The future is here, at the box office anyway, and it doesn’t look great. It looks a little like a third world country in fact. Back here in the present however, a stripper, a small time drug deal, and two teenagers are going to rake in a little bit of cash from the onscreen drug deal. And then of course, Dusty Crophopper isn’t really going to get off the ground.

#1 — Elysium

Budget: $115 M
Totals: $30.4 M, Weekend / $10.9 M, Foreign / $41.3 M, Worldwide
Weekend 1

Looking at the disparity between the budget, and what this film brought in this weekend, I have a bad feeling about this. The…

When your first film is a major commercial and critical success like District 9, seeds of anticipation and worry are planted in the collective mind of your audience. Questions start crowding to the surface: “Is this guy for real? Is he a one-hit wonder? Can he do it again?” Needless to say: Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium had ginormous shoes to fill, serious expectations to meet, and a lot to live up to. Did it succeed? Yes… and no. Mostly no.

It’s Better Up There

The year is 2154, and society is divided into two classes: the wealthy, who live on a man-made habitat called Elysium, and the…

Up-charged tickets made up a full 71 percent of Avatar‘s 2009 opening-weekend gross of $77 million, and Alice in Wonderland (70 percent),TRON: Legacy (82 percent), and The Final Destination (70 percent) also got major boosts. Animated family movies have never done as well in the format, but even Toy Story 3 managed 60 percent in 2010. This summer a different tale has unfolded: During the 30-day span from June 21 to July 21, 3-D business hit a new low three separate times (that’s since 2009, when this new golden age began).

Only 31 percent of Monsters University‘s June 21 opening-weekend…

Take a look at which films were at the top of the box office this past weekend, and TJ’s opinion on them, including ‘2 Guns’, ‘The Wolerine’, and ‘The Smurfs 2’. Then James Cameron is upping the ‘Avatar’ sequel count to three, making four ‘Avatar’ films in total when it’s all said and done. It’s kind of a head scratcher really, is there that much momentum? Then it’s time to get Bourne Again (ugh)! And Christopher McQuarries mission, should he choose to accept it (which he has) is to make a great film of ‘Mission Impossible 5’. Tom Hiddleston confirms Loki will not be in ‘The Avengers: The Age of Ultron’. ‘2 Guns’ was reviewed in written form by TJ, then Chad and TJ talked about it on The MovieByte Podcast. The film can’t be recommended for reasons TJ goes in to. The threat of a 5th ‘Indiana Jones’ film is still looming overhead like a great storm cloud on the horizon. A strange looking film, and a strange trailer about a guy falling in love with his Operating System is on deck. But TJ is not completely willing to write it off. And of course, find out what to see this weekend!

The sea is full of monsters, strippers, runaways, and drug dealers are teaming up, Matt Damon is trying to free us from a post-apocalyptic nightmarish future, planes are soaring through the air, and trailers are getting voiceovers this weekend! It’s a big one.

New This Weekend!

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters — PG

It’s hard for me to have a good opinion since I still haven’t even seen the first one, a problem I intend to rectify this weekend because it does look interesting and I want to come to this film with the proper context. I won’t get to see this film until next weekend probably,…

While we all speculate on who will play the next Batman/Bruce Wayne, there’s one other character that is said to appear in Zack Snyder’s follow up to MAN OF STEEL, the untitled SUPERMAN/BATMAN film, and that’s Lex Luthor. Portrayed by Gene Hackman in the early Donner films and then by Kevin Spacey in Bryan Singer’s SUPERMAN RETURNS, the door is now open to bring in some fresh, bald blood and two names are popping up on the radar of late. The first is none other than Walter White himself, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston. His name has been circulating thanks to El Mayimbe at Latino Review and,…

There’s no question that Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 film, ‘Back to the Future’ is a classic. And what’s interesting now is that it is almost 30 years old, which is about how much time there was between 1955 and 1985, the two time periods the film takes place in. Obviously aging makeup was used on Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas Wilson when they were in 1985.

And now we can actually see how well the makeup artists did at making them look 30 years older than they were. I’ve found this comparison picture floating around and wanted to share it with you.

It appears the makeup artists may…

So, my wife may be the Shakespeare nut in my household, but I have to say I’m looking forward to seeing this one. This thing looks massive, and indeed, it runs over 500 minutes. It’s a BBC series adapted from four Shakespeare plays, Richard II, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. And it has some pretty big names in it too. Sam Mendes is the producer behind the project, and it stars Tom hiddleston, Patrick Stewart, Jeremy Irons, and Ben Wishaw in primary roles.

The word Epic may be extremely overused these days, but I think the word can be pretty fairly applied to this one.

This being a…

Ridley Scott seems to be somewhat legendary, and he did make the likes of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Robin Hood to name a couple. That is why I’m interested in this film, although it does look pretty heavy and intense, and I’m not yet quite sure what it’s about exactly. But I’ll be keeping my eye on it.

The film stars Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz, and it will hit theaters on October 25^th.