On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Brent Lang breaks down a busy weekend at the turnstiles as “Scary Movie” returned for its first installment in 13 years – and the first in 25 years with a Wayans at the helm. And it was a truly scary weekend for Amazon MGM Studios’ “Masters of the Universe,” which stumbled in its opening weekend.
Lang noted that it was not a given that “Scary Movie” would resonate with contemporary audiences.
“It was a little surprising because I would have thought that the audience had kind of aged out of this,” Lang said. “But then again, it’s parody. It’s parodying horror films, and horror films are more popular than they’ve ever been. There’s been a lot of material, you know, from ‘Sinners’ to ‘Weapons’ to ‘The Purge’ for them to really get into. So there’s a lot of new stuff, new fodder. And I think clearly people want to laugh. And that’s kind of exciting too, because maybe this will bring back R-rated comedies, which is a genre that Hollywood’s really gotten out of the business of making. I’m hopeful this will kind of bring people back to theaters if they want to laugh, too.”
As for “Masters of the Universe,” it was a big drop from “Barbie,” the 2023 smash that launched Mattel’s new film stratey.
“This is a real stumble. This is a movie that costs $200 million to make. So it was extremely expensive and it only it made less than $30 million. Now, at any other studio that would be a cause of great panic and consternation,” Lang says. “This is a little different because Amazon does have this have a streaming platform, and they say they assess the results of their films differently, that they’re trying to drive viewers to Prime Video. That said, people don’t greenlight movies for $200 million expecting an opening like this. And I think the property was just very old. I mean, I’m in my 40s and ‘Masters of the Universe’ was a big thing when I was a kid. So I’m not sure younger people really felt a sense of urgency to go see this.”
Listen to Daily Variety on iHeartPodcasts, Apple Podcasts, Variety’s YouTube Podcast channel, Amazon Music, Spotify and other podcast platforms.
Leave a Reply