Meanwhile, "The Marvels" is facing a steep tumble in its second outing. The Marvel Studios production earned $2.8 million on Friday, down a staggering 87% from its opening day last week. It'll be lucky to hit $10 million in its sophomore [weekend] outing. Last spring's "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" cinched the Marvel Cinematic Universe superlative for biggest second weekend plummet when it dropped 69.9%. Only a few months later, "The Marvels" seems likely to break that record.

Hefty percentage drop-offs from opening weekends are pretty commonplace among superhero entries, but "The Marvels" also got off to a slow start with a franchise record-low $46.1 million debut. Now, the film is fading quickly in a marketplace that will only get more crowded over the Thanksgiving holiday. Ten-day domestic total will fall around $64 million -- a grim result considering the film's $220 million production budget.

This rocket was built entirely from private funds. Though SpaceX has a contract with NASA for Starship as a manned lunar lander, SpaceX has spent almost none of that money because its focus is getting the rocket launched, not designed to land on the Moon. Thus, a rocket more powerful than the Saturn-5 but designed from the get-go to be reusable is being built by private American citizens, independent of the government. If that isn't a demonstration of thepower of freedom, I don't know what is.