Cinema Guru

Talks about cinema a lot / DigiMarComm for @CinemaNext / Co-Founder @Cultpix1 / Klubb Super8 / 🍿 [email protected]

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

This is my 4,000+ word take on the incredible story of Chinese authorities three-year crusade to take down the greatest film piracy ring ever, and 'Ghost No. 1', the rogue server at the heart of it. https://t.co/xuF2RR63lc

[Paul Dergarabedian @PDergarabedian]

🎬📊 WHEN A MOVIE SEES A WEEKEND 2 UPTICK
@A24's You Can See Everything opened to an impressive $15.6 million in just 855 theaters last weekend and is expanding to 2,655 theaters this weekend.
Even an $18M second weekend would represent a 15.4% increase. At $20M, that's +28.2%, at $23M it's +47.4%, and at $25M we're talking about a whopping 60.2% surge.
So knowing that You Can See Everything is almost certainly going to see a second-weekend uptick, I went into the #Rentrak engine room to see what I could dig up in terms of historical comparisons.
I left out December because the Christmas/New Year's holiday period produces so many second-weekend increases that it skews the data. I also went back only to 2000, since theatrical release patterns were very different in earlier decades, and limited the comparisons to films opening in more than 500 theaters.
Adding theaters certainly helps drive these increases, but a major expansion like this reflects confidence in audience demand.
I absolutely love seeing these kinds of weekends because films that do this often get more attention in their second weekend than in their opening weekend, which is highly unusual.
And with You Can See Everything potentially becoming the first documentary ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, this is one fascinating movie to watch, both on and off the screen.
Source: Rentrak Data and Analysis.
#BoxOffice #YouCanSeeEverything #A24

[The Disapproving Swede @ChristerEm]

Fatherland by Paweł Pawlikowski
The final chapter of Pawlikowski's postwar trilogy is so much better than its predecessors that it almost retroactively justifies them. ★★★★☆

Paweł #FilmTwitter X Revived post: https://t.co/BMfw7q8t5I #HüllerSandra #PuszczyńskaEwa

[The Disapproving Swede @ChristerEm]

Read the latest post from The Disapproving Swede A rundown of the awards at the Warsaw Film Festival 2026, with some personal comments. #FilmTwitter Read the whole post here.
https://t.co/iQgSypPBsi

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

I'm gutted to read about the passing of @wapo film critic @AnnHornaday age 66. She was one of the wisest, warmest, wittiest critics that I followed, so to have her die of a form of brain cancer feel particularly cruel. RIP. Your words and reviews live on.
https://t.co/IebBHJAxJh

[Paul Dergarabedian @PDergarabedian]

Check out our exclusive #Rentrak Top 10 Domestic Estimates chart! The domestic box office continues to show impressive consistency as we head into October, with the marketplace generating an estimated $99 million this weekend, up 14.8% from the comparable weekend last year and down 21% from last weekend. Just shy of another $100 million weekend, 2026 remains at 27 $100 million-plus weekends out of the first 40, meaning 67.5% of all weekends this year have reached that mark.
@AmazonMGMStudio #Verity opened at number one with an estimated $32.6 million from 3,510 theaters in North America. That marks the second-best opening for a Colleen Hoover adaptation, behind only It Ends With Us ($50 million).
The 2026 domestic box office now stands at an estimated $7.949 billion through Sunday, up 19.5% from the comparable point in 2025, when the marketplace stood at $6.654 billion. That leaves the industry only $50.757 million shy of the $8 billion mark. At the current pace, the domestic box office is still estimated to cross $8 billion around October 9, although the exact timing could move by a day or two depending on weekday grosses.
September certainly did its part, generating $601.9 million, up 1.3% from September 2025 and ranking as the seventh highest-grossing September on record. For a month that has often been viewed as something of a transitional period on the theatrical calendar, that is another strong indication of the depth and durability of the 2026 marketplace.
And Anne Hathaway continues to cement her status as one of 2026’s true box office superstars. Verity marks her fifth theatrical release of the year, and her four films released before this weekend have generated nearly $900 million domestically and more than $2.55 billion worldwide. With The Odyssey at $620.464 million domestic and The Devil Wears Prada 2 at $220.6 million, this has become an extraordinary, career-defining box office year for Hathaway. @RentrakMoviesUS @RentrakGlobal
#BoxOffice #Rentrak #Movies #Verity #AnneHathaway

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

@PDergarabedian Happy belated birthday 🎁 and thank you for all the great insights you gift us.

[Paul Dergarabedian @PDergarabedian]

🚨 BREAKING BOX OFFICE NEWS 🚨
Drawing on Rentrak’s 50-year box-office legacy, I was just looking at the numbers—and I honestly didn’t see this coming until I added them up just an hour ago. According to our exclusive #Rentrak data, the domestic box office generated $981,431,365 from August 1 through Thursday, August 20. Add the final studio-estimated $129,925,424 for the August 21–23 weekend, and August 2026 has already reached:
🎬 𝗔𝗡 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗 $𝟭.𝟭𝟭𝟭 𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗢𝗡 🎬
That makes August 2026 only the third billion-dollar August in 43 years of month-by-month Rentrak data, covering 1984 through 2026—and it is already the highest-grossing August in the history of that dataset.
The only other two:
🍿 2014: $1.017 billion for the full month, powered by Guardians of the Galaxy
🔥 2016: $1.020 billion for the full month, powered by Suicide Squad
🚀 2026: $1.111 BILLION through Sunday, August 23—with eight days still remaining!
And two movies have contributed an incredible share of this year’s record:
🕷️ #SpiderMan: Brand New Day generated approximately $685.1 million during August through Sunday—61.6% of the entire month.
⚔️ #TheOdyssey added approximately $180.4 million during August—another 16.2%.
Together, #SpiderMan: Brand New Day and The Odyssey have contributed approximately $865.4 million—or 77.9% of the biggest August in 43 years of month-by-month Rentrak data.
Yes, you read that correctly: 2014 and 2016 are full-month totals. August 2026 has already surpassed both of them with more than a week left to go.
And there’s something beautifully appropriate about all those ones.
With a nod to Three Dog Night, ONE ☝️ is definitely NOT the loneliest number at the August box office.
Of course, let’s credit the man who wrote “One”: Harry Nilsson, one of my all-time favorite artists. John Lennon famously said, “Nilsson’s my favorite group.” Aimee Mann later did a really cool version of “One,” which opens Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.
Music, movies and $1.111 BILLION at the domestic box office. It all comes together. 🎵🎬🔥
I’ve always said:
“The month doesn’t define the movies. The movies define the month.”
August 2026 just proved it.
What an incredible summer. The movies have thrown out the traditional playbook, broken the calendar rules and delivered a milestone I didn’t see coming until I looked at the numbers tonight.
@RentrakMoviesUS
@RentrakGlobal
@SpiderManMovie
@odysseymovie
#BoxOffice #AugustBoxOffice #SummerMovies #Movies

[Paul Dergarabedian @PDergarabedian]

The domestic box office has crossed $7 billion for 2026, running 20.4% ahead of last year, while summer has reached $4.446 billion—enough to rank No. 4 when measured against completed summer totals.
For me, this may be the most important summer movie season since 1975, when Jaws took a huge bite out of the box office and set the modern summer season in motion.
The numbers—and a certain photo of a 14-year-old movie fan—tell the story. 🎬
Full analysis and charts in the reply. 👇
#BoxOffice #SummerMovies #Jaws #MovieTheaters

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, "I felt a great disturbance in the @LinkedIn, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
#claude #AI #LinkedIN #AIslop
https://t.co/DR7HZ0RWui

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

@ScottMendelson He did indeed deserve a nomination for The Long Walk. Think he will get one already for “Scandalous” before BP3?

[Patrick Corcoran @P_F_Corcoran]

@patrickvons As someone who grew up in "The Onion Set Capital of the World" and worked at NATO during the HSX nonsense, I loved every word, except the imbalance in film negotiations. That is almost entirely about a lack of market power, rather than lack of information.

[Scott Mendelson @ScottMendelson]

Post coming, but #TheOdyssey is on track to A) notch the third-smallest percentage drop for any $100 million-plus opener, B) achieve the biggest ten-day domestic total for any under-$125 million opener and C) pass $500 million worldwide by the end of this sentence.

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

🧅 $1.4m was traded on the opening weekend of The Odyssey." Not tickets. Positions!

While exhibitors argued about windows and premium formats, a market formed that prices our BO weekends before we do, updates faster than tracking, and answers to nobody.
https://t.co/Xxk4R1J7qL

[CinemaNext @CinemaNextINTL]

🎞️ Everyone was talking about 70mm @IMAX, but the rarest ticket for Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" was actually something far older: a humble 35mm print.

We unpack what it means for exhibitors in our latest blog post 👇
https://t.co/KUOaiTX99w

[Boxoffice Pro @Boxoffice_FR]

Les Cinémas Indépendants Parisiens renouvellent leur bureau

👉 https://t.co/T9U7PBr1S6
https://t.co/T9U7PBr1S6

[Scott Mendelson @ScottMendelson]

Every bit of evidence argues that yes, audiences still value the theatrical experience, even with the entire investor ecosystem trying to take it away from us to justify their shortsighted "disruptor" strategies...

[Boxoffice Pro @Boxoffice_FR]

Patrick von Sychowski (@patrickvons) rejoint Cine Group comme International Editor-in-Chief

👉 https://t.co/lcrF3Cg9hV

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

Questions to Which the Answer is “No,” part #491.

https://t.co/PRcyPaD8LE

[Cinema Guru @patrickvons]

This would have sold very well. Sadly a missed opportunity.

#Backrooms #collectible #popcornbucket

https://t.co/BhUpEIl0xk

[Reel Updates @worldofreel]

Netflix film chief Dan Lin tells @nytimes that if any director asks Netflix to give their film a theatrical release, they will be shown the door.

“There is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with.”

https://t.co/svkdmPN72K