American Sniper was expected to do well this weekend after an impressive limited release, but not this well: The Clint Eastwood-directed war film took in an estimated $90.2 million—and broke a few records.

The Oscar-nominated film set a new record for a January opening by taking in $30.5 million on Friday, breaking the mark set by Cloverfield ($17.2 million on Jan. 18, 2008). January is a notoriously slow month at the box office, so Sniper‘s debut is particularly eye-opening.

Welp, I guess this proves the U.S. is still thoroughly self absorbed.

This is the point at which I realize I never got around to writing my written review of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and realize that I have not seen it recently enough to do so. That’s sort of frustrating. Make no mistake, it is always my intention to write a review of every film I see. I am not always able to get around to doing it.

Luckily, I did write a review of the first Hunger Games film. It was very early in the days of MovieByte when these films first began making their appearance. Joe and I also talked about it on episode 7 of The MovieByte Podcast. The first installment was…

You guys remember Wreck-it Ralph? It was a film by Disney Animation Studios in 2012, and in many ways very much in the same line of work as the latest offering from Disney, Big Hero 6. I don’t mean that in terms of plot it is similar — indeed, it is very dissimilar in that way. What I do mean is that this is the new Walt Disney Animation Studios. I think we got a little hint of this with Bolt (2008), which was a surprisingly good film for what it was. Not on the same level as the latest three offerings from Disney by any stretch of the imagination, but quite good, in my estimation.

The…

Despite reuniting Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly twenty years after the fact, Universal’s “Dumb & Dumber To” took the weekend slot with an impressive $38 million; much higher than most original estimates that pegged the film for around a $25 million opening. And the number is a huge increase from the $16.3 million “Dumber & Dumber” grossed its opening weekend in 1994 (adjusted for inflation that’s about $31 million). Impressively, 47% of the audience was under the age of 25, which was a surprise since many thought this was a comedy that skewed much older to…

Interstellar may have also suffered from a foregone conclusion of presumed success while Big Hero 6 cruised into the top spot on a double-dose of brand goodwill.
“Christopher Nolan hasn’t missed and that creates massive expectations,” says BoxOffice.com’s chief analyst, Phil Contrino. “The Disney brand is so strong these days. And Big Hero 6 is a combination of Disney animation—which people go to see on reflex—combined with themes familiar to people who see Marvel films.”

According to several industry analysts who requested anonymity, however, Interstellar’s second-place finish can be…

Denzel Washington is an interesting actor. He is the son of a Pentecostal minister, but describes himself as a bit rebellious in his teenage years. Then he had a religious experience which he describes as being filled with the Holy Spirit ¹, after which time he has been a devout Christian.

Growing up — and even now — I sort of got the impression that his Christianity is often called into question by the more conservative element of the Christian community simply because of the sheer number of R rated films he has been in. From my perspective now, this is silly. In fact, many good and highly…

What’s a bad thing is that Hollywood producers now know that American Christians feel that way about their faith—that Christians so desperately want to participate in the mainstream, that they’re tired of having sanctioned music that’s like other music and movies like other movies and politicians like other politicians but always still being on the outside, that Christians just want to feel identified without having to carve out little alcoves or niche markets that exist alongside the Big Boys. And, now that they know it—that is, now that they know they can make back 5x their initial…

Marvel’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy” was number one for the fourth weekend (though not consecutively) and could only take it $10.7 million. That’s a pretty low figure for the #1 slot, but indicative of the slow weekend, not the movie. And besides, everything’s coming up roses for Marvel’s movie. The picture has now made $294.5 million domestically, which means that coveted $300 million mark will be surpassed either next weekend or the one afterwards. The movie has grossed $586 million worldwide in six weeks of release and has hit a lot of milestones this weekend.

There will come a time when…

Labor Day weekend tends to be slow at the box office, and accordingly, no new film managed to break through to the top of the list of biggest earning films this weekend. Mostly everyone is doing something other than going to the movies, but those that did go to the theatre chose one of the biggest movies of the year.

Disney and Marvel closed off the summer on a high note, with “Guardians Of The Galaxy” returning to number one and earning the title of highest grossing film of 2014 domestically. The superhero flick took $17 million at home, and continues to make serious coin, with the…