Hollywood doesn't even understand Hollywood.
But they'll never admit it in a filmmaker meeting.
THE QUOTE đŹ đŹ
âI'll beat any man in this room in 60 seconds.â
hint: man of his word, and fists
THINK THOUGHTS đ
In example 6,783,974 of Hollywood doesnât even understand Hollywood, I give you this (admittedly surface level) look into the Lilo and Stitch live-action remakeâs profitability from The New York Times: How âLilo & Stitchâ Became One of the Most Profitable Movies in Years.
Letâs start with the money.
âmade for $100 million and initially planned as a straight-to-streaming release â has collected $610 million worldwide after just 10 days in theaters. The PG movie, which cost at least $75 million to market, should sell about $950 million in tickets by the end of its run, box office analysts said on SaturdayâŚThat means Disney, which splits tickets sales with theaters, will make $300 million or more in profit just from the box office.â
Thatâs a lot of money and clearly it was a smart play! Obviously Disney knew what they had, consideringâŚ
âEven with no new content, Disneyâs consumer products group had managed to expand sales of Stitch merchandise to $2.6 billion in 2024 from $200 million in 2019.â
âŚright? Not exactly.
The new âLilo & Stitchâ got started in 2018, when a team of producers approached Disney with the idea. At the time, Disney was focused on turning animated classics like âThe Little Mermaidâ and âAladdinâ into live-action movies.
âThe response was, âOh, yeah, Stitch â no oneâs asked about this title,â said Jonathan Eirich, one of the producers.
Wait, so outside producers pushed Disney to make the damn thing? Wouldnât they have an internal chart somewhere with all the data saying, âme next!â No, no they would not. Which is wild, considering all you probably had to do was ask a group of 20-30 year olds on the street Instagram and youâd know how many people loved the irascible alien and his Hawaiian family. And yet!
Hell, even after the movie was made, marketed, and the opening was imminent, they still didnât quite know.
As bigger-than-expected crowds poured into theaters on opening day, Disney increased its internal estimates for the weekend haul. Mr. Eirich said he had asked the studio to keep the new math from leaking to the Hollywood community.
ââDonât jinx it! Donât put the bigger estimates out there,ââ he said he had told Disney. âI didnât want any headlines saying we fell short.â
But the larger meta point is that it is hard to know what works and what doesnât. Even the people who have been doing it forever, very successfully, and have what seems like a template. Those people still donât know!
Well, except when something didnât work and it wasnât their project, then everyone always knows.
NEWSY BITS đž
Judge Dismisses Justin Baldoniâs Suit Against Blake Lively and New York Times - Iâm sure this is the last weâll hear of this đ- The New York Times
Robert Eggers to Direct âA Christmas Carolâ for Warner Bros. - way whaaaaa?? reminder: Eggers just directed the Nosferatu remake. - The Hollywood Reporter
Disney and Universal Sue A.I. Firm for Copyright Infringement - âThe suit, against Midjourney, is the first time major Hollywood companies have sued over A.I.-generated images.â - The New York Times
Martin Scorsese Shares Why He No Longer Watches Movies, Not Even His Own, In Cinemas - letâs start with that he can, cuz he rich and has his own theater. But itâs also due to people not shutting up, cell phones, and because the kids wonât get off his damn lawn. Jk Marty (kinda). - Deadline
Warner Bros. Discovery to Split Into Two Companies - WB spurns lovers like Elizabeth Taylor, so this âdivorceâ is nothing new, and not even unexpected for those paying attention. This time theyâre separating by type of content - i.e. traditional TV channels (CNN, TNT) are being spun-off while the movie studio and HBO Max streaming service will stay together. Comcast (who owns NBCUniversal) also announced their version of this last year. Disney, however, is not of the same mind.- Variety
NOTABLE NEW RELEASE(S) đ & đş
How to Train Your Dragon
Itâs almost as if Universal saw Disney hootinâ and hollerinâ over at the live-action remake craps table in the fancy schmancy Movie Making Casino and was like, âWell, obviously I want in on that action.â
So they said screw it, reached into their velvet suit jacket, grabbed one of their one of their most precious chips, flicked it to the dealer and quipped âletâs ride.â
Itâs obviously not that hard to predict this was gonna happen. In fact, itâs actually surprising it took this long since Disney kicked offer their live-action remake-fest over a decade ago.
But in watching, it seems Universal learned the most important lesson: just donât fuck it up.
Which, apparently they didnât. Because while critics say this is an almost shot for shot remake of the 2010 original, they also note director Dean DeBlois clearly knew what he had in the beloved modern classic and worked to enhance rather than replace - which makes sense on account of the fact he also wrote and directed the animated original. Hell, they even got Gerard Butler, who voiced hard-ass dad viking Stoick, to reprise his role.
One notable difference on the filmmaking side is the time between remakes. In that itâs quite a bit faster. Whereas Disney is mining stuff from decades ago (Lilo & Stitch is the most recent and that was still 2002), 2010 is a mere 15 years ago. Hell, the last How to Train your Dragon movie just came out in 2019, recent enough to be featured in this newsletter. But that also means there are 15 year olds who never got the chance to see the movie in theaters. And then, there are 25 year olds already feeling that nostalgic pang in their stomachs (just you wait kids).
You may decry this whole affair and say âbut why do we need these?!â
Donât count on receiving an answer though, because everyone else will already be in the theater after having given their $12.50 to the studios and theaters.
Out: Friday
Where: Movie Theaters
Details: 2 hrs 5 mins | PG | đ : 79%
Materialists
Two men.
Two wildly different incomes.
One very difficult choice for Dakota Johnson.
Wait, Latham, arenât romantic comedies supposed to be about love?
*chuckles to self* Sure, letâs go with that. Romantic comedies are supposed to be about love, or at least the version so distorted by creating a tight narrative for consumers such that they can think, âgosh, if only myyyy life were as magical as that.â
But Materialists isnât a romantic comedy - itâs definitely not a comedy and maybe not even a romance, depending on how you look at it.
What it is, unequivocally, is the next movie from Celine Song, who made the achingly lovely Past Lives. A movie that was an investigation into matters of the heart. As you might guess from the name, Materialists is focused more on matters of the wallet. Matters which are, arguably, just as important as the ones that involve the blood pumper.
But theyâre not mutual exclusive topics. In fact, this movie discusses that they can often be in conflict. Because while the typical rom-com says lead with your heart, isnât it also important to think deeply about and understand what you want on an intellectual level (a life-time together involves loooots of discussion about dishes and dinner afterall)? Is needing financially security in a relationship so bad? If you find these types of queries a fun premise for a cinematic journey, then you might be the right audience for Materialists.
Itâs a journey that critics like on the overall, but also pick a part quite a bit in their reviews (sound like any relationship you know?). Saying itâs not quite the easy to like effort that Past Lives was/is. Also that itâs harder to like right away and doesnât get into the depth of the characters so much as it uses them to comment on the larger point.
So maybe set your standards correctly, like you would for any good first date, and you might find yourself pleasantly surprised.
Out: Friday
Where: Movie Theaters
Details: 1 hr 56 mins | R | đ : 86%
The Life of Chuck
Famed horror director Mike Flanagan (Geraldâs Game, Doctor Sleep, Haunting of Hill House) paired up with THE Stephen King again? Oooh, people gonâ diiiiiieeeee.
Maybe. But not like youâre thinking.
This is a story from the softer side of Kingâs mind. The one locked away from the ghouls, ghosts and cannibalistic clowns - think more Stand by Me and Shawshank Redemption and less Cujo. Although not quite My Pretty Pony⌠shit, thatâs a Stephen King story too, not quite My Little Pony.
In The Life of Chuck Flanagan is adapting a novella by King, which is broken into three parts, told in reverse. The first (and yet also last) part starts with the end of the world, quite literally. But donât worry, you wonât need to deal with this reality that may feel a bit too real for long as the story go backwards and follows, of course, the life of a guy named Chuck.
The whole story arc is a bit of a mystery - why is the world ending? what is Chuckâs role in it? - but really, itâs a chance for Flanagan to say, âhey, ainât life grand? Maybe we should enjoy it a little more.â Which takes the form of random dance sequences, performed sparklingly by adult-version-of-Chuck, Tom Hiddleston.
But while critics say Hiddleston makes the most of his Chuck time, the third (and last yet first) part of the movie youâll be hanging with the more youthful versions of Chucky boy (not that one), where youâll essentially see him learn how to live from his grandparents, played by Mark Hamill and, in her first time acting in 14 years, Mia Sara (Ferris Buellerâs Day Off, Legend).
Itâs the kind of movie where if you get on its wavelength, dip into itâs aura, connect with its vibe, or any other new-agey term for appreciating it, you might have something that comes close to a transcendent experience.
However, that likely wonât be everyone because while the RT score is solid, if you dig deeper, youâll find plenty of cracks are to be had.
But hey, isnât that life? Even the best looking ones have problems.
Out: Friday
Where: Movie Theaters
Details: 1 hr 56 mins | R | đ : 81%
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE(S) đ
Echo Valley - a daughter (Sydney Sweeney) with addiction issues manipulates her mother (Julianne Moore) into helping her dispose of the dead body of her boyfriend, which brings her into the middle of some down and dirty deeds. The reviews say Moore is great per usual, and that the movie has some soapy appeal, but either feels too rushed or a bit too tone-switchy. - Apple TV+ Friday
Deep Cover - teacher (Bryce Dallas Howard) and students (Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed, from Ted Lasso) at a London improv school are, as is just so common these days, asked by Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) to go under cover in order to break up a crime ring. The reviews are limited so far, but all of them praise the cast for being game and funny in an otherwise predictable action comedy. - Prime Video Friday
THE TRAILERS âŻ
Eddington - Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary) takes on the real scary stuff, the Covid lockdown.
The Lost Bus - tis but a teaser for this Paul Greengrass (Bourne 2,3,4 / United 93) directed knuckle whitener starring Matthew McConaughey.
Kiss of the Spider Woman - it stars Jennifer Lopez and Andorâs Diego Luna, but the real name to pay attention to here is Bill Condon, who directed Dreamgirls, the live action Beauty and the Beast, wrote The Greatest Showman and Chicago. Oh, he directed Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh too. Which has no connection here, I just thought it was hella random.
The Pickup - Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson get stuck robbing banks thanks to Keke Palmer. THANKS KEKE.
Superman - itâs a âtickets on saleâ trailer, but it might actually be the best one yet. Mostly because it features more Lex.
OH, HI! - girl meets boy, girl and boy have great time together, girl gets smitten, boy says heâs not really ready for a relationship, aaaand girl keeps him locked in handcuffs. The yoosj.
Freakier Friday - the olâ switcheroo with you know who.
Architecton - a very visual looking documentary on architecture.
Madeaâs Destination Wedding - did someone say open bar?