Indiana Jones and the Dial of Doldrums - Weeks 9 and 10

There’s a media trope in articles about how “the old guy’s still got it” whenever a celebrated man releases their latest movie, book, album. It could be Martin Scorcese, John Grisham, or Bruce Springsteen. [My personal fav is when the quotes are “It’s his best album in years” when the reality is it’s been years since his last album. It’s not like he’s competing with other people named Springsteen!] Still, even the perkiest of talk-show hosts and podcasters are going to have trouble spinning that spin about Indiana Jones when movie-goers clearly decided he didn’t still have it.  

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opened with a dud of a $60.3 million weekend. Yes, less than Fast X and Transformers 6.1 (the .1 is for  Bumblebee… which actually might be the best of the bunch… go figure!). This was not what the Dr. Jones ordered. His last adventure opened to $100 million 15 years ago. Absence did not make the heart grow fonder in this case. 

That said, maybe there was a chance for a rebound. There was a mid-week holiday coming up. Rest home buses could plan trips for the second weekend. Maybe even a fedora hat fan club convention. Whips, anyone?

Nope. The next weekend had the film falling 55% with a $27 million take on its way to a $122 million 10-day total. A weekend where it couldn’t even hold off the fifth Insidious movie which made $33 million. [I’m a horror fan who liked the first Insidious and even I haven’t seen the other four films… and it’s bigger than Indiana Jones?!] This film might make the bottom of the Top Five. It may pass Transformers or Fast X. However, this was a flick people thought was a $300 million lock. The last Jurassic World dusted-off the original Park cast to the tune of $376 million. They couldn’t even get the original greatest adventurer of all-time past… $150?!

To prepare for Dial of Destiny, the Mrs. and I rewatched the other four Indy films. I was definitely struck this time at just… how bad a professor he was! He’s never at school, he doesn’t grade papers, doesn’t meet with students, and he always “starts” his lessons when there’s 90 seconds left in class and then just tells them to read about the rest in their book after the bell rings. This guy was NOT good at his job. 

The other main news is that the Spider-Verse officially passed the Guardians, leaving us with a new #1 film of the summer. Indy is definitely not going to catch it, but could Tom Cruise, Oppenheimer, or Barbie? Time will tell…

Oh, and the Beasts ended up faster than Fast X. Will they need to rebrand their franchise to The Slow & Slightly Annoyed? 

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - $357.7 million

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $357.6 million

#3. The Little Mermaid - $289.2 million

#4. Transformers: Rise of the Beats - $146.8 million

#5. Fast X - $145.9 million

“Flash” Flies By; “Elemental” is Leaden; Lost That Loving “Feelings” - Week 7 and 8

It’s a shame that just as the movie seasons are coming back in our post-pandemic world, the current writer and SAG strikes might make them go back to the dark ages. 

You see, in years past, we would frequently have some “show down” weekends where two “big” films open at the same time and only one could reign supreme. Currently, studios are too scared (or don’t have enough big films) to warrant that kind of competition, so they steer clear of each other. If one big-budget movie plants its flag on a certain date, other flicks scurry to find another light. It took till Week 7 before we had our first battle of the season between two nine-digit budgeted films and the result was… maybe they should’ve combined efforts?

The Flash didn’t go by in the blink of an eye. It earned $55 million in its first weekend. While that’s less than Fast X and Transformers, I’m still sort of surprised it did that well. While spin-doctors tried to sell fans that the film was “the greatest comic-book film of all-time,” there was obvious gloom attached to this project. Let alone the “dead man walking” mentality with all of these final DCU films, there’s tons of off-camera issues with The Flash… even more than the obvious “Should this guy be in jail?”  

For example, did you know there were 45 different writers attached to The Flash during its development process?! I mean, based on the constantly changing tone of the film, I’d only have gone with 27. Meanwhile, Gal Gadot has gone from being the best thing in every movie she’s in to only having 10-second cameos in Fast X, The Flash, and Shazam. Time to fire all your agents. Also, Warner Bros. so loves to highlight their own movies and properties so much (this is the company that included characters from It, A Clockwork Orange, and Game of Thrones in the “kid movie” Space Jam 2), that they even threw in a scene from the never filmed movie 90’s movie Superman Lives with Nicolas Cage and a shot of the 80’s Supergirl Helen Slater whose movie currently sits with an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh yes, fans will be so excited to see the star of The Legend of Billy Jean on the big screen again.  

Well, the buzz (err, whirring) of The Flash didn’t last for long as it dropped almost 73% in its second weekend. It’s currently at $87.5 million and looks like it’ll walk, not run past the $100 million mark before exiting theaters. Maybe Warner Bros. will have time to add in a scene from the unreleased Batgirl movie before it’s sent to Max next month.  

Elemental was unable to turn the Disney animation tide around with a weak $29.6 million debut. Most pundits still think the problem rests with families paying for Disney+ know they can wait to watch the movie at home, but you can watch EVERY MOVIE at home these days after a month or two. People wanted to see Super Mario Bros. and they made it the biggest film of the year. At the end of the day, Disney didn’t convince people they wanted to see fire and water mix.  Good news, though… I’m sure the live-action remake will do way better in 25 years!

I was trying to think of when was the last female-led theatrical-released comedy before writing about No Hard Feelings (btw, you can tell I’m a guy with that much categorizing verbiage as “female-led” and “theatrical-released… it’s like I’m talking about a batter who hits .335 against left-handers in day games, but at night his percentage drops to .317… we spend so much time on nonsense), and I was going to go with last year’s Sandra Bullock flick The Lost City, yet I’d completely forgotten about this year’s 80 For Brady and Book Club 2. Never forget the box-office power of “Oh hey, I know them!” 

Regardless, No Hard Feelings didn’t do much better than 80 For Brady’s opening with a $15 million debut weekend. That’s better than Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron’s Long Shot and some other “just” comedy movies have fared over the past few years (there’s a reason “streaming” companies have been debuting a lot of these types of films), yet this probably won’t give studios more incentive to put comedies back in theaters anytime soon. No hard feelings, J-Law! 

As for the “old timers,” Spider-Man has swung past The Little Mermaid but Guardians 3 may be just beyond his reach. It’s going to be close!

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $352.1 million

#2. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - $316.7 million

#3. The Little Mermaid - $270.1 million

#4. Fast X - $144.6 million

#5. Transformers: Rise of the Beats - $123.1 million

Spidey Swings; Transformers Fizzles - Week 5 and 6

Two more highly anticipated sequels (well, one high and one you probably need to be high for) were released in theaters over the past weekends. Suffice to say, one was very sticky while the other one made you feel stuck. 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swung into theaters with a $120.7 million debut. That’s about a (checking notes) $85 million improvement from the first film's start. Holy Moley, that’s what you want from a sequel! People actually excited to go back instead of an “I guess I’m supposed to” attitude… Sounds about how I’m feeling about seeing The Flash tomorrow, but I degrees.

“Across” not only blew past the first “Into the Spider-Verse” debut, it’s already passed the original’s total gross in ten days! A second weekend of $55.5 million (off a 54% drop) left $225 million so far in Miles Morales’ web. I may have needed my son to tell me who Metro Boomin was a couple months ago, but even I can figure out this film’s doing pretty well. 

[minor spoiler about the end… skip to the next paragraph if trying to avoid] I wasn’t aware how much of a “Part 1” this film was going to be when seeing it on opening night. Everything starts building toward a big epic conclusion and you’re like “Let’s do this!” and then a “To Be Concluded” hits the screen. A guy in my theater yelled during the silence of our collective gasps: “You can’t just don’t that!” When you make the “third longest” animated film of all-time and people still wanted more, you did something right. Next March can’t get here soon enough!

While one sequel soared over the city, another got stuck in traffic. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts raised $61 million over its first weekend. While this is lower than most of the Transformers debuts (by a lot), it’s about $15 million more than The Last Knight started with in 2017. Improvement!   

Rise of the Beasts did add Michelle Yeoh, Ron Pearlman, and Pete Davidson to the list of famous Transformers voice actors. Now, why haven’t they ever cast Alexa and Siri as Transformer voices? That makes a lot more sense than having humans record artificial voices. Then again, maybe the characters in the movie would all just start treating them like Alexa and Siri saying things like “Rachet, add milk to the shopping list” and “Arcee, what’s the weather like outside?” Nevermind. 

As for the rest, The Little Mermaid just kept swimming but she’s about to be lapped by a spider. The film has hit $229 million high notes.  

If you saw the ads about how Fast X was already available for home streaming after only three weeks in the theater, you don’t need me to tell you much. While Universal still says there’s TWO MORE films coming in this series (and I’m onboard for all of them, don’t get me wrong), Fast X has slipped into neutral with $138 million.

Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has enjoyed cruise control and even had a bigger weekend than Fast X despite opening two weeks earlier. “I am Groot” means $335 million so far and a $350-360 million total still looks in play.

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $335 million

#2. The Little Mermaid - $229 million

#3. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - $225 million

#4. Fast X - $138 million

#5. Transformers: Rise of the Beats - $61 million

Fast X Stalls; Mermaid Floats - Weeks 3-4

 

The Fast & Furious series has always defied expectations. The first film debuted with a larger gross than the film’s budget. The third film seemed to be sending the series to Direct to DVD Land (back then, they still had DVDs). Instead, the fourth film reset the series to become a legit worldwide franchise. With the end in sight, all the hype was on how Fast X could be the “Infinity War” to the final film’s “Endgame” with Fast 11. Let’s just say Jason Momoa was no Thanos. 

Fast X opened with a $67 million weekend. That was down $3 million from F9: A Fast Saga’s debut two years ago. The feeling was F9’s opening was down from Fate of the Furious (aka Fast 8… why don’t they make these titles simple?!) because theaters had just reopened from Covid restrictions. No such excuses this time. The series is trending down because, well, the series is trending down. If Jason Momoa in a purple genie outfit can’t get people back in the seats, you’re done. 

That said, there are about 8 billion fascinating things in the film. Brie Larson’s fashion style and performance all felt like she thought she was filming Nissan commercials. High-tech prisons that seemed more from Blade Runner 3049 than modern-day military. The clear inspiration from the video game Rocket League where cars play soccer during the Rome scene. The inability for gravity or friction or walls or cars to cause any impediment to said “soccer ball” as it careens toward the Vatican. Trained “Agency” agents are unable to capture any of their intended targets including Jordana Brewster who can’t even make a decent tuna sandwich. No wonder Mr. Nobody needed Dom and his crew the last few films. His people were worthless!

Still, calling Mr. Momoa’s performance “polarizing” is like an insult to both the North and South Pole. To call it over the top is insulting tops. There are no words. He took all of them. I may never know exactly how I feel about his role. I wasn’t bored, but I was sure something. Literally, there was a point where I was like: “Maybe Amber Heard’s not the one we want cut out of Aquaman 2.”    

Coming into Week 4 was The Little Mermaid. Though there were common complaints of “remake fatigue” and, sadly, trolls concerned about the racial background of mythical characters, I was much more leery of the listed 135 minute runtime. Part of the original’s charm was its lack of wasted energy, i.e. it’s 83 minute length! As hand-drawn animation was costly and time-consuming back in the day, there was no time for Zack Snyder-esque 7-hour editions that included the mer-people’s backstory as science mutations gone wrong from Prince Eric’s great-great-great grandmother. Was Disney going to blow this and give the people more backstory about things they never wanted in the first place?

The Little Mermaid opened in a big way over Memorial Day weekend collecting $117.5 million over the four days. It’s almost the exact same opening Aladdin had in 2019 when it earned $116.8 over the same period. That film went on to earn over $355 million and there’s no reason to think this fish can’t swim the same lap. If that holds up, The Little Mermaid has a chance to rule the pool.  

In regards to the length, I actually found the pace to match most of the original’s briskness. The few new songs and scenes didn’t break what wasn’t broken. They didn’t even try to spawn a new Disney+ series about the daughters of Triton, which was refreshing. Maybe Steven Spielberg would’ve had more success with his West Side Story if he’d staged it under the sea? 

Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 did some guarding of its own. Despite opening at a lower total than the other MCU hits in the last two pools, it declined at a smaller rate as well. With blockbuster films, falling 60% or so in the 2nd weekend has become the norm. Meaning, if films fall more than that look for a quick fall, and if films fall less it will be around longer.

Guardians 3 fell 47% in its second week, 47% in its third, and just 35% over the holiday weekend. Rocket Racoon may not have long legs, but this film certainly does! The film has already collected $306 million and $350 could also be in play for this film (along with Mermaid). Can something else come out to challenge these two films or will these be the top films of the summer?

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $306.8 million

#2. The Little Mermaid - $117.5 million

#3. Fast X - $113.5 million

#4. Book Club: The Next Chapter - 16.4 million

#5. n/a

“Guardians Volume 3 Gets Turned Down” - Week 1

What kind of bias would we have if we didn’t have recency bias? The disappointing returns, Rotten Tomato scores, and TwitterVerse reactions to some of the last few Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and TV shows would have you believe the world has said they’ve had enough and they don’t want any more. Yet, every non-Covid summer since 2007 has opened with a Marvel related film and they’ve all performed well. The same’s going to happen this year, too… Right... Right… Um, guys… Hello… Anybody out there?!

The above paragraph may have fit for last year’s Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness or even last fall’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Both had opening weekends near $200 million and finished with totals north of $400 million. Sure, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania hit a snag in February, but everything will be alright once we get to Chris Pratt and his beloved goofball Guardians franchise. People like them! Oops.

If Quantumania was a snag, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 played like a skipped mix-tape track. Opening with $118.4 million, this was a drop of almost $80 million from the “good” Marvel openings of last year! Even Pratt's last “third” movie Jurassic World: Dominion opened better with $145 million. If this keeps up, James Gunn’s not even going to be allowed to make Scooby Doo movies again. 

Suffice to say, this isn’t the most terrible, worstest thing ever as far as movie box-offices go. Momentum could turn around in the coming weeks, yet a lot of big films have a 2.5 multiplier of their opening weekend for final grosses and that has Guardians topping out around $300 million. That’s a pretty low bar for so many poolers (including this guy!) that predicted it’d be the #1 film of the summer. 

On the bigger “State of the MCU” side, Guardians 3 seemed to be the “surest thing” in the MCU theatrical slate. Known quantity, popular franchise, same cast, etc. Who knows what The Marvels will be? Are people ready for the new Captain America next summer? People still don’t know what Thunderbolts is and Blade was a niche movie series 20 years ago. Guardians was the legit “We all know what this is and we can count on it” film Marvel needed. Now you’ll be able to double-feature it with Quantumania on Disney+ by June. I am Groot, indeed.    

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $118.4 million

#2. n/a

#3. n/a

#4. n/a

#5. n/a

 

*****

Extra Bonus Section

 

As per the Week 1 tradition, here are my esteemed, extremely well thought-out, and now already screwed 2023 Summer Movie Pool prognostications. 

My “no thank-you’s” were Transformers (the last one finished at $130 mill), Oppenheimer (just couldn’t see it getting past $200 mill), Barbie (there’s still, like, literally no words for what that film is yet... except, maybe, "pink"), The Flash (literally too many words about that film), Elemental (Disney/Pixar Animation hasn’t had a theatrical hit in years), and Spider-Verse was my hardest pass because it’s probably my most looked-forward to film. I wanted to “will it” past Fast X and M:I, but just couldn’t. 

So here’s what I really think will happen...

#1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - I banked on the rinse, wash, repeat of Strange 2 and Panther 2 that this film could get to those heights and maybe a little more because it would be more re-watchable with the action/comedy shenanigans. After its lackluster opening, my $484 million guestimate is now about as likely as a Groot autobiography audiobook where Vin Diesel just reads “I am Groot” for 327 pages. On second thought, that sounds amazing!    

 

#2. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - This was the only film I felt could get that Top Gun: Maverick buzz. If it’s actually good (fingers crossed), could all those 80’s kids make it back to the theaters again and turn this into a juggernaut? I decided it’d only be a regular-sized hit in the $350-$400 million range, but “mega-hit” is in play.       

 

#3. The Little Mermaid - While “mega-hit” could be in play here (as it has a ton of all-ages appeal that led to Beauty and Lion King’s success), I haven’t felt the same level of buzz with this film. Thinking it’ll be more in the Aladdin $300 million range left it here for me.   

 

#4. Fast X - Not happy about this as the Fast films have been trending down since Furious 7. Still, the potential of it righting the ship and trending-up made me think this would have enough to out-run the #5 film. I was penciling this in at around $250 million.    

  

#5. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - Look, the highest grossing M:I film ever was Fallout and that was $220 million. For this to go crazily higher than that might be a more impossible mission than Maverick had last year. Ok, not really, but you have to talk yourself into things when you’re making your picks because Lord knows no one else is listening :)    

Good luck, everyone!

2023 Summer Blockbuster List

As always, if I forgot a Belizean film about a musical squid or the 27th Exorcist-esque film of the year, no apologies. I’m just listing the contenders here (or at least movies I couldn’t resist saying something about). Let’s get on with it!!! 

*****

May 5

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

One more time, with feeling… Here comes the MCU’s original action/comedy misfits in their final swan song. Will director James Gunn be secretly sabotaging the film before he heads over to manage the DC Films? Is Chris Pratt ten years away from only being known as the voice of Mario with both of his live-action franchises being over? How many takes does Vin Diesel need for each time he says “I am Groot” before he says, “Yeah, that’s the one,” and cracks open a Corona? Dust off that walkman and take us on one last trip! 

May 12

Book Club: The Next Chapter

I have zero problems with septuagenarians being sexually satisfied and living their best life. Why the trailer to this sequel of a movie about seniors being inspired by 50 Shades of Grey was being played before The Super Mario Bros. movie was the conundrum. Is it because kids are the only group besides old people that still read books or we’re just seeing where Anya Taylor-Joy will be in 50 years? 

May 19

Fast X

Imagine a world where they made ten Point Break movies with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. Would they have ended-up surfing in space and having A-List actors dying to get into their movies? The car version of Point Break is still going strong with Jason Momoa and Brie Larson joining the fray… or is that Aquaman and Captain Marvel? Same difference. 

May 26

The Little Mermaid

Though it may feel like Disney’s live-action musical remakes are a tired idea, Beauty & The Beast and The Lion King both topped $500 million domestically. Even “pre-slap” Will Smith never had a friend like the $350 million Aladdin made. Will The Little Mermaid become Part of Our World or will fans leave this one Under The Sea? Personally, I just want to see who’s cast as the dinglehopper.   

June 2

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

The first Spider-Verse movie blew fans and critics away with a $190 million haul, an Oscar for Best Animated Film, and a straight fire soundtrack. If the second comes anywhere close, it could be a very Spidey summer. Let’s hope we get another helping of Spider-Ham! 

June 9

Strays

Will Farrell and Jamie Fox voice foul-mouthed live-action dogs (CGI dogs? Babe-esque animatronic dogs?) getting revenge on Will’s deadbeat owner who abandons him. In a world where it’s been fun to have some quirky things like Violent Night and Cocaine Bear, this seems like something quirky.  

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Speaking of not quirky… Here comes another Transformers movie to bash us over the head with CGI-nonsense and garbley gook dialogue. When even former director Michael Bay has moved on to find more meaningful films, that’s saying something. 

June 16

Elemental

Remember when Pixar movies used to be a big thing at the box-office? After last summer’s super flop Lightyear, Elemental looks to be more in the vein of Inside Out or Up where they are trying to tell a good story in a unique way. Will theater-goers give them a chance or just wait two months till it’s on Disney+? 

 

The Flash

I, uh, just don’t even know what to say here. Sure, people have looked past a lot of celebrity’s shady dealings to just enjoy the products they put out, but more people might know Ezra Miller by his mugshots than his appearance in Justice League at this point. Will fans take the Superman II amnesia kiss so they can just enjoy the film as the DC multiverse extravaganza it’s supposed to be or will they take a pass on this Flash?

June 23

Asteroid City

I usually only put Wes Anderson films on this list to trick the Indie-Centric poolers into thinking this will be the one that finally joins the Top 5 amongst the usual summer dum-dum films. With a cast list that includes this amount of known names though (Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, and Jeff Goldblum)... Ok, you’ve got my attention.

No Hard Feelings

Jennifer Lawrence headlining her first theatrically released film in five years is kind of a big deal. In this comedy she plays a delivery driver answering an ad to date someone’s painfully awkward teenage son. I’m sorry… All you have to do to meet J- Law is to put up an ad on Craigslist?! I love realistic fiction.

June 30

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

I guess the title is better than The Dumpster of Depends. After all the talk of reboots and recasting, Harrison Ford is back at 80 years-old to crack the whip one more time. Hopefully, a new writer and new director will spare us some of the Crystal Skull shenanigans that 15 years later still induce groans. Fingers crossed that Indy goes out better than Han did in Force Awakens. 

July 14

Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One

Ethan Hunt’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to actually walk away from the Mission Impossible franchise after Part Two arrives next summer. That’s probably the only mission Tom Cruise will never accept… and why should he? Following Harrison Ford’s example, he can have another 20 years of playing this role before this message self-destructs. 

July 21

Barbie

Outside of guaranteeing Aqua’s classic Barbie Girl song will be trending again (as if it ever should’ve stopped) when this film comes out, I have no idea what to expect. Still, there’s more to work with here than other upcoming Mattel movies like Uno, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, and I kid you not, Magic 8-Ball. There’s never been a better time to be alive! 

Oppenheimer

Director Christopher Nolan’s latest about the father of the atomic bomb has a stellar cast and the kind of anticipatory buzz only his films can generate. Could this be another summer hit like Dunkirk in 2017 or a, pun intended, bomb? Also, if they could find a way to work in the Gap Band’s 80’s hit You Dropped the Bomb on Me somewhere into this film, that would be amazing!

July 28

Haunted Mansion

Wait, is Disney now doing live-action remakes of their own crappy live-action movies from 20 years ago? Is this what Bob Iger was brought back to fix?! Oh well, just beware of stretching rooms and hitchhiking ghosts.  

August 4

Meg 2: The Trench

I see. We don’t get a Hobbs & Shaw 2, but we do get a Meg 2. Seems about right.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ninja Mayhem

Speaking of comebacks, every ten years we seem to get another go-round of everyone’s favorite heroes in a half shell. Sometimes live-action, sometimes animated. This time it’s animated, so look for the live-action reboot in 2033.  

August 18

Blue Beetle

The final Zack Snyder DC universe film everyone is waiting for is… still five months away and it’s called Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Sadly, the Blue Beetle probably won’t get his just rewards. What should’ve been a fun, light superhero movie like Shazam gets lost in the shuffle. Hopefully, Jamie Reyes and the scarab have a better run in James Gunn’s universe.