Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: The new movie “Mickey 17” has replaced “Captain America Brave New World” as the #1 movie of the weekend this past weekend. It came just under early predictions (which were around $20 million) making $19 million. Once again, only one movie this past weekend made over $10 million at the domestic box office. The #2 movie “Captain America Brave New World” went down approx. 43.5% to make approx. $8.4 million. “Anora” rode its Academy Award win to go up over 573% more than its previous weekend. It made approx. $1.8 million in almost 2000 screens (over 1100 screens more than the previous weekend) which launched it back up to #7 of the top 10 of this past weekend. The Netflix movie “Electric Slate” played at only 2 movie theaters this past weekend but – as usual – Netflix didn’t announce the box office for the movie.
Overall, the total domestic weekend box office was just slightly higher than the previous weekend. Its total was $55.5 million – up almost 2% from the previous weekend total.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: “Mickey 17” – which broke a few records in Korea the weekend before last, opening domestically and in more foreign theaters his past weekend making approx. $53 million worldwide which was about what it was predicted to make. “Wicked” finally premiered in Japan this past weekend coming in at #2 in that country and making approx. $3.7 million (the #1 movie was a Japanese movie “Doraemon: Nobita”). Also, the China blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” passed $2 BILLION IN CHINA which lifts its worldwide box office to approx. $2.06 BILLION. It’s the ONLY movie not from the US to pass $2 BILLION worldwide, the ONLY movie to pass $2 BILLION in China alone, the ONLY animated movie to pass $2 BILLION, and one of only 7 movies ever to pass $2 BILLION worldwide.
OTHER NEWS:
Sony just announced that the romantic drama “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell is moving from this May to Sept 19. This leaves May 9 without a big studio release. I guess that will give more time for “Thunderbolts*” – which opens the weekend before – to make more money unless another major studio movie moves to that date.
At the South by Southwest film festival, which is happening right now, Amazon Studios just said it remains “financially and philosophically” committed to theatrical releases and said it would release as much as 14 movie theatrically in 2026.
Previously, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros Pictures were investing money in SEPARATE movie studios to be built close to Las Vegas, NV, but a few days ago they announced that they’re working together and investing in building ONE studio. However, the studio is still dependent on the passing of a bill going through the Nevada legislation for a film studio state tax credit.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
This always makes me laugh. REAL BUTTER on popcorn often leads to soggy popcorn. What people call “movie theater butter” is usually a “butter-flavored oil” which tastes like butter but is made from oil (such as canola oil or coconut oil) and something called “flavacol” which gives it the butter flavor and yellow color.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 