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'Lion King' Repeats at #1 While Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time...' Rings Up $40M Debut

'Lion King' Repeats at #1 While Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time...' Rings Up $40M Debut
While the weekend wasn't quite as large as anticipated, it was still the second straight weekend to top the same weekend last year. Leading the way for a second weekend in a row was Disney's The Lion King as it will soon top $1 billion worldwide, followed by a $40 million debut for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, serving as the director's largest three-day debut to date. Additionally, A24's The Farewell found a spot in the top ten playing in just 135 locations while both Spider-Man: Far from Home and Aladdin topped $1 billion globally this weekend. Disney's The Lion King found itself atop the weekend box office yet again, though it fell much harder than expected in its second weekend. With an estimated $75.5 million, the remake of the animated classic dipped -60.6% in its sophomore frame as the film's domestic total now stands over $351 million. While the
See full article at Box Office Mojo »

Disney Has Already Broken Its Own Annual Global Box Office Record With $7.6 Billion

  • The Wrap
Disney Has Already Broken Its Own Annual Global Box Office Record With $7.6 Billion
The 2019 box office was predicted to be a year of Disney domination, and that has proven to be all too true as the studio has broken the all-time annual global box office record in just seven months thanks to Marvel films like “Avengers: Endgame” and its latest release, “The Lion King.”

The previous record had also been set by Disney back in 2016, the year where Disney truly began to show off the power it had accumulated through its acquisition of several major franchises. Films like Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Rogue One,” Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Civil War,” Pixar’s “Finding Dory” and Disney Animation’s “Zootopia” combined for the first ever $3 billion domestic year and a global annual total of $7.61 billion worldwide.

But in 2019, Disney has blown by that total in seven months, but really in just four. Unlike in 2016, where Disney got off to a
See full article at The Wrap »

Final Season of ‘Lucifer’ Gets 6 More Episodes From Netflix

  • The Wrap
Final Season of ‘Lucifer’ Gets 6 More Episodes From Netflix
Hallelujah! Netflix has blessed the fifth and final season of “Lucifer” with an additional six episodes, bringing the grand total for the supernatural drama’s last run to 16.

The streaming service announced last month that it would end the Tom Ellis-led drama with a 10-episode fifth and final season to launch in 2020. No premiere date has been given for what is now a 16-episode Season 5.

Lucifer” Season 4 dropped May 8 on Netflix, close to a year after the streamer revived the show following its cancellation at Fox. The 10-episode fourth season ended with one hell of a cliffhanger, which Ellis broke down for TheWrap here.

Also Read: 'Lucifer' Ep Says Another #SaveLucifer Fight 'Won't Change Things' After Netflix Sets Final Season

“Lucifer” stars Ellis in the tile role of Lucifer Morningstar, Lauren German as Det. Chloe Decker, Kevin Alejandro as Det. Dan Espinoza, D.B. Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze,
See full article at The Wrap »

Amazon Studios Chief on Viewer Strategy, Talent Deals and Another Season of ‘Fleabag’

  • Variety
Amazon Studios unveiled several announcements at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour Saturday, including a first-look deal with Blake Lively, a first-look deal with Forest Whitaker’s production company and an overall deal with Lena Waithe.

In addition to the season renewals of “Carnival Row” and “The Expanse,” plus the series order of “The Banker’s Wife,” the studio revealed that several shows would not be returning, including “Too Old to Die Young” and “Patriot.” The company also shed some light on how its Heidi Klum-Tim Gunn competition will differ from “Project Runway,” and discussed its strategy as a studio that is just a part of a much greater e-commerce and web services giant.

Like most every other exec sitting on the TCA stage, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke, and television co-heads Vernon Sanders and Albert Cheng were asked about their streaming strategy vis-a-vis Netflix, which occasionally
See full article at Variety »

Epix Unveils Premiere Dates For ‘Get Shorty,’ ‘Slow Burn,’ ‘Alive’ And ‘Laurel Canyon’ – TCA

  • Deadline
Epix announced the premiere dates for several of its original programs Saturday at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.

Season 3 of the dark comedy Get Shorty will premiere on October 6. Slow Burn, a six-episode docuseries based on the popular Slate podcast by the same name, will premiere on November 24. Alive, about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, premieres November 9, and the documentary Laurel Canyon is set to air in December. Additional details are below.

Get Shorty, Season 3

Premieres Sunday, October 6 at 10Pm

The dark comedy from MGM Television, based in part on the 1990s bestselling Elmore Leonard

novel of the same name and created for television by Davey Holmes (Shameless), will return

this fall with seven all-new episodes. Season 3 will see Miles Daly, newly released from

prison, in a cat and mouse game with studio head Laurence Budd, while Amara and Rick flee to

the Guatemalan jungle to escape the FBI.
See full article at Deadline »

Epix Developing Comedic Western From Ron Shelton & Frank Marshall, Apollo 8 Limited Drama From Makeready

  • Deadline
Epix has put in development two more series, Wicked, Kansas and Rocket Men. Epix is expected to make the announcement during its TCA session.

Wicked, Kansas is a darkly comedic western from Oscar-nominated feature writer Ron Shelton and Oscar-nominated feature producer Frank Marshall.

Rocket Men, from Brad Weston’s Makeready and Brillstein Entertainment, is a six-part limited series based on the best-selling book by Robert Kurson.

Set in 1968 – the year of the Tet offensive, the assassinations of Mlk and Rfk and the Chicago DNC riots, It tells the true story of the Apollo 8 mission as a stark example of what America was capable of in a time of dramatic violence and discord, Rocket Man focuses on the three astronauts of the Apollo 8 crew and their families, presenting a vivid, gripping narrative that shows anew how much danger was involved – and how much
See full article at Deadline »

China Box Office: ‘Nezha’ Breaks Animation Records With $91 Million Opening

China Box Office: ‘Nezha’ Breaks Animation Records With $91 Million Opening
Chinese animation “Nezha” broke local records with its $91.5 million opening, to be the second highest grossing film in the world over the weekend. It trailed only “The Lion King” on the global stage, though will quickly overtake the Disney title in China.

An animated version of a classic Chinese tale, “Nezha” enjoyed $8.8 million and ranked fourth from previews over the previous weekend, before getting its official outing only on Friday. Its cumulative total at the end of its first official weekend is $103 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Directed by Yang Yu, who also goes by the name Jiaozi, or dumpling in English, the film claimed the opening weekend record for an animation film in China, far ahead of the $65.2 million by “Despicable Me 3.” With $32.7 million earned on Saturday, “Nezha” also claimed the single day animation record previously held by “Zootopia” in 2016.

Some $7.7 million of that score
See full article at Variety - Film News »

See Jim James and Janet Weiss Perform ‘Rainbow Connection’ With Kermit the Frog

See Jim James and Janet Weiss Perform ‘Rainbow Connection’ With Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog made an unannounced appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he shared a rendition of his classic tune “Rainbow Connection.” The iconic muppet was backed by a band that included Janet Weiss on the drums and later invited My Morning Jacket singer Jim James onstage to duet on the song.

In the clip, Kermit starts the track on his own, but after a few verses he calls out, “Please welcome my friend, Jim James!” The duo give the emotional song a folk vibe as they share the vocals,
See full article at Rolling Stone »

Film Review: ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’

Film Review: ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’
Dora the Explorer was seven years old when audiences met her on television, a sing-songy polymath who traveled the map seeking answers and solving puzzles, accompanied by a big-mouthed backpack and equally loquacious monkey, Boots. Nearly 20 years have passed since the adventure show first aired (enough to cultivate a massive global awareness), but only 10 in Dora’s world, which means her live-action debut, director James Bobin’s “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” gives audiences of all ages the chance to see the character — whose unquenchable thirst for education knew no bounds — face the ultimate test: adjusting to an American high school.

If that sounds like a pretext for a snappy, self-parodying TV-to-film adaptation — something in the vein of “21 Jump Street” or “The Dukes of Hazzard,” perhaps — think again. Yes, the movie is postmodern enough to acknowledge that there’s something odd about Dora’s penchant for breaking
See full article at Variety - Film News »

Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or Winner ‘Parasite’ Pulled From China Festival

Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or Winner ‘Parasite’ Pulled From China Festival
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” this year’s Palme d’Or winner, was canceled from screening Sunday as the closing film for China’s First Film Festival for “technical reasons,” making it the fifth festival film to run into trouble with Chinese censors this year.

Parasite” is a violent, dark comedy about class conflict and greed that tells the story of a destitute family’s growing involvement with a very wealthy one. The first title from South Korea to nab the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, it had been scheduled as the closing film for the 10-day festival in Xining, Qinghai province, which seeks to support new talent by focusing on Chinese directors’ first and second films.

Festival organizers put out a statement on their official social media account the night before, saying: “The closing screening of ‘Parasite’ originally scheduled for July 28 has been canceled for technical reasons.
See full article at Variety - Film News »

Orange, Mediapro Studio Team on Telco’s First Spanish Original Series (Exclusive)

Madrid — Marking a milestone move in its drive into content creation, already seen in France, French telecom Orange is teaming with The Mediapro Studio on Orange’s first original scripted series in Spain, which will be aired on Orange TV.

Developed by Madrid-based 100 Balas (“Vota Juan”), owned by The Mediapro Studio, the still-to-be titled series is scheduled to shoot from this fall.

Described as a suspense thriller “with large doses of adrenalin and a young adult commercial target,” the series will count on an “a groundbreaking narrative structure, bulwarked by the use of new technologies” which will have “a
See full article at Variety - TV News »

Film Review: ‘The Red Sea Diving Resort’

Film Review: ‘The Red Sea Diving Resort’
“There’s so much to see and do in Arous,” read the brochure for a Sudanese vacation spot where visitors could go scuba diving amid reefs “made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Hans Hass.” Never mind that Sudan was in a state of civil war and no place for tourists in the early 1980s. European tourists came anyway, oblivious to the fact that the exotic getaway — rechristened “The Red Sea Diving Resort” for the Netflix film of the same name — was a front for a Mossad-run rescue mission: Israeli agents used Arous to smuggle Ethiopian Jews out of refugee camps to the coast, where offshore boats could ferry them to Jerusalem.

The true story of this operation is so wild you couldn’t make it up — the kind of recently declassified real-life operation that savvy producers could conceivably pitch as a cross between Ben Affleck’s “Argo” and Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.
See full article at Variety - Film News »

Colony Capital Looking at Investment Deal With Wanda’s Legendary (Report)

U.S. financier Colony Capital may be in negotiations to buy a minority share stake in Legendary Entertainment. The Hollywood production company behind “Godzilla” and “Pacific Rim” is owned by China’s Wanda group.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that Colony had held talks with Wanda. It reported that Colony may use a new fund, Colony Media Partners, for the stake purchase, and that the implied valuation would be “significantly lower” than the eye-popping $3.5 billion that Wanda paid for Legendary in 2016. The participants in Colony Media Partners are not currently known.

Bloomberg also said that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had shown renewed interest in Legendary, after apparently discussing a $700 million investment in 2018.

Contacted by Variety on Monday local time, Wanda offered no comment. Representatives for Legendary also did not respond to Variety’s inquiries.

Colony Capital, which is headed by high-profile investor Tom Barrack, previously bought U.S. mini studio
See full article at Variety - Film News »

'Dora and the Lost City of Gold': Film Review

'Dora and the Lost City of Gold': Film Review
Dora's grown up a bit since her seemingly perennial childhood through eight seasons on TV beginning in 2000 and her briefer tween years starting in 2009, but the audience will remain largely hormone-free for her big-screen debut in Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

Except for some of the jargon and the interracial cast, this is a film whose sensibility and aesthetics lie squarely — in both senses of the word — in the 1950s. Imparting the air of having been highly sanitized and thoroughly rinsed, this late summer Paramount release is squeaky clean and unhip to an ...
See full article at The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News »

Kyoto Animation Arson Attack: Death Toll Rises to 35, Attack Was Carefully Planned

The death toll in the Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) arson reached 35 as another victim succumbed to their injuries over the weekend.

In the days before the attack, the suspect in the attack was captured on surveillance cameras visiting places in Kyoto which feature in one of the studio's anime.

A man in his 20s, believed to be a KyoAni employee, died Saturday from extensive burns across his body, suffered when Shinji Aoba allegedly poured 11 gallons (40 liters) of gasoline around the first floor of the company's 1st Studio building on July 18. The victim was reported to have been ...
See full article at The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News »

How ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ Turned Back the Clock on L.A.’s Streets

  • The Wrap
How ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ Turned Back the Clock on L.A.’s Streets
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” as its name suggests, is a fantasy rooted not in a faraway land in time, but in a city millions live in at a time still within living memory. It depicts a piece of Hollywood history as Quentin Tarantino would have liked it to be. All the good stuff from the real ’60s is there — Khj radio, 75-cent movie theaters, margaritas at Casa Vega — and all the ugly realities are pushed to the background or erased entirely, replaced with more good stuff forged from nostalgia.

That fond, almost elegiac depiction of a time gone by extends to how Tarantino and his production designer, Barbara Ling, went about portraying the 1969 Los Angeles that Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) inhabit. There’s no smog, you’re more likely to see a pretty girl in denim shorts than a homeless man, and all
See full article at The Wrap »

Dan Coats Stepping Down as Intelligence Director, Will Be Replaced by Trump Loyalist Rep. John Ratcliffe

President Donald Trump announced via Twitter on Sunday that National Intelligence Director Dan Coats would be stepping down on Sunday and that conservative Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-tx) would be nominated to take his place.

“I am pleased to announce that highly respected Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas will be nominated by me to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Trump tweeted. “A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves. Dan Coats, the current Director, will be leaving office on August 15th. I
See full article at Rolling Stone »

A Flurry of House Democrats Announce Support for Impeachment Inquiry

With seemingly no real public momentum following Robert Mueller’s testimony, a flurry of Democratic House members announced their support for an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump on Sunday.

Following Friday’s lawsuit filed by members of the House Judiciary Committee in order to unseal grand jury evidence stemming from Robert Mueller’s investigation, an action required to access documents needed to start an impeachment inquiry, four Democratic House members from Washington state publicly announced their support for impeachment.

All four released statements via Twitter: Congressman Denny Heck
See full article at Rolling Stone »

Richard A. Fox, Former Nato President, Dies at 90

  • The Wrap
Richard A. Fox, owner of Fox Theaters and the last volunteer president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, died this weekend at the age of 90, according to an announcement from Nato.

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1929, Fox served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army before launching the Fox Theatres chain in 1957. The chain began with the Sinking Spring Drive-In Theatre — known for having the “world’s largest CinemaScope screen” — and expanded to 25 locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Florida with over 100 combined screens and over 1,000 employees.

In 1984, he was elected Nato president and “was a formidable leader of theatrical exhibition at a time when the industry wrestled with existential issues ranging from contentious trade practices to competition from new technologies,” according to his family. His son, Donald, now serves as CEO of Fox Theatres.

Also Read: Russi Taylor, Voice of 'Minnie Mouse' for 3 Decades, Dies at 75

In addition to Donald,
See full article at The Wrap »

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Calls Out Trump’s ‘Hate Agenda,’ Fact Checks His Economic Bragging

On CNN’s State of the Union, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-mi) spoke with host Jake Tapper about her reaction to the president’s racist tweets about Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-md) and his Baltimore district, which Trump described as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

“I don’t want to project, but he very easily could have said those same things about Detroit, it seems to me,” Tapper prompted.

Tlaib responded: “He continues to say things about American cities all across this country… Our president has a hate agenda. He
See full article at Rolling Stone »
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