Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: The 2024 weekend box office totals were steadily climbing reaching over $100 million for the 4-day weekend last week but this weekend it dropped to what may be the lowest of the year. The total domestic box office for this past weekend was approx. $63 million. Only the #1 movie “Mean Girls” made over $10 million over the weekend. The best new release was the independent movie “I.S.S.” which only made around $3 million and was #7. Some limited run movies had a decent per-screen average. The best was “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” in only 2 theaters made approx. $7400 per screen for a $14800 total. That small number usually wouldn’t be in the top 50 but this past weekend it was #37 because everything under #13 on the box office list made UNDER $1 million.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: The worldwide box office was just as low. The top movie was “The Beekeeper” which made $14.2 million in foreign countries. One notable thing about this past weekend is that “Anyone But You” moved above “No Hard Feelings” to become the best R rated comedy at the worldwide box office for 2023. Also, “Mean Girls” topped the first weekend it played in the UK with $4.1 million in that country.
AWARD NEWS: The Academy Award nominations were just announced and there were a few surprises.
- Margot Robbie has been trying to win an Academy Award for a few years and some thought that “Barbie” would be her best chance but she wasn’t nominated.
- Although there are 3 best picture nominations for movies directed by women there was only 1 woman nominated for best director and it WASN’T Greta Gerwig for “Barbie” (it was Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall”).
- Another notable omission is Leonardo DiCaprio for “Killers of the Flower Moon”.
- As expected, “Barbie” was nominated for “Best Adapted Screenplay” although all the other awards – including the WGA – it will be in the “Original Screenplay” category.
- Another surprise is how many nominations 2 international films got. For the first time ever (I believe), 2 International movies have been nominated for Best Picture although oddly only 1 is nominated for International Feature Film. “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” both got 5 nominations. “Anatomy” got picture, leading actress, directing, original screenplay, and editing. “Zone” got picture, international picture, adapted screenplay, directing, and sound.
The WGA. didn’t announce their nominations but they did announce that “Anatomy of a Fall”, “Poor Things”, “Zone of Interest”, and “All of Us Strangers” – which have been nominated for other awards (including Academy Awards) – are not eligible to be nominated by the WGA because they weren’t made under the WGA “Minimum Basic Agreement or a bona fide collective bargaining agreement with various other countries”. Due to the 2023 strikes, the WGA awards for 2023 won’t be given out until April 14 (more than a month past the Academy Awards) and their nominations won’t be announced until Feb 21.
To go along with the Academy nominations, the annual “worst picture” Razzie Award nominations were also announced. “Expendables 4” got the most “worst’ nominations. “Exorcist: True Believer” got an odd nomination for “Worst Screen Couple” – “Any 2 Money-Grubbing Investors Who Donated to the $400 Million for Remake Rights to The Exorcist”. They nominations also had some fun with the name of the latest “Indiana Jones” movie calling it “Indiana Jones and The Dial of…Still Beating a Dead Horse” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of…Can I go home now?”
OTHER NEWS: In industry news, Scott Stuber is leaving Netflix. He was the chairman of Netflix film since 2017 but it was recently announced that he will be leaving this March. Some news are saying it’s because Netflix doesn’t really seem interested in theatrical releases. After trying out wide theatrical releases in previous years including a successful run of “Glass Onion”, in 2023 they only released their Netflix movies in the movie theaters that they own in New York and Los Angeles. Others are saying it’s due to the recent not so great releases of “Rebel Moon” and “Maestro”.
Although Paramount currently has the #1 movie at the domestic (and UK) box office and they’re going to show the Super Bowl in a few weeks which is often the highest rated television show of the year, there are rumors that Paramount will be doing another round of layoffs in the coming weeks. Some say it may happen on Feb 13 which is just 2 days after the “Super Bowl”.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
I wouldn’t give movie theaters any ideals. If they find someone interested, they’ll start selling these at the concession stand.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 