film festival Archives

Dec22024 by cineverseNo Comments

Sex Lives of College Girls’: How Does Reneé Rapp’s Leighton Murray Leave the Show?

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By Rachel Seo According To The variety SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” now streaming on Max. Fare thee well, Leighton Murray. Following the July announcement that Reneé Rapp would leave “The Sex Lives of College Girls” in Season 3, the Max show has finally revealed how her character, über-rich legacy student Leighton Murray, departs from Essex College. In the Season 3 premiere, Leighton discovers that the high-level mathematics class she was set to take is canceled due to a lack of participants. Her math professor tells her that though she can’t take the course at Essex, she can bus to a nearby college to do so. But an unpleasant incident with a public transit plebeian l...

Dec12024 by cineverseNo Comments

Deadpool & Wolverine’ Cut X-Rated Disney Diss Revealed: Script Still Has ‘Mickey Mouse C—‘ Joke

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By William Earl According To The variety Disney‘s R-rated action-comedy “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a box office juggernaut this summer, and the creative team applauded the company for letting them poke plenty of jokes at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the actors’ personal lives and many other frequently taboo topics. But there was one line that Ryan Reynolds was asked not to say by the company. In interviews ahead of the film’s release, Reynolds confirmed that one Deadpool joke was left out of the movie. Disney’s FYC online portal has released the official script, in which the original joke is written. The moment takes place after Deadpool learns that Magneto is already dead, and he breaks the fourth wall in anger: “FUCK! What we can’t even affor...

Dec12024 by cineverseNo Comments

Is Hollywood’s Addiction to Sequels Cannibalizing Its Future?

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By Owen Gleiberman According To The variety The other day, as I was looking up a data point on boxofficemojo.com, I noticed something that shocked me: The top 10 grossing movies of 2024, from “Inside Out 2” to “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” are all sequels. Every goddamn one of them. “Wicked” and “Moana 2” will soon bring break into the top 10 — and though “Wicked” isn’t technically a sequel, when you consider how many people have seen the original Broadway show, the truth is that the movie version, as much as any sequel, is a kind-of-the-same-but-also-different follow-up to a gargantuan known quantity. It’s all part of déjà vu entertainment culture. The reason I was shocked by the fact that I could be shocked by this is that Hollywood has been famously awash in seque...

Dec12024 by cineverseNo Comments

Box Office: ‘Moana 2’ Keeps Making Waves With Biggest Black Friday Ever

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By J. Kim Murphy According To The variety The big splash continues for Disney’s “Moana 2,” which earned a massive $54.5 million on Black Friday from 4,200 locations, shattering the $34.1 million record that was notched by “Frozen II” in 2019. Not only that, but the film has now earned $140 million and already surged past the five-day holiday weekend record by “Frozen II” ($125 million) — and it didn’t even need Saturday or Sunday grosses to do it. It’s a welcome return to the top for Walt Disney Animation, particularly after turning in two box office duds (“Strange World” and “Wish”) over the past two Novembers — and it’s strong evidence that the company’s family fare is still a superlative theatrical draw. “Moana 2” was originally conceived as a Disney+ series, but the studio’s deci...

Nov132024 by cineverseNo Comments

Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Red One’ Targets $30 Million Box Office Bounty

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By Rebecca Rubin According To The variety Will “Red One,” a Christmas action-comedy where Dwayne Johnson plays Santa’s head of security, bring movie theaters a box office bounty? The film, from Amazon MGM, is targeting $30 million to $35 million from 4,032 locations in its first weekend of release. Independent tracking services are mixed, suggesting that “Red One” could earn as little as $25 million and as much as $40 million in its debut. Ticket sales on the higher end of that range would be decent for an original holiday film. However, “Red One” cost $250 million before accounting for global marketing efforts. So either way, the movie will need positive word-of-mouth to portend a long life in theaters and justify its cost. Of course, Amazon MGM cares about much more than box off...

Nov122024 by cineverseNo Comments

Gladiator II’ Review: Paul Mescal Is a Pensive Avenger in Ridley Scott’s Serviceable but Far From Great Sequel

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By Owen Gleiberman According To The variety It may not be high praise, but “Gladiator II,” the sequel to Ridley Scott’s landmark slash-and-burn ancient Rome spectacular, is probably about as good a movie as we could have expected it to be. Written by David Scarpa (“Napoleon”) and directed by Scott (who, at 86, hasn’t lost his touch for the peacock pageantry of teeming masses thirsting for blood), the movie is a solid piece of neoclassical popcorn — a serviceable epic of brutal warfare, Colosseum duels featuring lavish decapitations and beasts both animal and human, along with the middlebrow “decadence” of palace intrigue. The whole film is tailored to the next-generation specifications of its star, Paul Mescal, who plays a descendant of Russell Crowe’s Maximus (I won’t say more)...

Nov112024 by cineverseNo Comments

Mattel’s ‘Wicked’ Movie Dolls Mistakenly List Porn Site on Packaging

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By Michaela Zee According To The variety Something wicked this way comes on the packaging of Mattel‘s “Wicked” dolls. There’s a website listed on the toy box, but instead of linking to the webpage for the movie adaptation of the Tony-winning musical, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, Mattel has mistakenly listed the URL to a pornographic website. The film’s official website is WickedMovie.com, but the address listed on the plastic packaging for the special edition dolls, created in partnership with Universal Pictures, is written as Wicked.com. The latter website directs to a page that requires users to be 18 years or older to enter. A description of Wicked Pictures on its website reads: “Established in Canoga Park, California on March 1st, 1993, Wicked Pi...