R2Link2

Episode something or other.... [cue link theme]

• Racked Titanic's necklace almost bankrupted a whole company!
• My New Plaid Pants geeking out over Ms. Laura Dern who spoke to NYC at the Film Society of Lincoln Center recently
• Deadline an interview with the great production designer Santo Loquasto on Wonder Wheel 
• Out Ryan Murphy's Boys in the Band Broadway Revival has cast a bunch of its players already and it's basically all the famous gays: Charlie Carver, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells, Zachary Quinto some of whom at least have stage experience.
• The Muse talks to Glenn Close who has some interesting things to say about gossip, Harvey Weinstein, and being an older actor in Hollywood

• Indie Wire on the multi-pronged creative casting efforts for The Florida Project
• Vanity Fair interviews Joe Wright of Darkest Hour, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice fame
• Variety the Roseanne reunion sitcom will start airing March 27th. Wheeee
• Mubi on the Berlinale lineup or February 2018
• / Film If you only think of Disney/Fox merger in terms of superheroes, you'll probably be overjoyed
• Vox remembering what might be 2017's signature movie scene "No Man's Land" in Wonder Woman
• Broadway World the cast of Cats posing with adoptable felines. Awww
• Variety that young JRR Tolkien biopic starring Nicholas Hoult has wrapped. Biopics aren't always Oscar favorites anymore but we shall see. 
• Film School Rejects looked at new releases of old movies on dvd: Election, China Moon and more
• Deadline TV/film producer Martin Ransohoff has died. Among his credits The Sandpiper, The Cincinatti Kid, The Beverly Hilbillies and Jagged Edge

Star Wars Time Again
• The Verge thinks Rogue One is about net neutrality
• /Film 10 the greatest female characters in the Star Wars universe (wait, there are ten?)
• Vanity Fair the plea for LGBT characters in the Star Wars movies and why they've been ignored

Exit Video
James Corden's Crosswalk the Musical welcomes The Greatest Showman's Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron

Box Office: Justice League's Own Ragnarok

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Nov 17-19) UPDATED WITH ACTUALS
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1.🔺 Justice League  $94  REVIEW	1.🔺 Lady Bird $2.5 on 238 screens (cum. $4.6) REVIEW
2.🔺 Wonder $27.5	2.🔺 Three Billboards... $1.1 on 53 screens (cum. $1.5) REVIEW
3. Thor Ragnarok $21.6 (cum. $247.2) REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN	3. Loving Vincent $403k on  212 screens (cum. $4.6) REVIEW
4. Daddy's Home 2  $14.4 (cum. $50.2)	4. Let There Be Light $362k on 554 screens (cum. $6.7)
5. Murder on the Orient Express $13.8 (cum. $51.7) REVIEW	5. The Florida Project $299k on 217 screens (cum. $4.3)  REVIEW

Surprise! The feel good facial-differences movie Wonder in which Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson parent little Jacob Tremblay, was a big hit at the box office. It's Julia's best opening in 7 years, or her best opening in 16 years if you don't count the pictures that were sold largely on their all-star ensembles (like the Oceans pictures or Valentine's Day). Did any of you see it?

About the actual chart topper...

Click to read more ...

Another Badass "Black Panther" Trailer!

Chris here. Okay guys, hear me out: Marvel is getting good again? Aside from business-as-usual as the Avengers arc closes, the superhero house will give us Cate Blanchett in drag for Thor, Pfeiffer in the Ant-Man sequel, and of course the most eagerly anticipated: Ryan Coogler's Black Panther.

Excuse me while I pick my eyeballs off of the floor. The goods on what Coogler has created keep getting better and better, and a brand new trailer has yours truly at a fever pitch. The amount of set pieces and plot threads already at play in this trailer suggest that it might be another bloated actioner, but there are genuine thrills everywhere, all the more rapturous for the film's existence in our current political atmosphere. Chadwick Boseman may be our star, but its most exciting element might be its celebration of black women - let's all geek out over Danai Gurira's Okoye.

This (paired with Wonder Woman) feels like the first time in quite a long while that superheroes are actually awe-inspiring on a deeper level. It pays to have an identity all your own and not retread on the diminishing returns of other retreads. It's going to be a long four months waiting for this one.

Box office charts, Or, 'this is why we can't have nice things'

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Sept 15th-17th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
mother!	BEACH RATS
1. IT $60 (cum. $218.7) REVIEW	1.🔺BEACH RATS  $320k on 67 screens* REVIEW
2.🔺AMERICAN ASSASSIN $14.8 new	2.  DO IT LIKE AN HOMBRE  $125k  on 226 screens (cum. $2.3)
3.🔺mother! $7.5 new REVIEW	3.🔺BRAD'S STATUS   $100k on 4 screens new REVIEW
4. HOME AGAIN  $5.3 (cum. $17.1)	4. 🔺 COLUMBUS $89k (cum. $637K) on 62 screens

As you've probably heard box office for 2017 is way down, the lowest in several years overall. I've read numerous reports blaming this on Hollywood's overreliance on event movies and franchises and the like but here's a depressing theory: I don't actually think that's the problem...

Click to read more ...

Thor Ragnarok Pride!

You guys Thor Ragnarok is celebrating Gay Pride with its new character posters. Thanks, Marvel. It's not quite enough to forgive you for trying to throw us off the Cappy/Bucky romance with that weird kiss your lover's niece thing in Civil War but noted and appreciated.

 Click on any of them to embiggen.

Okay, okay, nitpickers. This is probably just a celebration of the rainbow bridge to Asgard where Thor and family reside but we'll allow for the double meaning.

P.S. We did have to eject a poster of Anthony Hopkins to make this work but the designers made him so superfluous by repeating Loki's color and Hopkins is already filler in that Emmy race he's in so he'll sit this one out!