Matthew Monagle
Face It, Tiger, the Early Buzz for ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Is Pretty Great
According to census estimates, there are currently 325.3 million people in the United States, which means there has to be dozens — maybe even hundreds! — of people who remain blissfully unaware that a new Spider-Man movie is hitting theaters this summer. The rest of us, however, have lived through the past several months of production rumors, trailers, teasers, teaser trailers, toy reveals, interviews, commercials, specials, features, articles, social advertising, news items, and just about any other form of audio or visual media that Marvel could commercially or organically slap a Spider-Man: Homecoming logo on. In fact, we’ve reached that point in the hype cycle where most fans are completely exhausted with marketing. Can’t we just start talking about the movie itself?
Watch a Special Father’s Day Teaser for ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’
This has been a good weekend for Planet of the Apes fans. Not only did we get our first look at some of the early buzz for the final film in the trilogy — buzz that suggest that War for the Planet of the Apes might just be the best and bleakest movie in the series yet — we’ve also been treated to a special Father’s Day trailer that explores the universal truths of fathers, sons, and legacy. Sentient apes or human, we’re all just trying to leave behind a better world for our children.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Cars 3’ Dethrones ‘Wonder Woman’
It’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the world, which means it’s time for your weekend box office updates! While this was a disappointing weekend overall for a handful of new releases, there’s good news to be had: after a disappointing $144 million total gross last weekend, the box office bounced back to $187 million total over the past few days. That takes some of the pressure off Wonder Woman to, you know, save the summer blockbuster as we know it. Here’s the totals as of Sunday afternoon:
Weekend Box Office Report: Tom Cruise Is No Match for ‘Wonder Woman’
If you only look at the surface numbers, this was a pretty predictable week at the box office. Wonder Woman did well, The Mummy did not, and everything else shook out accordingly. That being said, there’s some pretty interesting narratives emerging in the how and why of this weekend’s box office report. Let’s take a look at the rankings as of Sunday afternoon and dive into some of the specifics:
The Funniest ‘Wonder Woman’ Scene Was Completely Improvised
A few weeks before Wonder Woman hit theaters, film critics took to social media to share their early reactions of the newest movie in the DC Cinematic Universe. And while critics had plenty of great things to say about the film’s overall tone and Gal Gadot in particular, one sentiment above all others kept bubbling to the surface: this movie was funny. When fans got a chance to see the movie for themselves, they were pretty quick to agree. Gadot’s fish-out-of-water take on Diana Prince, combined with Chris Pine’s deadpan delivery as the superhero’s straight man, makes Wonder Woman one of the funniest comic book movies to date.
Weekend Box Office Report: All Hail The Truly Wondrous ‘Wonder Woman’
Based on how this weekend’s box office numbers shaped up, odds are good that you either saw Wonder Woman this weekend or you avoided the theater altogether. It was a record-setting few days for everyone’s favorite warrior princess — sorry, Xena — but things were decidedly less rosy if your movie was… well, literally anything else. Here are the box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon:
Decades Later, Terry Gilliam Finally Finishes ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’
There are troubled productions, and then there are troubled productions, and then there is Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. A Monty Python alumnus and the visionary filmmaker behind projects like 12 Monkeys, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam has been working on his modern day retelling of Don Quixote for over 20 years. The film was originally set to go into pre-production back in 1998, but setbacks and a series of freak accidents — all covered in the acclaimed documentary Lost in La Mancha — tanked that production and have kept Gilliam in production limbo ever since. The Daily Beast put together a detailed history of the film earlier this year; it seriously makes Apocalypse Now sound like a Troma Entertainment production by comparison.
Hailee Steinfeld Is in Talks to Join Paramount’s ‘Bumblebee’ Spinoff
While fans might be a little cynical about a Transformers multi-verse, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about their planned Bumblebee prequel. For one, Christina Hodson’s script has widely been praised as a standout in the franchise thus far. For two, the film will serve as the live-action directorial debut of Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight, whose visuals in that film — and whose overall body of work with animation studio Lakia — make him a name to remember in future projects. Oh, and there’s this small little tidbit: the movie may now be adding a pretty talented star as its (human) lead.
Tom Holland Pushed Sony for an ‘Uncharted’ Origin Movie
Last week, Sony raised eyebrows when it announced that it was finally moving forward with its long-struggling Uncharted adaptation, albeit in a direction that no one saw coming. Despite the Uncharted series taking place with an older and more world-weary male protagonist, Sony cast Mr. Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland, as a young version of Nathan Drake. The film would be based on a sequence in the third game which flashes back to Drake’s relationship with his older brother; while Uncharted purists may find this to be an odd choice, it does potentially set Uncharted up for decades of movies with an aging Holland as the lead.
Lucasfilm Didn’t Have a ‘Mapped Story’ in Place Beyond ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
With all the new pieces in play in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it sure seems like Lucasfilm is setting the Star Wars universe up to go somewhere special. Once Kathleen Kennedy and company made the decision to blow up the preexisting Star Wars canon, we watched firsthand as they began the process of stitching together a new continuity. There were Star Wars books explaining the events that followed Return of the Jedi, new television shows that wove together the old and new trilogies, and even video games fleshing out some of the new planets and species we’d seen in The Force Awakens.