This Poster for 'Squealer' is Perfect, No Notes

This Week In Posters/Box Office Round-Up, October 30th.

The world is full of terrible, important news lately. I don’t feel like I have words for it right now, but I know we all need our dumb little routines. And so the posts must go on. I’m sorry and you’re welcome?

Box Office Round-Up

While it was sort of on my radar thanks to this weekly poster round-up, Five Nights At Freddy’s wasn’t exactly “an event” in my demographic. Apparently it was a huge deal though, because the video game adaptation (did you know that??) pulled in $78 million in the US over the weekend. Big win for star Josh Hutcherson, who once disguised himself as a tree in the Hunger Games movie using his baking skills.

That’s about 3.5x the Killers Of The Flower Moon opening, on the way to $130 million worldwide. And this even though it was available to just watch at home if you had Peacock. The theatrical experience is back, baby!

Now, if only my stupid local theater would start turning the house lights down for the previews again. Regal finally stopped using their god-awful movie quotes pre-roll, but they still do this, leaving their 20 minutes worth of trailers basically unwatchable. What I wouldn’t give for a Drafthouse here… But I digress.

Check out these superlatives for Five Nights At Freddy’s, via Deadline:

–At $130.6M worldwide, Freddy‘s is the biggest horror WW bow YTD ahead of Nun II ($88.1M) and biggest Blumhouse global debut of all-time ahead of Halloween ($91.8M).

–Stateside, box office analytics corp EntTelligence says, Freddy’s clocked 6M admissions over three days–the most ever for a horror movie monitored by the stat org since their post-pandemic launch.

–Biggest opening weekend for a horror pic YTD, besting Scream VI ($44.4M)

Anyone else remember that Scream VI came out this year? I sure didn’t. If you said 2018 I would’ve believed it.

–Second-biggest opening ever for a video game pic, behind Super Mario Bros ($146.3M) and ahead of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($72M)

–The biggest Blumhouse opening ever, ahead of 2018’s Halloween ($76.2M)

–Highest opening for a Halloween weekend movie, beating Puss in Boots ($34M)

–It’s also the 19th time a Blumhouse movie has bowed at the No. 1 spot, and will bring the genre label’s domestic box office to more than $3 billion.

–Second-biggest theatrical day-and-date debut, after Disney+’s Black Widow ($80.3M).

–The third-largest debut for any horror film ahead of Halloween ($76.222M) and behind only IT ($$123.403M) and IT Chapter Two ($91.062M)

–The highest opening for any PG-13 horror film, surpassing The Mummy Returns ($68.139M)

–The biggest opening weekend for a horror film directed by a woman, ahead of Candyman ($22.002M)

Blumhouse, man. If you ever wondered why there are so many horror movies, this is why. I tend to think that horror movies function sort of on the casino model. Horror movie lovers are probably a distinct minority in society at large, but the people who do love them are absolute fiends and always need a fix.

The other new wide releases were After Death, a documentary about near-death experiences from the studio behind Sound of Freedom and “the bestselling authors behind 90 Minutes in Heaven, Imagine Heaven, and To Heaven and Back.”

That one debuted in number four with about $5 million. Seems like some anti-Hollywood counter-programming is the second biggest wide release every week now, doesn’t it? At least this one didn’t try to convince tactical dads from the suburbs that every crying baby at the grocery story might’ve been human trafficked.

Below that was Freelance, a John Cena-Alison Brie “action-comedy” from the French guy who directed Taken (Pierre Morel). That one was basically DOA with a $2 million gross and is currently pitching a perfect Bucky Larson on RottenTomatoes, at 0%. Bad action-comedy is possibly my least favorite genre, or at least the kind where someone writes a half-assed action movie and then the actors just sort of half-ass the script and they call it an “action-comedy.”

Remember that one Amy Schumer made? I would not watch that at gunpoint. (I’m not making fun of her! You can’t fire me!)

This weekend brings us Priscilla, a Priscilla Presley movie from A24 and Sofia Coppola. I didn’t make my advanced screening but I’ll still try to catch it soon. Just don’t tell any Sound of Freedom viewers how old she was when she and Elvis met!

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.

We begin this week with a character poster for Napoleon, starring Vanessa Kirby as Josephine. Neat dress. Still, she doesn’t look very French to me. I could’ve told you that lady was English from 50 paces. They should make her hold a baguette or something.

They sort of teased it in another poster, but I wish they’d just use Josephine in her “Victims Ball” outfit (it’s in the trailer) for the poster:

“The balls were something of an urban legend in Paris, with very little to no first-hand accounts of the events remaining today. Functioning as a tribute to the dead, the rumored gatherings had a specific dress code. Many women wore red chokers or ribbons around their necks, to symbolize the slice of the guillotine’s blade. Men and women alike had their hair cropped short at the neck, as the victims did before execution to ensure the blade would sever the head without any complications.

I’m going to keep reposting that nugget every chance I get because it’s cool as hell.

Sweet Jesus that is some bad Photoshopping. This poster for The Christmas Classic actually lined up the faces with the corresponding names (yay!) but it seems like they failed to get the actors into the same room at the same time. Also, Amy Smart’s facial expression looks like the face my toddler makes when he’s crapping his pants. You okay, bud? You wanna go to the toilet? …No? Well okay then.

If you don’t eat your meat you can’t have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

(I am old)

Still think you want to be rich? This is how your mom dresses when you’re rich.

Lisa Frankenstein! “Dig up someone special.” Oh, so when men create a monster made from sewn up corpses, it’s to test whether it’s possible to revive dead tissue, but when women do it, it’s to create the ideal boyfriend? Typical!

(That I got all that just from the poster and tagline is a credit to the poster designer). The fact that Diablo Cody wrote it has me intrigued. “Zelda Williams” sounded familiar, so I looked it up and it turns out that’s because she’s Robin Williams’ daughter.

“Cole Sprouse” just makes me think of the Curbs Lurb poster for some reason (this Photoshop should be in the Library of Congress). Against my better judgement I looked him up, and it turns out he’s the kid (along with his identical twin) from Big Daddy. His IMDB bio tells me “Cole began his acting career alongside Dylan at the tender age of six months” which makes me think his parents should be in prison.

Uh, anyway, Lisa Frankenstein. Looks neat!

Still think you want to be rich? This is how rich people dress to study. …Dangit, I think this one backfired.

I like the perspective on this one. And the lascivious tongue. What karaoke song do you think he’s singing here? Is it too obvious to say “Foxy Lady?” Could be the Wayne’s World influence.

A lot of posters are arcane and esoteric like this, but this one gives me just enough to be genuinely intrigued. Nuclear logo… childhood karate photo… police drawing… seems like this guy did a bad thing and we’re going to piece together the clues. I’m too curious, I’m going to IMDB:

While investigating the suicide of Las Vegas teenager Levi Presley, a filmmaker uncovers the story of a city with the highest suicide rate in the country, and a nation scrambling to bury decades of nuclear excess in a nearby mountain. [IMDB]

Yep, still intrigued. A+ poster.

Pretty much everything about this poster has me laughing my ass off. Tyrese Gibson’s serious face always has that effect on me, but everything else on the poster just deepens the effect. That the title is “Squealer,” that it has “meet the world’s most diabolical serial killer” juxtaposed with a big, and then directly under that “inspired by true events…” Perfection, all of it. It’s like a well-loved album where your favorite song changes with every listen.

This poster is comedic perfection. No notes.

I get the feeling this will be sad but uplifting. Is this an Apple TV movie? Why does this feel like an Apple TV-ass poster?

Jacqueline escapes her war-torn country to a Greek island. She meets an unmoored tour guide and the two become close as they each find hope in the other. [IMDB]

Seems like I was close. Anyway, hell yeah. Nothing I love more than cracking open a cold one and watching unlikely friends find hope in the strangest of places.

Is the star supposed to squirt little clouds of smaller stars like that? Shouldn’t he towel off or something?

I feel like there’s a videogame character who looks exactly like this but I don’t know how to look it up.

Normally I think a lot of these comedy documentaries are about rewatching old bits and trying to imagine the context that actually made them funny, but I think I’m juuuust old enough to be incredibly stoked about an Albert Brooks documentary. You should probably just roll me into an open grave. Or maybe Albert Brooks is just genuinely funnier than most of the people these kinds of docs are usually about. Could be either. Maybe it’s both!

Did you know Albert Brooks’ real name is “Albert Einstein?” Probably you did but I’m going to repeat it anyway. It’s a fun fact! Leave me alone!

“She’s doing high school… again.”

Dang, what’s this a documentary about, your mom?

You could say this looks kind of janky and not be wrong, but a hermit crab with a soul patch is truly inspired.

What other kinds of animals do you imagine having a soul patch? I think a hermit crab is as good as it gets.

Damn, look at Danny Glover. Now he really is too old for this shit, before he was just pretending.

“Orphan: First Kill” is the most horror movie title that’s ever existed, but credit where credit is due: this is a cool-ass poster. Even the font is cool. I’m getting The Witch/Green Knight vibes from the poster even though I know the movie is never going to live up to it.

Is it too Freudian to say that he’s holding that bottle like it’s a penis extender here? Am I just telling on myself? Why is my mouth watering like that? Jk, jk…

I was thinking this dude seems almost as English as Vanessa Kirby, so I looked him up. I like googling British actors because their bio is always “…granddaughter of the fourth Earl of Sainsbury, she studied puppetry with Princess Eloise at the famous Tuppence Academy…” (Kirby’s father was the president of the Royal Society of Medicine, which is fairly middle class by British actor standards).

But no, Jacob Elordi is actually Australian. In fact, he’s so damned Australian that he went to a boarding school called “Nudgee.”

Marvel out here doing memes from 2012. Can they haz cheezeburger?

I can’t wait until this bombs and everyone blames it on sexism and not on the fact that everyone is sick of Marvel movies and no one knows who “The Marvels” are.

Man, Joaquin Phoenix is going to crush this, isn’t he? He’s been dead for like 150 years but every time I picture Napoleon’s face from now on it’s going to look like this.

Sort of like how the High Fidelity book came before the movie, and even though the book is set in the UK I can’t read anything Barry says without hearing it in Jack Black’s voice. That’s kind of an old reference now but you get my point.

Yes. YES. Fitting that we’d end on this poster for Saltburn, that’s a hell of a poster. We love rich people getting weird and having sex with each other, don’t we, folks?

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Other Stuff

-Matt recorded a new Frotcast without me! With Shereen Youness and Mike Recine! It’s been up for two days and not one person has said the Frotcast is better without me in the comments section yet! Thanks so much, you guys.

-All-star guest David Roth is back on Pod Yourself The Wire! Season four, episode seven, “Unto Others” is now available for early download.

-Did anyone else see the new Chevy ad that begins with a guy ordering Avocado Toast “hold the avocados?” I saw it during a football game and thought I was losing my mind. I didn’t think it was possible to make a bit as played out as this one even worse but here we are.