The early estimates for the opening weekend gross of Furious 7 are all over the place and we probably won’t have a definitive number until tomorrow, when the dust finally settles and everyone gets a chance to breathe. However, this one thing we know for sure: the seventh film in the Fast and Furious series didn’t just shatter in-franchise records, it shattered records for any April release.
What does a movie studio want out of its sequels? Is a sequel a failure if it simply matches its predecessor or does it need to make more money? That’s the big question that’s swirling around Insurgent, which made almost exactly as much as Divergent did one year ago. Seriously: there’s only a $500,000 difference in their opening weekends. So is Insurgent a success or a disappointment?
Suddenly, Disney’s upcoming live action version of Beauty and the Beast is looking like a very wise move. After all, their new take on Cinderella shook the box office out of the doldrums, launching with numbers that feel more at home with the summer than March. Yes, it even took down that might spring movie season titan Liam Neeson.
As ‘Batman’ goes, so goes comic-book movies. When Tim Burton turned the Dark Knight into a retro-gothic hero, Hollywood followed suit with a slew of heavily stylized pulp throwbacks. (See: ‘Dick Tracy,’ ‘The Phantom,’ ‘The Shadow,’ etc.) And when Christopher Nolan turned the Dark Knight into, well, ‘The Dark Knight,’ it sparked a wave of “grim and gritty” movies, with serious superheroes doing and saying serious things in outrageous spandex costumes that had been reimagined as biker gear or body armor. (See: ‘Man of Steel’ [Or maybe don’t.]) There’s been some pushback, but we’re really only now coming out of the trend toward ultra-serious, uber-dark comic-book movies.
Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all-time, but it's his comments about the president's talent on the links that are making waves now.
UPDATE 6:30 P.M. EST: Officials have confirmed that the woman who led police on a car chase from the White House toward the Capitol was indeed killed at the scene. Her name has not yet been released.
1:10 p.m. (EST): A third letter, this one sent to Senator Joe Manchin (D.-W.V.), has been found to contain ricin.
12:45 p.m. (EST): FBI spokesman Paul Bresson has confirmed that the substance found in the letter to the president was ricin.
The Secret Service says that a letter containing a suspicious substance and addressed to President Obama was received on Tuesday at a White House mail facility.
If you were being protected by the Secret Service, what would your code name be? If you're trying to stay below the radar, avoid bill collectors or whatever, maybe a "code name" might help.