Monsters Overrun Superheroes
After dinosaurs and superheroes, it was time for vampires, werewolves, critters, and spooks to take over the top of the box office. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation earned a bit over $44 million in its first weekend in cinemas, says Box Office Mojo. Co-written and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, best known for his work on animated TV shows such as Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Powerpuff Girls, Hotel Transylvania 3 features the voices of comedians like Mel Brooks, Fran Drescher, Keegan-Michael Kay, Andy Samberg, Adam Sandler, Molly Shannon and David Spade.
Aforementioned dinosaurs and superheroes got pushed down the last weekend’s top five list of the box office winners. Second place belongs to Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp that earned almost $30 million in its second weekend. In the third place, with $24,9 million, is Skyscraper, an action flick starring Dwayne Johnson. Pixar’s and Disney’s Incredibles 2 is in the fourth place with $16,2 million. And finally, in the fifth place of the last weekend’s highest-grossing list is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Zombieland 2 In the Works
According to Deadline, all four stars of the 2009 horror comedy Zombieland – Abigail Breslin, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone – are on board for its sequel. Zombieland’s original director Ruben Fleischer is also on board. Production begins early next year. ComicBook.com adds that the official release date for the film is October 11, 2019.
For four years, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick brainstormed their ideas for a TV shows about a group of misfits trying to survive in a world overrun by zombies. Fleischer helped them turn their concept into a standalone movie. Released in 2009, Zombieland earned around $102 million worldwide, becoming somewhat of a cult classic and an US answer to Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. In 2013, Reese and Wernick got the opportunity to turn Zombieland into a TV pilot for Amazon. However, they became victims of their own success: their pilot failed to get picked up which is hardly surprising considering the crazily overqualified cast from the movie, all of which were either nominated for Academy Awards (Breslin, Eisenberg, Harrelson) or actually won it (Emma Stone for La La Land).
Neill Blomkamp To Direct a RoboCop Sequel
AVClub reports that MGM hired South African screenwriter and director Neill Blomkamp to direct a new RoboCop movie. Now, we’re aware that sequels and reboots are dime-a-dozen these days. After all, RoboCop remake came out in 2014, starring Joel Kinnaman in the titular role and featuring Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman. However, what makes this particular project interesting is that it will be based on a screenplay for a sequel Michael Miner and Ed Neumeier – creators of RoboCop – penned back in the 1980s. Titled RoboCop Returns, that sequel never got made.
It doesn’t take much to see that Blomkamp is a big fan of Paul Verhoeven’s movie: District 9, Elysium and Chappie all prominently feature a decaying urban world destroyed by corporate greed while exploring the ways human identity can be reshaped by the artificial and inhuman (and vice versa). And while these movies wildy vary in quality, so do the RoboCop movies themselves: none of the sequels managed to top the satirical genius of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original. RoboCop Returns screenplay is being reworked by Justin Rhodes, who is now also working on scripts for the new Terminator movie as well as on Masters Of The Universe reboot, just in case you’re in need of more 1980s nostalgia.
