Inside the Numbers of Deadpool’s Historic President’s Day Weekend
Deadpool’s massive $150 million four-day haul over President’s Day weekend is a historic achievement, besting the next biggest opening, 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey, by $57 million. Box Office Mojo’s reports that the film has now grossed $264.8 million worldwide as of this past Sunday. It’s playing in 3,588 theaters, at a $42,159 per theater average for the four-day weekend. Here are some of the numbers,...
Idris Elba Makes a Strong Case in Bastille Day Trailer
Bastille Day has the opportunity to be two things; a potentially exciting original film in its' own right, and, a two hour test reel proving that there’s no one better suited to take over the role of James Bond than Idris Elba. Period. End of story.
Now back to Bastille Day—the film follows a young American artist (Richard Madden, Game of Thrones) living in Paris mainly off the proceeds of his pick pocketing...
Midnight Special Tests Information-Free Waters at the Berlinale
Science fiction, thriller, or family drama? Jeff Nichols’ latest film, Midnight Special, which opens this week after premiering at the Berlinale, absorbingly mixes all three genres. Lead actor and perpetual Nichols collaborator Michael Shannon is a valiant dad on the run, trying to save his eight-year-old son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), from both a religious cult and the US government. These two entities are equally fervent — if sometimes mysteriously so — and violent in their pursuit of little,...
Watch the new Alice Through the Looking Glass TV Spot
Alice Through the Looking Glass opens in theaters on May 27, but Disney used last night's Grammy Awards as a prime spot to showcase this spot for their fantasy sequel. Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is coming back to Wonderland, reuniting with The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), the Blue Caterpillar (the late, great Alan Rickman), and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). Your newcomers are director James Bobin (replacing Tim Burton), Sacha Baron Cohen as Time and Rhys Ifans as Zanick Hightopp. ...
The Wild Hail, Caesar! Press Conference at the 66th Berlinale Film Festival
An unwitting, kidnapped communist. A gay (or so implied) tap dancing undercover agent. Very angry rival twin gossip columnists. These are George Clooney, Channing Tatum, and Tilda Swinton in Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest, Hail Caesar!, which doesn’t have quite the gravitas of, say, No Country For Old Men, or even A Serious Man, but more than makes up for that in chuckles, high spirits, and colorful references to a bygone Hollywood...
Chatting With How To Be Single Director Christian Ditter
How To Be Single, starring Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson and Leslie Mann, is the perfect anti-Valentine’s Day option for singles in need of some fortification. We talk to its German director Christian Ditter about filming in New York for the first time, encouraging the actors to improvise and signing on to direct Netflix’s Girlboss.
Do you want to tell me a little bit about how this project came about for you?...
New Teaser Hints at Opening Shot of Star Wars: Episode VIII
Principal photography officially began on Star Wars: Episode VIII at Pinewood Studios in London on February 15, 2016. The teaser announcing this news had one very interesting reveal—either this could be one of the opening shots of Episode VIII, or, writer/director Rian Johnson was on set for the very final shot of The Force Awakens. Considering The Force Awakens was very much J.J. Abrams' baby,...
Game of Thrones Season 6 Teaser Toys With Fate of Jon Snow (Again)
It's the first and last question every Game of Thrones fan has had since season five ended with Jon Snow being knifed by his very own Night's Watch brothers—is the bastard of Winterfell really dead? As we've written before, HBO has masterfully teased out the "Is he or isn't he" question since last season ended, and with season 6 premiering on April 24, we'll finally have our answer soon.
Then HBO dropped this new teaser,...
Know Your Oscar Nominees: Costume Designers
One of this year’s most eclectic categories at the Academy Awards is the category for best achievement in costume design. The five films in that category each take place in a distinctive time period and the costumes in each production brilliantly capture the look and appearances of the film’s characters.
Of the five nominees, three of the movies take place in the past while one takes place in an apocalyptic future. The last film takes place in a land far,...
Jesus Returns (Again) to the Big Screen in Risen
Another year, another dramatic Bible rendering. The latest in a pantheon of Jesus film depictions, the movie Risen opens on February 19, dramatizing Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The action is seen through the eyes of some of the bad guy Roman non-believers, Clavius (Ralph Fiennes) and his assistant, Lucius (Tom Felton), who are tasked with finding out where exactly Jesus disappeared to after crucifixion. More action than spiritual reflection, many red paludamentums are angrily swung around during the sturm and drang that ensues in the hunt for Christ’s body...
Talking to Writer-Director Tobias Lindholm About his Oscar-Nominated A War
The third big-screen collaboration between Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm and actor Pilou Asbaek, A War follows a company commander through the horrors of Afghanistan and back to Denmark, where he's put on trial for alleged war crimes. The movie, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, has a semi-improvisational style and features mostly nonprofessional performers. Lindholm's two previous movies, R and A Hijacking, are equally intense: The first is a prison drama and the second about a crew held by Danish pirates...
Batman Shocks Superman in Final Batman v Superman Trailer
It looks as if Warner Bros. really did leave the best for last; the final Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the by far the most potent of the bunch. It's always been a stretch to imagine Batman (Ben Affleck) actually being a match for Superman (Henry Cavill); one's a man, the other's closer to a god. Yet the final trailer gives us way more footage of Zack Snyder's version of Batman, a much rougher sort than Christopher Nolan's Batman (Christian Bale),...
Warner Bros. Names Ryan Coogler First Creative Talent Ambassador
Ryan Coogler's young career continues to move in interesting directions. The writer-director burst onto the scene in 2013 with Fruitvale Station, a Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winner at Sundance. This past year, he co-wrote and directed Creed, again teaming up with Fruitvale star Michael B. Jordan as the titular son of Apollo Creed, who goes on to become a protegé of Rocky Balboa. The film has been a critical and commercial smash, and many believe both ...
Watch Hilarious ‘How Star Wars: The Force Awakens Should Have Ended’ Video
The folks at HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) have taken beloved blockbusters and re-worked the endings according to their tastes. These animated videos are often really funny. Some recent films to get the HISHE treatment have been Ant-Man, Jurassic World and Inside Out to name a few. So naturally, they were going to have to tackle the biggest film of all time, Star Wars: The Force Awakens...
Watch the First Four Minutes of The Walking Dead Mid-Season Premiere
If you just can’t wait until this Sunday, AMC has released the first four minutes of The Walking Dead’s mid-season premiere. Titled “No Way Out” (couldn’t this be the title for 90% of the episodes?), the premiere will focus on Rick and co.’s attempts to march out of Alexandria disguised as walkers when a “sudden noise draws walkers towards them with what could be fatal consequences.”
The cast has already hinted at a major character’s death in these final eight episodes of season 6...
Rebel Wilson Continues Her Hilarious Sidekick Reign of Terror in How to Be Single
For audiences revolted by romantic comedies and in equal measure, for those who love them, How to Be Single, which opens Friday, should attract them both thanks to Rebel Wilson, the comedic sidekick who really makes this girl-buddy comedy. The Australian actress plays the confident, sassy happily single foil to Dakota Johnson’s mousy Alice, a not-so-happily single co-worker looking for love and a new life, the girl-who-needs-to-learn-to-let-it-all-hang-out.
And who better to impart that skill than Robin (Wilson),...
Morena Baccarin on Not Playing the Good Girl in Deadpool
As the tough-talking prostitute/love-interest Vanessa in Deadpool, Morena Baccarin gets to shake off her good-girl persona. We chat with her about playing an unconventional character, how the comic book genre is creating some surprisingly complex roles for women, and why she won’t be signing up to star in an action movie any time soon.
Compared to your roles on Homeland and Gotham, this character is a bit of a departure for you...
How Deadpool’s Tight Budget Helped Create a New Kind of Marvel Film
To understand how we ended up with the wisecracking, dirty-talking, unapologetically murderous Deadpool we already know and love- thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign- we have to go back to the origin story of this origin story.
The project had been kicking around at Fox for more than a decade when in July, 2014, two minutes of test footage was leaked on the web, portraying a very different kind of superhero. Comic book fans went nuts for the R-rated mercenary Wade Wilson,...
Cowboy Darth Vader? Artists Give Galaxy a Facelift in Star Wars: Reimagined
Computer Graphics + put out a call for a Star Wars art contest that asked artists to put a spin on their favorite creatures, characters and vehicles from the films. Thanks to Kokatu for tipping us off to this contest, which Computer Graphics + recently closed on January 31, meaning we can start looking at some of the art for Star Wars: Reimagined. It's incredible, mashing up Star Wars ...
Deadpool set to Crush President’s Day Weekend
With the reviews of Deadpool solid (it’s sitting at an 83% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com) and the full court press media blitz leading up to the film release on Friday, you will probably not be surprised to hear the film is going to do very well this weekend. The critical consensus about Deadpool is that the wiseass mercenary played by Ryan Reynolds brings the funny, foul-mouthed, fourth-wall-obliterating central character off with vim and vigor. ...
