Box Office: Ant-Man Grows, Mr Rogers Moves In, and LaKeith Stanfield Phones In

by Nathaniel R

I've been reading mixed things on the success level of Marvel's latest superhero flick The Search for Michelle Pfeiffer in the Quantum Realm. Some say it's opening weekend of $76 million is a big step up from Ant-Man's debut, others think that that's all too low for a Marvel film at this juncture in their history. It does work as a nice after-dinner mint for the heavy meals of Black Panther/Infinity War (though I could've done without the bitter aftertaste of its post credits sequence.) At any rate this is the last Marvel Studios film for awhile. We now have a eight-to-nine month break from Marvel heroes unless of course Black Panther becomes a big Oscar conservation. The next Marvel Studios film is Captain Marvel (March 8th, 2019) which will be followed by the as yet untitled Infinity War Part Two (May 3rd, 2019). 

Weekend Box Office Estimates (July 6-8)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
Ant-Man and the Wasp	Sorry to Bother You
1.🔺 ANT MAN AND THE WASP $76 *NEW*	1. 🔺 WHITNEY $1.2 on 452 screens *NEW*
2. INCREDIBLES 2 $29 (cum. $504.3)	2. SANJU $1.2 on 359 screens (cum. $5.9)
3. JURASSIC WORLD FALLEN KINGDOM $28.5 (cum. $333.3)  REVIEW	3. 🔺SORRY TO BOTHER YOU $717k on 16 screens *NEW*
4. THE FIRST PURGE  $17.1 *NEW*	4. 🔺 THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS $717k on 51 screens (cum. $1) REVIEW
5. SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO $7.3 (cum. $35.31) REVIEW	5. 🔺 LEAVE NO TRACE $425k on 37 screens (cum. $800k) TRAILER DISCUSSION

In other box office news, the LaKeith Stanfield starring comedy Sorry to Bother You opened to very full houses (albeit only 16 of them) which bodes well for significant expansion and the popular Mr Rogers doc Won't You Be My Neighbor? went wide...

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July Oscar Predictions - All Charts Updated

by Nathaniel R

We've been needing to update all the Oscar charts and now we have! The charts are revamped for how we're feeling in early July about what may come to pass in seven months time or so. Big gains this month for A Star is Born, Widows, and Welcome to Marwen with setbacks for If Beale Street Could Talk, Boy Erased, Everybody Knows, and Peterloo.  Meanwhile the two arguably most talked about performances of the year thus far -- Toni Collette in Hereditary and Ethan Hawke in First Reformed make gains on their charts. 

The freshly revamped charts...

PREDICTION INDEX |  PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR  | ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SCREENPLAYS | FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM | VISUALS | SOUNDS | ANIMATED FEATURES

and in case you missed it: best of Jan-to-Jun (These are NOT related to predictions!)
18 Fav Male Performances
18 Fav Female Performances (this may be the first time in TFE history when an actress post delivered less comments than its male counterpart post!)
18 Biggest Hits of Many Kinds (blockbusters, arthouse, female directed, etc)
Favorites (So Far) in Multiple Categories

C O N S I D E R - Best of the First Half of the Film Year

by Nathaniel R

For our halfway mark party we've covered biggest hits of multiple kinds, favorite actresses, and favorite actors. To be eligible for these "best ofs / favorites" whatever you'd like to call them lists, a film must have been released from January 1st through June 30th in 2018. Oscar holdovers like Loveless (Russia's nominee) don't count because the Oscar nomination permanently marks them as a 2017 film even though they weren't released until 2018. To conclude our halfway mark year in review party, here are seven favs from each category we hope Oscar will at least think about once the onslaught of fall prestige films happen. So, ready? Here we go...

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Links: Nutcracker and the Two Directors, Schrader on Selfishness

Gr8ter Days Terence Stamp makes rare US appearance to talk about this career and push his new memoir. The great actor is about to turn 80...
TFE ...so he's still too young for this 100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees list.
THR Movie attendance has been steadily rising in Russia but the UK and France remain the top European movie markets
/Film Hmmm, The upcoming Disney spectacle Nutcracker and the Four Realms will now have two directors credited after reshoots. Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) will be credited after the original director Lasse Hallström
Vulture Director Susan Seidelman on her 80s NYC classics Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan 

MNPP Luca Guadagnino has shown Suspiria to Quentin Tarantino who loved it
Moviemaker Paul Schrader on our selfish legacy and environmental disaster (DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN FIRST REFORMED)
Playbill if you're in NYC in the second half of July there's a lot of 15th anniversary happenings for Avenue Q including an original cast concert
Pajiba Sofia Vergara's ex is making an anti-abortion movie about Roe v Wade and the news about it gets worse and worse
i09 The legal system in The Incredibles 2 is confounding
Pandemonium this video is 90 minutes long but if you're studying to be a screenwriter it's worth a look since Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) maps out what makes for a great third act of a story
Coming Soon Keri Russell joins Star Wars: Episode IX. Her role is unknown but will involve fight scenes so I'll guess she'll have more to do than Laura Dern did.
Awards Daily the Limited Series race at the Emmys is wide open this year (with 44 programs eligible)  since no single series has been especially dominant with critics or the public this time around 
Film School Rejects the best movies of 2018 thus far
Nick Davis Nick does his beloved "fifties" to detail the best of the movie year thus far 

Good Morning, Charlie!

By Spencer Coile  

It’s been 18 years since the film remake of Charlie’s Angels was released and 7 since the failed television reboot aired – not to mention over 40 years since the original television series premiered. But as time has shown us in the past few years, nostalgia sells. And so we have news of a new Charlie’s Angels.

With Elizabeth Banks set to direct and star in the film and the three leads rumored to be played by Lupita Nyong’o, Naomi Scott, and Kristen Stewart, our anticipation escalates. A story about strong women told by women! Although casting is still in the works, the film is rumored to be looking at the summer of 2019.  

Does this news excite you, or have you had enough of reboots? Who will voice Charlie (fingers crossed on Judi Dench or Viola Davis)? But perhaps most importantly, is anyone else a huge fan of 2003’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle?