saidi’s take – 3/18/2024

Hello everyone,

This is for the weekend of Mach 8-10.  It’s a week late because I was busy (in the hospital) last week.

BOX OFFICE: Some people were saying that “Dune Part 2” may dominate the box office like “The Super Mario Bros” movie did for April last year.  The movie is doing well and it is the #1 movie of 2024 (so far) but “Kung Fu Panda 4” opening weekend beat it.  “Kung Fu Panda 4” made almost $58 million.  “Dune Part 2” sunk approx. 44% and came in at #2 with $46 million.  Overall, the total domestic weekend box office was up 18.5 percent over the previous weekend and approx. 15% over the same weekend in 2023.  It’s the very first time the total weekend was higher than the same weekend in 2023.

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE:  “Dune Part 2” is still going strong in rest of the world though.  It made an additional $81 million which led it to cross $200 million for its worldwide total.  “Kung Fu Panda 2” also did decently in foreign countries.  It’s going to have a more staggered rollout so it only opening in a few foreign countries and made $22 internationally.

AWARD NEWS:  Of course, the biggest movie news over the weekend was the Academy Awards.  After all the speculation about snubs or surprises, most of the winners were the same winners as all the previous awards shows.  “Oppenheimer”, as most expected, won a lot of awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor.  After I got home from the hospital I watched a few highlights of the show.

The only major award show left is the delayed writers guild awards which will be on April 14…and I’m guessing the winners of that may be the same as the Academy Awards and other previous awards.

OTHER NEWS: Here’s something unusual.  The CEO of “MoviePass” will test showing ads on their website.  If someone watches the ad(s) then they can get discounts on the movie theater tickets they purchase on the app.

IMAX and A24 have made a deal to show a monthly screening series of past A24 movie releases in IMAX format starting March 27 with “Ex-Machina”.

LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:

…or maybe they were trying to tell you that you had the TV on too loud????????????