Black Panther Still on the Throne
Box Office Mojo reports that Black Panther continued to rule the cinemas last week. In its second weekend, the latest Marvel superhero blockbuster managed to earn around $111.6 million – more than all the remaining four top-grossing movies of the weekend combined. With its total worldwide earnings reaching almost half a billion dollars, Black Panther has already proven itself another colossal success for Marvel.
In the second place of last weekend’s box office with $17 million is the dark comedy Game Night. Featuring Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange) and Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), Game Night takes place during a murder mystery party game gone horribly, horribly wrong. Children’s film Peter Rabbit dropped to the third place from the last weekend’s second and earned $12.7 million. In the fourth place is the sci-fi thriller Annihilation. Directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina) and starring Natalie Portman (V For Vendetta), Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Hateful Eight), Annihilation earned a bit over $11 million in its opening weekend. Finally, in the fifth place of last weekend’s top-grossing movies is the erotic drama Fifty Shades Freed with $7.1 million.
Fox Rumored to Work on Silver Surfer Movie
Executives at Fox are working on a standalone superhero movie featuring one of the most iconic Marvel Comics characters – Silver Surfer. This news comes courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter which adds that the studio hired comic book veteran, Brian K. Vaughn, is to write the script. Vaughn is best known for titles such as Saga, Runaways, Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina.
Ever since Fox got acquired by Disney, there’s been plenty of speculation about which Fox projects will get axed by their new corporate overlords from the Mouse House. However, despite – or precisely because of – the merger of these two colossal media companies looming on the horizon, executives at Fox are refusing to stay still and continue to work on new “secret” Marvel movie projects. Recently, we reported that the studio approached Brian Michael Bendis and Tim Miller to develop an X-Men movie, most probably revolving around the character Kitty Pryde. Add to this plans to produce movies about Doctor Doom, several standalone films set in the Spider-Man universe and maybe, possibly, eventually, that Gambit movie and you’ll get about a year’s worth of Marvel movies alone. Hopefully, nobody gets sick and tired of them.
Chris Hemsworth to Star In Men in Black Spinoff?
Speaking of Marvel, Chris “Thor Odinson” Hemsworth is in talks to star in a Men in Black spinoff/soft reboot. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie will be directed by F. Gary Gray, who previously made a number of action movies and thrillers such as The Fate of the Furious (2017), Italian Job (2003) and The Negotiator (1998). This untitled Men in Black movie already has a script written by the Iron Man writers Matt Holloway and Art Marcum. The movie is set for a release on June 14, 2019.
Men in Black began in 1990 as a comic book series created and written by Lowell Cunningham and illustrated by Sandy Carruthers. Eventually becoming a property of Marvel Comics, in 1997 Men in Black was turned into an action comedy by the director Barry Sonnenfeld. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Vincent D’Onofrio, Linda Fiorentino and Rip Torn, Men in Black earned over half a billion dollars worldwide, leading to sequels Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012), as well as to an animated TV show that aired on The WB from 1997 until 2001.
