Disney Deathcart Roundup
FIRST
Disney has declared with totally conviction that the Acolyte is the biggest launch of 2024 on Disney +, bringing home an awesome and amazing overnight score of 4.8 million views.
That’s incredibly sad.
When any studio makes these best launch ever claims, (but with one or two qualifiers) you know they are unhappy with the performance and need to cover it up somehow. Star Wars Ashoka had first week score of 14 million viewers in its first week. This is clearly expected to do worse than Ashoka.
Here is the thing, when Disney is talking about total number of views they are talking globally. HBOmax was crowing about 10 million views on the House of the Dragon’s debut night but the reason they had a right to crow was that the HBOmax is strictly an American Market.
Disney+ has 150 million subscribers world wide. Meaning that less than 3% of Disney subscriber base could be bothered to watch the absolute hottest series premiering on Disney+ on its opening night. At the end of the day this show is alleged to have cost $180 million, and while I personally doubt it was anywhere near that low, taking it at their word, there is no way in hell that this show did what it was supposed to do and build interest in this streaming service. Let alone drive new subscriptions.
NEXT
The TARDIS continues to burn. Doctor Who’s numbers remain awful. The overnight ratings for the broadcast of Doctor Who in the UK were 2.11 million. Meaning the Brits have given up on this institution. This the second worst of all time, only just beating out the second episode of this season.
Gatwa has moments where he could almost pull off the Doctor but he simply can’t restrain the gaaaaaay. Admittedly, he’s probably under orders not to. With the exception of Rose and River, The Doctor has a clean record on romance, at over a thousand years old, he mostly seems to have lost interest. Until now anyway. The current iteration is hyper-sexualized, with constant references to whatever man he’s recently had, plus a sprinkling of gay innuendo so obscure that has to be looked up on the Urban Dictionalry to be decoded and I don’t recommend doing that.
This Bridgerton fanfic episode featured the Doctor’s first Gay kiss. I’m sure it was moving and what not but I just couldn’t sit through the damn thing. It’s astonishing just how bad Russel T Davies work has been on this show. You get hints here ant there of the writer who penned Left Turn and Dalek but there has been nothing remotely close to that level of brilliance. In fact, he’s frequently recycling elements of his old episodes. I could understand someone who becomes a true believer suddenly tearing down his own life’s work if the name of his new religion but RTD has always been this far left. He didn’t recently take the ticket, he’s had it for years.
At the end of the day, Chris Chibnal should light a candle by Russel T Davies picture everynight for the rest of his life.
No one is talking about how bad Jodie was anymore.
NEXT
Alamo Drafthouse Closures.
This one definitely gives me a case of the sads. In 1997 Alamo Drafthouse Theater decided to go a different route from the rest of the googleplex theater chains. Instead trying to shoehorn in as many of the rubes as possible, they opted for a return to the movie palace business model. There were less chairs and higher prices but that didn’t matter as much because the seating was plush with plenty of distance between you and your neighbor. The movie would only start after a half hour of short features from around the world or classic cartoons or serials from Hollywood’s golden age. This gave you time to place your order because the Alamo served beer and hamburgers. In exchange for these luxuries, the Alamo required their audiences to accept a strict code of filmgoer etiquette. No talking, no texting. No entering the theater once the main feature has begun, although they would always give you a rain check for a different showing.
The company went into Chapter 11 during the lockdown. This month all locations in the Dallas Fortworth area closed. There are still Alamo Drafthouses left across the country but the question is for how long? The collapse of the American film industry is going to take out a lot of theaters this summer.
The destruction of the film industry has been nothing short of a vanity project for the Hollywood Club. They utterly refuse to make films audiences want to see. It feels like they don’t want them to be widely accepted, that they want these things to be niche and to only be appreciated by an upper middle-class elect who all got the same degrees in soft studies programs but had the connections to get high-paying jobs anyway.
NEXT
Borderlands the Movie
You’ve already seen the trailer. Here’s the first film clip, look at it.
LOOK AT IT!!!
I expected nothing and I’m still disappointed. I’m not going to go on about how a rich background lore has been lost. Because it’s Borderlands and there isn’t one.
Although, Handsome Jack was, I will grant, a very compelling antagonist. At first haughty and dismissive of the player, then increasingly frightened and desperate as the player gets closer to the goal of releasing his daughter from her torment. Finally, vengeful in his rage at his child’s death. I’ll grant that the Pre-Sequel was kind of interesting in that regard as well. Jack repeatedly tried to do the right thing and was blocked at every turn. With no good choices available he had to make bad ones until it took him to a place there was no coming back from.
Jack isn’t in this movie.
Yeah, it’s gonna suck.
NEXT
Doom – The Dark Age Trailer
So, Doom Guy is now riding a dragon.
I like the Doom. I really do. It’s the probably the only Triple A game I’d be willing to pay Triple A prices for.
However, I have some notes. Why does every single frame of this game have to look like a 1980s heavy metal album cover? Even though it does look like Doom, why doesn’t it feel like Doom?
“If the franchise continues to be successful, the future will view this era of Doom the way everybody looks at Roger Moore’s Bond movies.”
LAST
Fallen Aces Episode 1 finally drops this Friday.
Thaaank yooooou!
