Weekend Overview 03-24-24 - Box Office and the AI Armageddon!

So the big winner over the weekend, despite negative reviews has been the latest Ghostbusters installment at a take of $45 million. It’s obvious the shift has been to market the new movies towards the Stranger Things crowd, even casting Finn Wolfhard, one of the main actors.

There’s this misdirected idea of massive nostalgia for the franchise, but those of us from that era, most of us watched the TV cartoon more than the movies. So it’s odd how Sony decided to bank so much on Ghostbusters. Either way they’re trying to build a new audience for it, and hey, that’s okay by me.

Dune 2 is still doing very well, and most recently the first movie finally surpassed a worldwide take of a billion dollars. Not bad for a movie that was precariously shot during a pandemic and released when people were still nervous to go out. Well done to all involved.

I’ll skip the other ones in favour of paying attention to 3 releases in particular. Immaculate, Late Night With the Devil and Imaginary. 3 low budget horror films diving into the top 10 and it’s not even Halloween!

Immaculate is further cementing Sydney Sweeney as the next superstar, but seeing she was involved in the script and is a producer. She may surpass those who came before her in recent years and become a true power player if she keeps this up. It debuted with $5.6 million.

The marketing camapaign was brilliant as it took tweets from religious objectors and the resulting shitstorm was quite entertaining.

Another great success story is the massively hyped Late Night with the Devil, which is almost getting as much buzz as Terrifier 2 a few years ago. The high concept pseudo found footage presentation is a shoe in for buzz and it paid off with $2.8 million in its first week in just over 1000 screens.

Also Imaginary broke the $20 million mark which is great for a $10 million budget.

So the word of the week boys and girls, is horror. Low budget high concept horror.

Road House made its controversial debut to so so reviews. It’s hard to say how well it would have done if it was released in the theatres, but I have a hard time seeing it surpass Ghostbusters OR Dune 2, or even Kung Fu Panda for that matter. It would have possibly opened in the 5th spot, but that’s hard to say.

Another controversy is the AI use in Late Night With The Devil. For a moment it seemed like the positive buzz was about to be derailed by a loud online mob who figured out some of the artwork in the title cards were created with AI. The film was shot two years ago when AI was just a fun new toy, so it wasn’t done with the idea of usurping the AI rules in Hollywood (although are there any when it come to art?). Anyhow, the movie is a success, it was low budget so they did what they had to do. It also goes to show those twitter protests aren’t what they used to be.