Ralph and Queen Anne Rule Again

Weekend Box Office Estimates Nov 30th- Dec 2nd🔺 = New or Expanded Theater Count
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. Ralph Breaks the Internet $25.7 (cum. $119.2)	1.🔺The Favourite $1.1 on 34 screens (cum. $1.6) Review, Podcast, BIFA Wins
2. The Grinch $17.7 (cum. $203.5) Posterized	2. Boy Erased $590k on 660 screens (cum. $5.5) Podcast, Soundtracking, Nicole at TIFF
3. Creed 2 $16.8 (cum. $81.1) Michael B Jordan,  Podcast	3.Can You Ever Forgive Me? $350k on  screens (cum. $6.5) Review, Podcast

As suspected with no real new competition the charts were virtually the same as last week so we're skipping the usual report. The good news is that The Favourite and Shoplifters , easily two of the best films this year, both had fine results with second weekend expansions.

What did you see this weekend? I saw Mary Poppins Returns (grinned stupidly the whole time - Emily Blunt is ❤️) and caught If Beale Street Could Talk a second time... to sadly the same reaction; tried to love it but just didn't apart from three inspired supporting performances (Regina King, Colman Domingo, and Brian Tyree Henry are all on fire) and some craft elements. Perhaps it'll work better for all of you when it opens in two weeks!?

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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The Link Visits

• Lit Hub interesting essay on the popularity of world-building in genre fiction
• Coming Soon Wreck It Ralph 2 has a scene with all the Disney princesses
• Cartoon Brew trailer for something called Another Day of Life which combines documentary footage with CG animation for a different kind of movie
• The Guaridan a five star review of the great silent film Pandora's Box, which y'all know I love. It's maybe my favorite silent

• The New Yorker the emptiness of the new Star Wars universe. I liked Solo more than most and disagree with a few key points here (Emilia Clarke had plenty of screen time to develop that character for example. She's just not an inspired actor is all) but it's still an interesting good read about the problem of prequels and self-consciously mythic work.
• Tom Cruise... speaking of self-conciously mythic. Top Gun 2 began filming
• Boy Culture Madonna gives her blessing to a book/movie deal that uses her music as backdrop for a boy's coming out story. It was a project mainstream publishers rejected. Bet they're sorry now that it has a six figure movie deal.
• Variety Angelina Jolie in David Oyelowo may be starring in a new fantasy drama called Come Away about the parents of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Say what? It's from Brave director Brenda Chapman
• Variety a report on the trouble of ultra cheap or ultra expensive movies in Japan. It's not just Hollywood that has a no mid-budget films problem
• Awards Daily the summer of Donald Glover
• Towleroad deleted scene from Love Simon featuring Colton Haynes

Theater People
• Stage is a new streaming service for theater fans launching this August. Taye Diggs is going to host the first three episodes of their debut talk show called "Crossovers" with Leslie Uggams, Billy Magnussen, and Tamara Tunie as initial guests
• Playbill Tony-bound musical adaptation The Band's Visit will launch a national tour in one year's time.
• TFE ← I just wanted to point you back to this interview we did with two cast members from the musical comedy Desperate Measures last year. The show was so successful it's reopening today at New World Stages for an open run with most of the original cast (including these two) rejoining. It is SO worth seeing so I hope some of you in NYC or visiting will make it!

April Foolish Predictions: 4 Questions About Best Animated Feature

Last year's Best Animated Feature field was remarkably empty and 2018, at first glance, also doesn't look that promising. You can probably take it to the bank that Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs will be squaring off against the sequels to Wreck it Ralph and The Incredibles. And it shouldn't be THAT easy to know what's going to happen a full year in advance, should it?

Of course we don't know everything yet. It's tough to foresee which foreign entries will qualify, for example. 2018 seems bereft of an obvious non-American competitor (last year it was easy to see The Breadwinner coming, which is why we predicted it a year in advance). [Four questions and ways to improve the category after the jump...]

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So Many Disney Princesses!

Chris here. D23 (basically Disney's own version of Comic Con) is underway and there have been quite a few delightful things to emerge - a gorgeous trailer for A Wrinkle in Time, tidbits on The Last Jedi, and early footage of Coco and the next Avengers gathering...

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