Matthew Monagle
Get Up Close and Personal With Pennywise in These New ‘It’ Photos
While Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been dominating the conversation, Rian Johnson’s film wasn’t the only movie featured in next week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. Their annual Fall Movie Preview includes updates and photos from a handful of upcoming releases, including Stephen King’s It, arguably the most highly anticipated movie of the fall. We’ve already seen Mark Hamill fight people with a lightsaber, but a bunch of kids running around the Northeast in the 1980s fighting a supernatural monster? Why, we haven’t seen that since Stranger Things came out! And that was a whole year ago!
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:
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:
Warner Bros. Debuts a New ‘Justice League’ Poster at Comic-Con
With rumors swirling that Ben Affleck would be stepping down from his role as Batman after Justice League, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Warner Bros. needs to have a big day this weekend at Comic-Con. They need to be prepared to discuss Affleck’s rumors directly - confirming or denying as they see fit - and show off some footage for Justice League that keeps fans excited about the movie, regardless of the rumors circulating around it. Even those who believe that Warner Bros. has charted a new direction for itself with the addition of Joss Whedon and the success of Wonder Woman would admit that the studio has its work cut out for it.
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?
Martin Landau, Oscar Winner for ‘Ed Wood,’ Passes Away at Age 89
This just isn’t fair. Only hours after we found out that horror icon George Romero has passed away, we’ve also learned that the world has lost veteran character actor Martin Landau at the age of 89. According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Landau passed away unexpectedly after a short illness, leaving behind a legacy of television and film work that any actor would be proud to call their own. From his breakout role in North by Northwest to his regular work with Tim Burton, Landau has been a versatile
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:
Rumor: Be Prepared for Hugh Jackman as Scar in Disney’s ‘The Lion King’
Pop quiz, hotshot: what does an actor do after he retires from one of the most iconic superhero roles of all time? Answer: anything he wants! Nobody would fault Hugh Jackman for spending the next several years drinking mojitos on the beach and packing on some of the pounds he was contractually obligated to keep off for the X-Men franchise, but it sounds like Jackman isn’t about to rest on his laurels anytime soon. The actor has been hinting at an upcoming Disney collaboration over the last day, sharing suggestive photos of himself at Disney parks, and now a hot new rumor seems to explain why.
The ‘It’ Director Sheds Some Light on His Film’s R-Rating
With one of the most-viewed trailers of all time, it appears that Andres Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It is set to be the rare crossover hit in the horror genre. Fans who haven’t even read one of King’s books are excited to see a group of lovable losers take on Derry’s most infamous - and inhuman - killer. Those familiar with the original novel and television miniseries are also curious: how will Muschietti’s film work without the dual storytelling between past and present? What does It look like when filtered through a modern sensibility?
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Despicable Me 3’ and ‘Baby Driver’ Open at the Top
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, Edgar Wright fans: did the filmmaker’s action-packed Baby Driver score big with audiences? Or does this weekend belong to sequels, sequels, and more sequels? This weekend was always going to belong to Despicable Me 3— it’s a big hit with the kiddos, don’t you know— but there’s definitely some room for optimism in how the rest of the weekend Top 10 shook out. Here’s the numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Paramount Sets a Release Date Befitting a Blockbuster for ‘Top Gun 2’
Let me make this perfectly clear: I’m less of a Top Gun fan and more of a fan of putting Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in more blockbuster movies, but the end result is pretty much the same: I am ready for a little Top Gun 2 action. The long-rumored film — or perhaps just long-desired film — was finally confirmed by Cruise earlier this year, and now Paramount Pictures is cranking up the movie-making machine to deliver on the promise of more midair dogfights and subtle homoeroticism. With Cruise back, and Kilmer hopefully soon to follow, this could be the perfect throwback to the heydays of studio filmmaking of the late ’80s and early ’90s.