Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: Beyonce’s new movie “Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce” opened to a somewhat disappointing $21 million at the domestic box office. It’s funny to see how the news is trying to make it a good thing. They’re reporting that the TOTAL domestic box office of $97 million which is the highest first weekend of December since pre-pandemic 2018. That is true, but there weren’t any new movies opening on the first weekend of Dec over the last 3 years. However, in 2019 “Frozen 2” made $35 million on its SECOND weekend which was the first weekend of December. The last new release to open on the first weekend of Dec was in 2007 when “The Golden Compass” made $26 million. The $97 million total weekend was also helped by the 3rd week of “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” which made another $14 million and the other new release “Godzilla Minus One” which made $11.4 million on its opening weekend.
The most surprising thing about this previous weekend was the per screen average of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail 48 ½th anniversary screening” (yes that’s what it’s called) which made a whopping $239 thousand PER SCREEN on only 2 screens. That’s 8 TIMES MORE TICKETS THAN ANY OTHER MOVIE.
A weird thing about Beyonces movie is that there were regulations for people watching the movie. It started with “please DO NOT take pictures or record while the film is playing” (which some people did for the Taylor Swift movie) and then went on to say “If parts of your outfit will potentially block other viewers from the screen, please remove them as the film begins (ex. headwear, wings, etc) and please keep in mind that masks (except for standard face masks used explicitly for health and safety reasons) are not permitted.” and also “sing & dance your heart out, but please respect each other’s space along with the theatre equipment. Do not dance on seats or block other guests from viewing, safely walking or exiting the auditorium.” This really offended some people who thought they were treating the entire audience like children. Of course, there was backlash on social media.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: Beyonce’s movie did barely anything in foreign countries. It made less than $7 million in foreign countries – although it didn’t open in a lot of foreign countries yet – for a worldwide total of about $27 million. The India movie “Animal” took the top spot at the worldwide box office making $42 million globally with about $6 million in North America.
One of the countries the movie didn’t open in was China. Taylor Swifts movie also didn’t open in China – yet – they’re currently negotiating the get a China release for the movie sometime soon.
STRIKE NEWS: Member voting on the new tentative actors contract ends tomorrow afternoon (Dec 5th). Although most people predict it wont pass overwhelmingly, most people predict it will pass.
Due to the strike, I have heard from 3 different people that movies and television shows that would usually end production for the year this week or next week due to the holidays will continue to work until right before Christmas. They said that productions will only be off from Dec 22 (Friday before Christmas) to January 2nd.
The news is also reporting that the writers and actors strike are on the short list for Time Magazines “Person of the Year” this year along with Taylor Swift and Barbie.
OTHER NEWS: If you have never seen “Die Hard” in a movie theater and you live in the Los Angeles area, you have a chance to see at the El Capitan in Hollywood. It will be playing at the theater for one show on Friday Dec 15th. A popcorn and a beverage (maybe in collectible cups???) are included in the $20 ticket price.
For Hollywood movie theater fans, you got the newly remodeled and reopened “Egyptian” theater and the newly remodeled and reopened “Vista” theater to go to, but you’ll have to wait a lot longer for the theater many people are waiting for. The news is saying that the Cinerama Dome and Arclight Hollywood theaters will not be opening until 2025 at the earliest. When the company went bankrupt, they sold off almost all of their theaters (AMC theaters and other theater chains took over a few of them and other theaters were torn down) but they kept ownership of their theaters in Hollywood. Supposedly, they’re in the process of remodeling it, including adding a new restaurant and bar.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
The writers had over 100 days to work on some new scripts when they weren’t picketing in front of the studios. They couldn’t come up with a few ORIGINAL ideals????
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 