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Disney’s James Cameron magnum opus “Avatar: The Way of Water” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the third weekend in a row with £7.6 million (9.1 million) and now has a running total of £44.9 million, per numbers released by Comscore.

Sony’s “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” made a strong debut in second place with £3.3 million. The studio’s Roald Dahl adaptation “Matilda the Musical” continued its stellar run in the territory in third position, collecting £2 million in its sixth weekend for a total of £20.8 million. A singalong version of the film released on New Year’s Day.

In fourth place, Disney’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” took £436,156 in its eighth weekend and now has a total of £33.2 million.

Rounding off the top five was another Disney title “Strange World” with £280,777 in its sixth weekend for a total of £3.1 million.

The weekend’s other notable

Nicolas Cage scholars might quibble with the promotional claim that Brett Donowho’s “The Old Way” is the actor’s “first traditional Western” — a choice of words that’s careful not to step on the spurs of neo-genre fare like “Butcher’s Crossing” and “Prisoners of the Ghostland” — but

The first part of the problem is that Donowho’s competent but uncompelling oater doesn’t have enough fresh meat on its bones to fill out its Western cosplay. While Morgan Smith’s jaunty score does its best to summon memories of “My Darling Clementine,” and Carl W. Lucas’ threadbare script channels the same one-way modernity that “Shane” once rode towards an uncertain sunset, “The Old Way” clearly lacks the ambition to shoot for any identity of its own.

Even worse is that it gestures towards one anyway, as this low-budget genre exercise allows its characters just enough ammunition for us to

In Netflix’s smash hit “Wednesday,” the titular Addams daughter (played by Jenna Ortega) meets a lot of foils during her adventures at Nevermore Academy. Chief among them is her roommate Enid (Emma Myers), a spunky girlie-girl — and a werewolf. To prepare for the part, the show’s stunt team had Myers participate in a “werewolf boot camp.”

Myers spoke about her experience in the boot camp during the January 4 “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” According to Myers, the training happened ahead of filming the show’s sixth episode, which features Enid interacting with her werewolf brothers.

“I have never done so much parkour in my life. It was me running on the floor on all fours, leaping over things, we had these stunt guys pretending to be sheep,” Myers said. “I think anyone who was walking past was like, ‘What is going on in there?'”

Elsewhere in the interview,

Finally, an easier way to fuel Timothée Chalamet obsessions: TikTok now lets users link directly to a movie or TV show’s page on IMDb.

Now available to users in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, TikTok users will see an option to “add link” before publishing a video. Search “movie and TV,” find anything available via the database, and you can attach related videos, linking up to five different movies or shows in a single video. There’s also a dedicated, in-app page that draws up relevant data.

For fans, TikTok’s license of IMDb data makes it easier to find all content related to, say, “Wednesday” on the app. For IMDb, it means cash for the licensing fees, and for TikTok, it’s a potent marketing tool that it can pitch to studios and presumably will feed the app’s robust ad revenue. Currently, it’s projected

Steven Soderbergh is one of the most unique and intriguing directors at work today. He was at the forefront of independent cinema in the late 1980s with his debut Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Since then, he's worked in a variety of genres, including crime (Ocean's Eleven), biography (Erin Brockovich), comedy-drama (Magic Mike), and thriller (Side Effects). His most recent film is the excellent Kimi, starring Zoë Kravitz.

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for the Willow film and TV series.Disney+'s newest series, Willow, is the streaming service's first go at a live-action fantasy TV series since the recent boom for the genre. It is a sequel to the 1988 Lucasfilm movie of the same name. As a sequel, the series builds off of the film. The series refers to the film as a prologue, recapping it at the beginning. It also brings back many familiar faces, like Willow (Warwick Davis) and Sorsha (Joanne Whalley). But more than that, the series references the film at every opportunity.

Time-travel stories are, inevitably, almost always about the present. They’re sort of a crucible for our values and ideas about the world, when transposed suddenly to the distant past or future. But FX’s “Kindred,” based on the 1979 Octavia Butler novel, owes its identity as much to the problems and possibilities of TV in the 21st century as it does to one of the landmark speculative fiction stories of the 20th century. Showrunner Branden Jacob-Jenkins saw something happening as he watched shows like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” inaugurate the age of the antihero in the late ’00s. He saw an emphasis shift in the structure and storytelling priorities of certain TV shows, one that might perfectly fit the way Butler’s novel plays with the movement of time and how it affects the characters.

“[I saw “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad”] engaging a viewership, not playing the game of like,

Each new decade brings with it a new phase of horror. The late 1970s into the 80s brought about the rise of the slasher film, ranging from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween to the more iconic duo of Freddy Krueger and Jason in the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th films respectively. The 1990s and early 2000s seemed to transition away from the gory and inventive spectacles of slasher films into two contrasting paths: Horror films either went darker and grittier à la Silence of the Lambs and Candyman, or they took on a campier, more self-aware tone, like with what Wes Craven did with the Scream franchise. Craven is perhaps one of a few horror directors to obtain longevity in the genre thanks to his savvy transition from the Elm Street franchise into the more parodic take on the slasher movie with Scream. The ability

“Avatar: The Way of Water” (Disney) was a magnificent way to end the year, and to begin a new one. Since its December 18, 2022 release it’s grossed 465 million in U.S./Canada. It could overtake “Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount) as the top 2022 domestic release, which grossed 719 million. It’s certain to become the biggest worldwide grosser since Covid began decimating the theatrical business nearly three years ago.

But “The Way of Water” doesn’t change the current reality any more than “Maverick” did, which is this: In the last four years, theatrical attendance has declined by about 50 percent.

Box office for 2022 ended a little under 7.4 billion domestic, with 26 billion worldwide. That fell far short of the year’s weakest projections, a consensus first stated in December 2021 by financial analyst Gower Street and repeated widely in the media: 9.2 billion domestic and 33.2 billion worldwide. Last March during a quarterly financial call, AMC Theatres

When Prime Video announced last year that Candy Cane Lane will be the first film from their three-picture and first-look deal with Eddy Murphy, every indication pointed to it being a major project in the making, and now with the all the major cast for the upcoming comedy revealed, our suspicions were spot on. Candy Cane Lane will be an assembly of comic greats with the addition of veterans such as Nick Offerman, Robin Thede, and Chris Redd. A handful of fast-rising talents also made the cut including Genneya Walton, Madison Thomas, and Thaddeus J. Mixson. Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) and Jillian Bell (Brittany Runs a Marathon) were the first names added to the cast after Murphy.

In the hotly-anticipated new horror film M3GAN, Allison Williams plays Gemma, a roboticist who works at a toy company. When her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, she is left to care for her young niece, Cady, and is ill-equipped to do so. To aid her, she creates an AI-enhanced Model 3 Generative Android - M3GAN - who pairs with Cady and becomes her best friend and her protector... to a dangerous level.

It started, of course, with a love story.

When Stephanie Hsu signed on to appear in an episode of fledgling Comedy Central series “Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens” in 2019, she had just wrapped season three of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and was nearing the end of the Broadway run of “Be More Chill.” She was mostly looking for “something dumb” to do alongside Awkwafina and Hsu’s old college comedy pal Bowen Yang.

But on set, something else happened.

That “Awkwafina” episode was directed by “Swiss Army Man” filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Sheinert, known collectively as Daniels. “We fell, artistically, in love,” Hsu told IndieWire during a recent Zoom interview — so much so, the actress said, that she “followed them to LA. They called me within a week of me getting there and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re working on this movie, no pressure, but we think you’d be great for it,

The life of crime is a complicated one, especially when there’s family involved. Bmf (a.k.a Black Mafia Family) is making its highly-anticipated return with Season 2. Adapted from the true story of the Black Mafia Family, the crime drama television series centers on the rags-to-riches story of the organization’s two ringleaders-slash-brothers: Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and Terry "Southwest T." Flenory. From money laundering to drug trafficking, the brothers do whatever they can to establish their business, and at the same time, make a name for themselves on both a national and global level - all in the name of pursuing the American dream.

Gamers and horror fans alike are just a few short weeks from The Last of Us’ premiere. Expectations couldn't be any higher for this HBO series which is based on one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved video games in history. With that on the series’ undead conscience, the various trailers and images have promised the most accurate video game adaptation of all time. Now a newly released behind-the-scenes video sets up the dark tragedies at the heart of its story.

There's something satisfying about seeing big explosions on-screen. Maybe it's that human beings have always been drawn to fire, and explosions display the same kind of heat and color in a more dramatic - and loud - fashion. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that we don't want to be near them in real life, but can enjoy them safely when we see them on screen. In that way, explosions have the same appeal as action movies (and it's no coincidence that action movies often feature plenty of explosions).

Wish you could see Mark Hamill as a foul-mouthed monk? Well, now you can finally watch 2013 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection pick Virtually Heroes and make your dreams come true! Executive produced by Roger Corman and directed and produced by Gj Echternkamp, the movie has been a long time coming for the cast and crew. Starring Robert Baker, Brent Chase, Katie Savoy, and Hamill, the movie is a look at what being a video game character really is all about.

Slow and steady wins the race, especially if you’re James Cameron and the world always seems to be skeptical about your chances. It’s been said never to bet against Cameron. Still, pundits were doing just that in the first-week opening of “Avatar: The Way Of Water,” when it opened to 134 million domestically, far less than the early 170 million projections. Box Office watchers and armchair film analysts quickly said Cameron and the “Avatar” franchise were in trouble.

Continue reading ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Beats Out ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ As The #1 Grossing Film Of 2022 Worldwide at The Playlist.

Vince Gilligan struck gold with Breaking Bad, the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) that he pitched as taking Mr. Chips and turning him into Scarface. By the show's second season, Walt's descent into villainy is in full flow, inadvertently causing the deaths of hundreds, and advertently causing a few more. Season 2 also expands the world of Albuquerque's seedy underbelly by introducing several new characters who eventually become key players in Breaking Bad. Namely, Mike (Jonathan Banks), Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), and the sleazy criminal lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who made his debut appearance in an episode titled "Better Call Saul" written by Peter Gould. Cut to six years later, Better Call Saul hit our screens as the prequel spin-off story of Jimmy McGill, a down-on-his-luck lawyer looking to make a name for himself but fighting the urge to use his talents as a con-man.

In the wake of Trevor Noah's departure from The Daily Show in December, Comedy Central has announced the schedule for the guest hosts who will steer the show until a permanent replacement is named. Comedy veterans Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, and Sarah Silverman will each host the show for a week, starting later this month.

Curated by the IndieWire editorial team, Craft Considerations is a video platform for filmmakers to discuss how they applied their craft to a recent work we believe is worthy of awards consideration. For this edition, we look at how “The Fabelmans” screenwriter Tony Kushner collaborated with Steven Spielberg to tell a story that was deeply personal for both of them.

In 2005, screenwriter Tony Kushner was sitting with Steven Spielberg on the set of their first film together, “Munich.” It was the night shooting began, and Kushner casually asked Spielberg when he realized that he wanted to be a filmmaker. “He told me about the films he made as a little kid, and at some point he told me the story of the camping trip,” Kushner told IndieWire. That camping trip — a family outing where a young Spielberg discovered his mother was in love with his father’s best friend by