Sunday update click here: “Jedi” now $175 million behind “Force Awakens”

Earlier: School is out, but it didn’t help “The Last Jedi.” The new “Star Wars” movie is running over $120 million behind the last one on a day to day comparison.

On its second Friday in release, “The Force Awakens” logged $49 million for a domestic total of $440 million.

Last night, “The Last Jedi” came in at $24.7 million. The domestic total is $321 million.

Well, one week and $321 million is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a damn good showing, second best to “The Force Awakens.” But it’s still quite a distance behind the first part of this trilogy.

The theory that school wasn’t completely dismissed for the holidays didn’t pan out. Since its opening last week, “Jedi” has been struggling to maintain momentum. Maybe tonight, with school out and nothing but time on their hands, kids will flock to theaters. I hope they do!

There are some real duds this weekend– “Pitch Perfect 3,” and “Father Figures” are each sorta DOA. But there are plenty of really great Oscar ready movies including “The Post,” “Phantom Thread,” “Lady Bird,” “Shape of Water,” and so on. That’s like a feast!

PS December 29th– Annette Bening and Jamie Bell in “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool”– not to be missed!

Earlier this year, Tom Cruise starred in a remake of “The Mummy.” It didn’t do much at the US Box office– just $80 million. But in China, “The Mummy” tickets sold faster than chopsticks. It made $91 million– not only much more than in the US but a major chunk of its total non US worldwide sales of $330 million.

So you’d think “American Made,” the next Tom Cruise movie, would have been eagerly embraced in Chinese cine-philes.

Alas, months after its release, “American Made” has never been released in China. It was a huge dud in the US– just $51.3 million, an all time low in the Cruise canon. Without China, international sales for “American Made” were just $83 million. The total worldwide box office was less than what Cruise spends on [fill in the blank– fast cars, planes, Scientology centers…].

The no China release is particularly weird since the second biggest Chinese theater owner, Dadi, announced in June it was investing in the movie. A press release read: “Dadi will serve as a marketing and promotional partner for American Made in China.”

But it does seem like whatever investment Dadi intended, once they saw the US box office they cut their losses. Too bad, since “American Made” was a very good movie.

Was it the title? The original title was “Mena.” Did everyone in the world turn off to the “American”? Was it the nature of Cruise’s character, Barry Seal? He was a conniving guy, but very charismatic. The Russians didn’t mind him in their theaters. But China wasn’t having it. Or maybe it was just that $91 million was such a crazy number, they figured they couldn’t compete with it– better let Cruise sit this one out until “Mission Impossible 6.”

Two years ago, on its first Wednesday past opening weekend, “The Force Awakens” made $38 million.

Last night, on its first Wednesday, “The Last Jedi” made just $16.8 million. That’s a 77% difference, and a little shocking, frankly.

I’m not sure what’s going. Some say it’s because more schools had already broken for holiday vacation back in 2015. Could be.

But there’s some kind of indifference or hostility to “Last Jedi” that I don’t get. I loved it. For true “Star Wars” fans, it’s a must see movie, a really big moment of closure for original fans. It’s also a beacon for the next generation.

Something is definitely wrong, however. Even kids still in school would be at 5 or 6pm shows. And now there are reports that the merchandise is doing so-so business. Me, I want a Porg!

But you can see the discrepancies: by now, “Force Awakens” had banked $363 million. “Jedi” has $278 million. And the gap is widening every day.

We won’t be seeing Lady Gaga going up the red carpet in Cannes next May after all.

Warner Bros. has decided to movie “A Star Is Born,” directed by Bradley Cooper, starring him and Gaga, from May 2018 to October 5, 2018– a difference of five months.

The May date was a perfect launch for “Star,” with Cannes the right kind of glamorous setting.

Now the thinking is October 5th is good for Oscars exposure. But that reasoning is faulty– you can see what October 5th did for “Blade Runner 2049” this year. That date– last weekend of September, first of October– is generally a dumping ground for high profile projects that didn’t work out.

“A Star is Born” could go the New York Film Festival and open there, but that doesn’t seem like the right fit for a very Hollywood-themed movie. And given the number of original Gaga songs we’re expecting from “Star,” it’s a little unclear how a soundtrack CD will tie in for then.

It’s unlikely anything’s wrong with the music. But Cooper is a first time director, this is a huge project with lots of moving parts, and time means everything. The last “A Star is Born,” starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, was a disaster right up its opening day. John Gregory Dunne even wrote a famous book about it.

My guess is “A Star is Born” needs a lot more to marinate– i.e. be edited into something coherent–and that’s the need for the extra time.

WEDS UPDATE: “Last Jedi” Tuesday was $20.3 million vs. $37 mil for “Force Awakens” on its first Tuesday. That’s around 42% off. $17 million is a big difference.  Monday and Tuesday are big days for adults going to the movies, so this development is a little surprising. Almost every other film increased from Monday to Tuesday by quite a lot. Only “Last Jedi” declined, by 6%. Again, Monday and Tuesday are days when adults come out and sample “smart” movies. For some reason, their interest in “Star Wars” less than was imagined.

TUESDAY: Monday’s box office numbers turned up a new glitch in the numbers for “The Last Jedi.”

Even the Disney experts must have been surprised. “Jedi” took home $21.5 million on Monday, an important night for adult filmgoers.

But two years ago, “The Force Awakens” reaped just over $40 million on its first Monday. It’s almost twice as much.

There’s a feeling that “Jedi” is soft at the box office. I don’t know why. It’s just as good if not better. And it has major plot developments for “Star Wars” fans.

So this afternoon’s report on Tuesday numbers will be scrutinized closely. “Force Awakens” did $37.3 million on its first Tuesday. Will “Jedi” compare favorably? Stay tuned…

It took $10 million to erase Kevin Spacey from “All the Money in the World” and replace him with Christopher Plummer.

Luckily, the producers had deep pockets and a major studio– Sony– to support them.

Such is not the case with the one big movie Spacey still has in the can. “The Billionaire Boys Club” is an independent feature with over 25 producers and a $15 million budget.

The “BBC,” as it was known, was a Ponzi scheme run by a young charismatic guy named Joe Hunt (Ansel Elgort). Spacey plays Ron Levin, a freelance journalist and con man who fell in with the BBC and was consequently murdered. The movie also stars Emma Roberts, Jeremy Irvine, Billie Lourd, Suki Waterhouse, and Judd Nelson. Worldwide distribution was pre-sold but there’s no US distributor. And that’s a problem now that Spacey is like Kryptonite.

“Everyone in the film has been damaged by this,” says one source. “They’ve all been harmed. And we don’t have a producer who has the money to go back and reshoot Spacey’s scenes– even if it could be done.”

For now, producers will screen the film in the new year and hope that one of the distributors who saw it before Spacey’s scandal broke will still go ahead with it. The fact that Spacey’s accusers have trickled down in the last few weeks could help. And it’s not like “BBC” is a Disney musical. It’s a movie about murder, drugs, sex, etc. In that sense, Spacey’s notoriety might add some glamor to the publicity.