It Conquered the Box Office!
According to IGN, horror movie It dominated the weekend box office, earning $123 million. Based on Stephen King’s bestselling novel, It broke a number of box office records. It not only had a bigger opening than any previous Stephen King adaptation (previous holder, 2007’s 1408 opened with a mere $20.6 million) it also had the most successful opening weekend for any horror movie, surpassing the 2011 success of Paranormal Activity 3 that earned $52.6 million in its opening weekend.
Filmed for $15 million, romantic comedy Home Again starring Reese Witherspoon opened with $9 million, coming second on the weekend box office list. After four weeks in cinemas, Hitman‘s Bodyguard is still going strong, earning $4.85 million. Annabelle: Creation is on the fourth place with $4 million, with its total gross coming close to the $100 million mark. Finally, crime thriller Wind River fell down to fifth place (from the last weekend’s third), earning around $3.2 million.
J. J. Abrams Takes Over Star Wars Episode IX
After Colin Trevorrow left the production of Star Wars Episode IX last week, Disney and Lucasfilm quickly replaced him with J. J. Abrams. AV Club is reporting that Abrams will both direct and co-write Episode IX. Abrams previously directed Star Wars: Force Awakens that earned $2.6 billion at the global box office and helped restore good will among the fans of the franchise disappointed by George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels.
Earlier this year, Abrams claimed he won’t direct reboots anymore. Meanwhile, Disney announced that Star Wars Episode IX will come out in May 2019. With the firing of Trevorrow, both parties back-pedaled on their earlier statements: not only has Abrams returned to a property he helped softly reboot, but Disney postponed the release date of Episode IX until December 2019.
Patty Jenkins Confirmed To Return For Wonder Woman 2
Variety reports that director of Wonder Woman Patty Jenkins signed on to direct its sequel. Although Geoff Johns confirmed months ago that he worked with Jenkins on the script for Wonder Woman 2, her involvement as a director comes only after months of negotiations with Warner Bros. studio since Jenkins expected a payment equal to her male colleagues, considering that her blockbuster adaptation of the iconic DC Comics super heroine earned over $800 million at the box office.
Wonder Woman 2 will supposedly take place sometime after the events of the first film, quite possibly during the Cold War. While there is no official title for the sequel, Gal Gadot will reprise her role. The movie should come out on December 13, 2019.
First Look At Hellboy’s Infernal Abs
Comic book creator Mike Mignola recently tweeted the first look at David Harbour (Stranger Things) as the titular hero of the new live action adaptation of Hellboy – Mignola‘s cult comic book about a demon defending humanity against supernatural evil.
Holy crap… first look #hellboy pic.twitter.com/T63IpVvEHs
— Mike Mignola (@artofmmignola) September 13, 2017
While the new Hellboy does look cool, the reboot seems a bit unnecessary considering Guillermo del Toro‘s two perfectly fine Hellboy movies. The filming is helmed by Neil Marshall, English film maker who previously made such horror movies as Dog Soldiers, Descent, and Doomsday. His Hellboy reboot will supposedly be R-rated and feature more practical special effects from the Del Toro version.
