First weekend of February 2023

There’s an old cliche in the pitch business, ‘and then hilarity ensues’, so…..Andrea Riseborough. The jaw dropping response from the Academy was way more hilarious than anything you would get in a pitch meeting, and the one word that took it into the world of crazy was ‘fair’. Wait, what?

So, let’s get this straight. The film that had a budget for Awards season smaller than a bar tab at Soso Soho House, and didn’t have the personnel retained to check every corner of the web, got turned in by one (or more) of the companies that has a small army of flacks. Of course, the root of this issue is the highly paid flacks had to explain to their bosses how a couple of Actors kicked their asses with a bunch of tweets, so this was their best way of explaining that. So the idea of ‘fair’ boils down to a really inconvenient issue; spend. And since the Industrial Awards Complex isn’t about to give up the honey pot, that’s gonna be a tough issue, and this will never be ‘fair’.

But as long as the Academy is ‘going to put the rules in review’, we should look at all the rules and adjust them to what the world looks like now, and if we’re going to make it ‘fair’ let’s adjust the rules to close some loopholes.

First, Oscar eligibility (for any category other than Docs and Shorts) needs to be for Theatrical Films only. I know the battle cry of the streamers has been ‘but we’re following the rules’, the rules need to be changed to close those loopholes and we need to define what qualifies for an Oscar, rules from 1928 aren’t useful anymore. Similar to eligibility for Producers and Writers, there needs to be a group at the Academy that determines if a film is a Theatrical Film or a TV Movie. Window length, with a Theatrical release that runs right up to the debut on the platform might be a good place to start. Four Wall releases (where the producers rent a theater to qualify) don’t qualify a film as Theatrical unless the production budget is under a set amount, say $1 milliion. Grosses must be reported.

Obviously a few of the streamers will push back on this, but like any good parent says to their kids ‘you’ll thank us for this later’. Why is that? Because they’ll make more money, the data is pretty clear that a theatrical run increases the long term value of a film, and like I said last week, other revenue streams outside of the subscription revenue are a good thing. And since the streamers are producing a lot of movies (and providing a lot of jobs) it’s better for all of us that they reap as much revenue as possible from each film. But we might have to put that Oscar carrot in front of them to get them to see what’s best for them.

I got some really interesting feedback from a few of you about films that might have done better or worse in the Oscars had they taken a different direction in the Theatrical/Streaming fork in the road. A lot of suggestions about other films that would have done much better in the Oscar race had they gone Theatrical. But one seemed to be unanimous, All Quiet on the Western Front. The phrase that came up more than once was ‘what if A24 had All Quiet on the Western Front’? It’s certainly an interesting thought, and since the film has a lot of scope and some crossover potential, would a successful theatrical run translate into more Nominations?

Second (as a Member of what used to be called the Public Relations Branch and over the last couple of years became the Junior Publicist Branch), we need more transparency from the Academy with voting results announced. I want to know how many votes came in for each winner, and how close each race was, especially the ranked voting system for Best Picture. I want to know how the process played out and how many 2nd place votes became first place votes. I’m not sure why they are keeping that secret, it makes no sense. I understand keeping the nomination totals secret, because that might cause bias, but let’s have some transparency.

And lastly, as part of the (hilarious) statement from the Academy, they asked us to ‘refrain from publicly discussing your voting preferences or attempting to persuade others to vote similarly’. Once again, wait, what? Sooooo, we’ve got an entire industry of people getting voters to ‘opinion maker’ screenings, and voters are inundated with screenings and parties hosted by A list talent, but no one there is sharing their voting preferences by supporting a film? Uh huh. Sounds completely ‘fair’ to me. Since the film business often feels like High School politics, and just like in High School you just vote for your friends (guilty here), fair is a tough bar to get over.

Anyway with the accuracy of the yearly weird Oscar nominees that you scratch your head at and ask ‘for what?’ like Paul Mescal or Drive My Car, here are some thoughts on the weekend box office.

Knock at the Cabin - The days of a M. Night movie opening to $40 million have gone away, and the moviegoing public is aware that the plot twists that made his films so much fun don’t exist anymore. So there’s no plot twist here, and this film is a little behind where *Old *was at the same time on opening day. Of course, Old opened in July with its considerably better matinees, so this should be behind. However, even though the critics seemed to give this film a mixed positive review (currently at 69%), the exits are not very good. Right now, this looks like a weekend of $15 or $16 million, just behind Old; but if playability is an issue that might show up in the numbers tomorrow and Sunday.

80 for Brady - For some reason they’re not reporting numbers today. Since this film did just fine with the critics, the exits have been pretty good, the number they reported in the trades from last night was good and we all know that comedy is welcome at the box office, I can’t imagine what would prevent them from reporting today. And doing some back of a napkin math based on what they reported to the trades last night, it should be in the mid teens, and if Cabin falls apart it might contend for #1. During the reopening from the shutdown two years ago, there was some petty high school stuff going on between the studios about reporting grosses, but I can’t imagine that’s the case here, there’s got to be something else. But clearly by not reporting, they are forfeiting their Oscar chances if the rules change this year the way I’d like them to.

Avatar: The Way of Water - Even with a couple of decent new films in the marketplace, it’s still doing Avatar stuff. Figure down 30% for a weekend of about $11 million

The Chosen Season 3 Finale - It’s funny how the streamers are going out of their way not to make money in theaters (but still want to be considered theatrical movies), and you’ve got events like this where streaming TV shows are making a lot of money by going theatrical. After they debuted Episode 1 and 2 of this faith based streaming series in theaters, opening to $8.8 million and eventually grossing $14 million, they’re back with the season finale. They opened yesterday to a decent $1.6 million and today doesn’t look quite as good as episode 1 and 2 did last November, but it’s still pretty good. Figure it’s about $7 million for the weekend bringing the 4 day to about $8.6 million.

*BTS: Yet to Come *- Opened Wednesday to a really nice $2.1 million and then added another 700k yesterday. Looks like it’s a little better today, and the 3 day should end up around $4 million, bringing the 5 day to about $6.8 million.

*Sword Art Online: Progressive - Scherzo of Deep Night *- The Cruchyroll conveyor belt of Anime movies just keeps churning. This looks a little lower than what we’ve seen lately (and these can be one day wonders), maybe 700k or so for the weekend.

The Amazing Maurice - Went on 1500 screens and doesn’t look like much, maybe $1 million for the weekend if they get a good kids bounce tomorrow.