Jacob Hall
Weekend Box Office Report: The Box Office Goes ‘Home’
In one of the strongest box office weekends of 2015 so far, both Home and Get Hard opened strong while Insurgent and Cinderella continued to perform well. This was the rare weekend that literally offered something for everyone, with R-rated comedies and animated family fare exceeding expectations.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Cinderella’ Reigns Supreme as Liam Neeson Turns Into a Pumpkin
Suddenly, Disney’s upcoming live action version of Beauty and the Beast is looking like a very wise move. After all, their new take on Cinderella shook the box office out of the doldrums, launching with numbers that feel more at home with the summer than March. Yes, it even took down that might spring movie season titan Liam Neeson.
Liam Neeson Says He’s Ready to Quit Action Movies
With Taken, Liam Neeson became an unlikely action star, with his quiet, solemn masculinity lending gravitas to even the silliest dialogue and story beats. But rather than use the success of that instantly meme-able film as an excuse to pursue more period dramas and British weepies, Neeson embraced his newfound action hero identity. Now, after seven years of snapping necks and gunning people down across several continents, it looks like he’s ready to retire from the action hero game for good.
20 New ‘Star Wars’ Books Will Bridge the Gap Between ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’
With Star Wars: Episode 7 less than a year away, Disney and Lucasfilm are facing a conundrum: just how many billions do they want to make from ancillary merchandise? Get ready for Star Wars bedsheets and Star Wars lunch boxes and, of course, countless new Star Wars action figures. You will be able to fight other adults in the toy aisle at Target like never before! However, Star Wars aficionados hoping to celebrate their fandom in a quieter way will also have their fair share of options, namely 20 new books bridging the 30-year gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Celebrate Chuck Norris’ 75th Birthday With This Video of Him Kicking Everything
Long before he was an internet meme, Chuck Norris was a genuinely skilled martial artist whose ass-kicking abilities were put on display in dozens of action movies. Running the gamut from massively entertaining (The Delta Force) to totally baffling (The Octagon), Norris’ films all have one thing in common: each one sees him kicking a whole bunch of people. So, in honor of the man’s 75th birthday, let’s all take a moment to enjoy a video supercut of Norris kicking people and things.
‘Avengers 2’ Trailer Breaks All-Time Record With 35 Million Views
If you’re like us, you’ve already watched the new trailer for Avengers 2 a dozen (or a hundred) times, breaking it down by shot-by-shot and creating gifs and everything. Well, it turns out that we are not alone in our borderline psychotic anticipation for Marvel’s next epic team-up movie. The trailer has shattered records, garnering more views in 24 hours than any other trailer in internet history.
Read Zachary Quinto’s Heartbreaking Tribute to Leonard Nimoy
When he passed away last week at the age of 83, Leonard Nimoy was mourned by actors, artists, politicians, scientists, engineers, astronauts and even the President of the United States. That should tell you something. Few characters have had such a seismic impact on popular culture as Star Trek’s Spock and countless people all over the world felt like they had lost a friend. Amidst the countless tributes, there is now one that stands out: a brief but powerful remembrance from Zachary Quinto, who picked up the Spock mantle in 2009’s Star Trek and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness.
Bryan Cranston Returns as Walter White…For a Super Bowl Commercial
‘Breaking Bad’ may be completely, definitively over, but that doesn’t mean Walter White is ready to leave popular culture alone. Oh, no. As long as Bryan Cranston is alive and as lone as insurance companies are prepared to back dump trucks full of cash up this house, we’ll get to see America’s favorite meth dealer pop up every so often. So while it’s weird to se Cranston play Heisenberg one more time in an Esurance commercial, it’s not that surprising.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘American Sniper’ Continues Its January Onslaught
In most years, January tends to be the most boring month of the year for the box office. This is where Hollywood typically sends the movies in which it has the least faith. This is the dumping ground, the place where movies go to die so the studios can concentrate on their Oscar campaigns. However, thanks to ‘American Sniper,’ this January has bucked every trend. It may technically be a 2014 release, but Clint Eastwood’s war film has made the first chunk of 2015 interesting, shattering expectations and threatening to become the highest grossing film of last year in only a few weeks.
‘SNL’ Has a Super Bowl Commercial Parody Designed to Make You Feel Reeeal Bad
Super Bowl commercials are still a big, huge, massive, crazy deal, with major corporations shelling out absurd amounts of money on ads designed to win over the most reliably large and receptive audience in all of televised sports. So of course ‘SNL’ was going to contribute its own commercial parody to the mix...but man, no one was expecting something this mean, scathing or on-point.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Woman in Black’ Can’t Stop ‘The Hobbit’
After the jam-packed month of December, with its huge family-friendly blockbusters and awards season Oscar bait, we have arrived in the month of January. Formerly a dumping ground for mediocre films, the month has taken on a new identity in the past few years as a testing ground for unique genre films (think ‘Cloverfield’) and a solid place to release a horror movie, which seems to do quite well right around New Year’s for whatever reason. This year, we have ‘The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death,’ which had a fairly solid opening. Not solid enough to topple the Christmas Week champions, but no one is complaining too much.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ Wins the Weekend
As expected, ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ won the weekend, but a quick examination of the actual numbers makes this victory feel just a little hollow. The same goes for ‘Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb’ and ‘Annie,’ both of which took second and third place without putting forward particularly impressive numbers. Yep, the holiday box office looked just a little rough this weekend.