Aquaman is now DCEU's Biggest Film

While the box office charts we share each week are domestic money only, Aquaman has already become the biggest DC movie since their "expanded universe" began overseas. It will be the first of those films to cross the billion dollar mark globally. That said stateside it's still $150 million behind Wonder Woman  though it should easily topple Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman by the the end of its run since it's still going strong.

More box office news after the jump...

Weekend Box Office (Estimates) (January 4th-6th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1 Aquaman  $30.7 on 4184 screens (cum. $259.7) Review, Podcast	1 🔺 If Beale Street Could Talk $1.8 on 335 screens (cum. $4.4) Review, Podcast  ❤️

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Clint is "The Mule"

Please welcome guest contributor Abe Fried-Tanzer from Movies with Abe. Since we hadn't discussed Clint Eastwood's new movie, he's doing the honor...

This is not the first time that Clint Eastwood has released a film at the tail end of awards season. That strategy worked wonders in 2014 for American Sniper, which landed major Oscar nominations despite missing out on a number of precursors. A full decade earlier, Million Dollar Baby launched late and managed to overtake the Oscar frontrunner, The Aviator, to win Best Picture. Eastwood may have arrived too late to earn accolades for this effort, which marks his 37th film as director, but he’s sure to earn some fans for his performance.

The most comparable frame of reference for The Mule is the most recent film that saw Eastwood as an acting Oscar hopeful, 2008’s Gran Torino... 

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What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

What did you see this week? I caught up with Ralph Breaks the Internet and *gasp* Paddington 2 (I regret my life choices that put the latter off this long). Here's what general audiences and big city moviegoers were checking out...

Weekend Box Office (Estimates) (December 14th-16th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1 🔺 Into the Spider-Verse $35.4 on 3813 screens *NEW* Review	1 🔺 The Favourite $2.5 on 439 screens (cum. $6.7) Review, Podcast ❤️

2 🔺 The Mule $17.2 on 2588 screens *NEW*	2 🔺 Mary Queen of Scots $700k on 66 screens (cum. $961k) Review

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Care to make any NBR Predictions?

by Nathaniel R

The National Board of Review will reveal their winners later today. They're much harder to predict than other high profile awards bodies because their organization is secretive and untelevised. That said, there are some patterns that have emerged over the years. Though there are rumors that The Mule did not screen for them, for example, it's otherwise a foregone conclusion that if there is a Clint Eastwood film available to them in any way, they WILL honor it and often in a major way. The last Clint Eastwood film they skipped from honoring in any way was Jersey Boys (2014) but that was an exception to the rule. Since Mystic River they've otherwise always given his movies something, even the ones that don't have significant awards futures like The Hereafter (top ten list) or Gran Torino (Best Actor AND Screenplay) or Flags Of Our Fathers (top ten list), or the ones that nobody is all that passionate about but have awards appeal in some way like Invictus (Best Director AND Best Actor). So I'm expecting The Mule or even The 15:17 to Paris to show up, as absurd as the latter sounds.

Another very safe NBR bet is that they'll choose as Best Picture something that has either just opened in limited release or is yet to open...

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