HOLLYWOOD'S BOX OFFICE CRATERS - THE WORLD AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE SICK OF HOLLYWEIRD'S SHIT MACHINE

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW A FILM THAT WAS NOT HEARTLESS, SOULESS SHIT?

Nolte: Hollywood’s Worldwide Box Office Down 6 Percent

AP Photo/Nick Ut

JOHN NOLTE

6 Jul 2019503

4:07

The global box office is down six percent this year because foreigners don’t like Hollywood’s crap any more than Americans do.

Hollywood’s greedy and cynical crusade to open the international market, even if that means licking the boots of tyrants and human rights abuses in places like China, was supposed to save the movie business, supposed to result in unheard of profits, but it didn’t work out that way. In fact, the push to make the movie business a worldwide enterprise has painted Hollywood into a dire and deadly corner that will someday blow up in their face.

The problem with catering to the world is that there is only one kind of movie that appeals to the whole wide world, and that is the blockbuster, the $350 million (production budget plus advertising) gamble that has to gross between $600 and $750 million before anyone sees a profit.

That is no way to run a business.

Throwing out one massive gamble after another puts every studio at risk of catastrophe if just two or three of these dice throws comes up snake eyes.

Opening the foreign market was not a gift, it was Pandora’s Box.

Worse still, something else Hollywood discovered is that foreigners are not fools. With rare exceptions, if it bombs in America, it will bomb overseas. And so, unless intelligent life is found on another planet sometime soon, there is no place for the studios to peddle their garbage.

Here in America, even with the success of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the box office is still the worst in three years and trailing nine percent behind last year.

Globally, everything is down six percent.

And, surprise-surprise, all the movies that flopped here also flopped over there.

Here are the domestic and foreign grosses for this year’s biggest blockbuster flops…

• Dumbo: $114M / $238M — this sucker lost a fortune.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters: $107M / $271M — will probably lose $100M.
• Shazam!: $140M / $225M – maybe broke even.
• The LEGO Movie 2:– $105M / $86M – catastrophe
• Rocketman: $86M / $82M – less than 20 percent of Bohemian Rhapsody’s global gross.
• Men In Black: International: $68M / $153M – will likely lose  $100M – $200M.
• Dark Phoenix: $64M – $181M – The red ink on this $300M  X-Men flop could exceed $300M.
• Hellboy: $21M / $0 foreign – speechless.

What’s more, other than Dumbo and Rocketman, these are golden geese franchises getting buried in a global market where there are only so many golden geese franchises to go around. Each one of these dead franchises is not just the loss of that particular release, but the loss of what was supposed to be a perpetual motion machine everyone was counting on to keep the movie business alive for generations.

Even if the box office year rebounds, the loss of these franchises is incalculable.

The number of tickets sold (admissions) in the U.S. alone cratered by 8 percent.

In a country where the population continues to grow, fewer people are going to the movies.

But what does Hollywood expect from their generic, sexless (unless it’s gay sex) blockbusters and woke lectures and cookie cutter actors and terrible comedy and tired horror and soul-darkening indies and a Star Wars franchise that tells us men suck and our hero Land Calrissian has sex with feminist robots, which it totes normal because everything is normal except the nuclear family.

Man, I miss T & A.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Producer Riza Aziz Arrested on Money Laundering Charges

ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images

BREITBART NEWS

 5 Jul 201928

2:40

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — “The Wolf of Wall Street” producer and stepson of Malaysia’s former prime minister pleaded not guilty on Friday to laundering $248 million from a state investment fund, becoming the third person in his family charged in the 1MDB scandal that helped end Najib Razak’s government last year.

Riza Aziz was solemn as he appeared in court to be charged with receiving the illicit funds between 2011 and 2012 in the U.S. and Singapore.

The charge sheets said the money was misappropriated from 1MDB and channeled into bank accounts of Riza’s company Red Granite Pictures Inc., which produced films including the Martin Scorsese-directed film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The 2013 film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture.

The money was transferred from Swiss bank accounts of two companies U.S. investigators identified as being linked to 1MDB into Red Granite’s accounts in the United States and Singapore, according to the charge sheets describing the evidence.

Riza, 42, was released on bail. He was charged with five counts of money laundering and could face up to five years in prison, a fine or both, on each count if he is convicted.

Najib set up the 1MDB fund to finance development in Malaysia when he took office in 2009, but it accumulated billions in debts and U.S. investigators allege at least $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates.

Public anger over the alleged corruption contributed to the shocking election defeat of Najib’s long-ruling coalition in May 2018, and the new government reopened investigations that had been stifled while Najib was in office.

Najib is currently on trial for alleged criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering linked to 1MDB. He denies the charges. His wife and Riza’s mother, Rosmah Mansor, also has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and tax evasion related to 1MDB but her trial date has not been set.

Riza’s arraignment came a year after he was questioned by Malaysia’s anti-graft agency. U.S. investigators say Red Granite used money stolen from 1MDB to finance Hollywood films. Red Granite has paid the U.S. government $60 million to settle claims it benefited from the 1MDB scandal, and the U.S. returned the money to Malaysia.

Riza’s sister, Nooryana Najwa, has slammed the legal action against her brother.

“Despite the settlement in the U.S. and the fact that alleged wrongdoings occurred entirely outside of Malaysia, the MACC decides to press charges after a whole year of leaving this case in cold storage. He is not a criminal,” she wrote on Instagram, accompanied by a picture of her with Riza taken before his arrest.