Month: February 2023

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania led the domestic box office with a $32.2 million, despite suffering one of the worst second-week declines in recent years with a 70% drop from its stellar $105.5 million opening weekend. The Marvel film fell behind every other comparable in its second-weekend performance: 2015’s Ant-Man dropped 56% in its sophomore week, while 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp fell 62% at the same point.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania fell further behind in its second frame than other Marvel titles including Thor: Love and Thunder (-68%), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (-67%), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (-63%).

Universal’s Cocaine Bear took second place with $23 million from 3,534 screens in its opening weekend. The horror-comedy surpassed expectations thanks to social media buzz created by Universal’s marketing campaign. Lionsgate’s Jesus Revolution brought in $15.52 million from 2,475 sites in its theatrical debut, with the film scoring an A+ CinemaScore rating.  Finally Avatar: The Way of Water finished in fourth place with $4.7 million from 2,495 locations in its eleventh weekend in release, brining its total to $664 million domestically . Avatar: The Way of Water is now the third highest-grossing film of all time globally with a worldwide total of $2.26 billion.

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The Emmy-winning HBO drama ‘Succession‘ will end with Season 4.  Creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong confirmed that the upcoming fourth season will be its final run on the premium cable network. ‘Succession‘ earned the Emmy Award for best drama series for both its second and third seasons. The cast includes Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Nicholas Braun, Kieran Culkin, Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook, who have collected numerous wins among them.

Armstrong told the New Yorker that “there’s a promise in the title of Succession. I’ve never thought this could go on forever. The end has always been kind of present in my mind. From season two, I’ve been trying to think: Is it the next one, or the one after that, or is it the one after that?  I got together with a few of my fellow writers before we started the writing of season four, in about November, December, 2021, and I sort of said, ‘Look, I think this maybe should be it. But what do you think?’ And we played out various scenarios: We could do a couple of short seasons, or two more seasons. Or we could go on for ages and turn the show into something rather different, and be a more rangy, freewheeling kind of fun show, where there would be good weeks and bad weeks. Or we could do something a bit more muscular and complete, and go out sort of strong. And that was definitely always my preference.”

Armstrong then added: “I feel deeply conflicted. I quite enjoy this period when we’re editing — where the whole season is there — but we haven’t put it out yet. I like the interregnum. And I also quite liked the period where me and my close collaborators knew that this was probably it, or this was it, but hadn’t had to face up to it in the world. It’s been a difficult decision, because the collaborations — with the cast, with my fellow writers, with Nick Britell and Mark Mylod and the other directors — they’ve just been so good. And I feel like I’ve done the best work I can do, working with them. And HBO has been generous and would probably have done more seasons, and they have been nice about saying, ‘It’s your decision.’ That’s nice, but it’s also a responsibility in the end — it feels quite perverse to stop doing it.”

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