Matthew Monagle
The First ‘Fifty Shades Freed’ Teaser Promises Wedding Bells and Whips
Oh, Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. When are those two crazy kids ever going to get together? There’s is a love story we can all relate to: she, the inexperienced college student and would-be journalist, and he, the millionaire Seattle playboy, willing to teach her in the practice of love. Would their shared appreciation for BDSM be enough to overcome their differences and help them find true love? I don’t know for sure, but based on this first teaser trailer for Fifty Shades Freed, I’m going to venture that the answer to that question is yes.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘It’ Breaks a Whole Slew of Box Office Records
As we head deeper into September, two things have become pretty clear about 2017 box office numbers: one, Hollywood desperately needs to bounce back a little bit from the doldrums of August, and two, whoever decided to hedge their studio’s bets with a September release date for a movie about a killer clown is looking like a [profanity] genius right about now. We’ll get to all of that in a moment, but first, here are the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Weekend Box Office Report: Weirdest. Labor Day Weekend. Ever.
In a weekend where no new releases cracked the Top 10 and six movies maintained their exact spot in the rankings, you’d think there would be less news worth sharing. That isn’t quite the case. Sure, as sites like Box Office Mojo have noted, this is a historically bad Labor Day Weekend for movies in theaters, but it’s also a uniquely static weekend for releases, one that even required me to create a second chart just to capture all the data points. Let’s start as we always do, with the box office grosses as of Sunday afternoon:
Legendary Comedian Jerry Lewis Dies at 91
Today the world of comedy lost one of its brightest stars. Jerry Lewis was no stranger to controversy during his decades-long career, but his impact on both Hollywood and comedy in general cannot be denied. From his early days as Dean Martin’s partner-in-crime to his career-capping turn in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy — and countless box office success in the interim — Lewis’s impact on Hollywood will be a source of much discussion for years to come.
‘Princess Diaries’ Author Says a Third Movie Might Happen
While Colossal may not have broken box office records, it was a welcome reminder that Anne Hathaway deserved better than whatever rom-com hell we’d locked her in for the past few years. In fact, as Lauren Duca recently pointed out on Twitter, now would be a perfect time revisit our opinions of the actress altogether, dating all the way back to her breakout role in The Princess Diaries. I mean, it can’t be a coincidence that now that we’re learning to appreciate Hathaway again, we’re suddenly getting talk of another Princess Diaries movie. These strange things happen all the time.
Make Your Weekend Better By Reading This Unproduced ‘Police Squad!’ Script
While any self-respecting comedy fan undoubtedly knows the Naked Gun movies by heart, I hope those same fans are also aware of Police Squad!, the short-lived 1982 ABC comedy series that set the stage for Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin character. Created by the Zucker Brothers and serving as a hilarious sendup of police procedurals, Police Squad! was a slightly drier version of the movie characters we would all come to know and love. The show was infamously cancelled after only six episodes, with ABC executives claiming that the rapid-fire comedy and plethora of visual gags were too complex for television audiences. Thus, Police Squad! remains a television show impossibly ahead of its time.
John Heard, Star of ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Big,’ Dies at 72
For many people who grew up in the 1990s, Home Alone is a film that ages alongside them. When you’re a child, you feel an immediate kinship with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin, sharing in his delight at being able to run around the house entirely rule-free. The older you get, though, the more you find yourself goggling at the actions of John Heard and Catherine O’Hara‘s parents. How on earth could they manage to leave their youngest child behind? Was it really that easy to breeze through airport security in the ‘90s? Why do I still feel so sympathetic towards them even after all that?
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Apes’ Squashes a ‘Spider’
Who would you rather fight, a million spider-sized ape or one ape-sized spider? It’s a question that’s been haunting my mind since, oh, about an hour ago when I started to look up the box office numbers for this past weekend. And while I might not be any closer to solving my riddle, I can at least say this: when it comes to week-old spiders versus brand new primates, the primates are destined to win. Here’s the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Both Bombs and Breaks Records
Another weekend, another Weekend Box Office Report! While it won’t surprise you to find out that Michael Bay’s latest episode of Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots won the weekend, the specifics of that win come with enough asterisks to make even Barry Bonds blush. It was a terrible weekend for Transformers: The Last Knight one on continent and a record-breaking opening on another, which just goes to show how confusing this whole box office thing can be at times. Here’s the projected numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Cars 3’ Dethrones ‘Wonder Woman’
It’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the world, which means it’s time for your weekend box office updates! While this was a disappointing weekend overall for a handful of new releases, there’s good news to be had: after a disappointing $144 million total gross last weekend, the box office bounced back to $187 million total over the past few days. That takes some of the pressure off Wonder Woman to, you know, save the summer blockbuster as we know it. Here’s the totals as of Sunday afternoon: