BOX OFFICE 7/15-7/17: 'Ghostbusters' Comes in Second to 'Pets'

So the long-awaited all female reboot of Ghostbusters finally arrives, and overall the reviews were in the "kinda okay" range and the box office results turned out similarly. Now ordinarily I would say a 46 million dollar opening for a comedy is quite good, in fact it's Melissa McCarthy's best opening, who comes with a fanbase that tends to turn out for all of her movies. But with this one, the budget happened to be a much higher than usual 144 million, which makes this opening more along the lines of just "alright." Still, it's the highest opening for a comedy since last year's Pitch Perfect 2 opened with 69 million. With a "B+"Cinemascore, it's hard to tell if it will have lasting power like McCarthy's Spy or The Heat, so we'll just have to see if it holds on in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Secret Life of Pets repeated at No. 1 with another 50 million, bringing its total to 203 million, and Tarzan hung on in third, allowing it to cross the domestic mark of 100 million, much to the studio's surprise, although it won't recoup its massive production budget either. Finding Dory dropped to fourth with a new domestic haul of 445 million, while Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates rounded out the top five, dropping 55 percent since last week.

Top 5:

1. The Secret Life of Pets- 50.6 million
2. Ghostbusters- 46 million
3. The Legend of Tarzan- 11.1 million
4. Finding Dory- 11 million
5. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates- 7.5 million

In limited release, Woody Allen's Cafe Society posted the biggest PTA of the year, earning 355k from 5 locations for an average  of 71k, proving the director's older audience is still out there waiting for something to go see. Next week it's Star Trek Beyond and the horror release Lights Out, both of which are surprising with very positive critical reception so far, so we'll see if they can break out. See you then.

'Birth of a Nation' Gets a Provocative New Poster

This one's bound to raise some eyebrows, don't you think? This movie by the way, about the infamous Nat Turner slave rebellion in the 1800's has never felt more timely and seems destined to generate a lot of discussion come October, given the unrest that's been going on in the country in recent weeks/months.

Hailee Steinfeld Stars in Coming of Age Comedy 'Edge of Seventeen'

Hailee Steinfeld's been plugging away ever since True Grit in various teenage roles, and now she stars in this one from first time director Kelly Fremon, which is said to be kind of inspired by John Hughes films from the 1980's. She looks fine, but the movie just looks a bit too cute for its own good, or maybe that's the Woody Harrelson character alone. Blake Jenner is actually in this too, which...ick. It comes out on September 30th.

New Poster and Footage Debut for 'Rogue One'

Given the reports of re-shoots going on with this film after studio execs reportedly prefer that the Gareth Edwards directed early cut they saw resemble JJ Abrams' Force Awakens more, I wasn't sure what to think about how this one will turn out. But this new footage looks...interesting, I suppose? Supposedly we're getting looks at Darth Vader and a young Han Solo in it, which...of course we are. Can't let any of these films stand completely on their own, can we? Even the supposed spinoff ones. Felicity Jones gets another awkward line of dialogue, or maybe she just delivers these lines in an odd manner. I didn't think the super self-serious style of the director of the most recent Godzilla movie would be a great match for the Star Wars universe anyway, so it doesn't surprise me if Disney wants what will make them another 2 billion or whatever it is the last one made. The tone here certainly resembles more of a war film.

Poster:

Warren Beatty Returns to the Screen in 'Rules Don't Apply'

Warren Beatty hasn't directed a movie since 1998's Bulworth, and he's been wanting to do this film about Howard Hughes for something like 25 years. I never thought it would actually get made, but lo and behold, here's the trailer. It looks a bit rough, but...well, yeah it just looks rough. But if a guy who hasn't made a movie in almost two decades can come back not rusty it'd be amazing, right? We'll see I guess.

Sundance Movie 'White Girl' Gets a Trailer

This one on the other hand, will come nowhere near Oscars, as it mostly looks like an exploitative film about teens and drugs in the vein of 1995's Kids, as it was compared to at Sundance. If the white girl in question looks familiar, it's because she was demon spawn Dana Brody on Homeland. I know it's not fair to hold grudges against actors for characters you absolutely despised, but I can't help it- no offense to Morgan Saylor but when I saw that it was her in this, I cringed. I will not be keeping an eye for this movie.

Oscar Season Kicks Off With Trailer for 'Loving'

Speaking of Oscar contenders, here's one sure to be in the race, at least for acting. Jeff Nichols directs this drama about the couple whose marriage ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court in 1967, when the court finally struck down the remaining bans in southern states against interracial marriage in the famed Loving v Virginia decision. Ruth Negga, known to me from Agents of SHIELD of all things, is said to be the big standout in this, which premiered at Cannes to respectable, if not ecstatic, reviews. Nichols is kind of a muted director overall, in my opinion, so that kind of reaction isn't surprising to me, but you can tell from this that Negga and Edgerton brought their A-game. Be on the lookout for it when it comes out in November.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone Team Up for Musical 'La La Land'

Well, it's now the time for Oscar season movies to start getting their trailers out there. This will definitely be one of them, from Whiplash director Damien Chazelle, as it was selected to play the opening night of the Venice film festival, which means it will then go on to play the other fall festivals...thinking about last year's Spotlight, that's certainly the way to do it. I'm always wary of throwback movies though- they run the risk of feeling overly artificial and keeping viewers at a distance, like something that plays for a film buff crowd only. And since this is obviously kind of a tribute to 1950's musicals, I wish they would get actors who can actually sing and dance, since those movies were populated by real musical performers like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, etc. These two won't pull off any kind of genuinely impressive dance or musical numbers, I can tell you that much. It's all on the director, which makes it more of an exercise in style than anything else. But a beautiful one I'm sure.

More Talking Animals in the Trailer for 'Sing'

I think we have an obvious theme for the year 2016 in animation, don't you? And it's also obvious that this will be a huge hit as well, given that it jumps on the Zootopia craze with anthropomorphic animals on top of hit songs and celebrity voices...it can't miss. Who else thinks that this is kind of an excessive trailer though, at four minutes long? Also, this is cutesy stuff all the way, there's no way turns out as good as Zootopia.

Molly Shannon and Jesse Plemons Star in 'Other People'

This movie got a pretty good reception at this year's Sundance film festival, and if nothing else, the acting certainly looks good, especially for Molly Shannon, who I don't believe has ever gotten this much of a showcase role before. It might be worth checking out. And Jesse Plemons sure is making the rounds, isn't he? I think he might actually be the Friday Night Lights cast member that's had the busiest, most varied career ever since that show ended, surprisingly enough.

BOX OFFICE 7/08-7/10: 'Secret Life of Pets' Surprises With $103 Million

It's the year of gigantic animated movies, I guess. Somewhat surprisingly, Universal's The Secret Life of Pets (or as I like to call it, Rehash: The Movie, via Toy Story meets Finding Nemo crossed with Homeward Bound), far exceeded expectations with a $103 million debut, actually making it the biggest opening weekend ever for an original animated film. Finding Dory just set the record for animation overall in June with $135 million, but that was a sequel. Maybe talking animals are just really in this year. In second place was Legend of Tarzan, which again blew past expectations by dropping just 46% since last week, bringing in another $20 million for an $81 million total. That movie will easily blow past $100 million, a number it wasn't expected to get anywhere near before opening last weekend. And yet it's not exactly a hit either, due to its massively overblown budget. It's a shame it's not good, since there's clearly still an audience out there for the century old Tarzan property. 

Finding Dory sank to third with around $20 million, as it passes Captain America for biggest movie of the year with $422 million and will soon pass Shrek 2, for the biggest animated film of all time, domestically. The Zac Efron comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates came in fourth with $16 million, and could hold on like many comedies do in the summer months, while The Purge: Election Year rounded out the top five with $11 million, falling down to earth by about 61%, like most horror movies do.

Top 5:

1. The Secret Life of Pets- $103.2 million
2. The Legend of Tarzan- $20.6 million
3. Finding Dory- $20.3 million
4. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates- $16.6 million
5. The Purge: Election Year- $11.7 million

In totals news, Central Intelligence has now made about $108 million, continuing Kevin Hart's unstoppable box office reign (and I still haven't seen a single movie off his), while The Shallows crosses $45 million (really not that bad for a movie whose only attraction was Blake Lively and a fake shark), and The Conjuring 2 closes in on $100 million, surprisingly not as successful as its predecessor. Next week it's the much maligned (ahead of anyone having seen it) female version of Ghostbusters, so we get to see how real this loud, online haters group actually is. Will Melissa McCarthy's fans show up to make this movie a hit as usual, no matter how it's received critically? We'll see. 

Teaser Poster for 'Beauty and the Beast' is Exactly What You Expect

Of course, it's the rose. What else would it be? It's a nice poster, but I can't say I'm as excited for this film as everyone else seems to be. Frankly, my wish is that they'd restore the original theatrical version of the cartoon for the upcoming 25th anniversary blu-ray edition in September, but I have a feeling I'm out of luck. The only restoration on the old blu-ray is the extended one, and I can't stand it when the original versions of films are ignored in favor of the ones that were messed with later. Give me my originals, please. This applies to Star Wars too.