Rampage Roars Its Way to the Top
It seems like it was barely months ago when the box office was claimed by an action-adventure film starring Dwayne Johnson and featuring ferocious jungle creatures. Oh, wait: it was! Now, The Rock is back in Rampage – a supremely silly CGI romp based on a 1986 arcade game in which a huge ape, a giant wolf, and a monstrous crocodile pummel each other senseless while flattening the large urban areas. Box Office Mojo reports that Rampage earned $35,7 million in its opening weekend.
Even though giant monsters triumphed last weekend, they did so only barely. John Krasinski’s horror movie A Quiet Place is still going strong, earning almost $33 million in its second weekend in cinemas. Not too shabby for a low-budget horror flick filmed for a mere $20 million! In the third place of the last weekend’s box office is Truth or Dare with $18,6 million. Combining the themes of two previously mentioned movies, Truth or Dare is both a very loose adaptation of a children’s game and a low-budget horror flick. In the fourth place with $11,5 million is Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s bestselling Young Manchild novel Ready Player One. Finally, the fifth place of the last weekend’s box office belongs to the sex comedy Blockers that grossed $10,7 million.
Steven Spielberg To Make a DC Comics Movie
Entertainment Weekly reports that Steven Spielberg is planning of producing and possibly directing a movie adaptation of Blackhawks – a long-running DC comic book about the adventures of a fictional WWII air squadron and their eponymous leader Blackhawk. Spielberg is quite busy these days, as he is also working on a fifth Indiana Jones film as well on a remake of the 1961 movie West Side Story that was, in turn, based on the 1957 Broadway musical. And while it is not yet known when the production of Blackhawks film will actually start, it’s pretty sure that Spielberg will want to finish these other two films first.
Considering Spielberg’s talent, success and productivity, it is no wonder that the AVClub reports he is the first Hollywood director whose movies, taken together, grossed over $10 billion worldwide. Spielberg’s most successful movie by far is the 1993 science fiction blockbuster Jurassic Park that, all by itself, earned (adjusted for inflation) almost a billion dollars. The other two most financially most successful directors are Peter Jackson and Michael Bay, both of whom still need to earn about $4 billion to pass the $10 billion mark.
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy Adapting a William Gibson Novel
Not satisfied to merely coast on a commercial and critical success of their Westworld remake, producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are in talks about developing a TV series based on a science fiction novel The Peripheral by the cyberpunk guru William Gibson. According to Variety, the project is being co-produced by Warner Bros. Television and Amazon Studios and is being considered for a straight-to-series order. So far, Amazon has been seriously investing in science fiction and fantasy shows, as seen by the amount of cash it’s willing to invest in its Lord of the Rings-derived TV show.
Wiliam Gibson is widely credited as the creator of the cyberpunk subgenre. His trail-blazing 1984 novel Neuromancer drew attention (and a host of imitators) due to the way it blended futuristic technology and the tropes of noir thrillers into a story that explored the societal problems of today. Published in 2014, Gibson’s novel The Peripheral takes place in the near future in which first world countries are going through an economic breakdown. The novel then posits an alternate timeline set in an early 22nd century after civilization partially recovered from a collapse brought on by the climate change and political upheavals. Besieged by deadly intrigues, the characters from various futures set up communication across time and space and begin to change the world around them.
