What are your thoughts?
Gal Gadot of the Fast and Furious franchise has already been cast as Wonder Woman and the tentative release date is in 2017.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news today that Warner Brother has finally found their woman to direct Wonder Woman. That woman is Michelle MacLaren who is best know for directing TV shows like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad. That's a pretty good pedigree of TV shows but can she tackle a big budget super hero movie?
What are your thoughts? Gal Gadot of the Fast and Furious franchise has already been cast as Wonder Woman and the tentative release date is in 2017.
0 Comments
LATEST UPDATE Updated 11/26: Looks like the Star Wars trailer will be going online on Friday also. So if you don't live in one of the cities that it is playing it you will still be able to see it. The full list of theaters has been announced and the teaser will be playing in Milwaukee at the Marcus Majestic in Brookfield. UPDATE Newest update is that AMC will also be showing the teaser but exactly which theaters has not been announced. Rumor is up to 100 theaters across the country will be showing it. Stay tuned as we find out more. Well it has been confirmed there some people will be able to see an Episode VII trailer this weekend. But not here in Milwaukee. At 9 Regal Cinemas across the country they will be showing the 88 second teaser before every movie. But if you don't live around those 9 theaters you are just going to have to wait for some shaky cell phone footage to hit the web. Here is the list of theaters you can see it at. Chicago is the closest one to Milwaukee. If you are going to drive down there to see it let us know. And here is the official announcement from the Bad Robot twitter feed The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soared to the top of the box office this weekend with $123 million (with no 3D or IMAX surcharges). It is the largest opening weekend of the year and the 15th highest grossing opening weekend of all time. Yet still some insider’s view it as a disappointment. Why you ask? Well because it was lower than the first two Hunger Games movies. The Hunger Games opened two years ago in March with $152.5 million and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened this same weekend a year ago with $158.1 million. So why the big drop for Mockingjay Part 1? It is unclear. Most third movies in a series tend to exceed their predecessors despite mixed reviews. Are people tired of Katniss already? Or are fans just fed up with what they see as acash grab by studios of breaking one book into two movies. Whatever it is Lionsgate hopes that people show up next year for Mockingjay Part 2.
The rest of the box office looks like previous weeks. For the second weekend in a row Big Hero 6 and Interstellar are number 2 and 3 with $20 million and $15.1 million respectively. Both have done really well and Interstellar is on its way to becoming the highest grossing movie of the year not based on a preexisting story. Dumb and Dumber To on the other hand dropped hard in its second week. After an opening weekend of $36.1 million it dropped to $13.8 million. The 61% drop does not look good for the future of the movie. In its 8th week Gone Girl is still doing well landing at number 5 with $2.8 million. Beyond the Lights didn't get very much hype but doing respectable with $2.6 million at the number 6 spot. Fury and Birdman are battling it out for 8 and 9 with Fury projected to get $1.9 million and Birdman $1.8. Cracking the top 10 in limited release with an average of $10,714 per theatre is the Oscar hopeful The Theory of Everything. Another Oscar hopeful Foxcatcher didn’t make the top 10 but did land at number 17. Playing in only 24 theatres it grossed $474,000 for a very impressive average of $19,750 per theatre. The Top 10 1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 $123 million 2. Big Hero 6 $20 million 3. Interstellar $15.1 million 4. Dumb and Dumber To $13.8 million 5. Gone Girl $2.8 million 6. Beyond the Lights $2.6 million 7. St. Vincent $2.3 million 8. Fury $1.9 million 9. Birdman $1.8 million 10. The Theory of Everything $1.5 million The Short of the Week this weeks is a fake trailer for a movie called "Black Friday". With Thanksgiving this week we thought it was an appropriate choice. While the movie takes things to extremes it does say a lot about our society and doesn't feel to far fetched. Enjoy. Of all the obnoxious movie trends out there I think of the most obnoxious is the releasing a teaser for the actual trailer. I get they want people to see the trailer but I don't need to see a 15 second trailer for the trailer.
Legendary director Mike Nichols died at the age of 83.
Nichols started his career on stage as a comedian but changed course and became a director. After director some Broadway shows (mostly written by Neil Simon) he quickly rose in the ranks of great movie directors. The first movie he directed was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? A great movie featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and was nominated for thirteen Oscars including Best Director. For his second movie was The Graduate which was nominated for 7 Oscars and Nichols won Best Director. Nichols went on to win numerous other awards and one of the few people to have achieved EGOT Status (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony wins). He was nominated for 4 Best Directing Oscars (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Silkwood, Working Girl, and The Remains of the Day) with 1 win (The Graduate). Best known as an actor’s director he was able to get amazing performances from his actors. 16 different actors have earned Oscar nominations in his movies including Cher’s first nomination for Silkwood. The last movie he directed was Charlie Wilson’s War with Tom Hanks. Nichols is survived by his wife Diane Sawyer and three children -- Daisy, Max and Jenny -- and four grandchildren. What are your favorite Nichol's movies? The folks over at Goggle did a survey of movie goers and what influences their choices. There were a few things that seem obvious (4 out of 5 people that look up trailers do it on YouTube) and others that were surprising.
First thing I find surprising is that 70% of people don’t know what they are going to see when they go to the theatre. I get that I am in the minority and like to know a lot about a movie before I see it but I find it crazy that 70% of people just show up at a theatre and then pick a movie. Guess it could be fun to be surprised but I always like to plan ahead and show up at the right time. When people do decide what movie to see they mostly do it based on the trailers. This is not surprising and explains why newspapers are getting rid of movie critics. Their influence on the general movie going public is small. When only 8% picked a movie based on a friends recommendation it’s clear they aren’t going to listen to a critic. Second thing that I found interesting was what people look for before choosing a movie. If you like drama movies you look at the plot, if you like comedies you look at the stars, and if you like action movies you look at the director. But if you like horror movies you just pick one based on what time it is playing. That says a lot about horror movie fans. As long as a movie is labeled horror they will show up to see it good or bad. I think my favorite part of the survey is where they list what other video content people like to watch. They break it down by genre. So if you see Big Franchise movies you are more likely to watch videos about comics and martial arts. If you like drama you will watch content about movie references and shopping. That’s all fine but for those that watch action movies is where it gets odd. Apparently action fans like to watch martial arts videos (makes sense) and Home and Garden Videos (huh?). I can only guess they want to figure out how to fix their lawn after they mess it up doing martial arts. Was there anything else interesting you found? Here is the link again take a look http://think.storage.googleapis.com/docs/behind-the-box-office_infographics.pdf There is a new era of film criticism coming to Milwaukee. Last week was Duane Dudek's last day as film critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and they will no be replacing him. What does this mean? Well there will no longer be locally written movie reviews in the paper. There are plenty of places to go for written reviews. There is the for example The Milwaukee Record and Milwaukee Magazine have film reviewers. But there are also unpaid movie bloggers out there like us who do it because we love movies and love to talk about movies. While we would love to get paid to watch movies (always seemed like a dream job) that is not why we do it. The problem is it is hard to get your stuff read if you are just an unknown blogger. That is why I think it is time to band the local bloggers together so we can be recognized, get our reviews read, and improve our craft. So if you are a movie blogger or you know any bloggers make sure we know about your blog. As newspapers and magazines go away the local bloggers are where the future of film criticism is.
We love to share our favorite short films here and especially love to share locally made short films. Yellow Hill: The Stranger's Tale was shot in South Dakota and stars Bai Ling but was directed by Milwaukee filmmaker Ross Bigley. Enjoy.
|
Archives
May 2017
Categories
All
|