Dinosaurs are trying to tell us something.
Mostly that they're tired and they could use a friggen nap.
THE QUOTE đŹ đŹ
âLina. She can't act, she can't sing, she can't dance.
A triple threat.â
hint: a movie from the 1950âs I just saw for the first time (in theaters!) this past weekend
THINK THOUGHTS đ
Turns out, people do not like it when a murderous doll becomes a superhero doll.
In an interesting scenario, especially in light of the discussion weâve been having around the box office performance of Pixarâs Elio, there was another âflopâ last weekend in M3GAN 2.0. But instead of letting people toss judgments from afar, the person in charge decided to jump in with their opinion of it all.
See, Jason Blum runs Blumhouse, the company that produced the sequel to M3GAN. Who knows for sure why he wanted to speak out publicly, but one reason he gave was essentially to not let others opinionsâ dominate the conversation, i.e. control the narrative.
âI thought, you know what? If Blumhouse is in a slump, Iâd like to tell that story. I donât want other people to tell that story, number one,â the Blumhouse founder and CEO prefaced on The Town podcast.
But he also cited a more interesting reason, and one that feels anathema to the rest of Hollywoodâtrying to learn from your failures.
âone of the things that is so annoying about our business, is everyone says, âOh, I learned so much from failure.â But when theyâre actually in a situation where things are not going well, they sweep it under the rug,â Blum told host Matthew Belloni. âThey pretend itâs not happening.â
One learning he cited was how âtrackingââi.e. the way studios predict a box office openingâcan be wildly off. I mean, yah, duh.
Noting that the sequel to the 2022 horror/thriller was on track for a $45 million opening 10 weeks ago, Blum admitted his team actually thought it had a chance of outgrossing F1âs debut, which hit $57 million ($146.3M). âThis tells you how bananas tracking is in this current marketplace,â he said.
Thereâs no âin this current marketplace.â Tracking has always had issues. And nothing really changed from 10 weeks to 1 week. The team just miscalculated creatively as he notes. But yes, tracking didnât catch this. Why? Thatâs a whoooole other set of emails.
âWe all thought M3gan was like Supermanâwe could do anything to her. We could change genres, we could put her in the summer, we could make her look different, we could turn her from a bad guy into a good guy,â he explained. âAnd we kind of classically overthought how powerful peopleâs engagement was, really, with her.â
Now, do I really think theyâll learn something from all of this? No, not really. Except maybe not to use the marketing line âHold onto your vaginas.â1 Because whatâs to learn? There wonât be another case exactly like M3GAN. Itâll be just different enough that you likely wonât be able to apply any specific experience from this scenario. Even if I imagine some âlearningâ gets cited in a future success.
Because if Hollywood had been learning like this over the past 100 years, there wouldnât be nearly as many misfires. But there are.
And as we all know, no one really knows anything.
NEWSY BITS đž
Paramount to Pay Trump $16 Million to Settle â60 Minutesâ Lawsuit - what the hell does this have to do with movies you ask? Well, Paramount Global also owns the movie studio Paramount Pictures. And as longtime readers will remember, Paramount Global was bought by a production company called Skydance, but their merge is still under consideration by the FCC. Trumpâs FCC. Sounds dubious? Like extortion possibly? Possibly. But itâs over and the moving forward commences. - New York Times
Box Office: Brad Pittâs âF1â Races to $58M; Best Debut for an Original Film in 2025 - and all Apple had to do was literally everything. Honestly, I think it wouldâve done just as well without upsetting their phone customers, buuuut itâs Hollywood, you (read: no one) never knows whatâs gonna work. So you do it all. - World of Reel
NOTABLE NEW RELEASE(S) đ & đş
Jurassic World Rebirth
What ifâand this is a big ifâwe got it all wrong. And the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park/World were never intending to kill us humans, they were actually trying to tell us something. But because theyâre huge lumbering fumbling bumbling creatures (some with teeny tiny arms and hands đŚ) who havenât been alive for 65 million years, they keep fucking it up and accidentally gnawing our faces offâŚ
But what are they trying to tell us?
See, thatâs the thing. We donât know, weâve never given them a chance to communicate. We keep invading their spaces in an effort to exploit them for financial gain whether as spectacle, or in this new iteration of the franchise, a cure for the number one killer of humans. Nope, not velociraptors, heart disease.
But maybe theyâre telling us itâs almost too late, that the world is changing too rapidly due to global warming and much like they did, weâll go extinct if we donât do something about it. In other words, the entire franchise is a subversive call to arms for us to get our shit together.
But will we? Of course not, weâre too busy watching the seventh entry in a movie franchise that initially absolutely delighted us with its potent combination of awe, wonder and pure terror, but has become intensely samey and less awe inducing with each new addition.
Or maybe my new theory is wrong (editorâs note: itâs wrong) and dinosaurs have zero interest in communicating with us and all they really want to do is smoosh our bones between their very large, very scary teeth. Which, is probably more fun, just not as fun as it used to be.
Mostly I spent âRebirthâ wondering why I was bored â not annoyed, not disgruntled, just disengaged from it all. Even the charactersâ discussions about whether a heart-disease-curing medication should be patented by a company or given freely to mankind felt jammed in sideways, rather than organic to the story. Were there too many characters? Maybe. Too much dinosaur exposure? Perhaps. It just doesnât feel like a movie that knows why it exists, other than the story told by potential box office returns. - from the New York Times review of Jurassic World Rebirth
Out: NOW
Where: Movie Theaters
Details: 2 hrs 14 mins | PG-13 | đ : 53%
Heads of State
How about we double down on the action vibes with some dueling dudes who are in deep shit after their plane gets attacked mid-air and theyâre forced to parachute to safety. Oh, important contextâtheir plane is Air Force One.
Yes, the âbuddy copâ genre has finally(?) made its way to the highest levels of government. But these arenât cops, these are, well, read the title. You have John Cena as Mr. Prez of the good olâ US of A and Idris Elba handles duties as the tea swilling Prime Minister of the jolly olâ United Kingdom.
Considering Cena plays a former action movie star who recently made it the Oval Office, and Elba has the somewhat stereotypical demeanor of a Brit who likes to keep things a bit proper, you can guess how our buddies feel about each other at the beginning of the movie.
But when baddies are trying to smatter your brains across a wall, you can imagine youâll want to start working together to survive, if bickering along the way. Lucky for them theyâll have Priyanka Chopra Jones as peacemaker (not that one).
It all sounds ridiculous, and it is and will be if you watch it (*cue the note about the goat teat suckling*), but sounds like thereâs a solid chance youâll enjoy a couple hours of giggling at John Cenaâs expense as most critics are saying it ramps up its absurdity at just the right pace so that by the end, youâre all bought in.
But donât expect anything more than what you expect.
Out: NOW
Where: Amazon Prime
Details: 1 hr 53 mins | PG-13 | đ : 70%
The Old Guard 2
Has it ever happened where you meet someone at a party or something, you really hit it off so you say youâll meet up soon to keep the good vibes going, maybe even solidify a friendship, but for some reason or another âlifeâ gets in the way? Then years go by and you never see them again. And when you do finally see them again, at the grocery store, some sporting event or knitting club, itâs kind of⌠awkward? The spark is just no longer there.
Well thatâs what seems to have happened with The Old Guard 2. The first one, which was released in 2020, aka the height of âthe bullshit,â was well liked by fans and critics for its action, overall Charlize Theron badassery and emphasis on relationships. But itâs been five years and in the mean time, somethingâs different. Sure the immortals are still immortalling, except for Theron who lost her abilities at the end of the last movie, but the vibes are no longer there.
Maybe itâs the fact Netflix changed directors from Gina Maria Prince-Bythewood to Victoria Mahoney. I doubt itâs the addition of Uma Thurman as the new big bad, but who knows. Or maybe weâve, the general public changed and the simple escapades that satisfied us once, no longer hit the same as when we were all stuck at home.
But no matter where the change occurred, itâs affected your relationship to the point youâre even questioning pursuing one with your old potentially new friend all together!
Itâs up to you if you want to force it, or maybe seek out new new relationships.
Your call.
Out: NOW
Where: Netflix
Details: 1 hr 45 mins | R | đ : 30%
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE(S) đ
Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado - no, not El Dorado, but Sol Doradoâthe golden sun. See, I can read Google Spanish. Itâs a made for TV movie for the fam, so the reviews will be minimal, but it seems entirely passable for what itâs trying to do (see: distract). - Streaming on Paramount Plus TODAY
THE TRAILERS âŻ
Project Hail Mary - if this looks like a sequel to The Martian, thatâs because itâs based off a book from the same author of The Martian. But to be clear, this is not a sequel to The Martian. Or E.T.
The Cat in the Hat - looks like they took âinspirationâ from Monsters Inc. (and Despicable Me) for this new iteration of Mr. CitH.
Bugonia - next one from Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Lobster, The Favourite).
The Running Man - Glen Powell is not Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is ok, because this isnât 1987. So donât think this will be the same movie. Itâs a new take from director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver).
Sentimental Value - winner of the Grand Prixâi.e. second placeâat this yearâs Cannes Film Festival, directed by Joachim Trier who also made Youâre the Worst Person in the World. Another very well liked movie (I concur, itâs excellent).
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - not the graaaand finale, but the grAAHnd finale.
She Rides Shotgun - what wouldnât a father do to protect his daughter? Serious question!
I Wish You All the Best - a non-binary teenager is just trying to grow up like everyone else.
Troll 2 - not this Troll 2 (i.e. the âworst movie ever madeâ) mind you, but a sequel the Norwegian action movie.
I donât even think thatâll happen.