Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: “Mean Girls” appears to be the first box office hit of 2024 making a decent $28.6 (3-day) and $33.6 (4-day holiday weekend). The #2 movie was also a new release. “The Beekeeper” made $16.5 million (3-day) and $18.7 (4-day). Those two movies helped propel the total domestic box office to over $116 million (4-day). The first time the weekend was higher than $100 million in 2024 (although the 3 day was just under $100 million). However, that doesn’t beat last year when “Avatar The Way of Water” was still at the top of the box office and the total domestic box office was $124 (4-day). The #3 movie this past weekend was “Wonka” which is still doing pretty well coming close to $180 million domestic total. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” isn’t doing so well coming in #6 over the weekend but it did pass $100 million total domestic box office this past weekend.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: In other countries, “The Beekeeper” was more successful making a worldwide total of $37 million (3-day since there’s no holiday on Monday in other countries). “Mean Girls” came out just under that with $34.5 million worldwide over the 3-day weekend. It only made approx. $6.5 in foreign countries compared to “The Beekeepers” $21 million. This past weekend, “Wonka” passed $500 million worldwide which would put it into the top 10 of the 2023 worldwide box office list. So, on the 2023 worldwide box office list, WB now has 2 movies and Disney now has 3 (“Wonka” knocked “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to #11).
AWARD NEWS: Sunday night Critics Choice Awards winners were somewhat similar to the Golden Globe awards a week earlier except they didn’t have that silly “Box office achievement” award so they gave “Barbie” best motion picture comedy. “Barbie” also won best song (but it was “I’m Just Ken”, not the Billie Eilish song), best hair and makeup, best costumes, best production design, and best ORIGINAL screenplay (they recently announced that for the Academy Awards it will be under “best adapted screenplay”). “Oppenheimer” had the most awards with best picture, best director, best acting ensemble, best supporting actor, best cinematography, best editing, best score, and best visual effects (although Christopher Nolan claimed there were very little visual effects). The only other movie with more than 1 win was “The Holdovers” (just like the Golden Globes) which won best young actor/actress, best actor, and best supporting actress.
RELEASE NEWS: A few release date changes recently with 3 movies releases moving UP instead of being delayed and 1 being delayed. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” which was opening on Memorial Day weekend has moved up a couple weeks to May 10. “Godzilla Vs Kong The New Empire” moves up from April 12 to March 29th. That movie replaces the sci-fi “Mickey 17” (director Bong Joon-ho’s first movie after the award winning “Parasite”) which was scheduled on that but was removed from the release schedule. Most people had predicted that would happen since there is no preview for “Mickey 17” yet. Also, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” has been moved up from March 29 (where it would have competed with “Godzilla Vs Kong The New Empire”) to March 22.
OTHER NEWS: The upcoming Netflix movie “Argyle” is supposedly based on an unreleased book and some Taylor Swift fans are thinking that the book was actually written by Taylor Swift under a pseudonym. When the project was first announced they said “…it was based on an unreleased novel by first time author Ellie Conway”. The news grew so much that director Matthew Vaughn has recently said that his own daughter believed the rumors, but he officially denied the rumors saying “There is a real book … and it’s a really good book. And there is an Elly Conway who wrote the book, but it’s not Taylor Swift. And I say that because I imagine Taylor Swift has a load of people trying to jump on her bandwagon left, right and center, and I don’t want to be a part of that club.”
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR….
It would be funny if there were people swimming underwater grabbing people from below when the shark was attacking
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 