Semantic Nonsense: Netflix and Chilled Takes

Netflix “Chill” Concession Box

While I wasn’t looking, Netflix had unleashed a series of themed movie night kits to coincide with new releases they wanted to hype up. I had done such a good job not noticing them that by the time they appeared on my radar they were only offering a generic version. That being said, I’m just happy to see something from Walmart’s collaboration with Netflix that wasn’t Stranger Things related. Not that I hate the show, but it seems like it makes up 200% of Netflix’s merch.

By carefully (at least, more carefully than I did) punching out the perforated sections and doing a little bit of papercraft, the packaging becomes a small tray rather similar to your local theater’s kid combo trays. There’s a space to pour in some popcorn, a drink holder and a spot for a packaged snack.

Naturally, the box comes with exactly what you need to fill out the tray. The review model included a small bag of The Popcorn Factory popcorn (meh), two packs of Funables mixed berry fruit snacks (pretty good!), and a pair of plastic cups for low-temperature beverages (beverages not included).

Unfortunately, the eponymous “chill” refers to those cups, rather than nookie. While anything but cold drinks for this “chill” would be an unreasonable expectation given the nature of the product, the disappointment was still so thick you could cut it with a knife. Go big or go home, Netflix.

While it was fun to go through the motions, I can’t imagine the novelty being worth doing repeatedly. I have far tastier popcorn options, wouldn’t necessarily want fruit snacks every time, and can get plenty of both for less than the cost of a box. If I find that I cannot live without the handyness of a kiddie combo tray, I should probably go out of my way to buy something reusable.

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Barbenhimer busting blocks

It’s only been three weeks, but Barbie seems to have a stranglehold for the year’s best-performing movie. Its billion-dollar box global office is breathing down the neck of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and has enough legs to blow past it when all will be said and done.

Its release day BFF, Oppenheimer, has only pulled in half as much money but is still doing strong enough business it could easily come in at No. 3 ahead of The Little Mermaid, Across the Spider-Verse, Fast X and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Though it’ll have to fend off a hot new Mission Impossible movie to do so.

Looking at the competition’s numbers makes me think a little, though. While I was happy to see Spider-Verse get more eyeballs than the previous movie, and Fast X is holding the line at $700+ million, things seem a little off with Disney’s offerings.

The Little Mermaid‘s $566 million (and counting, though its remaining days are very numbered) is nothing to sneeze at, but the other three live-action remakes of movies from the Disney Renaissance all broke $1 billion.

Guardians Vol. 3 doubled-up on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to be the top MCU film of the 2023 so far, but $845 million is less than what Vol. 2 made and doesn’t even put it in the top half of the MCU films since Spider-Man: No Way Home loudly announced that everyone was done letting the pandemic keep them out of movie theaters.

It’s probably well too early to panic. But things sure look like they’re petering out for Disney’s golden geese. I don’t think it’s about quality, either. Say what you will about Ant-Man, but Guardians Vol. 3 was fantastic and it still couldn’t escape the downswing unscathed.

(And if you REALLY want to talk about quality, let me point out that Meg 2: The Trench is on the verge of out-earning The Flash‘s entire run in two weeks. People seem to be more sick of bad superhero movies than bad shark movies.)

I think there is one simple answer to why superheroes and Disney’s live-action remake machine are faltering while other tentpole movies from established franchises are performing well that also explains the success of Barbie, Oppenhiemer and, yes, even Mario: Movie audiences are plenty ready for a break from what they’ve been seeing multiple times a year every year. Meanwhile, the Mission Impossible and Fast franchises can keep their pace because we only get one of them each year at most. No need to overthink it.

Perhaps the acting and writing strikes will be blessings in disguise for Disney as it will force them to stretch their release schedule and give audiences a much-needed breather from its assembly line franchises. Time will tell.

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Evangelion 3.0 +1.11’s final task

While I don’t really have much to say on the subject, it seemed right to cap off my coverage of the long slog Rebuild of Evangalion’s final movie has taken to existence, and then to North America with this one final step in its journey.

At long last, we have an official release day for the movie’s home media release in North America: October 17. You can buy it on Blu-ray or 4K Blu-ray only; it’s time for any DVD holdouts to take their own next step if they want their Eva. The 4K version is only available as part of a considerably more expensive collector’s edition that also comes with a poster, booklet and art cards. GKIDS is handling publishing duties, but I’ve seen pre-order pages up on Amazon and Best Buy as well.

Heaven only knows if they gave the awful subtitles a quality pass, though. At least 3.0 + 1.11‘s were the least butchered of the four movies’ Amazon releases.