MCN Weekend Archive for June, 2017
The DVD Wrapup: T2 Trainspotting, Autopsy of Jane Doe, Dirty, Trespass, Monster Hunt and more
God bless Margaret Mitchell. When pressured for a sequel to the novel of Gone With the Wind, she claimed not to have a notion as to what may have happened to Scarlett and Rhett, and that she had “left them to their ultimate fate.” Ditto, François Truffaut, who, in 1974, turned down an opportunity to remake Casablanca. It took 14 years for writer-director Richard Curtis to acknowledge the clamor for a reunion sequel to his surprisingly resilient Love Actually. It runs all of 15 minutes, and was shown on British and American television two months ago, as part of one of his charity’s worldwide events. If fans of Grown Ups, Bridget Jones’s Diary and American Pie could be as easily sated, the world would be a better place. That said, however, as unnecessary sequels go, Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting, isn’t bad.
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Transformers: The Last Knight led weekend moviegoing in its debut with an estimated $45.3 million. The alleged franchise “finale” was anticipated to be a commercial powerhouse with competition steering clear of its path … including counterprogrammers.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
It’s not pretty, but the projections on Transformers 5 are pretty much on target at this point… slightly low. Even people in Iowa know that the movie is waiting for international to take it from relative zero to an uncomfortable hero. Drops for Cars 2, Wonder Woman, and Pirates 5 are looking pretty good for the weekend. The Beguiled will do boffo per-screen on four… high 50k, low 60k. But the king of indie this weekend is The Big Sick, which could end up doing $70k per screen on five.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Marseille Trilogy, Life, Bird With Crystal Plumage, Lawnmower Man, Car Wash and more
Way back in the Pleistocene Age, when all film students and cineastes had to rely on for evidence of a film’s virtues were barely-watchable 16mm prints of vintage movies, it was sometimes difficult to appreciate what differentiated true classics from run-of-the-mill entertainments. Poorly maintained projectors occasionally caused the film stock to melt, while scratches and other defects turned dialogue into garble. That all changed with laserdiscs, DVDs and the concerted efforts of preservationists, who benefitted mightily from advanced digital technology. In his introduction to the Criterion Collection release of Marcel Pagnol’s “The Marseille Trilogy,” Bertrand Tavernier (‘Round Midnight) describes how his opinions about Marius (1931), Fanny (1932) and César (1936) changed after watching the 2015 restoration, conducted by Compagnie Méditerranénne de Film and the Cinémathèque Française. In short, the experience was revelatory.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Cars 3 sped to the top of weekend moviegoing with an estimated $53.3 million. It was also good news for the Tupac bio All Eyez on Me that ranked third with $26.4 million. The other two national newcomers were less vibrant. The shark threat nail biter 47 Meters Down had an OK start of $10.9 million but the female rave Rough Night pancaked with an $8 million debut.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
Cars 3 opens to almost exactly the same Friday number as Cars, while the whole enterprise looks to international and merchandising to make the effort worth Pixar and Disney’s while. Meanwhile, All Eyez on Me reminds us that a 24 on Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t matter if there are people predisposed to see the movie. Byron Allen’s new distribution venture opens 47 Meters Down to about two-thirds of what The Shallows opened to… which will likely be seen as a win in some quarters. And Rough Night lived up to its title at the box office.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: John Wick 2, 3 Generations, Frantz, Three Sisters, South Park 20 and more
Director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad make it ridiculously easy for Wick to be found and even more ridiculously easy for the battle-hardened assassin to eliminate his pursuers using “gun fu,” a hybrid fighting style that combines martial arts and close-up gun play. That’s pretty much the whole story here. How John Wick differs from almost every other ultra-violent franchise extant, including the straight-to-video flicks of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris, is the attention paid to detail, nonstop action and imaginative death blows. Reaves, who, like Tom Cruise, performs most of his own stunts, is an attentive student of the martial arts.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Wonder Woman lassoed top spot for a second weekend a with an estimated $57.5 million That was bad news for the high-profile The Mummy reboot that dug up only $32.2 million. The session featured two other national debuts: the spartan horror It Comes at Night ranked sixth with a chilly $5.9 million, while military pooch patrol Megan Leavey barked up $3.7 million.
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The DVD Wrapup: The Assignment, Beauty/Bambi, Land of Mine, Sense of an Ending, The Ticket, Gene Kelly, Heath Ledger and more
While you can’t say the story told in Walter Hill’s latest, The Assignment, was ripped from today’s headlines – Denis Hamill’s original screenplay is nearly forty years old, after all – the fact that a protagonist undergoes gender reassignment, however involuntary, is reasonably topical.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Wonder Woman wowed with an estimated debut of $100.7 million to lead session movie going. It was also good news for the frame’s other national newcomer the animated Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie that bowed with $23.5 million to rank second overall.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
She’s a wonder, Wonder Woman. There are a lot of ways to dissect the opening of Wonder Woman, the first non-Batman/Superman standalone character film in the DC Cinematic Universe. The broadest one is that this will be the smallest opening of the four films under Zach Snyder, but may well be the biggest domestic grosser when all is said and done… because “average moviegoers” actually like it. The film may also skew the gender balance of ticket buyers, which would add to audience count, not detract.
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