Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 8/13/2024

Hello everyone,

BOX OFFICE: “Deadpool and Wolverine” ruled at the box office for the 3rd week….but just barely.  “Deadpool and Wolverine” made $53.7 million while “It Ends With Us” blew past expectations of around $30 million to make $50 million.  That means that a married couple – Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively – were #1 and #2 at the box office.  The first time since Bruce Wills and Demi Moore did it over 33 years ago (when they were married) when “Die Hard 2” was the #1 movie and “Ghost” was the #2 movie.  Also, Blake Lively has a cameo in “Deadpool and Wolverine” so she’s in the #1 and #2 movie of the weekend.  “Deadpool and Wolverine” domestic total is now almost at $500 million domestically.  The other wide release, “Borderlands”, got terrible reviews (currently at 9 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes) and came in at #4 with just $8 million for the weekend.

Overall, the domestic weekend box office was $157 million which is down about 7.5% from last weekend.  The box office was up about 30% from the same weekend last year which was $111 million. 

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: Worldwide, “Deadpool and Wolverine” became the 2nd movie of 2024 to pass $1 billion worldwide.  It is almost the biggest R rated movie ever (it’s less than $50 million under “Joker”).  Also, “Despicable Me 4” is still doing pretty well internationally passing $800 million at the worldwide box office.  The new movie “It Ends With Us” did fairly well with a worldwide total of $80 million. 

RELEASE DATE CHANGES:

They announced last week that they’re shifting the release of “Wolfs” coming out in September.  They were going to have a WIDE release followed by the premiere on Apple TV sometime later but now it’s going to have a limited 1 week release followed by its premiere on Apple TV just 1 week later.  This could be due to the disappointing theatrical box office for the recent Apple movie “Fly Me To the Moon”.  At the same time, they announced that there will be a sequel to the “Wolfs” movie.

The movie “Here” starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright and directed by Robert Zemeckis (the first time the three of them made a movie together since “Forrest Gump”) has moved up from Nov 15 to Nov 1.

The theatrical rerelease of “Interstellar” for its 10th anniversary has been pushed back from Sept 27th to December 6.

The also scheduled a theatrical rerelease of “The Batman” at the end of August which will be accompanied by exclusive footage of “The Penguin” TV series that premieres on HBO and Max in September.

OTHER NEWS:

Lots of movie news from the Disney “D23” expo this past weekend including…

  • A live action “Lilo and Stich” movie will be released next summer (summer 2025)
  • They gave a little bit of news from the next Tron movie “Tron Ares” which comes out Oct 2025.  To quote the announcement “We’re not going there, they are coming here”.  They showed a clip of light cycles speeding through city streets slicing regular cars in pieces.
  • The new teaser for the live action “Snow White” premiered and was released online a day later.  The movie is scheduled for Mar of 2025.
  • They announced that the “Freaky Friday” sequel – “Freakier Friday” will be coming out sometime in 2025 – over 22 years after the reboot came out.  Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan are both returning for the sequel.
  • They announced that the first Star Wars movie since “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019 – called “Mandalorian and Grogu” – just started filming for a May 2026 release.
  • The announced that the title of the next “Avatar” movie scheduled for Dec 2025 is titled “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
  • They announced a couple more people joining the cast for “Zootopia 2” scheduled for Nov 2025 including Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan.
  • They announced that they’re going to be starting work on “Incredibles 3” (which some release lists previously listed coming later this year) but they said they’re still in pre-production so no release date was announced.  Director Brad Bird – who directed the other two movies – will be returning for the 3rd movie.
  • They announced a new Pixar title called “Hoppers” which will be released in Spring of 2026.
  • Finally, they announced that the “Toy Story 5” storyline will be about how toys fight electronics for the children’s attention.  The movie is scheduled for June 2026.

LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:

A lot of people are now searching online for a bootleg of “Deadpool and Wolverine”.  A few of them are finding this instead.  You never see Ladypool without her mask in the movie so that could be what she looks like but that isn’t X-23 from the movie next to her.

(Honestly, it sometimes amazes me how quickly the porn industry films and releases the porn version of popular movies.  Sometimes they’re released at the same time.)