Matthew Monagle
Unused Carrie Fisher Footage Will Appear in ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’
It’s been a few months since the world lost Carrie Fisher, and while many would prefer to expand the conversation to her accomplishments outside of the Star Wars universe, plenty of people are anxiously wondering how her death might affect her character in the upcoming Star Wars sequels. For some, this can be viewed as a tacky approach to celebrity, but there’s a sweeter side to things as well. Leia Organa remains an icon for people around the world; finding an appropriate way to say goodbye to her character will be, in essence, the way many Star Wars fans say goodbye to Fisher herself.
‘Deadpool 2’ Screenwriters on Potential Release Dates: ‘No One Will Want to Come Out the Same Weekend’
Anyone who ever scrolls through the occasional Business Insider article knows that disruptors — companies that enter a marketplace and change the way people do business — don’t stay disruptors for very long. Take an organization like Uber. For years, Uber was the scrappy little underdog, a technology startup that used technology to upend the established taxi market. In the past few years, however, Uber has gone from the underdog to the dominant player, the company that other technology startups are looking to take down. Success breeds imitation, and imitation breeds improvement.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Power Rangers’ Is No Match for Beauties or Beasts
After several weeks of limited movement, a handful of new releases prompted a pretty thorough shakeup of the Box Office Top 10. While Beauty and the Beast continued its unstoppable assault on the domestic box office, we also said hello this weekend to three new movies and goodbye to a handful of old favorites from the first few months of the year. Let’s start with the estimated numbers as of Sunday afternoon.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Climbs to the Top of the Charts
While the giant ape in Kong: Skull Island may not climb any New York skyscrapers this time around, he certainly did climb the box office charts. The latest Warner Bros. monster movie shot all the way to the top spot in its opening weekend, with Logan and the surprising hit Get Out both shifting one spot down to accommodate him.
The ‘Power Rangers’ Are Ready to Rumble in These New TV Spots
As ScreenCrush managing editor Matt Singer recently noted, March is now the beginning of the summer movie season. That means saying goodbye to all the middling horror movies, low-concept boutique pictures, and genre films we used to see in March and cutting straight to the $100 million dollar blockbusters that are looking for any competitive edge. Last year, the big release at the end of March was the gloomy Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; this year we’re going to get the gentler kid’s version of that movie in Power Rangers, a film about people in bulky suits and flying machines fighting CGI monsters. It’s kind of a nice parallel.
Jack Sparrow Loses His Pants in the International Trailer for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’
For many movie fans, international trailers are an afterthought, an attempt to repackage previously released footage for a new market. But given the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies abroad, it’s probably safe to say that Disney takes its international footage pretty seriously. After all, the previous film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, grossed a total of $240 million domestically and $804 million internationally. Put another way: the film failed to make back its budget ($250 million) in the United States but tripled it abroad.
Date Night Takes a Turn for the Steamy in This ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ Clip
For most people, the decision to make a sequel to 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey is probably the punchline to a bad joke. But have you actually stopped and looked at the box office numbers for Fifty Shades of Grey recently? We’re not talking about $100 million at the global box office; we’re not even talking about $200 million. We’re talking about $571 million worldwide, more than Mad Max: Fury Road and Creed combined and the eleventh highest-grossing movie of the year. With those kind of numbers, you pretty much have to make a sequel. I don’t blame them.
Keira Knightley Will Return in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’
It seems like forever ago that the original Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was an unexpected Hollywood hit, a questionable adaptation of a popular carnival ride that somehow managed to be one of the best action movies of the year. In the original film, Johnny Depp surprised us all with his mimicry and knack for physical comedy, even bringing home an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Captain Jack Sparrow. Fast forward a few years, however, and the franchise seems to have devolved into what we originally feared: a hollow cash grab from Disney that has quite clearly overstayed its welcome.
Will Smith Explains Why He Passed on ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ for ‘Suicide Squad’
I’ll admit, I was one of those people mildly excited for Independence Day: Resurgence. Not only did the film return both Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman — as well as the up-and-coming Maika Monroe — it was also a welcome trip down memory lane to the original Independence Day, one of the first really big blockbuster movies I remember seeing in theaters. I know I’m not the only one whose interest in the film was pure nostalgia; as it turns out, this link to the past is exactly why Will Smith chose not to come back for a second film.
Watch This Supercut of All Available ‘Rogue One’ Footage
It seems like the only time that people talk about trailers is to complain about them in some fashion. They gave away too much, they gave away too little, they didn’t feature the right colors or characters or soundtrack. It’s tough to cut an enticing movie trailer in 2016, not least of all because of our culture’s increasing hand-wringing about what constitutes a spoiler. A good trailer — one that gives you just enough without giving you everything — should be celebrated as its own miniature art form.