What did you see this past week?

by Nathaniel R

Barbenheimer is still reigning in theaters and by quite a lot both movies still gathering impressive per screen averages in their fourth weeks and enviable global grosses too ($1.1 billion and $648 million respectively). The weekend's new wide releases, the dracula picture The Last Voyage of The Demeter and a sci-fi comedy Jules didn't make much of an initial impression with moviegoers. Meanwhile the bisexual drama Passages starring Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski (with a sex scene that will make you believe they were actually f***ing on set) expanded to 41 theaters.

Weekend Box Office Aug 11-13 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 600 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
BARBIE	PASSAGES
1 ★ BARBIE $33.8 (cum. $526.4) 4,178 screens	1 ★ THEATER CAMP (US, comedy) $274k (cum. $3.1) 410 screens
2  ★ OPPENHEIMER  $18.8 (cum. $264.2) 3761 screens	2 🔺★ PASSAGES (France/Germany, drama) $85k (cum. $172k) 41 screens

Click to read more ...

What did you see this past weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Since I'd already seen Barbenheimer, I opted for a repertory screening (Under the Tuscan Sun, which I'd actually never seen. Why isn't Diane Lane in more things these days?), a play (Let's Call Her Patty starring Rhea Perlman, suddenly busy again considering she's also in Barbie), and a TV season I've always meant to watch (Happy Valley season 1. All of you who raved about it several years ago were correct). Over lunch on Saturday, I ran into two friends who were on their way to see Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One which surprised me since neither of them had seen Barbie or Oppenheimer! 

Were you part of the moviegoing throngs that hit Barbie or Oppenheimer in their strong second weekends or did you opt to catch an older film, a different wide release, or did you hit the arthouse theater? 

Weekend Box Office July 28-30 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 600 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
DISNEY'S THE HAUNTED MANSION	THE FIRST SLAM DUNK
1 ★ BARBIE $93 (cum. $351.4) 4,337 screens	1 🔺 THE FIRST SLAM DUNK (Japan, anime) $645k *NEW* 581 screens

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Mission Impossible, Theater Camp, and more

By Nathaniel R

Tom Cruise is an eternal draw at the box office but Mission Impossible still came in under expectations. Was it that clumsy "Part One" in the title (on the SIXTH film in a franchise no less)? Movies are starting to move away from this since the audience can often feel had as in 'my ticket doesn't get me the full movie?' Note that Spider-Verse dropped it's "part one" title before release even though it literally ends on a cliffhanger... 

Weekend Box Office July 14th-16th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 700 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
DEAD RECKONING PT 1	THE MIRACLE CLUB
1🔺 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -DEAD RECKONING PART ONE $54.6 *NEW* (cum. $78.4) 4,327 screens	1 🔺 THE MIRACLE CLUB $664k *NEW* 678 screens

Click to read more ...

"Best Picture" contenders will now have to play more theaters!

Extremely exciting if ‘too little too late?’ news from the Academy this week. Best Picture contenders will be required to play in multiple markets starting in 2024. Longtime readers will note that we’ve been complaining about how easy it is to qualify for the Oscars for the entire lifespan of the site. The Academy has stated over and over again that they believe in the moviegoing experience and yet they have perpetually encouraged  the “one week only in a tiny theater” practice of competing without actually being available to 95% of people who might be interested. Long before the streaming wars made things a lot fuzzier the Academy wasw rewarding this audience-unfriendly practice. We’ve seen the slow erosion of interest in the Oscars from the moviegoing public over the years and it’s hard not to assume that the two things are related. 

Finally the Academy has decided that distributors need to make more of an effort. So now Oscar hopefuls will be required to commit to a theatrical expansion in at least 10 of the top 50 markets within 45 days of their initial release (a couple of those markets can be international)... 

Click to read more ...

First & Last 002

We're bringing back one of our greatest hits like an aging band on tour.
CAN YOU GUESS THE MOVIE FROM ITS FIRST AND LAST SHOT?

The answer is after the jump...

Click to read more ...