I think that’s relatively good for Disclosure Day considering it’s an original property (legit this time, not even based on a novel!), and this is arguably the first time Spielberg has gone for a traditional Spielbergian Summer Blockbuster since War of the Worlds 21 years ago (Ready Player One was released in March, and Indy 4 I would argue relied on nostalgic appeal in a way his films traditionally didn’t), and his name doesn’t resonate as much with people under a certain age; Chris Nolan is probably closer to what Spielberg used to be than Spielberg is now, and we’ll see how The Odyssey does in about a month. To be frank, while I want to see this, I also didn’t think the trailers were all that appealing. That’s subjective of course, maybe others were more intrigued by Emily Blunt making clicking noises then I was.
Whether this will quite reach “hit” or “success” status is another thing; a plurality of reviews are positive, but a lot of negative reviews seems to be fairly high profile and a lot of the positive reviews seem to be qualified. Cinemascore is a lacklustre “B”. No doubt Toy Story 5 will dominate next weekend, in theory this could still hang around to cater to an older crowd but I’m not sure it will.
Unless they went overboard on the marketing budget Scary Movie (6) is already a hit so the collapse probably doesn’t matter, MOTU is a different story. Amazon is claiming they still plan to proceed with sequels, and that they are happy with this as an introduction for its ultimate streaming release. It’s easy to see that as spin, but on the other hand I suppose spending money on sequels to films that lost money isn’t that much more ridiculous than spending the kind of money that’s often spent on streaming movies that have no direct revenue, and both Amazon and Travis Knight have much experience in getting what they want at any cost. Still, I’ll believe it when I see it.
