Chinese Arthouse Film “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” Breaks Records With $38M Opening, Followed by 96% Drop Amid Mass Walkouts & Bad Audience Reception

I was shocked to learn last week of the surprising success of Bi-Gan's “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” at the Chinese box-office. The film, which I reviewed earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, is as artsy as they come. Even some of the highest-browed critics I've spoken to have admitted how hard it was to follow the film's plot. However, thanks to a misleading promotional campaign which sold it as a romcom, Bi-Gan's film had record-breaking success at the Chinese box office. “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” earned $38 million in ticket sales, that is before Chinese audiences caught on and realized this wasn't the film they signed up for.

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Despite Bad Reviews 'Venom' Has Bite At Box-Office, $80M Opening Weekend; 'A Star Is Born' Opens With Impressive $41M

"Despite a rocky road to release the strange off-brand start to the Sony Marvel Spider-man Without Spider-Man Cinematic Universe know as Venom opened to an incredible $80M at #1. That smashes the previous October opening record holder Gravity which set the bar at $55.7M in 2013. It's weird to think a superhero/villain film could ever be considered an underdog story (especially this year) but Venom might have been it. Fans of the film were first put on edge when Sony finally decided that the film would get a PG-13 rating which angered star of the film Tom Hardy who's been vocal about the cuts from the R-rated version. Then there was the awful critics reviews who trashed the film as one of the worst of the year. So while the film opened to $10M on Thursday there was nothing there that guaranteed an ending like this with a potential massive drop-off by Sunday. But the monster just kept growing and now it's become yet another huge success for the superhero genre."

1. Venom — Sony — $80,030,000
2. A Star is Born —Warner Bros. — $41,250,000
3. Smallfoot —Warner Bros.— $14,900,000 
4. Night School — Uni. — $12,275,000
5. The House With A Clock In Its Walls — Uni. — $7,295,000 
6. A Simple Favor — Lionsgate — $3,435,000
7. The Nun— Warner Bros. — $2,610,000
8. Hell Fest — LGF — $2,075,000 ($8,864,476)
9. Crazy Rich Asians — WB — $2,060,000 
10. The Predator — Fox — $900,000

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"Justice League" Box-Office: What happened?! How DC and the WB messed up the DCEU.

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Ok, so you're probably wondering how did things become so bad for the WB and the DCEU? In a nutshell, it's more complicated than the following 400 words thesis.

The WB was desperately in need of a franchise, The Dark Knight trilogy was done ditto Harry Potter and the Hobbit.  "Man of Steel" was made with the intent to be followed by a sequel, however, the WB decided to turn that sequel into the misbegotten "Batman vs Superman" and had that film launch their unprepared cinematic universe.  That same year, the WB interfered a lot with David Ayer's  "Suicide Squad," production rumors were swirling all around and, as you know, the film is now the stuff of cinematic infamy.

We all thought they had set-up a concrete cinematic universe by that point. Ten movies were announced, to be released from 2016 to 2020. Not even halfway through that slate of films, and banking on Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman" having surprise success at the Box-Office, the WB decided to have "Wonder Woman 2" released before "Flash" and "The Green Lantern." Not just that, they also decided to add in a slew of new projects in the span of 6 months: "Suicide Squad 2," "Justice League Dark," "The Batman," "Batgirl," "Gotham City Sirens," "Nightwing," "Man of Steel 2," "Black Adam," "Deadshot," "Lobo" "Deathstroke" and the untitled Joker and Harley Quinn film, produced by Martin Scorsese. Phew, suffice to say, the plans of a DCEU are all but fucked. In fact, there never really was a plan, they were changing their plan every month. They haven't even announced if Ben Affleck will return as Batman. They were supposed to rebuild around Affleck and now he may be done, with Jake Gyllenhaal being sought for the caped crusader role. That much anticipated "Flash" movie?  It's lost, multiple directors have quit or been fired. 

Who is to blame for all this? The WB of course, they set their sights on Zack Snyder to herald the DCEU forward, that didn't work so well. They wanted Avengers-sized success but didn’t want to put the time, effort, thought and resources into building it up in a thoughtfully conceived manner. At this point, my advice to them would be to do what they did with "Wonder Woman" and actually hire competent directors that have talent and that can put their own signature to the films. You might as well get on the critics good side because, and I do say this with the utmost confidence, I do believe bad reviews have contributed to this debacle.