The Latest Date Changes 2: The New Batch

[transformers2]

The Wolfs situation is so bizarre. Apple walking away from a proper theatrical release for a mainstream crime comedy led by two legit stars at the 11th hour just makes no sense. It probably would have done fine too if they actually bothered to promote it!

[Buscemi2]

I get real Cherk, I mean Cherry, vibes with Wolfs. Another departure into uncharacteristic fare from a creative talent connected with Marvel, Apple spent $30 million on worldwide rights out of Toronto, then embargoed the reviews until the day before it opened. It turned out to be another non-Spider-Man flop for Tom Holland and many critics questioned why The Russo Brothers tried a weightier project when they didn't have the ability to do the themes justice.

[StarLord123]

If anything, Fly Me to the Moon should've been the one to pivot to streaming instead, though maybe Scarlett Johansson's contract dictated a wide theatrical release I guess.

[Buscemi2]

Channing Tatum's box office track record until Fly Me to the Moon was one of the best going, so it makes sense it went theatrically. While George Clooney's comeback film in Ticket to Paradise did well at the box office, he's had his share of flops while Brad Pitt will mix the money picture with the prestige picture.

Meanwhile, how did The Instigators do on Apple TV+? If that did well, it makes sense to make Wolfs a streaming title. If The Instigators didn't do well, it really makes sense to make Wolfs a streaming title.

[numbersix]

I get real Cherk, I mean Cherry, vibes with Wolfs. Another departure into uncharacteristic fare from a creative talent connected with Marvel, Apple spent $30 million on worldwide rights out of Toronto, then embargoed the reviews until the day before it opened. It turned out to be another non-Spider-Man flop for Tom Holland and many critics questioned why The Russo Brothers tried a weightier project when they didn't have the ability to do the themes justice.

Only Wolfs isn't in different territory for Watts. Before Spidey he did Copcar, which was a darkly comic thriller, so this just seems to be a return to his origins but with a bigger budget. Kinda what Rian Johnson did with Knives Out after The Last Jedi pissed off the fans and the Trump voters.

That's very different from the Russo Brothers who thought they could do something serious when most of their career has been network comedy and popcorn fare.

I'm also still baffled by the Wolfs release strategy. By all accounts it seems like a crowd pleaser. But clearly the Apple execs balked, either from test screenings or someone looked at the film dept numbers (including the leads theatrical bumps) and panicked.

[Buscemi2]

Not a lot of people saw Cop Car though. In a way, Watts kind of came out of nowhere to become the Spider-Man guy, as neither Cop Car or Clown managed mainstream success.

And did The Last Jedi really piss off the fans? I'm sure that was just the same people on the Internet who hate Boyhood solely because Red Letter Media didn't like it and took their word on that one instead of asking watching Boyhood.

[transformers2]

I get real Cherk, I mean Cherry, vibes with Wolfs. Another departure into uncharacteristic fare from a creative talent connected with Marvel, Apple spent $30 million on worldwide rights out of Toronto, then embargoed the reviews until the day before it opened. It turned out to be another non-Spider-Man flop for Tom Holland and many critics questioned why The Russo Brothers tried a weightier project when they didn't have the ability to do the themes justice.

Only Wolfs isn't in different territory for Watts. Before Spidey he did Copcar, which was a darkly comic thriller, so this just seems to be a return to his origins but with a bigger budget. Kinda what Rian Johnson did with Knives Out after The Last Jedi pissed off the fans and the Trump voters.

That's very different from the Russo Brothers who thought they could do something serious when most of their career has been network comedy and popcorn fare.

I'm also still baffled by the Wolfs release strategy. By all accounts it seems like a crowd pleaser. But clearly the Apple execs balked, either from test screenings or someone looked at the film dept numbers (including the leads theatrical bumps) and panicked.

Agree with everything you said about Watts and the Russo Brothers re: Cherry. As for the Wolfs strategy, the latter seems more plausible as all of their wide theatrical releases have been varying degrees of box office failures and all indications are that it tested pretty well-which is believable since the reviews out of Venice have been fine.

And did The Last Jedi really piss off the fans? I'm sure that was just the same people on the Internet who hate Boyhood solely because Red Letter Media didn't like it and took their word on that one instead of asking watching Boyhood.

Dude, where have you been over the past 7 years? The Last Jedi is without question one of the notable cases of widespread toxic fandom ever. There were petitions to remove it from the canon over the choice to make Rey a jedi and the whole Luke Skywalker force ghost thing, Rian Johnson, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega were bombarded with hate online and Disney even turned Rise of Skywalker into a shameless fan service orgy as a response to all the shit it received from the bigoted dipshit subsect of the Star Wars fandom, who have since gone on to lose their minds over The Acolyte and Obi-Wan Kenobi having prominent black female characters.

[Buscemi2]

You've also heard of vocal minorities, haven't you? These same idiots think Justice League was a good movie and that Captain Marvel was a flop because of something Brie Larson never said.

The general public flocked to The Last Jedi in droves. The fact that most people didn't complain and gave their money to Star Wars tells me that The Last Jedi wasn't the disaster some make it out to be. And remember how the people that hated The Last Jedi are the same types of people who hated the prequel trilogy back in the mid 2000's. This is nothing new.

[transformers2]

Never said that it was anything new, that it hurt The Last Jedi's box office take or that a vocal minority wasn't responsible for the hateful rhetoric directed at it, was just strongly challenging your incredulous reaction to six's reference of The Last Jedi being met with backlash from fans.

[Buscemi2]

It was a smaller section of fans who can't accept The Last Jedi is only a movie. I'm sure most fans didn't care either way, as The Rise of Skywalker still made money and The Mandolorian was an enormous success. Yes, Solo didn't take off but that was well-known to be a troubled production and that might have been the real fanservice-heavy entry, as it focused on said vocal minority's favorite character.

[numbersix]

Well, the big indicator is that Rian Johnson's Star Wars original trilogy never emerged, which suggests that the industry loved The Last Jedi (including myself, sho regards it as good as the original trilogy) but the fans ultimately did not. The drop in box office from Awakens suggests that, as does the unfairly poor metrics on IMDB, Letterboxd (though at least the rate Ep 9 lower), and Rotten Tomatoes. And to be fair, I'm also juding from personal experience, where friends have been spewing hatred for the film due to right wing nonsense they were fed("it's so woke", etc).

That's all besides my point though. My point is that Watts wasn't shocking anyone with Wolfs, because he had done films in that tonal vein before. Them being small films is irrelevant. The issue is that it wasn't considered for a wide release, despite the positive response so far. This doesn't bode well for any streamer pickup who hopes for theatrical.

[Buscemi2]

The Force Awakens was the event film of the decade and did anyone really think the sequels would surpass it in terms of box office? And I have the feeling that Rian Johnson trilogy not happening was more due to oversaturation than anything. And IMDb isn't the best metric of a film's quality, given all of the review bombing that goes on there. It doesn't happen as often on Letterboxd, but it has happened (see Barbie, which is one of the most popular movies ever on the site but is somehow not in the Top 100 all-time).

Another reason why I believe the Last Jedi hate was overblown was that this was around the same time Justice League flopped and Snydercut began to gain steam, getting to the point where every movie feels like it was made for Internet vocal minorities. Snydercut hated Joss Whedon for his changes to the film. Joss Whedon was hired away from Marvel to do the reshoots for Justice League. Snydercut hates Marvel. Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars. I believe The Last Jedi was used as a scapegoat to go after Disney and force Zack Snyder onto everyone. These people won't stop until every movie is a charmless, overly brooding and violent three-hour overload of toxic masculinity and dated stereotypes.

[Buscemi2]

Neon is releasing 2073, Asif Kapadia's part-documentary, part-remake of La Jetee, sometime before the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how it gets classified by awards groups.

[transformers2]

Caddo Lake is the latest WB title to be kicked over to Max. It will debut on October 10th. Kind of hilarious that this got a firm date before Salem's Lot did.

[Buscemi2]

I was convinced it was going to get written off, seeing how long ago it finished filming. But they probably didn't want to piss Shyamalan off.