Frozen 2 Lets It Snow
In its inaugural weekend, Frozen 2 swept through cinemas like a blizzard. With a box office gross of over $130 million, Disney’s latest CGI-animated blockbuster left all other movies buried in snow. In fact, according to the Box Office Mojo, a sequel to Disney’s 2013 equally successful Frozen has had the fifth-biggest November opening ever recorded. Most of the original voice cast reprises their performances here, including Kristen Bell (The Good Place) as Princess Anna, Idina Menzel (Enchanted) as Queen Elsa, Josh Gad (Beauty and the Beast) as Olaf, Jonathan Groff (Hamilton) as Kristoff and Alan Tudyk (Wreck-It Ralph) as Duke of Weselton.
Far, far behind on the list of the five most successful box office titles of the weekend is the sports drama Ford v Ferrari with $15,7 million. With a total worldwide gross of $104 million, we have yet to see will Ford v Ferrari cover its production costs. In the third place at the last weekend’s box office is yet another perfect holiday movie – biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. It stars two-times Academy Award winner Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister who created and hosted the preschool TV series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Action thriller 21 Bridges starring Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) is in fourth place with $9,2 million. The list of the last weekend’s five most successful movies at the box office closes off with Roland Emmerich’s war epic Midway with $4,6 million.
New Course Plotted for DC Extended Universe?
According to Variety, the bosses at Warner Bros. and DC Studios are slowly but surely plotting a new course for the DC Extended Universe. After Joker became the most successful R-rated film of all time, the studio is considering launching a series of origin movies for various Batman villains. The practical implementation of this idea will primarily depend upon the success (or failure) of Matt Reeves’ The Batman in which the Caped Crusader will be portrayed by Robert Pattinson. That film already has a killer list of villains that includes Paul Dano as the Riddler, Colin Farrell as the Penguin, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman and John Turturro as the mobster Carmine Falcone.
This idea ties neatly with studio’s plans for more R-rated superhero films: both the upcoming Birds of Prey movie and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad will be R-rated. While Marvel movies retained an incredibly consistent tone and feel to them ever since the first Iron Man, DC is still getting there. The success of darker, somber films like Logan and Joker as well as edgier, yet funny movies such as Deadpool proves there is a market for more adult superhero fare. It’s just a matter of striking the right tone.
How Star Wars Episode IX Script Ended Up on eBay
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker rapidly approaching, Disney is working overtime to promote it. Among many articles analyzing the movie’s images and clips as well as interviews with the past and present Star Wars collaborators, there was one genuinely entertaining story: that of the as-yet-unreleased movie’s script ending up on eBay.
During his appearance on Good Morning America, J. J. Abrams shared a story about one of the actors forgetting their copy of the Star Wars script. According to him, the script was later found by a cleaner and ended up on sale on eBay. Disney quickly reacted, demanding from eBay to pull the item from the site. While Abrams refused to name any names, just two days later actor John Boyega admitted he was the responsible party. Boyega explained how he forgot the script under the bed while moving between apartments.
While the paranoia about spoilers is somewhat understandable, it is now often used by marketing to promote films. Even if the script for the film did leak out, would it result in lower box office returns? We have to face that people enjoy Star Wars for its spectacle and not for its intricate plotting.
