Midway Wins the Day
Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and Stargate, is back with Midway. This historical epic depicts events around the 1942 battle of Midway that marked the turning point in the Pacific theatre during World War II. Featuring, among others, Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Luke Evans (The Hobbit), Ed Skrein (Alita: Battle Angel), Woody Harrelson (Zombieland: Double Tap) and Dennis Quaid (The Day After Tomorrow), Midway earned $17,8 million in its inaugural weekend.
In the second place at the last weekend’s box office is the horror film Doctor Sleep, based on Stephen King’s sequel to his 1977 novel The Shining. The film follows Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor – Star Wars prequel trilogy) who, as a grownup, tries to save a girl (Kyliegh Curran) from a vampire (Rebecca Ferguson – Mission: Impossible – Fallout). Doctor Sleep grossed a bit over $14 million in its first weekend in cinemas. In the third place with $12,7 million is yet another newcomer – a family comedy Playing With Fire, starring John Cena (Bumblebee) and Keegan-Michael Key (Key and Peele). Romantic comedy Last Christmas featuring Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) is in fourth place with $11,4 million. And in the fifth place is Terminator: Dark Fate with $10,8 million. All of this data comes courtesy of the Box Office Mojo.
Netflix Orders Second Season of The Witcher
Although we’re still a month away from the first season of The Witcher, Netflix has already renewed the show! According to GeekTyrant, streaming service has just ordered the second season of its upcoming fantasy series, well ahead of its December 20 release date. Each season of The Witcher will consist out of eight episodes.
In a recent interview with the SFX magazine, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (producer of shows like The Umbrella Academy, The Defenders, and Daredevil) teased she has already planned seven seasons of the show. While that’s likely an overstatement, the fact is that Andrzej Sapkowski, creator of The Witcher, has published six novels and a series of short stories set in the world of Geralt of Rivia, giving screenwriters plenty of material to work with.
Henry Cavill (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) will play Geralt with Freya Allan (Into The Badlands) as Ciri and Anya Chalotra (Wanderlust) as Yennefer. The rest of the cast includes Joey Batey (The White Queen) as Jaskier, Eamon Farren (Winchester) as Cahir, Lars Mikkelsen (Sherlock) as Stregobor, Royce Pierreson (Line of Duty) as Istredd, Wilson Radjou-Pujalte (Dickensian) as Dara and Anna Shaffer (Harry Potter) as Triss.
Gerard Butler to Keep on Falling
During the recent American Film Market’s Finance Conference, film producer Alan Siegel said we hadn’t seen the last of Fallen franchise. According to Deadline, Siegel speculated there might be “a fourth, fifth and even sixth entry in the series.” He also talked about the possibility of selling the franchise IP for international television spin-offs that could star local actors. Later these actors could appear in the next Fallen movie.
Over the last six years, Siegel produced a series of action movies: Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen and Angel Has Fallen. All of them center on the United States Secret Service agent Mike Banning, played by Gerald Butler (300). While these movies pretty much slipped under my radar, audiences disagree: between all three of them, Fallen movies collected a total gross of over $500 million. While this is scarcely Marvel Cinematic Universe money, it’s not too bad either for mid-budget action films that aren’t part of a preexisting franchise. I guess Agent Mike Banning hasn’t run out of conspiracies to punch!
