LawrenceBrolivier

Despite the fact David Leitch is the guy who got the big-budget jobs coming out of John Wick.... Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, Hobbs & Shaw.... it seems pretty obvious looking at his output vs. the Wick sequels... that Chad Stahelski had the lion's share of the talent as a director. I've never seen a single action sequence in any of the Wick sequels as sloppy as a couple of the set-pieces in this movie.

Considering how everybody both in the industry and outside of it seemed to regard Dark Phoenix as "the last X-Men movie" I don't think its beyond reason to speculate that this movie might simply never come out at all... Disney might consider it a sunk cost and just let it rot on a shelf somewhere.... especially if everyone considers Dark Phoenix to be the sad end of the Fox era for X-Men.

We don't even know if a "Solo" situation is actually in play FOR Star Wars, or if it's just internet chatter at this point, too.... Considering this is the first spinoff I guess you'd want to compare this more to Rogue One anyway, right? But I agree that if the mainline Fast & Furious movies are in decline, that's probably not going to have anything to do with what Hobbs & Shaw does... it'll be more like a judgment on Vin Diesel as a solo star. And aside from the Fast and Furious series, that judgment has been handed down many... MANY times in the past... and it's almost always not a good one. I don't know if Vin - Rock - Statham + Cena is good math all by itself... If they're going to end Fast & Furious mainline at 10 no matter what that's fine, as Hobbs & Shaw seems to be "rebooting" what Fast & Furious can be anyway.

It looks like The Hollywood Reporter is calling somewhere around 60-65mil OW for this movie... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hobbs-shaw-box-office-speed-past-60m-us-debut-1228431

And thank you for doing all that work... twice.

I posted it mostly so there's a receipt or a record of how I voted just in case something goes wrong.... the first time I ever participated in one of these, someone used 3 different alt-accounts to cheat on it... So I figure better safe than sorry. Whatever the results, its always fun to make these lists... It's probably why Letterboxd is so popular.

I thought it was very much like a beefier and dumber "Kingsman" movie more than anything.... that sounds like I'm denigrating it, but I'm really not. All the things that made that first Kingsman movie fun, but without any of the nasty edge or mean-spirited vibe.... it's funny how spy movies are sort of making a comeback lately and the model the most successful ones seem to be using the most are the old Roger Moore Bond movies...

Then I guess I'm confused as to why you asked me in the first place. Did you think I was lying? This whole thing you're doing is weird and off-putting... Sorry to have bothered you. edited to remove personal insult... wasn't needed.

I wasn't being condescending! I legitimately didn't know if you knew about it because of the way you asked... because I figured you would have assumed it was a regular preview screening otherwise. My friend who is a very big Fast and Furious fan got passes and asked me to come with him. Sorry that you felt condescended to, I just didn't know if you knew....

I live in America. They do preview screenings for movies all the time here... Studios hire PR firms, and they rent out an auditorium in a multiplex, and they hand out passes to newspapers and radio stations... more like instagram influencers and such now.... and they show the movie a few days early to... hopefully... increase buzz in the region, I guess... These screenings are also usually how movie critics see the movies too. There was a whole row of the theater taped off for critics, but there were only about 5 or 6 people sitting in it... I've seen a bunch of movies that way... I think the first one I saw like that was one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies... Or maybe it was Watchmen... one of those.

I watched this last night and I'm confused as to why it shouldn't be as big a hit as Fate of the Furious. All the elements are here, everything's just a little funnier... The thing that surprised me the most, aside from some cameos and references... was how smartly this screenplay seemed to sort of REBOOT the series? I don't mean like it starts everything over, but... this movie basically sets up a situation where there's a completely parallel "Fast and Furious" series that works in almost the exact same way as the main one, with the same character types (but with better casting all the way around) doing the same jobs all bouncing off each other in similar ways.... It's just now it's not all rooted to being street racers and petty thieves, it's firmly rooted in spy stuff... And family, of course. editing to add: Preview crowd was very receptive. I liked it, but they definitely liked it more... a lot of clapping and whooping. Very much a pro-wrestling atmosphere in the theater. But that's anecdotal evidence from a single preview screening audience... general audiences are probably not going to react that same way. But the fans sure seemed to love it.

"Once Upon a Time.... in Hollywood Opening Weekend softly sneaks past prior successes opening at #2 behind dead-eyed virtual puppetshow The Lion King! Not irrelevant! NOT A SMASH!" by Nikki Finke

You're basically saying a blind guess based on total ignorance is more "Honest" than an informed opinion based on outside data and analysis if I'm understanding you correctly... Box-office prognostication aside... people come to settle on their own opinions and thoughts all the time via translating what they've heard and seen other people say and do. Here's a good example: If I have a feeling about a movie based on nothing but the plot description and casting announcement.... and then I see the trailer for that movie later and that feeling changes... it doesn't mean my opinion is now false and no longer mine. It means I took new information into account and adjusted accordingly... It's still my feelings and thoughts... I just know more now than I did then.... IF I hear about a movie coming out, and I have a number in mind... and then someone tells me its in x theaters and the trailer got y views.... and I change that number based on hearing that, it doesn't mean my number still isn't mine... I still have to take responsibility for what I think and feel, especially if I say it out loud in front of others...

this looks really boilerplate... "I don't see a lot of money here..."

And on top of that... I used the word "likely" because I was accounting for the possibility those reports weren't 100% accurate, although Tom Rothman is the one refuting them and it's not like he's a very trustworthy guy either....

I don't think there's any call for that... And it's not some sort of anti-Sony conspiracy I'm running either.... I'm criticizing lazy writing at a large outlet... I don't think in 2019 a $40mil opening is enough to be considered a "smash" hit, and if you have to move goalposts to compare it against other openings nobody else would think to call "smash" either... it comes off as empty hype for no good reason. You can applaud the success of this film without calling it a "Smash"... or adjusting for inflation.

But it made just over half of 70m, and likely won't make $150 either. 2nd Place isn't really the point aside from the idea that a writer chose to use the term "smash" in 2019, during a summer where "smashes" routinely clear $125mil OW.... in reference to a movie that barely made $40 mil and opened in 2nd place.... It's a criticism of the writing, not of the film. I wouldn't call this movie a "smash" by any metric. But it's still a success so far. The amount of qualifiers you have to add in order to start describing it as a "smash" is too many, for me... It's hyperbolic at best... If this were any other R-rated feature that cost $90 mil and ended with $120mil DOM, would you describe that to people here as "a smash hit" by normal standards? I gotta imagine the answer is no. It'd be considered a mild success or a decent earner. "It's a smash hit compared to how little money he normally earns" is kind of a backhanded compliment...

That's a lot of qualifications for something that will barely break even by standards everyone else gets measured by, and will likely lose money if it doesn't approach $400mil WW.... I'm not criticizing the performance so much as I'm criticizing lazy writing...

LOL...so many acronyms for things that aren't ever acronym'd, took me awhile to figure out what ASIB was, sorry... Star is Born could be called a smash because it cost way less, had much better drops, and made almost $100mil over what Once Upon a Time is being assumed to make... I understand I'm sort of splitting hairs here, LOL.... but I was annoyed at that last paragraph. It's the sort of lazy and unnecessary exaggeration that makes reading about our hobby here in mainstream publications so frustrating.

Because it's not 1st place. Which is usually where "smashes" go. It's a success, sure. It's not a "smash." If it costs 90mil to make and best case scenario is clearing $120mil DOM, nobody would call that a "smash."

Stuff like this probably isn't helping... https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/07/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-bruce-lee This paragraph at the bottom is annoying, too... It opened in 2nd place with $40 mil. That's not really what anyone should be calling a "smash" in 2019. A success, sure! But probably not a "smash," especially since the break-even point is reportedly around $400mil ww. Also, the knee-jerk adjusting for inflation as if it meant anything... or as if anyone asked them to do that. Anyway, I'm really curious to see how this weekend's word of mouth circulates and affects the 2nd weekend....

Aragorn won't have been born for... I believe... THOUSANDS of years when this show starts. The Second Age spans about 3000 years. I think this show is covering about 2000 years of that? This entire series might end with the Last Alliance...which is the prologue to Fellowship... but even that's about 2000 years before Aragorn is born. I don't think they'll get Howard Shore to score this, either.

No. Also, Amazon should probably stop calling it "Lord of the Rings" because it's going to be confusing as it is... The whole show is set in the Second Age. It'd be like calling a miniseries set in Medieval England "The American Civil War." Sure, it's likely a lot of the descendants OF your characters will end up being IN the Civil War. Eventually...

I am very curious what weekdays and that 2nd weekend drop is going to look like for Once Upon a Time...

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