THB Headlines, July 8

Jul 9, 2022

‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Strikes $29M In Thursday Night Previews, Second Best Of 2022
‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Eyeing $70M First Friday – Box Office Update

I honestly hate the idea of making the misnamed “streaming wars” into a constant horse race. Too simplistic. The 14 anonymous “Insiders” are not a consensus… they are working pros, but they all have their own biases… buyer beware. Moreover, the current media passion of HBO Max - which fails to separate the HBO from the Max, rarely mentioning actual HBO Max Original content - strikes me as an inside baseball fad. But I respect Josef Adalian and I will offer his work to you, whether I agree or not.
Piece 1 - 14 Hollywood Insiders Reveal Who’s Really Winning the Streaming Wars
Piece 2 - How HBO Max Displaced Netflix in Our Streamer Power Rankings

Again… a deeply-reported THR piece about a subject that is much simpler than suggested. Maybe just, “don’t be an asshole and spoil movie surprises that others have likely not seen every time you see anything, much less are in it.” That work?
Spoiler Alert: How Hollywood Insiders Like Dwayne Johnson and Benedict Cumberbatch Really Feel About Reveals, Leaks and Broken NDAs
BUT… then there is the sister publication to THR, Variety, making a point of running spoilers… seriously… even looking at the URL or the pictures on the story will be SPOILERS… attached to a meh theory.
‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Post-Credits Scene Latest Example of Marvel Studios’ Risky New Strategy

Marcus Theaters Nudges Patrons Toward Indie Films With Loyalty Program: “We Can’t Live Off Just Blockbusters”

China Box Office Shrinks 38 Percent in First Half of 2022, North America Regains Top Spot

I Wonder who came up with the idea of The Wonder Cinematic Universe (I guess it was really R.J. Palacio, the novelist… but oy!)

Geoffrey Rush On Returning To The Festival Fray, Playing Groucho Marx & Winning His Defamation Suit: “It Was Bruising For Everyone Involved”

Sacha Baron Cohen beats Roy Moore's $95M defamation lawsuit over 'pedophile detector' sketch

Writers Guild East Files Grievance With CBS News Over Backpay

Lewis Black Sues Pandora for $10M in Latest Comedian Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

New Yorker - “The Janes” and the Power of Pro-Abortion Imagery

STUFF I AM WATCHING THAT’S NEW THIS WEEK (some I saw in advance)…
The Old Man, Episode 5, FX/Hulu
Loot, Episode 4, AppleTV+
Only Murders in The Building, Episode 3, Hulu
(Inside the Real ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Building in Manhattan)
Physical, Season 2, Episode 6, AppleTV+
Ms. Marvel, Season 1 Finale, Disney+
The Boys, Season 3, Episode 7, Amazon Prime

And…
Big Brother began again on CBS…
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is now on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K.
The Bear dropped in its Season 1 entirety on FX/Hulu
The Princess is relentless action with a woman at the center… on Hulu.
Catch up on Reservation Dogs before Season 2 launches in Aug… on Hulu
Netflix also offers “How To Build A Sex Room,” which I will not be watching.

I’m struggling a little with HBO’s Westworld and AppleTV+’s Blackbird so far, but I am giving up on neither.

I watched the 3-part Ghislaine Maxwell doc series on Starz… meh. Not bad, but nothing new, really.

And Dave Chappelle is rationalizing (again) on Netflix - What’s In A Name
“And this is my biggest gripe with this whole controversy with ‘The Closer’: That you cannot report on an artist’s work and remove artistic nuance from his words. It would be like if you were reading a newspaper and they say, ‘Man Shot in the Face by a Six-Foot Rabbit Expected to Survive,’ you’d be like, ‘Oh my god,’ and they never tell you it’s a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

Parting is such sweet sorrow…