Jacob Hall

Sometimes, a film can effortlessly open at number one at the box office while still being a pretty huge disaster. This is the case with ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings,’ which rode a wave of terrible reviews and an even more terrible marketing campaign to a hugely disappointing start. With a lot of big movies opening the next two weeks, the new Biblical epic won’t even find time to grow some legs. Chances are strong that it is dead on arrival.

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The first 'Into the Woods' trailer was strangely lacking in singing, which was an odd way to sell a movie based on one of the most beloved of all modern musicals. Thankfully, Disney has course corrected with trailer number two, which actually lets us see and hear the ensemble cast performing Stephen Sondhiem's iconic songs. It's an improvement by default.

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Honestly, we could have just copied and pasted last weekend’s box office report and gotten away with it. Outside of the shifting numbers, the order of the top 10 is almost identical to what it was a week ago. This is Hollywood in a holding pattern. The weekend after Thanksgiving is a wasteland. That’s probably why ‘The Pyramid’ was dumped this weekend. However, the lone newcomer in the top 10 didn’t just bomb, it bombed spectacularly.

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2016 marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Star Trek,’ which debuted on CBS in 1966, and Paramount has been adamant about getting the next film into theaters in time to mark the occasion. Today, they officially set the date. If all goes according to plan, ‘Star Trek 3’ will warp into theaters on July 8, 2016.

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‘Big Hero 6’ may only be tangentially related to the Marvel comic on which it is based and completely unconnected to the larger Marvel cinematic universe, but it still has the obligatory Stan Lee cameo. Yes, this is an animated movie featuring an animated version of the legendary comic book icon/Marvel mascot. But hey, it’s a tradition at this point.

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Appropriately, the Thanksgiving holiday box office was all about the leftovers. While two high profile new releases struggled to open, films from the past few weeks continued to do solid business. In fact, this was one of the most varied weekends at the box office in quite some time, with YA adaptations, animated family movies, epic blockbusters, and small independent films all performing better than expected.

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There‘s going to be a lot of blood and ink spilled across the internet on the subject of the opening weekend for ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.’ Yes, the third film in the series did open significantly lower than its predecessors. Yes, there are definitely people at Lionsgate wringing their hands and trying to figure out why the film opened below expectations. And yet, that opening weekend is still massive. It’s three day total is larger than most movies ever have a chance to make in their entire runs. So, let's have some perspective as we dive into this week’s top 10.

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Marvel's ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ was one of the most surprising blockbusters of 2014 for a variety of reasons, but one of the most interesting side effects of its success is that it got people all over the world listening to a bunch of catchy songs from the '60s and ‘70s. Yes, Star-Lord's “Awesome Mix Vol. 1” mix tape took the world by storm, even reaching number one on the billboard charts. Considering how much the soundtrack informed the tone of the film, it's not surprising that the movie ended with the reveal of an “Awesome Mix Vol. 2,” which we‘ll surely get to hear in the sequel.

Now, director James Gunn has revealed the existence of and “Awesome Mix Vol. 0” playlist.

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A sequel to 1994’s ‘Dumb and Dumber’ seemed like a silly idea until ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ went and made $36 million in its opening weekend. Now, the sky is the limit for the aging idiots played by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels and the thought of a third film (‘Dumb and Dumberer’ is not official canon) doesn’t seem all that crazy. In fact, the new film is already waaay ahead of you. If you stuck around through the end credits of ‘Dumb and Dumber To,’ you already know that the post-credits scene teases a theoretical third entry in the series.

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When Woody Harrelson was revealed to be hosting ‘SNL’ just a few days before the new ‘Hunger Games’ movie was set to open in theaters, it was obvious that the massively popular franchise would, somehow, figure into at least one sketch. Surprisingly, that ended up being the opening monologue, which featured Harrelson performing his own version of Taylor Swift's ‘1989.’ With a little help from some friends.

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Earlier this week, it was reported that Justin Lin was being courted by Universal to return to the ‘Fast and Furious’ series after taking ‘Furious 7’ off and giving the director's seat to James Wan. It was also reported that his return would be be part of a two film “grand finale” that would send this beloved franchise driving off into the sunset. But that second part is just plain silly. Have you seen the box office receipts for these movies? So it should come as no surprise that the studio has “at least three” more Dominic Toretto and company adventures in the pipeline.

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The showdown between 'Interstellar' and 'Big Hero 6' has got to be one of the most interesting things to happen to the box office in 2014. After all, it would be tough to find two movies that are simultaneously so different and so alike. Both are pro-science adventures that are all about using your intelligence to save your friends and family. However, one is an animated, family friendly release from Disney and the other is a three-hour epic from the ever-serious Christopher Nolan. In other words, they represent opposite ends of the blockbuster spectrum.

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