Silas Sheepsbutt Ramsbottom and the AVL have been unable to apprehend Gru after he stole the cash from the box office last weekend. What’s worse, he snuck in under their noses and did it again, and made the top spot for the second weekend in a row. What’s worse, Gru beat out one of the big budget summer blockbusters, Pacific Rim. I guess Gru doesn’t too much care if we stop the Kaiju and humanity survives…

#1 - Despicable Me 2

Budget: $76 Million
Totals: $44.7 Million Weekend Gross / $229.2 Million Domestic Total / $243.2 Million Foreign Total / $472.4 Million Worldwide Total
Week…

As readers of this site know, Star Trek Into Darkness opened domestically and internationally late Spring and has earned over $443 million dollars. This is a success for Paramount, albeit a modest one. It’s not a flop, by any measure… but it’s not a home run, either. It’s a solid double or triple, but Paramount (like all studios do with summer blockbusters) was swinging for the fences. So, what’s next? Well, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, there are some “known knowns” and “known unknowns.” Let’s cover what we know, and spend some time theorizing what comes next.

Yeah, seeing how this film is…

To find out whether we survive the monster apocalypse coming sometime in the near future, you’ll need to see Guillermo del Toro’s newest film, Pacific Rim. I’m not going to spoil it too much for you, but let’s just say that there are monsters and robots and lots of big stupid summer action.

New This Weekend

Pacific Rim — PG-13

I was a little worried about this film at first. It looked for all the world during the first phase of the promotional campaign like a big stupid action movie — all fluff and no substance. The tide of the campaign slowly began to turn more toward the human…

The very end of the super-duper 2004 special edition of Return of the Jedi finds Luke gazing out to see Obi-Wan smiling, Yoda smiling, Anakin smiling,and the audience freaking out. Instead of Sebastian Shaw as an old Anakin, Hayden Christensen suddenly shimmered into view, smirking awkwardly, complete with his big Jedi mullet. And the haters began to hate. But, now with Episode VII in full development, complete with casting calls, there’s paradoxically one person I don’t think they can leave out, and that person is Hayden Christensen! Here’s why the ghost of Hayden must…

Read The Rest

This is by no means a compressive list, indeed I only have two titles here for you. Someday when I have more time, or MovieByte is a bigger deal and has more writers, and I can dedicate a writer to keep an eye on new streaming titles, I’d like to do a feature every week highlighting new titles available for streaming and download. But for now, I just wanted to highlight these two titles that I noticed. If you can’t or don’t want to make it out to the cinema this week/weekend, one of these two titles might be a fun one to catch.

The Host

iTunes | Amazon Instant

This is an extremely…

CBS has extended its multi-year licensing agreement for its library content with Netflix. Under the revised deal, new titles such as L.A. Complex, 4400, and CSI: NYwill be available to Netflix subscribers. The agreement also includes several CBS series already on Netflix including Jericho, Medium, andFlashpoint, along with episodes from all generations of Star Trek as well as Twin Peaks.

Good news! The more content available on Netflix, the happier a camper I will be. I would really like to get all my content via Netflix and Hulu, I’m tired of these companies and providers that draf…

Responding to reports of a nascent boycott against the upcoming movie version of his beloved 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game because of his stated opposition to same-sex marriage, author Orson Scott Card has released a statement exclusively to EW.

...

Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.

With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to…

Disney’s The Lone Ranger has ended up in the box office stockades, with the studio and even producer Jerry Bruckheimer facing a substantial loss after the meek opening of the Johnny Depp-Armie Hammer Western in North America and in its first overseas markets.

Just as Lone Ranger began rolling out in theaters July 3, Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz predicted a $100 million write-down for Disney. Now, box office experts and rival studio insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter that the loss could approach or even surpass $150 million based on final opening numbers, although they add that…

Well, it looks like they’re doing that thing where shaky camera and quick cuts takes the place of good choreography. But this is just one short sequence so maybe I’m wrong… I sure do prefer it when I can follow the action and I’m not confused by the editing and the shakiness. As it is, everything is moving so fast, both the speed and the cuts, that I can’t even tell what they’re jumping over. But, at least the music sounds interesting, right?

Obviously, we’ve already had a look at parts of this scene in the various trailers and teasers that have come out, this is obviously a bit more of a…