Weekend Thread | July 7-9 | Weekend Estimates on Page 32

[baumer]

If Henry Jones Jr does have a good hold this weekend, then you can pretty much pencil it in for a three multiplier. Not that it's anything to get excited about, we all know it's a colossal failure. But seeing it get to 180, from an Indiana Jones fan, would at least be nice.

[Unfitclock]

That insidious number is probably off by at the very minimum 3 million 

[baumer]

3 minutes ago, Unfitclock said:

That insidious number is probably off by at the very minimum 3 million 

 

You think it's too low? 

[Torontofan]

11 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

I think people are just lazy lol. 

 

Comedies require wit and structure and set-up. But with the rise of the improvised driven Apatow comedies, it's cheaper and less time consuming to produce a basic script and just stick a camera in front of actors and have them mug. 

 

No Hard Feelings was hyped as JLaw unlike you've ever seen her. And besides the nude scene (she was already nude in movies before!), it's a half-baked idea overly dependent on her elevating the material with improv. Cocaine Bear and Strays are similar too. These reasons contributed to the genre dying out in the last decade. The Change-Up, The Sitter, The Watch (though, admittedly that did suffer from the Trayvon Martin stuff too lol), The House, Rough Night. Audiences got tired of watching stars repeat the same stupid vulgar shit. The few comedies that did breakout in the latter half of the decade (Sausage Party, Good Boys) didn't carry massive legs because the opening weekend audiences realized the concept only went so far

 

But nowadays people just seem to find "viral" memes and online comedians funny which is mostly the same thing. Someone makes stupid faces in front of a camera and riffs on easy topics and concepts like Trump or whatever. They laugh at the concept of a joke rather than the joke itself?

 

I watched the simpson movie and it blew away recent comedies by a country mile

 

 

[DAJK]

Those have to be true friday #s right? No way Insidious does only 8M Friday after 5M Thursday.

 

Also, thanks for the numbers @Shawn!

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

11 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

I think people are just lazy lol. 

 

Comedies require wit and structure and set-up. But with the rise of the improvised driven Apatow comedies, it's cheaper and less time consuming to produce a basic script and just stick a camera in front of actors and have them mug. 

 

No Hard Feelings was hyped as JLaw unlike you've ever seen her. And besides the nude scene (she was already nude in movies before!), it's a half-baked idea overly dependent on her elevating the material with improv. Cocaine Bear and Strays are similar too. These reasons contributed to the genre dying out in the last decade. The Change-Up, The Sitter, The Watch (though, admittedly that did suffer from the Trayvon Martin stuff too lol), The House, Rough Night. Audiences got tired of watching stars repeat the same stupid vulgar shit. The few comedies that did breakout in the latter half of the decade (Sausage Party, Good Boys) didn't carry massive legs because the opening weekend audiences realized the concept only went so far

 

But nowadays people just seem to find "viral" memes and online comedians funny which is mostly the same thing. Someone makes stupid faces in front of a camera and riffs on easy topics and concepts like Trump or whatever. They laugh at the concept of a joke rather than the joke itself?

This is spot on. Scripts just seem to be an afterthought in the genre, and style of comedy is very samey across most studio comedies. I’m not exactly mourning the theatrical comedy because  the quality sucks most of the time. 

[Unfitclock]

@baumer Yeah that would be insanely frontloaded  like a superhero film and take 30 million opening weekend off the table 

[Unfitclock]

Unless those are true Friday numbers then that would make a lot more sense

[ZeroHour]

I think it hasn't helped that even a lot of TV comedies, especially acclaimed ones, are just 30 minute dramas. Almost no one in Hollywood is bothering to write jokes these days.

[ringedmortality]

1 minute ago, ZeroHour said:

I think it hasn't helped that even a lot of TV comedies, especially acclaimed ones, are just 30 minute dramas. Almost no one in Hollywood is bothering to write jokes these days.

 

[CJohn]

26 minutes ago, Shawn said:

Early Fri #s from official channels:

 

Insidious 13.0

Indy 8.8

SOF 5.0

JoyR 2.8

 

I think most of these go up, but maybe Indy less so. Insidious should, in theory, benefit from evening shows.

Insidious frontloaded af. Bad WOM hurting it. 

[Last Man Standing]

32 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

 

My theory (theory! Not fact!) why comedies have just ... sucked for years now is that the writers are simply afraid. They are afraid of accidently making a "controversial" joke (heated political climate and all that, though i really dont want to dive deeper into this actually) that could result into Twitter having a meltdown ... or Threads in the future i guess. So they take the "safe" route and just make the characters loud and obnoxious, because screaming means funny apparently.

 

Big mainstream comedy movies like Bruce Almighty or Superbad really seem like a thing of the past. Kinda like romance movies, nobody cares about that anymore. I mean, what do people actually find funny these days? It seems to me that humour is more subjective than ever today. Though maybe thats just me beeing stupid, thats also a very real possibility.

 

It doesnt help that i rewatch Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz every year and get reminded that these two movies are funnier than everything Hollywood has done in the last 10 years combined.

The funniest movies to me barely or don't at all touch controversial topics, Wet Hot American Summer, Walk Hard, Zoolander, really the only great comedies that are seen as controversial are Borat and Tropic Thunder.

[Bob Train]

Are those true FRI or FRI+Previews?

[Shawn Robbins]

11 minutes ago, DAJK said:

Those have to be true friday #s right? No way Insidious does only 8M Friday after 5M Thursday.

 

Also, thanks for the numbers @Shawn!

Fri+previews.

 

Black Phone even just had over a 2x multi for true Friday last summer, and that was an original (with early access, granted). Wouldn't be shocked if Insidious does sub-2x with its early WOM, but let's see how it goes.

[Shawn Robbins]

29 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

With that Joy Ride number (1.1 TH + 1.7 F), it should probably be below both Elemental and Spidey for the weekend...

Figuring that will do much better in the evening. Hopefully.

[YM!]

1 minute ago, Shawn said:

Figuring that will do much better in the evening. Hopefully.

Out of curiosity how are Across and Elemental holding?

[tonytr87]

33 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

I think people are just lazy lol. 

 

Comedies require wit and structure and set-up. But with the rise of the improvised driven Apatow comedies, it's cheaper and less time consuming to produce a basic script and just stick a camera in front of actors and have them mug. 

 

No Hard Feelings was hyped as JLaw unlike you've ever seen her. And besides the nude scene (she was already nude in movies before!), it's a half-baked idea overly dependent on her elevating the material with improv. Cocaine Bear and Strays are similar too. These reasons contributed to the genre dying out in the last decade. The Change-Up, The Sitter, The Watch (though, admittedly that did suffer from the Trayvon Martin stuff too lol), The House, Rough Night. Audiences got tired of watching stars repeat the same stupid vulgar shit. The few comedies that did breakout in the latter half of the decade (Sausage Party, Good Boys) didn't carry massive legs because the opening weekend audiences realized the concept only went so far

 

But nowadays people just seem to find "viral" memes and online comedians funny which is mostly the same thing. Someone makes stupid faces in front of a camera and riffs on easy topics and concepts like Trump or whatever. They laugh at the concept of a joke rather than the joke itself?

 

Both Good Boys and Sausage Party had good legs. And Strays isn't even out yet. WTF

[Poseidon]

Close to $9m for Indy would be amazing. 

[Unfitclock]

@Shawn but the black phone previews where’s just from Thursday it has early access added in it just doesn’t make sense how it would do less than 2x it’s previews on true Friday 

[Eric Lasagna]

Just now, Unfitclock said:

@Shawn but the black phone previews where’s just from Thursday it has early access added in it just doesn’t make sense how it would do less than 2x it’s previews on true Friday 

Shawn did say the Friday #s will likely rise with evening showings. So we could see a different story later tonight.