Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 7/12/2023

Hello everyone,

  • This past weekend at the domestic box office had some good news and some bad news.  The good news was that “Insidious The Red Door“ beat expectations on its opening weekend.  Most people predicted it would be a very close race between that movie and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (which predictably went down approx. 55% from the previous weekends box office) but it wasn’t even close.  “Insidious” was #1 with about $33 million and “Indian Jones” was 2nd with about $27.5 million.  The bad news was the other new release.  “Joy Ride”, which Lionsgate had high hopes for (they even showed the whole movie at CinemaCon) missed predictions and disappointed coming in at #6 with only $5.8 million.  A somewhat unknown movie from and independent distributor – “Sound of Freedom” beat “Joy Ride” and was #3 with $19.7 million.

More news over the weekend.  “Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse” just slipped past “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” to be the #2 movie of 2023 (so far).  “Guardians” total is $357.57 million and “Spider-Man” is now at $357.67 million. 

For per screen averages, “Insidious” made approx. $10300 per screen on 3200 screens.  “Indiana Jones” was on approx. 1500 more screens but only made about $6000 per screen.  The independent release “Sound of Freedom” and the Lionsgate release “Joy Ride” were almost on the same number of screens – about 2800.  “Sound of Freedom” made approx. $6900 per screen while “Joy Ride” made less than half – $2000 per screen.  “Asteroid City” – which was only on 1100 screens on its 3rd week made about as much per screen as “Joy Ride” opening weekend.

  • Internationally, “Insidious The Red Door“ also did very well.  It was the best international box office for a horror movie since 2019.  It’s also the franchise best with a worldwide total of $64 million.  Meanwhile, “Indiana Jones” worldwide total is now $250 million and “Fast X” just passed $700 million worldwide total.
  • Of course, the BIG NEWS this week is if the actors union will go on strike at midnight on Wednesday night.  If they do, it will be the first time the writers and the actors were both on strike since 1960.  Back then, they were both striking for better residuals when movies played on television. This time, they’re striking for better residuals when the movies play on streaming sites.  Of course, an actors strike will completely halt almost all movie and television production.  They might not even let actors promote the upcoming movies they’re in.  That’s probably why “Barbie” had it’s world premiere last night and “Mission Impossible” has it’s domestic world premiere tonight.
  • (WARNING – THE FOLLOWING HAS A LITTLE BIT OF SPOILER FOR “OPPENHEIMER”) – The last few days there have been some people saying that there’s a chance that “Oppenheimer” might come in 3rd on its opening weekend.  People have been predicting that “Barbie” will make more money and now – based on the great reviews for “Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” (currently 98% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) – they’re saying that the 2nd weekend for “Mission Impossible” MIGHT make more money than “Oppenheimer”.  COINCIDENTALLY, this past weekend some websites (not the major industry news websites – other websites) started mentioning…something….in “Oppenheimer”.  Something with Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh.  Something that is the reason the movie’s R rating is for “…sexuality, nudity…”.  I’m guessing this is mentioned to try to lure more people to see “Oppenheimer”.  I wonder if something was shot with IMAX cameras.  If you want to know more about the….something…just do an internet search for “Florence Pugh Oppenheimer”.  I saw about a dozen stories about it over this past weekend.

Also, some industry news websites are saying that people are buying double feature tickets.  AMC has announced that over 20,000 have purchased tickets for BOTH MOVIES.  Of course the question is which movie to see first and which to see second.  Some people say see “Oppenheimer” first and then see “Barbie” second so you leave the movie theater in a good mood.

Speaking of the 98% positive reviews for “Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Par 1”, I’ve read a few reviews of the movie and most of them said “Terrible storyline but fantastic action scenes”.  I wouldn’t call that a good review.  I would call that a mediocre review.  However, the Rotten Tomatoes website only has a positive or negative.  There’s no “it’s OK” rating on the website.

  • One last thing, the first trailer for “Napoleon” was just released online.  They showed some INCREDIBLE footage of the movie back at CinemaCon (the battle over the frozen lake you see a little bit of in the trailer).  The movie is going to be released in theaters this November.

Little bit of humor…..

They should listen to the character from an animated Disney movie (I think).  I wonder what he’ll look like in live action.