The Weekly Report

All news contained herein corresponds to the world of film. The Weekly Report will seek to cover general film news that has emerged over the last seven days.

• Box Office
  • While Star Wars: The Force Awakens (our number 3 film of 2015) has still not managed to topple Titanic‘s, um, titanic box office, it has now slumped past $2 billion at the global box office after 8 weeks on release. Perhaps a $2,001,831,461 haul (at the time of writing) shouldn’t be considered a slump but the film has failed to ignite in China, where takings are $50 million less than in the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world. With at-home takings of $907 million, the film is a domestic phenomenon and has Avatar‘s $760 million beaten by some margin, yet Avatar beat The Force Awakens by a distance in important markets such as China, Japan, Russia, France and Germany. Elsewhere, The Revenant has crossed $300 million worldwide, no doubt aided by Leo’s considerable star credentials, and The Martian has crested $600 million, making it the most profitable Best Picture nominee by some distance. In other box office news, despite general acclaim, the Coens’ Hail, Caesar! is their biggest financial flop since Intolerable Cruelty.

• Director’s Guild of America Awards
  • Another hand has been played in the buildup to the Oscars at the end of the month. The Directors Guild of America have as good as secured a second Oscar for Alejandro G. Iñárritu after The Revenant waltzed off with their top award (Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film). It hasn’t been enough to push Spotlight off the top spot as the bookie’s Best Picture favourite but it could really go either way at this point. Meanwhile, Alex Garland picked up an award for Best First-Time Director for his deliriously impressive sci-fi, Ex Machina. Next up, the BAFTAs on Sunday. Guess who’ll ensure you’re updated in full? You’ve got it.

• Super Bowl 50
  
  • To our readership outside of the US, stop your whining; like it or not, the Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events on the planet. While some stayed up late to watch Peyton Manning lead the Denver Broncos to a 24-10 win over the North Carolina Panthers, and others might have been won over by Chris Martin, Beyoncé, and Bruno Mars’ lip-synced half-time extravagances, there are those that would have been most excited to see the various trailers that premiere during the event (for a whopping $5 million per 30-second advert, no less). The event boasted promos for some of the year’s biggest upcoming films, including Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, Jason Bourne, The Jungle Book, 10 Cloverfield Lane, X-Men: Apocalypse, and more (the best of which are available here). Check out our ‘Trailers of the Week’ section below to find our pick of the bunch.

-EF

What’s Hot

Dealing with those projects in production, this is where to come to find out what has been greenlit, what major casting decisions have been announced, what century we can expect Avatar 2 in, and any other related film news.

• Johnny Depp
  • While most actors disappear into characters, Johnny Depp seems to disappear into character, singular, at the moment – let’s ignore his pretty fantastic performance in Black Mass for now (the Academy certainly did). So it makes sense that Universal would tap him for their reboot of The Invisible Man (via Deadline). As part of the studio’s return to its classic monster franchises, Depp’s casting follows Tom Cruise’s signing on to an adaptation of The Mummy, made official a few months ago. Depp presumably passed on that particular project as he can already be seen as a decrepit monster come to life in the adaptation of Donald Trump’s life in Funny Or Die’s The Art of The Deal: The Movie.

Courtesy of: Warner Bros Entertainment, Universal Pictures

• Charlize Theron
  • Variety is reporting that Charlize Theron, not yet fed up of driving heavily-customised vehicles against bald men with weird voices, is circling a villainous role in the Fast and the Furious franchise. Universal hasn’t commented yet but, with a gap in Theron’s schedule while The Gray Man is rewritten to change the protagonist (and presumably the title) from male to female, the 2003 Academy Award winner would be on course to join production next Spring.

• Xavier Dolan
  • Walking reminder of your general inadequacy, Xavier Dolan, has welcomed a few more beautiful people to his upcoming film The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan (via Deadline).  Natalie Portman, Nicholas Hoult and Thandie Newton have all hopped onto the Good Ship Dolan in the last few days, joining Kit Harington, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates and others. Set in the early 2000s, Dolan’s English-language debut will focus on Harington’s TV star and his frequent communications with a young actor living in England. Xavier Dolan is 26.

• The Light Between Oceans
  • Lining up for the next Oscar race while some competitors are still lying on the track with painful hamstring injuries (it’s OK, Brooklyn, we’ll nurse you), DreamWorks and Disney have confirmed that the Alicia Vikander/Michael Fassbender picture, The Light Between Oceans, will see wide release on September 2nd. An adaptation of M.L. Stedman’s debut novel, The Light is about a lighthouse keeper and his wife who adopt a baby girl that washes ashore. Devastating consequences ensue, hence Oscar race. Expect to see it featured (again) in our next Impossibly Early Oscar Predictions.

– SON

In Memory Of…

Hopefully this won’t be necessary each week, but on those sad occasions that the film world loses a treasured talent, you can stop here to read the final word on their legacy.

• Daniel Gerson
  • The film world pays tribute to another another sad passing this week as Disney’s Daniel Gerson dies at the age of 49 after a battle with cancer. A key player for both Pixar and Disney, Gerson broke out as a co-writer on 2001’s wonderful and acclaimed hit Monsters, Inc. which was nominated for the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (it lost out to Shrek). Gerson worked on writing teams throughout his career and served as a contributor to Chicken Little, Cars, Meet The Robinsons, Inside Out, and Disney’s upcoming Zootopia. He returned to the world of Monsters, Inc. for the sequel Monsters University which he co-wrote alongside frequent collaborator Robert L. Baird. He also co-authored the screenplay for Disney’s Academy Award-winning hit Big Hero 6. While rumours have circulated around the possibility of a third Monsters, Inc. film for some time, it seems if Pixar do make that move they will have to do so without one of its key creators, who has sadly stepped through his door for the final time.

Courtesy of: Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios

– EF

Trailers of the Week

Want to know what you should be excited about this week? This is the place to come to check out the week’s best trailers and related items including clips, TV spots, and teasers.

It’s hard to stand out with a Superbowl advert these days: thirty seconds of celluloid temptation sandwiched between fireworks, commercials featuring claymation intestines and, presumably, some kind of sport. Kudos, then, to Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice with two spots that best encompass the words “corporate synergy”. Now you too can fly to either Metropolis or Gotham City via Turkish Airlines. And who wouldn’t want to, after investors like Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne have helped rejuvenate their respective domiciles? Not sure what either of those two fellas have to do with Batman and Superman but you can’t win ‘em all. Check out Gotham’s offering below, and Metropolis’s here.

If Snow White And The Huntsman was anything (and it was very few things), it was visually impressive. Thankfully, director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan looks to have kept its signature while also parachuting in Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain for The Huntsman: Winter’s War. Sure, this could be the cinematic equivalent of Frozen fan-fiction, but it could also be the Snow White movie that works. Who’da thunk that’d be done by removing the character altogether?

– SON

Thanks for reading. Be sure to come back next week for your weekly film news with One Room With a View.