Jesus Revolution

Friday, February 24, 2023 Fourth weekend of February 2023

On the chart Jesus Revolution (opening): $15.9M

Expected 'A really strong $10 or $11 million... probably going to be around for a while' Actual: $15.9M

In the note The Theatrical sector continues to get back to normal; and if you didn’t hear it last weekend, not only was the box office up substantially from President’s weekend last year (+55%), but it was up from President’s weekend 2019 (+15%). And on a YTD basis, we’re up an astounding 45% from 2022 so far. This weekend should double 2022’s last weekend in February as well, but it probably will fall about 20% short of what 2019 did. So, it’s clearly a step forward and the steady cadence of releases should slowly build this back up to where we were pre shutdown. And once again, it’s the movies stupid. The next two years or so in the business are going to be crucial to our survival. And since next week voting opens for the Oscars, and a lot of you are Academy Members, I’d like to bring up some points that need to be talked about; and as usual I’m going to kick a couple of sacred cows and point out things that feel awkward right now, but will help the business (kinda like asking where the profit was in taking movies straight to a platform 2 years ago…). I’m not campaigning here, just putting out some ideas that could help this sector long term, think of this as a suggestion for activism through voting. Here’s the big idea, if we don’t course correct the way we vote for Oscars, the show is headed to Hulu. Instead of voting the way we’ve been doing lately, voting for friends' films (personally guilty) or voting for your company's film, consider votes that will be good for the business and good for the show (and of course to a deserving film/actor). Let’s start with Best Picture. Just in case you forgot, here are the last 10 Best Picture Winners: Coda, Nomadland, Parasite, Green Book, The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Spotlight, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Argo. Yeah, you can see how since Argo, it’s been movies that the consumers that go 4 or 5 times a year, and they are the core to our business, never saw. No wonder no one watches the show anymore, and as usual, Ben Affleck ruins everything. And here’s where my first inconvenient point comes in, all these movies play better at home on TV than on the big screen, and that’s where most of you are watching them. 12 Years a Slave beat Gravity, Spotlight beat The Revenant (and The Martian and Mad Max), Moonlight beat La La Land and Arrival and so on. It started with Z Channel in the late 70’s, then it was VHS tapes, then DVD’s and now the app. They tried to make it convenient for us, but unfortunately we’ve lost sight of how movies play differently on the big screen vs your flatscreen. So not only are we voting for films that play better on the small screen, we’re kinda giving the middle finger to the average moviegoing consumer, who isn’t really attracted to art house films we keep giving awards to. So, again, we wonder why the ratings keep leaking year after year. So, my first ask is when you vote for something as important as Best Picture, consider how much different films are when seen in a theater. As a business (and I’m talking about the entertainment business as a whole) the media beats us up all the time about being out of step with the normal American consumer (especially in the middle of the country). Imagine if we responded with ‘oh yeah? We’re not out of touch elitists, hold my Bellini (light on the peach juice and exactly 2 1/2 mini ice cubes, otherwise I’ll make you do it again)', and we give the Best Picture Oscar to Top Gun Maverick. I know most of you will push back on that idea because of that whole pesky ’success’ issue that seems to block your consideration, but a vote for a film people saw might reset how people view the Oscars (and they might actually view the Oscars in the future). And if you recalibrate why you would vote for a film, is there a better theatrical experience in this group of nominees? In addition, there is one aspect that we should also consider; to paraphrase Spielberg ‘it saved our ass’. But not only did it reset the box office, can’t we give some credit to the film for waiting 2 years to do it (and didn’t take ’the bag’ even though they were offered), to save our ass? Why aren’t we thinking more seriously about a film that had a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than all the other nominees? Do we really take something out of consideration because it had a higher gross than all the other nominees? I know some of you will have to put something you either worked on or are adjacent to 1st on your ballot, but as a nod to the future of the industry it might be a good idea to put Top Gun Maverick 2nd. And since we have this stupid ranked choice system (for Best Picture only) that none of us asked for or the membership approved (but was probably rammed through by the industrial awards complex), it would be a bonus if it won because of 2nd place votes. Speaking of the industrial awards complex (IAC), there are a couple of other categories where you can use your vote to push back about what’s going on with these awards. When Andrea Risenborough got nominated, the IAC freaked out and had to explain to their patrons why a bunch of actor tweets kicked their ass. What’s troubling is there’s a narrative out there that Andrea ’stole’ the nomination from Danielle Deadwyler in Till. Huh? It’s interesting how the IAC won’t turn on each other, but will instead point a finger at a film that didn’t employ them. This is a really tough category and all the nominees gave performances that belong here (including Deadwyler), but what if other movies just plain outspent Till in FYC? Is outspending stealing? It’s interesting to see a film like Blonde in this category with a 42% RT critics score and a 32% audience score, but spent a ton on FYC. Of course I’m not saying that Ana de Armas’s performance isn’t deserving, I’ve heard it’s exceptional, but it’s weird that the ‘honor among thieves’ effect took hold here and didn’t seem to point a finger at the film no one seems to like. I know some of you who get this email are on this gravy train (and I'm happy it built a pool for you at your 2nd vacation home), but for the rest of you it might be time to shut out all the FYC clutter and vote for a film that got here organically. Seriously, if we stopped all this FYC nonsense, and all those 50 page Hollywood Reporter and Variety ’supplements’ that arrive in the mail and go straight into the trash, how many trees could we save? So the activism point here is to vote for the nominee that got here with a performance and not a checkbook. So as you fill out your ballots, maybe do something good for the long term health of the business. Anyway, with the thought of how many moviegoers will go see either Cocaine Bear or Jesus Revolution and wander into the wrong theater, and then consider that mistake a fork in their life journey; here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Disney did something pretty miraculous last week.

Friday, March 3, 2023 First weekend of March 2023

In the note Probably a weekend around $12 million. Jesus Revolution - Because these faith based films have a big surge of first day attendance, the 2nd Friday is down a lot.

Friday, March 10, 2023 Oscar weekend 2023

On the chart Jesus Revolution (wk 3): $5.1M, -40%

Expected 'Still holding nicely at down 40% and a weekend of about 5' Actual: $5.1M, -40%

In the note Down 45% for a weekend of 6 or so. Jesus Revolution - Still holding nicely at down 40% and a weekend of about 5. Champions - This comedy from Focus and Bobby Farrelly is aimed squarely at the middle of the country, and that's who seems to be responding here. However, the level they're responding at is a little low, and the coasts look like they're way too PC to see a movie that includes special needs kids in a comedy.

Friday, March 31, 2023 Final weekend of March 2023

In the note So if that holds up, this should finish around 30. His Only Son - Went 2000 runs and reinforcing what Jesus Revolution did a couple of weeks ago (with some of the same cast), the faith based crowd is definitely out there and is willing to go to the movies.

Friday, February 23, 2024 Fourth weekend of February 2024

In the note Okay, we’ve got one more week of the box-office doldrums before our theatrical saviors of late, Warner Brothers, kicks us back into gear. We’re going to be about 2/3 of what the box-office was for this week last year, driven by the 2nd weekend of Doctor Strange, plus the openings of Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution.

Friday, March 1, 2024 First weekend of March 2024

In the note Last year’s lineup of holdovers was Ant-Man, Cocaine Bear, Jesus Revolution and Avatar, so there was a lot of business still going on outside of the new films that we don’t have this year.

Friday, April 26, 2024 Fourth weekend of April 2024

In the note Unless it does something unusual over the weekend, figure it’s around $15 million. Unsung Hero - These faith based films, similar to the films made by Kingdom Stories (Jesus Revolution, Ordinary Angels), seem to have a weird consistency.

Where it turns up