Walleye's Weekly Winners - 11/1

[Walleye413]

Happy Halloween! On this - the scariest of days - we review the scary results from weeks past and behind shaking hands glance ahead at the weekend ahead! Oh the horrifying sights we’ll see!

Like a scary, frikkin, clown winning the week that was. Or not. In a rare switcheroo - Maleficent clawed her way to the top of the Box Office charts after the Joker preemptively claimed the throne. Countdown barely knocked out Black and Blue for 1 measly little BO point. And JoJo Rabbit continued to make ABC uncomfortable with the reality that it might be an Oscar contender come February, winning the PTA over an equally impressive Parasite hold. All in all, it was your usual Pre-Halloween snoozefest before the excitement that has been the November/December smashfest.

But, hold the phone, cause those Smash’s are going to be a couple of weeks away. There’s one film worth grabbing this week - otherwise avert your eyes from the horrors we see before us.

I saw the original Terminator on VHS in 1984 and it was amazing. One of the first R rated movies my parents let me watch - it was inventive, scary, and it made Arnold a star. 7 years later Judgment Day came out and it was (Capital A) Awesome. Really no other word for it. I remember watching the TV clips advertising it and thinking - “What the hell is that?” The whole movie blew everybody away. The effects, the fully formed time-travel idea, the side characters, Arnie as a good guy? It made 200 million in 1991!! In today’s economy that’s, like, Bezos kind of money. And it deserved every penny. And then the Terminator went dark for awhile. Why? Because they had closed the story. There was nothing left to tell, it was the perfect opener and closer that should have been left untouched for future generations to discover like a treasure. And that all changed with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine in 2003. In this remake happy culture there’s no way a success like T2 would have made it 12 years before some yahoo came and screwed it up. Ah, the good old days. But from 3 on the Terminator dream to recapture the magic and the money of the originals has been crushed like a human skull under a metallic foot.

Which brings us to our first movie this week. Terminator 6? 7? Whatever - they’re calling it Dark Fate. And it’s going to suck. It’s not going to be good, and it’s not going to make enough money for you to choose it for game purposes. How do I know this? Because every Terminator movie after 2 has sucked. And because audiences know it. This might open at 35 million, but I think it’ll be less. It’ll win the week against Maleficent and Joker, but it’ll plummet from there, get you a horrible IMDB score, and suck you into a pit of despair. Avoid this haunted sequel like the plague, my friends.

Then we’ve got 3 mid-range choices. As BOM has sold their soul to the devil this season, someone with more money than I will need to tell us theatre counts. But if everything shakes out in the 2000ish range you can choose:

Motherless Brooklyn. Edward Norton (without question one of the most interesting actors of his generation. His breakout in Primal Fear still holds up) tries his hand at directing. If you saw his Keeping the Faith - you saw a decent movie. This one had early buzz, a great cast (Gugu in particular) but it’s like that C-grade horror movie in reality. A tease of great promise with nothing to show for it. This should have been an Oscar contender, but it’s not. So it’ll get you 8ish million in opening, no PTA, no top 5, no love for Brooklyn. Avoid it.

Arctic Dogs is really coming out. No seriously. Abominable was a gorgeous movie, with a surprisingly touching storyline. The Addams Family reinvented an old trope and family for a new day. But this week we get craptastic Arctic Dogs. Why? Who needs this? Don’t see it, don’t put it on your slates. Wait for Frozen 2. I’m sure they’re nearly identical costs for game purposes.

The one movie worth thinking about is Harriet. This seems like a crazy, action packed version of Harriet Tubman - and it’s probably all true. But dang they are ramping up the “Hollywood” aspect of this already remarkable story. And it’s gaining traction. I think this will be anywhere from 2nd-4th in the Top 5 this week, cracking 10 million - getting great WOM and having the best legs of the lot. If you’re choosing anything this week - Go all in on Harriet. All treats - no tricks.

That’s all for now. Go on now - get outside. Knock on random doors, ask for candy, be a kid again. Not much to see here anyway.

Top 5
Terminator
Harriet
Joker
Maleficent
Addams Family


PTA
JoJo Rabbit
Parasite
Harriet
Terminator
The Lighthouse

[Buscemi2]

Arctic Dogs looks like what happens when you let Deviant Art users make a movie. The characters look absolutely creepy. And it having Jeremy Renner and James Franco in the cast, no publicity is good publicity it seems like.

And what exactly happened to Gugu Mbatha-Raw's career? It seems like she's only getting projects Lupita Nyong'o passed on nowadays.

[Screen203]

I really doubt the PR issues will have any effect on Artic Dogs. The movie does really look horrible (and the animation is creepy, but not on the same level as Polar Express or that Woody Allen ant movie), so it won't do well to begin with, but I doubt the target audience knows any of the stars in any movie, really.

I'm actually excited for Motherless Brooklyn, though with the reviews and Box Office prospects, seems like I'm the only one.

[Shrykespeare]

I wish Dark Fate wouldn't suck. Just because. But it probably will. Sigh.


No theater counts anymore. HATE the new BOM.



Celebrity birthdays:

Joan Plowright turned 90 on 10/29
Leon Rippy turned 70 on 10/30

[transformers2]

Theater counts are still available in their weekend preview column. Here's what this week looks like:

Terminator: Dark Fate-4,086
Arctic Dogs-2,844
Harriet-2,086
Motherless Brooklyn-1,332

Expansions-
The Lighthouse-978
Parasite-463
Jojo Rabbit-256

[Walleye413]

First time in a long while that I think my analysis was pretty spot on

[Shrykespeare]

Weekend Estimates

Top 10:
5 points - Terminator: Dark Fate, $29.0M
4 points - Joker, $13.9M
3 points - Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, $12.2M
2 points - Harriet, $12.0M
1 point - The Addams Family, $8.5M
Zombieland: Double Tap, $7.3M
Countdown, $5.8M
Black and Blue, $4.0M
Motherless Brooklyn, $3.6M
Arctic Dogs, $3.1M


PTA:
5 points - Jojo Rabbit
4 points - Terminator: Dark Fate
3 points - Harriet
2 points - Joker
1 point - Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

[Buscemi2]

Joker should most definitely hit $300 million on Monday. Only $400,000 away pre-actuals.

[Walleye413]

Honest question - if the Joker was simply called - Arthur - and lost the few DC references, Does it make even 100 million?

[Buscemi2]

If they called it Arthur, people would think it was another remake of the Dudley Moore film.

[Geezer]

Honest question - if the Joker was simply called - Arthur - and lost the few DC references, Does it make even 100 million?

Of course not. Branding dominates our entire economy.

[numbersix]

Parasite will score some more PTA points - came in 4th ahead of Joker

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Honest question - if the Joker was simply called - Arthur - and lost the few DC references, Does it make even 100 million?

Nope. It's opened limited, makes ~$20M, but still gets Phoenix a Best Actor nod.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

And what exactly happened to Gugu Mbatha-Raw's career? It seems like she's only getting projects Lupita Nyong'o passed on nowadays.

Knowing the business and how they cast minorities, I feel like every black actress is just fighting over Kerry Washington's and Taraji P Henson's scraps...

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Also, I can't believe Harriet did $12M opening weekend! That's crazy.

Or that Artic Dogs was actually released.