MONDAY UPDATE Six reviewers have posted to Rotten Tomatoes. Five have panned the film. The rating now is 17%. Keep refreshing…

SUNDAY Kevin Costner debuted the first of his four “Horizon” movies tonight in Cannes. Despite a 7 minute standing ovation, not everyone was crazy about it.

Remember, “Horizon” was supposed to be a mini series. Costner left “Yellowstone” to make it. Then New Line/Warner Bros announced it as a movie series. Reviewers are saying that Chapter 1, unveiled tonight, is not a movie, but a mini series.

Apparently, Costner — the star of the film — doesn’t appear in it for the first hour!

David Rooney writes in the Hollywood Reporter:

“Kevin Costner has been in the saddle long enough to know the difference between a big-screen feature Western like Dances With Wolves, a miniseries like Hatfields & McCoys or a longform like Yellowstone. All those projects have done well by him and he’s done well by them. His connection to the quintessential Americana genre and the rugged lands it calls home is indubitable. So why is his sprawling new frontier tale, Horizon: An American Saga, such a clumsy slog? It plays like a limited series overhauled as a movie, but more like a hasty rough cut than a release ready for any format.”

Screen International:
Horizon: An American Saga is still suffering from an identity crisis. Beautifully shot, with a deft command of period detail and a starry ensemble cast, Costner’s Civil-war set epic offers an old-fashioned celebration of the pioneer spirit – and a clutch of storylines that never quite have time to engage before the film moves on.”

The Playlist:
“There is nothing wrong with a three-hour movie. There have been absolute masterworks longer than 180 minutes. It sorta helps, however, if the film is, well, a movie. After watching Kevin Costner’s 181-minute-long “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” we can’t argue its classification as a film, artist’s prerogative, but we’re still not sure it should be constituted as one by anyone else. And that’s for a multitude of reasons.”

Variety:
“A few of these characters are interesting; none of them are memorable. “Horizon” is no “Lonesome Dove,” though Costner tries, and mostly succeeds, at setting aside Western clichés about what towns really looked like, and how frontier life worked. The real problem is the script (by Costner and Jon Baird), which is shapeless. It doesn’t weave these stories together; it stacks them next to each other like a series of cabooses.”

Keep refreshing…

John Krasinski’s “If” didn’t look so promising on Friday morning.

The family friendly, star packed comedy made just $1.75 million on Thursday in previews.

Friday’s receipts were ok, bringing the total up to $10.3 million.

It did seem like “If” was iffy, around $25 million for the weekend. Some box office prognosticators said it was supposed to do $50 million, which seemed grossly exaggerated.

In the end, $35 million is predicted, a lot better than anyone thought. Word of mouth must have been good since Saturday zoomed up to $14 million, and today is supposed to come in at $10 million.

Meanwhile, the Amy Winehouse movie “Back to Black” is dead, just $2.8 mil starting Thursday night. That film is going to “Rehab.”

Otherwise, it was Planet of the Apes at $26 million.

For some reason, Sony still has “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” in 819 theaters. It made $435,000 over three days. Total is $112 million. This series is over.

In a couple of weeks Sony is releasing the new “Bad Boys” movie with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. I’m hearing a lot of chatter about the publicity junket re Smith, and also Lawrence’s appearance. Stay tuned…

If? If Not?

It’s still unclear how Paramount’s “If” will do over all, but Friday night wasn’t bad. Receipts came to $8.5 million for a total including Thursday previews of $10.3 million.

The weekend total should come in around $25 million although that’s uncertain, too. Reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes were split at 50%, not exactly an overwhelming endorsement. The audience rating is 85%, or a B plus.

So there’s some interest in “If,” and if not, everyone — like John Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds — will return to their regular successes.

At the very least, “If” will not be the disaster story of the weekend. That distinction goes to Focus Features’ Amy Winehouse biopic, “Back to Black.” Total for Thurs-Fri is just $1.25 million. Reviews are terrible and there’s little interest in this film here anyway. It’s already made $23 million abroad, most of that from the UK.

Amy Winehouse died too soon. She had enormous potential to be as big as Adele, but she never got the chance. She had one hit in the US, “Rehab.” Her other sales are cult only. So if “Back to Black” makes $5 million here, Focus will be lucky. Put it on Peacock and call it a day.

More tomorrow…go to the movies, there’s plenty to see this weekend…

Yes, it’s a “Mega-flop-olis.”

The Apocalypse is here, now, for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.”

The more critics file reviews from Cannes to Rotten Tomatoes, the worse it gets. The film currently sits a rotten 48%. But even that number is inflated by critics who hated the movie but don’t want to label it “rotten” out of respect for Coppola.

A couple of examples:

Financial Times: Perhaps the kindest thing one can say about Megalopolis is that it will probably remain largely unwatched and be quickly forgotten.

The Daily Beast: Perhaps the kindest thing one can say about Megalopolis is that it will probably remain largely unwatched and be quickly forgotten.

“Megalopolis” has quickly reached the status of past disasters like “Heaven’s Gate” and “Ishtar” as one of the worst films ever made by a respected director. Priced at $120 million, the film would have to make a minimum of $240 million to break even in theaters. Considering the box office in 2024, that goal would seem impossible by miles.

Who will buy it? Anyone? There’s a lot of speculation that A24 could take it. They made gold out of another totally incomprehensible movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” That title might be applied to this movie, from the reviews.