We Guess The Box Office And Get Humbled

A movie can have rough critic scores and still steamroll the box office, and this week’s numbers prove it. We come in buzzing about big upcoming releases (yes, we talk about the Odyssey trailer hype) and then immediately put our own forecasting skills on trial with a fresh round of box office predictions vs reality.

From there, we dig into what’s actually working for audiences right now. We recap the surprise strength of Michael and the huge opening for Devil Wears Prada (plus how advanced screenings can juice the totals), and we shout out a local win with Sergeant Honey. Then we pivot to new movies worth your time: Sheep Detectives delivers a clever family-friendly mystery with a genuinely funny hook, Mortal Kombat 2 brings R-rated franchise chaos with Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, and The Drama goes dark with a wedding-week confession that flips a relationship inside out.

We also get honest about the movie theater experience and the film industry economics behind the ticket counter: phones in the auditorium, rising fuel and delivery costs, and why some cinemas are drawing a hard line on Afterpay. If you care about movies, New Zealand cinema, and the future of affordable moviegoing, you’ll find plenty to argue with and plenty to agree with. Subscribe, share this with a movie friend, and leave a review with your best box office guess for next week.

Book your tickets to the movies at Cathay Cinemas Kerikeri here  -   or at Lido Cinema Hamilton here!

Transcript

Welcome And Trailer Hype

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Eat, sleep, movie, repeat, repeat. A podcast on all things movies with Brent Harbour and industry insider Ross Churchell.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey Ross, how are you? Yeah, good, buddy. How you going? Good thanks. I got a bit excited this week when I saw the trailer for Odyssey. Did you watch it?

SPEAKER_02 0:18

I I have seen the trailer for Odyssey. Yes, it does look very, very good.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah, it's gonna be a Christopher Nolan epic when it comes out, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Yeah, oh look, there's so many good films coming down the line. There's a movie stars next week called In the Grey, and that is the Henry Cavill movie. Jake Jake Gyllenhaal. It's an action-packed kind of guy richie movie. And if you like those kind of films, I think that looks like a lot of fun. I must have watched The Man from Uncle about three or four times, so I like that kind of pacing.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

That is a brilliant, it is the most underrated movie ever, The Man from Uncle. It's so good.

Box Office Predictions Get Obliterated

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah, it is. It's very entertaining. And um look, I think this film looks like another just entertaining, fun action ride. So uh yeah, we won't talk about that one today though, because we've got other movies to talk about. But shall we crack on? Let's get into it. Excellent. Oh, look, you can probably hear from my voice that I'm feeling a lot more positive about the world at the moment, folks, and that's a good thing. So welcome to Eat Sleep movie repeat brought to you by Cathay Cinemas Kerry Kerry and Leto Cinemas Hamilton, your home of fine film from around the world. This show is about movies heading your way. Uh, we're gonna talk about things you might like to check out, we're gonna talk about the industry potentially, uh, we'll see how we go. And um, yeah, just basically had a bit of fun. But of course, as always, Brent, as always, uh, we're gonna start by reconciling last week's, or sorry, last show's prediction on the box office.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Okay, I can't even remember what that was, and I haven't even looked at it.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Oh, mate, look, if you can't remember what happened two weeks ago, we do need to think about therapy. Um, I'm worried now. Alright, well, let's talk about Michael first. So, look, Brent, you thought Michael would bring in about 600k. I thought it would do about 450k, and the film had a 39% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. That's actually up from where it was. It was down in the 20s at one point. The thing with movies is just because the critics say it's good doesn't mean it is. And often just because the movies, uh the critics, sorry, say it's bad, it doesn't mean it always is as well. Um, and the film was a, you know, this is where we should have backed ourselves. The film was a massive hit with the fans. And to be fair to us, a little context for the people out there, look, we threw low bids in because um things have been pretty tough for some of these films lately. They just haven't really kicked off the way they would have been liked. And, you know, the economy creates a few issues, and we always say the same thing, Brett. We go, well, this is our prediction, but we hope it does better. And Michael is a film that we can now hang our heads in shame because that film was one of those films that did better. We were so wrong. Okay. The King of Pop was the king of the box office. The film brought in are you ready for this? 1.56 million dollars in the first week. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So we were miles away. Look, when I started seeing the box office going up around the world and it was getting close to half a billion dollars after its opening couple of weeks, I thought, okay, I've got that wrong then.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Well, well, look, honest to God, I was sitting there, as I said, hand on heart, I was going low because there was just there's this mix of trepidation in the film industry at the moment where films you've expected to do well don't. And so you put all your eggs in one basket and then you suddenly find yourself in real trouble. Um, and this is just one of those things. It was it was either gonna go one way or the other. Was the Michael reputation the negativity going to outweigh the positivity? And good news, and thank goodness, positivity wins the day. So, Brent, look, you won that round and well deserved. Excellent. Um, even though you were 900 odd grand away from it. So uh that's um that's good. And like I anybody listening, and I know somebody I know for sure one person's listening who's probably gonna send me a text message and go, uh, loser. Um they uh, you know, at the end of the day, this is a uh fun game, and that's what it is. It's a it's a guessing game, and sometimes we can get it right. But no, I'm so glad we were wrong on this one. I'm so glad that the film did well.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Um yeah, me too. No, that's good. Yeah, look, and then the film roll we roll. Oh, just so you know, that film's now over 2.8 million in New Zealand, which is a massive result.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

It's gonna do a billion dollars worldwide, I reckon.

A Kiwi Film Worth Supporting

Sheep Detectives And Smart Marketing

Mortal Kombat 2 And Karl Urban

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Oh, look, it's not slowing down, and uh I think they've possibly split the movie into two movies, so we might see a second one coming. Yeah, yeah. So look, um, the second film, of course, was Devil Where's Prada, and again, the film critics and fans agreed on Rotten Tomatoes, 78% from critics, and 86% that this film was excellent and really, really good and was going to do lots and lots and lots of money. Okay, so you guessed 1.3 million, and I guessed, oh sorry, I guessed 1.3 million, get that right, and you guessed 1.2 million. So while the Michael movie said, hey, look, watch me go, the Devil East Prada said, Look, buddy, hold my beer, it did a whopping$1.86 million, and that's in its opening week, but with its advanced, it was already over 2.1, I think, with its advanced uh session the night before, because it took like 300 grand the night before, which is huge, huge money on one of those pre-films, pre-screenings. Yeah, and look, that film is like I said, it's already gonna close in. I would say by the end of this next week, Devil is Prada will be very, very close to passing Michael, and both of those films are headed to the oh, maybe four million, maybe five million potentially. That's great for the industry, which is fantastic. Look, we we all sit around going, wouldn't it be nice if? And when you get two films in a row that just absolutely kick it on, uh, that really helps, you know. So um, yeah, that's great. So um, look, that gives us one win apiece for those of you playing at home. Um, Brent, you have five wins for the ESFR, and I have seven wins. So I've still got you by two, which um, as we know from last year, can absolutely change in the next three or four weeks. So uh great. Um, and just while we're on the topic of movies that are doing well, I just want to give a shout-out to the movie Sergeant Honey, which um opened on Anzac weekend and it's been playing for about a week and a half now. Um that film has now bought an over 200,000 at the box office and it's getting fantastic reviews. Everybody who's going in to see it is really enjoying it. Um big mix of people, old, young. It's uh it's a film that you should definitely check out. So uh yeah, Sergeant Honey, that'd be a recommendation for people to go and check out a Kiwi film. Alrighty, should we talk about new movies? Right, though, there's not a lot of new movies this week, which to be honest, it's kind of good. Um, depending on the cinema you go to, there is more. There's always gonna be more, but when you're talking about small three-screen cinemas, we have to pick and choose between um you know taking 18 films, you know, you go, okay, well, I can take three or four that are really, really good, and or you hope they are. Um, but this week there are just a few movies coming out, which is quite helpful. But the ones that are we're coming out are the sheep detectives. Oh, okay, that's Hugh Jackman, right? Yeah, Hugh Jackman. He plays a farmer by the name of George Hardy. Uh he's a shepherd, and he loves being a she know a shepherd, loves his sheep. He um he really believes that they can understand him. And he every night he reads aloud a murder mystery, and all the sheep sit around and they listen to the murder mysteries. Um, and at the end of it he says, Right, good night, I'm off to bed, and I'll tell you the next part, and leaves them on the cliffhanger all the time. Yeah, what he doesn't realise is the sheep absolutely understand everything he says. They are always arguing about who did it, you know, trying to solve the mystery. Um, and one unfortunate night, George is found dead under mysterious circumstances, and the sheep believe that it is a murder, and they think they will go about solving this murder, and the local policeman is totally inept. He's never solved the crime, he's never had a crop big enough crime in his town. So the sheep decide he's not helpful, we're gonna help him solve it, and they basically have to leave the meadow for the very first time in their lives and go and solve this crime. Now, this film is really sweet, it's really funny. I really wanted to watch it yesterday so I could talk about it from having seen the whole thing, but um, it's done very well over in England, it's made by the people who know Paddington. Uh, look, it it was basically got great five-star reviews, and we've had a lot of fun with our customers. Um, we've had competitions to win tickets and chic puns, and people have been doing uh really funny fan art of different movies, like in the grey we talked about before, it was in the hay. Um, you know, so it was really good. Um I I I even made one for um The Devil Wears Prada, I've got it the Devil Wears Barter, um, but and just copied the post, so it was really fun. So AI Well looks great, yeah. I've seen all that, it's brilliant. Look, that's the best thing about AI. Everything else about AI worries me, but being able to make funny pictures is about AI's love, as far as I'm concerned. Um, and don't get me wrong, I'm not anti super anti-AI as it has its uses, but Boy Oh Boy has some negative issues as well, which um is very sad. Let's so let's talk about more fun and frivolous films and another key connection. So this movie is coming out uh Mortal Kombat 2, based on the video game Mortal Kombat. Now, Mortal Kombat came out around the time we had the pandemic, so it didn't really do as good as it possibly could have. It was an R-rated action film. Fans of the franchise absolutely loved it, and so they made Mortal Kombat 2, and of course, a kiwi connection is that uh Johnny Cage is played by Carl Urban, and he's basically playing an aging acting action star. So there's a little bit of uh irony and nuance there, uh, and basically um he gets sucked into this ultimate no-holds barred battle to defeat the dark raw of a person called Shaol Khan, and that threatens the very existing existence of the Earth Realm. We're in the Earth Realm, people, um, and all the defenders of the Earth Realm have to fight against the evil from the other realms to survive, and the winner of Mortal Kombat saves. So you can see where this is going. And Karl Urban, look, he just brings so much um experience and comedy timing, and he's put in some fantastic films, like the The Judge Dread movie is a good example of an actor. You never see his face, like the Mandalorian a little bit, never see his face, but his acting is what drives that film forward. It's you know, and his one lining and his timing. So I've got a lot of time for that guy. I think he's a really good uh ambassador for New Zealand in acting. So uh look, Mortal Kombat, go and check that out. It is R16, but you know, it's uh definitely gonna be for the fans. So get out and check it out.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

He was great in um Star Trek as Bones. He just played him perfectly, it was brilliant.

A Dark Comedy Wedding Secret

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Oh, absolutely. Look at my hand. What's happening to me? Stop moving, Jin. Yeah, I love that. Um and look, the third film I'm gonna talk about, um, as I said, it's not a lot of films opening this week um at our cinema. So the film that I'm actually taking just at Kerry Kerry is actually a film that came out back in April, and it's called The Drama. And the reason we didn't play it back in April is because we had so many kids' films that we really needed to concentrate on that side of the business and not um put ourselves into a situation where we were um you know unable to do everything we needed to do and and and you know satisfy all of our um suppliers. So we decided to pull this and hold it back a little bit. Now, the movie, for those of you who haven't seen it, it's about a couple and they're in about a week out from their wedding day, and you sort of give a bit of backstory, they're gonna get married, and they had a dinner party with some friends, and during that dinner party they play a game which is basically tell me one thing about you that you've never told anyone. And so it kind of goes through this process of them saying, you know, sort of frivolous stuff, and and then the woman who's about to get married says, Oh, look, I when I was a teenager, I started to plan to do a mass shooting in my high school. Oh, cranky. Look, this is a dark comedy, so it's not a funny subject, but she said, I planned to do it, but then I realised it was a bad thing, so I chose not to do it. But then, of course, psychologically, you suddenly go, I'm about to marry a person who could be a serial killer or a mass murderer. So so that throws the whole thing into a a bit of a disaster story. So yeah, and of course, her friends who have just heard this, they're all shocked, and the um husband is not knowing what to do, and it's whether or not they will go through with the wedding, but also what other dark secrets do other people have that we're not aware of, kind of thing. It stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. The film got very, very well reviewed. Uh, so if you do want to check a movie out, and if you happen to be up in Northland uh and you haven't seen the drama, and that sounds like your cup of tea, a good black comedy, then hop on in and uh just make sure you're 16 because that is another R16 rated film.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

They did a lot of good publicity around that announcing their engagement in the paper, and and it was good marketing, wasn't it, for that movie?

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And we made a meme about that as well with the the barmer. Yeah, two with the two sheep. Um look, before we get to our predictions though, Brent, is there anything that's been bugging you about the movies right now?

Phones In The Theater And Rising Costs

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Uh no, just the usual things when I'm there with people on their phone. Um, that's the normal thing that bugs me about the movies, but uh it's just you know, I I mean it is the decision with everything that's going on around the world. You know, it's that discretionary money. Can we afford to go out to the movies? Can we afford to do all these things? You have to sort of second guess every decision, unfortunately, at the moment. Yeah, look, it it's definitely um uh a problem.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Um see my pet hate right now, uh with the movies or with business in general, is that I have been getting email after email after email from all of our suppliers that basically say something to the effect of due to the ongoing issues in the Norman hemisphere, the price of fuel for deliveries and call-outs is increasing. And that that that price of delivery is going up by upwards of up to a hundred percent or more because of the price of fuel.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Wow, a hundred percent. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah, yeah, it's it is, it's shocking. Like you know, call-out fees have just gone up by exponentially in a large number, um, which is a really unfortunate situation. Like I said, it's it's not just me and cinema, it's businesses all around New Zealand and and the world. Um, the only way that businesses recoup those costs is obviously to increase their prices because you've you know you're trying to make a return on investment when you own a business, and anything that takes away your percentage of revenue, you suddenly go, Well, I need to replace that. How do I replace it? Well, I'll put the prices up. Um, yeah. And of course, what happens when you put your prices up? Your customers absolutely love you for it. They they appreciate it and they say, We understand and thank you for doing that, and we love to spend more money. Or alternatively, they don't. And that's that can be triggering for a lot of people at the moment because they come out of the movies now going, Oh man, it's so expensive. Especially people who have not been to the movies in let's say a year and they're kind of going and see Mandalorian in a couple of weeks, right? They might have only ever seen a movie since the last Star Wars film. They walk out and they go, Oh, it's so expensive. Yes, it is, it's gone up over the last three years. That's normal. But um, I guess it's really interesting because we haven't put our prices up for 16 months because of how tough it was last year, and we have chosen currently not to put our prices up again. We are trying to keep our prices as low as we can at least until the end of the year, because you know, rolling price more cost onto people is just that's really tough. I mean, we don't charge the surcharge on our um F-POS machines either. I get asked that question all the time. So, um, do you charge a surcharge? And uh, we have never charged a surcharge, and we've tried to keep our prices as you know as cheap as possible just to make it still affordable and something that people can still do and go out and have a a good time.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

So, you know You've always been mindful of that. You you you guys have always been mindful of that, the ten dollar tickets, all the things that you've done, trying to make it so people have a good time out and save them money. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, look, it's um it's it's it's tricky. Um and we uh we up with our prices constantly going up and you know, rent and mortgage and uh insurance and all these things, they're constantly going up, but there there will have to be a breaking point at some point. But I like I said, I'm I'm determined to try and keep it as at a reasonable rate for the rest of the year, um, just because I know how hard it is. I mean, every single one of us is going through some really, really tough times. And you and I have shared some horror stories with our friends, you know. We we know how tough it is our time. Yes, absolutely. So um anyway, uh, and of course, that's something that's really worrying me personally on that same kind of conversation is that some some cinemas are now accepting afterpay for films. Oh, and I'm yeah, yeah, um, afterpay is everywhere, and you know, look, I'm sure for the for me people, afterpayers are like, well, I've got an afterpay account. My wife has one for certain things, you know, but we're we're not living our lives through afterpay. But I have seen some stories about people who are, you know, literally afterpaying everything because it's always the money will come eventually, is the theory. But there's mounting evidence that suggests that uh for a lot of people it is creating some real problems, it's just digging them more and more and more into debt. Uh, and that's not something I want to support. I don't think that people I don't want to contribute, let's put it that way. I don't want to contribute to somebody getting more and more into debt by offering it afterpay as a service. Um so yeah, that's that's two things that are my bugbears at the moment. The constant increase in prices. Um, it would be nice if uh, you know, we could all swallow that down a little bit and uh not keep on charging costs to each other because everything's only getting more expensive. And uh yeah, afterpay. It's um like I said, uh it's uh a tool that I think people can use, but yeah, I I I worry that we're getting into this horrible situation of people having to afterpay everything. I mean, you know, I can understand say putting your school fees on it.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah, sure. You know, or buying something like a you know um like a TV or I buy lots of equipment for the podcast, and sometimes I after pay it um, you know, just for three payments or something. I I get it when it's because it's quite expensive, but on the service industry, I'm not I'm not sure.

Sheep Detectives Box Office Predictions

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah, exactly. I uh it worries me. So anyway, but uh like I said, we we don't want to offer that as a service just purely because uh if somebody got into some serious debt, I wouldn't want them to go, oh yeah, I still owe like you know four hundred dollars for the movies I went and saw. That would make me feel terrible. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, look, uh let's get off that happy subject face and we'll just do a very quick prediction on the sheep detectives, Brent, because I think that looks like a really fun family film. I've I'm definitely gonna be watching it. Uh, probably twice because I think it just looks really fun. And um, yeah, we'll give it a go. So what do you think, Brent? How do you think that'll roll this week?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

I think it's gonna do really well because we just need some good, feel, good movies at the moment. And uh it does look good. I've watched a trailer, it looks really great. So I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot for the stars and I'm gonna say one point one million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

You know what? If it does one point one million dollars, I will be again very happy. I'm yeah, but hey, look, 1.1 million. Oh god, there's a lot of zeros in there, isn't it? Uh I'm gonna probably go around 850,000. I'm the whole actually, yeah, other half step of that. 850,000. I think it's uh I don't know if it'll get up to a million dollars. Um, you know, I I actually worry, if I'm honest, I worry that because it's a family film and because families are struggling, I I do worry that maybe they shot uh, you know, took their shot over the school holidays and now they're going, well, wait till the next school holidays, kids. That could see this movie sort of soften quite a lot. But you know, I I like to be optimistic. I think 850 is a good number.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, that's right. And yeah, we're maybe we got King's birthday weekend at the end of the month. Maybe more people will get out. I don't know. It's it's hard to tell what's gonna go at any given moment. When I filled my car up the other day, it cost me$167 and almost fell over at the pump. So um, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Oh, oh mate, I'm right there with you. And look, every single person listening, all 17 of you, right now, you're all going, yep, not in your headset. Yep, bloody gas pumps. Jeez. And pe people go, gosh, it's expensive to go to the movies. It's like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

And instead of buying whole donuts, I only bought the donut centres as a treat for the family.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah, I was gonna say this well, the the empty center.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

What do they cost? They're a lot cheaper than a whole donut. I can tell you that much. Here you go, here's the donut holes. Oh, I was gonna say donuts. Oh, you're rich, rich, my friend. Donuts, it was just a one-off treat. It was only six of them, one per person. Right, all right. Well, on that uh happy note. I think we should wrap it up, sir. Yeah, no worries. All right, we'll catch up next time and um see if I'm way off again, which seems to be the case.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Well, let's let's hope not. For the for the sake of uh our industry, let's hope not, but we'll see how we go.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Thanks for listening to Eat Sleep Movie. Repeat, repeat a movie podcast available at Bun Sprout, Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.