We can discuss sexism in comic book movies when you get back from the theater.

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Box Office: Amy and the Ant (Man)

It was a good week to be Amy Schumer. Thursday saw her among the Best Actress nominees at the Emmys from a very competitive field and the very next day her first star vehicle movie (which she also wrote) opened to great numbers, even slightly higher than those for the more established female comic headlining a summer movie, Melissa McCarthy in Spy (which has had solid staying power and recently topped $100 million)

It was also a decent week to be Marvel Studios executives, too. Despite low grosses (comparatively for Marvel) a $57 million opening for Ant-Man has to be considered a big success given a) the characters microscopic profile in pop culture, b) a non bankable star -- Paul Rudd is well-loved but he has never been a box office draw c) a troubled production history and d) a release date in the summer in which people are just starting to be critical of Marvel Studios after ten years of drooling all over anything they did. 

And of course it continued to be great summer to be Jurassic World which has amassed a simply spectacular fortune despite being merely an OK retread. Every other movie that's grossed over $500 million has had a lot more going for it in terms of newness or critical raves. I'm not trying to be mean -- it's hardly the worst movie in the top ten of all time (that honor belongs to Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace or Shrek 2) -- but the distinct probability that it could threaten Titanic's (1997) domestic gross to become the second most popular movie of all time (if you don't adjust for inflation) is unthinkable and quite depressing. So let's not think about it and become depressed... 

Happy thoughts then: What was most wonderful about your weekend?

BOX OFFICE
Early Estimates. July 17th-19th Weekend
01 Ant-Man $57.5 NEW WIDE
02 Minions $47 (cum. $213.4) Tim on the Minions phenom
03 Trainwreck $30 NEW WIDE
04 Inside Out $11 (cum. $305) Inside Out Articles
05 Jurassic World $10.4 (cum. $610.1) Jurassic Articles 
06 Terminator Genisys $5 (cum. $80) Review 
07 Magic Mike XXL $4.4 (cum. $58.5) Review
08 The Gallows $3.8 (cum. $17.8) 
09 Ted 2 $2.3 (cum. $77)
10 Mr Holmes $2.2 NEW LIMITED

Can't Buy Me Link

The Movie Scene weighs in on the twitter vitriol for Pixar's Lava
NYT on famed movie producer Jerry Weintraub (1937-2015)
Film Stage Penélope Cruz returns (finally) in Spanish drama Ma Ma about a teacher with breast cancer - I'd expect fall festivals
AV Club impressive mashup of Ant-Man trailer as 50s weird science type movie, complete with Vincent Price narration
/Film in very against-type casting news, Michael Fassbender will play The Big Lebowski's "Dude" in one of Jason Reitman's live-read events

Pajiba Your first look at Pedro Pascal in Netflix's new drama Narcos -- will it be Netflix's next big hit?
Kenneth in the (212) Seems that Amanda Peterson of the 80s youth hits Explorers and Can't Buy Me Love has died at only 43. No cause of death yet 
Playbill this sounds like a bad idea: Ian Fleming's James Bond aiming for a stage musical adaptation in 2017 or 2018
i09 every Justic League hero in one montage - yes, Batman v. Superman is trying to boost excitement via Comic Con -- including many so lame they'll surely never make the big screen
Comics Alliance Guardians of the Galaxy promos its new animated series with poster, etcetera 
Playbill have you heard this awful 'what are audiences coming to?' story? Some guy tried to charge his phone in on the stage (in a fake electrical socket) at the hit comedy Hand to God

Magic Mike XXL keeping the interwebs talking...
Peter Labuza on 35mm "whiteness" and filming black blodies in Magic Mike XXL
Pajiba unanswered questions about Mike's furniture career. You know, the important stuff
Salon on XXL's dedication to a thematic taboo: Failure 
Cosmopolitan has Disney princes reimagined as strippers -- hasn't this erotic Disney trend reached its sell by date yet? I mean the craze started, what, 11 years ago or something

Showtune to Go
In addition to Magic Mike being in the pop culture air lately, during channel flipping this week I caught Hugh Jackman's filmed stage show of Oklahoma! again and remembered how much I loved Patrick Wilson in it on Broadway and began wondering why he doesn't do musicals anymore? To be frank, I don't understand his career choices at all but he should definitely do another stage musical. It's a no brainer. So let's combine the two threads with a Tony clip of Patrick Wilson's stripper musical based on the 1997 Best Picture nominee which predated Magic Mike by a lot. (Lots of fun star cameos in this Tony clip including some we've lost -- Anne Bancroft. *sniffle*)

icymi

May came in with a bang. Our best guess is that you couldn't keep up this first week because we barely did! To insure that you read everything - a requirement by law - here are things you might have missed in this very busy week: The podcast returned and we learned that Anne Marie has feelings for Michelle Rodriguez's biceps and Joe Reid really loves watching superheroes fight together; The first wave of Oscar predictions finally wrapped with Supporting Actress and Lead Actress discussions; Orson Welles turned 100 years old and, aside from the Best Shot Mid-Season Finale, Alexa (of 'Curio' fame) got a collage piece accepted for a centennial show in Illinois which you should check out if you live there!; Mysterious Skin turned 10; Nathaniel attended the Marvel Marathon and reviewed The Age of Ultron and also gawked at Penny Dreadful's NSFW premiere episode; Posed with Yoda, Manuel did, for a Star Wars Day photoset while Jason asked you to choose between the Dark Side and the uh... Skywalker side; Mad Men continued knocking it out of the park in its final episodes; David Lynch sold coffee; and The Lovely Laura Linney sold her soul to the devil Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

whew

Oh and we had a very special guest blogger...

THANK YOU, DAVID!
Longtime TFE readers surely had already clocked that we enjoy David Dastmalchian's work and have been waiting for him to bust out so that people can learn his name. Over the years he earned two nominations in our annual awards ceremony (both in the limited or cameo category) for The Dark Knight (2008) and Prisoners (2013). We assume he won't be haunting that category much longer as his career expands. He was kind enough to say yes when we asked him to guest blog for what should surely be his breakout summer given that the film he wrote and headlines Animals, riding critical darling status out of SXSW, opens on May 15th and two months later he gets to play with Paul Rudd in Ant-Man, joining the Marvel Universe. That's an interesting move, given that he first gained notice for a DC movie, The Dark Knight. ET Online recently asked him about the switcheroo. (Click on that photo if you'd like to see that red carpet moment. It's not embedded here because it's an automatic play):

Here's what he wrote for you:
David What? - His origin story & how to pronounce his name
What I Learned From Paul Rudd - On comic improv with Paul Rudd, Melissa Leo staying in character, and an idol of his Malcolm McDowell
What I Saw / Where I Saw It - four of his formative films growing up
The Making of Animals things looked bleak until magically it came together 
Soundtrack of My Life - Have you ever imagined your life in movie trailer form?
... You should follow him on Twitter & Instagram !

We sincerely hope the experience was more pleasant for him that that time he met Jake Gyllenhaal...

Are you enjoying May thus far?

 

What I Learned From Paul Rudd (& Other Cool People)

At the premiere of Avengers: Age of UltronThe Film Experience welcomes rising actor David Dastmalchian (Ant-Man, Animals, Prisoners) who has taken over the blog for a day! -Editor

-by David Dastmalchian

The following are some rad people that I had the chance to work with or work near or at least stand across the street from – and the cool stuff that I learned while watching them.    I’ve kind of fashioned my entire life that way: honing in on the people who are really good at what they do and, well, trying to copy-cat them.

PAUL RUDD.  
LESSON: ‘Keep the scene rolling until they yell ‘cut’.  And be nice to everyone. And always carry cash’. 

It’s very intimidating to work on scenes with an actor who can continue to improvise past the text until every single person within a hundred feet is laughing out loud.  I had the opportunity to work with Paul on his upcoming Ant-Man for Marvel Studios directed by Peyton Reed.  Paul had an extreme amount of physical work to do with his preparation, as well as re-writing the project and he was incredibly focused.  He came to work each day prepared to make the most out of the scripted text – while being simultaneously open to improvisation as soon as the director gave him the green light.  It was amazing.  He is an endless well of ideas and he’s also very generous, so he would turn to me sometimes when he was on a riff and toss me a golden line.  I dropped as few as possible.

More Paul and other cool people after the jump...

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