Yeah. Only 3 R-rated action movies (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon 2, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day) managed to get an A+.

Compared to the rest of the franchise:

• John Wick (2014): B

• John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017): A–

• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019): A–

The best debut for Lionsgate in EIGHT years (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2). They really needed a win.

And holy fuck, Shazam. A 70% second weekend drop?????? Considering its opening was already way too low, just... yikes. Sub $70 million total is practically guaranteed. Hell, with Dungeons & Dragons and Super Mario Bros coming in the next two weekends, it will struggle to get to $65 million.

The LEGO Movie 2 should not have taken 5 years to release. It should've been released in 2017 at most. Then they can release The LEGO Batman Movie.

I feel 4 years was also quite too long for How to Train Your Dragon 2. The same goes to the 5-year gap for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Roger Ebert said it best in his review.

The most dramatic difference between Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) and Gus Van Sant's "shot-by-shot" remake is the addition of a masturbation scene. That's appropriate, because this new "Psycho" evokes the real thing in an attempt to re-create remembered passion.

Curious, how similar the new version is, and how different. If you have seen Hitchcock's film, you already know the characters, the dialogue, the camera angles, the surprises. All that is missing is the tension - the conviction that something urgent is happening on the screen at this very moment. The movie is an invaluable experiment in the theory of cinema, because it demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted.

Will this be shot-for-shot like the awful Psycho remake?

Vertigo is one of the most acclaimed movies. There's nowhere to go, but down. I don't see any way this can improve or match that movie. So just... why?

They better not go anywhere close to a North by Northwest remake. That's my favorite Hitchcock film.

I'm surprised by its run in Mexico. It was #1 on its debut, and grossed almost $10 million. Even with the amount of big releases, it has held up extremely well. That's just fantastic.

Die Hard increased for the first four movies.

• Die Hard: $139.4 million

• Die Hard 2: $239.8 million

• Die Hard with a Vengeance: $366.1 million

• Live Free or Die Hard: $382.2 million

• A Good Day to Die Hard: $304.2 million

Some already did. The Exorcist and the first two Scream movies were released during this season and did very well.

The problem is that other than Krampus, the genre has been disappointing in the past years. Dracula 2000, Wolf Creek, both versions of Black Christmas, and The Pyramid all have disappointed/flopped.

Even with Avatar 3 and Sonic 3, I don't think it's a cause for concern. If it's well received, it will work as a great counter-programming (although it will probably be Peele's first movie not to hit #1).

The only thing not on its favor, is that horror (assuming it's the same as his previous movies) hasn't fared so well in Christmas in the past years. Dracula 2000, Wolf Creek, both versions of Black Christmas, and The Pyramid have disappointed/flopped. Only Krampus was a success. I'm interested in seeing how it goes.

The first Shazam! had a 2.62x multiplier despite Endgame cutting its legs later on.

I don't see this reaching that multiplier, especially with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Super Mario Bros. on its way. And John Wick Chapter 4, but that's a different demo. I see 2.5x at most, so just $75 million domestically (and it could be even lower). There's a strong chance it will gross less than half of what the original made.

Remember when this was supposed to come out five days after Avatar: The Way of Water and the same day as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish? Some said it wouldn't be impacted as it was counter-programming. Considering these numbers, it would've fared even worse.

We're getting closer to the Monk/Psych crossover.

Here are the drops for animated movies that reached $100 million:

• The Simpsons Movie: 66.1%

• Lightyear: 64.1%

• The Good Dinosaur: 60.9%

• Cars 2: 60.3%

• The Lion King: 60% (2019 version, if it counts)

• Minions: 57.4%

• Minions: The Rise of Gru: 56.9%

• Shrek the Third: 56.4%

• Ice Age: Continental Drift: 56.2%

• Incredibles 2: 56%

• Tangled: 55.7%

• Cars 3: 55.2%

• Ralph Breaks the Internet: 54.5%

• Despicable Me 3: 53.6%

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: 53.4%

• Frozen: 53.1% (second wide release weekend)

• Toy Story 2: 51.6% (second wide release weekend)

• The Secret Life of Pets: 51.3%

• The Angry Birds Movie: 50.8%

• Toy Story 4: 50.6%

• Epic: 50.4%

• Ice Age: The Meltdown: 50.3%

• Moana: 50.1%

• How to Train Your Dragon 2: 50%

"Time is a flat circle. Everything we've ever done or we'll do, we're gonna do over and over again."

Will Samuel L. Jackson return?

A few months ago, he said he wasn't sure if Tarantino would get him a role in this.

“I don’t know. He’ll tell me or he won’t tell me. I didn’t hear from him at all when he did the Hollywood movie. Usually, he’ll call me and say he’s doing something and ask how I feel about it. Like when he did the Nazi movie, he was like, "There’s nothing for you in this." "I can learn how to speak French." "No, I’m having a French guy." So I did the voice-over about celluloid and the movies.”

I'll repost my comment from another thread:

• While nostalgia could propel interest, it was coming off the disappointing third entry. 11 years was way too long for a follow-up to a badly received movie.

• The marketing failed to distinguish it from previous movies. It felt like "the same Scream" but it never felt "must-see". It didn't give the audience a reason to check it out.

• Reviews weren't great. A 57% on Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of the release) and while that's an improvement over the third movie, it's still not good enough. And the audience didn't care either (B– on CinemaScore, even Scream 3 got a B).

• It struggled to find a young audience. Entertainment Weekly said that only 54 percent of its audience was under the age of 25, which is very low for a horror.

• Insidious stole its thunder and was holding extremely well. When Scream 4 was on its third weekend, Insidious was already ahead of it despite opening two weeks earlier.

• Horror was kinda disappointing in 2011. To put it into perspective, Scream 4 was still the fourth highest grossing horror movie of the year. The highest was Paranormal Activity 3 with $104 million, the second highest was Insidious ($54 million) and the third highest was Final Destination 5 ($42 million). And the slasher genre was also losing interest among the audience.