So I guess it's time to kick off another year in cinema. January is typically a month where the studios dump films that they don't expect to do too much, but some will make money if the snow isn't too deep. So here are a few possible hits.

Night Swim - Should do OK as a horror film that can't have cost a lot to make. How much does an inground pool and some chlorine cost?

Mean Girls - It's a musical now. Tina Fey is kind of over and this is a rehash at the wrong time of year. If it does well it will be because people connect to the name and nothing better is playing.

The Beekeeper - Well I saw the trailer and Jason Statham must have killed about 100 people in the 2 minutes shown. Either there are going to be long stretches of meaningless staring, or he will massacre thousands in the runtime.

ISS - This sounds exactly like an old 1984 film named "2010" that was sort of a sequel to "2001", but not quite. It's probably saying something profound about the human race, or maybe it's just complaining people on the International Space Station.

There are other new January movies, but December holdovers may still make a few more bucks.

WB rolls into 2024 with all hopes on Wonka. Films like The Color Purple have little traction overseas and it is a long way from budget numbers. Aquaman 2 will doubtfully reach the break even point.

Night Swim claims a $15M budget and hit $17.6M opening weekend world wide. Depending on the next 7 days it could claim the title first hit of the year.

Mean Girls has autograph card holder Angourie Rice in it.

Bee Keeper stars Umbrella Academy's Emmy Raver-Lampman

and I.S.S. has Pilou Asbæk who seems to be popping up in projects more and more these days.

If for nothing else lets wish em well for the sake of our collections.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
and I.S.S. has Pilou Asbæk who seems to be popping up in projects more and more these days.

Asbaek is the cheaper version of Pedro Pascal.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Asbaek is the cheaper version of Pedro Pascal.

That is certainly true for my collection. I still don't have a Pascal!

"Mean Girls" and "The Beekeeper" go head-to-head this weekend. "The Equalizer 3", a not that exciting revenge film, is #1 on Netflix right now. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "The Beekeeper", an over-the-top revenge film getting surprisingly positive reviews, takes it.

I know I will see it. The only problem is that many areas, including mine, are having some really bad weather right now. So the box office may not be that good for any new movie opening in this next week.

Mean Girls hits no 1 earning much of its $36M budget back. Looks like Box Office Mojo has a decimal point out of place and lists it at #24 earning $32K.

Second weekend will be interesting as Forbes released an article on how many people didn't realize they were going to see a musical.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/c...ing/?sh=6c827f4a1e5b

Night Swim didn't have much left after the initial release, should be happy to break even. Both RT scores are not very good.

Beekeeper buzz seems to be really positive but without listed budget numbers it is difficult to tell how it is really doing.

So far we have

I.S.S. = MISS
Night Swim = Not a hit but is making money
Mean Girls = Not a hit but will make money
Beekeeper = Guesstimated budget of $40M if it keeps getting international love could break the $100M mark.
The Book of Clarence = MISS
2020 film Disney's Soul finally got its US release to a whopping $928K
Apparently it brought in $120.9M international but still far from success with a $150M budget.
Soul = MISS

26 days into 2024, and the #1 film of the year domestically is Mean Girls, at only 52 M.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
26 days into 2024, and the #1 film of the year domestically is Mean Girls, at only 52 M.

Its January. We've had floods, snow, ice and just plain old cold. Not to mention all the pearl clutching over Covid, which will apparently be a constant Greek chorus now, just in case you wanted to like, go about your life.

I've been trying to get to see "The Beekeeper" for the last 10 days. Maybe next week, I hope.

Yeah, January is typically a slow news day for movies. It's a time for studios to release their offbeat dramas and comedies.

We're unusually warm here. It was actually in the mid-50's at night around Christmas but then we went back to normal with lows in the upper 30's-low 40's. It was around 70 earlier today. Weird.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
26 days into 2024, and the #1 film of the year domestically is Mean Girls, at only 52 M.

Its January. We've had floods, snow, ice and just plain old cold. Not to mention all the pearl clutching over Covid, which will apparently be a constant Greek chorus now, just in case you wanted to like, go about your life.

I've been trying to get to see "The Beekeeper" for the last 10 days. Maybe next week, I hope.

Yeah, January is always slow, but "The Beekeeper" has outlasted them all, finally hitting #1 in it's third weekend. It caught up because it lost the least percentage of audience than every other film since it opened.

"The Beekeeper" hit #1 with another 7.4M to bring the domestic take to 42.3 M and over 100M globally. "Mean Girls" held #2 with "Wonka" still #3. Both of them made more money overall of course.

Some of the Oscar nominated movies not already streaming, like "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer", are getting brief theatre revivals, but they are an odd group and won't generate much box office wise.

The only thing coming out to disrupt the pack is Argylle which has my interest. Beekeeper has hit $104M world wide.

Wonka which looked like it was going to be a flop is at half a billion.

The duck movie Migration has hit $206M on a $72M budget.

Anyone but You $126M on a $25M budget.

Even Aqua-man has cranked out $412M

Looks like this lull in cranking out new films might have been a good thing.

Finally got to see "The Beekeeper" and it turns out that I can't really recommend it. It has a lot of action, a big body count, and some innovative ways to kill people. The time didn't drag, so all that's good.

I found myself less than satisfied because it was a ridiculous plot that took itself absolutely seriously. There is zero humor in the script, not much chemistry between any of the actors, a succession of villains that posed no threat, and the Beekeeper wandering around like Jason without a hockey mask.

Miraculously, although he tore through armies of henchmen, police, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, he only killed the bad guys and just wounded the good guys. I couldn't even tell which group he was fighting at some points because only a few characters were allowed any name/identity to recognize besides "flying body". The other thing was that, for a secret branch of the government, everybody sure seemed to know about it, although they barely tried to explain it.

Which is alright. You can't expect much of a plot in an over-the-top actioner, but Superman didn't get as much respect as the Beekeeper. It had well filmed fighting sequences, but no tension. So I was a bit disappointed in the predictability of it all, sorry to say.

Amazing all the wasted press on Barbie Oscar snubs. Especially when Margot and Greta are actually nominated, just not in the category some would hope for.

Even more depressing, not a single article celebrating that 65 women in 17 different categories are up for an Oscar in 2024.

So the number #1 movie this weekend is being called a bomb. It's also one that I had intended to see and probably still will see, although I was not aware of its pedigree.

"Argylle" is estimated to take in 18M in its debut. Since it cost $200M to make, that does not bode well. I didn't know that this movie was supposed to have a distant connection with "Kingsman" because of its director Matthew Vaughn. I didn't know that sequels were already planned, or that a crossover project with the "Kingsman" series was a possibility. I'm not that fond of the "Kingsman" franchise either and have only seen the first one.

If "Argylle" does lay an egg, all of that planning will probably be out the window.

Maybe the studio would have done better to have promoted the connection in the first place, if they really thought it was a good idea. Maybe "Argylle" as a title isn't anything that people can understand or spell. Maybe a comedy, fantasy, romance, action, spy film is mixing too many genres together to be enough to satisfy anyone interested in any one of them.

I'll let you know when I see it.

I enjoyed the Kingsman series but the last prequel didn't do very well. I'm a bit surprised this one even got green lit.

Argylle is doing a bit worse on RT that The King's Man did.

So I caught "Argylle" in a near empty matinee today. The piddling reviews and poor box office numbers had me going in with low expectations. I liked it. I laughed out loud a few times during the extended action scenes in its completely bonkers ending.

Now don't take that as a recommendation. I can see where some people may not care too much for this movie. It's a mash up of ideas and the whole cast is playing it straight, with the exception of Catherine O'Hara. O'Hara at least looks like she knows she is in a farce. And what a farce the last half hour turns out to be.

The casting is also wonky. Rockwell and Cranston act like they are doing a Bond. There isn't enough of Lipa, Cena, Cavill, DeBose and Jackson. Bryce Dallas Howard is pretty good in the first half and forced to look bad in the second half, partially because of a totally wrong gold dress that you can't miss.

The CGI, fight choreography, colorful smoke, and music were fun to me, but that the whole thing cost 200M is a lot to pay. And all those twists that they say make the story confusing, it isn't really. There is one good one and after that the rest are predictable.

So I enjoyed it for what it was, but I don't think its worthy of a sequel and its likely to lose a whole lot of money. Oh, and the CGI cat is adorable, but we don't see enough of Alfie either.

Saw Aquaman part deux.....should have been called Aquaman and the Kingdom of Cliche.

Of course same bad guy so we have to up the ante with archology and WMDs. There is the brute and the baby, brothers at odds who come back together against a common enemy and the standard climate change dribble because what good is an Aquaman script if we can't include the whole world? Another film that could have shaved 15 or 20 minutes with little impact.

It is a pretty movie and Amber was not cut out of it as much as I had anticipated.

Beekeeper hitting $134M worldwide and still going plus hitting prime streaming. Probably the first hit of 2024.

Mean girls should double its budget at domestic box office this week plus almost $30M from international....probably safe to call it a hit.

Night Swim also doubles domestic budget at $30M plus $16.5M international and rolling into prime streaming services.

Argylle will be a massive Miss.

This was reportedly the worst box office weekend since the 1980s aside from the COVID years. Argyle brought in a mere 6.5 M while Lisa Frankenstein grossed about 3 M. And those were the top 2.