MCN Weekend Archive for June, 2016
Wilmington on Movies: The Shallows
The Shallows is a genuinely scary movie thriller that spooks you because, in a way, it seems so real — this tense, taut movie manage to get by without ghosts, monsters, supernatural maniacs or The Devil, indeed without almost anything that absolutely couldn’t happen (maybe) in the real world. Like Jaws, it’s the white-knuckle, full-throttle story of a battle between human vs. shark: a visually voluptuous thriller, set in a mostly deserted stretch of Australian coast, about a great white shark that traps a young surfer and medical student on an ocean-bound rock and buoy only about 200 yards from shore — a deserted beach near an ocean that is mostly empty except for that trapped girl and that toothy shark and one other creature we‘ll introduce later. (You’ll like him.)
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The story was Dory as the Blue Tang clan of Finding Dory boop boop ditem whatem an estimated $73.2 million in its second weekend. That was bad news for Independence Day: Resurgence that settled into second with $41.6 million. The session’s other two national openers saw upbeat results for The Shallows , churning $16.2 million, while Civil War lesson Free State of Jones struggled to $7.5 million.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
The world is under attack again… this time, it’s a blue fish swimming right through and past a Will Smith-less ID4-2. Finding Dory is way out in front of any animated film in domestic and will actually be the biggest 10-day grosser of the year at the end of this weekend, passing Captain America: Civil War. Dory is pretty much guaranteed to pass BvS: Apology Tour 1 to give Disney the Top 4 grossers of the year worldwide before August 1. Jaume Collet-Serra’s latest, The Shallows, opens right between his last two films, which starred Liam Neeson. Decent, but hardly a bell-ringer. Free State of Jones is another soft opener for STX, a company filled with veterans with smarts that picks hard-to-market movies that prove, repeatedly, to be hard to market. Swiss Army Man blows away all the other indie openers with a per-screen on three that looks to top $40k.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Knight of Cups, Greek Wedding 2, Wondrous Boccaccio, Anesthesia and more
Knight of Cups couldn’t have been made by anyone less contemplative or obsessed with the dialectics of beauty than Malick. Before capturing the attention of the film world with the visually stunning and deeply moving Badlands and Days of Heaven, he apprenticed under some of the industry’s savviest professionals. His stellar education in the humanities would only come to the fore, however, after three individual hiatuses, totaling 32 years.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Central Intelligence
Central Intelligence surprises you — or surprised me, at any rate.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Finding Dory propelled to a record estimated $136.4 million. There was also good news for the other national debut—pumped-up action comedy Central Intelligence—with a finish of $34.4 million. The frame’s only significant expansion was Genius , which maintained its bottom line. Lobster continues to be a surprise success with a current cume of $6.7 million, rivalling its international run of $8.5 million.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
Finding Dory opens with a 34% bump over the previous best Pixar opening ever (Toy Story 3). Buy how will this be reflected in the 3-day gross, given the 2010 marketplace vs today’s? Based on last summer’s Minions, Dory is swimming towards $137m opening… but no one will know for sure until later today. A little Hart and a big Johnson pays off with an opening day slightly off of Hart’s top showing, Ride Along. Still, it should give WB its second weekend in a row with a $35m+ opening, its third such launch in a year with 5 titles opening between $9m and $20m. And Tickled has a shot at $10k per screen on two.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Genius
Thomas Wolfe was an American literary phenomenon: a North Carolina-born novelist and prodigy who hoped to write books of Shakespearean verbal grandeur, of Tolstoyan dramatic scope and Dickensian humanity, and to live a life to fit those vast ambitions. He’s also an artist who tends to be ignored or underrated these days. A pity, because whenever you read one of his huge novels (especially “Look Homeward Angel” and “Of Time and the River”), his talent and his mixed but munificent literary gifts flame right off the page at you.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: 45 Years, 10 Cloverfield Lane, London Has Fallen, Wenders/Franco, La chienne and more
Once upon a time in Hollywood, movies that featured elderly characters played by venerable stars could be counted on to attract a decent-sized slice of the box-office pie and command the attention of awards voters.
Read the full article »DVD Wrapup: Zootopia, Hail Caesar, 13 Hours, Anomalisa, The Confirmation, Touched With Fire, One More Time, Tom Waits and more
The messages in Disney’s new animated gem, Zootopia, are so overtly liberal, I’m surprised none of the Republican candidates for president didn’t it condemn it during their debates for being subversive. Of course, there’s still time for Donald Trump to propose constructing a wall around the Burbank studios, lest undocumented-alien bunnies, sheep and foxes attempt to enter the country illegally. On that count, anyway, politicians who choke on words like inclusivity, empowerment, diversity and co-existence are several days late and at least a billion dollars short.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Weekend Report
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows led the weekend with an estimated $35.3 million debut. Two other films bowed nationally, with better-than-expected results for the drama Me Before You of $18.1 million and a disappointing turn of $4.6 million for boy-band music-and-fame satire Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
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