Oscar weekend 2023
Every once in a while I consider changing the subject title of this email to ‘I hate you for saying that, but you’re right’, because often the responses I get on a weekly basis contain that idea (or some variation of it). And the weird tangent (and weird tangents are kinda my thing here) I went on last week about migrants to LA generated a lot of the responses to that tangent (and one other set of responses that was hilarious but not worth talking about here). They say that you haven’t arrived in this town unless people hate you and occasionally try to get you fired (check and check); nothing that severe happened this week but it’s always interesting to see what causes some of you to clutch your pearls.
The box office will continue to roll this weekend and Paramount (by opening this movie on the correct day of the week) is back at the #1 position where they’ve spent so much time lately. The total box office for this weekend should be right below the 5 year (taking out the shutdown years) average for this weekend. The one two punch of Scream and Creed should equal the 2nd weekend of The Batman last year, and with a deeper roster of holdover films this year, this weekend should continue to build the surplus year over year. We will fall considerably behind the same weekend in 2019, but Captain Marvel’s $153 million opening is the reason we’ll be short when compared to this year.
There’s an interesting aspect to this weekend that’s evolved over time, and it echoes some of the ideas I’ve been talking about here. Back before the Academy pivoted towards awarding films that played better on VHS/DVD/The Academy Platform (than in Theaters) and people still watched the Oscar telecast, this was a weekend where you only opened films that had a primarily male skew. And in general, the grosses on Sunday took a decent sized hit; not quite a Super Bowl Sunday hit, but it was significant. Now, not so much. It’s just one more indication that the average moviegoer has checked out of the Oscars because they have no reason to care, and the films they loved and are rooting for don’t mesh with the films the Academy has been told to love by the Industrial Awards Complex.
It will be interesting to see what happens Sunday, and for all of you who get this and are nominated, I voted for all of you (or at least that’s what we tell our friends). Whenever I see a film like Everything Everywhere dominate the Minor Leagues on the way to the Oscars, for some reason I feel like we’re in for some chaos on Sunday, it feels too easy otherwise. I just hope that if chaos does happen and if something like Top Gun Maverick wins Best Picture, we don’t have the typical lazy responses accusing the Academy of racism (in this case, against Asians). If Everything Everywhere doesn’t win Best Picture, it’s probably because I have yet to talk to anyone over 45 who loves the movie, and as much as we’ve flooded the Membership with unqualified younger voters, it’s still a pretty old group. Over the years I’ve seen a lot of films like Everything Everywhere have a similar audience resonance, where younger viewers really embrace it but older viewers just think it’s a lot of gimmicky noise; something like Inception comes to mind. So Everything Everywhere’s skewing to the younger part of the Academy Membership is nothing new.
Anyway, with the accuracy and dependability normally associated with anything Ponzi Money Crypto, here are some thoughts on the weekend box office.
Scream VI - I don’t follow this series so I’m not sure which character VI is, but this is doing great today. This next chapter of the reboot of the last chapter seems to be benefiting from the idea that it’s new and improved with a 100% more Jenna Ortega. This is continuing the hot start it got last night and is a decent amount ahead of where Scream was at this point in the day. However, Scream opened over MLK weekend with its Monday holiday, so the Sunday here should drop harder than the Sunday for Scream. All that being said, this looks like a terrific mid/high 30’s. One thing that’s encouraging here; with Creed growing from the last edition and this growing from the last edition, it reverses the trend we saw before the shutdown where sequels seemed to go the other way and decayed with each increasing roman numeral.
Creed III - After the sensational opening last week and the exceptional exit polls, you would expect this to hold up really nicely this weekend. However, we’re getting back to a more normal marketplace where the next film up can add some noise to the competitive landscape and the holdover here looks closer to norm. Figure it’s down about 55% for the weekend and a gross in the mid 20’s.
65 - Looking okay today, a lot like last year’s Moonfall, the RT score is in the 30’s and the exits are on the low side of bad (similar to Moonfall) so I’m not sure how this is going to hold up as the weekend plays out. For now, I’ll say it’s about 8 million for the weekend.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Looking a little more normal this weekend, down 40% for a weekend of about $8 million.
*Cocaine Bear - *I thought this would hold a little better than it’s holding. It’s not bad, it’s just at the norm. 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. The exits look really good here so far, so this could get better, but for now it looks like a weekend of about 4.