Quick Takes on Threequels: Ant-Man & Magic Mike

by Nathaniel R

Paul Rudd vs Jonathan Majors in "Quantumania"

Forever behind, always catching up. Herewith two spontaneous reviews of threequels that came out during Oscar madness that we never got around to talking about (as they weren't related to that all-consuming golden season): Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Steven Soderbergh's trilogy-closing Magic Mike's Last Dance...

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Weekend Box Office: Magic Mike and James Cameron

By Ben Miller

Super Bowl weekend has never been a hotbed of film dollars, and this weekend was no different.  Magic Mike's Last Dance, the third and final entry in Steven Soderbergh's male stripper series, won the weekend with a sub-$10 million opening.  That doesn't happen very often in the world of big budgets.  In fact, in the 21st century (excluding COVID openings), only Bangkok Dangerous and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star had a worse opening and still managed to top their weekends.  That being said, the film only opened on 1,500 screens, so the per-screen average was pretty solid.  Second and third both belonged to director James Cameron.  Avatar: The Way of Water continues to work its way up all-time charts, but the re-release of Cameron's 1997 Oscar-winner Titanic added a respectable total for a 25-year-old film.

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Feb 10th-12th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended /  = Oscar Nominated
WIDE (Over 800 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE	CONSECRATION
1 🔺 MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE $8.3 *NEW* 1,500 screeens	1 PATHAAN $976k (cum. $15.9) 492 screens
2 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $7.2 (cum. $647.2) 3,065 screens	2  🔺 CONSECRATION $329k *NEW* 762 screens

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Beauty Break: Channing Tatum for "VMan"

by Nathaniel R

Channing Tatum's tradition (superstition?) of shaving his head between movies is one of our favourite celebrity personality quirks. Because, honestly, who looks better with a shaved head than Tatum? After a long drought where it seemed he was only doing cameos (seriously, when's the last time he led a movie? 2017?) has two comedies out this year Dog (opening this Friday!) and The Lost City with Sandra Bullock (opens March 25th, Oscar weekend). The latter looks like a Romancing the Stone rip-off but if you're going to steal, steal from the best. 

As an added bonus since he's gearing up to shoot Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) he's happy to thirst-trap it up again in this drool-worthy photoshoot for VMan magazine which you can buy here if you want to plaster these all over your walls. The photos are by Inez and Vinoodh. Pictures are after the jump...

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