Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

[Mike Blakesley]

We played this one because here in the fall of 3022 there is literally nothing else to play. Well, the way this movie is performing, we’d have been better off playing “nothing.”

On opening night we had four people. Worst crowd ever for an opening night despite playing the trailer quite a bit this summer. About 40% of patrons have walked out (some in the first half hour) and only a very few folks have said they liked the movie.

My wife watched the movie and said it’s not all that bad, but she thinks people are hating it because they are expecting a different kind of story than the movie delivers. I think it’s probably that, plus it’s really not a “small town” kind of movie. We’d have probably done better with “Beast” or something.

[Frank Cox]

If you're anything like here, you wouldn't have done any better with Beast. After paying Universal I had a "profit" of $13 for the week.

On the other hand, those who came to see it said they liked it, there was just damn few of them.

I'm playing Don't Worry Darling next so we'll see what happens. I have had several people asking about it, so that's a good sign.

[James Wyrembelski]

Really, not a bad film. The majority of folks here walk out not understanding it one bit which I don't understand. I grasped the film quite well and yes, you will have questions after. But, I like films like that. It does spark conversation after viewing it.

Our best showing was Sunday afternoon with a grand total of 15 for that particular show time. The rest have all been single digits. I don't think films during covid performed this badly. "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris" the previous week garnered more patrons. Which is odd to say given it was already two months old and had very little marketing. Not even the mulitplex cinemas near me touched it, yet it performed better....

[Mike Blakesley]

I found out that our neighboring theater only had ONE person for their opening night showing of "Don't Worry Darling." To their credit, they still played the movie. (We would have, too.... but the previous management of that theater wouldn't play a show for less than four people.)

Last night we had a zero.

I think people are coming in thinking it's a romantic comedy or at least a romantic drama. The poster conveys that, for sure. I also think the title is terrible, it's not exactly a grabber.

Gonna be a long two weeks, only 9 days to go.

[Frank Cox]

I always play a movie for whoever shows up. If that's one person, then that one person gets to see the show.

I figure they made the effort to come here so I should make the effort to provide them with what they came for.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I think it's a dick move not to play a movie if only a handful of people show up for the show... like Frank indicated, those who did show up, made the effort and invested their money and time to show up. You may not make any money that night, but you hardly can blame those who actually supported your business by buying tickets.

And since you sold tickets that night, you effectively already committed to the costs of being open that night, including staff. Most of your energy costs usually come from getting the place to an agreable temperature, so those costs also have been largely made. Essentially, your only effective gain will be not running your projector, server and sound equipment for about two and a half hours.

As for the movie... the wife liked it pretty much... I really didn't. I've seen it last Saturday and there were about 7 people in the room. Pretty miserable for such a prime time show. I think the title is dead wrong to begin with. Like Mike indicated, the poster looks like you're going to see a romantic drama and the title probably doesn't help either.

I think the initial setup of the movie isn't all that bad, but it drags on in this mistery mode way too long, essentially repeating itself, without resolving anything more of the mistery or adding to the story. Without throwing in too many spoilers, but I found the eventual "payoff" to be pretty miserable and too much inspired by recent hype around a particular subject...

[Mike Blakesley]

I always play a movie for whoever shows up. If that's one person, then that one person gets to see the show.

Same here. If it's somebody we know, they will often volunteer to leave and come back another night, but in most cases we've already got office work or something like that lined up, so we don't mind staying anyway.

[Jim Cassedy]

I haven't had a chance to watch this other than to spend a few minutes in the
auditorium on opening night to check the sound levels. But the ticket sales
haven't exactly been overwhelming. The venue I'm at shows a mixture of old
and new titles in both digital & 35/70mm, and so far, D-W-D seems to have
the lowest box office sales of anything we've played all week.

Here's some fun numbers~ On Tuesday of this week, the first two D-W-D
shows drew a total of 12people. On the same day, in the same auditorium:
"Monty Python & The Holy Grail" drew over 300 people, and the show after
that ("Shakedown [1988- in 35mm] ) drew 81, or more than D-W-D did all day.

> The previous evening, a showing of "Evil Twins" [Hammer/1971] from an
extremely faded Eastmancolor 35mm print that had more pink & red hues
than an explosion at a flamingo farm, also pulled in just over 80people.

In fact, we probably could have run a festival of SMPTE test loops & sold
more tickets than D-W-D did on most evenings this week.

[Frank Cox]

I'm playing this movie starting tomorrow night so I don't know what sort of a crowd it'll bring, but I watched it myself last night and my initial impression was not very favourable.

Anyone who comes to see this thinking they're going to be seeing a romance will be disappointed. This is not that by any means.

After thinking about it over the course of today I've come around to the opinion that my initial impression might have been partially wrong. It's definitely a feminist movie with an anti-men message in it (an anti-certain type of men message at least) and you definitely need to be cleared for weird.

On the positive side it sure looks good, and the message is, I suppose, acceptable within the context of the presentation, but it's not what I'd call a mass market type of movie.

I don't think it's a crappy movie. It isn't a great movie, and it's definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea (or in this case, cup of coffee, two eggs and bacon) but it's ok for what it is.

Unfortunately, I don't think it will be what people will be expecting to see when they come to the show.

[Mike Blakesley]

We had a whole family (with adult kids + girlfriends/boyfriends) come to it last night and they all thought it was great.

I have found that if we tell people going in that it's NOT a chick flick or a romance, but that it IS a psychological thriller, we get better results. At least, we haven't had any walkouts since we've started telling people that. And last night was our best crowd yet, we finally grossed over $100 on a night with this movie. This one's going to be our lowest-grossing "new" movie in history.

[Frank Cox]

I take it that you never played The Majestic (2001), then? I did less than $50 for an entire week with that one.

I've actually had a positive response to Don't Worry Darling. Twelve people on Friday, eleven on Saturday and everyone said they thought it was pretty good (and pretty weird) on the way out, so that's a good sign for the rest of the week.