Movies

I always like it when players do something more to expand HSX and make it more fun (fansites, becoming fund managers, starting leagues, etc...).  Thank you for taking the time to add another element to the game.  

There were a few things about your podcast that kept me from enjoying as much as I wanted to and I thought if I were to present them to you, perhaps it could improve future episodes.  I have never done a podcast and this is just my thoughts from being an audience member.

1) There is no real introduction about who you are.  You say that you grew up reading Entertainment Weekly, you are fascinated with box office and that you are a long time player at HSX.  There are many people and/or websites out there doing box office analysis and box office prediction and it gets messy and cluttered.  The main factor in deciding whether the person knows what they are doing and/or if they know what they are talking about is who that person is, what relation they have with the industry and/or what track record that they have.  It is helpful to know who the person is, even if they have no relation with the industry and/or no track record, so that can be taken into account when listening to their analysis and prediction.

2) It felt like you were unprepared.  It did not feel like you had researched your material and a lot of what you said seemed to be what you remembered off the top of your head.  Many times you stated a fact, only to pause (probably looking the information up online), and then correct yourself. 

"it [Gone Girl] did about I think 61 million domestically, uh or sorry, what did it do?, it did oh 61 million was its budget, it actually did 361 worldwide I believe, um which is fantastic for a movie like this, and did domestically it did 167 [million], that is outrageous, I had forgotten about that"

"I think Universal um expected it [Girl On The Train] to do a lot better, I think thats who produced it, maybe, who knows"

"anyway that's sorta a quick recap of the two bigger films that came out last week, um, something else came out what the hell came out last week too, um, oh the new Tim Burton movie which did alright, um, not really much to speak about did about, um, this is Home For Particular Children, uh, the Tim Burton movie, uh, from Fox, uh, did 53 million, um, so far, uh on that weekend there it did 28 million, which is not terrible, um, is that right I feel like thats wrong, let me double check this, yeah its wrong I'm totally off about that, so Home For Particular Children the Tim Burton movie did 15.1 million last weekend I was reading the total so far"

3) There is factually wrong information in your podcast...

"everybody at The Hollywood Exchange was just like yeah 'this is gonna pop' 'this is gonna do well' and then all of a sudden it crashed over the weekend when the numbers started pouring in on Friday morning"

 "when the numbers came in for uh The Girl On The Train, it was like 1 point something million, 1.3 million, and people were like 'whoa' this is like the stock popped on Hollywood Stock Exchange right away"

Question:  When the early show numbers were reported Friday morning, did The Girl On The Train stock price:

a) go down? -  "all of a sudden it crashed over the weekend when the numbers started pouring in on Friday morning"

b) go up? - "when the numbers came in for uh The Girl On The Train, it was like 1 point something million, 1.3 million, and people were like 'whoa' this is like the stock popped on Hollywood Stock Exchange right away"

"you know what's really fascinating about that, is that movie [Home For Particular Children] has doubled the total gross for Girl On The Train so, released on the same day, nice little tid-bit for you"

[Home For Particular Children opened 9/30/16 - The Girl On The Train opened 10/7/16... not the same weekend]

[NOTE: the podcast totally skipped analyizing or mentioning this weekends opener Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life]

 4) Birth Of A Nation analysis.

Podcast says reason it was not a hit:

1) Marketing was "in your face" playing up the current racial tensions (poster, tying in to Black Lives Matter)

2) Released wide instead of limited expanding to wide

3) "Sundance Curse" = reviews too positive from the festival; overhyped

4) Poor Reviews near release (Rotten Tomato)

"sadly, I think the biggest issue here was the distribution model"

Note: the podcast makes no mention about the MAJOR controversy surrounding the movie:

"many are pegging the Nat Turner biopic’s lackluster performance to the controversies that have besieged the film’s director/producer/star Nate Parker and co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin."  Deadline (link) [NOTE: this is in the first paragaph of the Deadline story that was referenced in the podcast]

Gabrielle Union on Birth of a Nation Boycotts: ‘I Support You If You Don’t Want to See the Film’ Vulture (link) 

‘Birth of a Nation’ opens to paltry $7.1M, controversy remains over Nate Parker’s past (link) 

'Birth' Of A Controversy: Is Nate Parker's 'Nation' forever tainted? USA Today (link)