Kris Kristofferson, the legendary country star turned superstar actor, has passed away at 88. No cause of death has yet been revealed, but Kristofferson retired from public life in 2021. While some of you reading this may know him best for playing Whistler in the Blade trilogy, his career goes much deeper than that, making him one of the most fascinating pop culture icons of his time.

Before he ever became an actor, Kristofferson was famous as a writer of country hits, including the immortal “Me and Bobby McGee,” later launching his own recording career, which included multiple Grammy wins and Gold records. But, even before that, he was quite accomplished, being a former Rhodes Scholar and captain in the U.S. Army. He famously turned down a teaching job (in English Lit) at West Point to focus on his musical career. He was seen as one of the leading figures in the Outlaw Country movement, which was a rejection of the more polished Nashville sound, eventually forming a supergroup called The Highwaymen with pals Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

Arguably, Kristofferson found his greatest success in movies, with his scraggly good looks but earthy, gentle demeanour making him one of the most in-demand leading men of the seventies. He starred in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for Sam Peckinpah (as Billy), in addition to Convoy, which was a smash hit in 1978 (he also had a small role in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). He starred as Ellen Burstyn’s love interest in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and at the peak of his heartthrob status, co-starred with Barbara Streisand in the 1976 version of A Star is Born.

In 1980, Kristofferson’s career suffered a setback when he starred in the infamous box office bomb Heaven’s Gate (although in recent years, Michael Cimino’s film has been reappraised), and ended the eighties being in Big Top Pee Wee and the (fun) sci-fi flick Millennium. He scored a major comeback as an actor in the nineties when he starred in John Sayles’ Lone Star before signing on to do the Blade trilogy. He was so popular as the titular character’s mentor that they brought him back in the sequel after originally killing him off. He popped up in many films after that, playing everything from the bad guy in a terrible Steven Seagal movie (Fire Down Below), a human in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake, to voicing a character in Fallout: New Vegas. All the while, he continued to perform and remained a legendary figure many looked up to, including the writer of this article.

Rest in peace, Kris. “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose / Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain’t free.”

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THE UNPOPULAR OPINION is an ongoing column featuring different takes on films that either the writer HATED, but that the majority of film fans LOVED, or that the writer LOVED, but that most others LOATHED. We’re hoping this column will promote constructive and geek fueled discussion. Enjoy!

The first time I watched the cult classic action film The Boondock Saints, I was seventeen and immediately fell in with the 93% fresh rating from audience members on Rotten Tomatoes.  A certified rotten, 17% rating from critics? Psh, I didn’t care (Not that Rotten Tomatoes is necessarily the answer to everything, but it certainly is often indicative of something).

Years later, I now know the truth.  This is a terrible movie.  It’s beyond even laughably bad and into the realm of just plain outright bad.  As I re-watched it for this column, I couldn’t help but keep saying things like “this doesn’t make sense.  This – this, it – this movie doesn’t make any sense! What’s going on? Why – what’s – why is hap- why are they doing that?” Over and over over.  At least it made this truly awful movie entertaining.

“And Shepherds we shall be For Thee, my Lord, for Thee.

Seriously, nothing in this movie makes any sense.  Here are two examples of how logic runs about as deep in this movie as a paper cut – which is what I would correlate the experience of watching this movie to.  Paper cut after paper cut, with some lemon juice added because writer/director Troy Duffy just felt like it.

1) Why not kill Murphy (Norman Reedus) inside his apartment? There’s no need to take him out to the dumpster and kill him there.  This exists only so that Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) can do his five story leap while clutching a toilet bowl because someone decided this was a cool and necessary story element.

2) Speaking of which, after falling five-odd stories we see Connor bounce off the other Russian guy that isn’t Checkov and crash knee first into the ground.  Five stories, he glances off some Russian dude, smacks into the pavement knee first, and all he comes away with is a f*cking limp? And one that doesn’t even last very long? No.  Nein.  Absolutely not.

More importantly though: The Boondock Saints is a movie completely based around the cheap-ass excuse of coincidence.  The brothers just happen to have had a mother who insisted that they speak a minimum of six extra languages (German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Latin), which also happens to be the only thing which allows the story to progress.  If they didn’t speak Russian, then calling the number on Checkov’s pager would do nothing as they wouldn’t have then known to go the hotel room, meaning they wouldn’t have met killed the guys or Rocco there, etc… Not to mention the plot “development” of when Rocco sees Agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) leaving the gay bar.  This leads to Rocco following Smecker in order to kill him, which in turn leads to the brothers magically appearing at just the right time, which in its own turn leads to hearing Smecker’s confession that he wants to be like the brothers, leading eventually to Smecker working with them.  Duffy should have just called this movie THE LUCK OF THE IRISH and been done with it.

Power hath descended forth from Thy hand,

Oh, and how about the character inconsistencies that run throughout the whole of the film? Again, here are a few of the more offensively illogical examples:

1) Il Duce’s ambush of the brothers and Rocco is extremely sloppy, and thereby goes against everything that has been established about him thus far in the film.  He is supposedly “ghostlike,” and yet the first time we meet him he completely f*cks this information sideways.

2) When woken up in bed by a phone call, after rebuffing the advances of the guy in the bed several times, Smecker says “What are you doing?” “I want to cuddle” the guy replies.  To which Dafoe says “Cuddle? What a fag.”  This makes no sense either in relation to what we know about his character already or in conjunction with the offense he later takes at the Freudian slip of a detective saying “the fag man” instead of “the fat man.’

3) Why do the brothers put coins on the eyes of the dead in the hotel room? Do they actually believe in that? Why don’t they do it any time before or after this one occurrence? If they do believe in it, then that does tell us something about their characters, though that “something” is, again, never replicated before or after.  If they don’t believe in it, then there is no reason for them to do this beyond Duffy giving Smecker another chance to be “the super-smart FBI agent.”

4) This guy:

Our feet may swiftly carry out Thy commands.

Meet Rocco, a character any serious discussion of The Boondock Saints must bring up.  He is, without a doubt, easily one of the worst characters in cinema history. F*ck you Rocco. F*ck your face, f*ck the offensive absurdity of your personality, f*ck your values and actions and choices, f*ck your childish hypocrisy, and f*ck you having a dramatic death despite the fact that you’re actually a slimy little bastard who lacks a single redeeming quality.

The thing is, Rocco’s presence is actually utterly grievous for another reason entirely: his existence and “friendship” with the brothers makes the least sense of all and throws the validity of the entire movie’s events and characters into doubt.  See, the brothers are on a mission to eradicate evil.  They seek to quell the spread of villainy in the streets.  And yet when it comes to Rocco? Rocco, who is a willing part of that villainy, as well as a misogynist creep and a sleaze and slime ball who gropes dead bodies and asks if he can make up for it by killing two random guys that are probably no worse than him? Not only do the brothers not kill him, but they allow him to join them in their f*cking quest.  Rocco serves no use to them beyond his knowledge of the habits and hideouts of the various mafia members, which, to be fair, might be why they keep him alive and a part of their team.

But in this movie’s “logic,” such real-world practicality doesn’t matter one bit.  The brothers magically know somebody with a small arsenal in his basement – why can’t they find out the details about mafia gatherings/hideouts through a different source? And later, when Rocco finally dies, the brothers are very visibly and audibly distraught.  I.e. far more so than should be if he was just an informant, meaning they still considered him their best friend despite the fact that their friendship with him goes against everything they supposedly stand for.

So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be.

Even beyond all of the above, this movie comes up sorely lacking from a filmmaking perspective too.

1) The script is littered with moments and lines that have nothing to do with anything beyond “sounding cool” – when Checkov first rolls up and says “this is no game,” not only is it the most stereotypical line possible in that moment, but nobody has talked about games before.  At all.  His line is in reference to something that never happened.

2) The editing is choppy and plucks you out of scenes before the characters can finish their moment, meaning that scenes often lack any sort of resolution and instead flow artificially together simply because Duffy decided so.

3) The plot device of showing the before/after of an event and having Smecker figure out what happened is overused and (again) ruins the flow of the action.  It’s not nearly as engaging, as there are no stakes for the characters since we already know how the event turned out.  It could have been fantastic if used once to good effect, allowing us to witness Smecker’s deductive prowess.  But after that first (or maaayyybe second) time the effect becomes boring, bland, and does not serve the story in any sort of positive way.

4) Troy Duffy can’t even decide what kind of movie this is.  The brothers have their mutual epiphany/call to action, waking suddenly while speaking the same lines of religious-related text, and are all of a sudden vigilantes that are willing to kill any and every bad guy they encounter with no moral hang-up about the matter? So is this an action movie with religious/spiritual undertones, an almost “mythic” tale? It would seem so, because there’s no decision making process to become vigilantes.  But then again, at other times the movie feels like it is trying to be a serious action flick grounded in reality. And then there are the times it lets itself be as over the top as possible, with cinematic moments happening right and left (such as falling through the ceiling and shooting perfectly despite being upside down and having barely killed anyone before).  And it is from this confusion that so much of my problem with this movie stems – The Boondock Saints is trying to be at least three different kinds of movies at once, and so all of its individual identities suffer and what results is a limp cinematic noodle smothered in weaksauce.

In Nomine Patri, Et Fili, Et Spiritus Sancti.”

I could have gotten behind a more mythic take on the already-primal nature of Death Wish, which is no doubt one of the many cinematic influences on The Boondock Saints.  That is a movie which would interest me, and there are hints of it here and there.  The prayer the brothers/Il Duce say is, of course, awesome.  Suitably poetic, epic, and ancient sounding for its purposes here.  Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Billy Connelly, and Willem Dafoe are all great – you can tell they’re really having fun with the very bare material that is there for them to work with.  But at the end of the day, one prayer + four fun and dedicated performances + slight hints of greatness + a cool opening bit of Irish music + Willem Dafoe screaming “THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!” does not a worthwhile viewing experience make.

If only Troy Duffy had been struck by his own revelation, one that then told him to not make this movie and thereby prevented me from wasting precious minutes of my life.  Alas.  Well, at least I can always just watch… well… anything else.

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John Ashton, the legendary character actor who played the curmudgeonly (but ultimately heroic) Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop movies, has died. No news yet on the cause of death, but his passing was confirmed by his manager to Variety. In addition to his role as Taggart, Ashton had a long and distinguished career on screen, with him also playing a memorable foil to Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin in Midnight Run (directed by his Beverly Hills Cop director Martin Brest). 

Ashton was also a favourite of the legendary John Hughes, who cast him in a small role in She’s Having a Baby before giving him a big part (as Eric Stoltz’s father) in Some Kind of Wonderful. He also showed up in Hughes’ Curly Sue. Ashton was one of those guys who was just everywhere, with him excellent in Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone, the underrated George Gallo movie Middle Men, and on many, many TV shows and movies, such as the memorable 80s miniseries, I Know My First Name Is Steven, where he played infamous kidnap victim Steven Stayner’s father.  He also had a good role in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers.

Ashton had just recently reprised his Beverly Hills Cop role opposite former co-stars Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold in Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. In fact, I actually interviewed him at the junket and found him to be a lovely guy. Just before I went to interview him, I spotted him smoking a cigar on the balcony of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and when I went over to say hello, he couldn’t have been nicer. One of the most touching moments in the interview was when I asked him whether he’d like to come back for yet another Beverly Hills Cop movie, and he smiled at me, assuring me that he absolutely would. It’s sad that he won’t get the chance because he was a really good guy. 

Here’s part of the interview: 

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John Ashton, the legendary character actor who played the curmudgeonly (but ultimately heroic) Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop movies, has died. No news yet on the cause of death, but his passing was confirmed by his manager to Variety. In addition to his role as Taggart, Ashton had a long and distinguished career on screen, with him also playing a memorable foil to Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin in Midnight Run (directed by his Beverly Hills Cop director Martin Brest). 

Ashton was also a favourite of the legendary John Hughes, who cast him in a small role in She’s Having a Baby before giving him a big part (as Eric Stoltz’s father) in Some Kind of Wonderful. He also showed up in Hughes’ Curly Sue. Ashton was one of those guys who was just everywhere, with him excellent in Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone, the underrated George Gallo movie Middle Men, and on many, many TV shows and movies, such as the memorable 80s miniseries, I Know My First Name Is Steven, where he played infamous kidnap victim Steven Stayner’s father.  He also had a good role in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers.

Ashton had just recently reprised his Beverly Hills Cop role opposite former co-stars Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold in Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. In fact, I actually interviewed him at the junket and found him to be a lovely guy. Just before I went to interview him, I spotted him smoking a cigar on the balcony of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and when I went over to say hello, he couldn’t have been nicer. One of the most touching moments in the interview was when I asked him whether he’d like to come back for yet another Beverly Hills Cop movie, and he smiled at me, assuring me that he absolutely would. It’s sad that he won’t get the chance because he was a really good guy. 

Here’s part of the interview: 

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It’s been 25 years since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people in The Sixth Sense. While Osment had a small role in Forrest Gump prior, would go on to work with Steven Spielberg and later be a welcome face in movies and TV, nothing could or will top The Sixth Sense. And so for the occasion, he remembers working with Bruce Willis and the movie’s famous twist.

Sitting down with Entertainment Weekly, Haley Joel Osment said that Bruce Willis was everything he had imagined and more on the set of The Sixth Sense. “It was fantastic…It made a huge impression on me because that was the first gigantic celebrity that I’d worked with at an age where I was aware of his stardom. And he did everything in such a cool way, and had such charisma, and was the person that you want on set setting the tone for the sort of movie we were making, because things usually revolve around the No. 1 on the call sheet. It was a script that we all cared about so much and put so much effort into, and Bruce led the way on that.” That’s pretty awesome to hear, especially since Willis was only put in The Sixth Sense because of the Broadway Brawler debacle. Osment also added that Willis continued his good graces even after filming wrapped. “Sometimes I would just come home from school and the answering machine would be blinking and it’d be him going like, ‘Hey, Haley Joel. Just saying hi.’ I need to find those old answering tapes. I know we preserved those.”

But let’s face it: it’s difficult to talk about The Sixth Sense without talking about its ending, in which it’s revealed that Willis’ Malcolm Crowe has been dead the whole time, another one of the “dead people” that Osment’s Cole sees throughout the film. But unlike in some scenarios, those within the industry were pretty tight-lipped. “It’s also kind of remarkable that a lot of people read that script and the twist was not so widely known, and had not been spoiled by people who had had access to it before. We didn’t have to shoot any fake endings or anything like that to throw people off.”

Haley Joel Osment would go on to nab one of The Sixth Sense’s six Academy Award nominations, becoming the second-youngest Best Supporting Actor nominee ever, which holds to this day. While the movie would go home empty-handed, that a horror film was also nominated for Best Picture was still a huge deal. (Go ahead, call it a thriller if that makes you happy; either way, it was a rare feat at the Oscars.)

What do you think the reputation of The Sixth Sense is 25 years on? Does it hold up or was it very much of its time?

The post Haley Joel Osment remembers Bruce Willis’ leadership on and the twist of The Sixth Sense appeared first on JoBlo.

It’s been 25 years since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people in The Sixth Sense. While Osment had a small role in Forrest Gump prior, would go on to work with Steven Spielberg and later be a welcome face in movies and TV, nothing could or will top The Sixth Sense. And so for the occasion, he remembers working with Bruce Willis and the movie’s famous twist.

Sitting down with Entertainment Weekly, Haley Joel Osment said that Bruce Willis was everything he had imagined and more on the set of The Sixth Sense. “It was fantastic…It made a huge impression on me because that was the first gigantic celebrity that I’d worked with at an age where I was aware of his stardom. And he did everything in such a cool way, and had such charisma, and was the person that you want on set setting the tone for the sort of movie we were making, because things usually revolve around the No. 1 on the call sheet. It was a script that we all cared about so much and put so much effort into, and Bruce led the way on that.” That’s pretty awesome to hear, especially since Willis was only put in The Sixth Sense because of the Broadway Brawler debacle. Osment also added that Willis continued his good graces even after filming wrapped. “Sometimes I would just come home from school and the answering machine would be blinking and it’d be him going like, ‘Hey, Haley Joel. Just saying hi.’ I need to find those old answering tapes. I know we preserved those.”

But let’s face it: it’s difficult to talk about The Sixth Sense without talking about its ending, in which it’s revealed that Willis’ Malcolm Crowe has been dead the whole time, another one of the “dead people” that Osment’s Cole sees throughout the film. But unlike in some scenarios, those within the industry were pretty tight-lipped. “It’s also kind of remarkable that a lot of people read that script and the twist was not so widely known, and had not been spoiled by people who had had access to it before. We didn’t have to shoot any fake endings or anything like that to throw people off.”

Haley Joel Osment would go on to nab one of The Sixth Sense’s six Academy Award nominations, becoming the second-youngest Best Supporting Actor nominee ever, which holds to this day. While the movie would go home empty-handed, that a horror film was also nominated for Best Picture was still a huge deal. (Go ahead, call it a thriller if that makes you happy; either way, it was a rare feat at the Oscars.)

What do you think the reputation of The Sixth Sense is 25 years on? Does it hold up or was it very much of its time?

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Despite pleas from creator Richard Gadd to focus on the positive outcomes of his Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, a judge has ruled that Fiona Harvey – who says she is the real-life inspiration for stalker Martha Scott – can move forward with her $170 million defamation lawsuit.

A statement from U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner read, in part: “Defendants argue that a reasonable person would not understand that Martha is, in actual fact, Plaintiff, such that any statements about Martha would be about Plaintiff. In particular, Defendants argue that the similarities between Martha and Plaintiff are so broad that a reasonable person would not have been able to identify her. The Court disagrees.”

The written statement went on to further outline why Fiona Harvey has a case against Netflix and Baby Reindeer, saying the similarities between both Harvey and her so-called fictional counterpart are too specific to be considered broad characteristics. The judge would cite the Harvey and Martha both being Scottish lawyers residing in London, the two being 20 years older than Richard Gadd/Donny Dunn and more, summarizing this portion with, “While there may be numerous Scottish lawyers living in London of the same approximate age as Plaintiff, it is very likely that only Plaintiff has been accused of stalking a lawyer in a newspaper article while also communicating with Gadd on social media.”

Of course, Netflix is going to go all in on the Baby Reindeer lawsuit, as it is undoubtedly their most high-profile one ever related to one of their original works. They had previously seen smaller ones over everything from the widely popular Squid Game taking up too much broadband in South Korea to a real-life family member of Griselda Blanco – the subject of miniseries Griselda – saying they didn’t give permission for their likeness. The Griselda case was dismissed, while Netflix simply decided to become partners with the South Korean group suing them. (There is currently another claim against Netflix over the plot of Squid Game being stolen from another movie.) In short, Fiona Harvey has a long road ahead if she’s going to come out victorious, especially to the tune of $170 million.

And while he is not explicitly named, Richard Gadd recently said that he would be prepared to testify should he be called to the stand in the Baby Reindeer case. With it moving forward and currently set for a May 6th, 2025 start, we could see Gadd defending what became his breakout series, taking home four Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

How do you see the lawsuit against Netflix over Baby Reindeer shaking out? Give us your predictions in the comments section below.

The post Judge approves $170M Baby Reindeer lawsuit against Netflix; trial set for May 2025 appeared first on JoBlo.

Despite pleas from creator Richard Gadd to focus on the positive outcomes of his Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, a judge has ruled that Fiona Harvey – who says she is the real-life inspiration for stalker Martha Scott – can move forward with her $170 million defamation lawsuit.

A statement from U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner read, in part: “Defendants argue that a reasonable person would not understand that Martha is, in actual fact, Plaintiff, such that any statements about Martha would be about Plaintiff. In particular, Defendants argue that the similarities between Martha and Plaintiff are so broad that a reasonable person would not have been able to identify her. The Court disagrees.”

The written statement went on to further outline why Fiona Harvey has a case against Netflix and Baby Reindeer, saying the similarities between both Harvey and her so-called fictional counterpart are too specific to be considered broad characteristics. The judge would cite the Harvey and Martha both being Scottish lawyers residing in London, the two being 20 years older than Richard Gadd/Donny Dunn and more, summarizing this portion with, “While there may be numerous Scottish lawyers living in London of the same approximate age as Plaintiff, it is very likely that only Plaintiff has been accused of stalking a lawyer in a newspaper article while also communicating with Gadd on social media.”

Of course, Netflix is going to go all in on the Baby Reindeer lawsuit, as it is undoubtedly their most high-profile one ever related to one of their original works. They had previously seen smaller ones over everything from the widely popular Squid Game taking up too much broadband in South Korea to a real-life family member of Griselda Blanco – the subject of miniseries Griselda – saying they didn’t give permission for their likeness. The Griselda case was dismissed, while Netflix simply decided to become partners with the South Korean group suing them. (There is currently another claim against Netflix over the plot of Squid Game being stolen from another movie.) In short, Fiona Harvey has a long road ahead if she’s going to come out victorious, especially to the tune of $170 million.

And while he is not explicitly named, Richard Gadd recently said that he would be prepared to testify should he be called to the stand in the Baby Reindeer case. With it moving forward and currently set for a May 6th, 2025 start, we could see Gadd defending what became his breakout series, taking home four Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

How do you see the lawsuit against Netflix over Baby Reindeer shaking out? Give us your predictions in the comments section below.

The post Judge approves $170M Baby Reindeer lawsuit against Netflix; trial set for May 2025 appeared first on JoBlo.

Dreamworks Animation’s The Wild Robot performed way ahead of our expectations at the box office this weekend. Even the most optimistic industry estimates had this only making about $25 million (we pegged it at significantly less). Still, it looks like the excellent reviews (and the fact that it’s based on a universally beloved book) played in its favor. Its $35 million opening weekend is a pretty big coup for a non-sequel these days, with it all earning a terrific A CinemaScore rating, promising that it should have good legs in the week to come.

However, another animated movie about robots with solid word-of-mouth wasn’t so lucky. Transformers One, which also earned an A CinemaScore and boasts an all-star voice cast, collapsed in week two at the box office. It plummeted a massive 62% to a $9.3 million total and a $39 million domestic tally. It will be lucky to break $55 million in North America and will rank as the lowest-grossing Transformers movie since the original animated film way back in 1986. Perhaps this franchise needs to be retired for a while (do we really need a G.I. Joe/ Transformers crossover?).

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also sported another strong showing at the box office, earning a rock-solid $16 million and crossing the $250 million mark domestically. Not bad for a movie WB almost consigned to a streaming debut on Max. 

Of course, the opening everyone will be talking about this weekend is Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which turned out to be the disaster everyone thought it would be with a $4 million opening. Sporting a putrid D CinemaScore rating, the movie also proved to be the latest box office dud from Lionsgate, a studio which, sadly, cannot seem to catch a break these days. 

Megalopolis was soundly trounced by a few movies this weekend, including the Indian blockbuster Devara Part 1, which stars RRR’s N. T. Rama Rao Jr, and made a hefty $5.6 million for fourth place. Blumhouse’s Speak No Evil also continued to show some serious legs, making  $4.3 million (only a 26% week-to-week decline), with it likely to end its theatrical run in the $40 million range. 

Deadpool & Wolverine, despite its imminent home media bow, made another $2.65 million, which landed it in seventh place, with a $631 million total. Amazon/MGM’s My Old Ass, which has been doing well in limited release, expanded to over 1000 screens and made $2.24 million. Lionsgate’s Never Let Go lost 50% of its audience and sank to ninth place with $2.2 million (and a sub $10 million domestic tally – horrible for a horror flick). Finally, The Substance, despite great reviews, hasn’t been able to attract much of a theatrical audience, with it making only $1.8 million in tenth place and a $6.8 million total. Ouch.

Next weekend should give the box office a much-needed shot of adrenaline, with Joker Folie A Deux primed for a $60 million-plus opening. Did you see anything this weekend? Let us know in the comments! 

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John Ryder may have wanted Jim to stop him, but you’re going to have a hard time stopping any fan from picking up the upcoming 4K Blu-ray of The Hitcher. Surprisingly, the movie has never been available on a Region 1 Blu-ray, but thankfully Warner Bros. is gassing up for exactly that.

As per The Digital Bits, Warner Bros. will release The Hitcher – which stars Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh – on October 22nd.

Here is the official write-up: “In this 1986 cult classic, director Robert Harmon thrills the viewer with the story of young Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), who stops on the highway to pick up a hitchhiker, not knowing that by doing so, he opens the door to terrible evil. The mysterious hitcher, unforgettably portrayed by Rutger Hauer, is a relentless slaughterer, preying on those who invite him into their lives. Somewhat dismissed at the time of its original release, The Hitcher developed a rabid fan following in the ensuing years, now properly recognized as one of the most memorable and terrifying thrillers of the 1980s.”

As far as special features go, fans of The Hitcher might be disappointed that they’ll only be getting an audio commentary with director Robert Harmon and writer Eric Red, a video interview with Harmon and the theatrical trailer. If you want more content – and we mean a lot more content – you might be better off with Second Sight’s set, which comes out on September 30th and features not only new extras but a 200-page book, a copy of the screenplay and more. OK, all of that is pretty incredible, but at least Warner Bros.’ version has the original artwork! For fans who go way back with the movie, that’s a major get.

Regardless of the lack of special features, this release of The Hitcher will offer the same 4K scan of the original camera negative as the one found on Second Sight’s. On the restoration itself, director Harmon said, “Stunned by how great it looks… beautiful work!! Really, this movie has no business looking this good considering how ancient the elements are.”

The Hitcher is beloved by a wealth of genre fans, myself included, so this is no doubt a pre-order. I would also pick Rutger Hauer’s performance as one of the best in any horror movie.

Will you be picking up this 4K release of The Hitcher? What are your memories of first seeing it?

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