Matthew Monagle
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Dark Tower’ Does Not Fall
With two new releases and a third movie switching from a limited to a wide release, this was a weekend of big changes at the box office. Gone are familiar stalwarts like Wonder Woman and Baby Driver, and in its place are (with respect) the also-rans of summer, a few genre-driven films looking to carve out a name for themselves in a time of year devoid of major blockbuster releases. Here are the numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Weekend Box Office Report: Thankfully, ‘Dunkirk’ Holds Off ‘The Emoji Movie’
Be honest with me: did you really want to see a picture of The Emoji Movie at the top of this article? You had to be hoping that Atomic Blonde or Dunkirk would hang strong enough to keep The Emoji Movie from finishing in the top spot of its opening weekend, right? Well, good news for you: it’s not the highest-grossing movie in America this weekend! Has there ever in the history of Hollywood been a box office one-two as disparate as Dunkirk and The Emoji Movie? Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Here’s the projected grosses as of Sunday afternoon:
The Cast of ‘Downton Abbey’ Has ‘No Idea’ About a Possible Movie
As with any landmark television show, one of the fun parts of revisiting Downton Abbey is seeing the number of careers it launched. Abbey served as a pretty incredible pipeline of talented British actors and actresses, all of whom seem to be landing solidly on their feet in Hollywood. That’s the good news for Abbey fans: the bad news is that with increased success comes increased scheduling difficulty. This wasn’t a series like Firefly where you basically only needed to lock down a handful of actors; to do Downton Abbey right, you’d want to bring in a dozen-plus members of the original cast, and that’s an increasingly tough proposition.
‘Princess Diaries’ Author Says a Third Movie Might Happen
While Colossal may not have broken box office records, it was a welcome reminder that Anne Hathaway deserved better than whatever rom-com hell we’d locked her in for the past few years. In fact, as Lauren Duca recently pointed out on Twitter, now would be a perfect time revisit our opinions of the actress altogether, dating all the way back to her breakout role in The Princess Diaries. I mean, it can’t be a coincidence that now that we’re learning to appreciate Hathaway again, we’re suddenly getting talk of another Princess Diaries movie. These strange things happen all the time.
Hayley Atwell Wants More Peggy Carter in the MCU
One of the underrated aspects of Marvel’s cinematic universe is its overabundance of good characters. Take Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter, for example. Most other major movie franchises would jump at the opportunity to have a character as beloved as Peggy Carter; for Marvel, fairly or unfairly, she’s a character they can afford to leave behind. That is, until it was announced that Captain Marvel would take place sometime in the 1990s, opening the door for Atwell’s Carter to appear once more in the MCU. Would she be interested in coming back to play the character? You’d better believe it.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Dunkirk’ Wins the Weekend
What did you see this weekend? Was it the dour World War II epic? The raunchy New Orleans sex comedy? Or the movie where Cara Delevingne shoves her head into a telepathic jellyfish’s butt? Truly, with options like this, anyone who complains about the death of cinema has no idea what they’re talking about. Anyways, here’s the box office numbers through Sunday afternoon:
The ‘Justice League’ Comic-Con Trailer Puts Wonder Woman Front and Center
Say what you will about Warner Bros., but they’ve always saved some of their best Justice League footage for Comic-Con. Last year we were treated to our first extended look at the DCEU entry; this year the studio has raised the stakes, giving us some actual footage of the Justice League villain in action. Oh, and this trailer also seems to emphasize the heck out of the world of Wonder Woman - including a scene set entirely in Themyscira - indicating that they know exactly who their most popular superhero is going forward. It’s probably not a coincidence that there’s more Gal Gadot in this trailer than anyone else.
John Heard, Star of ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Big,’ Dies at 72
For many people who grew up in the 1990s, Home Alone is a film that ages alongside them. When you’re a child, you feel an immediate kinship with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin, sharing in his delight at being able to run around the house entirely rule-free. The older you get, though, the more you find yourself goggling at the actions of John Heard and Catherine O’Hara‘s parents. How on earth could they manage to leave their youngest child behind? Was it really that easy to breeze through airport security in the ‘90s? Why do I still feel so sympathetic towards them even after all that?
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Apes’ Squashes a ‘Spider’
Who would you rather fight, a million spider-sized ape or one ape-sized spider? It’s a question that’s been haunting my mind since, oh, about an hour ago when I started to look up the box office numbers for this past weekend. And while I might not be any closer to solving my riddle, I can at least say this: when it comes to week-old spiders versus brand new primates, the primates are destined to win. Here’s the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Say Hello to the First Female Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’ History
You know those rare moments when everyone on the internet seems to be talking about the same thing? Sports, politics, entertainment, whatever… those are the moments that make social media both a blessing and a curse. Take, for instance, a talented (if not slightly unknown) actress named Jodie Whittaker. If you were to go to Google Trends right now and look up her name, you’d see a sudden spike in searches, indicating that everyone everywhere is suddenly obsessed with learning more about her career. Why on earth could that be?
Rumor Has It Daniel Craig (and Adele!) Have Agreed to Return for ‘Bond 25’
If we’re lucky, every few years we’re treated to a will-they-or-won’t-they love story that sparks our imagination and warms our hearts. Ross and Rachel from Friends. Jim and Pam from The Office. Daniel and Barbara from Bond 25. Yes, these are classic, iconic love stories, where two people who are destined to be together must nevertheless fight through a series of unfortunate events before going public with their mutual love and affection. Which is all a complicated and jokey way of saying, c’mon, Daniel Craig and Barbara Broccoli, we know y’all are going to make Bond 25 happen, so just do it already!
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Nails the Stark Internship
Did any new releases come out this weekend? I honestly can’t remember. Someone mentioned that there was a new Marvel movie in theaters - one featuring some sort of Spider-Person - but that can’t be right. I feel like I would’ve seen that, perhaps promoted on an unprecedented level for any superhero movie? Hmm. Well, anyways, here’s the weekend box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon: