October box office hits sad record
And Dictionary.com's annoying word of the year
The October box office just set a pathetic 27-year record
And the studios have no one to blame but themselves. If you’ve been paying attention to entertainment headlines over the last month, you know the situation at the box office has been rough. A lot of big budget movies with big name stars completely failed. But the Hollywood Reporter just revealed how dire the situation really is.
The domestic box office in October hit just $425 million dollars total, which makes it the worst October on record since 1997. (Excluding 2020 of course - when many theaters were literally closed). The total from October 1997 by the way was $385.2 million dollars. If you adjust that for inflation to today’s numbers it would be $779 million dollars. While October moviegoing peaked in 2018 with $832.8 million dollars - thanks to Venom.
Additionally, this past weekend Oct 31st to Nov 2nd was the worst Halloween weekend on record in 31 years. So all that really puts into perspective just how bad October 2025 really was
How did this happen? Well, THR partially blames a lack of movies because of the 2023 strikes. A weak August and September - movies from those months usually carry over into October. But most importantly: Hollywood put out a bunch of stuff people didn’t want to see, like Tron Ares, The Smashing Machine, Good Fortune, the Springsteen biopic, After the Hunt, and Roofman.
Thankfully, niche offerings like Taylor Swift’s release party, Black Phone 2, and Chainsaw Man got some butts in seats. The good news is November and December look a lot more promising. This month we’ve got Predator Badlands, The Running Man, Wicked For Good, and Zootopia 2 and in December there’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and of course Avatar Fire & Ash.
Dictionary.com just named its word of the year
And if you’re above the age of 13 you’re going to hate it. That said if you’re a child, well congratulations, this is on you.
Dictionary dot com has been naming a word of the year since 2010. In 2020 it was pandemic, obviously, 2021 was allyship, 2022 was woman, 2023 was hallucinate and 2024 was demure - referencing the very demure TikTok meme.
And wouldn’t you know but this year’s word of the year is also based on a wildly popular meme. It’s 67. Which is not a word, but actually two numbers. How did Dictionary.com land on 6-7? Well, their “lexicographers analyzed a large amount of data including newsworthy headlines, trends on social media, search engine results, and more.” The site also noted that searches for 6-7 have been astronomical
So where did 67 come from? The meme originated from the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, which at first accompanied basketball videos on social media. But it has since evolved into a nonsensical catch all response or chant, symbolic of gen alpha’s love of dada-esque post modern brain rot content. It’s immensely popular among middle schoolers.
Dictionary dot com also put 6 or 7 other words on a short list of runners up, including Aura farming, broligarchy, clanker, kiss cam, tariff, and tradwife. And honestly, any of those would have been better than 67.
Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone are producing a Miss Piggy movie
It’s been 11 years since The Muppets have been on the big screen. Their last adventure was Muppets Most Wanted in 2014. Instead they’ve been relegated to television, where we got The 2015 Muppets sitcom on ABC, Muppets Now on Disney+ in 2020, a revival of Muppet Babies in 2018, and The Muppets Mayhem in 2023.
But Jennifer Lawrence just revealed on Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang’s Las Culturistas podcast, “I don’t know if I can announce this, but I’m just going to. Emma Stone and I are producing a Miss Piggy movie.”
Lawrence revealed that “Oh, Mary” writer and star Cole Escola is writing the screenplay. Which is just perfect. And when Matt and Bowen asked if she and Stone would also star in the movie, Lawrence vaguely said, ““I think so… We have to.”
It’s unclear how far along this project actually is and whether it would be a theatrical film or go straight to Disney+ but with that talent involved, I’m very intrigued. I’m also happy to see that Disney still developing new Muppet content, as the franchise is now more than 50 years old.
Brendan Fraser is reviving a long dead franchise after 17 years
The Brendan Fraser-assaince just keeps rolling on. After his big Oscar-winning comeback in The Whale, Fraser turned up in Killers of the Flower Moon and this year he’s getting buzz for Tokyo set dramedy Rental Family.
But here’s the really big news: Fraser is returning for a new MUMMY movie, reviving the beloved adventure franchise from the ‘90s and 2000s. It’s set up at Universal and Fraser’s original co-star Rachel Weisz is also in talks. Radio Silence‘s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are directing, off a script by David Gillett, who wrote The Family Plan and Orphan: First Kill.
In 2022, Fraser was asked about returning to The Mummy and he said, “I don’t know how it would work. But I’d be open to it, if someone came up with the right conceit.” I guess they found the right conceit.
My question is: Is Radio Silence the right choice for director? They’re mostly known for directing horror, including Ready or Not and Screams 5 & 6. While the Mummy movies had elements of horror for sure, they were definitely more action adventure films in the style of Indiana Jones.
Anyway, with Fraser back in the spotlight, it makes sense that they’d do another Mummy film. The franchise grossed $1.4 billion dollars across its 4 theatrical films and The Scorpion King spinoff spawned 4 straight to video sequels.
Kim Kardashian’s new Ryan Murphy show just earned an atrocious RottenTomatoes score
In case you’re not aware, Ryan Murphy has a new legal drama premiering on Hulu this week. It’s called All’s Fair and it stars Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close. It’s apparently very, very bad.
The Hollywood Reporter called it “brain dead,” while also using adjectives like “stiff, affectless, flimsy, and underbaked.” The Guardian said “I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad,” calling it fFascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible” and “it’s so awful, it feels almost contemptuous.”
The Daily Telegraph wrote, “ “Ryan Murphy is the high priest of tacky, tasteless television, and this year he has outdone himself with a show of mind-bending horror sure to trigger nightmares in the unsuspecting viewers.”
The Times UK said it “may well be the worst television drama ever made” that appears it was written by a toddler. USA Today called it an “unmitigated disaster” and “the worst TV show of the year.”
As of Wednesday morning, 0% of the 8 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive and it doesn’t even sound like it’s so bad it’s good, as Australian outlet The Nightly said, “It’s not a hate-watch, this is unwatchable.”