Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Will Barbie Win Best Picture at this Year's Oscars?

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It may seem premature to ask the question of this piece's title. After all, the year still has two months to go--with those last two mon...

Can Napoleon Be Another Oppenheimer?

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As a biographical film about a historical personage Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer seemed an unpromising commercial prospect to me eve...

The Opening Weekend Gross of Five Nights at Freddy's: A Few Thoughts

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Just as was the case with the upcoming Hunger Games prequel Five Nights at Freddy's was not on my radar until very recently, and I had...
Monday, October 30, 2023

James Bond at the Beginning--and Possible End--of the Age of the Action Movie

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Few these days seem to remember why the James Bond movies became a fixture of the pop cultural landscape. This was not because they invente...

Can Joker 2 be a Hit?

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Todd Phillips' Joker was the kind of unconventional movie that somehow gets made every now and then--and once in a while proves a surpr...

How Will the Film Business Do in 2024?

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Last year the recovery of the box office over the course of 2022 in spite of the comparative fewness of the really big releases (the colossa...
Friday, October 27, 2023

Considering the Pew Research Center Report on Americans' Interest in Sports: The Economic Divide

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The Pew Research Center put out a report last week that discussed its finding that "Most Americans Don't Closely Follow Professiona...

Mission: Impossible 8's Delay and What it Means for the Franchise

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It was reported this week that Mission: Impossible 8 has been bumped a whole year, from the summer of 2024 to the summer of 2025 due to the ...

Considering the Pew Research Center Report on Americans' Interest in Sports: The Generational Divide

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Not long ago I had occasion to think about how athletes seemed to have a higher profile in the media world just a couple of decades back , s...
Thursday, October 26, 2023

Boxoffice Pro Revises its Numbers for Captain Marvel 2 (aka The Marvels) Downward (Again)

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Whatever one makes of The Flash as a film it was in commercial terms the worst flop of the summer--a $300 million movie that finished its ...

Are Box Office Hits Becoming Less Front-Loaded? (The Evidence of 2022 and 2023)

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Last year the success of Top Gun 2 was received as significant confirmation of the recovery of the box office--but also something more. So...
Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Just How Long Have the Running Times of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Films Actually Been?

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The reports of Captain Marvel 2 as the shortest film the Marvel Cinematic Universe had to date sent me checking the figures on that. Just c...

Of "Barbenheimer," Spider-Man and Elemental

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During the summer of 2023 we have seen those movies that looked like "sure things" ( Indiana Jones , Mission: Impossible, superher...

Elemental Goes From Flop to Hit

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By the time the tracking-based estimates for Elemental began to circulate last May a note of pessimism about such films was penetrating thr...
Friday, October 20, 2023

How Much Will The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Gross at the Box Office?

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Up until now I have not given the Hunger Games prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes , much thought. It simply see...