Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 5/23/2023

Hello everyone,

  • “Fast X” didn’t do so well at the domestic box office making only $67 on it’s opening weekend.  That’s slightly less than the previous movie made in the middle of COVID in 2021.  Second was “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” which is now at $266 million domestically.  That’s about half of what “The Super Mario Bros Movie” is at.  It’s still doing well coming in at #3 with a total of $530 million after 7 weeks in theaters.
  • Worldwide, “Fast X” did a lot better worldwide with almost $320 million.  That means that it made almost 4 times internationally – $251 million – what it did domestically.  In China, it had the biggest opening of 2023 with $78.3 million.
  • The worldwide gross of “John Wick 4” is now at $425 million which means the entire John Wick franchise has now made over $1 billion worldwide.  “John Wick 4” has done the best of all the movies.  The first one had a worldwide total of just $87.8, second one had $171, and the third had $326.7.
  • Some people are saying that the studios are scrambling to promote their upcoming summer movies because of the writers’ strike.  If this were a normal year, last week, a lot of the “Fast X” cast would have been guest starts on several talk shows and this week it would have been the cast of “The Little Mermaid”.  With the writers’ strike shutting down a lot of talk shows, the only thing that stars can appear on these days are the morning news shows like “Good Morning America”.
  • Also, there are some people getting a little nervous about the possible TRIPLE UNION STRIKE which could start on June 30 when the director’s guild (DGA) and the actor’s guild (SAG/AFTRA) contracts expire.  If that happens it will be the first time EVER and it will cripple the entertainment industry shutting down EVERYTHING that’s currently in pre-production or filming.
  • At the Cannes film festival over the weekend, “Killers of the Flower Moon” got a 9 minute standing ovation, “Firebrand” starring Jude Law and Alicia Vikander got an 8 minute standing ovation, and Todd Haynes directed “May December” got an 8 minute standing ovation.  They must really love standing and applauding at that film festival.

Little Bit of Humor….

If you want to get young boys to watch a movie that’s almost 85 years old – that’s probably a good way to do it.