Last week the needle moved off of the 501/502 level (where it held for a solid month) to 510 as the projected number of new theatrical releases for 2023. This week it inched-up to 511, which is good news.
The number of top-box films ($25 million plus; $100 million plus) held at 64.
While the numbers are improvements over the past three years (pandemic-induced declines in theatrical releases), they are still well-short of the 2015-2019 averages (pre-Covid). You would expect 750 some new theatrical rollouts with 94 hits (two top boxes).
On the theatrical front this past week, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal Pictures) breezed to the $353 million mark and Ben Affleck’s Air (MGM, with Warner Bros. Discover handling distribution) climbed into the winner’s circle with $33.4 million in overall ticket sales during in its second week in release.
On the transition from theatres to home entertainment front, the writing/directing team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ 65, starring Adam Driver, got a full-spread May 30 street date assignment from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment announced that July 11 will be the release date for Scream VI.
No news on the status of director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, which remains perplexing and begs the question, what’s up with Disney these days?
With the exception of director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — and some repackaging of previously released material to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the studio — Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment seems to have put on hold all new DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD releases.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a Marvel Studios production, so maybe they are contractually obligated to provide home entertainment packaged media product offerings for Marvel productions … we have no way of knowing about such things.
Consider the following things that haven’t happened. We begin with writer/director Zach Cregger’s Barbarian, which opened theatrically on Sept. 9 of last year and pulled in $40.8 million in box office receipts. It has yet to be released on DVD, Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD (except from “helper” sources and there have been plenty of those). That’s unheard of … a $40 million dollar film skipped over!
And what of filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey, the latest installment in the Alien/Predator line of films? It bypassed a summer of 2022 theatrical launch in favor of streaming. It’s a natural for home entertainment collections and genre libraries … nothing (except “void-fillers”).
The Star War film and series franchise? Star Wars: Mandalorian — as just one example — has three seasons under its belt, nothing from Disney.
And now delay after delay for Avatar: The Way of Water. Domestic box office receipts of $683 million thus far and no DVD, Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD SKUs.
Of course, Disney’s Mickey Mouse “helpers” and “void-fillers” (the new terms for pirates) have feasted on this inertia by the studio … series, franchises and blockbusters all ignored or bypassed for home entertainment packaged media delivery. Such “voids” have been filled by eager “helpers.”
Could all of this have something do with the 4,000 firings that took place on Monday, April 24 (source: Los Angeles Times)? Maybe everything is on hold until the dust settles. Could be. We don’t know, but with so many important assets not being attended to, you just have to wonder … what is going on at Disney?
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