Welcome to the War Starts at Midnight weekly Fantasy Movie League breakdown, where I attempt to explain the unexplainable: why movies over- and under-perform their expectations at the box office!
This week we had a resurgent performance in the third week for The Edge of Seventeen as it parlayed some good reviews into finally exceeding some expectations. Lots of people on the FML Chatter were listing it as a strong BP candidate. In fact, these 3 films were the highest three $ per bux plays of the week. Just missing the cut was Allied, a movie that I thought would sneak into the BP bonus. Instead, it couldn’t even beat Arrival, which was helped by an unexpected screen count boost.
The best cineplex was, of course, anchored by a strong performance from Disney’s Moana. It’s no surprise that this film is doing well, but it is falling short of 2013’s Frozen, as some people had been using as a comparison. Expect Moana to easily dominate the children’s market for the rest of the year.
or: We Should Have Named This Podcast Burry Me With My Movies
Chris & Jacob discuss Barry Jenkins’ lush coming of age drama, Moonlight. Chris pairs the fruitful feature with an appropriately complex sour ale. Then in The Dudes hand out a boatload of superlative awards for the Fall 2016 Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League. PLUS – A new trailer dropped for Scorsese’s latest, Silence, and the fellas flaunt their first impressions.
00:08:48 – Review – Moonlight 00:33:03 – SPOILERS – Moonlight 00:50:14 – Beer Recommendation: Oblivion Red Sour Ale by Wicked Weed Brewing “Rescue Me” – Eleanor Seabird
00:54:46 – Special Features – Fantasy Movie League Recap – Fall 2016 Awards “Wouldn’t It Be Nice (Cover)” – Eleanor Seabird
01:20:48 – Really Rad Recommendations
So Week 13 ended up having a simple solution: 3 screens of Doctor Strange and 5 screens of Arrival. In retrospect, this should have been a pretty obvious choice. Arrival is showing it’s legs and still getting great word of mouth, even if I didn’t think it was all it could have been. Doctor Strange is staying relatively strong even though Fantastic Beasts should be eating into its numbers. Hacksaw Ridge is still outperforming estimates, but just not enough to justify being in any good box offices for last week. I think it will be out of Perfect Cineplex contention for a little while until its Oscar Buzz heats back up.
Another interesting number to look at this weekend is Almost Christmas‘s strong $5.7 million dollar gross. It has been rising in $ per bux over the last few weeks and may continue to outperform as we all get farther into Christmas mode. If you’re not the type who wants to see Bad Santa 2, this will be the movie for you, and judging by the number of bad reviews for the sequel, there’s going to be a whole lot who fit that type.
Chris called it. I didn’t. This week’s perfect cineplex was the very simple 1 screen of Fantastic Beasts and 7 screens of Moonlight. The worst part? That I’ve been calling it for weeks. “If Moonlight is over 350 theaters, it’s a shoe-in for best performer,” he said repeatedly. Then, when it breaks that it would top 700 screens I get cold feet and bail. Well, the problem wasn’t with Moonlight, it was with the Harry Potter spin-off.
I knew that Fantastic Beasts didn’t have the steam of its big brother movie. I did the research, read reviews, and put my finger on the pulse of the American movie-going public. (Ok, so I really asked around to my biggest Harry Potter nerd friends.) Mix that with bad early Thursday preview numbers and I switched to 4x Trolls, 1x Arrival, and 3x Moonlight. See? I still belived a little big.
The actual worst part is that I wasn’t even wrong about Fantastic Beasts. It underperformed, yet somehow was still the best value even with a cost north of $800 bux. Yet this weekend showed heavy losses across the board compared with the Veteran’s Day haul that it didn’t even matter. If anybody had some crow I think it’s time I tried some.
Jacob and Chris try to find the language to discuss Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Can you understand what Jeremy Renner is doing in this cerebral sci-fi flick, or do you need Amy Adams’ Louise to communicate it to you? Then, find out what films are the cream of the crop as the dudes list their favorite films from the Criterion Collection just in time for the annual B&N sale! PLUS we recap the dominance of Hacksaw Ridge in Week 11 for our Fantasy Movie League roundup.
00:12:56 – Review – Arrival 00:14:46 – SPOILERS – Arrival 00:40:43 – Beer Recommendation: Lava Lake Wit by Crazy Mountain Brewing Company “Particular Moment in Time” – Smokey & The Mirror
00:44:45 – Fantasy Movie League Recap – Week 11
00:53:03 – Special Features – Favorite Criterion Collection Films “Detroit Snow” -Smokey & The Mirror
01:35:16 – Really Rad Recommendations
Let’s get this out in the open. I’m a fan of hard workers, not lazy people who don’t even bother to fill out a whole cineplex. Really it only takes 8 clicks to set a lineup, and this week we’re going to AWARD people who only picked 7 movies with the Perfect Cineplex? If I weren’t so competitive I would boycott this site in a heartbeat. Except I wouldn’t because this is one of the highlights of my week now.
Trolls may anchor this lazy-man cineplex, but we can all see Hacksaw Ridge is doing the heavy lifting here. Mix a little bit of Veteran’s Day synergy with a whole lot of positive audience and critic scores, and you get a top performer bonus 6 times over in the Perfect Cineplex. Having seen it myself, I feel like this movie will play out a lot like American Sniper, so look for it to make appearances in or near top cineplexes possibly into 2017. As for the next few weeks, my gut tells me that this will be a little overpriced. Long legs are good, but the mid-term seems to be when the value goes down for movies like this.
I know we all had a big decision to make this week, and I hope when it came down to it you made the right one and overlooked the consensus pick, because at this point we all know that the one with the weird hair pulled it off. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Trollshas managed to overtake the mammoth Dr. Strange to grab top performer and anchor the perfect cineplex for week 10.
#51 - The Godfather Part II / Worst. Sequels. Ever.
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or: Let’s Give All of Harrison Ford’s Old Roles to Alden Ehrenreich
Chris and Jacob are joined by Kevin Kisling to discuss his War Crime: The Godfather, Part II. Then from one of the best sequels to all of the worst, see what films were nominated for the title of WORST. SEQUEL. EVER. *PLUS* a funky farmhouse beer pairing, round-ups of weeks 08 & 09 of the Fantasy Movie League, and a trio of really rad recommendations. Do us this favor and listen to this episode. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about us; they’ll tell you we know how to return a favor.
00:05:32- Review (SPOILERS) – The Godfather Part II 00:51:56 – Beer Recommendation: ‘MERICA by Prairie Artisan Ales “Gotta Know Better (I’m Crazy)” – Sports
00:55:49 – Fantasy Movie League Recap – Weeks 08 & 09
01:05:52 – Special Features – Worst. Sequels. Ever. “Manicure” – Sports
01:31:22 – Really Rad Recommendations
Week 09 did not go as well for me as my Week 08 Madea prognosticating. Was I smart to get off the Boo! train while it was hot? (Spoilers: No. I am not a smart man.) Let’s start off with a breakdown of last week.
WEEK 09 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
How could we all be so dumb on Halloween/Diwali weekend? If you went purely by calendar based selections you’d have 7/8 of your perfect box office spelled out for you. Add in a dash of The Accountant and there you have your perfect cinema for week 9.
October 31st can only mean one thing… time for a spooky special Short Rounds episode! Jake pays penance for his coldest War Crime – John Carpenter’s The Thing. Do the guys see the human in this film, or is it as cold and alien as creepy crawly head-spider? Grab a flamethrower and handful of dynamite, because there’s a 75% chance at least one of us has been infected by the intruder organism!
