This is your weekly digest for recent film industry news that caught my attention for the week of 08.11.2026.
This Past Weekend In New Movies
This past weekend was a super busy one for major new film releases, thanks to three weeks of studios trying to stay out of the way of The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s behemoth box offices. But even with so many releases, it was an incredibly quiet weekend aside from the continuing big grosses for the event films studios were avoiding. The bizarre rom-com built around the concept of a world where single people can only have sex once per year, One Night Only, received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and mixed-to-positive scores from audiences while floundering at the box office with just under $6 million in its domestic opening. Among critics, the film has a bad 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and a lowly 43 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a “meh” 74% on the Popcornmeter, a lowly 2.9 on Letterboxd, a mediocre 6.4 on IMDb, and a B+ CinemaScore. I personally hated this movie, and you can read my D+ review if you haven’t yet.
Searchlight Pictures, meanwhile, decided to release Super Troopers 3, a follow-up to the sequel of the 2001 cult comedy classic. It seemingly floundered at the box office as well, as it seems this franchise is just too niche to make much of an impact. This film also got mixed-to-negative reactions among critics and mixed-to-positive reactions among audiences. Among critics, it got a mixed 49% on Rotten Tomatoes and a pathetic 37 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a “meh” 70% on the Popcornmeter, a lowly 2.7 on Letterboxd, a mediocre 6.2 on IMDb, and a B- CinemaScore. Personally, I found this one to be just as mediocre as the second film and would give it a C+ grade.
A24, meanwhile, started their weeks-long slow rollout of the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony, and it was generally a good hit at the specialty box office. The film has been met with good critical reviews and audience scores. Among critics, it has a great 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and a decent 75 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a solid 3.8 on Letterboxd and a solid 7.7 on IMDb, with Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter needing to take in more of a sample size over the next few weeks. I have yet to watch this one, as A24 didn’t bother to screen it for my market’s critics, and it won’t be reaching my area for a few more weeks.
The third Jane Schoenbrun queer horror film, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, also had a decent showing at the specialty box office as MUBI (not Neon, as I continuously kept incorrectly pegging as its distributor) began their slow rollout over the next few weeks. Critics are pretty euphoric about this one, while audiences so far seem to be pretty positive on it as well. Among critics, it has an amazing 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and a euphoric 89 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a solid 3.9 on Letterboxd and a decent 7.1 on IMDb, with this film also needing to gather more of a sample size for the Popcornmeter over the next few weeks. Like with Tony, MUBI has not bothered to screen this to my market’s critics, and it won’t be coming to my area for the next few weeks, so I can’t comment on my own thoughts on it just yet.
Using a super small distributor of horror items and limited theatrical releases, Eli Roth’s latest over-the-top horror flick, Ice Cream Man, premiered to awful critical and audience scores. Among critics, it has a pathetic 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and an equally pathetic 37 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a mixed 51% on the Popcornmeter, a horrific 1.5 on Letterboxd, and a horrendous 3.8 on IMDb. I have to echo those sentiments, as I found this to be a full-blown disaster of a film that I gave a D+ grade to.
The indie flick Late Fame, about an aging poet played by William Dafoe who ends up finding some new life as the inspiration for a couple of actors including one played by Greta Lee, began its own slow rollout around the country as it received decent critical reviews and audience scores. Among critics, it has a great 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and an equally great 80 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a decent 3.4 on Letterboxd and a decent 6.8 on IMDb, with not enough of a sample size to get a Popcornmeter score just yet.
Netflix’s The Last House came straight-to-streaming, offering a counterprogramming option as a thriller about a family that cannot leave their physical home due to strange alien occurrences outside. The movie was met with awful critical and audience scores. Among critics, it has a pathetic 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and a lowly 45 on Metacritic. Among audiences, it has a pathetic 28% on the Popcornmeter, an awful 2.2 on Letterboxd, and a bad 5.6 on IMDb. I have to agree with the consensus here, as I found this to be an incredible bore fest filled with some pretty glaring logical fallacies and gave it a C- grade as well.
This Next Weekend In New Movies
Next weekend is looking to be pretty busy, but not anywhere near as busy as this past weekend, with The End Of Oak Street leading the pack of new titles. The Warner Brothers film is about a suburban family who suddenly finds themselves dodging dinosaurs in their neighborhood streets. As a creature feature guy, I am very interested in this one and will be reviewing it once I see it later this week (once again, Warner Brothers stiffing Tampa critics who could use a screening). There has been some controversy regarding an awful AI-generated dog-themed commercial selling the film to dog lovers, but I’m not going to let bad marketing affect my interest in a film.
I’ll also be writing up a review for Black Bear’s presumed top Best Picture contender for the year, The Rivals Of Amziah King, Andrew Patterson’s follow-up to one of my absolute favorite films of 2020, The Vast Of Night. I cannot wait to see this, as it was once considered a major potential player for a Best Picture slot and is now a huge underdog to get any recognition at all.
Angel Studios will be pushing out a biopic about President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s nuclear talks, called The Brink Of War. I’ve commented on this before, but Angel Studios usually has some really mediocre faith-based films. I do tend to walk away from their biopic dramas barely entertained enough to be positive on them, though, so I’ll have to give this a try at my local theater as well.
We’re also getting a brand-new PAW Patrol movie, PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, which I was shocked to see my market didn’t get a critics screening for. I’ll try to go ahead and give this one a look, given I already watched the previous two, but I would be surprised if it’s any better than either of them.
And finally, Netflix will have a new dramedy coming straight-to-streaming in Don’t Say Good Luck, which I will also be watching and reporting back on.
Recent Film Industry News That Caught My Attention
The Paramount and Warner Brothers merger continued to have wins and losses. Europe at large and the UK have okayed the continuation of the merger after Paramount made concessions on keeping editorial independence, and David Ellison is now willing to sign an absurd promise to major theater chains that they will release at least 30 movies a year. That is an insane thing to sign your name to, as it is financially damn near impossible, and this merger is already setting Paramount up to be massively in the hole in debt. Meanwhile, the state attorneys general lawsuit, that partnered with the WGA and support from SAG, is now going to be tried in March of next year, which means Paramount will have to pay Warner Brothers money for the delay in the merger getting done. To complicate things, even if Paramount wins next March, there will likely be an appeal by the state attorneys general and the WGA that will only keep prolonging the pain for Paramount and forcing it to lose money as it pays off shareholders. This is the first time that I truly believe Paramount might actually not be able to pull this merger off, but we’ll see.
NYFF made the shocking announcement that Godzilla Minus Zero will be having its world premiere at their festival as part of the Spotlight Gala section. Many Godzilla fans are now worried that by premiering in late September, with the film not releasing to the public until early November, things will leak, including footage of the entire movie. My response is that Godzilla fans should be worshipping the ground director Takashi Yamazaki stands on after he followed up the franchise’s best reviews since the brooding 1954 original with the franchise’s first-ever Oscar nomination and win, and is now following that up by bringing it to a major awards-season film festival. And second, while leaks will undoubtedly happen, I highly doubt they will be as detailed as some fear, as festival attendees are not exactly the type to risk it all to get a bootleg copy for 123movies, and festivals aren’t the kind of places where people are likely to get away with filming the movie itself. I have more to say about this in the newest podcast episode.
As for the rest of their main slate, NYFF announced those too, and Next Best Picture has some excellent coverage of the rundown of films. My biggest takeaways were Fjord and La Bola Negra not making it into the main slate, with both All Of A Sudden and Behemoth! likely being the new top two contenders to be the major NYFF films that make Best Picture, given we’ve been getting at least two of the main slate films each year in the Oscar lineup. I’ll expand on this in the newest podcast episode.
And finally, Netflix has announced that La Bola Negra will get an even longer theatrical run than first announced, which looks to me like Netflix recognizing that Universal with The Odyssey and Warner Brothers with Dune: Part Three have used the box office and big epic theatrical trailer events to dominate the early awards-season chatter. This, to me, seems like a smart move so that Netflix tries to get ahead of the yearly reluctance by the Academy to give Best Picture to a Netflix film by having it get the fuller theatrical release experience. I’ll have more to say on the latest podcast episode.
What Else Is On My Mind
The NFL season is right on the verge of starting, as they just played the Hall Of Fame Game and preseason games are underway. Personally, I couldn’t give one bit of a damn about preseason and will be excitedly counting down the days until opening night on September 9th. You wouldn’t know that I don’t expect big things from my Tampa Bay Bucs with how excited I am to see football return.
However, I can keep enjoying watching my Tampa Bay Rays continue to look like they’re on their way to a pennant chase. At a record of 71-46 as I write this, they could be poised to be the team to beat in the American League. However, I am wary about the fact that while they have an outstanding 41-18 record at home they also have a paltry 30-28 record on the road. That is a massive red flag for the playoffs and keeps my excitement from hitting above a certain ceiling. Anyways, Go Rays!
![Godzilla Minus Zero' Is Directly Inspired By Steven Spielberg and The Greatest Sci-Fi Directors Ever [Exclusive]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Fboa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F925c7a3f-ec22-4a4c-adc7-94b373e87b0e_2800x1400.jpeg "Godzilla Minus Zero' Is Directly Inspired By Steven Spielberg and The Greatest Sci-Fi Directors Ever [Exclusive]")
