Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Yankees-Dodgers 40th Reunion Sucks All the Air Out of the Box Office: Go See “Conclave”

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”

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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