Wonder Woman

It’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the world, which means it’s time for your weekend box office updates! While this was a disappointing weekend overall for a handful of new releases, there’s good news to be had: after a disappointing $144 million total gross last weekend, the box office bounced back to $187 million total over the past few days. That takes some of the pressure off Wonder Woman to, you know, save the summer blockbuster as we know it. Here’s the totals as of Sunday afternoon:

If you only look at the surface numbers, this was a pretty predictable week at the box office. Wonder Woman did well, The Mummy did not, and everything else shook out accordingly. That being said, there’s some pretty interesting narratives emerging in the how and why of this weekend’s box office report. Let’s take a look at the rankings as of Sunday afternoon and dive into some of the specifics:

Based on how this weekend’s box office numbers shaped up, odds are good that you either saw Wonder Woman this weekend or you avoided the theater altogether. It was a record-setting few days for everyone’s favorite warrior princess  —  sorry, Xena  —  but things were decidedly less rosy if your movie was… well, literally anything else. Here are the box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon:

I stayed up "late" last night to go see the new "Wonder Woman" movie, and I was definitely NOT disappointed!

It may be the title of the movie but the words “wonder” and “woman” are ever spoken in Wonder Woman. Until an underwhelming fight between two super-beings brings the film crashing back down to earth, Wonder Woman often feels less like a superhero movie than a modern fable, about a strong but sheltered young woman who discovers the pleasures and perils of the wider world. It’s presented with strong visual style and abundant heart by Patty Jenkins, and played with oozing charisma by its two well-cast stars, Chris Pine and Gal Gadot as the (not-technically-named-) Wonder Woman.

We’re only two weeks away from the release of DC Films’ Wonder Woman, and by my watch, that means it’s time for Warner Bros. to open the floodgates a bit when it comes to marketing the film. And wouldn’t you know it? Right on schedule, the studio has released a whole bunch of clips from the new film. We’ve got scenes where Wonder Woman throws down against enemy soldiers, scenes where Wonder Woman struggles to understand the “modern” world, and a whole bunch of scenes where Chris Pine plays the comic relief to Gal Gadot’s straight woman. If you’ve been hoping for a closer look at the world that director Patty Jenkins has put together, here’s your chance.

The calendar may have four seasons, but Hollywood’s calendar only really has two at this point: summer and awards, and summer seems to last longer and longer ever year. Though the start of May has long been the unofficial kickoff of the S.M.S., 2017 has already seen a King Kong movie, a ghost in a shell, and the fate of Fast & Furious franchise. The change from April to May is something of a formality in 2017. Once the Oscars are over, the summer begins.

When it comes to online movie polls, which ones do you think the public is usually most excited for: little indie pictures or huge superhero/sci-fi/fantasy blockbusters? Spoiler alert— it’s the blockbusters. Shocking, I know. In Fandango’s year-end poll of the most anticipated movies of 2017, Star Wars: Episode VIII, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and the live-action Beauty and the Beast took the top spots.

December is officially upon us, and so is year-end list-making season. We’re kicking things off by looking backwards and forwards: By ranking the finest teasers, trailers, and coming attractions of 2016. To qualify, only the trailer had to be released in this calendar year; you’ll see trailers below for movies that haven’t even been released yet and can’t be judged next to the films they represent. That’s as it should be; beyond their function as pieces of advertising, trailers should stand alone, as bite-sized entertainments and even, in a few rare occasions, as works of art. Here are the ten trailers of 2016 (plus a few honorable mentions) that came closest to that lofty ideal.

I love the anticipation of a film that I want to see, and then waiting months to see it. But I HATE it when the studios release a trailer for that film that basically reveals the entire plot of the movie.