This Week In Movie Posters & Box Office: Don't Wonka My Napoleon

Did you know there's a young Willy Wonka who f*cks?

Greetings, #Content Lovers! On Monday I was hard at work on some longer pieces still to come and working on the pods and didn’t finish this one, and then yesterday I took off for my three-year marriage anniversary (we had fun, thanks for asking). Long story short, your weekly This Week In Movie Posters/Box Office Round-Up post is a little late this week. Better late than never, I hope? Sorry for not posting about more important news, but when things are bad, I know how it helps to have our dumb little routines. Hope you all are well.

Weekend Box Office

Most distributors did everything they could to avoid having to go up against Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour this weekend, and it ended up being every bit the blockbuster everyone expected, grossing $95-95 million domestically and $130 million globally. This may sound controversial, but I for one am happy for this Taylor Swift character. About time that kid got a win, you know?

I don’t know that the movie industry is as much of a zero-sum game that these distributors think it is, where if the Taylor Swift movie is a juggernaut, everything else opening “against it” that weekend is going to do worse. I would imagine just the opposite, where opening the same weekend as a huge movie is kind of like being friends with a handsome rock star. You might not be number one, but you’d have your pick of the castoffs! I dunno, maybe I’m just thinking of the plot of Entourage.

Whatever the case, the top ten movies this weekend as a whole were up 98.5% over last weekend. That’s a little less impressive when you factor in that last week’s only new release was The Exorcist: Believer. I can’t wait for the sequel, The Exorcist Disbeliever. “Possessed? Nah, man, that kid’s just an asshole.”

I’m just spitballing here, Universal spent $400 million on three of those things, you know.

Anyway, this weekend sees the release of Killers Of The Flower Moon, and with it, basically the unofficial start of awards season. Me and the boys spent all weekend getting our Power Points ready to explain the Scorsese ouvre to our disinterested wives and girlfriends. The Great Mansplain, we’re calling it. Man-spreading now, to a city near you!

Okay, onto posters.

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This Week In Movie Posters

Welcome to the This Week In Movie Posters, the feature in which we go through all the week’s new movie posters and read way too much into them. Blessed are the paid subscribers, as without them, none of this would be possible. All posters via IMPA.

I like this poster. One silhouette goes dis way, the uddah silhouette goes dat way, and this girl’s sayin’ “Ay, whaddya want from me?”

Goodfellas jokes aside, I do like this poster. I look at the word “Eileen” and it feels like it should be a palindrome even though it’s not really at all, and the silhouettes are sort of doing the same thing here. No idea what it’s about, but at the very least, someone has a gun. That always spices things up. (Didn’t Godard say something like that? That guy was always doing quotes).

Four Daughters? But I only see two! Oh yeah, this thing is definitely doing an art. (It’s probably about, like, the duality of daughters and shit).

THOUGHT BUBBLE FOR THIS POSTER: One-a day… I guana make-a di carrr-o… anna she guana go-a SO a-fast… every body-a guana see. (*kissing sound*)

Anyway, here’s the poster for Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, America’s Favorite Ethnic White™. Adam Driver is actually a Baptist raised in Indiana, but I like to think that we Italians and Jews see him and sort of scratch our chins and go, “So… he’s kinda hot but also has a weird face? …Good enough for me, we accept him.”

And here we have the new poster for A Film By Fallen Aki Kurismaki Leaves “The Best Film Of The Year.” Seems like kind of a kind of a weird title, but you know how those Europeans are. Some of them don’t even speak English.

I guess it’s about a dog who goes to the movies? Looks cool.

And here we have the first of a big batch of new character posters from the “Young Willy Wonka Who Fucks” movie, aka Willy Wonka (an origin story! Oh boy!).

Based on this poster, I’m calling it the Theater Kid Unlimited Wardrobe Budget Explosion.

Oh hell yeah. It’s about time they made a movie for DADS. You know how in Barbie when Ken says, “When I found out the patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I lost interest?”

I think this poster is actually what he was imagining.

20,000 Bees… and one Beekeeper.

*Door flies open*

Oh, ‘ello, luv. Didja miss me?

Is Emily Blunt the most underrated actor working? Because this feels like at least the fifth show about the opium epidemic, but based on the poster I’m all the way in. Solid work, even if that looks like a regular-ass car hiding behind all the shiny buildings and wealth porn back there. Honestly kind of hard to tell the supercars from the regular-ass cars in the mid-80s.

Does anything kill your excitement for a big movie like “A Netflix Film” emblazoned on the top? Maybe just pretend like it’s a theatrical release, and whisper “…and you can see it on Netflix” to us like it’s our little secret.

Come on, man. No way the real hat was that big! That’s a joke, right? This is from a joke scene where Napoleon wins a novelty foam Napoleon hat from the fair, right? It has to be.

*nudging date, pointing to guy in color* That’s Brian Jones from the Stones.

Nick Broomfield is the guy who famously made the “Suge Knight probably killed Tupac” and “Courtney probably killed Kurt” documentaries, so I’m interested to see what he might do with another dead guy from an older band. Maybe Keith spiked the pool water he drowned in, somehow? I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here, I’ll leave it to the master.

I know I probably overuse the term “Dreamworks Face” on this here feature, but my God, this is a lot of Dreamworks Faces. It’s actually making me feel bad for Dreamworks. Considering this is a Disney movie, it’s almost like they released this solely to smear a rival. Animation provacateur, say. Anyway something like that, I’m still workshopping this theory.

You’d think they could’ve afforded a hair model who was actually willing to get blood in her hair for this so they wouldn’t have to just Photoshop it.

Putting that aside… Francesca Eastwood? Milo Gibson? Directed by Michael… Day? Why does everyone involved sound like a former Eastern Bloc knockoff of a famous person?

I warned you that there were a whole batch of these. Here’s Keegan-Michael Key wearing the kind of policeman suit you’d see in a Lego set. I dig the monk’s hair though.

Just as a sidenote, I saw this Key & Peele sketch the other day on Instagram that I don’t think I’d ever seen before and it legitimately brought me to tears. The way the single reaction the waitress has in the whole sketch is “donkey teeth?!” Simply magical.

Here’s Brie Larson in the poster for her big new Nissan commercial. (*aide whispers in ear*) Excuse me, I’m being told this is actually a poster for something called “The Marvels.” Sounds great, just great, I hope the kids love it.

See, kids, now if you’ll note: the many layers of clothes, the stained and broken teeth, the absurdly bouffaint hair and inability to choose a correctly sized baseball bat — yes, all signs point to this being an average British man.

Haha, what a cute little bat. Whatsa matter, Limey, you forget your gun at home? Dumbass.

Here’s another one for Napoleon, in which, just to really drive home the point that this is a movie for dads, they’ve helpfully included some SPARKS. As we’ve discussed, sparks are movie poster shorthand for “EXCITING MOVIE FOR DADS!”

Since it otherwise seems like Napoleon is galloping his horse through a dirt field, it’s unclear where those sparks would be coming from (“non-diagetic sparks,” for all the film majors out there). Maybe Napoloen keeps a guy behind him banging two flints together at all times, Monty Python-style? Power move.

Uh-uh, too zany. That’s gonna be a no from me, dog.

Mr. Bean?! They got Mr. Bean in the Young Wonka Who Fucks movie??? Is that even allowed??????

What sumptuous vestments. I bet he can goof real good in those.

Ha, get it? He’s way down at the bottom of the poster because Oompa Loompas are short. Honestly, I love Hugh Grant, but I can’t help but think of how many hilarious little people there must be out there, crying because they thought this would finally be their moment to shine.

Anyway, so far this movie seems somehow exceedingly theatrical yet uninteresting. Everything about it feels like one of those BBC dramas that doesn’t quite translate. Where it’s called like “The Lorry Driver’s Wife” or something and it’s about some pensioners who are passive aggressive to each other.

Here’s the new poster for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Christmas Cabin Fever. Tagline: “Get read for wimpiest Christmas ever!”

Oh hell yeah. Make it extra wimpy for me, will ya?! This kid is gonna be so wimpy his lungs collapse from exertion and kill him!

I don’t know what’s weirder here, Eddie Murphy’s psychopathically calm face — while presumably swinging from a roof eave by a rope of string lights — or the fact that they let the lights dangle right over his crotch, and right underneath Prime’s super phallic boner logo. It’s like they were leading the eyes to the crotch all along. Was this part of the trick? Is someone going to sock me in the shoulder now?