THB #566: Loooooong Weekend
I’m clawing at my keyboard like an animal in heat… my brain is all over the place… can’t focus… too many things and too little actually happening.
Obviously, my political concerns for my country rise above the movie business. This is not a newsletter about politics. But it’s hard to crawl out from under the mess we are in right now. People can comfort themselves with the thought that it isn’t that big a deal, but rights are already being aggressively taken away primarily by this Supreme Court that was manipulated into existence by McConnell and The Heritage Foundation. And the Republicans-In-Trump’s-Thrall House of Representatives has been at a near dead-stop for the last 3 years.
This is not me arguing… these are just facts. And if me stating these facts makes you uncomfortable as a supporter of Trump (or if you would consider voting for him), ask yourself why. To support this person is to celebrate these restrictions on human rights… this is the open, public intention.
And don’t think I give my team, the Democrats, a pass. Biden should not be the candidate for President. This is not brain surgery. But for now, he is. And he is focused on the embrace of all Americans, which makes him an easy choice. But the soft middle of the voting public that will likely control the result of this election is about politics and politics might forgive criminality before aging. People love gangster movies and hate watching old people doing almost anything.
So… there is that…
I’ve been going to the movies a lot lately… press screenings and regular screenings. And I am filled with an undeniable joy each time I see a full line for concessions and people bumping into one another as they find their theaters to go to the movies, whether in the middle of the day or after 9pm.
If you have read me before you know that I believe in theatrical exhibition, both aesthetically and financially. And we are in the eye of the movie storm right now. I guess you could see this as the hurricane of big box office and the eye being the calm, dead zones that were clear earlier in the year and certain in the pretty-near future.
June has been great… as March was before it.
The problem is, you can’t build/re-build the exhibition business with 2 months out of every 6 delivering some big hits.
And you can’t build/re-build the exhibition business with just big hits.
Take a look at 2024 so far… this list has every movie (29) that has grossed over $20 million, which means every movie released by a major this year.
January and February had 2 releases from Paramount (1 of which was moved from Streaming to Theatrical), a Sony problem title, and 2 output deal releases from Universal, plus the modest hit from MGM, The Beekeeper.
March became the primary repository of 2023 holdovers delayed by the strikes. Four out of five weekends had major franchise releases. Warner Bros did its best to spread out its 2 titles at the very start and very end of the month. Universal pushed out its Dreamworks movie, the only animated film from a major in the first quarter, is a reasonable spot. And Sony did almost exactly the same as the first of the Jason Reitman reboots.
No Disney yet.
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