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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Tweetweek: Bowing Down to Extra Divas

Tweet of the week... no, year. 

Sadly Marvel didn’t take my suggestion of a 30 min sequence in #AntManAndWasp where everyone shrinks down slightly smaller than Michelle Pfeiffer and bows their heads, refusing to look her in the eye because they’re not worthy.

— mat whitehead (@matwhi) July 4, 2018

After the jump the poor man's Johnny Depp, Mamma Mia Fallen Kingdom, Disney Princesses, actress kerfuffles, and a bit of politics because who can avoid it now...File the next two tweets under 'You learn new things every day!'...

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Review: "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"

by Chris Feil

That crowdsourced “fan” remake of The Last Jedi that made the rounds in the past week? The one rooted in thinly veiled misogyny, white supremacy, and general ill-advised sentiment to tool with material that’s perfectly fine on its own? Put yourself in front of Sicario: Day of the Soldado, the new prequel to Denis Villeneuve’s layered 2015 film musing on the pervasive institutional evils of the War on Drugs, and you might be convinced that those fans got their hands on this narrative as well.

The warning signs make themselves known immediately, this time focusing on the more enigmatic men in the thick of the corruption: Josh Brolin’s task force leader Matt Graver and Benicio Del Toro’s patiently vengeful hitman Alejandro. Kicking the film off with a demonstratively labored Islamophobic sequence, the audience is served a video game brand of warfare as Graver and Alejandro initiate a kidnapping plot across the Mexican-American border. The kidnappee is Isabel Reyes (played by Isabela Moner, the film’s brightest spot), the daughter of a major cartel leader that may be linked to Alejandro’s past. As expected, the men's hubris is turned in on itself...

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Link like the world isn't on fire

Variety - helpfully lists 10 standout moments from the MTV Movie Awards so we dont have to worry abotu missing it. Black Panther took the bulk of the prizes with Tiffany Haddish hosting
Towleroad - Interview with the director of McKellen: Playing the Part
IndieWire - 64 established and emerging film critics reflect on their favorite piece they've written -- our very own Chris Feil is in the mix! 
MNPP -Tyler Hoechlin seven times

Variety - Jennifer Lee (Frozen) and Pete Docter (Inside Out) are replacing John Lassetter at Disney and Pixar respectively
Guardian - Fun interview with Christopher Plummer on acting, replacing persona non gratas, and making peace with The Sound of Music.  
Coming Soon - this week in news absolutely no one needs: Robert Zemeckis to remake Roald Dahl's The Witches. There is literally no way to top Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch so why?
/Film -AMC's A-List is going to compete directly with Movie Pass for those frequent moviegoer subscription dollars 
Variety - LGBTQ actors haven't had much luck securing Emmy nominations outside of the comedy fields. Will this change soon? 
New Yorker - funny piece on confessing that you met your partner in real life and not online! 

You guys. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on movies and you know that's a nightmare for us when movies are our great love. But every day that goes by as America slides towards concentration camps, complete inhumanity, and fascism, Amy Poehler's questionnaire from last week at THR becomes ever more needed and brilliant. Here's the Q&A since the article is long and not about this:

Smackdown '70 Companion Podcast Pt 2: "Five Easy Pieces" and "The Landlord"

Smackdown in 3 Parts
• The Write-Ups
• Podcast Companion Part 1
And now the conclusion!...

Pt 2 (39 minutes)
On the second half of the Supporting Actress Smackdown podcast we discuss Hal Ashby's debut film The Landlord (1970) starring Beau Bridges and Lee Grant. We theorize about why it's not more famous and what would have happened with the great African-American actress Diana Sands if she hadn't died so soon after the movie. We also make some time for the Best Picture nominee Five Easy Pieces and its abundance of actressing, not just Karen Black! 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Thanks again to the panelists: Mark Blankenship, Dan Callahan, Denise Grayson, Lena Houst, and Bobby Rivers . Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pt Two: The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces (1970)