Weekend box-office – 4th to 11th of November 2013 – can Thor fly to the top and can it defy Gravity?

There’s been two huge openings both sides of the Atlantic this week and they’ve both risen to the top of their respective charts, as I predicted last week. Let’s take a look at how I did in a week that looks like places 2 – 5 were decided by the flip of a coin in the US.

US

1. Thor: The Dark World – Director: Alan Taylor – $86.1 million
2. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa – Jeff Tremaine – $11.3 million
3. Free Birds – Jimmy Hayward – $11.2 million
4. Last Vegas – Jon Turteltaub – $11.1 million
5. Ender’s Game – Gavin Hood – £10.2 million

UK

1. Gravity – Alfonso Cauron – £6.2 milliom
2. Thor: The Dark World – Alan Taylor – £2.9 million
3. Philomena – Stephen Frears – £1.4 million
4. Captain Phillips – Paul Greengrass – £1 million
5. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 – Kodi Cameron, Kris Pearn – £0.9 million

Well, it seems I was a bit two optimistic about the more indie releases of About Time, The Book Thief and Parkland, none of which scratched either top 5. Only $1.2 million separated places 2 – 5 in the US. Ender’s Game has dropped dramatically while Free Birds has gone up a place, likely because we’re getting closer to Thanksgiving which is Free Birds’ theme. Philomena is holding much stronger than I thought it would. I had incorrectly predicted Last Vegas in it’s place last week as the latter has been pushed back to January next year. I scored a dismal 1/5 in the US and a non overwhelming 2/3 in the UK taking my total to a disappointing 3/10 but I’m new at this! Here’s what I feebly foresee for next week:

US

1. Thor: The Dark World – Alan Taylor
2. The Best Man Holiday – Malcom D. Lee
3. Free Birds – Jimmy Hayward
4. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa – Jeff Tremaine
5. Nebraska – Alexander Payne

UK

1. Gravity – Alfonso Cauron
2. The Butler – Lee Daniels
3. Thor: The Dark World – Alan Taylor
4. The Counsellor – Ridley Scott
5. Don Jon – Joseph Gordon Levitt

I’m hoping for more pleasing results next week. My current total is 9/20 so let’s see if I can take it up to over 50%. Find out next week, here on Tuorhoth Movies. There’s a whole quartet of major but not quite mainstream releases in the UK next week. They are The Butler, The Counsellor, Don Jon and Dom Hemmingway. I think that they’ll rank commercially as I just listed them.

Chris Hemsworth and Jaimie Alexander in Thor: The Dark World, the US number one.

Sandra Bullock in Gravity, the UK number one.

The Must Sees of November 2013

This one comes a few days late but we need a round up of November’s huge releases. First up, we’ve got the new film from Stephen Frears (two time Oscar nominated director famed for The Queen and High Fidelity). Philomena is the true story of a pregnant Irish teenager who’s child was stolen by nuns and put up for adoption in America. Decades on in the present day, the old woman’s (Judi Dench – Skyfall, Shakespeare in Love, Iris) story is found by political journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan – Alan Partridge, The Look of Love, Despicable Me 2) and they set out to America to find Philomena’s son. This bitter comedy is sweeping up recognition from everywhere, BAFTAs are certain and Oscars are a possibility, and opens November 1st.

Eric Bana, Rebecca Hall and Jim Broadbent star in Closed Circuit. John Crowley is the director of this mystery thriller which sees a regular court case uncovering a huge terrorist plot (Nov 1st). Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden, James Badge Dale and Paul Giamatti play characters in their response to the death of President John F Kennedy in 1963 for the new drama Parkland from director Peter Landesman (Nov 8th). Last Vegas is the new big billing comedy. The premise is four sixty something guys (played by four Oscar winners – Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro and Kevin Kline) hitting Vegas for the final bachelor party of their lives as the last on of them ties the knot. Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) is the director (Nov 8th).

The biggest release of the month has got to be Gravity. It’s burst into IMDB’s Top 250 films of all time and sits at about 50th. Alfonso Cauron (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) is the director of what’s being praised as one of the most technically astonishing films of all time. Sandra Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first trip to space. She’s on a spacestation with veteran Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) when debris crashes into them leaving them stranded and tumbling towards Earth (Nov 7th).

Kill Your Darlings is the new biography drama set in 1944. A murder draws in great Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and William Burroughs (Ben Foster). Also with Dane DeHaan, Elizabeth Olsen, David Cross and director John Krokidas (Slo-Mo) (8th). Shia LaBeouf (Lawless, Transformers) is the titular character Charlie Countryman. Rupert Grint, Evan Rachel Wood, Mads Mikkelson, Melissa Leo, James Buckley and John Hurt. Countryman is an American traveller who falls for a Romanian criminal. Frederick Bond is the director (Nov 8th).

The Counsellor is Ridley Scott’s new thriller. Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Javier Bardem star in this Oscar tipped feature about a lawyer getting too deep into drug trafficking (Nov 15th). Iain De Caestecker is currently starring on the small screen as one of the Agents of SHIELD. He’s also starring with Alice Englert for In Fear. Jeremy Lovering’s horror sees a young couple thrown into the tormenting of a dark forest after a night out (Nov 15th). Richard Shepard (The Matador) directs and writes his new crime filled comedy Dom Hemmingway where Jude Law has the role of the ex-con titular lead alongside Richard E. Grant and Emilia Clarke (Nov 15th) while Joseph Gordon Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, Looper) directs, writes and stars in edgy rom-com Don Jon about a regular guy struggling to maintain a happy relationship. Also with Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore. Rounding off the stellar releases of November 15th is Blue is the Warmest Colour, winner of the Palme D’Or award earlier this year at the Canne Film Festival after being voted by an elite panel of judges including Steven Spielberg. This foreign language hit is from Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche and is tipped to be this year’s Amour.

Escape Plan sees the 1980s’ two greatest action stars,  Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator, Predator) and Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, Rambo), teaming up for the first proper time, The Expendables wasn’t really about them. They play two prison experts locked away in the most secure cell on the Earth and devise a route out in this mystery thriller from director Mikael Hafstrom. Also with 50 Cent, Sam Neill and Vinnie Jones (Nov 22nd).

We now have a trio of award contenders. Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Tommy Lee Jones star in The Family. Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) is the director and the story is the one of the Manzoni family, a notorious Mafia clan now hiding out in Normandy, France, but are soon noticed (Nov 22nd). A Most Wanted Man is the story of a Muslim immigrant in Hamburg caught  in the crossfire of the international war on terror. Rachel McAdams, Daniel Bruhl, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright and Phillip Seymour Hoffman all star for director Anton Corbjin, famed for The American, (Nov 22nd). Nicole Kidman is the current Oscar favourite for Grace of Monaco. It’s the true story of legendary actress Grace Kelly who, at the age of 25, has just one her first Oscar and is the rising star of the moment, that moment being 1955. But she gives up her career just as it was taking off she marries the Monacan Prince Ranier III (Tim Roth). Director Oliver Dahan explains frequently that it’s not a biography but an exploration of the reasons behind a seemingly bizarre decision (Nov 29th).

Three other films will finish our November preview. Their all likely to make great box-office hits but two of them are in contention for Oscar noms. Carrie is one of them and I reckon stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore are in the running for an Academy Award shortlist. The story, based on the Stephen king novel and Brian De Palma film, is of the titular teenage girl Carrie who finds herself with strange abilities as she enters puberty. She decides to use them to gruesome effect against her tormentors. Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don’t Cry which won Hilary Swank an Oscar) is the director (Nov 29th).

Homefront boasts an impressive cast in the form of Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth and Frank Grillo as well as screenwriter Sylvester Stallone and director Gary Fleder (The Express, Runaway Jury). A former DEA officer hopes to start a new life when he moves to a new quiet town with his young daughter but he gets on the wrong side of local meth dealer Gator and violence soon follows. We like to call it: Breaking Dad! (Nov 29th)

Destined for greatness is The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the sequel to last year’s surprise sci-fi success and adaptation of the Suzanne Collins young adult novel. Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) is the director this time as Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) realises that her Hunger Games victory with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) may have sparked the ideals of revolution within the starving people of Panem. Confronted by President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland), she must dampen the rebellious fire before it causes a head on collision with the Capitol. Also with Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Jeffery Wright, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Sam Clafin, Jena Malone, Willow Shields and Phillips Seymour Hoffman (Nov 21st).

Thanks for reading the whole of this one through. It means that you now have November 2013’s releases laid out in front of you for you to pick and that you have a much longer attention span than I d

Jared Harris joins Man From U.N.C.L.E., Transformers 4’s full title and LFF line up

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has gone through some tough times in production. Now Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie is set to direct and Game of Shadow’s Moriarty, Jared Harris, will be working with Ritchie once more.

Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger, The Social Network) and Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, Immortals) will play the leads Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo. Elizabeth Debecki (The Great Gatsby, A Few Best Men) and Alicia Vikander (Catherine Mathilde in the brilliant Danish period drama A Royal Affair and the upcoming fantasy Seventh Son) also star. Harris and Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral) are most likely going to be playing the villains that Solo and Kuryakin will face but little is known of the plot. It’ll most likely feature infamous villain T.H.R.U.S.H.

After his new caper comedy with Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Rebel Wilson, Ed Harris, Ken Jeong and Anthony Mackie Pain and Gain, Michael Bay will be returning to his best known franchise. And now, Transformers 4 has a title: Transformers: Age of Extinction. The recent confirmation that Dinobots would be the new antagonists, see our Sci-Fi Special, has been followed by a poster bringing us the name of the film for the first time, alongside a release date of 06 . 27 . 14. Mark Wahlberg (2 time Oscar nominee and star of comedy’s Ted and Boogie Nights), Jack Reynor (Irish actor from drama What Richard Did) and Nicola Peltz (Bradley Martin in TV’s upcoming Psycho prequel Bates Motel with Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga) team up in a bid to defeat both the Dinobots and evil billionaire human Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer – X-Men: The Last Stand, Cheers, Fraiser).

The line up for the BFI LFF (British Film Institute London Film Festival) has been officially announced. We already knew that Paul Greengrass (director of The Bourne Ultimatum, Green Zone) and Tom Hanks’ (star of Forrest Gump, Toy Story) kidnapping thriller Captain Phillips will open the festival and Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson’s Saving Mr Banks, as well as telling the story of Walt Disney trying to get the rights to make Mary Poppins into a film from the author PL Travers as she recalls her childhood in Australia and her inspirations for the story, will close it.

Alfonso Cauron’s space set thriller, Gravity, starring George Clooney (Oceans trilogy) and Sandra Bullock (The Heat), has delighted audiences, with 5 star ratings all round, at the Venice, and soon, Toronto film festivals. Steve McQueen’s (Shame, Hunger) 12 Years a Slave stars Brad Pitt (Fight Club), Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek: Into Darkness), Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men) leading a cast including Paul Dano (Looper), Paul Giamatti (The Illusionist) and the youngest ever Oscar nominee, Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild). Joel and Ethan Coen (famed directing brothers from the brilliant True Grit, The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men) bring us Inside Llewyn Davis, the story of a street folk singer making his way through New York in the 1960’s. Starring Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan and John Goodman, this film builds up the incredible line up of the LFF 2013.

Also featuring are: Philomena (Stephen Frears’ drama with Steve Coogan and Judi Dench), Labour Day (Jason Reitman’s directing effort with Tobey Maguire, Josh Brolin, Kate Winslet and Clark Gregg), The Invisible Woman (Ralph Fiennes directs and stars in this drama that is unrelated to Marvel’s Fantastic Four. Also starring Felicity Jones and Kristin Scott Thomas). The Palme d’Or winner, Blue is the Warmest Colour, will headline, as will Only Lovers Left Alive (Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska, Jeffery Wright and Anton Yelchin starring in a vampire romance) and Don Jon (The Dark Knight Rises and Looper star Joseph Gordon Levitt releases his first time directing job in a comedy he also writes and stars in. Also with Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore).

Joseph Gordon Levitt will be there at the event itself. Also appearing in person are Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Steve Coogan and Ralph Fiennes (a list featuring 6 Oscar wins and an additional two nominations), as well as others, are expected to attend. 234 films, in total, will be screened. For the full list go to the official BFI London Film Festival.

Man From U.N.C.L.E could be out in  2016 or 2017

Transformers: Age of Extinction is out July 10th 2014

The 57th BFI London Film Festival begins October 9th and concludes October 20th. Tickets are on sale from September 20th.