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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 - 9 Comments »
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Friday Estimates Analyzed by Dino David

Friday Estimates 2018-06-23 at 11.21.43 AM

Never know when it will be the last one…

And not very interesting. Just another weekend of massive success. The 4th $125m+ opening in 8 weeks of a one-week extended summer season. Hasn’t happened before. Best before was Captain America: Civil Wars, Finding Dory, and Suicide Squad over the entire summer. I don’t actually foresee any ore this summer, but I do see 8 or 9 legitimate hits to come.

Here is the idea… wait more than a decade and bring back a beloved franchise,s how some promise, and you have a shot at an absolutely insane opening. The next film will not open as well. But it might gross the same or more.

Then there are franchises with bigger openings to the 2nd film, like The Dark Knight trilogy or The Hunger Games, which saw their second films open to $2 million and $6 million over their $150m+ launches for the first of their series. Wow. Big whoop.

My point is… J-World: Fall opening over $125 million and under $150 million is an epic non-story. Well, except that it’s a terrific gross.

I am also very curious about why some critics seem to have a raptor claw up their ass about this film. It is better than any Jurassic movie other than the first. Yet reading reviews, it seems that some critics were expecting something other than a Jurassic Park movie… like the dinosaurs were going to Wakanda or something. If you love movies and you can’t handle a dinosaurs teaching humans a lesson in humility because scientists and money grubbers do stupid shit, you might need a new job.

Don’t get me wrong. If you don’t like the movie, you don’t like the movie. But I haven’t read a bashing criticism that was much more considered than, “This shit again?” Boring. Lacking perspective. Afraid to pick on the mess that is Ocean’s 8 or Tag?

Hold on! My DirecTV just went blank! Who is reading this?!?!?

Nice hold for Incredibles 2… which I wouldn’t mind seeing again today.

Would You Be My Neighbor? is going RBG-like numbers. Finding that feeling of integrity and nostalgia would seem a good way to postilion any doc about now.

Later, gators…

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9 Comments »

9 Responses to “Friday Estimates Analyzed by Dino David”

  1. Aaron Aradillas says:
    June 23, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    Man, I guess Trump, Jr’s call for action against Sony Classics’ BOUNDARIES really worked.

  2. Dr Wally Rises says:
    June 23, 2018 at 3:13 pm

    I hate to bring up THAT movie again, but I mention it because it’s appropriate here. There is a very distinct parallel between The Last Jedi and Fallen Kingdom. Both follow a beloved franchise reset movie that traded largely on nostalgia. Both franchises were then passed to a director known for edgier indie fare. Both had the stones to NOT do same thing over again but suggest a bold new direction for the series. Both tampered with the existing mythology to some degree.
    And both split the ranks of opinion because of it.

  3. Monco says:
    June 23, 2018 at 4:32 pm

    But the director of the franchise reset wrote this one. Not the case for TLJ.

  4. Jspartisan says:
    June 23, 2018 at 5:28 pm

    Wow. Just shitting all over Ocean’s 8 again. Shame.

    Oh yeah. Jurassic World was a stupid dinosaur movie, that some how had marketing to get people really excited. This time, the marketing completely failed the movie. Comparing this to Star Wars is missing that one movie was sold a lot better than the current one. Universal lucked into World, and they fell all over trying to sell Fallen Kingdom.

  5. palmtree says:
    June 23, 2018 at 8:23 pm

    Are we already calling JW: Fallen Kingdom a let down at the box office? I really don’t see it that way. Yeah, it’s lower than JW opened, but JW didn’t have Incredibles 2 to compete with. Also, Fallen Kingdom didn’t go crazy on budget, so overall I’d put Fallen into the win column. DP is right on this one.

  6. Bulldog68 says:
    June 23, 2018 at 9:04 pm

    Fallen Kingdom opened where everyone thought JW would open. People didn’t expect a $208m opening, including you JS if memory serves. No pent up demand, no world building like Marvel, and while I did expect it to do above $150m, JW went nuts so posting the 2nd largest opening on your 5th instalment isn’t too shabby.

  7. Pj says:
    June 24, 2018 at 7:32 am

    I agree that sometimes critics get on strange bandwagons and start reviewing anything other then what’s happening on screen. It’s one of those things where even though this is huge production, it still feels inappropriate to do.

    The opening of Jurassic World is solid if unspectacular. I really don’t think it was expected to match the previous one. It wasn’t really something that begged for a sequel,

  8. cadavra says:
    June 24, 2018 at 3:34 pm

    This business has gone nuts. A picture opens to $150 million and it’s disappointing? Most movies don’t do a tenth of that lifetime!

  9. hcat says:
    June 25, 2018 at 6:35 am

    Nobody is claiming this is a disappointment. The thing made 90% of its budget in its first three days domestic, exactly where Incredibles and Avengers landed.

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