Movie Nation

Deadline.com, one of the places I go for Box Office projections and updates — has been steadily walking back its “EXCLUSIVES” about what “Ant Man and the Wasp” was going to pull in this weekend.

The fourth Marvel release this year “might hit $120, 130,” was the call last weekend, early this week.

Thursday, that dropped to “$94-100.” Then $88.

Now, “$81 million” is their very bestest “exclusive” projection, based on a good Thursday and a less than overwhelming Friday. That’s a nice uptick from 2015’s “Ant Man.” But a seriously plummet in what was almost certainly Disney/Marvel’s high flying expectations, based on everything else they’ve thrown against the way this wall this year.

They’re walking expectations backward on this so fast you’d swear it was an Olympic event.

“Ant Man and The Wasp” is shaping up as Marvel’s “Solo,” a sort of humbling sidebar the march to total Marvel box office dominance. It’ll open far less than “record breaking,” and die a quicker than expected death. My “exclusive.”

“The First Purge” is pulling in fans and over-performing. A decent Tuesday night, big Wed. and solid Thursday have this blackspoilation installment in the political satire splatter/slasher film series looking at clearing $30, maybe hitting $35 by midnight Sunday. It cost $13, so understandably, Universal and the production team are on a champagne bender (or should be) with that news.

That should soften the blow that the steep fall-off in interest in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” engenders. “Incredibles 2” passed it late week, and stands to edge the dinosaurs this weekend, even though “Incredibles” have been in theaters a week longer.

“Sicario 2” is taking a 50% hit, “Uncle Drew” a 60% plus one.

“Deadpool 2” is winding up its Top Ten run short of $325, “Tag” is about to clear $50, “Ocean’s 8” won’t reach $150 (not bad, $135 all-in, I figure, in a week or two).

And “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” added hundreds of screens and will crack the top ten. See it if you’re suffering from blockbuster fatigue. 

Deadline.com is projecting “Ant Man and The Wasp” managed over $11 million on Thursday, which puts it on track to do $95 million.

Great, right? Sure, “Guardians of the Galaxy” numbers, double “Ant Man” which did over $6 on a Thursday three years ago. Better than “Doctor Strange.”

Except that this one had pre-weekend projections of over $110, as high as $130. It could still wind up there, but I saw it with a half-house paying audience in Flyover, America, Thursday night. That audience, myself included? “The Quiet Ones.” I figure word-of-mouth on this one could label it “Wait for Netflix.”

Marvel is WAY overdue for its “Solo.” I panned it. And I was far FAR from alone. 

It’ll do decent box office. If the last two tedious “Avengers” could make bank, why wouldn’t it? The “audience” is a little late on the “Hey, these are all pretty much the same, the brand is totally watered down and the directing and acting are boilerplate. And the scripts?” Late late late to get the hint.

“The First Purge” cost about $13, has a political satiric edge and a blacksploitation vibe, and did $2.5 Tuesday night, over $9 million Tuesday night/Wed. 

Maybe $30, $35 by midnight Sunday? Winna winna chicken dinner.

I’ll update this as all of Thursday’s numbers roll in.

I think I’ve posted one trailer for this one already, the movie about the bums’ rush Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice and Powell gave America and the world in their rush to turn a Saudi/Pakistani-Afghan-enabled attack on America as an excuse to invade Iraq.

But the DC-based newspaper wire service (a former employer of mine) has posted a timeline of the groundbreaking reporting on that which drives the movie, reporting that America mostly chose to ignore, as it did all the Russian collusion stuff leading up to the 2016 election.

Here’s the trailer for “Shock and Awe,” which opens July 13 in some markets.

Yeah, it’s a daft-looking all-star film fantasy spinoff of the tale that inspired the Holiday Ballet that You Must See Because it’s Good For You. Keira and Dame Helen.

And Morgan Freeman.

Awk-WARD.

“Ant Man,” the popcorn shrimp of summer popcorn pictures, becomes “Ant Man and The Wasp” as a sequel — twice the super-heroes in the title, less than half the laughs and thrills.

It’s the most underwhelming of the year’s endless parade of comic book blockbusters, limply-scripted, emotionally lacking and perfunctorily-acted. Any pleasure one took from Paul Rudd‘s gee-whiz “LOOKIT what I can do” turn in his first performance (performances) in the part is washed away long before he takes a dip in San Francisco Bay. Expecting Evangeline Lilly to do half the lifting is the worst kind of wishful thinking.

If you can’t find somebody more original than Walton Goggins (“Tomb Raider,” “Maze Runner,” “Hateful Eight”) to be your villain, try again.

If you can’t cut a trailer that doesn’t give away EVERY sight gag, don’t bother.

If you can’t think beyond that hoary dialogue cliche when the team is stumped about a place to hide or a new character to save them, hire five better writers than this.

“Well, there is ONE place.” “Well, there is ONE person.”

Ant Man Scott (Rudd) is still under house arrest for what he and “Cap” (Captain America) and their team did to Berlin fighting The Avengers. The inventor of the shrinking tech Pym (Michael Douglas) and his Wasp daughter (Evangeline Lilly) are on the lam.

But they have a multi-story lab that shrinks to the size of a carry-on, and a Hot Wheels carrying case full of snazzy vehicles they can blow up to usable size. And they have a mission — find Professor Pym’s missing wife, mother of Hope (Lilly), who disappeared into The Quantum Realm, shrunken so small you can barely tell she’s played by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Scott might know where she is. That ankle monitor the FBI (Randall Park) has on him? A trifling inconvenience, as indeed are the Feds in general.

More of a problem is Sonny Burch (Goggins, the Tiffany Haddish of screen villains), a black market technology trader who covets that lab. Even more problematic is Ghost, this masked thief (Hannah John-Kamen) who is impossible to fight, because she’s…a ghost.

It’s a film of LOOooong bursts of exposition — delivered by Park, Douglas, Lawrence Fishburne, etc. — and precious few laughs. Rudd, an Apatow Pack alumnus, where “The Best Joke on the Set Wins,” gets a screenwriting credit (with four others). None of them can find much of anything funny for him to do or say.

Michael Peña, back as ex-con sidekick Luis, has the funniest scene, an antic interrogation that begins with a spirited patter-debate on whether there is such a thing as “truth serum.” He delivers back-story and exposition in a breathless Red Bull/cocaine jag inspired by the drunken lip-synced voice-overs of TV’s “Drunk History.” It’s hysterical.

The rest? A little novelty, a cute kid (Abby Ryder Forson), and endless sight-gags dealing with scale — tiny to HUGE, microbe to giant, human to hobbit.

There are pointless, humorless arguments over the whether the correct phrase is “land this fish” or “land this bird,” and Hope remembering the wardrobe “where I hid EVERY time Mom and I played hide and seek.”

Rudd’s wittiest comeback? “It seems to you didn’t really get the GIST of the game.”

Lilly has even less to say, and isn’t the least bit amusing saying it.

Good things come in small packages and life’s little pleasures are to be treasured, but “Ant Man and The Wasp” — together, equal-billed and boring — are too little of a good thing.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sci-fi action violence

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Pfeiffer, Lawrence Fishburne and Michael Douglas

Credits:Directed by Peyton Reed, script by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari. A Marvel/Walt Disney release.

Running time: 1:58

Matt Dillon is the kindly doctor who takes in the mixed-race orphan (Ryan Potter) who pines for the pretty blonde (Olivia Ritchie) at the plantation down the road in this (August 17 release) drama.

Jim Caviezel plays a tippling physician who gets in the way of True Love.

Hard to get a feel for this David L. Cunningham film, though its themes suggest an earlier era in interracial romance “forbidden love” in the movies. Quaint, even,

A healthy evening opening across America for “The First Purge” comprised about $2.5 million in ticket sales, per Deadline.com. 

It might manage $30 million or so on its opening half-week and weekend.

“Ant-Man and The Wasp” is set for yet another epic worldwide opening, $85-100 in North America alone.

Reviews have been kind, but with the string of over-performing comic book films this year. will audiences shell out for yet another? Of course they will.

“Incredibles 2” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and May’s holdovers made this the biggest June ever, and biggest second quarter of the year ever at the box office. That follows a first quarter driven by “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”

Quite a change from last year’s “Is this the end of cinema?” collapse.

Jay-Z and Paramount put together this limited docu-series, about the South Florida teen whose family visit to Sanford, FL ended in tragedy and infamy. A 2012 case and it still resonates. July 30 on BET (per Gizmodo media) and Paramount Network. Looks in depth, as it should be. Searing, an examination of the endless American race schism.

(A review of episode one of the series is here)

He finds her in the tub, waiting to die. She doesn’t.

“Why do you like me?”  Daisy (Jordan Hinson, who scripted the film) asks.

“Because you’re young and rich and beautiful and you haven’t called the cops” is really the only answer Harry (Milo Gibson, Son of Mel) doesn’t reply. But should have.

Directed by “Twilight” actor turned director Peter Facinelli, “Breaking & Exiting” opens Aug 17. Limited release.

This small-distributor horror film/thriller was picked up at Sundance and earns a limited release Aug. 10.

Kind of “It” without the supernatural element, without every adult clueless to the threat.

Promising. 

“All serial killers live next door to somebody.”