When They See Us - Review and Live Tweets

Below is my review on Instagram

View this post on Instagram

#WhenTheySeeUs Review: I don’t know what to say. It was excellent, but to say I “enjoyed it” is a total misnomer. This film, presented as a Four (4) Part Limited Series, was IMPACTFUL. From the moment the arrests happen you are WITH these five boys. And that’s WTF they were—BOYS! Young males of other races are “snips and snails and puppy dog tails”, but young males of color are considered more mature than they are even when even accused of a crime without proof—considered monsters. WTSU makes you FEEL what these boys are feeling. This film takes a HARD, UNFLINCHING look at what these boys and eventual men went through in the legal system and didn’t sugarcoat shit! I’ve done MY OWN research on the so-called “Central Park Five” before I even saw this and AVA DUVERNAY et al, her cast and crew NAILED their traumatic journey. And that shit WAS traumatic. For real I was like “Shit! Is anything GOOD gonna happen in this film? Damn sis! Can I breathe?” Not really and I think that was the intent. Oh you’re gonna feel this shit. As usual I gotta talk about the filmmaking. Starting with Director and Co-Writer AVA DUVERNAY, she and the other credited writers JULIAN BREECE, ROBIN SWICORD, ATTICA LOCKE and MICHAEL STARRBURY as stated, took you THERE! Cinematographer extraoidinarre BRADFORD YOUNG shot the hell out of it with lots of flair and oft times gourgeous shots. The acting, wow the acting. WOW the acting. The five young men and four older men (one played both versions) did tremendous jobs as did the actors that played their family members. I’m running out of space here, but I’ll will list them on Twitter. Suffice it to say, bravo.👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 I binged watched all four parts in one sitting (a rarity for me) and •LIVE•TWEETED• the whole thing so a lot of the cast and crew are already mentioned. (I’ll post the thread🧵 at the Link in my BIO) Lastly, I highly recommend WHEN THEY SEE US, but ⚠️Caution⚠️ and I can’t state enough, YOU WILL FEEL. You will. Every.moment. 100%

A post shared by Dankwa Brooks (@dankwa) on Jun 1, 2019 at 9:30am PDT

My LIVE TWEETS of the Limited Series in a Twitter thread linked below

Finally starting a series I’ve been waiting a LONG time for #WhenTheySeeUs pic.twitter.com/TsUbqJ9Sky

— Dankwa Brooks (@DankwaBrooks) June 1, 2019

'Us' Box Office

Jordan Peele's 'Us' Delivers a Mind-Blowing $70 Million Debut

by Brad Brevet | Box Office Mojo
Sunday, March 24, 2019

Universal's release of Jordan Peele's Us dominated the domestic box office, not only out-performing the opening weekends for several recent horror hits, but delivering the second largest opening ever for a live-action, original picture, topping the weekend box office with over $70 million. As a result, the 2019 box office continues to improve over the month of March after struggling to begin the year. Overall, this weekend was the third straight to outperform the same weekend last year.

At #1, with an estimated $70.25 million (~49.6% of all tickets sold among the top 12 films), Us topped the weekend box office with the third largest opening of all-time for an R-rated horror film, blowing away 2018's The Nun ($53.8m opening) and placing behind Universal's own Halloween, which opened with $76.2 million last October. The film also decimated the opening for Peele's previous film Get Out, which was a massive hit back in 2017 following a $33.3 million debut. Get Out would go on to gross over $176 million domestically, ranking as the third largest horror film of all-time domestically.

One mind-blowing stat is to note that while animated features such as Inside Out ($90.4m), Zootopia ($75m), The Incredibles ($70.46m) and Finding Nemo ($70.25m) opened higher, the $70.25 million debut for Us is the largest opening for a live-action, original film since Avatar's $77 million debut back in 2009. On a list dominated by sequels it's not often original content is seen to climb quite so high.

Additionally, Us delivered the largest opening for an original, R-rated film, topping Universal's Ted ($54.4m) not to mention the largest opening for an original horror film, topping A Quiet Place ($50.2m). The performance comes with a "B" CinemaScore, which is a notch below the "A-" for Get Out, but is still a solid audience grade for a horror film. The overall opening weekend audience was split 50/50 among males and females and 53% of the overall audience was aged 25 or older.

Looking ahead at its domestic prospects, it's not easy to determine just how high Us will climb. While Get Outpushed over $176 million, Halloween finished its run with $159.3 million, though the latter was certainly a product of nostalgia and seasonal relevance. That said, one would expect Us to play closer to Get Out and push over $200 million, but how far over? On average, films that open anywhere from $65-75 million deliver a 3.36x multiplier, which would suggest a domestic performance around $236+ million, which seems like as good a bet as any right now.

Internationally, Us debuted in 47 markets and brought in an estimated $16.7 million led by a $3.67 million opening in the UK to go along with a $1.98 million France debut, $1.36 million in Germany and $1.17 million launch in Spain. Next weekend's key markets include openings in Korea, Russia and Australia followed by openings in Italy (Apr 4), Mexico (May 3) and finally Japan on August 23.