SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

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numbersix
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SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by numbersix »

Much like Louis CK’s inevitable journey towards exposing himself in front of unwilling women once again, the box office is slowly crawling its way back to the public, luring it in with promise of good, clean fun. Last week saw the release of The Woman King, a film featuring an all-black, female cast. What would never have been funded 10 years ago turned out to be a #1 hit, with glowing reviews and a delighted audience response. Expect that woman king (aka queen) to whoop and hold her Top 5 crown for weeks to come. And horror Barbarian, despite been given the kiss-of-death by getting good reviews, is holding surprisingly well. Perhaps the studio strategy of not releasing any film for a whole month wasn’t the best way to make money?





Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros) is a film that really should be worrying. Despite being directed by Olivia “So hot right now” Wilde and with early promo material looking distinct, if not exciting, controversary wound its way to it. Firstly, Shia LeBeouf, who has un-cancelled himself by conveniently becoming Catholic, posted messages between him and Wilde contradicting the story that he was fired for being too troublesome (despite claims from his ex that he beat her). On top of that, star of the film Florence Pugh reportedly did not have a good time and is doing no press. And some clips of Harry Styles (who replaced the beef) reveal a potentially Razzie-worthy performance. So, this film about a weird, tight-knit community in the same vein as The Stepford Wives, looks like a bomb. Right? Well, strangely no. Despite the poor reviews from the festivals, apparently the controversary is helping the film’s tracking. There really is no such thing as bad news.

Despite the highballing, I’m a little more cautious about this film. Expect it to open in the mid teens but plummet from poor word of mouth, and end up in the mid 30s at best, which is okay for $8, but you can get better. However, for $7 in Ultimate you could get 8 T5 points, a low 6 IMDB score, and 1-2 PTA points, making it a decent filler.




We don’t tend to play re-releases from the vaults, but with not much happening this week, here’s Avatar (Disney), marking that iconic anniversary of… 13 years? It’s actually to whet the appetite for the sequel, which is due out this December, or until there’s a single pixel not blue enough for Cameron, who will then push it to 2044. There have been a few re-releases lately, and they’ve performed quite well, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home. More relevant is Jaws, which opened to $2.6m two weeks ago. Expect Avatar to do something similar, which makes it a waste of your $4 in Ult and BO.



Predictions for the weekend

1. Don’t Worry Darling - $15m
2. The Woman King- $10m
3. Barbarian - $3.5m
4. Avatar (Re-Release) - $2.5m
5. See How They Run: $2m


PTA: Don’t Worry, The Woman King, Moonage Daydream, Barbarian, Avatar

Next week sees two new wide releases, Bros and Smile, and two limited releases Vesper and The Good House, which Tranny will tell you all about.

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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

The good thing about the Avatar reissue is that theatres are showing movies in native 3-D again. I got to see Creature from the Black Lagoon and Dial M for Murder this month and next month, the restored Flesh for Frankenstein is playing near me. Hopefully, someone will do the original House of Wax soon.

And I have to imagine word of mouth will be terrible on Don't Worry Darling. Imagine how many people will come for One Direction fawning but get The Stepford Wives Go West instead. Also, I have to imagine Warner Bros. wants it to flop so they can continue their plans for an all sequels and remakes slate before Comcast swoops in to save the day.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

I don't think this will affect box office but I thought this was worth mentioning: James Cameron is tinkering with his movies again. Already in love with DNR on his earlier films, I found out that he's motion smoothed some scenes on Avatar to create the illusion of high-frame rate for the IMAX version. Avatar was not filmed in high-frame rate though perhaps some CGI was rendered in higher frame rates.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by numbersix »

I believe all CGI is rendered at a much higher rate, and downgraded to match the resolution of the rest of the film during the online. So he must have returned to the original files. But that's probably standard for re-releases (though less so for films only 13 years old)

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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

Okay, that makes sense.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by transformers2 »

If the advanced sales from the theaters (along with the Monday IMAX preview numbers) in my area end up being indictive of the masses, Don't Worry Darling's numbers this weekend are going to surprise a LOT of people.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

Only if word of mouth is good. This could end up being like mother! where they tried to sell it around a popular figure with younger audiences (Jennifer Lawrence being that film's Harry Styles) doing weightier material and the move backfired massively. Don't Worry Darling doesn't even have the critical praise that one did, which is already one strike against it.

If word of mouth isn't good, it could very well die off after Friday.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by transformers2 »

Any word-of-mouth blowback won't hit until next weekend. And to be honest, I don't think its forecast beyond this weekend is good regardless. People are going to come out for Styles or the behind-the-scenes drama this weekend then ignore the movie until it debuts on HBO Max 2 months from now and gets new life via a fresh wave of memes.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

A movie can drop hard from Friday to Saturday. Word can travel really fast on whether or not something is good or bad. This feels like one of those cases.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by transformers2 »

Of course it can. We saw it happen with Morbius earlier this year. But in this case, it doesn't apply. The sales that I've seen are good-to-great all weekend long, which is why I made the vague, cautiously optimistic prediction above. If those numbers translate at least relatively well to other markets, this shit is going to make at least $30 mil for the weekend.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by numbersix »

The Thurs preview figure is certainly surprising. Could hit mid 20s. Bizarre. Now every film is going to fabricate controversy to get box office bumps

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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

The annoying part is that the controversy was really just a series of minor news stories that got picked up as major news stories because of slow news days. Most of the people going to see this film don't even know who Florence Pugh is or saw Wilde's previous film.

And creating "controversy" doesn't always work. I don't think The Slap got more people to watch King Richard on HBO Max.

Anyway, HSX is expecting the film not to hit $30 million due to the advance screening frontloading. $20-25 million looks possible but could end up at the low end of that estimate if word-of-mouth is harmful.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by JohnErle »

numbersix wrote:
September 23rd, 2022, 11:34 am
The Thurs preview figure is certainly surprising. Could hit mid 20s. Bizarre. Now every film is going to fabricate controversy to get box office bumps
I think it's more likely pop dreamboats like Harry Styles get film roles since I suspect that's the main reason all this is happening. His fans obsess over every minute detail of his life, so something as absurd as spitgate goes viral. Any alleged friction between Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh, and Shia LaBouef would have been very minor news without Harry Styles at the centre of it all. I look forward to BTS making an appearance in the MCU before long.

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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by transformers2 »

JohnErle wrote:
September 23rd, 2022, 1:29 pm
numbersix wrote:
September 23rd, 2022, 11:34 am
The Thurs preview figure is certainly surprising. Could hit mid 20s. Bizarre. Now every film is going to fabricate controversy to get box office bumps
I think it's more likely pop dreamboats like Harry Styles get film roles since I suspect that's the main reason all this is happening. His fans obsess over every minute detail of his life, so something as absurd as spitgate goes viral. Any alleged friction between Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh, and Shia LaBouef would have been very minor news without Harry Styles at the centre of it all. I look forward to BTS making an appearance in the MCU before long.
Bingo. The tabloid buzz around the drama isn't due to the issues themselves, but who's at the center of nearly all of them. Unless somebody is planning to cast Taylor Swift or a K-Pop star in a lead role then stage a troubled production and clownshow press tour, this phenomenon couldn't be successfully recreated.
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Re: SIX TIPS, OR HOW TO PLEASE YOUR SLATE – THE FILMS OF 9/23

Post by Buscemi2 »

Swift doesn't look to be in very much of Amsterdam, as she's barely in the trailers, so you can't create controversy around that (also, any controversy with a David O. Russell film has almost always been bad controversy). Besides, Swift's previous film choices have not been the best.
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