d say that “likability” is easily the film’s biggest strength. Everyone involved is clearly having fun, and they are all talented actors giving great performances. It’s just too bad that they don’t have better material to work with. GB:FE is hopeless muddled, caught between trying to be a family drama, a comedy and a nostalgia vehicle and succeeding at being none of the above. None of these elements are bad in their own right, but they never coalesce and don’t have enough juice on their own to be satisfying. The nostalgia stuff feels a lot like studio notes or a fear on the part of the filmmakers that long time fans will abandon the franchise if they aren’t there. I don’t think that’s the case, at least it’s not for me, who thought Afterlife was a nice handoff to a new gen. A lot of the comedy, from Oswalt’s cameo to all of Kumali Ali felt shoehorned in, like they realized, oh crap, we have a family drama going, quick make it funny, which of course doesn’t work. If they go any further with this, and I hope they do, I’m fine with moving to a more family-based dramedy style, which I think could work well with the new cast. But they really need to make a decision and stick with it, whatever they do, and quit trying to be all things to all audiences. 7/10.

At my local Emagine, GBFE has all the PLFs. None for Dune.

Eyeballing my two local joints, the all-standard screen Cinemark has sold 37 tickets for today’s GBFE previews so far. For this theater that’s actually a decent number. Sales at the Emagine up the road are much brisker. About 170 tix sold so far, roughly 120 of which are PLF.

I’m not a big awards guy but it was very satisfying to wake up this morning to the news of Oscar wins for Heron and Minus One. A tip of the hat to the Academy. For once they got it right.

Theaters.

Well, looks like I’m that guy this time. It pains me to say it, but my first thought as the credits began to roll was, that’s three hours of my life I’ll never get back. It’s just inert. I didn’t feel a thing watching it, or care about anyone. It’s not bad. It looks pretty, the script is serviceable — and some of the changes, like Alia, are probably for the best — the acting is, well, let’s just say Chalmet and Zendaya put an entire career’s worth of longing glances into one movie and I did not buy for one second that they were in love. Stilgar rocks, tho. He and Gurney felt like the only actual people in the whole thing. The first one got me excited to see this. This made me not care if there’s a third.

Yeah it’s just nuts. The Emagine near me has 4 PLF shows and 11 standard screenings scheduled for today. As of 8:30 a.m., 3 of the 4 PLFs are already 80-90% full. The fourth, the 9:45 p.m. show ( so you don’t get out until nearly 1 a.m.) has sold 42 tickets. Of the 11 standard shows, just one has sold more than that, by one ticket. The rest are mostly in the 0-20 range.

Deadline goes to 11. https://deadline.com/2024/03/box-office-dune-part-two-1235842667/

In case anyone needs a refresher before part 2:

So over the course of the last 4 days, ThFSS sales at my local no-PLFs, no recliners, no food, no alcohol, no nothing, Cinemark have gone from 30 to 61 to 90 as of right now. This is actually pretty impressive since, given the total lack of amenities, it’s not normally a heavy presales location. They’ve also doubled the number of shows over the past two days to 47, so walkups shouldn’t have a problem finding a time. Things definitely looking up.

Yup, just like Stewie, AT&T wants its money, man. Zaz is on the hook to deliver or else.

Yep, saw it a couple weeks ago. A very unconventional film, so much so that I don’t know exactly how I’d classify it. But it’s certainly worthy of a watch, and the Oscar nom, imo. It’s disturbing in ways I’m still working through as well.

Sales at my local no-PLFs cinemark have jumped from 30 for FSS (including previews) two days ago to 61 as of this a.m., so that’s a positive sign. Sales at the Emagine still heavily weighted to PLF shows. Standard show gaining a bit but PLFs even more.

Yeah, Midwest here as well, same pattern mostly. The local cinemark, which has no PLFs, is dead. 30 tix sold for the entire weekend, including previews. Up the road at Emagine, the standard showings have fared no better. The EMX screens are selling, but there’s only one on Thursday and one Friday that are anywhere near selling out. Looks super fan driven at this point.

Same. Will be happy to be wrong. Love to see all the exuberant reviews.

Marley’s OW beat Mean Girls’ OW by 20k, so it gets to wear the biggest opening weekend of the year crown for a couple weeks.

I think it’s also indicative of, if you show it, they will come. My local cinemark, which prior to the strikes was strictly tentpoles, has screened basically everything over the past four or five months. That includes all the foreign language stuff, all the animated stuff, all the Oscar nominees, none of which they would have touched in normal times. I doubt it lasts but I’ve really been enjoying it.

$80 million WW for OL, per deadline. https://deadline.com/2024/02/box-office-bob-marley-one-love-madame-web-1235828289/

it’s got a couple thing going for it. One, like Aquabro it scored well with families and there hasn’t been a new family film out since Xmas. And two, it’s Valentine’s weekend and if your date isn’t into Marley, well, it’s the other new movie. I doubt it has a lot of staying power going forward, tho.

Marley crossed over into the mainstream decades ago. I went to a mostly white midwestern college in the 80s, and if you walked into any random dorm room and found a record collection, you were guaranteed to find four albums among its contents: Led Zep 4, Dark Side of the Moon, Eagles Live and Legend, the BM & the Wailers greatest hits compilation. Dude has a huge fan base among old white farts like me, who might not have gotten to the film yet but will. I expect good legs.

Yup you nailed it. That said deadline’s gone from 30+ to 36-38 to 44 to now 46 over the last two days so honestly I wouldn’t rule out 50 yet!

And to be fair, why should they care about quality? They keep getting rewarded for making dreck. The two Venom films and Morbius combined cost just under $300 million and made $1.5 billion WW. Maybe MW face planting so badly will shake up the calculation, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Updated projection from deadline.

FWIW when I checked the local Emagine yesterday morning before showings began, One Love had sold about 60 tickets, Madame Web about 30. Today those figures are 131 and 76. So yeah I can see both doubling up on Thursday. We’ll see.