Box Office: Can a Plane Stop The LEGO Movie?

Amir with the weekend’s box office report. The LEGO Movie managed to fend off meek competition and remain in the number one spot. Three weeks at the top and the amount of money it has cashed in so far have warranted Warner Brothers to announce a sequel, already planned for 2017! But don’t expect it to stay number one next week, when the Liam Neeson no-snakes airplane thriller, Non-Stop (featuring Lupita Nyong'o in an abrupt change of pace) hits the screens. That film has taken its title as a cue for its advertising and I suspect enough people are intrigued to see it despite what sounds like a ludicrous plot.

BOX OFFICE
01. THE LEGO MOVIE $31.4M (cum. $183.1m)
02. 3 DAYS TO KILL $12.3m new
03. POMPEII $10m new
04. ROBOCOP $9.4m (cum. $43.6m)
05. THE MONUMENTS MEN $8.1m (cum. $58m)

This weekend saw two new wide openings: Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii, which managed to earn back 1/10th of its production budget and died faster than an entire city under a volcano.  When I was a child, I was absolutely obsessed with the real life story of this natural disaster - I had a large collection of books, pictures and other pre-internet Pompeii-related memorabilia. That the marketing campaign of this film managed to keep me away from the theatre tells you just how much the studio did everything wrong. 3 Days to Kill was the other offering. I can’t think of anything interesting to say about this one, which is possibly the same position McG and Kevin Costner have found themselves in since signing on.

In limited release The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki’s maybe-last-film-maybe-not, maybe-a-masterpiece-maybe-just-propaganda opened on 21 screens did modest business. (Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, reviewed here, was the only film with a better per screen average this weekend.) I’m afraid I found Miyazaki's Oscar nominee a bit underwhelming at TIFF – and I still hold a grudge because the screening kept me from guesting on Nathaniel’s festival podcast – but it’s definitely worth your time. What is not worth your time is In Secret, formerly known as Therese, that I caught up with at the same festival. In my review I called it the second worst film I have ever seen in seven years of attending the festival. I stand by that statement and advise you against spending any money on this atrocity, unless you are looking for a lot of unintentional laughs.

As you read this I'm watching Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) for the first time. For the FIRST time! What have you watched this weekend?

Your Daily Linkage

Huffington Post a live-blogged review of critical punching bag Pompeii
Pajiba on Lupita Nyong'o on Ellen. We already knew Ellen was a perfect talk show host but Lupita is a natural at talk show guesting as well
Gurus of Gold top threes in each category from the Gurus. Looks like I'm way off consensus on Adaped Screenplay and Editing
Slate Turns out "Chivo", cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, has an instagram feed and Slate is crazy besotted with it
Pop & Hiss P!nk added to performers list at the Oscars. We're guessing aerial acrobatics but they already had those really recently at an Oscars ceremony... like I think just two years ago, right?

NY Times Manohla Dargis delivers an impassioned ode to Jennifer Lawrence's huge career... and thinks she's going to win Sunday night
/Film reports on the Live Read of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in LA. Lizzy Caplan did the Uma/Amanda parts and Joseph Gordon-Levitt did Vincent Vega and, yes, they got up and danced
NY Times honestly I take issue with this report that Oscar nominations didn't do much for the box office of the nominees. While I agree that the expanded Best Picture field has seriously diluted the marketing pull of "Best Picture!" a lot of these movies would not have done even half of what they did without Oscar buzz. I'm talking ALL of the non-star driven ones
Culture Monster was 2013 really a great year at the movies or does social media just exaggerate all the love?
Playbill oh dear. Lea Michele hasn't given up on starring on Funny Girl on Broadway just yet. Her #1 accomplice Ryan Murphy aims to help her
Keyframe have you seen the video essays on who deserves the Oscars. I thought Best Actress was fairly interesting 
In Contention talks to the sound team on All is Lost
Awards Daily talks to Steven Price about Gravity

Finally, in case you haven't heard The LEGO Movie will be getting a sequel 1190 days from now on May 26th, 2017. Everything will probably not still be awesome -- I loved the movie but it seems like the perfect one-off rather than anything sustainable --  but franchise culture, Lord Business, and the grosses demand it. 

Short Link 12

Awards Daily early twitter reactions to Gravity
Gold Derby uncovers a beautiful piece of trivia I totally didn't know (that happens less often than I'd like with awardage). If Homeland's stars both win Emmy again it will be the first time ever for a dual lead consecutive win! 
Film Doctor 12 unanswered questions about The World's End. I haven't spoken much about the movie but I thought it was the weakest of its trilogy, funny in parts and especially strong in its middle but I thought the opening and closing acts were weak.
Pajiba on Mandy Patinkin (Holla!) coming to grips with his past bad behavior. True little known story: I am a huge Mandy Patinkin fan so this renaissance has been wondrous for me.

Deadline the HFPA have made the wisest of decisions and have asked Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host the Golden Globes again. Let's all pray they say yes because the alternatives (*cough* Ricky Gervais) have been ghastly!
Forbes Madonna tops the biggest earners list in Hollywood this year with Steven Spielberg in runner up position
CHUD the Pompeii teaser, skewered in two sentences.
Pop Bytes Alexander Skarsgård is an awesome drunk cheerleader. På Svensk!
Guardian President Obama joins the plus column for Lee Daniels' The Butler
Cinema Blend wonders who Joss Whedon will kill off in The Avengers: Age of Ultron 

Finally...
I don't normally post straight up advertisements as news as most movie sites do (it feels shameless and also "abuse-me!" crazy since the studios aren't paying you but you're still airing their commercial!) but I hope this week's double feature from Paramount is really successful so I'm sharing it!

click on the pic to investigate this 2 for 1 offer

(Is this their sneaky way of getting WWZ over the $200 million mark which its been inching towards for weeks)

Double Features, which you almost always have to program yourself as Unofficial pairings, are one of the great joys of moviegoing. It's one reason we use to twin them up in that Best Pictures series. It would be so perfect if they became a thing again in theaters. Two movies for the price of one! I missed Star Trek Into Darkness (not that I felt its absence) but I liked World War Z far more than my review indicates. I must have been so crabby when I wrote that because it's one of the stickiest movies from summer 2013 with many strong sequences that more than make up for its wobbly seams and the rather blank protagonist... at least he's got the face of Brad Pitt! 

And while I'm providing free adspace please know that Short Term 12 (my pet cause of the summer) expands in or to all of these 12 cities on Friday...

Click on the pic for the official site

So do the right thing, make me proud, and round up 12 friends and go see it.

for entertainment purposes only
while we're on the subject of 12, here's an, uh, 13th link, for a 12 year old vine genius. The cat licking vine is the best thing evah.

Get Linky

Housekeeping Note: I'm running very late today so if you're planning to join us for tonight's "Hit Me" on The Bad and the Beautiful, you have extra time. My post probably won't go up until tomorrrow at noon.

EW First look at Kit Harington in Pompeii. Someone's been working out in their off duty moments on that dull wintry wall. 
The Dissolve remembers the great writer Elmore Leonard (RIP) with an indepth conversation about his rich cinematic legacy
CHUD first look at Steve Carell in Foxcatcher - i can't wait to see this movie. He's such a strong dramatic actor despite his comedic fame
IndieWire lists the 4 million films showing at TIFF this year 
Vulture on the exciting young world of TV criticism 

Cinema Blend rumors suggest that it's Elizabeth Olsen who'll get the Scarlet Witch role in The Avengers: Age of Ultron. I'm proprietary about Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch and this idea doesn't upset me so... good news!
MNPP puckers up for Tom Sturridge -On the Road is now on DVD and Olivier Assayas Sils Maria is next
Empire Beautiful cast lining up for the adaptation of the best-seller Dark Places, a drama about a woman who survived a Satanic massacre, with Charlize Theron headlining and Nicholas Hoult, Corey Stoll and Christina Hendricks supporting
i09 has a Fall Movie Guide for 20 upcoming genre films. Summer is forever. 
Huffington Post Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner may marry after 42 years together  
/Film on the tight focus of Edgar Wright's Ant Man. In other words: yet another origin story. Does no one believe in 'In Media Res' anymore? Did the world learn nothing from 1977's Star Wars? Skip to chapter 4 people! Let the audience catch up. The last thing the world needs is another origin story. In this way the superhero genre is just as dull as the biopic, with their obsession with This Caused This! How Things Came To Be

Exit Video ...here's a cute video of iconic and funny t-shirts from the movies! Which bring back the most memories?