Jacob Hall
‘The Divergent Series: Allegiant’ Trailer: Go Beyond the Wall
The Divergent series has never reached the culture-saturating heights of the Hunger Games movies, but it’s done well for itself. Divergent and its awkwardly titled sequel, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, left fans satisfied and made their fare share of cash at the box office. The first trailer for The Divergent Series: Allegiant (ugh, that title) is preaching to the choir. No one put off by the first two films will be won over by this footage and no one who skipped the first two will be able to follow any of this, but this movie doesn’t need your approval. It just needs the approval of the faithful.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Perfect Guy’ and ‘The Visit’ Come Out Swinging
After September opened with a whimper, we were prepared for a dull couple of weeks. It looks like we shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. The one-two punch of The Perfect Guy and The Visit have suddenly made the least interesting month of the year interesting, opening big and opening close enough to one another to make for an interesting race. In the slower movie months, weekends like these are rare treats.
Weekend Box Office Report: Nobody Won This Boring Weekend
Summer is officially over, September is here, and the movies stink. While the big releases and heavy-hitters of the fall movie season make the festival rounds or rev up their marketing campaigns, audiences have to tough it out and wade through a lot of not-so-good movies. Welcome to September. It’s like this every year. Get ready for an excruciating month at the movies and at the box office.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Takes the Lead for the Third Weekend in a Row
All summer movie seasons end with a whimper and 2015 was no different. The final weekend of August was a pretty sad display across the board, with Straight Outta Compton nabbing the number one spot by default while just about every new release faltered. You know it’s a slow weekend when a movie promoted exclusively to faith-based audiences nabs the number two spot.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Shuts Down All Newcomers
Straight Outta Compton dominated the box office for the second weekend in a row, ensuring that every other movie in the top 10 that doesn’t feature Tom Cruise trembled in its mighty wake. Anyone with their finger on the cultural pulse foresaw the N.W.A. biopic doing well, but it’s performing above and beyond all expectations.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Dominates ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’
Every time a movie about and for audiences who aren’t white and male does well, everyone acts like it’s a big surprise. “Black people and women like movies? Who’da thunk it?” It’s actually not surprising at all that Straight Outta Compton had a massive opening, handily defeating its more standard competition. Because all kinds of people like movies and when you make movies for all kinds of people, you end up with huge weekends at the box office.
‘Jurassic World 2’ Details: It Won’t Be Dinosaurs Chasing People on an Island Again
Jurassic World is finally starting to slow down at the box office, but it’s going to bow out as the third highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office and international box office. That means that the only director to have made a more financially successful film than Colin Trevorrow is James Cameron of Titanic and Avatar fame. Not bad for a guy who was toiling away in indie obscurity a few years ago. Anyway, Trevorrow found some time in between taking baths in tubs filled with cash to chat about the inevitable sequel, dropping the first hints about what we can expect from the follow-up to Jurassic World.
Weekend Box Office Report: It’s Mission Accomplished For ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’
A few weeks ago, tracking for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was supposedly in the toilet. Early reports suggested that Tom Cruise’s fifth outing as super-spy Ethan Hunt was not getting people excited. This would be the end, the experts said, of a franchise that has kept Cruise’s career surging forward for the past two decades. Well, that was apparently a big load of crap because Rogue Nation opened well and opened in the same ballpark as the rest of the franchise. Even with inflation differences, this series keeps on hitting the same box office sweet spot.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Pixels’ Can’t Catch ‘Ant-Man’
At the time of this writing, early estimates for the weekend box office have Ant-Man edging out Pixels for the top spot in this week’s top 10. That could change. With less than $1 million separating the films, Pixels may very well slide into first place tomorrow, winning one very close competition. But even if it does claim ultimate victory, it doesn’t change the fact that Pixels’ opening weekend is a massive disappointment and another nail in the coffin of Adam Sandler’s career.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Ant-Man’ Goes a Little Small With Its Big Opening
It would be easy to label the opening weekend for Ant-Man a failure. After all, it’s significantly lower than the openings for recent Marvel Studios movies and it’s a good $130 million less than the three-day opening Avengers: Age of Ultron had a few months ago. But let’s not be so hasty. Its opening numbers may not have blown anyone away, but Ant-Man’s box office arrival is textbook Marvel.