Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 9/21/2023

Hello everyone,

  • It looks like the fall box office slowdown has started.  The total domestic box office of this past weekend is only $61 million which makes it the 2nd lowest box office weekend of 2023 (the first was back in Feb when the weekend only made $52 million).  The #1 movie was the same as last week.  “The Nun 2” made $14.5 million which is slightly higher than the new movie release “A Haunting In Venice” which made $14.2 million.  Although if you look at the per screen average the new movie was higher.  “The Nun 2” made $3883 per screen on approx. 3750 screens while “A Haunting In Venice” made $4320 per screen on approx. 3300 screens.  However, if you look at per screen average, the biggest winner is “Dumb Money” which only played on 8 screens and made a whopping $27618 per screen (although I saw the movie on Friday during the day – the theater was approx. 40% full).  “Dumb Money” was #19 on the domestic list this past weekend but it’s hoping to make a lot more money when it opens wider in the coming weeks.

If you still haven’t seen “Oppenheimer” in IMAX 70mm film, this is your last weekend to see it (it’s a good thing since I hear some showings are only one third full).  This Friday is the start of the week when “Barbie” plays on IMAX screens because it didn’t get to play on any back when it originally opened.

  • Internationally, the new movie “A Haunting In Venice” did pretty good with $37 million worldwide but last week’s #1 beat it there too.  “The Nun 2” made approx. $45 million worldwide.  After 2 weeks, it has a worldwide total of $158 million.  “Barbie” finally became the #1 movie internationally.  Its foreign total is now at $791 million which is just over “The Super Mario Bros Movie” $785 million.  So, now it’s #1 domestic, international, and worldwide.  Also, last week “Oppenheimer” was just under $900 million worldwide and now it’s well over that with $912 million worldwide.  Only $2 million of that was from the domestic box office this past weekend.

“The Super Mario Bros Movie” and “Oppenheimer” – as well as a little help from their other movies like “Fast X” – helped Universal become the 2nd studio to pass $4 BILLION worldwide this year.  Universal currently has 3 of the top 5 movies of 2023 worldwide – “The Super Mario Bros Movie” is #2, “Oppenheimer” is #3, and “Fast X” is #5 – and 3 of the TOP 4 movies of 2023 internationally (it’s made more money internationally than the worldwide #4 “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3”.   However, “Fast X” is not even in the top 10 of the domestic box office.  “Oppenheimer” also became the biggest non franchise movie EVER for Universal and the biggest biopic movie EVER for ANY STUDIO.

  • Although it doesn’t come out for a few more weeks, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” has now sold over $65 million in presale tickets so it’s expected to have a $100+ million opening weekend although the total box office is still in question since it’s currently only scheduled to play on Friday/Saturday/Sunday for a few weeks.  I’m not sure if what some people are calling “Swiftie Parties” will contribute to the box office.  Some movie theaters already off customers the chance to rent a movie theater to watch a movie with just your friends.  Cinemark is promoting “Swiftie Parties” private screenings for up to 40 people for $800 per showing. 
  • In strike news, nothing much happened last week but the news is now saying that the WGA and the studios will be meeting again this coming Wednesday (Sept 20). 

Personally, the funniest news about the strikes is about the television shows that had decided to go back on the air without the writers – like Bill Mahr and Drew Barrymore.  Their excuse was that “they owe the TV stations new episodes”….and we’re promptly criticized for saying that.  So, they postponed plans to return to their shows until the strikes are over.  I thought it was funny since THE SHOW DOESN’T OWE THE TV STATIONS ANYTHING.  The STUDIO THAT OWNS THE SHOW OWES NEW EPSODES TO THE TV STATIONS.  The main reason to strike is to prevent any new episodes (or movies) to be made until the studios come to an agreement with the unions.

Little Bit of Humor….

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A JOKE ABOUT THE ACTRESS HALEY BENNETT!!!!  Her name is shown because she posted this on her Instagram recently….

I really hope she is joking about this.  I REALLY hope they aren’t making a movie based on an old TV game show.  What’s next??  “The Price is Right” movie????? 

(They’ve already made a TV movie about the “Press Your Luck” scandal back in 2003 called “Big Bucks”).