Weekend box-office – 18th to 31st of October 2014 – will Gone Girl face the Fury?

In today’s post we’re going to have to quickly skim over the results of the past two weeks. These weeks saw the major releases of horror epic Dracula Untold and star studded WWII tank thriller Fury. One by one they’ll face off with David Fincher’s smash hit drama Gone Girl in the battle for October supremacy. We’re in an odd period after the September dry spell but before the packed schedules of November and December (Interstellar, The Hunger Games 3, The Hobbit 3, Exodus: Gods and Kings) followed by the dreaded January/February pit. This is where a lot of releases get the chance to become sleeper hits but the need to make an initial mark. Last week it was predicted that the Dracula reboot would edge past Gone Girl but let’s see what really went down.

US:

1. Gone Girl – Director: David Fincher – $26.4 million
2. Dracula Untold – Gary Shore – $23.5 million
3. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – Miguel Arteta – $18.4 million
4. Annabelle – John R Leonetti – $15.9 million
5. The Judge – David Dobkin – $13.1 million

UK:

1. Gone Girl – David Fincher – £3.1 million
2. The Maze Runner – Wes Ball – £2.1 million
3. Annabelle – John R Leonetti – £2.- million
4. One Direction: Where We Are – Paul Dugdale – £1 million
5. Dracula Untold – Gary Shore – £0.8 million

Gone Girl’s triumph takes its international total to well over $200 million while Dracula Untold is struggling to reach that mark. In this week I score a dismal 1/10.

Neil Patrick Harris in Gone Girl, last week’s US and UK number one.

US:

1. Fury – David Ayer – $23.7 million
2. Gone Girl – David Fincher – $17.5 million
3. The Book of Life – Jorge R Gutierrez – $17 million
4. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – Miguel Arteta – $11.5 million
5. The Best of Me – Michael Hoffman – $10 million

UK:

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman – £4.8 million
2. Gone Girl – David Fincher – £2.4 million
3. Annabelle – John R Leonetti – £1.6 million
4. The Maze Runner – Wes Ball – £1.4 million
5. The Best of Me – Michael Hoffman – £0.6 million

Fury’s chart-toppping takings are a little below par but are still impressive. Mexican animation The Book of Life takes a modest third. In the UK the Ninja Turtles took in a surprisingly high amount of money. Here are my predictions for next week:

US:

1. Fury – David Ayer
2. Ouija – Stiles White
3. Gone Girl – David Fincher
4. John Wick – David Leitch, Chad Stahelski
5. The Book of Life – Jorge R Gutierrez

UK:

1. Fury – David Ayer
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman
3. Gone Girl – David Fincher
4. Annabelle – John R Leonetti
5. The Babadook – Jennifer Kent

Brad Pitt in Fury, this week’s US number one.

Megan Fox in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this week’s UK number one.

Weekend box-office – 16th to 29th of August 2014 – will TMNT deem Stallone and co Expendable?

As you may know, we’ve been away a little while so for this week’s box-office scoop we’ll have to cover the past two weeks of ticket sales.

The beginning of the summer season of film produced hit after hit: Captain America 2, Spider-Man 2, Maleficent, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Godzilla and X-Men 7 all greatly impressed. The second half of it has had the odd exception such as Guardians of the Galaxy or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but has generally underperformed. This week’s attempt at ending a disappointing summer is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, dim in prospect but the fans of the cartoon are in legion. Last week we predicted it’d top the chart but let’s find out how it really did.

US:

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Director: Jonathan Liebesman – $65.6 million
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – $42.1 million
3. Into the Storm – Steven Quale – $17.3 million
4. The Hundred-Foot Journey – Lasse Halstrom – $11 million
5. Lucy – Luc Besson – $9.5 million

UK:

1. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris – £12.5 million
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – £3.3 million
3. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves – £1.7 million
4. Planes: Fire and Rescue – Roberts Gannaway – £1 million
5. How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Dean DeBlois – £9 million

TMNT hasn’t quite been the smash to elevate this summer from its sunken spirits but it’s still a very impressive debut, similar to this year’s 22 Jump Street and Maleficent. However, it might not have the same legs internationally. Anything over $500 million worldwide may be unlikely. Marvel’s interstellar Guardians have decreased drastically but a half-a-billion gross appears to be on the cards. Disaster thriller Into the Storm has made a fairly modest $20 million while Lasse Halstrom’s latest, The Hundred-Foot Journey, has made a surprise entry in this week’s top 5. In the UK, fans of the hit comedy show The Inbetweeners will likely be thrilled to hear that the second feature spin off of the series now has the title of this year’s highest UK opening weekend, ahead of Transformers: Age of Extinction. This week I’ve scored 8/10.

US:

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
3. The Expendables 3 – Patrick Hughes
4. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield
5. The Giver – Phillip Noyce

UK:

1. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris
2. The Expendables 3 – Patrick Hughes
3. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
4. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves
5. How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Dean DeBlois

For the next week of releases, we’re trying to place three new releases in the US box office, no mean task. The Expendables 3, a sequel to a pair of greatly high grossing films and starring one of the year’s biggest ensembles (Stallone, Snipes, Statham, Schwarzenegger, Gibson, Ford, Banderes, Grammer, Li, Crews, Lundgren, Couture), may be set to flop giving a fighting chance to comedy Let’s Be Cops or drama The Giver.

US:

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman – $28.5 million
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – $25.1 million
3. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield – $17.8 million
4. The Expendables 3 – Patrick Hughes – $15.9 million
5. The Giver – Phillip Noyce – $12.3 million

UK:

1. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris – £4.3 million
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – £2.1 million
3. The Expendables 3 – Patrick Hughes – £1.7 million
4. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves – £1.1 million
5. How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Dean DeBlois – £0.6 million

Considering that previous instalments have taken $300 million plus, The Expendables 3 will have to go down as a huge flop. Well publicised pirating may have been its downfall but I’d think the fact that none of the Expendables have had a non-franchise commercial hit in years. The new TMNT instalment has dropped greatly from its opening weekend but that’ll be no worry to an already impressive domestic tally. On both sides of the Atlantic, Marvel’s space opera Guardians of the Galaxy is continuing to impress. British comedy sequel The Inbetweeners 2 has decreased two thirds of its debut taking of £12 million so the first film’s total of £50 million bay be out of reach. This week I’ve scored 6/10.

US:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
2. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman
4. If I Stay – RJ Cutler
5. The Expendables 3 – Patrick Hughes

UK:

1. Lucy – Luc Besson
2. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris
3. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
4. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
5. What If – Michael Dowse

Megan Fox and Pete Ploszek in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this week’s US number one.

Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Simon Bird in The Inbetweeners 2, this week’s US number one

Sinister Six appoints Drew Goddard, Wreck-It Ralph 2 levels up plus new TMNT posters

Wreck-It Ralph was easily Dinsey’s most charming (non-musical and non-Pixar) animated film in years, and defeated the likes of Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 to win the Tuorhoth Award for Best Animated Film as well as gaining nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Comedy. On top of that, the film, which tells the story of an arcade villain determined to make something better of himself in the gaming world, got an Academy Award nomination, which is lost to Brave, and took nearly $500 million worldwide. You won’t be surprised to hear that we’re immensely excited about today’s news. X-Men: First Class and Captain Phillips composer Henry Jackman let slip that he’d been approached for a sequel.

“I can’t tell you more, not because I’m being coy, but I believe that it is officially on the cards,” he told collider, “I don’t know any more other than a story is indeed being written. I’d be very surprised not to. I’m not blowing my own trumpet. Forget about the music. Just the movie itself I thought was a fantastically imaginative and creative piece of work.” We hope that the follow up will be directed by Rich Moore and will star John C Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Alan Tudyk, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch and Joe Lo Trugilo.

With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 coming very soon, Sony are advancing the continuation of their slice of the Marvel universe. As well as another two Spider-Man sequels, there’ll be a pair of spin offs. Venom will be brought to us by People Like Us director and Star Trek and Fringe writer Alex Kurtzman as well as Roberto Orci and Ed Solomon and that’s followed by The Sinister Six, which we knew was going to be written by Cloverfield, World War Z and The Cabin in the Woods’ (below) Drew Goddard. However, Goddard is now talking with Sony about directing the film.

We’re still not quite sure which iteration of The Sinister Six will be depicted as there have been numerous incarnations and members. There’s a possibility that established Spidey evil-doers such as Lizard (Rhys Ifans), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) will be included but we’d put our money on the classic line up of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Sandman, Doctor Octopus and Vulture. Electro has already found a solid casting and Doc Oc and Vulture have been teased in various trailers but Goddard will have a serious task trying to cast five new villains.

There’s little else to report today besides the revealing of four neat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teaser posters. The reboot is brought to us by South African director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) and producer Michael Bay (Transformers, Pain and Gain) and stars Megan Fox, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub, Will Arnett, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Danny Woodburn and Whoopi Goldberg.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – October 17th

Wreck-It Ralph 2 – 2017

Venom – 2017

The Sinister Six – 2017

Judy Greer resident of Jurassic World and Johnny Knoxville joins TMNT

Out of everything 2015 has to offer, Jurassic World has one of the biggest cast lists. Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Bryce Dallas Howard, Omar Sy, Vincent D’Onofrio, BD Wong, Jake Johnson and Irrfan Kahn are fronted by man-of-the-moment Chris Pratt (The Lego Movie, Parks and Recreation, Guardians of the Galaxy, Her, Zero Dark Thirty) and director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed). Another three stars have now joined the dinosaur sci-fi thriller.

First off there’s Judy Greer, most likely known for Carrie, Archer and Three Kings and seems to be rising quickly with major roles coming up in The Good Dinosaur, Tomorrowland and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Secondly, Katie McGrath takes one her next big role after portraying Merlin’s Morgana. Finally, Orange is the New Black and House of Lies regular Lauren Lapkus has signed on.

Wrath of the Titans’Jonathan Liebesman directs and Transformers and Bad Boys’ Michael Bay producers a new reboot of cult animation Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. William Fichtner, Megan Fox, Will Arnett and Whoopi Goldberg make up the main cast but the turtles themselves were set to be played by surprisingly low key stars. Not any more, Jackass’ writer and star Johnny Knoxville will voice the eldest turtle Leonardo (the blue masked, double-sword wielding mutant) and Monk’s Golden Globe winner and star of Men in Black Tony Shalhoub will play their rat-like samurai master Splinter.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – October 17th

Jurassic World – June 12th 2015

Christopher Nolan hints for Interstellar and new pics from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and first TMNT trailer

We start with an apology for yesterday’s absence. We’d scheduled it to be the day of my review of Marvel’s thriller Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Our review will arrive on Sunday but today we’re making up for that with some incredibly exciting film news for three of this year’s biggest movies.

In my mind, Christopher Nolan is the single greatest British writer/director of this century. He began his career with the first class thrillers Insomnia and The Following but found his big break with the psychological mystery Memento. That soon lead to him landing the director’s chair on Batman Begins. From there, he confirmed legendary status with The Dark Knight, The Prestige, The Dark Knight Rises and Inception and his technologically stunning and brilliantly written film’s has received a total of 21 Oscar nominations.

So, you won’t be surprised to hear that it is with great excitement and trepidation that we report anything to do with his new film. Still, the ever secretive Nolan has told us very little about it: it’s titled Interstellar, has a greatly impressive cast list and must have something to do with space. He’s finally given a hint at what it’s like to be working with the man who’s currently the biggest actor on the planet: the Oscar winning Matthew MacConaughey. “I needed someone who is very much an everyman, someone the audience could experience the story with,” he says of the Wolf of Wall Street, True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club star. “He’s just a phenomenal, charismatic presence in the movie. His performance is shaping up to be extraordinary.”

Nolan also added a little to do with the styling of the film. “We have spatial interiors. We built closed sets and shot it like a documentary, like they were really there.” Interstellar also stars Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Topher Grace, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, David Gyasi and Matt Damon.

Today’s next snippet comes from Empire’s set-pics from the simian sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves directs the film which has released some awesome shots of the terrifying apes before their post-production motion capture transformation. The film stars Gary Oldman, Judy Greer, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit McPhee and Andy Serkis.

Today’s final report concerns the release of the very first trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michael Bay (director of Transformers) produces this reboot of the cult animation while Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) directs. The cast list includes of the action adventure includes Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Megan Fox, William Fichtner, Will Arnett, Danny Woodburn and Whoopi Goldberg.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – October 17th

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – July 17th

Interstellar – November 7th

Wonder Woman confirmed for Batman/Superman, Amazing Spider-Man 2 publishes new pics and Louis Leterrier and Sacha Baron Cohen for Grimsby

Louis Leterrier’s career has been a little sticky. His directorial debut Unleashed, starring Morgan Freeman, Jet Li and Bob Hoskins, put him forward and he was soon some lovely big budgets but all Transporter 2, The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans fell flat. However, this year’s Now You See Me was quite a brilliant magician themed thriller. Read our review here. Sequel talk has been floating around a bit but his project after that is today’s focus.

Grimsby is the unambitious title of the new spy comedy that Leterrier’s now attached to direct. The premise, written by Borat’s Baron Cohen and Wreck It-Ralph’s Phil Johnston, is of a couple of comedic spec ops brothers on a secret mission. I think it’s going for less of the James Bond/Jason Bourne parody road that’s been well covered by Johnny English and various other attempts so I think it’ll try and go for a satirical take on say Call of Duty. Variety says that Leterrier won the job of calling the shots over I am Number Four’s DJ Caruso.

Previous Spider-Man films have suffered from a key problem. As soon as Peter Parker gets costumed and swings around he turns into a often disappointing 3-D model. It looks as if Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 it’s trying to capture a more physical Spidey (Andrew Garfield) and these new pics unveil that a bit of that as well as Jamie Foxx as the menacing Electro. Press next to cycle through. Emma Stone, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Dane DeHaan, Martin Sheen and Chris Cooper.

Finally we’ve come the big news of the day which is a bit of news about Wonder Woman. Joss Whedon performed an Amazonian dance around the project for a while before he became Marvel’s main man and names such as Cobie Smulders, Megan Fox and Jaimie Alexander thrown into the mix. However, Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) will be the one to bring Wonder Woman to the screen but I think we guessed that. The surprise is that we’ll get to see her in 2015’s superhero clash Batman vs. Superman, as it’s titled for now.

In addition, Fast and Furious’ Gisele, or her actual name Gal Gadot, is now set to play her. Batman vs. Superman isn’t the only time we’ll be able to see Bat, Supe and Wonder Woman share the screen. Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s The LEGO Movie comes before and features the aforementioned trio as well as Green Lantern for good measure. The Danish figures will be voiced by Will Arnett, Channing Tatum, Cobie Smulders and Jonah Hill as well as Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pratt, Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie and Charlie Day meanwhile Batman vs. Superman has Ben Affleck as Batman and Henry Cavill as Superman as well as Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane and Amy Adams.

Batman vs. Superman – July 17th 2015

The LEGO Movie – February 14th 2014

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – April 18th 2014

Grimsby – 2015?

Marvel’s Doctor Strange green-lighted, Tom Hardy confirmed as Elton John and William Fichtner talks TMNT

William Fichtner made an impressively gory villain out of Butch Cavendish in this years underrated Western flop The Lone Ranger. He’s likely to do the same with his portrayal of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enemy The Shredder.

2014’s reboot is separate from the Patrick Stewart/Chris Evans 2007 CG animated flop. South African director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) will bring us this part CG part live action fantasy comedy which sees four superpowered (with agility, weapon use and advanced speech beyond your average reptile) turtles, Raphael (Alan Ritchinson – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Donatello (Jeremy Howard – Galaxy Quest), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher – Twilight) and Leonardo (Pete Ploszek – Parks and Recreation), are trained by a rat, Splinter (Danny Woodburn – Mirror Mirror), and must defeat the villainous Shredder in his diabolical plans. Megan Fox (Transformers), Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Whoopi Goldberg (The Colour Purple, Sister Act, Ghost) are also set to star while the production has a big name on the list of producers: Michael Bay! Fichtner tells us more about his character and the film:

“It always had sort of a bouncy cartoon feel to me, which is great, that’s why it was appealing. That’s not this movie. It’s not like any Mutant Ninja Turtles thing you’ve ever seen before. It’s freaky, they’re cool, and they’re mutants and they look awesome. It’s tough and it’s going to be really, really great.

I play a guy named Eric Sachs and we find out that Eric Sachs is somebody else too. I can’t give away too much in the story but I can tell you that who Shredder is in the telling of this Turtles is unlike any telling of the story before. His connection and relationship to the turtles is a bit surprising and for an actor playing it, the backstory, which comes out in this film, is really intriguing. We made some changes while filming that I thought are just awesome.”

Rocketman, named after the 1972 hit single, is the upcoming biopic telling of the life of the 1970s’ British pop sensation Elton John and it’s been in development for a few years. Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises’ Bane and star of Bronson, Inception, Warrior and the upcoming Mad Max reboot) has been the man everyone wanted to play Reginald Dwight, Elton’s real name, for a long time but only now has Hardy been confirmed.

“We are excited to have such a gifted actor on board,” Rocket Pictures’ Steve Hamilton Shaw tells us, “and equally excited to be in the hands of Peter Schlessel and the entire Focus Features team.” Lee Hall (scribe of Billy Elliot and War Horse fame) is set to write the biopic while first time director Michael Gracey is also signed on.

The biggest news of today is the green lighting of Doctor Strange. Marvel boss Kevin Feige (who says “Doc Strange, as I’ve been saying for years, is a movie I believe we should make; we’re just figuring out how to make it a great movie.”) has been talking for a long time about bringing Steven Strange to the big screen (in the same universe as Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the rest of The Avengers) but this green light means that it’s definitely coming out.

We predict that it’s going to be in one of Marvel’s untitled 2016 or 2017 slots. Phase 3 begins with Ant-Man in 2015. I think Doctor Strange and Thor 3 will follow in 2016 and then Captain America 3 and possibly Black Panther (Maybe Hawkeye or Black Widow) in 2017. Maybe a SHIELD centred film in 2018 and an Iron Man/Hulk team up before Avengers reassemble for the third, maybe final time, in 2019. It’s very likely that one of the potential projects I mentioned could be replaced by Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but this is all, par Ant-Man and Doctor Strange, just speculation.

We did promise you another piece of Marvel news from yesterday but the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer isn’t online yet. We could be posting about that later today however and, if we have the time, could do a review of the new Paul Greengrass/Tom Hanks hostage thriller Captain Phillips. We won’t be publishing anything tomorrow but we’re back this Saturday with our review of Ender’s Game so you won’t be waiting long!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – May 16th 2014

Rocketman – 2015

Doctor Strange – 2016/17