If it weren’t for the World Series, “Conclave” would be a big hit at the box office.
But as someone said to me the other day, if the two biggest movie markets are home, obsessing over the New Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, no one is going to the movie theaters. The two teams last met in the 1981 Series!
Indeed, this morning most of the box office numbers are in well before 11am, and that’s unusual. But the numbers are low for all of last night’s receipts as a huge chunk of the public was home eating wings and hot dogs to see if Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani would prevail. (Sadly it was not Judge, but we’ll be back tonight!)
“Conclave,” a thriller about choosing a new pope, made only $2.5 million from Thursday previews and Friday shows. It’s one of the best movies of the year, with award winning performances from Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini, among others. Go see it this afternoon if you’re watching the Game tonight. Really.
A24 added “We Live in Time,” starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, to 2,000 theaters last night. They didn’t get much bang for their buck considering receipts only went up 3% from last Friday. I’m not so happy with Garfield right now. He’s defending Mel Gibson, who just announced he voted for Donald Trump and said Kamala Harris “has got the IQ of a fence post.”
Does Gibson even have a high school education? He’s also a neo-Nazi, a racist, a misogynist, a domestic abuser. Garfield has no facts, and should stop speaking until he does.
Again, see “Conclave” at the 5pm show. You’ll be home in time to hear “The Star Spangled Banner”