A toon’s triumph

Mr Peabody & Sherman

Mr. Peabody & Sherman won the weekend box-office derby with $21.2 million in ticket sales, outpacing both last week’s winner 300: Rise of An Empire and video game turned car racing movie Need for Speed. The animated Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which opened a week earlier in the No. 2 spot, overtook last week’s winner, the Greek-era action film 300: Rise Of An Empire which collected $19.1 million from Friday to Sunday, according to studio estimates.
Need for Speed settled for third place on its opening weekend with ticket sales of $17.8 million at U.S. and Canadian theatres. Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club, the weekend’s other new movie, was fifth behind Non-Stop, selling $8.3 million worth of tickets. The Liam Neeson airliner thriller made $10.6 million. The stunt-filled Need for Speed, starring Aaron Paul of the AMC television series Breaking Bad, had hoped to capitalise on the video game franchise’s appeal to a young audience, but fell short of Hollywood’s forecast of a $22 million-to-$25 million opening weekend. Paul stars as a street racer who seeks revenge after being framed for the death of a close friend. The film, which cost about $66 million, took in about $63 million globally during its opening, Hollis said. Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which features the talking dog Mr. Peabody and his adopted boy, Sherman, is the latest animated film from Hollywood to enjoy a strong audience reception following Disney’s Frozen and The Lego Movie from Warner Brothers.
The film, based on the Peabody’s Improbable History segments in the 1960s animated TV show starring the characters Rocky and Bullwinkle, has taken in more than $63 million since its opening on March 7 and had the relatively unusual experience of moving up into the top box-office spot on a weekend other than its opening one.
300: Rise of an Empire, a blood-splattered sequel to the 2006 blockbuster, 300 about the war between Greeks and Persians, has generated $78 million since its March 7 opening, according to box-office tracking service Rentrak. The film, based on a graphic novel by author Frank Miller and produced by Legendary Pictures, stars Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton as the Greek leader Themistocles and French actress and model Eva Green as the ruthless commander of the Persian forces. It added another $41 million this weekend in foreign markets.
In a limited run, Veronica Mars, starring Kristen Bell in a film adaption of the TV series that ran on the UPN and The CW networks from 2004 to 2007, collected ticket sales of $2 million at 291 theaters. The film was financed with $5.7 million in contributions from more than 91,000 fans of the show who responded to pleas from Kirsten Bell and the show’s creator Rob Thomas through crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter.
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson’s whimsical caper film starring Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, continued to chalk up impressive ticket sales with $3.6 million at just 66 theaters. Last week it set an industry record $200,000 per screen average over three days playing in only four theatres.

 

New Star Wars film to be set 30 years after Return of the Jedi

The highly anticipated next installment of the Star Wars franchise will be set 30 years after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Walt Disney Co.’s chief executive officer Bob Iger said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting recently. Disney purchased Star Wars production company LucasFilm for $4.05 billion in 2012 and announced it would release three new films in the popular sci-fi series. Fans have been avidly awaiting details of the next film, Star Wars: Episode VII.
Return of the Jedi was the third film in the first trilogy of Star Wars released between 1977 and 1983. The series is set in a galaxy far, far away, in the past. Iger did not reveal any casting news, other than to confirm the return of the robot character R2D2. The official Star Wars website posted that the new films would feature “a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces,” and that filming would begin in May at London’s famed Pinewood studios.
Rumours have swirled for over a year on whether some of the franchise’s stars, including Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, would return. Trade magazines have reported that rising stars including Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o is being considered. The Star Wars franchise was created by director George Lucas and comprises six films that have grossed more than $4.4 billion at the worldwide box-office since their debut in 1977. Episode VII will be released on December 18, 2015, and directed by J.J. Abrams, who helmed the recent Star Trek film franchise reboot.