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Box Office Hit

The Black Phone | Universal | June 24, 2022 | Profit of $67.8M

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Got to see this today, it's solid and occasionally clever. With every reveal I got more and more worried that eventually it would lose me, and while I'm not quite convinced the themes completely land, I left satisfied. It's not a great film, but a very enjoyable one for the summer season. *Great* performances.

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I've never read a Joe Hill novel or short story but he's clearly inherited a lot from his father because this movie lives and  breathes Stephen King. It's got that magic something where it could just be about a boy getting kidnapped and that would probably be enough, but then you add more layers on top of that which just makes the world seem so expansive. 

 

It's a super clever premise at it's a core, and the script does a good job living up to that and juggling it's set ups and pay offs. You genuinely care about the characters. All the actors do a wonderful job. Especially the kid actors who have to handle a lot of exposition and will occasionally talk more like adults but they did a bang up job for the most part.

 

It's leans closer to thriller than Sinister, there's certainly tense moments but nothing that mind blowing, definitely creepy. But I think it's a much stronger film overall. Derrickson's direction is well oiled and sure of itself, he's completely at home in the genre and I'd prefer more of these than him doing big budget smashy-crashy fare. 

 

Did I have a few quibbles along the way? Sure, but above all else this film is just a really entertaining watch, it's exciting, it keeps you guessing, there's some big laughs scattered throughout. It's definitely the most audience friendly horror since Scream, I can see them having a fun time with this one. 

 

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Mentioned in another thread that the curiously muted marketing campaign for The Black Phone in recent weeks does seem like an indication that Universal decided to scale back and are aware it's not a great environment to be releasing a child endangerment thriller in. Especially when certain episodes of Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi the past few weeks have had to add warnings to them.

 

There's a 30 second trailer right before Jurassic World that just shows the kid going up to the phone and picking it up while touting its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, revealing nothing about the plot. That kind of overly vague marketing rarely pays off in attracting patrons.

Edited by filmlover
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4 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Mentioned in another thread that the curiously muted marketing campaign for The Black Phone in recent weeks does seem like an indication that Universal decided to scale back and are aware it's not a great environment to be releasing a child endangerment thriller in. Especially when certain episodes of Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi the past few weeks have had to add warnings to them.

 

There's a 30 second trailer right before Jurassic World that just shows the kid going up to the phone and picking it up while touting its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, revealing nothing about the plot. That kind of overly vague marketing rarely pays off in attracting patrons.

Universal really needs to clench its balls some. Add the necessary warning you need but Jesus christ don't massacre a good piece of art because of it. Not everyone has ptsd from this specific scenario. 

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1 minute ago, Alex SciChannel said:

Universal really needs to clench its balls some. Add the necessary warning you need but Jesus christ don't massacre a good piece of art because of it. Not everyone has ptsd from this specific scenario. 

To be fair, it's hard (and perhaps costly) to add a warning at the beginning of an already 30 second TV spot. Especially when said TV spots have been working overtime trying to sell the premise of the movie (like the few spots that I've seen have been trying to do).

 

Worst comes to worst I could see it performing like Crawl, another well-reviewed summer horror/thriller that was curiously released with little marketing.

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Just now, filmlover said:

To be fair, it's hard (and perhaps costly) to add a warning at the beginning of an already 30 second TV spot. Especially when said TV spots have been working overtime trying to sell the premise of the movie (like the few spots that I've seen have been trying to do).

 

Worst comes to worst I could see it performing like Crawl, another well-reviewed summer horror/thriller that was curiously released with little marketing.

Maybe instead focus on the plot and mystery aspects in the marketing instead of the horror and kidnapping. You don't have to have a warning over every ad. A warning over each screening would do. I did not get early screening passes to see this 3 days early only for it to underperform. Joker overperformed in a hostile environment, why can't this? Universal needs to realize that.

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10 minutes ago, Alex SciChannel said:

Maybe instead focus on the plot and mystery aspects in the marketing instead of the horror and kidnapping. You don't have to have a warning over every ad. A warning over each screening would do. I did not get early screening passes to see this 3 days early only for it to underperform. Joker overperformed in a hostile environment, why can't this? Universal needs to realize that.

Did it arrive in one, though? There was controversy when it came out, but most of it seemed manufactured by the media. There was no army of incels arriving at movie theaters or any of the other nonsense that we had been led to believe would happen if the movie was released.

 

Though it might not be fair to compare a comic book movie (as surefire a bet as any at the box office these days) that also had plenty of Oscar buzz that made it appealing to crowds who are usually averse to that sort of fare to a low-budget horror movie that's being positioned as counterprogramming in the summer. Even in a best case scenario, a $100M+ total here would've been considered a major overperformance.

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4 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Black Phone has been marketed since October 2021, I'm sure people have enough awareness of the movie. I think the bigger problem is actually the delays. This is different from a Venom or Top Gun because those already have built-in audiences

Hindsight is 20/20 but it does seem like it might've been better off opening back in early February than it is now. Oh well, maybe legs will be decent, luckily it has a major 4-day holiday in its second weekend (which I think will be kind to all holdovers this year).

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1 hour ago, krla said:

Adding warnings to content is typically counter productive. 99.9% of people won't connect Black Phone to the events in Texas. Nor would they have with Obi-Wan or Stranger Things. Adding the content warning is going to make 100% of the audience think about it though, and likely cause more psychological harm to the audience. And this will likely affect WOM (maybe that's why obi and stranger had a lower than expected viewership, at least I think I read they did; though maybe it was Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick; think I read that the original Top Gun had outperformed those shows on streaming.. which would be funny, since I think there was some discussion here or in the other threads about Stranger Things and OBi possibly hurting Top Gun's opening weekend.. lol)

 

Anyways, we know that publicizing school shootings (and other mass shootings) leads to more, because of copycats looking for notoriety. If you can get studios to slap content warning on completely unrelated things, that seems like the exact thing a copycat would want. Seems to me this could just lead to more shootings, especially if those warnings are permanent. But maybe that's the goal; keep everyone thinking about, help foster more shooters, since that will get the public on board with changing laws. 

content warnings are stupid , its like thanks , great for spoiling the episode now , for anytime there is a rape or suicide scene now a days

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1 hour ago, Mulder said:

 

I didn't mean to offend, and my last sentence was too presumptuous and cynical. Though I do feel like they are using content warnings as a way to create awareness and as a form of activism, rather than providing a legitimate trigger warning; and that's not evil, especially since they view their goals as noble (and I do too; reducing mass/school shootings and overall violence is a great thing). 

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8 minutes ago, MCKillswitch123 said:

 

Please tell me you mean this ironically.

no its dumb , especially full screen warnings , its one thing to put it in tv rating warning , but when flashed on screen , its like great a show for adults and the network/studio thinks i need a babysitter, its cool if they want provide help at end with numbers or links, but don't ruin the episode

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51 minutes ago, krla said:

I didn't mean to offend, and my last sentence was too presumptuous and cynical. Though I do feel like they are using content warnings as a way to create awareness and as a form of activism, rather than providing a legitimate trigger warning; and that's not evil, especially since they view their goals as noble (and I do too; reducing mass/school shootings and overall violence is a great thing). 

Thanks for owning up to it, I genuinely appreciate that.

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