Eat.Sleep.Movie.Repeat
A Podcast about Movies from Cathay Cinemas Kerikeri And Lido Cinema Hamilton. Brent Harbour and Industry Insider Ross Churchouse talk about Classic Movies, New Releases and make Box Office Predictions!
Eat.Sleep.Movie.Repeat
From He Man To YouTube Hits At The Movies
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A thunderstorm is hammering down outside, which makes our favorite idea sound even better: go sit in a dark theater and let a movie do the heavy lifting. We kick things off by settling last week’s box office prediction and talking through what Mandalorian and Grogu’s performance really suggests about fandom turnout, week two drop-offs, and why “solid” movies don’t always translate into record-breaking global numbers.
From there we jump straight into a big nostalgia swing: Masters of the Universe. We break down the premise (Adam, the Sword of Power, Eternia, and Skeletor), the risk of reviving an older IP, and the casting conversation including Jared Leto as Skeletor. The real question we keep coming back to is one every filmmaker and movie marketer has to answer: who is this for, and is that audience big enough to show up on opening weekend?
Then we get into the part that surprised us most, the YouTube-to-cinema pipeline. The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act isn’t just a quirky internet success story. It’s a case study in built-in audiences, direct-to-fan marketing, and how independent creators can now compete with Hollywood releases for attention and ticket sales. We also shout out smaller gems like The Christophers and The Tuner, before zooming out to sequel fatigue and the crowded calendar of franchises, remakes, and long-running series.
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Rainy Opener And Show Setup
SPEAKER_00Eat, sleep, movie, repeat, repeat. A podcast on all things movies with Brent Harbour and Industry Insider Ross Church House.
SPEAKER_02G'day Ross, how are you?
SPEAKER_01Oh, box of birds, Brent. A box of very wet birds at the moment. It's pouring with rain.
SPEAKER_02I know. As we record this, there is a severe thunderstorm watch in place for Northland. So uh there you go. And we've certainly had some heavy rain, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we've got lightning, we've got thunder, we've got it all, mate. We've got it all.
SPEAKER_02I think it's a perfect time to head to the movies, eh?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And it's pretty uh not a bad week to go to the movies, to be fair, because it's a fair bit on, and it's just gonna get busier as we roll into the July school holidays. Yeah, that's not far away. Alrighty, let's get into it. Absolutely. Okay, well, welcome folks once again. If you're listening to Eekslead Movie Repeat, uh brought to you by Cafe Cinema Scary Carrie and uh Lido Cinema Hamilton, your home of fine film from around the world. Look, this is a show where we talk about movies that are heading your way, we talk about things you might want to go and see, what uh interesting things there might be going on in the world of movies, and of course, as usual, we start the show reconciling our prediction
Mandalorian Box Office Prediction Result
SPEAKER_01from the previous show. Now, Brent, previous show, we did a uh homage to your favorite thing in the world, Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, the Mandalorian and Grogu, which I have seen, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was excellent.
SPEAKER_01Yep, and what what was your uh Jaffa's meter giving you? How many out of ten? I'd give it an eight out of ten. Ah, excellent. You did enjoy it then.
SPEAKER_02I did, yeah. It was really just great to see Star Wars back on the big screen, characters that you know, and uh a few you were introduced to, but I thought the whole thing was great, it looked great the way they'd filmed it, and uh it was just an enjoyable couple of hours in the cinema.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Well, look, let's uh get to the reconciliation, Brent, because uh last week we were discussing how much it would make, and you uh doubled down on the previous one for the sheep detectives. You said the film would make 1.1 million again. Yeah, I know I'm optimistic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm very optimistic. I'm well done you. Um and I look, I went there with you, I went 1.2 million, and I was so close to being right, Brent.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Does that mean that I was right this time? I hadn't even looked to see what the result is.
SPEAKER_01No, uh the good news, Brent, is that you did win. The film actually made $1.12 million. Yes. Uh so a win to you by about um 60k actually. I have scared. That was the variance sum between you and I. So you you were only $19,000 off. That was really impressive.
SPEAKER_02But I think that's good, you know what? Because it means that uh that you know, people are going back to the movies and we we're not wrong all the time.
SPEAKER_01No, that's right. And uh, well, yeah, good good news there. A, we aren't wrong all the time. Sometimes we do get close to the actual score, and uh, yes, you're right, people are definitely going back to the movies, and there's plenty of things for them to go and see. Um, so look, Star Wars and Mandalorian, it's had a bit of a rough run, uh, to be fair, with the worldwide box office. It has slowed down significantly in week two. I think all the fans went out and saw it. Um, it's actually tracking along the same lines, if not slightly under where Solo went uh in terms of its lifetime box office. So it's not going to break any records, but uh it's also not a terrible film uh by any stretch of the imagination.
SPEAKER_02Neither was Solo. I still think it's one of the great Star Wars movies. I it was just panned for all the wrong reasons, and I thought, you know, actually it's an enjoyable one that I continue to watch when I get on to Disney Plus. I've watched it several times.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
Masters Of The Universe Preview
SPEAKER_01And look, um, if you're into that kind of genre of adventure, then we're gonna be talking about that just a little bit more because uh opening this week is Masters of the Universe.
SPEAKER_02I did see the trailer, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and I have to say, unfortunately, I haven't changed my mind. Not for you.
SPEAKER_01No, look, it's gonna be interesting. Um they've cast Jared Leto in this film. We'll tell you all about it in a minute, folks, but they have cast Jared Leto in, and people refer to Jared as box office poison because he's been in a string of um flops, or shall we say, over the last few years. Um, there's not a lot of love for Jared, but anyway, let's let's talk about Masters of the Universe. Okay, so the film is basically about a guy called Adam. He comes from the planet uh Turnia, and he's been living a life hidden away for the last 15 years on Earth, and he and the Sword of Power have been separated, so he's just been doing a mundane 9-5 job. Um, when he suddenly gets um basically recalled to his home because uh the fiendish skeletor from the 80s cartoons, everybody loves Skeletor, um, is basically ruling with an iron fist, shall we say, and he is reunited with his sword, and he has to go back to the um planet Eternia and drace embrace his uh true destiny as He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. Now, as I said, Jared Leto, he plays Skeletor. So on the one side, uh, and this is purely my personal opinion, on one side, his wooden acting will be hidden by a spig suit. Okay. So, you know, there's there's that, there's that. But look, um, I guess the thing with this movie is if you didn't if you don't know what Masters of the Universe is, then you didn't grow up in the 80s and the early 90s, you didn't follow the you know the comics, you didn't watch the cartoons. Um, it was a very over-the-top, very I guess campy, shall we say, uh, show. And um, look, Skeletor was a pretty funny uh evil, an evil being. He had all the great one-liners, he was pretty amusing. Um, and you quite check your head at the door. It had all the it had the giant um, you know, lion that he used to ride, or a tiger that he used to ride, it had um magic, it had wizards, it had uh, you know, clashes with swords, it had everything. It's a it's a it's a pretty cool, uh, pretty cool story overall. But uh, I guess the the big screen adaptation, they did this in the um late 80s, early 90s with Dolph Ludgren, who plays He-Man. And look, he he looked very He-Man-ish. Um, He-Man's being played by an actor called Nicholas Galadzin. Uh, he's a British actor, and he's known for roles um in shows like Purple Hearts, Red, White, and Royal Uh Blue, and and another thing called The Idea of You. And to be honest, I haven't seen any of those. I don't know him from Bar of Soap. So I guess he's being cast into a role that requires uh, you know, somebody with a really big kind of um presence. So it's gonna be interesting to see how that film goes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, look, I hope it does okay. I don't like to see any movie fail, but it it was never for me as a cartoon, it was never for me as a movie, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, it is it is a pretty niche kind of um storyline, I suppose, is the best way to do it. However, having said that, I mean we've seen some Avengers films coming out, and you think, oh, why am I watching this thing about an ant and a wasp? You know, and but but the film works, you know. So I guess we'll wait and see, folks. We'll wait and see. Um, look, there's another big movie on, and when I say big, it's kind of a worldwide thing, um, which is a
Amazing Digital Circus Goes Big Screen
SPEAKER_01cartoon. Now, this is gonna be something we're gonna talk about a bit more in the show, but this movie's called The Amazing Digital Circus, and it's called The Last Act. Now, do you know anything about the Amazing Digital Circus, Brink?
SPEAKER_02No, I do not, sorry.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and you're probably not alone. Um, look, the Amazing Digital Circus is a YouTube show. It has um eight episodes, I believe, on uh YouTube. I've actually sat down and watched them all because I would did a bit of research. I wanted to get in behind it and find out more about it so I could actually relate to what I was um you know doing at the cinema. And I've got to say, I actually found it quite interesting. It's it's weird, but it's not it's not horrible. Like it's just about a bunch of people who have basically been sucked into from the real world into a digital world where they can't remember who they are, they don't really know much about their previous lives, they don't remember their names, and they're all given random names, and they have to work together in the what they call the digital circus, which is being controlled by an AI. So it's a worldwide phenomenon, and it's actually been put out uh pretty independently. We really had to struggle to get the film actually approved. It it took a lot of uh emails and phone calls to get it because we knew it was being released. We were getting asked about it, like many, many cinemas, and so we managed to track it down and get it. So um it did open today, and it's done pretty well. It was actually the number one cinema, uh sorry, the number one movie in the country up until about um two hours ago. Oh, okay. So it raked in a heck of a lot of money on its first thing, but the question is, will it be very niche? Um, but look, I saw as I say, it's uh come from a YouTube story, which is really, really interesting. I believe the animation is done out of Australia, but the story itself is written by the writer in America, so it's a bit of a uh international collaboration.
SPEAKER_02All right, well, we'll see how that goes. YouTube seems to be making it bigger on the big screen than the big screen on the big screen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we are gonna talk about it out at the end. Okay, yeah, before we get to that, um another movie that's popped out today uh is called The Christophers.
The Christophers British Indie Highlight
SPEAKER_01Now, this is a really cool-looking British film. It's basically stars Sir Ian McCallan. Uh, he is a painter, he's a quite a famous painter. He is his works were selling for two to three million pounds, and he wrote did this series of um images and pictures called The Christophers, and he never finished them. So his he's getting to the end of his life, and his conniving children decide that what they're gonna do is they're gonna get a forger to come in, befriend him, get these unfinished Christopher paintings, and finish them, and then they're going to discover them on his death, and of course, this all comes out, and uh then it gets a bit sort of bit more um interesting from there. But as I said, Ian McCallan, uh better known as Gandalf to most New Zealanders, he is an excellent, excellent actor, and look, this film is a real gem, a real hit. So it may not make a lot of money, but I would recommend the Christopher's if you're interested in seeing a really good, solid British film.
SPEAKER_02That sounds really good. I'll put that on my list.
SPEAKER_01A couple things we're gonna talk about um today. Uh, we usually don't get too in depth, but I this is to me, this is a really interesting thing.
YouTube Movies Disrupting Hollywood
SPEAKER_01So we talked about the movie uh The Amazing Digital Circus. Now there's two other films that are currently playing in the New Zealand box office, and I think they deserve a bit of recognition. The first one is, of course, Backrooms. Now we talked about backrooms previously. Um, the backrooms was again started on YouTube. Uh a young guy, uh, I think from memory, he's in his early 20s at the moment. Uh, but he made this thing called The Backrooms, developed all the law, created on YouTube. It's he's managed to springboard that into a film, and now that film's actually done massive, massive numbers internationally, dethroning all of the Hollywood blockbusters, making uh over a hundred million dollars in the States. Now that's a huge result for a pretty much a first-time filmmaker. And there's another film that we aren't showing, but we are actually going to be getting uh eventually, is called Obsession. Now, have you heard of this one? Oh look, Obsession is really interesting. So basically, again, uh made by a YouTuber. Um, and these movies, both these movies have been made on really tight budgets. Um, the Back Rooms was made on I from memory, I think it was about $30 million, which is not a lot of money in the filmmaking world, but Obsession was made for much, much, much less. We're talking pennies on the dollar, and it has made a hundred million dollars. There are big changes afoot in our industry where young filmmakers and young YouTubers are developing from just YouTube to getting their own content onto screens, and this is shaking up Hollywood right now. I can tell you, that's gonna make a big, big difference in the way we see films going forward. Um, that's not to say every YouTube uh movie or every YouTube guy can create a woman, can create a uh a Hollywood blockbuster, but because they have often have such big followings, they have built-in audiences. It's not like it's almost like I guess you'd put it in the way that back in the day you had these big stars like Clark Gable, and people really followed Clark Gable. Um YouTube um actors and YouTube shows, this is that sort of thing. They have a built-in audience of followers who are prepared to put their money down when they put something out on the big screen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think you know, it's like it's built-in marketing, right? Because you don't have to raise awareness because if you've got you know a few million followers on your YouTube channel, your marketing's already done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And you're direct marketing to those people, and some of these YouTubers have you know a hundred million followers. You know, there's this instant and easy way for them to communicate direct to the base who are gonna go and see the movie, and they are absolutely working that really well at the moment. And we've had um like amazing digital circus, we had so many people ringing us asking if we were going to play it before we even knew this was a movie, and it hadn't even been approved for New Zealand at that point. Whereas um the other two films, uh, they were on the slate to come out. But again, I just think they were completely underestimated because the thing with obsession, and this is a very rare thing, every week when a movie comes out, we have basically what we call the drop. You know, week one movie comes out, maybe it makes uh $100,000. Week two, it drops by 30%, it makes $70,000. Week three, it drops by 70% again or 30% again, and it's just diminishing returns. Obsession opened and it has made more money and more money and more money every week, and it's now on its fourth week. And I've just looked at the numbers earlier tonight, and it has outgrossed its previous Thursday and it's outgrossed its previous Friday for the fourth week in a row. Oh wow, it's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, and I'm kind of disappointed I didn't have the film already playing in my cinema. However, because we've got the French Film Festival playing, and that takes up a lot of bandwidth, we really couldn't fit every single film we wanted to take. So we just had to delay those films. But they still come and people will still get to see them, so that's great.
The Tuner Recommendation
SPEAKER_02I saw another movie I just want to quickly mention too, called The Tuner. Have you seen that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I haven't seen it, but we are showing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is a great movie. It's got Dustin Hoffman in it. It's got the guy, a young guy who's in Nuremberg, who I think's gonna be an absolute superstar. He is fantastic in this movie about a guy with he has an issue with his hearing, but he can tune pianos and nose notes perfectly. And he sort of gets recruited by these guys to crack safes because he just has to put his ear up and he can hear all the tumblers dropping in and all that. It was great. I really loved it. So if you have a chance, the tune it is something you should see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, absolutely. And um, I I will be checking that out when I get back to the cinema um very soon. Um just away from
Sequel Fatigue And Franchise Forecasts
SPEAKER_01that at the moment. But um the other thing I just want to touch base on as well is uh something we very briefly talked about after the show last time, which was the amount of sequels that are coming out and sequel fatigue. Now, at the end of the year, we all know that we've got the big doomsday movie coming out, the Avengers Doomsday. And I've got to say, I'm I'm very worried at the moment that that may struggle, given the fact that it's going up against Dune Part 3 in the same week. And I I worry that we have you know superhero fatigue. But at the same time, you know, we've got in June, we've got Milana coming out, which is the live action, and we know that those live action movies have been a bit diminishing returns recently. We've got Toy Story 5, which I know that a lot of people are kind of interested in seeing, but that movie is now a 30-year-old franchise, and then you've got minions and monsters, and again, minions and monsters is a spin-off from the um Despicable Me movies. So, yeah, there's all people keep saying they want new, they want fresh, they want something uh new, you know, they want new content, they don't want to see all these um part twos, part threes. I think that this year, the three kids' films we've got coming up for school holidays, which is The Minions and Monsters, The Toy Story, and The Moana, will absolutely dominate the box office. I'm pretty confident knowing Dune, bear in mind Dune is now Dune Part Three, that will dominate the box office. I have a question mark over um Doomsday, though.
SPEAKER_02That'll be fascinating up against that movie. I mean, and we've also got you know Supergirl coming up, but we have got something original, disclosure day, which I'm looking forward to. Steven Spielberg.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, and uh a friend of mine has actually watched the movie, uh watched it two days ago, gave me a call and gave me a bit of a chat about it. Um, and he was pretty positive. Uh I'm not going to get into what he said, but he was pretty positive about it. And he basically said it's look, it's it's definitely that old school Steven Spielberg. And I guess that brings us to another question. You, me, we grew up on Steven Spielberg movies, but he hasn't really had a big hit with young people in, say, the last 15, maybe even 20 years. So is the nostalgia going to be more about people wanting to go and see this movie uh of a certain age? Is it gonna be the sort of 40 pluses who are gonna go and see Disclosure Day? Is it gonna play too um too old? Is it gonna is it gonna appeal to young people? It's a real good question.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, we'll see how it goes, but I definitely will be seeing it because the trailers make it look fascinating and classic Spielberg, which I think we're missing. It's the movies that we loved. Raiders at Lost Ark, ET, Jaws, Close Encounter with just, you know, that change cinema is along with Star Wars. So I'll definitely be heading along to it for sure.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's another um sequel film that's also opening, uh opens next week. Um, and that is Scary Movie Six.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right. Okay.
SPEAKER_01And I've got to say, I actually think that movie's gonna do quite well. It probably will. This is this is where the question is is it gonna play to young people? I think this movie will play to the younger younger crowds. I think a lot of younger crowds have found scary movies on streaming, um, and they've certainly done a really good mark way of marketing, saying that they will cross every single line of good taste in this film.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, at least they're honest because that's what they do.
SPEAKER_01Look, um they are formulaic, but I suspect that there'll be something new and that we'll all get a laugh if if you're a scary movie fan. And of course, there's another one coming out. Again, this is this whole theme of movies that are just coming out over and over and over again. Jackass is releasing its uh movie called The Best and Last.
SPEAKER_02I wish it was the last plenty of times ago.
SPEAKER_01Well, they've been doing it 20 plus years now, and um, their bodies are getting a bit old. They're just like us, mate. They're they're a bit older, they're a bit wiser, their health insurance is more expensive. So uh it's definitely gonna be interesting to see how that movie goes. Because again, is a bunch of very old dudes, you know, hitting themselves in the face and smacking themselves in the nuts really gonna appeal. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Who knows? Not for me. I didn't even like the show when it came out.
SPEAKER_01So look, well, we've got plenty of time to talk about it, but also we're you know, there's uh another Spider-Man movie coming out towards the end of the year that's gonna be very, very popular. And um, at some point very soon, probably in um uh early uh late July or early August, we're gonna start talking about the Cat Video Fest for 2026 because the tickets are on sale for that now. So if you're a cat lover, get out and uh get tickets for Cat Video Fest. But we will talk more about that on the next show.
SPEAKER_02That has been huge overseas, by the way. Cat video. Absolutely, it's done amazing box office numbers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for a bunch of cat videos that have been curated, unreal. But look, we will we will talk about that more in in a
Predicting Masters Of The Universe
SPEAKER_01future show. Prediction time, right? Prediction time. Okay, so we are gonna predict what we think uh Masters of the Universe is going to do. So, Brent, um now I'm gonna give you one hint because I did, unfortunately, when I was doing a bit of research for tonight, I did see some numbers. So I I'm gonna be shooting low. That's that's my initial thought. However, however, it is pouring with rain across New Zealand, so maybe shoot high.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a bit of a tricky one. I don't I don't know how, as you say, how's it gonna play? The nostalgia, people who love He-Man, are they gonna see it? Younger audience gonna see it. I'm not sure. So I'm gonna say 450,000. Probably high anyway.
SPEAKER_01450,000, right. Lock it in. Lock it in. Okay, 450,000. Look, I agree. One of the things I always talk to filmmakers about um when I'm sort of giving them some sort of feedback from an exhibition perspective is who is your audience? And is it have you segmented your movie down to an audience uh making it so small that your return won't be very big? And I've got to say, I am nervous that the film will struggle, um, just purely because you know it's it's an IP that hasn't really been out there for a very long time, and and its audience are let's be realistic, its audience are in their 40s. So I'm gonna say um I'm gonna say it does $400,000. Yeah, I'm not optimistic on this one, but I would love to be proven wrong. I'm always happy to be proven wrong.
SPEAKER_02Awesome.
Wrap Up And Where To Listen
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you very much. That's it's a show. It's done, and we'll uh next time we chat, we may have large amounts of egg on our face from Masters of the Universe.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to Eat Sleep Movie. Repeat, repeat a movie podcast available at Bun Sprut, Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.