Following the electronic sell-through debut of The Marvels this past Tuesday, which led to it shooting up to the top of the various VOD (Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, etc.) charts, this week saw the launch likewise for Walt Disney Animation’s Wish.

Meanwhile, this Tuesday saw the 96th Academy Awards nominations get unveiled. Offhand, the “Barbie got snubbed” conversation (Margot Robbie got a nod for producing the Best Picture nominee and Greta Gerwig was honored in the Best Adapted Screenplay category) seems to imply that the “this latest film news or film is problematic” online discourse becoming almost as much on disingenuous autopilot as the “this franchise is bad now because it features women and/or minorities” YouTube troll industrial complex. But I digress.

What do these three items - the home release of a flop superhero movie and then a flop Disney followed by the Oscar nominations, have to do with each other?

Well, pardon the digression, but the summer of 2022 had 45% fewer wide-release films compared to the summer of 2019 (yes, counting Disney’s Avengers: Endgame in late April). The only reason the respective domestic box office was down 32% instead of 44% was that Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick earned around $550 million more than expected while also juicing the awareness = interest fortunes of WB’s Elvis, Sony’s Bullet Train and Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing via fortuitous trailer placement.

2023 was supposed to be a rebound year, with 500 total releases. That was still the lowest “non-Covid” year since 2002, but there was reason to be optimistic. The (still huge considering competition, Covid variables and economic circumstances) $8.637 billion total for in-year releases was a 15% jump from 2022.

However, it was still well below the $9-$11 billion cumes to which theaters had become accustomed — not accounting for inflation and PLF-related price bumps — starting in 2002. However, the discrepancy can be accounted for via almost three specific variables, and it could be simpler than just Covid-related harm and a doomed push-to-streaming.

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Pardon the delinquency, I over-slept this morning and I was on “taking kids to school” duty from 7:30 am to 10:00 am (one kid goes at 8, another at 9 and the last at 10). Anyway, I’m going to assume you have a general idea of who and what got nominated by who and what, so this won’t be a rundown of every nomination in every category. Offhand, Universal’s Oppenheimer (the likely frontrunner for Best Picture and Best Director) earned 13 nominations while Searchlight’s Poor Things earned 11. Apple/Paramount’s Killers of the Flower Moon nabbed ten nods while Warner Bros. Discovery’s Barbie scored eight and Amazon MGM’s American Fiction earned five.

Barbie wins and loses…

While a tech win or two will probably prevent this, there is now at least a chance that Barbie will be represented in the Oscars winner’s circle by Ryan Gosling winning Best Supporting Actor for playing Ken and his anthem “I’m Just Ken” (courtesy of Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt) winning Best Original Song. If that isn’t a case of subtext-meets-text in terms of what the movie is actually about and who benefits most even from a female-driven critically-acclaimed blockbuster… Recall that by far the biggest beneficiary from the zeitgeist-representing success of HBO’s Girls was Adam Driver.

Yes, it’s a slight shock that Margot Robbie missed Best Actress and that Greta Gerwig again missed out on Best Director for her third-straight Best Picture nominated feature. To be fair, neither director Joseph Kosinski nor Tom Cruise made the cut last year for Top Gun: Maverick under similar circumstances. Meanwhile, Barbie co-star America Ferrera ended up in the Best Supporting Actress category, perhaps the morning’s biggest surprise, feels at least partially due to her character’s buzzy “No right way to be a woman!” speech.

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A slew of first-time nominees

Or, maybe they really liked her key supporting turn and wanted to reward a longtime in-the-trenches vet (Real Women Have Curves was 22 years ago). Ditto long-time listener, first-time callers Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Danielle Brooks, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Sandra Hüller, Jeffrey Wright (my “if I was an Academy member” pick for Best Actor) and Sterling K. Brown (ditto, respectively) among others.

I’d argue the high-profile omissions for Gerwig and Robbie increases the chances of Gerwig and Noah Bambach’’s screenplay winning in the Best Adapted category (following some manufactured controversy from folks who don’t know how the screenplay categories operate when it comes to established IP), but all five nominees are also Best Picture nominees.

The Best Original Screenplay category went 4/5 in that regard, with Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik’s Netflix festival pick-up May December making the cut over Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s adaption of Killers of the Flower Moon. Amusingly, my wife didn’t care much for the movie arguing that she felt the adaptation actually lessened Mollie Kyle’s role compared to the book. For that matter, Leonardo DiCaprio missing Best Actor was a little surprising, as was the inclusion of Colman Domingo (also a longtime character actor/first-time nominee) for Netflix’s Rustin.

Lily Gladstone (the tenth of ten first-timers this year) is the first Native American actress to score a Best Actress Oscar nomination — even if I’d argue she’s in the wrong category. Domingo joins Ian McKellen (for Gods and Monsters in 1999) as just the second openly-gay actor to nab an Oscar nod for playing a true-life gay character. Likewise, Jodie Foster won two Oscars for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs and was nominated for Taxi Driver and Nell, but this is the first time the openly lesbian actress (who should have also won in 1998 for Contact, dammit) has been nominated for playing a lesbian character.

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Hollywood has, I’d argue, realized that chasing Netflix was a quixotic quest that threatened to turn the entire entertainment industry into Captain Ahab at the climax of Moby Dick (mixed metaphors for the win). Tech companies like Amazon and Apple are offering their big flicks like Red One and Napoleon to theatres as a means of promotion for their streaming premieres. Studio executives like WBD’s David Zaslav and Paramount’s Brian Robbins are turning streaming-bound features like Evil Dead Rise and Mean Girls into box office hits. Even Disney, now again under CEO Bob Iger, offered up Soul (and will soon release Luca and Turning Red) into domestic theaters for the first time as a reminder that Pixar movies can best be appreciated in a darkened auditorium while recommitting to a real theatrical window for Marvel films like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Pixar toons like Elemental.

There seems to be, finally, a renewed communal understanding that releasing films into movie theaters is of prime importance both in terms of cash-in-hand revenue (from theatrical grosses as well as down-the-line post-theatrical streams like DVD, VOD and licensing) and in terms of raising awareness and creating library value. Great, wonderful, welcome to the party. But the theatrical experience isn’t yet wine and roses, due to a slew of factors related to theatres themselves, the films they are offered and what audiences will and won’t still show up for. So, rather than complain and pontificate, I’m going to try and be optimistic and suggest eight pieces of advice, both friendly suggestions and potentially insane experiments, which could at-best help return theatrical to something approximating the pre-streaming “glory days” and at-worst make the experience more enjoyable for those of us still keeping the faith.

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Uh… this weekend, same as last weekend? As discussed yesterday, this weekend could really have used a strike-delayed flick like Sony’s Kraven The Hunter or a “surprise” concert flick from Lady Gaga, Madonna or Weird Al Yankovic. Even a “new to you” Chinese blockbuster from the last few years (Moon Man, Full River Red, etc.) might have moved the needle just a tad.

But no, with no excuses this time, early 2024 feels as dead as early 2022 when only Paramount and Spyglass’s Scream and the still-mighty Spider-Man: No Way Home (again tops with $14.5 million in weekend six or more than this weekend’s chart-topping $11.7 million Mean Girls gross) was keeping the heat on at the local multiplex. Thanks to no major newbies this weekend, the top six this weekend were identical to the top six last weekend.

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With no new major wide releases offered up this weekend (or next weekend for that matter), the top six this weekend will be identical from last weekend. By default, the biggest release of the week is Bleecker Street’s I.S.S., an ambitious and enjoyable B-movie sci-fi romp about American and Russian astronauts ordered to kill each and take control of their shared international space station. As exactly the kind of high-concept, inclusively-cast (recent Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose is the film’s top-billed lead), non-franchise original that everyone says Hollywood never makes but then doesn’t show up when Hollywood makes them on the semi-regular, I.S.S. earned around $1.25 million in 2,250 theaters on Friday for a likely $3.35 million opening weekend.

This almost… almost made sense in 2021 and 2022 when Wall Street was pressuring studios to be more like Netflix and prioritize streaming spending and subscriber growth. This kinda-sorta made sense when a global pandemic had caused a slew of studio programmers to be sold off to streamers and then caused a post-production traffic jam even after Wall Street had already changed its mind and demanded revenue and profits. But now? Everyone knows that streaming isn’t the one-size-fits-all miracle cure, and everyone knows that theatrical revenue brings in revenue and adds value to a given film as an eventual streaming title. Everyone knows that Wall Street no longer gives participation credit for having a bunch of media-friendly streaming shows and movies on your non-Netflix platform.

And yet (partially due to a self-inflicted dual labor stoppage that shut down the industry for much of 2023 and caused a slew of delays), there will be no new major wide releases until the Feb. 2 release of Argylle, which (ironically) is a big-budget, star-packed action comedy being released theatrically by Universal to boost its theoretical value as an eventual Apple TV+ streaming original. We really could have used a high-profile concert film from Madonna, Lady Gaga or Weird Al Yankovic this weekend. Of course, if audiences still showed up to “movie movies” (especially outside of the horror genre), which has been an existential problem for theaters and studios since 2016, then the irregular tentpole schedule would be less of an issue.

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But that’s not new information and theaters cannot and should not be expected to subsist on surprise concert films, overseas hits and periodic over-performing Barbie-sized blockbusters. Not when we know that theatrical box office is mostly as healthy, compared to pre-Covid times, as the volume of major theatrical releases being offered on the regular. 2021 saw films like Godzilla Vs. Kong, Free Guy and Spider-Man: No Way Home vastly outperform even pre-Covid expectations. 2022 saw new records for Memorial Day openers (Top Gun: Maverick) and July 4th openers (Minions: The Rise of Gru) while 2023 saw a faith-based human trafficking thriller (The Sound of Freedom) top $180 million domestic while a three-hour, action-free, R-rated drama about science (Oppenheimer) topped $325 million in North America and became, globally ($915 million), the biggest-earning straight-up drama of all time.

When audiences have something they want to see, they show up, period. But when they don’t, they don’t. And while I wish that “movies they want to see” meant Ava DuVernay’s ambitious, intriguing (if not entirely successful) Origin, which opened in 125 theaters following an awards-qualifying run last month, we know that’s not the case. Cue a Friday gross of around $230,000 for a likely $770,000 opening weekend for the Neon release. So, sans anything else of note that qualifies as “new,” it was up to the holdovers, and not The Holdovers, to hold up the fort.

Paramount’s Mean Girls dropped hard on its second Friday, earning $3.25 million (-72%) for a likely $11.1 million (-61%) weekend gross and $49.5 million ten-day domestic total. Come what may, this was arguably a one-weekend-wonder, with little luck in convincing the unconverted to sample the goods. To be fair, we’re talking about a $35 million, star-free musical adaptation of a very popular 2004 teen comedy that was supposed to just go straight to Paramount+. Since the film was already going to get made (thus negating the production budget in this equation), all that matters is that the theatrical revenue justifies what was a pretty shrewd and financially responsible online-centric marketing campaign. We can expect around $75 million domestic when this one wraps up and joins its non-musical source material as an ideal double-feature on Paramount+.

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Amazon MGM’s The Beekeeper earned $2.445 million (-64%) on Friday for a likely $8.4 million (-49%) second-weekend gross and $31 million ten-day total. That’s frankly a decent hold for a solo and/or R-rated Jason Statham action movie, and (by default) it will already be his fourth-biggest-earning top-billed star vehicle outside of the Meg movies and Hobbs & Shaw behind only Transporter 3 ($32 million in 2008), Death Race ($36 million in 2008) and Transporter 2 ($43 million in 2005). Barring a collapse, it should take the title at least in North America, and we’ll see how close it gets globally to Wrath of Man ($103 million in 2021), Transporter 3 ($113 million in 2008) and Mechanic: Resurrection ($125 million — including $49 million in China — in 2016).

Anyone But You earned $1.74 million (-17%) for a likely $5.7 million (-20%) weekend and $64 million month-long domestic cume. Yeah, the Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com could end its domestic run with around $80 million. Wonka will earn around $6.5 million (-20%) in weekend five for a $187.5 million as it crawls its way to $200 million domestic. Universal and Illumination’s Migration will earn around $5.3 million (-15%) in weekend four for a month-long $95 million cume. Yeah, it’ll pass $100 million domestic next weekend. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will earn $3.7 million (-29%) for a $114 million domestic and over/under $400 million global cume. George Clooney’s $40 million Amazon MGM flick The Boys in the Boat will be at $44 million domestic tomorrow.

Blumhouse’s Night Swim will end weekend three with $23.5 million. Searchlight expanded Poor Things into 1,400 theaters and will earn around $1.91 million (+7%) for a $20.3 million domestic cume. The Iron Claw passed $30 million on Friday, becoming just the sixth A24 movie (after Everything Everywhere All At Once, Uncut Gems, Lady Bird, Hereditary and Talk to Me) to do so. Inflation aside, it should be noted that A24 has had three of their six biggest earners just in the last two years. American Fiction will earn $1.65 million (-13%) this weekend for a $7.9 million domestic cume. Alas, The Book of Clarence will drop 56% for a $1.13 million weekend and $4.7 million tent-day cume. Uh… catch it on Netflix I suppose?

It has been two months since word leaked that Melissa Barrera had been fired from Scream VII. Short version: Spyglass (or possibly just studio head Gary Barber) deemed the 33-year-old Mexican-American actress’s online posts concerning the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict to be not just in support of Palestine but antisemitic. My thoughts on that notwithstanding (opposing the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government is not antisemitic any more than opposing George W. Bush’s post-9/11 American overseas military campaigns was unpatriotic), Jenna Ortega officially left the franchise a day later. While that was, depending on who you ask, a long-planned departure related to scheduling conflicts and/or a requested salary bump, director Christopher Landon walked weeks later, declaring that a dream job had turned into a nightmare.  

As of today, Barrera is currently promoting her new movie Your Monster at Sundance, with the just released trailer for Universal’s buzzy and clever high-concept chiller Abigail (think The Ransom of Red Chief with a vampire) positioning the Radio Silence )(Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett)-directed romp as a possible mid-April breakout. Landon is set to direct Big Bad, an adaptation of a Chandler Baker-penned werewolf-related short story, for Lionsgate. Ortega is still positioning herself as a definitive gen-Z movie star. So, yeah, among other takeaways, there’s more to life in Hollywood than franchises. What of what was supposed to be Spyglass’s flagship franchise?  

In an era where Hollywood is constantly trying to resurrect once-successful brands (Star Wars) and/or turn singular high-concept hits (Jumanji) into endlessly monetizable IP, Scream was a commercial success story due to being able to get out from under its predecessors’ shadow. Two years after the Paramount-distributed and Radio Silence-directed Scream pulled off a miracle, the brand is in worse shape than ever before. Fair or not, the decision has left one of the more promising recent franchise reboots in purgatory.  

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After waiting for nearly four years, I spent part of yesterday afternoon seeing Pixar’s Soul in a movie theater. It was a masterpiece on Disney+, but the Peter Docter and Kemp Powers-directed fantastical dramedy was intended for theaters. Its initial afterlife antics registered clearer and funnier on the big screen, while the melancholy third act played even more pinpoint-poignant in a dark auditorium. The (re)release of Soul is a reminder that an entire generation’s worth of inclusive milestones and diverse tentpoles, some of them otherwise surefire hits, were kneecapped by a global pandemic and then by a dual labor stoppage.

Yes, there was zero excuse for Hollywood not going all-in on diverse films, big and small, at least since the likes of Rush Hour, The Bird Cage and Independence Day proved the commercial value of more inclusive theatrical cinema. And it is beyond tragic that Hollywood waited until the mid-2010s to even start trying to find the next Will Smith (instead of exclusively hunting for the next Tom Cruise), by which time audiences no longer showed up for non-IP originals or mere star+concept vehicles.  

That said, however delinquent the industry was in this respect, the pandemic and then the strike undercut these efforts, perhaps permanently. This reissue comes amid what many fear has been an industry-wide walk-back regarding onscreen/offscreen inclusivity.  Four years after the release of Bad Boys for Life, which kicked off what should have been a banner year for “not a white guy” tentpoles, I mourn the history that wasn’t made, the conventional wisdom that wasn’t upended and the lessons that weren’t learned.  

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In weekend box office news not related to Mean Girls opening with $32 million domestic and Wonka crossing $505 million worldwide... 

Jason Statham set a personal best with David Ayer’s The Beekeeper. The original actioner, again featuring the action star as a guy who is more than a Mechanic and more than a Transporter but is also a one-man-army/killing machine, earned $19 million over the Fri-Mon holiday, including $16.8 million over the Fri-Sun frame (and $3.2 million in Imax – a rousing 16.7% -- over the long weekend). That’s higher than the $16.5 million Fri-Sun debut of Transporter 2 in 2005, although that PG-13 action sequel earned $20.1 million over its Fri-Mon Labor Day opening.  

Whether you want to count Amazon MGM Studios’ The Beekeeper as Statham’s third-biggest top-billed Fri-Sun opener behind the Meg movies or his biggest R-rated solo action opener, it’s a milestone. He’s been doing this for well over 20 years, as I explained to my 12-year-old who wondered if we were getting The Beekeeper 2 (it was his first non-Meg Statham rodeo). Going back to the very early 2000s, most of his films of this nature are thrilled to open with $10 million and make it to $25 million domestically.  

This $19 million Fri-Mon estimate will be bigger than the lifetime cume Safe (my pick for his best star vehicle action movie) and Expendables 4 (uh... lower on that list). If it even legs to $45 million, not impossible with Amazon’s marketing muscle and decent buzz (sorry), it’ll be the actor’s biggest-grossing star vehicle in raw domestic grosses save for Fast Saga sequels, the Meg movies and ensembles like The Italian Job, Spy and the first two Expendables movies.  

No, I’m not counting cameos in Collateral and The Pink Panther or his animated turn in Gnomeo and Juliet, so don’t be a smart ass.  

The Beekeeper is easily Ayer’s most enjoyable film since uh... his movies don’t tend to be “fun,” but it’s probably his best overall effort since End of Watch. It mixes unapologetically silly plotting (Statham’s Beekeeper is, unlike the other members of his super-secret world-protecting murder group, actually a beekeeper, and I appreciate that the movie doesn’t bother to explain this) and refreshingly timely “young tech bros are the bad guys” (personified by Josh Hutcherson) plotting. It spends too much time with folks explaining that Beekeepers are unwelcome news for bad guys, and it offers a fascinating eventual conflict (even if it’s a bit... politically dog whistle-y in a Fox News-friendly fashion) that it doesn’t bother to unpack. But my son loved his first Statham actioner and the third act kicks the movie’s action and production value into gear.  

As for the success, including a solid 67% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s partially because the audience that grew up with The Transporter, Crank and War are now many of the “adults in the room” in terms of modern film criticism. Also, Statham doesn’t make movies like this as much as he used to, with Mechanic: Resurrection in 2016 being his first solo outing since (the also quite good) Homefront in late 2013 with Wrath of Man being “next” in May of 2021. In between Homefront and Wrath of Man were a slew of higher-profile films like Furious 7, Spy and The Meg which arguably introduced the action star to a broader audience. Mechanic: Resurrection and Wrath of Man both topped $100 million globally to become his biggest solo R-rated actioners worldwide, so we’ll see if The Beekeeper (which opened with $4.4 million in China) keeps pace. 

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Sony/TriStar released The Book of Clarence on Friday as well, and it’s sadly playing like a “movie we say we want but ignore when we get it” theatrical offering. The biblical dramedy, starring LaKeith Stanfield as a down-on-his-luck grifter trying to sell himself as a messiah right alongside Jesus, comes courtesy of writer/director Jeymes Samuel. Samuel’s star-studded western The Harder They Fall is my pick for Netflix’s absolute best original studio programmer/genre flick, and it’s very encouraging to see Samuel make the jump from streaming originals to big-studio theatrical features.  

This $40 million flick, produced and financed by Legendary as part of a multi-picture distribution deal with Sony, plays a similar trick as the western, offering a genre usually represented by white actors and filling the screen with Black performers while A) using the demographic difference for storytelling nuance and B) having an unapologetically pulpy time with it. Samuel’s current vibe of “super-duper representational milestone... but also a fun time at the movies that don’t put importance over showmanship” makes him one of the more promising “new” filmmakers around.  

Despite solid reviews, the $40 million production earned just $3.2 million in its Fri-Mon debut. I’ve been whining about this at least since Drew Barrymore’s Whip It bombed in late 2009. It’s only gotten worse as general/casual audiences shifted some of their non-event moviegoing to streaming over theaters. At least, since it’s a Sony flick, it’ll eventually become momentarily popular on Netflix, and the perpetually online will claim that nobody told them that this movie even existed. No whining today, but if you have the time, it looks really good on a noticeably big screen. 

Walt Disney released Soul into theaters yesterday, as a “sorry we shunted your Pixar masterpiece to Disney+ in a short-sighted attempt to please Wall Street and please see Pixar movies in theaters again” mea culpa. They’ll do likewise with Turning Red on February 9 and Luca on March 22. The Jamie Foxx/Tina Fey toon, which justly won Best Animated Feature in 2021, earned $550,000 over its Fri-Mon weekend. I will check it out in theaters as I always regretted not being able to, but I’m waiting to see if my indecisive children want to tag along.  

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Wonka will earn around $10 million over the long weekend for a $178 million domestic cume, while Sony’s leggy rom-com Anyone But You will drop just 27% over the Fri-Sun frame for a $6.9 million Fri-Sun/$8.5 million Fri-Mon weekend. It’ll have $56 million domestically and $79 million worldwide (over triple its $25 million budget) by Monday night. Illumination’s Migration will earn $8.3 million over the Fri-Mon weekend for a new $88 million cume as it makes a play for $100 million domestic. The $72 million original has earned $173 million worldwide.  

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will earn $6.2 million over the holiday weekend for a $109 million domestic total. Hey, at least it earned more in North America than The Flash and Dune. Meanwhile, it has earned $373 million worldwide, including $33 million in Imax, putting it on a course to a $400 million global total. There have been just three Hollywood flicks that have passed $350 million worldwide since Barbie and Oppenheimer in mid-July of last year. All three (Meg 2: The Trench, Wonka and Aquaman 2) were Warner Bros. Discovery releases.

Blumhouse’s Night Swim understandably drowned on weekend two, earning $4 million (-66%) over the Fri-Sun frame and $4.7 million over the holiday for a $20 million 11-day total. Oh, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has reached $165 million domestically from a $44.8 million debut weekend, meaning it is the leggiest pre-Thanksgiving YA title ever ahead of even (larger grosses notwithstanding) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ($318 million from a $90 million debut) and Frozen II ($477 million/$130 million). Godzilla Minus One passed $50 million domestically as The Boy and the Heron tops $40 million. The former just passed Demon Slayer The Movie to become the biggest Japanese earner ever in North America and the fifth-biggest non-English grosser ever in unadjusted domestic box office.

In expansion news, MGM Amazon’s American Fiction expanded to 625 theaters over the weekend, where it will earn $1.9 million (+93%) over the Fri-Sun part of a $2.2 million Fri-Mon weekend. That’s a merely okay $3,728 per-theater average and $5.615 million domestic cume. Hope springs eternal and this Cord Jefferson-directed and Jeffrey Wright-starring comedy should end up in the thick of the Oscar race. Whether that moves the needle among moviegoers is still to be seen, but A) it’s one of the best films of the year, and B) it’s a fully mainstream family comedy/pop culture satire.  

In other “spectacular mainstream comedy amid the Oscar race” news, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things will earn $2.17 million over the holiday for a $17.7 million cume. It just passed Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch to become Searchlight’s second-biggest Covid-era release behind The Menu ($38.5 million). Once it passes $20 million domestically, it’ll be the fourth Covid-era platformer to do so following Everything Everywhere All At Once ($77 million), A Man Called Otto ($64 million) and Asteroid City ($28 millon). Again, fingers crossed that awards glory for the Emma Stone-starring sci-fi comedy will lead to leggy theatrical business closer to those first two than the third. 

Paramount’s Mean Girls topped the weekend box office over the MLK holiday, earning a projected $31.1 million over its debut Fri-Mon frame. That’s not half-bad for a $35 million, star-free musical that was greenlit and produced with the intent of debuting on Paramount+. It’s also the third live-action musical to debut with good-to-great theatrical results in just under a month, alongside Wonka (which just passed $505 million global while becoming – by default – the holiday event flick of 2023) and The Color Purple (which opened with a near-record $18 million Christmas Day launch).  

I’ve long argued that live-action musicals were relatively safe theatrical sub-genres, alongside (in pre-Covid days) the Marvel/DC superhero movie and the high-concept horror flick. Like the western, the musical is one of those old-school genres that everyone likes to say is dead or disliked by the masses, but whenever Hollywood delivers one that, well, delivers (see the Denzel Washington/Chris Pratt remake of The Magnificent Seven), audiences show up. 

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Mean Girls cemented itself as the first “big” hit of the new year. The uh... feature adaptation of the musical stage show adaptation of the original theatrical feature film (that’s a sub-genre unto itself) earned $11.65 million on Friday, including $3.25 million in mid-week (Wednesday and Thursday) previews. That sets the stage for a Fri-Sun $28 million gross and an MLK weekend holiday debut of $32 million. Not bad for a $35 million film that was produced and intended for Paramount+ before smarter heads prevailed.  

I’ll be the first to smirk at Brian Robbins getting fortune and glory from a slew of movies (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, The Lost City, Scream, Top Gun: Maverick, etc.) greenlit by his predecessor (Jim Gianopulos), which to be fair is how the business works. See also Mark Canton getting canned at Sony partially due to the failure of The Cable Guy in 1996, only to watch his summer 1997 slate of My Best Friend’s Wedding, Men in Black, and Air Force One become mega-successful. However, Robbins was among those at the forefront of the whole “put this promising streaming flick into theaters instead” movement (Smile, 80 For Brady, etc.) before it was cool. 

Anyway, Mean Girls is a successful and shrewd example of multi-generational nostalgia. Yes, it’s obviously playing off the 20-year fandom of the Mark Waters-directed and Tina Fey-penned 2004 original teen comedy. However, it’s also playing off the newer and presumably younger-skewing fandom of the Broadway musical adaptation itself, which has “only” been around since 2017. Yes, it’s very sad that Hollywood has gone from the industry that would make an of-the-moment, youth-skewing, original teen comedy like Mean Girls to the place that would make a slightly updated musical remake of Mean Girls, but that’s not a new problem and I at least partially blame the audience.  

In a skewed way, Mean Girls is representative of our current era. It’s a straight-up IP cash-in for which we now must be thankful. That’s because it made it into theaters considering its streaming roots. And we must champion its success despite not exactly being a bold, original, non-franchise flick because theaters need every hit they can get now. I’ve often joked that we’ll know theatrical is truly healthy again when I can again be happy when terrible, misguided movies like Exodus: Gods and Kingdoms bomb at the box office, or when I don’t have to be thrilled that a movie I despised like Yesterday becomes a hit just because it’s an original, adult-skewing, high-concept non-franchise films. 

The film plays like a stereotypical live-action remake of a Walt Disney animated film. It’s entirely dependent on your awareness and fondness of the original. Its edge is sanded down to the point of wholesomeness in fear of offending the perpetually online thought police to the point of neutering its key conflicts. And, outside of the ambitious musical numbers, it often feels less like a movie than a feature-length cosplay. To be fair, Auliʻi Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey are in a much better, more authentic film while Reneé Rapp has killer pipes. However, in January of 2024, I will root for and cheer for the success of Mean Girls just as I will eventually hope for the success of... sigh... Beetlejuice 2... because what choice do I have? 

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Meanwhile, Amazon MGM unleashed David Ayer’s The Beekeeper yesterday, with promising results. The Jason Statham-starring original actioner, again featuring the action star as a guy who is more than a Mechanic and more than a Transporter but is also a one-man-army/killing machine, earned $6.7 million on Friday. That’s a record (sans inflation) single-day gross for a solo Statham actioner, just above the $5.6 million Friday and $5.8 million Saturday of Transporter 2 back in 2005. He’s been doing this for well over 20 years, and most of his films of this nature (obviously not counting ensemble actioners, Fast Saga sequels or Meg flicks) are thrilled to open with $10 million and make it to $30 million domestic.  

The Beekeeper should earn around $16 million over the Fri-Sun portion of an $18 million Fri-Mon weekend. That’s below the $20 million Fri-Mon opening of The Transporter 2 over its Labor Day launch. However, it’s more than (for example) the entire $17 million domestic cume of Safe, which is my pick for Statham’s very best solo actioner.

The Beekeeper is somewhere in the middle, with its share of goofy plotting and refreshingly timely “young tech bros are the bad guys” plotting. I appreciated that they used expected bad guy Jeremy Irons instead as an exasperated old guy annoyed at how these dumb kids (personified by Josh Hutcherson) keep screwing up and attracting the wrong kind of attention. It spends too much time with folks explaining that Beekeepers are really bad news for bad guys, and it offers a fascinating eventual conflict (even if it’s a bit... politically dog whistle-y) that it doesn’t bother to unpack.  

But my son loved his first Statham actioner and wants a sequel (I tried to explain that Statham’s been making movies like this for two decades), and the third act really kicks the movie’s action and production value into gear. As for the success, including a solid 67% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s partially because the audience that grew up with The Transporter, Crank and War are now many of the “adults in the room” in terms of modern film criticism.  

Also, Statham doesn’t make movies like this as much as he used to, with Mechanic: Resurrection in 2016 being his first solo outing since (the also quite good) Homefront in late 2013 and then Wrath of Man being “next” in May of 2021. In between Homefront and Wrath of Man were a slew of higher-profile films like Furious 7, Spy and The Meg. Those mainstream crowdpleasers arguably introduced the action star to a broader audience. Statham never really got his “ticket to the A-list" action spectacular like Under Siege or Total Recall, but he clearly didn’t need it.  

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Sony released The Book of Clarence on Friday as well, and it’s sadly playing like a “movie we say we want but ignore when we get it” theatrical offering. The biblical dramedy, starring LaKeith Stanfield as a down-on-his-luck grifter trying to sell himself as a messiah right alongside Jesus, comes courtesy of writer/director Jeymes Samuel. Samuel’s star-studded western The Harder They Fall is my pick for Netflix’s very best original studio programmer/genre flick, and it’s very encouraging to see Samuel make the jump from streaming originals to big-studio theatrical features.  

This $40 million flick plays a similar trick as the western, offering a genre usually represented by white folks and filling the screen with Black actors while A) using the demographic difference for storytelling nuance and B) having a grand old, unapologetically pulpy time with it. Honestly, Samuel’s current vibe of “super-duper important representational milestone... but also a grand old time at the movies that don’t put importance over showmanship” makes him one of the more promising “new” filmmakers around.  

Despite solid reviews, the $40 million production earned just $1 million on Friday, pointing toward a $2.6 million Fri-Sun/$3.2 million Fri-Mon debut. Look, I’ve been whining about this at least since Drew Barrymore’s Whip It bombed in late 2009, and it’s only gotten worse as general/casual audiences shifted some of their non-event moviegoing to streaming over theaters. At least, since it’s a Sony flick, it’ll eventually become momentarily popular on Netflix, and the perpetually online will claim that nobody told them that this movie even existed. All I’ll say is that if you have the time, it looks really good on a very big screen. 

Walt Disney released Soul into theaters yesterday, as kind of a “sorry we shunted your Pixar masterpiece to Disney+ in a short-sighted attempt to please Wall Street” mea culpa. They’ll do likewise with Turning Red on February 9 and Luca on March 22, which at least will give family audiences something “new” to see in theaters between Migration and Kung Fu Panda 4 in mid-March. The Jamie Foxx/Tina Fey toon, which justly won Best Animated Feature in 2021, earned $125,000 in 1,350 theaters for a likely $550,000 Fri-Mon weekend. And yes, I will absolutely check it out in theaters as I always regretted not being able to at the time, but I’m just waiting to see if my indecisive children want to tag along.  

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In quick holdover news, Wonka will earn around $10 million over the long weekend for a $178 million domestic cume, while Sony’s leggy rom-com Anyone But You will drop just 24% over the Fri-Sun frame for a $7.42 million Fri-Sun/$8.95 million Fri-Mon weekend. It’ll have $57.2 million domestically by Monday night. Illumination’s Migration will earn $6.84 million over the Fri-Mon weekend for a new $86.4 million cume as it makes a play for $100 million domestic. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will earn $5.93 million over the holiday weekend for a $109 million domestic total. Hey, at least it earned more in North America than The Flash and Dune. Blumhouse’s Night Swim understandably drowned in weekend two, earning $4 million (-66%) over the Fri-Sun frame and $4.7 million over the holiday for a $19.2 million 11-day total.  

Oh, and Godzilla Minus One just passed $50 million domestically as The Boy and the Heron tops $40 million. The former just passed Demon Slayer The Movie to become the biggest Japanese earner ever in North America and the fifth-biggest non-English grosser ever in unadjusted domestic box office.

In expansion news, MGM Amazon’s American Fiction expanded to 511 theaters over the weekend, where it will earn $1.84 million (+86%) over the Fri-Sun portion of a $2.32 million Fri-Mon weekend. That’s an okay $3,708 per-theater average and $5.635 million domestic cume. However, hope springs eternal and this Cord Jefferson-directed and Jeffrey Wright-starring comedy should absolutely end up in the thick of the Oscar race. Whether that moves the needle among moviegoers remains to be seen, but A) it’s one of the best films of the year and B) it’s a fully mainstream family comedy/pop culture satire.  

In other “spectacular mainstream comedy amid the Oscar race” news, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things will earn $2.05 million over the holiday for a $17.6 million cume. Again, fingers crossed that awards glory for the Emma Stone-starring sci-fi comedy will lead to leggy theatrical business. The Color Purple is pretty much done, give or take an actual Best Picture nomination when the time comes, as it’ll earn $2 million over the holiday for a $57 million domestic cume. That’s not great on a $100 million budget, but A) it too will be momentarily huge on Netflix in several months’ time and its high-level prestige makes it that much more valuable as a third-party license title and B) the raw gross shows that live-action musicals are doing just fine, thank you much.

First, Walt Disney Company just announced that Kingdom for the Planet of the Apes would be opening two weeks early, not on Memorial Day weekend but on May 10. This avoids a holiday showdown between the Wes Ball-directed dystopian sequel and Warner Bros. Discovery’s George Miller’s dystopian prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It also gives the second weekend of the summer season a “big” movie between David Leitch’s Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt action comedy The Fall Guy on May 3 and John Krasinski’s Ryan Reynolds/Cailey Fleming kid-targeted fantasy If on May 17. Intriguingly, this also means that two of the first three weeks of summer 2024 will be anchored by a star-and-filmmaker-driven, high-concept programmer.

Anyway, this also gives the Planet of the Apes relaunch space between itself and Disney’s big June release, Pixar’s Inside Out 2, on June 16. The animated sequel will be the first new Pixar flick since Elemental (and ironically Pixar’s first straight-up sequel since Toy Story 4 five years prior), although it will technically be the fourth Pixar toon offered up in theatrical release this year. Soul opens theatrically over the MLK weekend, while Turning Red opens on February 9 and Luca debuts on March 22. Why is Disney taking this unusual step of offering up the three “sent to Disney+” Pixar originals in conventional theatrical release long after their streaming debuts? Well…

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To paraphrase Spaceballs, concessions, concessions, concessions… where the real money from the movies is made. It’s no secret that theaters get much of their profit not from the $10 movie ticket (half of which generally goes back to the studio) but from the $7-$20 popcorn, sodas, hot dogs and various other food items. As such, the Cinema Foundation, in partnership with Fandango, announced the arrival of National Popcorn Day, coming to a theater near you on Friday, January 19th. 

Those showing up to see what’s honestly a pretty packed slate of theatrical offerings (big flicks like Wonka and award season gems like Poor Things) will get… (checks notes) discounted concession prices, free popcorn with the purchase of a drink and other unspecified promotions at participating multiplexes. For individual offers (like AMC offering a Loungefly crossbody bag for $80), go check out your local theater’s website or Fandango.  

“Popcorn at the movies was first introduced 95 years ago, and it’s been an inseparable part of the moviegoing experience ever since,” says Bryan Braunlich, Executive Director of The Cinema Foundation. “National Popcorn Day will bring together millions of film fans of all ages to watch new movies on the big screen while enjoying their favorite theater snacks at discounted prices.”

Both in terms of watching my figure and avoiding old-man stomach pains (possibly IBS?), I try to limit myself accordingly. I quite like AMC’s $7 “kids combo,” which offers a very small batch of popcorn alongside a comparatively small (but refillable) beverage (cherry Mr. Pibb Zero, one of the few times I opt for a conventional branded soda) and a tiny little fruit snack pack.

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I do wish Regal had something comparable, but I digress. The Woodland Hills AMC 12 lets you upgrade the candy, and… it’s a good thing my local AMC doesn’t let you upgrade the candy (I’m weak, and the Kit Kats are *right there*). Otherwise, I’m quite fond of the surprisingly high-quality salads found at Studio Movie Grill (the strawberry avocado salad) and Cinepolis (the avocado ceasar).

No, one doesn’t make friends with salad, but A) I don’t go to the movies to make friends and B) it’s nice leaving the multiplex without worrying about having a rumbly tummy for the next 12 hours.

According to the National Association of Concessionaires, popcorn is the American moviegoers’ favorite snack food and represents 60% of snack food sales at U.S. theaters. So sayeth a 6,000-person survey from Fandango, 94% have purchased concessions on their trips to the theater while 88% say they order popcorn regularly. That’s encouraging for the above-noted “theaters like money” reasons.

I’ve long argued that multiplexes should find a way to essentially comp kids' tickets to kids' flicks like Migration or Wonka in exchange for “what you paid for those tickets in concession sales.” The prospect of taking a family of five to Wish or Migration might be a little less financially daunting if a few of the tickets were going to get comped in exchange for the concessions that their kids were already going to badger them to buy anyway. And since those snacks are where the real profit comes from anyway, I have to imagine there’s a situation where the math works in everyone’s favor.

Oh, beyond the in-play theatricals like The Beekeeper (which earned $2.4 million on Thursday night pointing toward a rock-solid $15-$20 million MLK weekend launch), Mean Girls (which earned $3.25 million on Thursday pointing toward a possible $30 million Fri-Mon launch) and The Book of Clarence (Jeymes Samuel’s offbeat and agreeably pulpy religious dramedy earned $285,000 yesterday), Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be reissued into wide release on the 19th. That’s nice since, uh… there’s not much in terms of “big” commercial wide releases (quality of Ava DuVernay’s Origin opening, next Friday, notwithstanding) for the rest of the month.

Yes, Josh Hutcherson stated -- while promoting Jason Statham's The Beekeeper – that there is indeed a follow-up to Blumhouse and Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s in development. When a branded franchise starter earns $137 million (including an $80 million opening weekend) and $294 million worldwide on a $20 million while A) earning miserable reviews and B) being concurrently available on your streaming platform, that flick gets a sequel. We’re probably getting Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 or what-have-you, presumably with the onscreen (Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lail, etc.) and offscreen (director Emma Tammi, video game creator Scott Cawthon, etc.) returning to play. The weirdly subdued and somber adaptation of the horror-focused video game, about a Chuck E. Cheese-like establishment where the mechanical animals come to life at night and do murders, wasn’t exactly the year’s best fright flick. But it was last year’s most important box office success story. You know why, reader? Because of the kids! 

I’m as thrilled with the #Barbenheimer box office blowout as the next pundit. It's a miracle that the online rabble A) created enough noise to further mainstream interest and B) championed both Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer instead of pitting them against each other as a proxy culture war. However, that their respective successes ($1.4 billion for Margot Robbie's toy comedy and $950 million for Cillian Murphy’s atom bomb drama) can be approximated or repeated is a fallacy. Barbie is the well-known girl-focused IP in the world, while Nolan is the biggest “movie star” in town. Good-natured jokes aside (#SawPatrol topped $303 million global on a combined $43 million budget), this was a lightning-in-a-bottle, everything-goes-right moment for theatrical moviegoing. However, Hollywood can easily “copy” the success of Five Nights at Freddy’s by making reasonably budgeted live-action movies based on newer properties that today’s kids actually give a shit about.  

I had a relatively miserable time watching the long, drawn-out, washed-out and narratively repetitive melodrama, wondering why it felt more like a cross between “elevated horror” (Hutcherson’s Mike Schmidt is super-traumatized by and has countless trippy dreams about the childhood abduction of his younger brother) and a low-budget faith-based drama (Cawthorn got his start making self-funded Christian video games). However, my 12-year-old son was excited to see a film based on a property he knew and liked and get surface-level cinematic pleasure from recognizing the characters, plot turns, and mythological “easter eggs” that came from or referenced the video game series. Sure, this is just the kind of “spot the reference” and “means more to the audience than to the characters” franchise filmmaking that I tend to decry. And again... bad movie was bad. But Five Nights at Freddy’s was a new franchise starter based on newer IP favored by and targeted to today’s kids. 

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When folks talk about why younger kids don’t go to the movies as much as their previous generations did, the reasons are usually boiled down to cost, streaming availability and easily accessible YouTube/TikTok entertainment options preferred by the current youngsters. It’s a simplification to say that some kids prefer watching a snarky YouTube video hosted by a “cool with the kids” personality about a movie than watching the movie itself, but there’s some anecdotal truth to that (violently shakes fist at the likes of Drew Gordon and Danny Gonzalez). However, there’s one big reason that sometimes gets left out: Many of the biggest franchise titles are technically kids ’ flicks or all-quadrant franchise films that nonetheless seem targeted less at today’s kids and more at yesterday’s (or yesteryear’s) kids. Do we really expect today’s tweens and teens to celebrate the return of Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones or Michael Keaton again playing Batman 31 years after Batman Returns? 

We haven’t had a new-to-cinema live-action theatrical franchise to earn top-tier box office (multiple entries topping $600 million global) since The Hunger Games in 2012. Since then, save for superhero movies set within DC and Marvel brands, pretty much every upper-tier franchise success has been either from an ongoing franchise (Fast and Furious, Mission: Impossible, James Bond, etc.), a revived franchise (Star Wars, Jurassic, Jumanji, etc.) or a prequel/sequel series like J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Even 12 years ago, The Hunger Games felt like a slight rarity, as it was a new franchise based on a newer IP aimed at present-tense kids. Granted, some of that is the fault of audiences who (as streaming became more mainstream) fell out of love with movie stars as a driving reason to go to the theater. Before that, actors and actresses were the driving force for audiences showing up for entirely original films or new-to-you adaptations.  

The last decade or so has been mostly dominated by new versions of old franchises – even to a lesser extent amid the streaming era -- be it (relative quality notwithstanding) new Star Trek, new Lord of the Rings, new Grease or new She-Ra. Even worse is a constant push-pull between updating these older properties comparatively in terms of topicality and inclusiveness (The Last Jedi, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) versus pandering to the oldest (often white male) fans (The Rise of Skywalker, Ghostbusters: Afterlife). Some of this is a vocal minority that skews the SEO-dominated discourse, but online rabble-rousers feign outrage because they thought (or pretended to think) that Netflix would play Kevin Smith to make a Teela-centric Masters of the Universe show where He-Man dies in the opening episode and *stays dead*. Today’s revivals are expected to feature the original actors playing decades-old characters who look the same and – original context be damned – even utter the same catchphrases.  

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There are some decades-old kid-friendly properties – not just Batman and Spider-Man -- that remain eternally popular. My kids knew about Bowser, Peach and Dr. Robotnik before they were old enough to play Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog video games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gets periodic animated revamps mostly aimed at *today’s kids*. You can split the difference, like a Mean Girls musical playing on nostalgia for the 2004 film and current fandom for the Broadway adaptation. Spyglass’ Scream relaunch offered new teen protagonists and didn’t let legacy characters hog the spotlight. But this is also an industry that expects kids to thrill for an Exorcist legacy sequel or another Alien 38 years after Aliens. Moreover, as seen with Star Wars, Ghostbusters and Picard, even initially updated IP can be snatched from the kids and “returned” to the adult gatekeepers. Kids are constantly told, “You should like this thing that I liked, but it still belongs to me.” 

Instead of (or maybe along with) making another Superman or trying to make “Star Trek franchise” happen, reasonably invest in a polished live-action adaptation of an action-packed, mythology-rich anime property like Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. Whether the “announced” Bendy and the Ink Machine movie happens, it – or an adaptation of Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club! or Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir would excite today’s kids more than a reimagining of The X-Files. You can joke about a gritty P.J. Max movie, but it’s probably a safer youth-skewing bet than the fourth Fantastic Four franchise. Ditto the new IP being created - by and/or for kids – found on Wattpad. Moreover, as evidenced by Super Mario Bros., Jumanji and (presumably) Minecraft, cast Jack Black whenever possible. Anyway, maybe some of these could inspire the same excitement in young kids as I felt in early 1990 upon reading in Nintendo Power about an upcoming live-action TMNT movie.  

As a child, I dragged my parents and grandparents to The Karate Kid Part III and Ghostbusters II and felt bad that they were mediocre movies which I nonetheless enjoyed. While my family didn’t mind, the dynamic has shifted from kids dragging their parents to Batman Forever to parents dragging their kids to The Batman. One reason for the MCU downturn is that the generation that came of age amid the Infinity Saga is now comparatively grown up. The next generation – growing up amid a Trump presidency and a global pandemic – barely cares about costumed heroes re-avenging 9/11 on a loop. If you want to get kids more interested in theatrical movies, try making new (reasonably budgeted) franchises based on their favorite games, books, toys and shows. The lesson is simple: Make more new franchises like Five Nights at Freddy’s and Paw Patrol that are far more exciting to today’s kids than today’s studio executives.

No, Anyone But You did not “save” the theatrical romantic comedy, even as it topped the daily box office for the first time on Monday. In the pre-Covid years, audiences showed up to The Big Sick (still a rare Sundance pick-up to pass $40 million domestic), Crazy Rich Asians ($239 million worldwide), Last Christmas ($123 million worldwide on a $25 million budget), What Men Want ($54 million domestic on a $20 million budget), Yesterday ($154 million global on a $25 million budget). There is side-eye that this “nothing but the rom-com tropes” flick featuring young white alleged movie stars (Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney) being heralded as a genre savior over vehicles for Kumail Nanjiani, Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Taraji P. Henson and Himesh Patel. Nonetheless, the Sony release is still a “damn good news for the industry” word-of-mouth hit.  

The $25 million, Will Gluck-directed, R-rated film became the first 2,000-plus screen opener to earn more in weekend three ($9.7 million) than it did in its weekend two ($8.7 million) which was more than its opening weekend ($6 million). Scream pulled this off in 1996 from the same late-December weekend but debuted in 1,434 theaters. Scream amazingly never topped 2,000 screens as it legged out to $103 million from a $6.2 million launch. With $45 million domestic and counting, Anyone But You is going to be one of those mid-December programmers that earns more than 10x its respective Fri-Sun debut. Credit parents finally getting around to hiring a sitter and/or TikTok-active teens and college kids “discovering” the R-rated theatrical rom-com, the success story still offers an invaluable lesson – Let your new movie stars be movie stars and not just action/franchise stars. 

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Trying to find the next Tom Cruise but only casting them in Legend 

It's no secret Hollywood spent 15-20 years trying to turn every somewhat handsome white guy into the next Tom Cruise. I’ve often argued that Hollywood spent decades looking for the next Tom Cruise instead of the next Will Smith. Moreover, perhaps spurred by the success of X-Men breakout Hugh Jackman, they kept casting performers like Taylor Kitsch, Armie Hammer and Charlie Hunnam in big-budget, assembly-line, often personality-free franchise films like Battleship, The Lone Ranger and King Arthur and the Legend of the Sword. Tom Cruise became a star not from Top Gun but from the coming-of-age sex romp Risky Business. If Hollywood kept trying to cast Tom Cruise in variations on Ridley Scott’s Legend ($25 million global in 1985 on a $24 million budget), he would never have become the butts-in-seats draw who could turn Rain Man, Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky into hits.  

Will Smith spent 2002 to 2012 as essentially the biggest star in the world, mostly because he pulled relatively strong global earnings from both fantasy/franchise flicks like I, Robot and "just a movie” programmers like Hitch and The Pursuit of Happyness. Likewise, Kevin Costner got audiences into Oliver Stone’s JFK ($205 million in 1991). Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ($351 million in 1991) was among the few post-Batman superhero movies to become a blockbuster in the 1990s, and it still earned less globally than the Whitney Houston-starring The Bodyguard ($424 million, a near-record for an R-rated movie in 1992) and the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves ($424 million in 1990). Not every Costner drama was a hit. RIP A Perfect World. However, movie stardom was (at worst) about Waterworld *and* Tin Cup. It wasn’t merely The Postman or bust. 

Patrick Swayze became an icon not from his action movies (Road House, Point Break and Next of Kin), but rather because of Dirty Dancing ($214 million on a $5 million budget in 1987) and Ghost ($517 million on a $22 million budget in 1990). Many of yesterday’s stars, think Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio, were heartthrobs before they were all-purpose draws. Today’s performers get far fewer studio-level opportunities to be movie stars in comedies, dramas, thrillers and/or romantic melodramas. There’s an entire generation of (mostly white) actresses (Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Whoopi Goldberg, etc.) who became bankable draws because Hollywood produced romantic comedies, melodramas, thrillers and farces. Margot Robbie can now make either year-end prestige flops like Babylon or full-on IP flicks like Barbie. Just nine years later, even her R-rated Will Smith-starring romantic thriller Focus feels like a relic. 

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Movie stardom = headlining too-expensive installments of past-their-prime IP

The young (mostly white) men declared the next big thing are expected to anchor mega-budget franchise flicks. First, these films are often absurdly expensive. Tom Cruise’s Top Gun and Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop each cost around $15 million, meaning they didn’t have to top $300 million worldwide just to break even. A big-budget film in the 1980s – think Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Batman – cost $30-$50 million, not $130-$250 million. Second, the Hollywood franchise machine often drains the actors of their very movie star charisma. Liam Hemsworth is charming as hell in The Dressmaker but duller than dishwater in Independence Day: Resurgence. Jai Courtney is 4,000x more charismatic on Spartacus or as a bad guy in Jack Reacher than he was in Terminator: Genisys. Garret Hedlund is good in almost everything except Tron: Legacy and Pan.  

Henry Golding broke out as a fireball of sexual charisma in Crazy Rich Asians, A Simple Favor and The Gentleman. His reward was starring in a “nobody asked for this” G.I. Joe origin story focused on Snake Eyes. One “No, Joe!” bomb later, and he’s making The Assassins Club for VOD with no more “next James Bond” chatter. Yes, minority stars (like Star Wars breakout John Boyega, who was one-and-done after Pacific Rim: Uprising) can get disproportionately penalized for headlining failed franchise flicks. Anthony Ramos broke out in In the Heights and then headlined the eighth Transformers film long after the franchise stopped being important. Here’s a not-fun question: If Twisters bombs this summer (let's hope it doesn’t), will Powell be affected in terms of perceived bankability as much as Ramos or co-star (and fellow next-big-thing and Where the Crawdads Sing star) Daisy-Edgar Jones? 

It’s almost miraculous that the Euphoria breakout and the Top Gun: Maverick scene-stealer got to cash in their alleged stardom with a movie like Anyone But You. It’s a lower-budgeted, adult-skewing rom-com that relishes – rather than represses their star charisma and sex appeal. It’s filled with nudity, has no franchise aspirations, and is cheap enough to be a hit at $60 million and counting worldwide. It’s a star vehicle harkening back to when thespians, not IP or marquee characters, were franchises. Does Hollywood want to rebuild their movie star bullpen? Top Gun 2 was implicitly about Tinseltown's generational failure to do so. Try making more theatrical star vehicles that are varied (in terms of size, scale and genre), star-focused and cheap enough to succeed on a smaller scale. Give these alleged next-big-things something between an indie gem and playing Willy Wonka. 

Welp, after years of false starts and rumors, we have a firm confirmation of what the next theatrical Star Wars movie will be. And the answer is... the fourth season of a Disney+ TV show seemingly being retrofitted into a theatrical feature film? Jon Favreau is directing The Mandalorian & Grogu, which will be produced sometime this year. Whether this will be the Star Wars flick currently dated for December 18, 2026, or whether they will try to have it done either for an earlier release or in case James Cameron’s Avatar 3 is not ready in time for December 19, 2025, this seems to be... the safest choice for the next Star Wars theatrical, one banking on mainstream awareness of The Mandalorian that may not exist. Moreover, as we saw with the first two Star Wars Story flicks, and kinda-sorta The Rise of Skywalker, safe may actually be dangerous.  

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Universal and DreamWorks’ Trolls Band Together was the top movie on Vudu (which ranks by revenue) for the second week in a row, with Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Oppenheimer again holding the fort in second and third place. The robust performance of the third Anna Kendrick/Justin Timerblake-led Trolls feature, currently tops on YouTube and near the top over at Amazon and iTunes, follows the film’s $100 million domestic and $202 million global theatrical run.

The musical toon will be long-term profitable for a $92 million budget, specifically thanks to post-theatrical revenue such as VOD, DVD and its value as a third-party licensing title (The Croods is currently among the most-watched movies on Netflix in America). Moreover, the film’s theatrical performance, -35% from the first Trolls in North America and -46% from the 2016 original (back when Fox released DWA features), is decent considering that Trolls World Tour was mostly confined to non-theatrical distribution.  

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While next weekend will be, as per usual for MLK weekend, jam-packed with new wide releases (Mean Girls, The Beekeeper, The Book of Clarence and Pixar’s Soul), the first weekend of 2024 is highlighted by – again per usual – a grindhouse/schlocky horror flick.  

A trend unofficially started in 2005 with Michael Keaton’s White Noise, the first official weekend of the new year has been gifted horror films good (Hostel, Daybreakers, Underworld: Blood Wars, Insidious: The Last Key, Escape Room and M3gan) and not-so-good (White Noise, One Missed Call, The Unborn, Season of the Witch, The Devil Inside, Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Woman in Black 2, The Forrest and The Grudge). Alas, Night Swim falls into the latter category, decent acting, some earned tension and a few haunting shots of underwater peril notwithstanding.  

Still, horror remains the most reliable theatrical genre in town. Bryce McGuire’s Night Swim, a $15 million Blumhouse/Atomic Monster production that should have been called Death Pool: The Pool That Drowns, earned $12 million this weekend. 

Along with the notion that horror remains a theater-worthy communal viewing experience and that the concept-driven genre doesn’t demand large budgets, credit an active and often celebratory media ecosystem (which still holds horror flicks to account when they don’t measure up) that creates awareness and interest in upcoming films. Credit that active fanbase which sees horror films in theaters which in turn means they become aware and interested in upcoming horror films via seeing the trailers in a theater. Credit the fact that – unlike romance or comedy -- you generally can’t get full-bore horror tropes in other all-quadrant genres. The poorly reviewed (27% on Rotten Tomatoes) and indifferently received (a C from CinemaScore) fright flick isn’t long for this world, but it did its job. 

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The top movie of the weekend was Warner Bros. Discovery’s Wonka, which earned another $14.4 million (-36%) on weekend four for a $164 million domestic cume. That puts it just past The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to make it the biggest domestic earner since Oppenheimer and Barbie last July.  

It’s holding better than Jumanji: The Next Level which had 4x its $59 million debut after its fourth weekend. Wonka is at 4.2x and holding firm, which means it’s almost certain to pass $200 million domestic (if not $225 million) by the end. Its global total is a rousing $465 million, putting it within spitting distance of – sans inflation -- Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ($475 million in 2005). Offhand, the $125 million Timothee Chalamet-led musical prequel should end with around $560 million global plus whatever it earns in South Korea (January 31).  

Meanwhile, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom earned $10.6 million (-42%) to cross the $100 million mark on day 17. It’ll pass The Flash ($108 million) next weekend to become, by default, the biggest DC Films flick of 2023. It has already done so globally with a new $335 million global cume (ironically now tied with the first Aquaman’s $335 million domestic cume). That includes $54 million in China, way below the first film’s $298 million cume but halfway decent by post-2019 standards for a Hollywood flick in China.  

The decent holds are mostly due to the year-end “kids and grown-ups are off of school and/or off work for the holidays” period and its existence as the only all-quadrant mega-budget fantasy action tentpole in town. Still, with a likely $415 million global finish, it’ll A) pass the first Dune and B) ironically be the top-earning DC Films flick since Aquaman ($1.15 billion in 2018) and the top-earning DC anything since The Batman ($770 million in 2022).  

Universal and Illumination’s Migration earned another $10.25 million (-40%) over the weekend for a $77.8 million 17-day total. That’s a better third-weekend hold than Sing 2 (-42%) but not as strong as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’s shockingly long legs (-19%) last year. It should still join Universal and DreamWorks’ Trolls Band Together in the $100 million-plus club. The film opened in five overseas markets and earned another $15 million outside of North America, pushing the $72 million budgeted toon’s global cume to $150.7 million. Offhand, it should earn around $215 million worldwide plus whatever it gets from South Korea (January 10), the UK (February 2), Ireland (February 2), and Japan (March 15). It’s no Sing-sized sensation, but it’s a solid little hit.  

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The “Holy shit!” news of the weekend belongs to Sony’s Anyone But You. The Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com earned $9.5 million (+9%) in weekend three for a $43.7 million 17-day total. The $25 million, R-rated flick – which has earned $59 million worldwide -- is the first wide release I can find offhand that earned more money in its third weekend than it did in its first or second frames. This implies that grown-ups are hiring babysitters and playing catch-up (38% 25-44) while teens and young adults (37% 18-24) are potentially “discovering” the theatrical rom-com (yes, it’s apparently earning buzz on TikTok). There are plenty of examples of smaller films that earned 10x their opening weekends over the holidays – going back to Sabrina in 1995 and Mouse Hunt in 1997 – but it’s still nice to see.  

While I wouldn’t argue that the film is “saving” the romantic comedy, as we had a few commercially strong examples (Crazy Rich Asians, Last Christmas, What Men Want, Yesterday, Ticket to Paradise, etc.) in recent years even while Netflix has tried to make the genre their own. However, the notion that Sony and friends took two would-be new movie stars (Powell and Sydney) and made a $25 million rom-com predicated on their heartthrob status instead of having them headline a $150 million, sex-less fantasy action franchise flick does seem to count as progress. Remember, Tom Cruise became a movie star from Risky Business, not Top Gun.  

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Amazon MGM’s The Boys in the Boat earned $6.02 million (-32%) for a $33.9 million cume. Not a blow-out for this $40 million, George Clooney-directed underdog sports flick, but the math is a little different for these “marketing for the streaming launch” theatrical releases. Considering the lack of Hollywood theatrical releases this year, theaters will happily get anything from a streamer. After all, a large popcorn purchased during The Boys in the Boat or Napoleon costs the same as one purchased during Wonka or Migration.  

Alas, Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Color Purple is falling fast, earning $4.765 million (-59%) over the weekend for a $54.6 million 14-day cume after a near-record $18 million Christmas Day launch. It’s legging like not Fences or Sherlock Holmes but rather like Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and heading toward a likely $70 million domestic finish unless it ends up in the Oscar race. That would be fine, and it’s a higher domestic total than the other “big movies for adults” offerings in play now (including Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon), but it cost $100 million with questionable overseas prospects. Still, if Hollywood can keep rolling the dice on films like Ferrari...  

A24’s The Iron Claw will earn $4.5 million (-3%) on weekend three for a terrific $24.8 million domestic cume, while NEON’s Ferrari will earn $2.5 million (-36%) for a miserable $16 million domestic cume. NEON is only on the hook for domestic expenses related to the $90 million flick, but this still means Michael Mann hasn’t had a genuine “profitable in theaters” hit since Tom Cruise’s Collateral 20 years ago.  

Searchlight’s Poor Things earned $2 million (-12%) in 750 theaters for a $14.2 million cume. Hopefully, this delightful Emma Stone-starring comedy will stick around amid its likely inclusion in the Oscar race. Ditto Amazon MGM’s American Fiction as the Jeffrey Wright vehicle earns $1.04 million (+153% as it expands to 114 theaters) for a $3 million cume. Cord Jefferson’s terrific (and genuinely funny) family melodrama/pop culture satire expands to 600 theaters over MLK weekend.  

The first January in which I lived in the Los Angeles area was 2005, and I took a first date to a horror flick called White Noise. Even then, it was frankly unusual to see Michael Keaton in a lead role, which partially explained the mediocre “Hollywood tries Asian horror” film’s whopping $25 million debut weekend (remember when folks went to the movies?). I did not realize it at the time, but I was witnessing the birth of a semi-formal trend, by which the first weekend of the new year would kick off with a schlocky horror flick. Some were better (Hostel, Daybreakers, Underworld: Blood Wars, Insidious: The Last Key, Escape Room, M3gan) than most (One Missed Call, The Unborn, Season of the Witch, The Devil Inside, Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Woman in Black 2, The Forrest, The Grudge), but all acted as a kind of palette cleanser after the slew of big-deal holiday releases and very important awards season flicks.  

This year’s offering is Bryce McGuire’s Night Swim, which is a team-up between Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster right as their respective companies have finalized their genre-conquering merger. Some moments of tension and haunting way-underwater imagery notwithstanding, it sadly belongs in the One Missed Call box. Still, unlike The Devil Inside (whose finale cut to black mid-action and told viewers to hop onto a website for more information), the climax will not have audiences shouting, cursing and throwing stuff at the screen, and how I wish I could have been there for those midnight screenings in 2012. Anyway, it topped the Friday box office with $5.22 million. It will earn around $12.5 million for the weekend, good for second place against Wonka ($4.26 million on Friday, around $15 million for the Fri-Sun frame) and fine for a poorly reviewed (27% on Rotten Tomatoes) and poorly received (a C from CinemaScore) $15 million fright flick. Horror is still the most reliable theatrical genre around. 

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The next frame is Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend and thus (per usual) jam-packed with newbies, in this case The Beekeeper (seeing it tonight with my 12-year-old in the hopes of getting him hooked on grindhouse action), Mean Girls (seeing it with my 16-year-old next week since she saw the play), The Book of Clarence (seeing that one by myself, alas) and Disney’s theatrical re-issuing of Soul (definitely catching that one on the big screen as intended with whoever wants to come). But this current frame is otherwise bereft of newbies other than Night Swim, so the rest of the news is holdover news. Wonka earned $4.3 million (-50%) on Friday for a likely $15 million (-33%) fourth weekend and $165 million 24-day cume. It’s holding better than Jumanji: The Next Level which had 4x its $59 million debut after its fourth weekend. Wonka is at 4.2x and holding firm, which means it’s almost certain to pass $200 million domestic (if not $225 million) by the end.  

Universal and Illumination’s Migration earned another $2.95 million (-56%) on Friday for a likely $10.5 million (-38%) weekend and $78 million 17-day total. That’s a better third-weekend hold than Sing 2 (-42%) but not as strong as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’s shockingly long legs (-19%) last year. It should still join Universal and DreamWorks’ Trolls Band Together in the $100 million-plus club. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom earned $3.1 million (-54%) on its third Friday, setting the stage for a likely $10.5 million (-42%) weekend and over/under $100 million 17-day cume. It should be past $315 million worldwide by tomorrow, for what that’s worth. Sony’s Anyone But You earned another $3.25 million (-2%) on Friday for a likely $10.3 million (+17%) weekend and $44.5 million 17-day total. The Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com will earn more money in its third Fri-Sun frame than in its first or second, a huge win that implies that grown-ups are hiring babysitters and playing catch-up. 

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Amazon MGM’s The Boys in the Boat earned $1.785 million (-35%) on Friday for a likely $5.69 million (-32%) weekend and $33.6 million cume. Not a blow-out for this $40 million, George Clooney-directed underdog sports flick, but the math is a little different for these “marketing for the streaming launch” theatrical releases. Alas, Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Color Purple is falling fast, having earned $1.97 million (-62%) on Friday for a likely $4.46 million (-62%) weekend and $54.32 million 14-day cume after a near-record $18 million Christmas Day launch. It’s legging like not Fences or Sherlock Holmes but rather like Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and heading toward a likely $65 million domestic finish unless it ends up in the Oscar race. That would be fine, and it’s a higher domestic total than the other “big movies for adults” offerings in play now (including Napoleon), but it cost $100 million with questionable overseas prospects. Still, if Hollywood can keep rolling the dice on films like Ferrari...  

A24’s The Iron Claw will earn $4.1 million (-10%) on weekend three for a terrific $24 million domestic cume, while NEON’s Ferrari will earn $2.46 million (-37%) for a miserable $16 million domestic cume. NEON is only on the hook for domestic expenses related to the $90 million flick, but this still means Michael Mann hasn’t had a genuine “profitable in theaters” hit since Tom Cruise’s Collateral 20 years ago. Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will earn $1.92 million (-33%) in weekend eight for a $164 million domestic cume as it slowly becomes the leggiest pre-Thanksgiving YA title ever (past even the first Harry Potter and Frozen II) following a soft-ish $45 million debut. Searchlight’s Poor Things will earn $1.82 million (-20%) for a $14 million cume. Hopefully, this delightful Emma Stone-starring comedy will stick around amid the Oscar race. Ditto Amazon MGM’s American Fiction as the Jeffrey Wright vehicle earns $1.04 million (+153% as it expands to 114 theaters) for a $3 million cume. 

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Among the trends in theaters last year was a slew of seemingly surefire or once-were-special franchise titles underwhelming or outright tanking. Recall the summer of 2016 when we saw many previously big-deal franchises offer new titles that were just seen as this week’s designated tentpole. Think Alice Through the Looking Glass, X-Men: Apocalypse, Independence Day Resurgence, Star Trek Beyond, Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. This year had a similar scenario play out, with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, The Flash, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I and The Marvels underwhelming or outright flopping. Amid this “franchise fatigue” environment, Lionsgate offered up new installments of four of its biggest franchises. Expendables 4 bombed, to the surprise of 0.0 people, but John Wick: Chapter 4, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Saw X were commercial successes that left audiences wanting more.

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