THB #572: McDLTing Hollywood

For those wondering what a McDLT was…

The point of this piece is about separating ideas… or having more than one idea at the same time.

This is an issue for the nation, no matter what the motivations of the wannabe assassin yesterday are found out to be. There are the facts - of which we still have few - and the postures, which are endless, heightened by the events of the day.

But let’s not forget that the hysteria of the last 2 weeks that was overwhelming the nation - Biden’s age - was also caused by one brief event… and a lot of attached and intense feelings.

Before you get to claiming that I am comparing the 2 events as to their severity, I am not. A gun shot can be less powerful than a microphone… but the threat of murder is of a higher order by any measure. My point is, the obsessive focus of the nation can turn on a dime.

The illusion of permanence is comforting. But it is not real. Things change in a way that is not in our control. (And not to make light, but movie fans, if you have never seen Mamet’s Things Change, go out of your way to find it and watch it.)

But this piece is about Hollywood and mostly, box office… so that is yet another demand for perspective.

I wrote Thursday’s piece on Longlegs and its potential box office because a friend was waving a big flag in my face for a week and then Neon fed Deadline a $3 million estimate for Thursday previews in the morning and I decided to try to build some perspective before the events of the still-unfinished weekend happened.

There are now 26 Summer Horror movies (feel free to quibble with some of the included or not included) that have opened to more than $20 million in the history of cinema.

And if you look at this list by date, you will see one of the more interesting things… that unlike most of the movie business, Horror’s most successful summer movies have rolled out pretty consistently over the last 25 years.

Want to leave off The X-Files in 1998? Ok. Hard to say DreamWorks’ release The Haunting doesn’t count in 1999. A week later in 1999, The Blair Witch Project.

I don’t want to get into a lesson on how the frontloading of the box office revved up in the late 90s because the distributors wanted it and major exhibitors came out of mid-90s bankruptcies and restructured the exhibition business anew into an almost exclusively multiplexed world that allowed for adding screens for big or unexpected openings. You’ll just have to take my word for that today. But like all movie genres, horror openings benefited.

But the most compelling thing about the chart above is that Neon has done what very few, if any, true independents has done… cracked that $20 million Summer Horror mark. Artisan caught magic in a bottle with Blair Witch in 1999. Dimension split off from Disney in 2005 and had MGM release Halloween in 2007, while MGM was still considered a major. Rogue had distribution through Universal in 2008. And Lionsgate, the major-esque indie, released The Last Exorcism in 2010 and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark in 2019.

So I think it is completely fair to say that this is the most impressive Summer Horror opening for a true indie since Blair Witch.

So what does it mean for Neon?

It means they have now accomplished what any true indie since the heyday of Orion and October and USA and Gramercy, etc, in the late 80s has accomplished. That standout true indie of this era would be A24, really. Both have Oscar winning and multiple Oscar-nominated titles. Each distributor now has one $20 million-plus opening. And both are highly respected for their taste and ability to push movies into the marketplace that rise above expectations.

To put in in political parlance, this opening places the 2 true indie theatrical companies from Lean A24 to Toss-Up. (Searchlight still holds a slightly different place.)

It’s a great moment of Neon.

Both Neon and A24 have more in the tank for this year. Neon pushes out Cuckoo (which I actually think is a better film than Longlegs) next month. A24 has Hugh Grant creeping it up in Heretic in November. Neon has the Cannes Palme d’or winner, Anora, landing in October. A24 has the romance We Live in Time in October and the Nicole Kidman thriller Babygirl in December.

We should all be celebrating these indies becoming more and more muscular and seemingly capable of anything they aspire to… which is not to suggest they always win… but that they offer the endless possibility of surprise.

But as we celebrate Neon’s moment - and they deserve fruit baskets from everyone - let’s remember that the hot should stay hot and the cool should stay cool.

Neon and A24 alone cannot solve what ails indie cinema. Nor can Searchlight and Focus and Sony Classics. Or whatever still exists at Amazon… if anything does. (I like the team that has been UAR and Orion… I breathe a sigh of relief every time I see them working a new movie. Amazon still confuses me so much.)

As I read Anthony D'Alessandro’s coverage yesterday, I saw this and almost swallowed my (imaginary) gum.

Anthony talks to a lot of smart and powerful people. He is a smart and capable guy. But they keep steering him down these terrible paths.

Here are the last 5 functional years on this weekend in July…

$128 million is nothing to cheer for… “the industry will take it.” That would make the industry a self-destructive fool.