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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Podcast: El Angel, The Front Runner, Oscar's Screenplay Race

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl talk new films and the Oscar race

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 The story of Gary Hart in The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman
16:25 El Angel starring Lorenzo Ferro and Chino Darín which is Argentina's Oscar submission
27:22 Sidebar: My Fair Lady on Broadway
34:24 Best Adapted Screenplay: Bradley Cooper, Barry Jenkins, Gillian Flynn, Nicole Holofcener, Spike Lee, Armando Iannucci, Paul Dano & Zoe Kazan could all compete here but which of them will?
45:23 Best Original Screenplay: Roma, The Favourite and Green Book and...?
54:40 Beck claims he's recording a score for Roma... which has no score.

 References / Further Reading
• The horror of Beck's Tweet about Roma
• Chris's review of The Front Runner
• Foreign Language Film Submission Chart 
• Screenplays Oscar Chart

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

El Angel and The Front Runner

Review: "The Front Runner"

by Chris Feil

Fresh off of delivering exacting holistic wisdom with frequent collaborator Diablo Cody in this past spring’s Tully, Jason Reitman is already back and pivoting hard into political commentary with The Front Runner. Detailing the combustion of Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign due to the outting in the press of Hart’s not-so-secret affairs, the film stars Hugh Jackman as the prideful candidate fatally underestimating the public’s association between his character and marital fidelity. Reitman and cowriters Matt Bai and Jay Carson cover the unraveling in stringent attention to the timeline, while angling this as a key breakdown in the separation of political media consideration and tabloid press.

The result is something unintentionally passive, a film about a political candidate flailing against public expectations he refuses to assuage. The film itself is equally headstrong about satisfying on its own rather limited terms...

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Hugh Jackman at 50

by Eric Blume

Hugh Jackman celebrating his 50th birthday.

Let’s all take a moment to celebrate the half-century birthday of one of our most versatile and underrated actors, Hugh Jackman.

Underrated, you question?  Sure, Hugh has a Best Actor Tony for The Boy from Oz, an Emmy Award for hosting the Academy Awards, and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Les Miserables.  But if you asked folks to list ten of the best working actors, would most people remember to put him on their list?

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Linker

movies

• Deadline we didn't believe this would ever actually happen but supposedly James Cameron starts shooting today on his FOUR consecutive Avatar sequels with an estimated budget of over 1 billion dollars
• Cartoon Brew this year continues to be weak for animated features but next year's trailers are already popping up. Peter Rabbit anyone? And, in case you missed it...
• TFE Isle of Dogs trailer
• Cinematic Corner Sati always keeps us up to date on what Hugh Jackman is doing. Apparently he's making a movie called The Front Runner but, alas, it is NOT an adaptation of that famous gay novel that has never managed to get a movie made despite numerous rumors that it would become a movie over the decades. Instead it's a movie about the politician Gary Hart.

• Out how's this for an odd sounding project. Moonlight's writer Tarrell Alvin McCraney is going to script a musical for David Oyelowo and Disney that is a cross between Othello and Cyrano. What the what now?
• Coming Soon Julianne Hough and Tyler Hoechlin among the cast of the new biopic about the fitness pioneer family the Weiders called Bigger
•  Deadline potentially big news for anyone hoping for a Sharon Stone comeback. The actress, previously with Gersh, has now signed with CAA for representation in all areas
• The Atlantic mother! as a descendant of Antonin Artaud’s 'Theater of Cruelty'
• my new plaid pants Luke Evans new film Professor Marsden will be part of New Fest, the LGBT film festival. That's potentially awkward given his history!

tv

• The Ellen Show Sterling K Brown strips down and drives a tractor (?) for Ellen DeGeneres
• The Daily Beast Dynasty's Gordon Thompson comes out in his 70s. But he didn't play the often victimized gay character Steven Carrington on that 1980s blockbuster TV show but his evil half brother Adam.
• Vulture some fun comic nuggets about the new season of Will & Grace

randomness

• Londonist body art of famous painting on five models walking around Britain. The text keeps saying they're naked but they're not. They're all wearing pasties and underwear but it's still a neat art project if not cool "body painting". Give me Keith Haring in the 80s or Demi Moore in the 90s in their altogether. That was awesome body painting!

exit video

• Here's a cool video essay on the scoring of Wonder Woman

How Wonder Woman's theme music went from bombastic to smart from Dan Golding on Vimeo.