Matthew Monagle
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Pirates’ Plunders While ‘Baywatch’ Blunders
There was a time not so long ago when Memorial Day weekend was a big deal for Hollywood, but this weekend felt more like a bunch of under-performers gathering together and learning very little about life. Call it the anti-Breakfast Club, if you will. This certainly isn’t what Hollywood had in mind for most of the franchises, and while Johnny Depp’s latest pirate movie did OK, OK seems to be the operative word of the summer if you’re not a movie about superheroes or literate villagers. Here’s the weekend gross through Sunday afternoon:
Arnold Schwarzenegger Confirms He’ll Appear in the Next ‘Terminator’ Movie
Throughout the years, the one constant in the Terminator franchise has been Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even after director James Cameron quit the franchise, Schwarzenegger kept on chugging along, appearing in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine, Terminator Genisys, and even having his likeness pop up in Terminator Salvation while he was still the governor of California. So with the news that James Cameron would be taking the helm of the franchise again after Genisys flopped, fans have been wondering if the actor had one last showing in him as everyone’s favorite compassionate death machine.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Soars, ‘King Arthur’ Crashes
On Thursday evening, plenty of executives went to bed with dreams of big opening weekend numbers in their head. Could the movie about a magical king unseat the movie about a talking tree? Or would a mother-daughter comedy with just the right release date unseat a pair of battling sisters? Now that we’ve reached the end of the holiday weekend, we finally have the numbers, and it turns out the answer was no and no, respectively. Here’s this past weekend’s grosses as of Sunday afternoon:
New Study Shows Too Many People Are Naming Their Kids ‘Khaleesi’ and ‘Kylo’
We’ve reached one of my favorite times of the year: the annual announcement by the Social Security Administration of the most popular baby names from the previous year. Why is that such a big deal, you might ask? Because each year we get to shake our heads at the number of parents who jump on the pop culture hype train and name their children after movie and television characters. While this year’s list showed that old-fashioned names such as Liam, Mason, and Olivia are back in style, it also featured a predictable handful of names from popular 2015 franchises. Sorry, kids.
All the Winners at the 2017 MTV Movie and TV Awards
Since Dennis Miller hosted the very first MTV Movie Awards back in 1992, the music channel’s annual award ceremony has been something of a fun dalliance into a world where the artistic merit of a movie is less important than its popular clout. This year marks a couple of big changes for the format: not only did the award show change its official name — it is now known as the MTV Movie & TV Awards — it also has become arguably the most inclusive award show to date, honoring titles like Moonlight, Get Out, and Jane the Virgin alongside its stalwart categories like Best Kiss and Best Villain.
Zachary Quinto Says There Are ‘No Guarantees’ We’ll Get a ‘Star Trek 4’
Despite being supported by a blindingly charismatic cast and some of the best action directors in the business, Paramount’s Star Trek franchise has somewhat been an exercise in diminishing returns after 2009’s big screen reboot. Last year’s Star Trek Beyond may have captured some of the fun of a standalone episode of the series, but it was a surprising disappointment with audiences: the film’s $158 million gross was nearly $100 million less than the first entry in the series and failed to break even on the studios $185 million investment. Those are the kind of numbers that make a studio think long and hard about investing in a sequel.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Fate of the Furious’ Zooms Up the Record Books
Audiences don’t turn their back on family. That’s the lesson to be learned from this past weekend, anyways, when The Fate of the Furious proved that this is one franchise showing no signs of slowing down. It was never a question of whether The Fate of the Furious would take the top spot this weekend, but even the most optimistic of projections couldn’t have expected the global domination that this movie undertook. Here’s the box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon:
Earth Comes Under Fire in This New ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Clip
With Star Wars: The Last Jedi dominating today’s conversations on social media, you might’ve forgotten that there are actually other movies being released in 2017. There are many! In fact, some of them are even being released by the same studio! One such film — the little-known Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 — braved the onslaught of Star Wars talk to release a brand new clip last night, setting the stage for future films in the franchise (and turning one late night sidekick into a movie star in the process). While the attached video shows the full segment, I’ve queued it up the relevant part.
Tom Cruise Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop in These ‘Mission: Impossible 6’ Set Photos
Look, I know that Tom Cruise must be getting older. There are lines on his face that weren’t there before and, like many gym rats, he’s been forced to trade leanness for bulk over the years just to maintain his active lifestyle. And I know that, someday, Tom Cruise will reach an age where the aches and pains catch up to him and he’ll no longer be able to pull off at least three incredible stunts per movie. But you know what? Today is not that day, and if this new batch of Mission: Impossible 6 set photos is to be believe, this is not that movie.
Dwayne Johnson Promises a ‘Far Dirtier’ ‘Baywatch’ Movie Than You’d Expect
What came first, the raunchy beach comedy or the Baywatch movie adaptation? Hollywood seems to have discovered in recent years that it can take an existing license — typically one associated with a semi-popular television series — and give it new life as a profane comedy for adults. Sure, there are probably a handful of Baywatch purists out there who have watched the sophomoric humor in the trailers with horror, but for everyone else? A vague recollection of the Baywatch brand and an appetite for 21 Jump Street-esque humor is all they need to be enticed.