Weekend box-office – 28th of March to 3rd of April 2015 – will Divergent 2 surge at the box-office?

Marketing for the action sequel Insurgent will have you believe that it is a worldwide phenomenon but in fact the first film had a lukewarm commercial response at $290 million, outgrossed by the less hyped and far less expensive The Maze Runner ($340 million), and was mainly reliant on the US box-office. Critics particularly picked up on the unoriginality of the film, drawing major similarities to the far more popular Harry Potter, Matrix and Hunger Games franchises. Insurgent, under the new leadership of RIPD’s Robert Schwentke, may not succeed in fooling audiences once more.

US:

1. Insurgent – Director: Robert Schwentke – $52.3 million
2. Cinderella – Kenneth Branagh – $35 million
3. Run All Night – Jaume Collet Serra – $5 million
4. The Gunman – Pierre Morel – $5 million
5. Kingsman: The Secret Service – Matthew Vaughn – $4.6 million

UK:

1. Home – Tim Johnson – £6 million
2. Insurgent – Robert Schwentke – £2.9 million
3. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – John Madden – £0.6 million
4. Focus – Glenn Ficarra, John Requa – £0.5 million
5. The Gunman – Pierre Morel – £0.4 million

By no means a disappointment, Insurgent’s takings are actually slightly down from its previous instalment ($54 million) and is nowhere near the blockbusting triumph of Catching Fire, whose financial success this is desperately trying the replicate. While Cinderella keeps up its money making, the rip-off-of-Taken-from-the-director-of-Taken The Gunman has flopped despite boasting the cast of Sean Penn, Idris Elba and Javier Bardem. In the UK, animated adventure Home has had a surprisingly profitable opening and easily surpassed Insurgent. This week I’ve scored 4/10.

US:

1. Home – Tim Johnson
2. Get Hard – Etan Cohen
3. Insurgent – Robert Schwentke
4. Cinderella – Kenneth Branagh
5. While We’re Young – Noah Baumbach

UK:

1. Cinderella – Kenneth Branagh
2. Home – Tim Johnson
3. Insurgent – Robert Schwentke
4. Get Hard – Etan Cohen
5. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – John Madden

Theo James, Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller in Insurgent, this week’s US number one.

The characters of Rihanna and Jim Parsons in Home, this week’s UK number one.

New poster for Oldboy plus new roles for Emma Watson and Jennifer Lawrence

Oldboy is Spike Lee’s English language remake of Chan-Wook Park’s award winning 2003 thriller (also ranked 85th on IMDB’s Top 250 films of all time) of the same name. Ten years on, Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, The Goonies) is the headline star with Samuel L Jackson (Jurassic Park, Avenger Assemble), Elizabeth Olsen (Like Crazy, soon to be Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron), Hannah Simone (New Girl) and Sharlto Copley (District 9, Elysium) in support. His character, Joe, is the centre of a plot that sees him seeking vengeance on those who imprisoned him for 20 years without a cause, as well as seeking answers and going in search of the mysterious girl with a yellow umbrella. The new poster for the film was unveiled yesterday, as was some fairly gruesome footage of the movie at The 2013 New York Comic-Con.

Moving on, two of the most popular young actresses of the moment have picked up new roles in completely unrelated films. First off, it’s Emma Watson. Out of the central trio of young heroes in the Harry Potter series, Watson has possibly been the most critically successful since the series conclusion . She cropped up in My Week With Marilyn, had a celebrity cameo in This is the End, will star with Anthony Hopkins, Russell Crowe, Logan Lerman and Ray Winstone in Darren Aronofsky’s biblical epic Noah and had lead roles in the indie dramas The Bling Ring The Perks of Being a Wallflower. She could now be reuniting with her Wallflower director Stephen Chbosky for While We’re Young, although it’s becoming apparent that Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha) may be directing after all.

Adena Halpern’s novel 29 (which itself has a plot – the story of a grandmother who’s much more friendly with her 29 year old grandaughter than her 55 year old daughter and gets her wish of becoming the same age of her grandaughter again granted – similar to Zac Efron flick 17 Again – were an elderly man has his wish granted and is once again his young self at high-school) is the inspiration for this production. Amanda Seyfried (Les Miserables, Mama Mia), Naomi Watts (King-Kong, The Impossible) and Ben Stiller (Zoolander, Tropic Thunder) are already going to star. According to IMDB, Watson has just started filming While We’re Young and will make that her third film of 2014 (alongside Noah – March 28th – and Your Voice in My Head).

The other young star is one of The Hunger Games, X-Men: First Class, Winter’s Bone and Silver Linings Playbook fame: Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence. Katniss Everdeen, as we like to call her, was attached to star in The Glass Castle in April 2012, just after the release of The Hunger Games. Since then, there’s been a halt in development after her Oscar win and a tonne of other roles coming her way (including reprising the role of Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past, East of Eden, American Hustle, Dumb and Dumber To and The Hunger Games’ sequels). We can presume that she’s close to sealing her role in the film that now has Destin Crettin (whose new drama Short Term 12 is getting all kinds of acclaim at the moment) set to direct.

Oldboy – December 6th

While We’re Young – 2014 or 2015

The Glass Castle – 2016?

First trailers for The Invisible Woman and I, Frankenstein plus Tarantino’s films of 2013 and new casting for Home

Aaron Eckhart’s upcoming action I, Frankenstein looks like it could be the big dark fantasy of 2014. Stuart Beattie was the writer of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and director of teen adventure Tomorrow, When the War Began and now this effects filled horror. The Frankenstein Monster (Eckhart) is now a 200 year old living in present day hiding under the name of Adam. He’s recruited to end a war between two immortal clans with his surprising superhuman strength and agility. Bill Nighy (Love Actually), Yvonne Strahovski (Dexter), Jai Courtney (A Good Day to Die Hard), Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings) and Caitlin Stasey (Tomorrow, When the War Began) make up the cast for this film and all feature in this new trailer which offers a first glimpse at the film.

Our next trailer is for The Invisible Woman. Ralph Fiennes (Skyfall, Harry Potter, Schindler’s List, The English Patient) stars in and directs the new period drama in which he portrays Charles Dickens in the classic Victorian author’s relatively untold true story. Despite being married and at the height of his career, finds himself obsessed with his younger secret lover Nelly Ternan (Felicity Jones). Kristn Scott Thomas (Only God Forgives), Michelle Fairly (Game of Thrones) and Tom Hollander (Rev, Gosford Park) also star.

Moving on, there’s been some new additions to the cast of Home. This Dreamworks (Kung-Fu Panda, Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon animation is about a quirky group of aliens called the Boov landing on Earth to seek refuge from their villainous enemies. Joining three time Emmy award winner Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) and pop star Rihanna (who had brief acting experience in Battleship) are 5 time Golden Globe nominee Steve Martin (The Jerk, Three Amigos) and Jennifer Lopez (Out of Sight)

Finally, we have the Top Ten films of the year so far according to legendary director Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs and many others). The two time Oscar winner has released his expert view on the year’s releases so far and it’s got a good mix of mainstream hits and indie dramas.

1. Afternoon Daylight (Jill Soloway)
2. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
3. Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)
4. The Conjuring (James Wan)
5. Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg)
6. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
7. Gravity (Alfonso Cauron)
8. Kick-Ass 2 (Jeff Wadlow)
9. The Lone Ranger (Gore Verbinski)
10. This is the End (Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg)

There’s quite a few surprises in this list. Before Midnight, Blue Jasmine, Frances Ha and Gravity were likely due to their good (excellent, in Gravity’s case) reviews. Drinking Buddies and Afternoon Daylight I haven’t seen but they didn’t seem to be major critical successes with US critics (mainly 3 star reviews) but they seem to have struck a chord with Tarantino. There’s also four massively mainstream releases in the list (which is surprising for the director known for making the kind of action films that flip the genre). Kick-Ass 2 wasn’t a hit with even some of the fans of the first film but the increased violence of the sequel was unlikely to put off the director of Pulp Fiction. The Lone Ranger (which I applauded in my review of Verbinki’s Western) pushed many US critics into the zone of reviewing the film before they’ve seen it but Tarantino’s interest in the Western genre after his huge success with Django Unchained. The most surprising perhaps are This is the End which seemed a just above average comedy and The Conjuring which is a fairly soft-core horror.

The Invisible Woman – February 7th 2014

I, Frankenstein – 24th January 2014

Home – 5th December 2014