Box Office

The summer season winds down with releases of  The November Man and As Above/So Below, and neither made much of an impact at the box office. Audiences love their turtles and raccoons far too much. The Pierce Brosnan thriller opened at #6 with $7,660,000 while the found footage horror film led the new releases at #4 with 8,342,000. If I Stay took a 40% drop this week but still managed to ‘stay’ at #3 at $9,260,000. The heroes in a half-shell dropped down to $11,750,000, but since it’s the end of the summer it managed to stay at #2. Guardians of the Galaxy remains the King of both the weekend and domestic summer movie season with $16,313,000 for the weekend and $274,610,000 at the domestic box office. Remember when we all thought it would flop?

Movie News

The Da Vinci Code was a huge hit back when it premiered in theaters in 2006, but nobody really cared enough to ask for a sequel. It made over $700 million so we got one anyway. The sequel, Angels and Demons, was released in 2009 and made about $300-400 million less, and nobody really asked for a sequel. So here we are, in 2014, and according to Deadline, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are re-teaming for a third time with Inferno. At least someone has to be excited, right? (CoughBETHCough) (Source:http://deadline.com/2014/08/sony-pictures-locks-tom-hanks-ron-howard-for-april-inferno-start-825270/)
According to Badassdigest, Joaquin Phoenix has been in final discussions to play Dr Stephen Strange for a long time now. How long? Marvel wanted to announce him at Comic Con. The negotiations hinge on several factors, such as the long-term contracts and the amount of time press junkets take up in his schedule. The biggest concern for Phoenix is his ability to play off the amount special effects and green screen. Only time will tell if he joins the MCU. (Source: http://badassdigest.com/2014/08/28/joaquin-phoenix-still-in-the-mix-for-doctor-strange...-but-for-how-long/)
Why so serious, DC? Man of Steel suffered many shortcomings, but the most glaring issue was the lack of humor. That’s not to say there won’t be jokes in the movies. It’s that the comedy is going to be downplayed for “serious business”,  pleasing nobody. (Source: http://m.hitfix.com/motion-captured/why-dcs-serious-superman-may-give-marvel-the-big-screen-edge)
Ridley Scott is finishing work on the whitewashed Exodus and announced the scripts for Blade Runner 2: Electric Boogaloo and Prometheus 2 are both finished. Writer Hampton Fancher returns from the original Blade Runner and Michael Green (from Green Lantern infamy) wrote the script. As a lifelong Blade Runner fan (I believe it’s the greatest science fiction movie) this worries me. Ridley Scott claims both scripts are great, but I also watched Prometheus. I’m more than happy to be proven wrong here, but Exodus doesn’t look like it’s going to instill confidence in me. (Source: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/25/ridley-scott-the-martian-blade-runner-prometheus-sequels/)
And since the theme of the week is inexplicably extending franchises, it seems necessary to mention that Landscape Entertainment has hired Gary Goodman (Priest) to pen a script for the reboot for the Underworld series, a series of mediocre performance that is barely a decade old.  (Source:  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/underworld-reboot-works-728353)

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