Film
“Wicked” and “Gladiator” debut in the theater against gravity
NEW YORK (AP) – With total worldwide ticket sales of $270 million, “Mean” AND “Gladiator II” breathed fresh life into the box office that did it he’s been struggling recentlyresulting in one among the busiest movie weekends of the 12 months.
Jon M. Chu’s lavish, big-budget musical “Wicked,” starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, debuted for Universal Pictures with $114 million domestically and $164.2 million worldwide, in line with studio estimates Sunday. This made it the third-biggest opening weekend of the 12 months, second only to it “Deadpool and Wolverine” AND “Inside Out 2”. This can be a record for a musical adaptation on Broadway.
“Gladiator II” by Ridley Scott the sequel to his best-picture-winning 2000 original, which grossed $55.5 million in ticket sales. The production cost of “Gladiator II” was roughly $250 million. Paramount Pictures took a giant step to return to the Coliseum with a largely latest forged, led by Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal. Although domestic ticket sales exceeded the projected $60 million, “Gladiator II” performed well overseas. It added $50.5 million internationally.
The clash between the two movies caused some echoes “Barbenheimer” the results of last 12 months’s premiere of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”. This time a nickname “Gloss” it wasn’t as catchy and the cultural footprint was much smaller as well. Not many individuals he was searching for a double feature this time. The 2023 domestic grosses – “Barbie’s” $162 million and “Oppenheimer’s” $82 million – were also higher.
‘Glicked’ Doesn’t Compare to ‘Barbenheimer’
For Universal, which distributed “Oppenheimer” last 12 months, the weekend was more of a triumph for “Wicked” than for “Glicked.”
“We saw an opportunity to dominate the weekend and jumpstart Thanksgiving,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief at Universal. “We are sure he will perform ridiculously well in the Christmas corridor and into the new year.”
However, the counterprogramming effect was still strong for “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” which also split fundamentally along gender lines. Once again, it was a female-oriented release – “Wicked,” like “Barbie” before it – that easily won the weekend. About 72% of ticket buyers for “Wicked” were women, and 61% of people that watched “Gladiator II” were men.
“On their own, you could argue that each of these films could have done exactly what they did, but it’s hard to say,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Raising awareness can actually result in a rise in ticket sales. Let’s put it this fashion: they didn’t hurt one another in any respect.
Massive marketing campaigns paved the way for opening weekend
While “Barbenheimer” benefited enormously from the proliferation of memes, each “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” relied on all-out marketing attacks.
The “Gladiator II” campaign included all the pieces from Airbnb’s much-discussed cross-promotion with the real Colosseum in Rome to concurrently broadcast a one-minute trailer on over 4,000 TV networks, radio stations and digital platforms.
The “Wicked” attack went even further: pink and green Starbucks “Wickedly Delicious” drinks, Stanley cups and Mattel dolls appeared (a few of which led to an ungainly memory). Its stars visited the Met Gala and the Olympic Games.
“For Wicked, we had about 400 brand partners from around the world, so the campaign was inescapable,” Orr said. “And our cast, led by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, worked very hard on it. They were everywhere. They did everything we asked them to do.”
Before the weekend, ticket sales were down about 11% in comparison with last 12 months and about 25% in comparison with pre-pandemic times. This meant that the week’s two major movies led to a much-needed revival in theaters. WITH “Moana 2” Premiering on Wednesday, Hollywood could also be historic Thanksgiving box office numbers.

Both movies improved on sluggish box office results
“Two strong releases this weekend are reinvigorating ticket sales that have fallen apart after a strong summer,” said David A. Gross, a movie consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment.
While “Wicked” will face direct competition from “Moana 2,” it appears to be higher positioned for an extended and lucrative theatrical run than “Gladiator II.” While some have panned “Wicked” for being an extended film, clocking in at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it received mostly excellent reviews. Audiences gave it an “A” grade on CinemaRating. The reception of “Wicked” was so great that Oscar forecasters expect it to be a contender for, amongst others, the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Producers, perhaps sensing successful, also decided to separate “Wicked” into two parts. Part two, already shot, shall be released in November next 12 months. Each “Wicked” installation cost roughly $150 million to create.
“Gladiator II” also received good reviews, especially for Washington’s charismatic performance. Audience performance was weaker, nevertheless, with ticket buyers giving it a “B” on CinemaRating. However, the film will partially compensate for this with solid foreign sales. It was launched in multiple overseas markets every week ago and has already raised $165.5 million worldwide.
Taking third place over the weekend was “Red One,” Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans’ holiday movie-turned-action movie. In its second week of release, Amazon’s MGM Studios release grossed $13.3 million, bringing its two-week global gross to $117 million. At $250 million, “Red One” is the biggest failure of the season, though Amazon could recoup some value if it becomes more popular once streaming begins.

Final national data shall be published on Monday. According to Comscore, estimated ticket sales from Friday through Sunday in U.S. and Canadian theaters:
1. “Wicked” – $114 million.
2. “Gladiator II” – $55.5 million.
3. “Red” – $13.3 million.
4. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor-Spy-Killer” – $5.1 million.
5. “Venom: The Last Dance” – $4 million.
6. “The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever” – $3.5 million.
7. “The Heretic” – $2.2 million.
8. “Wild Robot” – $2 million.
9. “Smile 2” – $1.1 million.
10. “Real Pain” – $1.1 million.
Film
Kerry Washington debuts in action as a mother ride on “Shadow Force” with Omar Syre
Forget about one list of action or overloaded my mother’s trail. “Force Shadow” gives us something that we rarely see: a black woman with a weapon in one hand and a motherly instinct in the opposite. In his debut, Kerry Washington, together with SYRA SY, provides fresh dynamics, which again defines what it means to guard and ensure-on the screen and beyond.
“So it was really great to have this new chapter in my library, in which I try to save my son with my husband, and we save our son,” she added, describing this role as “an exciting forward move” in her story as an actress.
In this full thriller Washington and Sy, they play in Kyrah and Issac, two former international special forces officers who fall in love and get off the online to guard their son. Starring Da’vine Joy Randolph and Method Man and produced by Washington and Sterling K. Brown, “Shadow Force” appears to be a modern, black family return of the classic love history “Bonnie and Clyde”.
Sy shouldn’t be foreign to the genre, appearing in the productions of action such as “Lupine” and “The Killer”. However, he says that this film made him take into consideration his experience as the daddy of a five -person screen.
I assumed my life was complicated, but after this film I spotted that it was not complicated – he concluded.
Washington, who’s the mother of 4 children who deliberately holds in the focal point, says that this role helped her see the balance that each one parents must navigate between being strong and loving, protective and care. We saw the star “Scandal”, which repaired Unfixable on heels. But he examines the nuances of contemporary parenting, avoiding missiles, balancing the emotional work of motherhood with the physicality of survival.
“Everyone who is the native parent is bad donkeys,” she said. “We will always balance the need to be fierce, strong and brave and go to the world to protect our children, with the need to be present, loving, generous and warm.”

Paying attention to the balance that she and the characters of Syne offer one another, raising her son, Washington explained: “Such is parenting in many ways.”
“Not all are trained mercenaries who kill people on life, so the circumstances look different, but we are all in our parenthood, we really try to balance this courage with this love.”
In addition to exciting action scenes and thrilling jokes, “Shadow Force” accommodates a layered story that fully reflects the size of black parenting.
Watch Shadow Force in cinemas today.
(Tagstranslat) black parenting
Film
“One of the greatest actors in history”: Spike Lee praises Denzel and Drops trailer of the new movie Together
There are few dynamic duets in Hollywood that require attention like Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Many of us still resemble the electric sense of watching “Got Game” or “Malcolm X” and about how their good history has transported us to a different place and time.
Now fans of the best filmmaker from Brooklyn and Money are gaining their very own Mount Vernon, they not must wait for fresh inspiration.
This week, Lee divided for the first time into the “highest 2 lowest”, his new thriller with Washington, which also includes $ AP Rocky, Jeffrey Wright, Lachanze, and even the Ice Spice camera. He wrote on Instagram:
“I know that you waited” Hella Long “, and here is the trailer will give a teaser (finally) to 5. Return D and Lee-Otwywy Street 2 lowest. I da Washington/Lees Family Truth, Ruth. Ya-dig? Sho-Nuff. Simple up (fire) “
The mysterious trailer plays on the hit of James Brown “The Big Payback”, and Denzel Washington talks a few warning about the pursuit of money: “Can you deal with it? All the money is not good.”
IN Last performance In Anthony’s Carmelo Podcastie, “19:00 in Brooklyn” Lee suggested the creation of a movie, not revealing an excessive amount of.
“Denzel plays a music tycoon known as the best ears in the industry – and there is a kidnapping,” Lee said. The film is a reinterpretation of Lee in the classic “High and low” by Akira Kurosawa from 1963.
The film, produced by the iconic favorites A24 Studio, will definitely generate noise in theaters, and when Apple TV+will hit. His release appears amongst the growing expectations for one more known project Duo Black Filmmaking Duo-Ryan Coogler and “Sinners” by Michael B. Jordan.
“It’s as if we were outside in the garden … it’s amazing! Amazing,” Lee said, Praining Coogler and Jordan. “They do their job.”
Lee had nothing but Washington, saying Carmelo that their relationship was an actual creative blessing.

“This is a blessing,” he said, serious about their ten-year partnership, including “Mo ‘Better Blues” and “Inside Man”. “I am blessed that I work with one of the greatest actors in history.”
Lee also shared that “the highest 2 lowest” was invited to be shown at the Cannes film festival – on a major date: May 19. This is the same day “To The Right Thing” of the premiere in Cannes in 1989, in addition to the birthday of Malcolm X.
“I believe in numerology. It’s special for me,” Lee said.
“I am very pleased with the way the film has come up with, and I can’t wait to share it with the world.”
Check the trailer “top 2 lowest” below.

to
Film
Trump threatened 100% tariff in a film made outside the USA. Here’s what we know
President Donald Trump looks at Hollywood at the next round of tariffs, threatening to download all movies produced outside the US 100%.
At the weekend, Trump accused other countries of “theft of film abilities” of the USA and said that he authorized the US trade and US trade representative to instantly start the strategy of implementing this recent import tax on all foreign movies. But further details or dates haven’t been delivered. And the White House confirmed that no final decisions were made from Monday.
Later Trump said that he would meet with industry directors about this proposal, but many remain unclear as to how you may even implement import tax on complex, international productions.
If they’re imposed, experts warn that such a tariff would dramatically raise the costs of making movies. This uncertainty can place film creators suspended, like other industries which have recently been caught on the sight of today’s ongoing industrial wars.
Unlike other sectors, which were recently addressed to tariffs, movies transcend physical goods, questioning the greater consequences of mental property. Here’s what we know.
Why does Trump threaten this steep film tariff?
Trump refers to fears related to national security, justification, which is similarly used to impose import taxes in some countries and a variety of goods specific to the sector.
On Sunday evening post On its Social Social Trump social networking platform, the American film industry “dies for a very fast death” because other countries offer “all kinds of encouragement” to drag out movies from the USA
Trump previously expressed concern about the production of movies abroad. And in recent years, American film and tv production has been difficult between Covid-19 pandemic failures, Hollywood Guild Strikes from 2023 and up to date fires in the Los Angeles region. Motivation programs have also been inspired for a very long time where movies are shot each abroad and in the USA, and more production leaves California to states similar to Georgia and New Mexico-also countries similar to Canada.
But unlike other sectors directed until recently imposed Trump tariffs, the American film industry currently has a industrial deficit, which is in favor of the USA.
In cinemas, movies produced by America predominantly dominate the domestic market. Data from the Motorcyclist Association also show that American movies have earned $ 22.6 billion for export and $ 15.3 billion in 2023 – with the last report noted that these movies “generated a positive trade balance in every main market in the world” for the USA for the USA
Last yr, international markets accounted for over 70% of total money revenues in Hollywood, notes Heeyon Kim, assistant to the strategy professor at Cornell University. He warns that tariffs and potential retaliation from other countries affecting this industry may result in billions of dollars of lost earnings and 1000’s of jobs.
“For me (this) there is simply no sense,” she said, adding that such tariffs can “undermine the flowering part of the American economy differently.”
The international Alliance of theatrical Stage Employees who represents the behind -the -scenes entertainment employees in the USA and Canada, on Monday said that Trump “correctly recognized” “urgent threat from international competition”, which is facing the American film and tv industry. But the union said that as a substitute, she really useful the administration of the implementation of the federal encouragement of production on production and other provisions regarding the “leveling of the pitch”, while not harming the industry.

How could a tax on foreign movies work?
This is no person.
“Traditional tariffs apply to physical imports cutting boundaries, but film production includes primarily digital services-photographing, editing and post-production work that takes place electronically,” notes Ann Koppuzha, a lawyer and lecturer in business law at the Leave School of Business University at the University of Santa Clara.
Koppuzha said that film production is more like a used service that could be taxed, not a cell. But taxes require confirmation by the Congress, which could also be a challenge even in the case of a republican majority.
Making a film can be an incredibly complex – and international process. Both large and small movies include production in the US and other countries. For example, large budget movies, similar to the upcoming “Mission: Impossible-The Final Reconing”, are shot throughout the world.
US studies often shoot abroad because tax incentives may help in production costs. But the general tariff around the world can discourage or limit options, she said Kim – hurting each Hollywood movies and global industry that help to create them.
“When you create this kind of vocabulary, you lack any nuances of how production works,” added Steven Schiffman, a longtime industry veteran and assistant professor at Georgetown University. “Sometimes it is enough to go to the location, because to be honest, it is too expensive to try to create on the sound stage”
Schiffman points to popular titles shot outside the USA – similar to the “Harry Potter” Warner Bros series, which was almost entirely shot in Great Britain “the costs of making that would literally produce these films under the proposed tariff,” he said.

Can film tariffs have repercussions on one other mental property?
In general, experts warn that the perspective of tariffing foreign movies falls into unexplored waters.
“There is simply no precedent or the sense of using tariffs for this type of creative services,” said Koppuzha. And although the Trump administration can extend similar threats to other types of mental property, similar to music, “they would encounter the same practical obstacles.”
But if it succeeds, some also warn of potential retaliation. Kim points to “amounts” that some countries had to assist in increasing their national movies, ensuring that, for instance, they get a few of the theater screens. Many of them have reduced or suspended such amounts over the years in the name of an open trade-but if the US imposes a wide tariff to all foreign movies, such amounts could return, “which will hurt a Hollywood film or any intellectual property,” Kim said.
And although the US domination in the film means “there are fewer substitutes”, Schiffman notes that other types of entertainment – similar to game development – could see related effects on the road.
Others emphasize the potential consequences of international cooperation.
“Creative distribution of content requires thoughtful economic approaches that recognize how modern story story flows over the boundaries,” notes Frank Albarrella, the American leader of the media and telecommunications sector at KPMG. “The question hanging on every screen: can we better cultivate American history through intelligent, targeted incentives, and maybe inadvertently force the audience to pay for more for what can become a narrower creative landscape?”
(Tagstranslate) @AP (T) Entertainment