Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: “Hoppers” took the #1 spot of the weekend with $45.3 million domestic. That’s the best opening weekend for an original Pixar movie since “Coco”. The other new studio release “The Bride” came in well below expectations with $7 million domestic taking #3 on the domestic box office chart. That killed Warner Bros steak of having every release open at #1 at the domestic box office since “The Minecraft Movie” almost a year ago. “Scream 7” dropped a whopping 73% from the opening weekend but it still managed to take #2 with $17 million.
Overall domestic box office was $94.5 million which was a 16.6% drop from the previous weekend.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: Worldwide box office “Hoppers” also did well with $88 million worldwide and “The Bride” disappointed with a mere $6.3 million in 70 foreign countries for a disappointing total of $13 million. It’s estimated the movie could lose up to $90 million which isn’t good news for Warner Bros (just in time for Paramount to buy them).
OTHER NEWS:
If you want to see “Project Hail Mary” early (it opens in 2 weeks on Friday March 20) next weekend there are several preview screenings in premium formats (IMAX, Dolby Vision, etc – including some special 70mm IMAX showings) on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Monday is for Amazon Prime members only so you can only buy tickets via Amazon.com – which transfers you to Fandango. A lot of the screenings in the Los Angeles area are sold out.
Pixar announced some of their future releases after “Toy Story 5” this summer. “Monsters Inc” has a second sequel in development. “Incredibles” secomd sequel is scheduled for 2028 and “Coco”sequel is scheduled for 2029. They also have their very first musical movie from “Turning Red” filmmaker Domee Shi and a streaming series “Ono Ghost Market” is now scheduled to be a feature film release. None of the movies have a confirmed released date though.
A couple more awards shows over this past weekend leading up to the Academy Awards next Sunday.
The Writers Guild only had their awards show on the East coast due to the employee strike at the west coast offices.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – Sinners – Written by Ryan Coogler
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – One Battle After Another – Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, Screen Story by Paul Thomas Anderson, Inspired by the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY – 2,000 Meters to Andriivka – Written by Mstyslav Chernov
The American Society of Cinematographers awards
Theatrical Feature Film – Michael Bauman – One Battle After Another
Documentary Award – Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko – 2000 Meters from Andriivka
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR: Every year around Daylight Saving “spring forward”….
……I end up seeing this quote from “The Princess Bride” at least once.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 