Scarlett Johansson gets out of action mode and into comedy mode next weekend when Rough Nights lands in theaters. The R rated flick finds the starlet involved in a bachelorette party gone wrong. Costars include Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Zoe Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, Demi Moore, and Ty Burrell.
Originally titled Rock That Body, the pic will attempt to bring a sizable female audience that made Bad Moms one of the surprise hits of last summer. There is competition in the form of the third weekend of Wonder Woman, which is likely to be banking in the low 30s for that frame.
Johansson could use some good box office fortune after the flop that was this spring’s Ghost in the Shell. Some estimates have Rough Night making around $25 million (higher than the $23 million achieved by Bad Moms out of the gate). I believe the level of competition and lack of buzz will result in a mid teens debut.
Rough Night opening weekend prediction: $15.1 million
Scarlett Johansson is back in action mode next weekend when GhostintheShell debuts. Based on a popular Japanese anime property that produced an acclaimed 1995 feature, the science fiction crime thriller looks to challenge the third weekend of BeautyandtheBeast for box office supremacy. However, it’s likely to fall quite a bit short with an opening that should still be pretty decent.
Rupert Sanders directs with a supporting cast that includes Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, and Juliette Binoche. The draw beyond the genre’s fanboys is surely Miss Scarlett, who’s proven herself to be a hot commodity in action pics. This applies, of course, to her work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet she also turned 2014’s Lucy into a major hit without the assistance of superheroes. That film debuted to $43 million. I expect Shell to fall at least $10 million short of that in what could be a close race for #2 with The Boss Baby.
GhostintheShell opening weekend prediction: $30.3 million
Illumination Entertainment has become a force in the animated world with huge hits including the Despicable Me franchise, spin-off Minions, and this summer’s The Secret Life of Pets.
They’re back at it again looking for a Christmas cash in with 3D animated musical Sing. The $75 million production should have no trouble bringing in kids and their parents over the holiday season. Singing animals is usually a decent formula for a blockbuster and this should be a strong #2 to the second weekend of Rogue One. There’s plenty of recognizable faces behind their characters including Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Seth MacFarlane, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, and Nick Kroll.
I’ll predict Sing takes in high 40s during the long holiday weekend while reaching mid 60s when you include its Wednesday debut.
Sing opening weekend prediction: $55.3 million (Friday to Monday), $74.1 million (Wednesday to Monday)
Nearly four decades after Disney told the tale of Mowgli’s adventures in animated form, the studio continues its retellings of their catalogue in mostly CG form with TheJungleBook. The result is a satisfying effort that doesn’t reach the level of a true classic – just as the 1967 effort didn’t either. Still, it’s an unquestionable triumph of what technology can accomplish these days. In an age where talking animals have stampeded multiplexes, these ones look pretty darn amazing.
Jon Favreau has been tasked with bringing back Mowgli (Neel Sethi in an adequate child performance) and his story of being raised in the jungle. He’s part of a wolf pack that has nothing to do with Zach Galifianakis as he’s actually been raised by wolves. There’s also his panther mentor Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley) who encourages our young protagonist to find others like him (you know, people) after his life is threatened by the fierce tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba, enunciating menace expertly).
This, of course, sets our hero off on an adventure where he comes into contact with many of the inhabitants of the vast wild lands he calls home. He partners up with honey grubbing bear Baloo (Bill Murray), has a frightening encounter with snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), and is taunted by apish thug King Louie (Christopher Walken).
The voiceover casting here is impeccable and adds a lot to these proceedings. Song and dance man Walker gets a solo take on “I Wan’na Be Like You” and “The Bare Necessities” is figured in. Truthfully, the musical numbers seem a little tacked on, but they’re not around long enough to really complain about. Plus the kids should dig them.
TheJungleBook and its message of the dangers of man vs. wild is a familiar one, but we’ve yet to witness it with special effects like these. We are aware Mowgli and the boy playing him probably spent months in front of a green screen. However, we forget it quickly with these ultra photo realistic creatures in front of us and their well cast actors voicing them. This is the biggest accomplishment that Favreau and his team pull off and it’s certainly enough to make this a worthy addition to the Mouse Factory’s long list of verbal beast experiences.
Much attention has been paid on this blog to the Best Actress race at the 2016 Oscars and deservedly so as it figures to be the most competitive it’s been in some time. Yet there’s another category that’ll be fun to watch. This year has been a banner one for animated features. In some years, it’s a bit of a challenge to think of five worthy of inclusion. In 2016, it’ll be fascinating to see what’s left out.
Two contenders have an odd thing in common: Matthew McConaughey. The 2013 Best Actor winner for DallasBuyersClub has his voice featured in both KuboandtheTwoStrings and Sing, which has screened in Toronto and will be out statewide in time for Christmas. Animated McConaughey has, in fact, had a much stronger year than the Lincoln Lawyer in human form. His summer Civil War drama FreeStateofJones was a critical and commercial flop. Late last month, he starred in Gus Van Sant’s drama TheSeaofTrees. It also received scorn from reviewers and has grossed a truly embarrassing $20,000 in its limited release. Perhaps this December’s Gold will turn things around for him.
Back to his cartoon version. Kubo opened last month to decent box office numbers (it’s made $40 million domestically thus far). Critics went wild for it though and its RT score stands at 97%. Though there’s other animated material that will gross far more than it, its inclusion for a nomination looks solid.
One of those movies that’ll probably far outgross it is Sing. The 3D computer animated musical comes from the company behind the DespicableMe franchise. In addition to McConaughey, it feature the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Seth MacFarlane, and John C. Reilly. Early reaction from Toronto is positive and suggests it’ll be a major holiday hit.
Yet its chances at an Animated Feature nod appear murkier due to the aforementioned heavy competition. Let’s briefly run the rest of the contenders down. There’s Disney’s spring juggernaut Zootopia. It’s in. There’s Disney’s Moana, their November offering from the team behind TheLittleMermaid and Aladdin. Most prognosticators, including myself, are reserving a slot for it. The foreign title TheRedTurtle opened to raves at Cannes. Japanese entry MissHokusai looks to be a factor. And there’s mega-hits like FindingDory and TheSecretLifeofPets to think about. Finally, how about SausageParty?
All in all, this is one of the most exciting races to follow in 2016 and who knew the stoner guy from DazedandConfused would be right in the thick of it?
Joel and Ethan Coen seem to be struggling with ambivalence to the film industry in their latest, Hail, Caesar! It takes place in the early 1950s when the studios had their own struggles with the impending explosion of television threatening their existence. Capitol Pictures production head Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) spends his days and nights putting out fires with damaged actors, directors, and other assorted players. He has an offer on the table for a nice everyday job with Lockheed and his decision whether to stay or go is treated (quite literally) as one of Biblical proportions.
The film’s title is one shared with a Roman epic meant to be Capitol’s blockbuster of the year. It stars Baird Whitlock and he’s played by George Clooney in a welcome continuation of the actor playing extraordinarily dumb guys in the Coen universe. These directors either realized years ago that Clooney excels in these roles or have secret contempt for him. It’s probably the former. Baird is kidnapped by a group of gentlemen who are either underpaid and frustrated screenwriters, Communist sympathizers, or both. His return to the set means a handsome ransom paid by Capitol.
That is just one of many issues that Mannix deals with during his workday. They include the synchronized swimming Esther Williams type starlet (Scarlett Johansson) whose squeaky clean image is polar opposite from the real story. And the Western crooning leading man (Alden Ehrenreich) clumsily trying his hand at serious drama.
Much of this simply appears to be an excuse for the brothers from Minnesota to play around with genres popular in the era. Channing Tatum pops up as a tap dancing sailor making an energetic and silly musical. The works of the aforementioned movie stars lets the Coens give us scenes from Westerns, Bible epics, and aquamusicals. Fans of the period will almost certainly appreciate it all more than those unfamiliar.
Certain performances stand out. Some of the more recognizable faces (Johansson, Jonah Hill as a studio problem fixer) are given little material. Lesser known Ehrenreich is quite a find and he shares a very funny sequence with an exasperated director played by Ralph Fiennes. Tilda Swinton is on point in a dual role as haughty twin gossip columnists.
The overall theme is of Mannix’s wondering if his crazy job is inconsequential. You get the feeling from time to time if it’s the Coens thinking that themselves. We saw it in 2008’s superior BurnAfterReading, a picture that concluded with a conversation about its own unnecessary existence. That also seemed to serve as a statement about the spy thrillers it was sending up. Here the message is a little murkier and quite a bit less humorous. Joel and Ethan Coen have certainly earned the right to do whatever they want and Hail, Caesar! stillhas plentyofmomentsthatreminduswhythey’resuchcinematictreasures. TheambivalencethatImentionedearlierthatpermeatestheir exercise here? We feel it a bit as well, however.
A year after Woody Allen felt London calling in 2005’s MatchPoint instead of his usual New York stories, he returned to the British city a year later in Scoop. It isn’t a picture talked about too much in his extensive catalogue and ten years later, I’ve learned there’s pretty good reason for it.
The aforementioned Point was a pivotal comeback work for Woody and also provided a role for Scarlett Johansson that she was perfect for. Here she’s rather miscast as mousy journalism student Sondra on London holiday. When she attends a magic show by Sid or “The Great Splendini” (Allen), she’s called onstage for the whole disappear in the box act. When she gets in, she’s greeted by the spirit of a recently killed famous journalist (Ian McShane). He has information on London’s famed Tarot Card Killer that he believes to be hunky aristocrat and aspiring politician Peter (Hugh Jackman). Naturally, Sondra falls for him as she’s investigating the case along with Sid as the “did he or didn’t he?” mystery plays itself out.
Woody dabbling in murder mystery hijinks is nothing new. He did it seriously in 1989’s terrific CrimesandMisdemeanors and with far more laughs in 1993’s ManhattanMurderMystery. When we talk of Mr. Allen’s extensive filmography, there’s his dramatic work and his hilarious stuff. Scoop is one that wants to be on the hilarious side, but is too slight and inconsequential to succeed. Anything with Allen dropping one-liners is going to have its bright spots and they exist here. The best dialogue belongs to him. It does move along briskly, too. And his career long obsession with death is intact here. Yet, as mentioned, Johansson is a little out of her element and Jackman has little to do other than veer between kinda charming and maybe sinister. It’s not bad (the director rarely does bad), but it is forgettable.
Ten years after Scoop, it’s simple to see why it’s been lost in the shuffle. And I say that with all due respect.
Today we reach the final installment of my listing of the Top 25 Highest Grossing Actresses in box office history with the top five!
Here are the five ladies that have grossed the most stateside:
5. Julia Roberts
Career Earnings: $2.7 billion
Franchises: The Ocean’s pictures
Highest Grossing Picture: Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – $183 million
Number of $100M+ Earners: 11 (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Erin Brockovich, Hook, Notting Hill, Valentine’s Day, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Pelican Brief)
Lowest Grosser: Fireflies in the Garden (2011) – $70,000
Overall Rank: 30
4. Helena Bonham Carter
Career Earnings: $2.7 billion
Franchises: Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland
Highest Grossing Picture: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) – $381 million
Number of $100M+ Earners: 9 (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cinderella, Planet of the Apes, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech)
Lowest Grosser: The Theory of Flight (1998) – $73,000
Overall Rank: 28
3. Cate Blanchett
Career Earnings: $2.8 billion
Franchises: Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit
Highest Grossing Picture: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – $377 million
Number of $100M+ Earners: 10 (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Cinderella, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Robin Hood, The Aviator)
Lowest Grosser: Little Fish (2006) – $8,000
Overall Rank: 27
2. Cameron Diaz
Career Earnings: $3 billion
Franchises: Charlie’s Angels, Shrek
Highest Grossing Picture: Shrek 2 (2004) – $441 million
Number of $100M+ Earners: 11 (Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, Shrek Forever After, There’s Something About Mary, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Charlie’s Angels, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, The Mask, Vanilla Sky, Bad Teacher)
Lowest Grosser: Head Above Water (1997) – $32,000
Overall Rank: 19
Scarlett Johansson
Career Earnings: $3.3 billion
Franchises: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Highest Grossing Picture: The Avengers (2012) – $623 million
Number of $100M+ Earners: 7 (The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book, Lucy)
Lowest Grosser: A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) – $164,000
Overall Rank: 9
And there you have it, my friends! Your 25 highest grossing females in the history of the movies…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand in often thrilling and impressive ways in Captain America: Civil War, which is by all intents and purposes a third Avengers pic where Hulk and Thor are apparently on a well-deserved vacation. It walks the tightrope of introducing new characters and finding new dynamics for the old ones without seeming gimmicky or overloading the audience with all its activity. To that end, director Joel and Anthony Russo are to be commended for mostly succeeding in this latest effort where our heroes are often unmasked and sometimes emasculated.
Civil War presents a chasm in the MCU that centers on Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) aka The Winter Solider from this trilogy’s slightly better second movie. His history with Captain America (Chris Evans) garners understandable sympathy from our title character. That isn’t the case with Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) when it appears Bucky may be responsible for an attack on the United Nations.
There’s also the question of whether The Avengers actions across the globe are worth the collateral damage that sometimes comes with it. The U.S. government proposes to put some serious checks on their powers. Tony agrees. Cap does not. And the rest of the crew (minus Hulk/Thor sipping Mai tai’s somewhere) must choose which side to join. This include Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye (who comes out retirement from his boring home life Age of Ultron subplot), Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, Don Cheadle’s War Machine, and Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. We also have Paul Rudd in the mix less than a year after his debut in Ant-Man, which was the other underwhelming MCU summer 2015 experience (along with Ultron). And then there’s the two newbies introduced who will soon have their own stand-alone features: Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. Spidey is good for some solid one-liners and I enjoyed Holland’s take on Peter Parker. This budding franchise should hopefully eclipse what we saw the last time around with Andrew Garfield and company. That said, I actually found Black Panther’s plot line to be a bit more interesting here and I equally anticipate that solo pic.
Civil War also continues the tradition of rather forgettable central villains, with the exception of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Here it’s Daniel Bruhl as Zemo, whose motives are murky for most of the running time and who stands as just another baddie in a world where the heroes are the focal point. This entry isn’t really about a main villain, however. Rather it’s about deciding if you’re on Team Cap or Team Iron Man and the screenplay is smartly written enough that the answer isn’t automatic.
The MCU continues to build on itself and this one does so in the most entertaining way since Winter Soldier. By the time we get to the final Avengers pictures, Hulk and Thor will return. Guardians of Galaxies will be in the mix. And with the Mouse Factory behind this with their extensive array of characters, who knows who else we shall see? Will Rey and Finn cross star systems to appear? Which team will Mowgli align with? Will Kermit and Miss Piggy agree to follow Cap or Tony or split? As long as it’s satisfying like Civil War, I’m still curious to find out.
Summer 2016 kicks off in grand Disney/Marvel fashion when Captain America: Civil War debuts next Friday. It is the first weekend of May’s only wide release, as no other studio would dare try counter programming against this surefire juggernaut. This is the third entry in the Captain America franchise, but it is essentially a third Avengers feature as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Don Cheadle’s War Machine, Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, and the debuts of Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man all join Chris Evans’ Cap for this extravaganza. Sebastian Shaw, William Hurt, and Daniel Bruhl also appear. Essentially, only Thor and Hulk are missing here.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a multi-billion dollar bonanza for Disney and Marvel Studios. This 13th picture in the MCU has been greeted with terrific buzz and trailers and its critical response stands at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Some critics have gone as far to call it the best MCU movie thus far and this has led to expectations for its opening being understandably sky-high.
How high are we talking? Civil War seems primed to have at least the fifth largest domestic debut of all time. To do so, it would need to top Iron Man 3 and its $174 million opening and $175M seems to be on the lower end of expectations. The current #4 record belongs to summer 2015’s first flick, Avengers: Age of Ultron, which made $191 million. #3 is the original Avengers at $207 million with last summer’s Jurassic World second at $208 million.
The only record I don’t see this competing for is the big daddy – Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $247 million in December. I believe Civil War, with buzz hotter than Ultron, will manage have a larger start and I really wouldn’t be surprised if it does indeed top $200 million. I’m going to peg it at just below what 2012’s Avengers accomplished to make it the second largest MCU debut and fourth highest all-time opening.
Captain America: Civil War opening weekend prediction: $205.6 million
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