TENET, not as good as Inception but still a really cool movie. Other than being about 20 minutes too long I had no complaints. In IMAX was amazing. Like other Nolan films it probably requires a second viewing.

It does leave things open for a sequel if not a series.

Theater still social distancing and I am much closer to people in a grocery store than I was watching a movie.

Tenet made 53M overseas, which I think is pretty amazing, unless international theatre restrictions allow for a lot more attendance than here. How did you catch this mykdude, preview? I thought we were a week behind on the opening.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Tenet made 53M overseas, which I think is pretty amazing, unless international theatre restrictions allow for a lot more attendance than here. How did you catch this mykdude, preview? I thought we were a week behind on the opening.

Yes the theater here in Huntsville is running a sneak preview. Given the 40% rule it will probably go all week!

I had read reports that it needs to make somewhere between $400 and $500 million to break even. It has a monster covid mountain to climb.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I had read reports that it needs to make somewhere between $400 and $500 million to break even. It has a monster covid mountain to climb.

Yeah, it cost over 200M just to make and then they usually add on up to twice as much for premieres and publicity and such, although they can skip a lot of that cost now. That's the big reason I was surprised the studio put it out. How is it going to make a profit with open theatres at less than half capacity, many still closed and some people who have no intention of going out in public for any film?

I personally think they did an end-around with this one. They knew even if it made good box office it wasn't going to be enough for the cost and the producers, studio and Nolan would have a losing project. This way nobody loses because no matter how great or not so great the movie is, it can't make back its money under these conditions. It's the not our fault, we are victims of circumstance excuse.

It will be interesting to see just how high the domestic weekend take gets here. I really think that 53M internationally was quite good, so maybe they made a mistake by taking the easy way out and should have waited for a proper release date.

Tenet is the only film showing at my local cinema its on multiple screens starting every 45 mins.
When you book your seats they block off the 2 seats either side of you.

I actually love the idea of no one being able to sit next to you and the flexible start times, but not a film im interested in sadly.

Bill & Ted Face the Music was a LOT better than I had expected it to be. Any problems I had with it were easily overshadowed by how fun and genuinely funny most of it was.

Has there ever been a Bill & Ted card set? With 3 movies in the bag this would be a great property for somebody like Cryptozoic to put out a one-off set that covers everything, kind of like how they did Ghostbusters.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:
With 3 movies in the bag this would be a great property for somebody like Cryptozoic to put out a one-off set that covers everything, kind of like how they did Ghostbusters.

Yeah but I don't think those last Ghostbusters cards were awfully successful, at least I can't recall anyone mentioning them for quite awhile until you just did.

My own short answer would be that if someone could get Keanu to sign some cards it would be in demand for sure. Without his participation only the fanboys would notice and not even all of them would care.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:


Yeah but I don't think those last Ghostbusters cards were awfully successful, at least I can't recall anyone mentioning them for quite awhile until you just did.

Given a box recently sold for more that $120 I wouldn't say it was a complete flop. For what could be available as an autograph line up I think Cryptozoic pulled it off as best as they possibly could have. I never had hopes that Bill would sign and to add Ivan Reitman and William Atherton was certainly a nice bonus.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Given a box recently sold for more that $120 I wouldn't say it was a complete flop. For what could be available as an autograph line up I think Cryptozoic pulled it off as best as they possibly could have. I never had hopes that Bill would sign and to add Ivan Reitman and William Atherton was certainly a nice bonus.

Not a flop, not a smash either. To be honest it is more of a sketch product than a autograph one to me. Except for the limited Ackroyd and Reitman signatures, there is no signer popular enough to cover enough of the box cost, although I did pick up Annie Potts myself. The fact that sealed boxes of a 2016 product do still seem to be available in a few places kind of tells you people don't think its worth busting at the price.

Getting back to Tenet, the initial US opening looks low, but I would be surprised if it does a lot this weekend. It's Labor Day weekend and the weather is pretty good.

Either people are out in the open doing careless summer things or they are terrified to venture out of their homes. It's starting to break up into two camps of dumb and dumber extremes. Neither one is going to the movies though.

And Tenet is going to be an acquired taste for a lot of people anyway. No spoilers, but I no longer enjoy that sort of plot simply because there are no rules to what you are seeing, if you know what I mean.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:
Bill & Ted Face the Music was a LOT better than I had expected it to be. Any problems I had with it were easily overshadowed by how fun and genuinely funny most of it was.

Has there ever been a Bill & Ted card set? With 3 movies in the bag this would be a great property for somebody like Cryptozoic to put out a one-off set that covers everything, kind of like how they did Ghostbusters.

ProSet did a full set in 1991, but that was well before the modern "hits" era for trading cards, of course.

So Tenet is estimated to take in 20.2M domestically over its 3-day weekend here. That would normally make such a high budgeted movie a major flop, but now its being called a good step toward recovery. Like I said, set the bar low enough and you will find success.

Its doing much better with 146.2M globally and 30M in China alone. I don't know if can break even as the box office percentage always drops in the following weeks.

For October, Wonder Woman 1984 early on the 2nd and Death on the Nile later on seem to be the big ones scheduled. I don't know if they might still delay them based on the US just being a poor market right now, probably not, but I think Wonder Woman will make as much money as possible because people are ready to go to the movies for escapist nonsense if they can get in. This one might be the big hit in a miserable year, but its still hard. Certain States with big metro markets are not only still heavily restricted, every day some new concern surfaces and new rules are made for some, only to be ignored by others.

If Branagh's Death on the Nile remake is anything like his Murder on the Orient Express remake, no one should mind missing it. Gadot again looks like the only draw in Branagh's ego trip. Better to watch the old 1978 movie with a real all-star cast. Followed by 1982's Evil Under Under the Sun, which was the most fun of the 3 Christie films, and will probably be his next remake if he can get there after this one.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

And Tenet is going to be an acquired taste for a lot of people anyway. No spoilers, but I no longer enjoy that sort of plot simply because there are no rules to what you are seeing, if you know what I mean.

Some of the reviewers that were less impressed with it had the same complaint. Not so much that there aren't any rules but that some of the slower scenes weren't used to explain the rules better.

Box Office Mojo numbers seem to be stuck on $20 mil for both 3 and 4 day weekend and no real mention from the sneak previews. Although I doubt it will be much higher I think we will see the numbers possibly adjust over the next few days. Still want to see Unhinged but this weekend is out.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

And Tenet is going to be an acquired taste for a lot of people anyway. No spoilers, but I no longer enjoy that sort of plot simply because there are no rules to what you are seeing, if you know what I mean.

Some of the reviewers that were less impressed with it had the same complaint. Not so much that there aren't any rules but that some of the slower scenes weren't used to explain the rules better.

I think that's why they say you could use multiple viewings, but who is going in for more than one now. I don't mind complicated plots as long as they play fair with the rules. Even if the rules are dumb, its fine as long as you stick with them.

Films that constantly change the rules or tell you A, but neglect to mention B and C, aren't playing fair and I lose interest. They pretend to be cleverer than the audience, but they are cheating and they love to bend reality as a plot device that covers anything.

There are a few film makers like this these days and some people think that not knowing what's going on makes it wonderfully artistic. Some people think that the mere look of a film is enough of an effort. I believe that if I have to read reviews and essays to try to explain what I just saw, it's not worth explaining.

Now there are reports that WB doesn't want to release the box office numbers for Tenet. I'm not sure what they were or are expecting? No matter how you slice it the movie is only playing in about 1200 theaters vice the normal 35 to 3800.

2020 will definitely go down in the history books for all of the wrong reasons.

In terms of the U.S. box office, only one 2020 release has grossed 200 M. Bad Boys for Life with Will Smith.

And only 1 other film grossed more than 100 M, Sonic the Hedgehog, released back in Feb.

All of the other early 2020 releases made less than 100 M (Harley Quinn, Dolittle, Call of the Wild, etc.)

Wonder Woman 1984 has been pushed back from October 2nd to Christmas. I don't think anyone can say if that will be long enough, but what they can say is that as long as movie theaters are limited to 25% capacity, it makes no sense to open a big film. It can't possibly make money, even if people are willing to come out, the place is open and all allowed seats are filled.

Anything made on a film student's budget has a better chance at being a hit right now than a blockbuster studio movie. It is just financially impossible for any film costing more than 80M to expect to get it back at the box office. They just can't sell enough tickets.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Now there are reports that WB doesn't want to release the box office numbers for Tenet. I'm not sure what they were or are expecting? No matter how you slice it the movie is only playing in about 1200 theaters vice the normal 35 to 3800.

My local cinema is closed and doesn't look like opening any time soon as they state it is not viable under current restrictions.

Disney has moved all of its Marvel movies, "Black Widow", "Shang Chi" and "Eternals" to 2021.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
Disney has moved all of its Marvel movies, "Black Widow", "Shang Chi" and "Eternals" to 2021.

Except for Mulan, which is trying some sort of experiment on the Disney channel this month to have subscribers pay separately to view it.

Sorry Mulan isn't Marvel. But this one they aren't holding back.

I wonder how that is going to work out considering the cost of that film? My guess is that they are going to lose a lot, but not as much as they would have if they tried to release it in theaters.

Disney will probably lose a LOT of money from the "Mulan" live-action movie. First, Disney fans were upset that the live-action movie didn't have any of the songs from the animated movie. Then, Disney+ subscribers were livid over paying a monthly subscription fee only to be asked to hand over $30.00 to rent (not own) the movie. Lastly, although this live-action movie was made primarily with the Chinese market in mind, it apparently bombed BIG TIME there.