Movies gobbled up tickets on Thanksgiving Weekend

by Nathaniel R

What did you see over the long holiday weekend? Some of the movies got a two day headstart opening on Wednesday, others on Friday but awards season is most definitely upon us; almost everything has now screened for someone and there's only one month of the year left to get through.  We've expanded the two charts to include all 14 films in wide release (over 800 screens) and the corresponding top players in limited release. There's a glut of titles out there at the moment.

Here's how the box office went down for the holidays. There is a lot to ponder after the jump...

Weekend Box Office (ACTUALS) (Nov 23rd-25th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1 🔺 Ralph Breaks the Internet $56.2 on 4017 screens (cum. $84.7) *NEW*	1 🔺 Boy Erased $1.5 on 672 screens (cum. $4.5) Podcast

2 🔺 Creed 2 $35.5 on 3441 screens (cum. $56) *NEW* Michael B Jordan,  Podcast	2 Can You Ever Forgive Me $598k on 426 screens (cum. $6) Review, Podcast ❤️

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Posterized: Michael B Jordan

by Nathaniel R

Photographed by Kayla Reefer for The New York TimesAny list of the newest generation of exciting movie stars would have to include Michael Bakari Jordan (aka Michael B Jordan), and presumably way up top. The Jersey-raised actor, started young on television as a teen actor with acclaimed work on The Wire. With a name so reminiscent of a superstar in another field, it felt like a dare; How could he be that big for the movies? When he hit his mid 20s, though, the movies came calling to make good on the pop culture connotations of that name. It's been a match made in heaven thus far.

All that said he's been strangely absent from our movie screens since proving his film-carrying charisma so thoroughly with the one-two punch of Fruitvale Station and Creed. But then came 2018 to prove to us that he'd been hard at work all along but movies have their own temperamental calendars and sometimes they all get bunched up together. Four movies arrived in quick succession, one of them likely to be the biggest hit he'll ever have. He's already an Emmy nominee for producing the TV movie Fahrenheit 451 earlier this year, but the Oscar nomination has to date eluded him. Will that change with the Black Panther campaign? We don't yet know though we definitely hope so since it's his second, not his first, nomination worthy role; Oscar was sleeping on that whole Creed success back in 2015, a movie that was wildly better than it had any right to be given its provenance.

How many of his Michael B Jordan's key movies and TV shows have you seen? The posters are after the jump.

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Can You Ever Forgive the Box Office?

by Nathaniel R

Dear readers, we don't know why we relay the box office charts each week because they can be depressing. Films that should be giant hits are not and vice versa. With great regularity. We've learned to adjust our expectations so that now films that seem like giant hits made for adults are actually just modest hits if you compare them to year's past and so on. But for what it's worth here are this week's charts... 

Weekend Box Office Estimates (Nov 9-11)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1  Dr Seuss the Grinch $66 on 4141 screens *NEW* Posterized	1 🔺 Can You Ever... $1.4 on 391 screens (cum. $3.6) Review, Podcast

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Posterized: Joe Johnston, a low profile director with a high profile filmography

by Nathaniel R

Joe Johnston behind the scenes on Star Wars (1977) his very first movie in his mid 20s

With the long-gestating The Nutcracker and the Four Realms now in theaters (its initial shoot wrapped nearly two years ago!) it occurred to us to look at the directorial career of Joe Johnston. When the studio opted for a full month of reshoots on The Nutcracker, the original director, Lasse Hallström was unavailable so Johnston stepped in (and now there's a joint "directed by" credit). Johnston is hardly a household name but every time his name pops up we're reminded that a chunk of his filmography is actually fairly famous.

How many of his 10 theatrically-released movies have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

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Yes No Maybe So: Captain Marvel

by Nathaniel R

Hey look, it's our first official image of Brie Larson from Damien Chazelle's First Ma---- oh, that's not right. It's Brie Larson as First Woman to lead a movie in the MCU. Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8th, 2019, or as we like to call it, two weeks after the Oscars and two months before Avengers Infinity War Part 2.

After the jump the first trailer and a quick Yes No Maybe So breakdown.

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