Jacob Hall
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Prisoners’ Holds the Box Office Captive
September may traditionally be a wasteland of half-baked films unfit to open in a proper month, but the lack of competition can actually be a good thing. Could 'Prisoners,' a film made specifically for an adult audience, have opened as well as it did if it was released in a busier month? Probably not.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Insidious Chapter 2′ Has a Terrifyingly Huge Opening
James Wan has done it again. For the second time this year, a horror film that he's directed has opened to over $40 million, securing his position as the reigning king of mainstream horror cinema. He may be taking a break from the genre to direct 'Fast and Furious 7,' but after the jaw-dropping success of 'The Conjuring' and now 'Insidious Chapter 2,' you just know he'll be back. No one is bringing the audiences in quite like Wan.
Oh, and there were some other movies that made some money, too.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘One Direction: This is Us’ Takes the Lead
The summer is over and September is upon us. The result? One of the most boring weekend box office reports in months. Months! The month or so following the end of the summer movie season is traditionally one of the worst of the year, the time when Hollywood unleashes all of the films that they have little faith in, a buffer between the blockbuster months and the award season months. In other words, it's the exact kind of climate where a movie like 'One Direction: This is Us' can thrive.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘You’re Next’ and ‘The World’s End’ Get Served by ‘The Butler’
Despite a bunch of new releases with all kinds of wide and varied appeal, this weekend's box office top 10 looks suspiciously like last week's. Apparently, none of the newcomers could match Lee Daniels' 'The Butler,' which effortlessly claimed the top spot once more.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Butler’ Disarms ‘Kick-Ass 2′
There's something thematically appropriate about a movie telling the story of a butler who quietly influenced the United States taking the number one spot at the box office over its flashy, bigger rivals. Lee Daniels' 'The Butler' took multiplexes by storm this weekend, taking down last week's competition as well as a handful of seemingly strong newcomers.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Elysium’ Wins a Busy Weekend
In a weekend with four new major releases but no definitive frontrunners, the Matt Damon sci-fi action flick 'Elysium' snagged the top spot over some seemingly powerful competition. Director Neill Blomkamp's film continues this summer's trend of R-rated fare opening big ('The Purge,' 'The Conjuring,' '2 Guns') and proves that there's plenty of box office success to be had in the typically slow final weeks of the season.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ’2 Guns’ Shoots Down ‘The Smurfs 2′
Ah, the continuing appeal of the one and only Denzel Washington. How much do people love this guy? They love him so much that they'll transform just about any movie he appears in into a respectable hit, even if that movie is a poorly marketed (but well-reviewed) action movie based on a comic book that no one read. We shouldn't be surprised that '2 Guns' shot to the top of the box office, but we are a little. Oh, Denzel Washington, you always catch us off guard.
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‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy’ Are Doing a Crossover Episode
After years of sharing the same block on Fox Sunday nights, 'The Simpsons' and 'Family Guy' are finally doing something that no one ever expected: they're crossing over. To be more specific, an upcoming episode of 'Family Guy' will see Peter Griffin and his family stumble into the town of Springfield, where they encounter the Simpson family.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Conjuring’ Conjures Up a Massive Opening
There was a lot of buzz surrounding James Wan's 'The Conjuring' going into this weekend. "Scariest movie of the year." "Best horror movie in a long time." And so on. But it paid off. 'The Conjuring' not only won the box office, it won the box office in a way that R-rated horror movies often don't. Between this and 'The Purge,' R-rated horror is officially back in a big way.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Despicable Me 2′ Triumphs over ‘Grown Ups 2′ and ‘Pacific Rim’
What's more powerful than a bunch of giant robots and giant monsters? What's more powerful than Adam Sandler and all his buddies? This weekend gave us a definitive answer: a lovable supervillain voiced by Steve Carell. 'Despicable Me 2' triumphed at the box office for the second week in a row, beating out newcomers like 'Grown Ups 2' and 'Pacific Rim' and making it look easy.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Despicable Me 2′ Rides Over ‘The Lone Ranger’
Which would you expect to win the Fourth of July weekend: the Disney-produced, Johnny Depp-starring revival of an iconic American hero or the sequel to a French-made, Steve Carell-starring animated movie about a lovable supervillain? Well, it looks like American audiences simply aren't interested in westerns, even the uber-expensive ones starring Captain Jack Sparrow with a bird on his head. 'Despicable Me 2' destroyed 'The Lone Ranger' over the holiday weekend. Like, totally wrecked it. Mercilessly.
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Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Heat’ and ‘White House Down’ Play Second Fiddle to Pixar
What happens when two new releases that look like sure-things smash into the unstoppable wall that is a Pixar movie? Well, you get one second place hit and one severe disappointment. 'The Heat' still looks good next to the continued success of 'Monsters University,' but it made 'White House Down' stumbling at the starting line look all the more horrible.