Saw Patrol: will this horrifying double bill be as big as Barbenheimer?

In the US, Saw X and Paw Patrol are released on the same day. Cue plans to watch the torture horror and puppy animation in a single, unsettling sitting

Name: Saw Patrol.

Age: Upcoming.

Appearance: The future of cinema.

Wait a minute, I thought Barbenheimer was the future of cinema. Barbenheimer? The act of going to the cinema to see Barbie and Oppenheimer back to back on the day both films opened?

Yes. No, Barbenheimer is old news. Saw Patrol, though? That’s the future.

I don’t know what Saw Patrol is. It’s the act of going to see Saw X and Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie one after the other on 29 September, the day they open.

You mean … Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, a children’s animation about a team of helpful dogs.

And? Saw X, the 10th instalment of a torture horror franchise being promoted by a poster showing a contraption that appears to be designed to force hungry rats to eat a man’s eyeballs while he screams in agony.

That sounds tonally inconsistent. Oh, come on, Barbenheimer wasn’t exactly tonally consistent either. One was a comedy, one was drama. One was pink, one was monochrome. One was nightmarishly pessimistic about humanity’s stupidity, the other was about Barbie.

Yes, but … Yes, but nothing. Barbenheimer drove both films to spectacular box office heights, so there is no reason to suggest Saw Patrol won’t either.

I have bad news for you. I know, Saw X and Paw Patrol are being simultaneously released only in the US. British fans can either wait until 13 October, when both films will be in cinemas – or they can swap Saw X for The Exorcist: Believer, which is out on the same date as Paw Patrol.

So, Exorpatrol? Now you’re getting it!

Is this how it is going to be now? What, you mean clumsily forcing two movies together as an unofficial double bill, even though Barbenheimer was a once-in-a-lifetime event?

Yes. It is. And you’d better enjoy it because cinema is dying and if it takes a ridiculous gimmick like this to resuscitate it, so be it.

I’d better look up some release dates. I’ve beaten you to it. Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon comes out on 20 October, as does Trolls Band Together. So let’s call that double bill Trollers of the Flower Moon.

Right. And The Expendables 4 opens on 22 September, the same day as Dumb Money, a Paul Dano film. We could call that one Dumb Expendables.

Do say: “Tickets for Saw Patrol please.”

Don’t say: “Why, yes, I do hate myself. Thanks for noticing.”