Nobody goes to the movies on Labor Day, do they?

In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to make a movie called Labor Day (remember that 2013 Kate Winslet misfire?) since Labor Day weekend is one of those rare holidays where people mostly avoid the movies. Essentially it's the last "outdoor" weekend, and it's no longer hot enough to pine away for air conditioned storytelling. At any rate here is the quickie chart for the weekend. Were you an iconoclast who did go to the movies this weekend or were you thwarted by Hollywood's lack of desire to program anything between franchise blockbusters. Seriously this year feels like they're not even trying -- thank god awards season might rescue us...

Weekend Box Office Estimates August 30th- September 1st Estimates 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Good Boys	Brittany Runs a Marathon
1 Angel Has Fallen  $11.5 (cum. $40.6)	1 🔺 Tod@s Caen $1 on 371 screens *new*
2 Good Boys $9.1 (cum. $56.1)  REVIEW  ★	2 🔺 After the Wedding $445k on 428 screens (cum. $862k)  REVIEW
3 The Lion King  $6.7 (cum. $520.9)   REVIEW	3 🔺 Brittany Runs a Marathon $414k on 49 screens (cum. $637k)

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The Farewell has a stunning opening weekend!

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office Estimates July 12th-14th   🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Spider-Man: Far From Home	The Farewell
1 Spider-Man Far From Home  $45.3 (cum. $274.5) on 4634 screens  TOM HOLLAND, REVIEW	1 🔺 Super 30 $923k new on 317 screens
2 Toy Story 4 $20.6 (cum. $346.3) on 4210 screens PODCAST, REVIEW	2  Last Black Man in... $361k (cum. $3.3) on 207 screens REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF ★
3 🔺 Crawl $12 new on 3170 screens REVIEW	3 🔺 The Farewell $351k new on 4 screens REVIEW, INTERVIEW ★
4 🔺 Stuber $8 new on 3050 screens REVIEW	4 🔺 Wild Rose $294k (cum. $751k) on 161 screens PODCAST, SOUNDTRACKING
5 Yesterday $6.7 (cum. $48.3) on 2755 screens	5  Pavarotti $255k (cum. $3.5) on 196 screeens
6 Aladdin $5.8 (cum. $331.4) on 2557 screens  REVIEW, 1992 RETRO	6 🔺 Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable $250k new on 205 screens
6 Anabelle Comes Home $5.5 (cum. $60.7) on 3209 screens	7 🔺 Maiden $224k (cum. $484k) on 68 screens  REVIEW ★

numbers on that chart are pulled from boxofficemojo

The weekend was very kind to Far From Home which is outpacing its predecessor and is already the 3rd highest grossing Spidey worldwide behind Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Homecoming (2017)... for now at least. The new wide releases performed around expectations. Crawl did solid business (especially given that it's budget is a low $13 million) but Stuber struggled

The best news is that it was a huge weekend for Lulu Wang's awards-hopeful The Farewell, which earned the highest opening per screen average of the year so far ($87,833 per theater). The film expands from NY and LA to other top markets next week and goes wide on August 2nd. That's quicker than we were expecting but the numbers are strong. That's good news for cinephiles since any success for artful indies is to be celebrated in this tough theatrical market.

Retcon this, link

• Vulture are Spider-Man Far From Home and Call Me By Your Name the same film? (hilarious read)
• IndieWire upsetting account of turmoil behind the scenes of Big Little Lies season 2 as Andrea Arnold's vision was thrown aside during post-production. Well, we knew it didn't feel like an Arnold production so here's why
• Hard Drive "J.K. Rowling reveals that you, the reader, were gay all along" (this is a few months old but I LOL'ed so much I had to share icymi) 

more after the jump including Mindhunter, Disney's global dominance, Jack Reynor and Gus Kenworthy...

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What did you see over the holiday week?

Given the craziness of holiday weekends at the box office, we opted to wait until "actuals" were released rather than run with an "estimates" column yesterday. So herewith a complete picture of the Fourth of July weekend with all 12 pictures still in wide release and the corresponding top of the charts in platform or limited titles. What did you see this first week of July? 

Weekend Box Office July 5th-7th (Actuals) 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Spider-Man Far From Home $92.5 (cum. $185) *NEW*  TOM HOLLAND	1 Pavarotti [DOC] $458k on 250 screens (cum. $2.9)

2 Toy Story 4 $33.8 on 4540 screens (cum. $306.1) PODCAST	2 🔺  Last Black Man... $431k on 188 screens (cum. $2.7) ★ REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF

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Posterized: The still-young career of Tom Holland

by Nathaniel R

With Spider-Man Far From Home owning the holiday weekend, the just turned 23 year old Tom Holland is back in the spotlight. He's already been a professional actor for 11 years, starting with a West End production of Billy Elliott in 2008, where he first played Billy's best friend and later graduated to the lead role to rave reviews. His first gig in front of cameras (The Impossible, 2012) also prompted critical superlatives and he was well on his way to major stardom. We were rooting for him from then on and knew he would be the perfect Spider-Man before he was cast. Thankfully, the MCU made a good decision there and the rest has been history.

So let's take a trip back through his shortcareer via movie posters. How many of his 12 key screen projects (11 features and one major television event) have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

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