Matthew Monagle

It feels like we’ve been watching the same six or seven movies shift places on the charts for weeks now, which makes what happened this weekend such a breath of fresh air. With four new releases all cracking the charts, we’ve at least got a little bit of variety in the titles we’ll be discussing, and no The Emoji Movie near the list. I’ll put that down as a win in my book any day of the week. Here’s the estimated box office grosses as of Sunday afternoon:

It’s hard to imagine Hollywood without Steven Spielberg. Spielberg’s career as a filmmaker serves as a perfect parallel for contemporary film history. From his humble beginnings outside the collection of University of Southern California wunderkinds to his commercial dominance at the multiplex, Spielberg did more than just make movies that wowed millions of people around the world: he also disrupted an entire industry, changing the way Hollywood approached filmmaking and establishing the format for blockbuster films that persists to this day.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a middle-aged white comedian sits down for an interview and starts complaining about the things he can’t say onstage. This isn’t exactly a new complaint in the stand-up industry. For years, the old guard of legendary comedians have argued that modern audiences are too sensitive these days to the detriment of comedy; and sure, while there are certainly those who look for offense in any commentary  —  no matter how benign  —  it’s more than a little frustrating to hear some comedians claim that their decades-old material isn’t funny anymore.

Here’s a funny thought for you: someone is about to be swayed into seeing Blade Runner 2049 by this new batch of character posters. I’ve written before that Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t really have much left to prove to audiences  —  you’re likely already in or out, and have been for quite some time  —  but that doesn’t apply to everyone. Somewhere, on some website, somebody is going to look at this international poster of Ryan Gosling and think to themselves for the first time, oh, yeah, I think this might actually be a movie I want to see. Job well done, graphic designers.

Sad news today out of Mexico, where it appears a location scout for the popular Netflix series Narcos was found shot to dead earlier this week. Carlos Muñoz Portal, who had previously worked on high-profile projects such as Sicario and Spectre, was reportedly looking at possible locations for the upcoming season of the Netflix series, which is said to be focusing on the infamous Juarez cartel. Despite the lag between when Portal’s body was discovered and when the news was reported by industry publications, little progress has been made in providing any firm details on the crime.

We’re only months away from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and already, it’s beginning to feel like a film that will be unbearably sad for all the wrong reasons. The loss of Carrie Fisher will be made fresh by her appearance in the upcoming film, and seeing her alongside Mark Hamill for the last time  —  one assumes, anyways  —  will be a touching moment for any fans of the Star Wars franchise. No less touching will be the opportunity for Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd to share the screen with her one last time. All in all, The Last Jedi will be the ultimate Star Wars family reunion, biological and otherwise.

In a weekend where no new releases cracked the Top 10 and six movies maintained their exact spot in the rankings, you’d think there would be less news worth sharing. That isn’t quite the case. Sure, as sites like Box Office Mojo have noted, this is a historically bad Labor Day Weekend for movies in theaters, but it’s also a uniquely static weekend for releases, one that even required me to create a second chart just to capture all the data points. Let’s start as we always do, with the box office grosses as of Sunday afternoon:

Welcome to Augusts, where overall weekend grosses can decline for three consecutive weekends  —  $122, $116, and $95 million, respectively  —  and a new action-comedy can be the surprise winner of the weekend. Audiences might still be interested in creepy dolls, but it was a hyper-violent buddy film about professional killers that took home the gold. Here’s the box office projections, as of Sunday afternoon:

Today the world of comedy lost one of its brightest stars. Jerry Lewis was no stranger to controversy during his decades-long career, but his impact on both Hollywood and comedy in general cannot be denied. From his early days as Dean Martin’s partner-in-crime to his career-capping turn in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy  —  and countless box office success in the interim  —  Lewis’s impact on Hollywood will be a source of much discussion for years to come.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Uncharted fans have been looking forward to a movie adaptation of the blockbuster video game franchise for years. Heck, the rumors surrounding an Uncharted adaptation even predate our own movie archives; if you scroll all the way back, our first mention of the movie is five years ago, when David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg had already departed from the project. So when Sony finally decided to move forward with the project, fans were more than a little confused to hear that it was Tom Holland who would be playing Nathan Drake. Why go the prequel route when there’s so much established canon to explore?