Infinity War Continues Unabated
Avengers: Infinity War continues to rage all over the world. In its third weekend in cinemas, the pinnacle of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe earned over $62 million, more than enough to keep it at the top of the domestic box office. Globally, Infinity War grossed almost $1,7 billion making it, according to Box Office Mojo, fifth largest global release in history.
In the second place of the last weekend’s box office list with $17,8 million is the comedy Life of the Party starring Melissa McCarthy (The Heat, Spy), Gillian Jacobs (Community) and Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids). In the third place with $17,6 million is the thriller Breaking In directed by James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) and starring Gabrielle Union. Fourth place of the last weekend’s box office list belongs to the romantic comedy Overboard that grossed $9,8 million in its second weekend in cinemas. Finally, in the fifth place of the box office list with $6,5 million is the horror flick A Quiet Place, still going strong after six weeks in cinemas.
Lord of the Rings TV Show to Focus on Young Aragorn
Previously, we reported on Amazon’s plans to produce an insanely expensive TV adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels. Now, the first details about the show are starting to come in. According to an article published by Bleeding Cool, the first season of Lord of the Rings TV show will supposedly follow the adventures of young Aragorn.
What this means is that the show most probably won’t be a remake of Peter Jackson’s movies – which would be a waste of time and money anyway. Instead, it will probably focus on presenting and expanding upon the world of Middle-earth as imagined by Tolkien. The exact time period during which the TV show will take place is unknown: while the story will definitely take place decades before the events of the Lord of the Rings movies, in Tolkien’s universe humans can live a lot longer than in our own. The character of Aragorn is almost 90 years old during the Lord of the Rings, meaning he was about ten years old during the events of The Hobbit.
Netflix Keeps Churning Out Content
While Netflix TV shows and original movies have been hit-or-miss, that hasn’t deterred the company in its plans. According to Variety, at the recently held MoffettNathanson’s Media & Communications Summit in New York, Ted Sarandos – chief content officer of Netflix – announced company’s plans to stream around 1000 original movies and TV shows by the end of this year.
This isn’t the first news about ambitious plans of this online streaming giant. Last October, we reported Netflix’s plans to release 80 movies in 2018 and increase the percentage of original programming in Netflix catalog up to fifty percent. While the plans seemed a bit unreal then, the Netflix has released a stream of new movies and TV shows over the last six months or so. There are now around 470 titles waiting for a release by December. According to Sarandos, 85 percent of company’s new spending this year will into the production of original movies and TV shows. In total, the company expects to spend around $8 billion this year.