By now you’ve heard the great news: Arrested Development is coming back. We have Netflix to thank for the returin of one of the funniest shows to grace our TV screens in a long time and that day of return is fast approaching.
To get things started off on the right foot, there’s a brand new teaser for the new, 15-episode, season of the show. In it you’ll see the entire Bluth family is back (as well as a host of other famous faces) and still, thank goodness, just as quirky and funny as ever.
As with House of Cards, Netflix will release all of the new episodes simultaneously on May 26. In the meantime, check out the teaser after the break.
When we need a good laugh around the office, or at home, we often watch one of two movies: Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. Both of these are highly amusing and also filled with action, great characters, extensive pop-culture references and excellent performances. Did we mention they’re also damn funny? They are.
So, when the team behind those two movies gets together to make a new one, we get very happy. The new one in question is The World’s End, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Rosamund Pike, it’s the the story of childhood friends who come together after 20 years to stage an epic pub crawl.
Of course, things do not go quite as planned. And thank goodness for that.
Check out the trailer after the break. Look for The World’s End to hit the U.S. on August 29th.
If you get the clumsy baseball references in the title than you get that this weekend was won by 42. The Jackie Robinson biopic earned an estimated $27+ Million, giving the film one of the strongest baseball movie debuts of all time. The film took advantage of perfect timing and well delivered advertising to get out of the gate strong. Despite the impending the parade of competition, the new baseball season should continue to allow the film to stay relevant for a few more weeks than it really should.
Bombing into second place is Scary Movie 5 which managed to pull in $15 Million, and providing tangible proof that no one cares about the spoof franchise any more. If any one is a victor in this instance it would be the Wayne’s Brothers. They conjured up the franchise with the first brilliant film, but eventually parted ways by the third film. The brothers Waynes got back into the horror spoof game earlier this year with A Haunted House, which shines an even larger light on Scary Movie 5‘s failure.
Sticking in third place is the newest hit from Dreamworks, The Croods. Easing a very light 36%, the film brought in another $13 Million giving the film a total haul of nearly $150 million, which is huge for a new animated IP from a studio with a mixed track record. There still remains scant children entertainment competition in the upcoming Box Office calender, so the film should still perform well in the coming weeks.
What can you say about The Hangover “franchise” that hasn’t already been said? Sure, it features an odd cast that for some reason clicks together very well, an absurd premise that for some reason works very well and many other elements that, on paper, should have probably made the first movie a flop — or at the very least relegated to DVD.
Well, as you know, that didn’t happen. In fact, the first one was a monster hit that spawned a sequel and made household names of its stars. And now, we’re in for the final chapter of the franchise: The Hangover Part 3.
The first full trailer has dropped today for the movie and it’s pretty much what you would expect. Although, that may have a lot to do with the fact that with this trailer, the marketing department is trying to give you more of the same to help you remember why you loved these movies in the first place. Expect some different trailers and such later on.
Meantime, check out this new one after the break. Look for The Hangover Part 3 to hit theaters on May 24th.
This weekend had the distinct feel of a throwback celebration with a Reboot-make, a re-release and a sequel to an 80′s iconic franchise inhabiting three of the top four positions.
Coming in at number one, with $26 Million, was the incredibly well advertised Evil Dead which played very strongly for an extreme horror film aimed squarely at a specific niche. Due, in part, to that specific audience target, the film’s reviews have been mixed and the word of mouth has been less than stellar on the whole. Still, the film plays very well to its target audience and with a big weekend under its belt will go into the books as a big win for all involved.
The next two spots ended up being an estimated tie between last weekend’s top two films. G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Croods. Both brought in an estimated $21.1 Million, with the tie break going to last weeks number 1 because the Rock is in that one and the main event at Wrestlemania this weekend.
Many TV series deserve to be canceled. Some don’t resonate with audiences or have unappealing characters or a ridiculous premise. Or, they just plain suck. Arrested Development is not one of those series.
Fortunately, even though it was initially canceled by Fox, the series has found a new lease on life at Netflix. And now, that lease is about to pay off for fans as Netflix has official announced the premiere date of Sunday, May 26th for all-new episodes of the show.
But wait, there’s more. Not only has the official premiere date been announced, Netflix has also decided to increase the number of episodes (which had started at 10 and was raised to 14 in January) to a new number: 15. All episodes of the new season will be available simultaneously on launch day, which is the same thing Netflix did with House of Cards.
“Arrested Development is now widely viewed as one of the top TV comedies of all time and Mitch Hurwitz is bringing it to Netflix in a brand new way, crafted for the on-demand generation that has come to discover the show in the years since it last appeared on TV,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix. “The highly anticipated return of this show is sure to make history all over again.”
Said Hurwitz, “Ted said that? Wow. Well don’t print this obviously, but he’s going to be immensely disappointed”. He then added that “in truth we are doing something very ambitious that can only be done with Netflix as partners and on their platform. Finally my simple wish for the show is coming true: that it be broadcast every second around the clock to every television, computer or mobile device in existence.”
I sense an Arrested Development binge session coming soon. Can’t Wait.
You know you have had a bad opening weekend when last year’s laughing-stock, John Carter, is looking at your totals and snickers.
Jack the Giant Slayer lead the way of a first week in March box office that came in like a limping lamb. The Bryan Singer directed film made a poor $28 Million over the weekend coming in over two million short of last year’s box office atom bomb.
If the top of the weekend releases was bad, the rest of the top ten was worse. Despite competition from two other new releases, the hit comedy Identity Thief still managed to hold onto second place with $9.7 million. That put the R-rated comedy over $100 million total and setting it on pace to be director Seth Gordon’s biggest hit yet, providing one of the few silver linings from this weekend.
We live in a glorious bubble of time. We know Anchorman 2 is going to come out, it has been green lit, it has begun production, and Will Ferrell is sporting a wicked ‘stache. The film exists on a pedestal of excitement that is likely not going to by the finished product. So for these fleeting few months the concept of Anchorman 2 is simply bliss.
Yet while we live in our cocoon anticipation, productions moves steadily on. Often times a new movie means new faces, and Deadline has the scoop on one very funny addition to the Anchorman 2 cast:
Paramount insiders tonight confirmed to me what Christina Applegate tweeted a few hours ago: “So excited Kristen Wiig has joined our cast forAnchorman 2.” The sequel formally titled Anchorman: The Legend stars Will Ferrell and Steve Carell plus Wiig in what the studio says is a “new role”.
Kristen Wiig was very much the Will Ferrell of her SNL generation, often stealing skits just by being on stage, so to see her enter the Anchorman world makes a ton of sense. Wiig has been successfully making the jump from the ‘not ready for prime-time players’ to big screen in the last few years, and landing a new role among such a star-studded cinematic comedy event only further establishes her rising star.
YouTube channel Geek & Sundry has announced two new shows premiering next week. On Tuesday, November 13th, the satirical sci-fi comedy Space Janitors begins. The show follows two custodians, Mike and Darby, who do their best to keep things neat and tidy aboard an evil space station that’s in the middle of an intergalactic war.
Then on Thursday, November 15thOn The Table will fill the tabletop gaming void left by Geek & Sundry’s TableTop, which is going on hiatus until January. Hosted by Warren Johnston, On The Table offers gaming fans the latest news and gives them a chance to submit their own tips, videos and more.
Check out teasers for both shows after the break and be sure to visit Geek and Sundry’s channel for more nerdy goodness.
It was a strong weekend for Wreck-It Ralph as the Disney animated feature brought in half a million during its opening frame. However, before we get to that some house cleaning from last week.
We missed out on an opportunity to celebrate Argo‘s rise to the number one spot last weekend. Ben Affleck’s film had a solid debut, but it was on the low-end of expectations. In the weeks following, Argo has been holding incredibly well for a movie that is playing on so many screens. Culminating in finally taking the top spot last weekend in an otherwise weak weekend.
How did it do this weekend? Well since it wasn’t number one again you will have to wait to find out. The winner this weekend was Wreck-It Ralph, another Disney animated feature that proves there is still some magic left in the mouse house proper. Coming out with nearly $50 Million, Ralph managed one of Disney’s biggest animated openings. Of course even those lofty numbers pale in comparison to the PIXAR average, but from the studios that brought us Home on the Range, this is great business.
If it weren’t for the fact that writer/director Martin McDonagh is every bit as handsome as his favorite leading man, you’d think he was going down the Woody Allen vanity route, casting Colin Farrell as his obvious surrogate—a screenwriter named Marty M—in his second feature film, Seven Psychopaths. Fellow Irishman Farrell was also the star of McDonagh’s 2008 sleeper hit In Bruges, which also wove its story around a band of incompetent low-level criminals who accidentally get into the crosshairs of a big time criminal sociopath, played very winningly in that first film by a rewardingly cast-against-type Hugh Grant.
The tone of Psychopaths feels very much the same as Bruges in that Farrell again plays a likable fuck-up (this time an alcoholic screenwriter who is finding it hard to produce a follow-up to his first success) whose loser friend Billy (Sam Rockwell, playing very much TO type here) makes his living through a sloppy dog kidnapping operation that he runs with his mysterious elderly pal Hans (Christopher Walken). Unfortunately, Billy nabs a cute little Shih Tzu who happens to be the darling of his owner, mafia overlord Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson), and thus begins the chase. A shaggy dog story, indeed.
Edgar Wright is a filmmaker who everyone should be excited about. He managed the rare hat trick of having his first three films be very excellent AND rather successful. So when he announced one more go around with the stars of his first to films, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the world should have stopped for a moment and given the man a golf clap of encouragement.
Alas that didn’t happen so we are forced to go through the motions of a normal movie marketing cycle, starting with an excellent teaser poster coming soon to a theater lobby near you. These days teaser posters tend to be the superior form of film one-sheets, with studios more keen to let simplicity and the concept stand first and foremost instead of ghostly floating heads of the famous people in the movie. The teaser for The World’s End is no exception, this new poster is striking in all the right ways.
The film is about the pub crawl to end all pub crawls, literally, and this poster really nails the tone that the concept elicits. The film should be coming out some time in 2013 so the trickle of news and updates for this highly anticipated comedy should begin to flow more regularly in the coming months.
If you are one of the people who have not been exposed to the splendor that is In Bruges you really ought to do yourself a favor and seek it out post-haste. It has an energy about it that is hard to describe, and until you have seen it you really wont get as excited about Seven Psychopaths as you should be.
Director Martin McDonagh as teamed once again with Collin Ferrell for his next feature, and while the standard trailer does show promise, it is the red band trailer that really cements this as a must see. For those of you new to this project, here is the synopsis:
Written and Directed by Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh , the comedy “Seven Psychopaths” follows a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) who inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends (Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell) kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu.
Everything about the film feels right, from the paring of Farrell with Walken & Rockwell, to Tom Waits with a fluffy white bunny rabbit. Seven Psychopaths just might be a worthwhile successor to one of the surprise best films of 2008.
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