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25 Jan

Box Office Predictions: Mean Girls goes for the Threepeat

By . FilmTV No Comments

Every New Year brings headlines of all the new movies hitting theaters that year that excite people. Most of those titles come from the summer and winter months, with a few mentions for spring release movies. Do you know what month has almost no mention in those articles? January! There are several reasons for that. First, January generally sees strong holdover numbers from the big Holiday blockbusters that many studios tend to steer clear of. However, the holidays of 2023 didn’t produce an Avatar: The Way of Water-sized hit the way 2022 did. To be fair, it did produce Wonka, which may not be a near $700 million domestic grosser, but it has still shown some solid numbers over the past few weeks. Second, NFL playoffs. There is simply no other event that commands Americans’ attention more than the run-up to the Super Bowl, a television event that nearly every year is ranked as the highest-rated program on TV, with last year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles pulling in a massive 115.1 million viewers, making it the most watched television program in the history of TV!

So yeah, studios know that releasing a big movie on a weekend when most people are on their couch watching the best teams in the NFL duke it out would be an idiotic move. How else can you explain that this weekend sees zero new releases? In a world where studios stake out their opening weekends sometimes a decade in advance, this weekend, January 26-28, 2024, was deemed a weekend not worth putting anything new out into the world. I’m sure they knew that the San Francisco 49ers would be playing this weekend and figured everyone would be cheering them on. It’s the only logical conclusion I could draw! 

So, with that said, you can expect this weekend to look a lot like last weekend, which looked a lot like the weekend before, with Mean Girls more than likely set to take first place for a third weekend in a row with around $7 million in receipts. However, there is one movie that is hot on its tail, and that is the Jason Statham/ David Ayer collaboration The Beekeeper, which has seen solid numbers since its debut and, during the week, actually landed in first place at the box office. Since that film is more adult-oriented, I don’t think it will be the weekend champion, as adults are more likely to hit a weekday screening than head to theaters on the weekend when the teenage crowd is in the theater doing their Tik Tok’s and snap chats in the middle of the movie (yes, I’m old!) That is why I think Beekeeper will stay in second, but only by a slim margin, with around $6.5 million in receipts. You can check out Tyler Nichols’s 7/10 review of Mean Girls here and his 7/10 review of Beekeeper here.

Third place will go to the aforementioned Wonka as families continue to embrace this Paul King-directed musical prequel to the tune of $5.5 million. While this won’t be the weekend, it does it. You can expect Wonka to join the $200 million (domestic) club soon, which is quite the feat for a film that opened at $39 million. Don’t let it be said that word of mouth isn’t what makes any movie sink or swim.

Speaking of word of mouth, one of the best word-of-mouth hits in recent memory should keep its magic going this weekend as the R-rated romantic comedy Anyone But You will see a weekend in the $4.5 million range, which would represent a sub 20% drop. This really has been the story of the past few months, as these types of films tend to open modestly and then fade away. Audiences simply tell others that this Sydney Sweeney/ Glen Powell rom-com is worth your time and money. As I have said over the past few weeks, this isn’t a movie that reinvents the wheel. It simply knows exactly what it is and provides audiences with a feel-good, if predictable, tale of two people falling in love. When I watched it, it felt like a spiritual successor to Wedding Crashers, a great company to be in as many people find it to be one of the funniest films ever made.

Suppose there is a movie that could give Anyone But You a run for its number 4 spot. In that case, it is those damn birds from Migration, as this is another film that opened to less than stellar numbers ($12.4 million) but has seen great word of mouth (and a real lack of competition) propel it to strong domestic numbers as this weekend it looks to cross that magical $100 million mark finally. I do think Migration may have the edge on Anyone But You for similar reasons I mentioned above: families tend to hit theaters on the weekend, giving Migration the edge with around $4.6 million.

Outside of the top five, you will start to see some of the Oscar Nominated films see their anticipated bumps, with the biggest benefactors being American Fiction (which I found to be a hilarious and heart-felt story with genuinely earned nominations for Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown as well as Cord Jefferson’s adapted screenplay) and Poor Things which will hopefully see Emma Stone pick up her second trophy as I found her performance truly transformative and not over-praised the way some other nominated performances seem to be. 

poor things review

Some theaters are taking the opportunity to re-release Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on IMAX screens to give audiences one last chance to see the film in the biggest and best way possible (I took that opportunity earlier this week, even though I own the film on 4K disc, I couldn’t pass up seeing this genuine masterpiece in theaters for my fourth time!) Or perhaps a different kind of Oscar Nominee is what you are looking for, and in that case, you can check out Godzilla Minus One Minus Color as the recently minted Oscar Nominee (for Best Visual Effects, the first ever nomination for the 70-year-old franchise) sees a one week only re-release to theaters with a new black and white version of the film.

Will you be making it to theaters this weekend? If so, let us know what you plan on seeing in the comments, and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where this weekend’s box office numbers are heading.

TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS

  1. Mean Girls– $7 Million
  2. The Beekeeper– $6.5 Million
  3. Wonka– $5.5 Million
  4. Migration– $4.6 Million
  5. Anyone But You– $4.5 Million

The post Box Office Predictions: Mean Girls goes for the Threepeat appeared first on JoBlo.

25 Jan

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein cast gathers together for a picture before filming begins

By . FilmTV No Comments

Director Guillermo del Toro is moving ahead with one of his dream projects, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein that is set up at the Netflix streaming service. We’ve heard that Frankenstein is expected to start filming (possibly under the working title Prodigal Father) on February 12th. The production will last nearly five months, wrapping up on July 5th. Filming will take place in Ontario, Canada, and possibly in London, England as well. It looks like Canada will be the first filming location, as del Toro recently took cast members Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight), Mia Goth (Pearl), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) to eat at a Toronto restaurant, where they posed for a picture with the staff. You can take a look at the picture at the bottom of this article.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein might have the following logline: Set in Eastern Europe in the 19th Century, the story of Dr. Pretorius, who needs to track down Frankenstein’s monster- who is believed to have died in a fire forty years before–in order to continue the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein.

Whats on Netflix previously reported that Isaac would play the Monster and Goth will be the Bride, with Andrew Garfield (who has since had to drop out of the cast) as Dr. Frankenstein. Their intel seems to have been slightly off, though, because when Garfield left and was replaced by Jacob Elordi (Saltburn), it was said that the role Garfield had passed over to Elordi was the Monster.

Del Toro has been talking about making a new version of Frankenstein for more than a decade. At one point, he did have the project set up at Universal, with Doug Jones (The Shape of Water) on board to play Frankenstein’s Monster. The movie got far enough into pre-production that Jones even saw a bust of the Monster that was inspired by Bernie Wrightson’s artwork in an illustrated adaptation of Shelley’s novel that Wrightson spent seven years working on. But then the project fell apart. Now it’s finally happening at the Netflix streaming service, which previously teamed with del Toro on Pinocchio and the anthology series Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Are you looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein? What do you think of the cast del Toro has assembled? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Here’s the picture:

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25 Jan

The Underdoggs Review

By . FilmTV No Comments

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2I8pyl6ei2Q&feature=oembed

Plot: Jaycen “Two Js” Jennings is a washed-up ex-professional football star who has hit rock bottom. When Jaycen is sentenced to community service coaching the Underdoggs, an unruly pee-wee football team in his hometown of Long Beach, California, he sees it as an opportunity to rebuild his public image and turn his life around. As Jaycen works to transform the foul-mouthed Underdoggs into top-notch champions, he reconnects with his past, including an old flame and a few of his ex-teammates, and rediscovers his love of the game.

Review: Underdog stories have always been popular fodder for movies. Redemption stories about athletes and tales of scrappy kids needing a mentor are equally popular. From The Bad News Bears to Little Giants and The Mighty Ducks, sports comedies have always found success. With The Underdoggs, that appeal is tested by taking the formula that made those aforementioned films successful and injecting them with enough profanity to garner an R rating. Inspired by Snoop Dogg’s love of sports, including his experience as a coach and running a league for underprivileged youth in Los Angeles, The Underdoggs has all the hallmarks of classic sports movies. It also, unfortunately, has all of the cliches as well. With a cast of child actors who seem to be having a blast dropping f-bombs and emulating Snoop himself, this movie is just too generic to be inspirational.

The concept, down to the dee oh double gees in the title, comes from the story pitch with Snoop Dogg and Constance Schwartz-Morini. With Snoop aboard as producer with Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and others, The Underdoggs was originally envisioned as a theatrical release, Snoop Dogg’s first since 2004’s Soul Plane. A shift was made to Prime Video when the producers realized an R-rated comedy would be a hard sell at the post-pandemic box office. This was likely the best decision as the film is not all that funny. The film opens with a disclaimer about the profanity in the film before saying this is how kids really talk and dropping some f-bombs of its own. We then get a crash course in the rise and fall of Jaycen Jennings, a high school football player who makes an amazing catch and parlays it into a college and NFL career. Long looking out for himself, Two Js alienates himself from every team he plays for and is relegated to making a podcast, hoping his agent, Ryan Kaufman (Kal Penn), can get him a commentator role on television. When things don’t pan out, Two Js is involved in a car accident and sentenced to community service in his old Long Beach neighborhood.

Two Js run into his old friend Kareem (Mike Epps), high school coach (George Lopez), and former girlfriend Cherise (Tika Sumpter) while visiting a pee-wee football team in need of a new coach. Realizing that the good PR from coaching underprivileged kids could get him back in the limelight, Two Js anoints himself as their new celebrity mentor. Right off the bat, Two Js learns that coaching is much more challenging than expected. Each of the kids on the team has their own issues they are dealing with, which allows Two Js to give them nicknames in accordance with their issues. There is Ghost (Kylah Davila), who never removes their helmet; Tony (Adan James Carrillo), who drops the ball and thus earns the name Titties; and Cherise’s son Tre (Jonigan Booth), whom Two Js shares a lot in common with. The rest of the kids on the team check off the formulaic cliches every movie like this has, including the nerdy kid, the flashy kid who can’t ball, and the poor kid hiding that he lives in a trailer park. As the challenges ramp up, including the rival team, the Colonels, who are coached by Two Js’ nemesis Chip Collins (Andrew Schulz).

You can tell that The Underdoggs had higher aspirations than a direct-to-streaming debut, as evidenced by the big-name NFL cameos, including Tony Gonzalez, Deion Sanders, Terry Bradshaw, Curt Menefee, Michael Strahan, Howie Long, and Jay Glazer. Aside from some scenes filmed inside the NFL on FOX sets, most of the action in this series takes place on a small football field. Much of the charm of this movie is reliant on Snoop Dogg learning lessons and giving things to the kids both in mentorship and blinged-out swag, like new jerseys sponsored by Raising Canes Chicken Fingers. There is certainly ambition to tell a feel-good story here, but it is stunted by the unnecessary profanity that earned this film its R rating. Snoop plays a lot of himself as Two Js, including unrelenting swearing and weed smoking. While the drugs and kids don’t mix on screen, the swearing loses its charm pretty quickly and cannot hide the weak script beneath it.

The creative talent behind The Underdoggs is shocking in that they didn’t help the finished product become more than a cookie-cutter project with extra swearing. Producers Kenya Barris and Jonathan Glickman (Creed III) have solid track records with successful and well-made films and series, but that does not help this movie. Screenwriters Isaac Schamis and Danny Segal, veterans of Barris’ series Grown-ish and film #BlackAF, mine the countless sports films before The Underdoggs and reuse all their tropes and jokes. Early in The Underdoggs, there is even a direct reference to Emilio Estevez in The Mighty Ducks, so it was not lost on the writers where these ideas came from. Director Charles Stone III made his directorial debut in 2002 with the solid film Drumline before making successful comedies like Mr. 3000 and Uncle Drew while working on the NBC series Friday Night Lights and Kenya Barris series Black-ish and Mixed-ish. Stone is familiar with sports movies and comedies and working with the producers and writers of The Underdoggs. Yet, even he cannot overcome the mediocre material he was given.

The uneven first half of The Underdoggs makes it very difficult to give the movie an opportunity to rise above its weak script, but it starts to find some momentum when Two Js realizes the error of his ways. Still, the kid characters never really get to develop past superficial challenges, and the romance between Two Js and Cherise barely rises above a simmer. Mike Epps seems to be having the most fun of anyone in the cast, and when Snoop Dogg stops trying to act and is just natural, the film works better. Unfortunately, it is a little too late as the ending of The Underdoggs is much better than the movie that came before it. As the end credits played photos from Snoop’s youth football league and shared a positive message about teamwork, sports, and supporting underprivileged kids, I was touched and wondered why there wasn’t more of that in the movie I had just watched. The Underdoggs is mediocre at best despite having its heart in the right place.


The Underdoggs

BELOW AVERAGE

5

The post The Underdoggs Review appeared first on JoBlo.

25 Jan

Chief of Station starring Aaron Eckhart and Olga Kurylenko gets acquired by distributor and sets a release date

By . FilmTV No Comments
aaron eckhart, chief of station

The new spy thriller Chief of Station is set to hit stateside. The film, which stars Aaron Eckhart and Olga Kurylenko, comes from the production companies Bee Holder Productions and Concourse Media Film. The movie has now also secured a distributor as Vertical purchased the U.S. rights and has plans to release the project domestically in May 2024. Matthew Shreder, a producer on the film, says, “Chief of Station is an elevated spy thriller that delivers impressive action, suspense and Bond-esque vibes. Vertical is the perfect partner to bring this film to audiences nationwide and we look forward to seeing them launch it in a few months.”

According to Deadline, in the plot of the film, “Eckhart plays Ben, a former CIA European Station Chief whose world comes crumbling down after his wife, a former operative, dies in a terrible accident. After receiving cryptic information that his wife’s death might not have been an accident, Ben heads back into the shadowy underworld of Eastern Europe, teaming up with a former adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew about his wife and the agency he worked at for more than 20 years.”

Along with Eckhart and Kurylenko, Chief of Station also stars Alex Pettyfer, Nick Moran, Chris Petrovski, Daniel Bernhardt, James Faulkner, Laetitia Eido, Isobel Wood and Nina Bergman. Jesse V. Johnson, who has helmed action films such as Triple Threat, Accident Man and Avengement, directs the spy flick from a screenplay by George Mahaffey, whose credits include Heatseekers. Steve Lee Jones of Bee Holder and Matthew Shreder of Concourse are the producers on the film. The executive producers on board include Jack Christian, D.J. McPherson, Rob McGillivray, Ben Stranahan, Julien P. Bourgon, Matthew E. Chausse, Juliana Lubin, Walter Josten, Patrick Josten, and Joseph Lanius. Co-producers include Tyler Condon, Kevin Human and Evangelo Kioussis.

Vertical’s SVP of Acquisitions, Tony Piantedosi, spoke of the film, “After our recent success working with Aaron on our release of The Bricklayer, we’re looking forward to bringing another must-see film to action fans looking for their next adrenaline hit. And Chief of Station certainly delivers it.”

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25 Jan

Stopmotion trailer: puppet horror film starring Aisling Franciosi gets February release date

By . FilmTV No Comments

A few months ago, right before the horror film Stopmotion had its world premiere screening at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, we learned that IFC Films had acquired North American and select International distribution rights to the film, with the plan being to give Stopmotion a theatrical release before it heads over to the Shudder streaming service. Now we know the exact dates for those releases: the movie will be reaching theatres on February 23rd, then will be available to watch on Shudder as of May 31st. With the release date information comes the unveiling of a trailer, and you can check that out in the embed above.

Aisling Franciosi of The Nightingale and The Last Voyage of the Demeter stars in Stopmotion, taking on the role of Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator who is struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother. Suddenly alone in the world, she creates a macabre new puppet film, while struggling to maintain her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her animated film take on a terrifying life of their own, and the unleashed power of her imagination threatens to destroy her.

IFC Films and Shudder are both owned by AMC, and AMC Networks’ Scott Shooman had this to say about the distribution deal: “IFC and Shudder are ecstatic to bring Robert Morgan’s riveting live-action/animation hybrid to audiences everywhere. Stopmotion is excellent as it weaves together a unique, psychological-horror with unbelievable visuals. The film joins the ranks of critically acclaimed titles such as Mad God and The Wolf House – breaking ground for how we perceive stop-motion in horror.  We are thrilled to distribute Robert Morgan’s first full-length feature for its theatrical release and presence on our streaming platform, Shudder.“

As Shooman mentioned, this is the feature debut of director Robert Morgan, who also wrote the screenplay with Robin King. Morgan has directed multiple short films over the last thirty years, including the “D is for Deloused” segment from the anthology film ABCs of Death 2.

Morgan provided the following statement: “IFC’s superb back catalogue speaks for itself, and Shudder’s embracing of the weirder and distinctive side of horror cinema means this is the perfect home for my first feature. I’m thrilled to be teaming up with them, and I’m excited to share Stopmotion with audiences very soon.“

Stopmotion was produced by Alain de la Mata and Christopher Granier-Deferre of BlueLight.

What did you think of the Stopmotion trailer? Does this look like a movie you’d want to watch? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Stopmotion

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