I can't believe the day has finally arrived. I created The Entertainment Network when I was thirteen years old, and it has been a huge part of my life ever since. Leaving it behind has been harder than I expected, but I'm confident that this is the right decision.
Why am I leaving? I recently started a degree in Journalism, and so my once far-fetched career aspirations are slowly getting closer to reality. As much as I love this website, it is weighed down by a lot of the baggage left behind by thirteen year old me.
So I'm moving on to a brand new site, and a fresh start. I present to you: Movies & Cool Stuff.
Movies & Cool Stuff will cover much the same topics as The Entertainment Network has (movies, comic-books etc), but will do so on a cleaner and more capable website. Moving from Blogger to Wordpress has opened up a lot of new possibilities, and I'm pushing myself to write better than ever before.
Thank you for following The Entertainment Network. I really hope you'll check out the new site. For now, this is goodbye. I might check in from time-to-time, but for now I have to focus on building Movies & Cool Stuff (and my degree, of course).
A big thanks to Blogger and this little space of Internet I've called home for the last six years. Thanks for all the memories.
The first full trailer for the live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation dropped yesterday. The movie has been at the centre of a so-called 'whitewashing' scandal, after Scarlett Johansson was cast in the role of Japanese character Major Motoko Kusanagi. The trailer has elicited mixed reactions from fans of the original manga books and animated films. Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
Doctor Strange held on to the number one spot at the North American box office with an impressive hold. Dropping just 49.5% in its second weekend (the third-best second week hold of all the MCU features), the film brought in a total of $42 million. This brings it to a global total just shy of $500 million, meaning it is fast-approaching Ant-Man's lifetime gross after only three weeks of release. Don't be surprised to see a Doctor Strange sequel announcement in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Denis Villeneuve's thoughtful sci-fi feature Arrival also came out of the gates strong. The film, which stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, opened with $24 million. This is the highest debut for a Villeneuve picture to date (his previous work includes Sicario and Prisoners), while this is also a better-than-average opening for Amy Adams. Indeed, this is her biggest opening weekend since The Muppets which opened to $29 million back in 2011.
While Arrival had a healthy opening it still found itself settling for number three, thanks to a very impressive hold for Dreamworks' Trolls. While the critical reception for the film has been lukewarm at best, with a second week drop of just under 25%, it appears there is much audience interest in this film loosely based on the iconic toys of the 1980s.
Hacksaw Ridge and The Accountant also performed well in their second and fifth weekends respectively, while the low budget holiday-themed comedy Almost Christmas had a solid opening of $15 million. The only other wide release was Naomi Watts' Shut-In, which proved to be the weekends one sore spot. It pulled in just $3.6 million, proving to be another disappointment for Europa Corp following the summer's bizarre comedy Nine Lives.
Doctor Strange is the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and brings yet another classic super-hero to the party. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a world-class neurosurgeon whose work is some of the best in his field, but all this success has made him arrogant and selfish. After being involved in a terrible car accident (caused entirely by his own reckless driving), Strange's hands are seriously injured and he is unable to perform surgery. His desperate attempts to heal eventually lead him to The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who opens his eyes to a world of magic and endless possibilities.
Doctor Strange stumbles out of the starting gate with an opening act that brings little new to the table. The title character initially comes off as little more than a less likeable Tony Stark, and the supporting cast take some time to grow into their roles. Additionally, in the film's first half many of its attempts at humour fall flat, with numerous jokes more likely to be greeted with awkward silence than thunderous laughter. Fortunately though, the further this movie gets into its two-hour runtime the stronger it becomes, with its final impression being that of yet another satisfying super-hero epic from Marvel Studios.
There are a lot of interesting new ideas in Doctor Strange which make it well worth the price of admission. For starters, the visual effects are some of the most mind-bending ever put to film and ensure that this movie lives up to its name. Initial fears that the visual style would draw too heavily from the likes of Inception are unfounded; while there are certainly moments that are reminiscent of that 2010 hit, Doctor Strange puts enough new spins on these ideas (sometimes literally) that it successfully crafts its own identity.
Also, without spoiling anything, this movie has a fascinating final battle sequence which is a very inventive departure from what is usually seen in the genre. Genuinely unexpected and refreshingly original, this finale could be used to argue against the view that super-hero films have nothing new to offer.
Something that the MCU movies have consistently struggled with is a lack of compelling villains, with Tom Hiddleston's Loki being the only one to leave a lasting impression. Doctor Strange's main villain Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), doesn't reach the giddy heights of Hiddleston's charismatic trickster but is in the upper echelon of MCU baddies. With a clear motivation, personality and an intimidating look he shouldn't be as easily forgotten as some earlier villains have been.
Mikkelsen does well in the role and most of the cast is similarly strong; once they get past their aforementioned early wobbles Cumberbatch and Swinton bring some great performances, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo also deserving of praise. One weak link would be Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, a role which fails to develop outside of the generic love interest archetype.
Overall though, despite a troubled start and a few rough edges the finished product is an entertaining movie, one which should please both fans and newcomers alike. The initial shortcomings are redeemed by an exhilarating second half which offers some fantastic action sequences, and ends in a clever and satisfying way.
Doctor Strange is likely to gross more in its opening weekend than 2015's Ant-Man, industry experts say.
The super-hero film starring Benedict Cumberbatch opens in North America on the 4th November, and on Thursday a major tracking service projected a first weekend total of $64 million or higher.
This is a noticeable improvement on the debut of Marvel Studios most recent new franchise Ant-Man, which opened with $57 million in mid-July of last year.
The film sees Cumberbatch in the role of Stephen Strange, a former neurosurgeon who seeks the healing power of mystical figure The Ancient One, after a car accident leaves his hands seriously injured.
As the 14th feature film from juggernaut Marvel Studios, Doctor Strange is expected to become yet another franchise for their so-called 'Cinematic Universe' which also includes such characters as The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The film is directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister) and also stars Tilda Swinton (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), and Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal).
It is telling just how dire a position the western genre is in that The Magnificent Seven's $35 million debut has been announced by many as a great victory. With a $90 million budget not including advertising costs, this debut would be considered the bare minimum needed from a film of a more commercial genre. Frankly though, the western can be considered anything but in this day and age. With a few notable exceptions such as Quentin Tarantino's 2013 hit Django Unchained, the western has produced a string of flops in recent years that count the likes of The Lone Ranger, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and Cowboys & Aliens among their number.
With this in mind, even with box office heavyweights like Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington attached, The Magnificent Seven was far from a safe bet for box office success. Therefore, I would speculate the warm congratulations the film has received for its frankly bog-standard debut over the weekend, a product of industry relief that they can again declare a blockbuster to be not an outright flop -- something they didn't get many chances to do over the summer movie season.
And to be fair, The Magnificent Seven cannot be considered a flop at this point in time. This debut is unremarkable but not necessarily bad, however the executives at Sony and MGM should pause for thought before they prematurely raise any celebratory banners. With a predicted final domestic gross for The Magnificent Seven looking to be somewhere between the $110-$130 million mark, this feature will need significant support from overseas audiences to turnover any major profit (or indeed any profit at all). This is something that few Westerns have been able to gain in recent years, with most struggling to get past $100 million internationally, meaning in a best case scenario The Magnificent Seven is currently looking at a total worldwide gross under $250 million (and we can assume it will need at least $225 to start making profit).
All things said then, The Magnificent Seven is shaping up to be the most modest of hits for Sony and MGM, but as we leave a summer dominated by financial disappointments (at best) and huge disasters (at worst), a film making any profit whatsoever appears to be newsworthy.
This article contains spoilers for both the 1959 and 2016 Ben-Hur movies.
Yesterday, film critic and reporter John Campea uploaded his review of this week's Ben-Hur remake to his self-titled YouTube channel. Intrigued to see how the film was faring with critics, I was one of the many who clicked on the review and was left subsequently puzzled.
Campea had some positive remarks for the Ben-Hur remake, but ultimately gave the film a negative review largely due to how it ended. The critic took issue with how the sister and mother of main protagonist Judah Ben-Hur -- Miriam and Tirzah -- were miraculously cured of their leprosy after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, particularly as he claimed that this did not happen in the 1959 Ben-Hur movie (the most famous of this story's many adaptations).
This was immediately confusing to me as having watched the Charlton Heston Ben-Hur movie only last year, I remember quite clearly that this did indeed happen in that adaptation of the story, while Jesus cured the two women in a similar fashion in Lew Wallace's original novel from 1880. I wasn't the only one to recall this detail of the iconic story, and soon the comments section of the review was filling up with people pointing out Campea's error.
What was most confusing to me about this situation was that throughout his review Campea spoke as someone who had seen the 1959 cinematic landmark, at one point even imploring his viewers to seek it out themselves if they haven't already. Yet if he had actually seen the three and a half hour epic, wouldn't he have remembered one of the most pivotal scenes in its closing act?
The only other option is that Campea saw the film so long ago that he had forgotten how it ended, but I don't believe that excuses this behaviour.
If he was pretending he had seen the original film in order to boost the credibility of his opinion on the matter, then that is very deceitful of him. If he hadn't seen the film in so long that he'd forgotten how it ended, he should have refreshed his memory either by watching it again or by simply reading through the Wikipedia plot synopsis, before using a non-existent change as a major criticism of the remake. The fact he chose not to I feel was inexcusably lazy for one of YouTube's most prominent film critics.
Whatever the reality of the situation, the review has since been taken down which seems to suggest Campea is aware of the error he made.
This video frustrated me personally as it was such a large mistake that was so easily avoidable, and it's a kind of sloppiness that would only be deemed excusable on YouTube. As much as I enjoy the thriving film criticism community on the video-sharing site, it is in situations like these where you see quite vividly where it falters in comparison to more traditional film reviews from outlets such as the Guardian or the BBC. Such major mistakes from paid film critics would not be accepted on those sites, which makes me wonder why we're more willing to accept them from paid film critics on YouTube?
This is not intended as an attack on John Campea, I'm sure he works very hard to produce as much content as he can. I just feel that mistakes like these shouldn't be brushed off, as all they do is make YouTube seem less credible than other film criticism sites, and that could cause long-term problems.
It's finally here! Long overdue, the winners of The Entertainment Network Film and Television Awards 2016 have been announced, although the previously planned video ceremony has been cancelled. These are sad times indeed.
Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Winner: Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina)
Colin Firth (Kingsman: The Secret Service)
Harrison Ford (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
Jason Statham (Spy)
Michael Pena (Ant-Man)
Michael Shannon (99 Homes)
Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Winner: Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)
Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak)
Rachel Weisz (The Lobster)
Rebecca Hall (The Gift)
Rose Byrne (Spy)
Scarlett Johannson (Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Best Lead Actor in a Motion Picture
Winner: Andrew Garfield (99 Homes)
Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina)
Jason Bateman (The Gift)
John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
Matt Damon (The Martian)
Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service)
Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture
Winner: Emily Blunt (Sicario)
Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
Maika Monroe (It Follows)
Melissa McCarthy (Spy)
Mia Wasikowska (Crimson Peak)
Best Director
Winner: George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Denis Villeneuve (Sicario)
Guillermo Del Toro (Crimson Peak)
Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman: The Secret Service)
Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes)
Best Picture
Winner: Ex Machina
99 Homes
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Martian
Winner: Vincent D'Onofrio (Daredevil)
Aaron Paul (Bojack Horseman)
Bokeem Woodbine (Fargo)
Carlos Valdes (The Flash)
David Tennant (Jessica Jones)
Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)
Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series
Winner: Yael Grobglas (Jane the Virgin)
Carol Kane (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Scream Queens)
Jean Smart (Fargo)
Niecy Nash (Scream Queens)
Rosario Dawson (Daredevil)
Best Lead Actor in a Television Series
Winner: Patrick Wilson (Fargo)
Aziz Ansari (Master of None)
Charlie Cox (Daredevil)
Jesse Plemons (Fargo)
Terrence Howard (Empire)
Will Arnett (Bojack Horseman)
Yesterday we discussed Suicide Squad's impressive opening weekend, and our projections for next week's box office results. Now though, it's time to take a closer look at the older films that aren't making so many headlines, but are still kicking around in the top ten.
For starters, there's Jason Bourne; the Matt Damon franchise revival opened relatively strong last week with just shy of $60 million, the second highest debut for this franchise just behind 2008's Bourne Ultimatum. Unfortunately, the story isn't quite so positive going into week two, as the release of Suicide Squad almost certainly took the wind out of Bourne's sails. The film suffered a 61% drop pulling in a little over $20 million in its sophomore weekend, not a disaster by any means but perhaps an indication that this film won't have the legs of last year's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
While you could put this down to Bourne's lukewarm critical reception, this is a recurring theme that has haunted the entire summer movie season this year thus far. WIth a new tentpole blockbuster hitting theaters almost every weekend, few films have been able to find their footing before losing the attention of movie-goers; Suicide Squad cannibalized Jason Bourne, just as Jason Bourne cannibalized Star Trek Beyond one week prior.
As we discussed yesterday, Suicide Squad seems to be one of the only films that will prove an exception to the rule. The film has relatively little competition on the horizon, and that should put it in the best position possible to hold steady in the face of bad reviews -- something March's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was not able to do.
One film that has been holding remarkably well is Mila Kunis comedy Bad Moms, which managed to hold its number three position following its solid debut last weekend. Falling just 41%, the $20 million picture now boasts a domestic haul of over $50 million. This is a real boost for Kunis who seemed to have lost some of her star power following the one-two punch of critical and commercial flop Jupiter Ascending and her surprising replacement in Seth MacFarlane's Ted 2 (although that can be seen as Kunis dodging a bullet, depending on how you look at it). Bad Moms can also be seen as a win for newbie distributor STX Entertainment, this being their highest grossing film to date by a significant margin (their previous record holder being Joel Edgerton's The Gift which reached $43 million domestic late last year).
Also holding well is Illumination Entertainment's animated offering The Secret Life of Pets, which is now up to a domestic total of nearly $320 million from a relatively small $75 million budget. A sequel to the film has recently been greenlit, giving the fairly young animation studio a third successful franchise after the Despicable Me and Dr. Seuss movies.
If the stories of Bad Moms and The Secret Life of Pets are evidence of anything, it's that keeping your budget reasonably low is in most cases a wise thing to do; this is a lesson those behind the latest Star Trek film should have learned sooner. Indeed, in spite of the fact that 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness was something of a financial under-performer, Paramount chose to invest a similarly colossal budget into the franchise's third entry: $185 million. After opening with the lowest debut to date since this rebooted series began, Beyond has seen its takings drop alarmingly quickly over the last two weeks. At this point its domestic total is unlikely to get above the $150 million mark, and worlwide the film is only at about $195 million.
If Into Darkness' disappointing performance wasn't enough for Paramount to reassess their investment in this franchise, this surely will be. At this point it wouldn't be surprising if the previously announced fourth entry in the franchise (which would see the return of Chris Hemsworth in a much larger role) was scrapped entirely, at the very least you can expect the film to be significantly cheaper than its precursors.
Bizarrely positioned against DC's juggernaut Suicide Squad movie was Europa Corp's utterly ridiculous Nine Lives, starring Kevin Spacey as a man who swaps bodies with his house cat. The first trailer was met with bewilderment and some outright disbelief by the people of the Internet a few months back, and after all hopes of the film achieving "so bad it's good" status were extinguished last week it's unsurprising that the feature failed to find an audience.
Debuting at number six with a minuscule haul of $6.2 million, the only comforting part of this whole situation is that at least the film won't be a hugely expensive flop with a budget of just $30 million -- which still seems surprisingly high in this reporter's opinion. In a world where the likes of The Secret Life of Pets and Finding Dory are currently in theaters, you can't blame most families for passing on Nine Lives. Europa Corp. should have seen this coming and pulled the plug on this picture before the cameras even started rolling. The James Wan-produced micro-budget horror film Lights Out continues to impress, now holding a domestic total of $54 million from a budget of just under five. Less impressive are the three films rounding out the top ten, starting with the Emma Roberts/Dave Franco thriller Nerve which dropped 48.5% in week two sending it down to number eight. This isn't a terrible hold but as the film didn't open with very much to begin with it seems to paint a fairly dismal picture for the feature going forward.
Ghostbusters is next up at number nine, now heading into the closing weeks of its theatrical run the film has only managed to make $116 million domestically, with a worldwide total of $180 million. This is not a good sign for what was intended to be a new series of films, with director Paul Feig having said some weeks ago that the film would have to make it to $500 million to get a sequel. That isn't going to happen. Where the franchise goes from here is tough to call, with a direct follow-up to this reboot seemingly unlikely.
Finally, Ice Age: Collision Course is at number ten. The film's domestic box office numbers have been meager, but this is a franchise which for many years now has relied on overseas audiences to keep itself afloat. With just $54 million racked up in the States, the film is up to $288 million worldwide thanks to those foreign box office numbers, but still it's looking to be one of the weakest entries in the long-running series to date.
A barrage of bad reviews simply wasn't enough to slow the momentum of Suicide Squad going into its opening weekend, where the film performed as projected bringing in $135 million over the weekend and breaking several records in the process. The DC Comics adaptation can boast not only having the largest August opening day to date ($62.5 million), but also the largest August opening weekend of all time dwarfing Guardians of the Galaxy's $94 million from 2014.
There was never really any doubt that Suicide Squad would open big, but what these reviews have called into question is the film's long-term performance. No matter what your personal opinion of the film is, there's no denying that Batman v Superman's critical reception did impact its box office takings, and can be considered at least partly responsible for the film's hefty 69.1% second week drop. That film ultimately went on to gross $872 million worldwide, a figure which Warner Bros. saw as disappointing. This isn't hugely surprising when you consider that the combined cost of Batman v Superman's production and marketing was a colossal $415 million, and film studios usually only see about half of a film's box office gross returned to them (in this case that would be about $436 million).
It's hard to say for sure whether Suicide Squad will suffer the same rapid decline as BvS, but at this point it seems like there's a solid chance. Some analysts are expecting Suicide Squad to drop by about 67% next weekend, a slightly better hold than DC's previous feature although BvS did open higher so perhaps that's an unfair comparison.
One thing that Suicide Squad does have in its favour is a relative lack of competition. The widest release next weekend is Disney's Pete's Dragon remake which seems to have a general lack of buzz surrounding it. The Mouse House has had a lot of success with previous live-action remakes Cinderella and The Jungle Book, but at this rate Pete's Dragon is unlikely to perform on those levels. I would predict a debut between $30 and $35 million, performing more in line with the likes of Alice Through the Looking Glass and TMNT: Out of the Shadows than those bigger Disney juggernauts. However, even if the film was to open higher it doesn't seem to share an audience with Suicide Squad and the two could still conceivably co-exist.
Animated comedy Sausage Party could eat into more of the Squad's target audience, but the film's R rating should keep it from overtaking the DC flick. At this point, it's difficult to predict whether Sausage Party will perform on the level of recent Seth Rogen comedies This Is The End and Neighbours 2 (both of which opened with around $20 million), or if it can wrangle in a greater audience with its unique premise in the same way Seth McFarlane's Ted did back in 2012 (which opened with over $50 million). I'd say its most likely to fall somewhere in between, but land closer to a Rogen debut (especially considering Ted 2's under-performance seems to suggest audiences only have so much time for these kinds of comedies).
Meryl Streep biopic Florence Foster Jenkins also opens next week, but with a smaller theater count could struggle to make an impact. A performance on-par with last summer's Ricki and the Flash seems a reasonable expectation, that would give Jenkins a debut between $5 and $8 million.
We'll have more box office coverage coming later today, in the meantime here's the top ten in full:
1. (-) Suicide Squad - $135 million
2. (1) Jason Bourne - $22.7 million
3. (3) Bad Moms - $14.2 million
4. (4) The Secret Life of Pets - $11.5 million
5. (2) Star Trek Beyond - $10.2 million
6. (-) Nine Lives - $6.5 million
7. (6) Lights Out - $6 million
8. (8) Nerve - $4.9 million
9. (7) Ghostbusters - $4.8 million
10. (5) Ice Age: Collision Course - $4.3 million
And here's our final predictions for next week's chart:
1. Suicide Squad - $50 million
2. Pete's Dragon - $33 million
3. Sausage Party - $28 million
4. Jason Bourne - $12 million
5. Bad Moms - $9 million
Outside of the top five, we're predicting a $6 million debut for Florence Foster Jenkins. Be sure to come back next week to see how our predictions compare to the real results!
