Tag: Movies

Petition Surpasses 60,000 Signatures for Ban of James Corden in ‘Wicked’ Movie

On By troypittman13In UncategorizedLeave a comment

James Corden is known for many things, but what’s most memorable is his outgoing television personality. The Late Late Show with James Corden airs weeknights from 12:37am/11:37 pm c. According to CBS, the Late Late Show is the “ultimate late night party”. With a mix of celebrity guests, performances, comedy segments and games, Corden’s sure to keep you entertained. He’s also known for his popular carpool segment that features him driving in downtown LA with celebrities. He sings a variety of songs with his guests as they talk about their career accomplishments and upcoming business their fans should look out for.

Corden is also seen in Disney’s ‘Into The Woods’ (2014) alongside actors like Anna Kendrick, Meryl Streep, and Johnny Depp. The film got a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes and generated $212.90 million in gross revenue. Corden played the Baker in this film who wishes to break a spell given to his family by a witch. Corden is also featured in ‘Cats’ directed by Tom Hooper. ‘Cats’ was a star studded with actors like Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, Jason Derulo, etc. Although the star filled cast grew the films anticipation for its debut, the film received horrible reviews. It earned a 20% on rotten tomatoes and 2.7 on IMDb, making people scratch their heads at how this could be. Critics believed the film to be a disaster because of its overuse of CGI and wandering script. Many fans believed it to be straight up “bizarre” and “creepy”, despite its musical/fantasy approach. James Corden can also be found in Amazon Prime Video’s Cinderella and The Prom on Netflix. But James Corden has not been a fan favorite as it pertains to Broadway musicals.

 On November 16th, 2020 Ariana Grande was chosen to sing ‘The Wizard And I’ for the 15th Anniversary of Wicked. Grande is best known for her singing, songwriting, and acting abilities. Her recent albums like Positions, Dangerous Woman, and Sweetener can be found on Apple Music, Spotify, and iHeart radio. Cynthia Erivo best known for her acting, singing, and songwriting abilities were nominated for various awards: Golden Globes, Daytime Emmy Award, Primetime Emmy Award, Grammy, etc. She can be seen in ‘Harriet’ (2019), ‘Widows’ (2018), Boss Baby: Back In Business (2018), etc. With Corden having close ties with the Broadway community, this appeared to be surprising to some of his fans. This stems from his bad history with musical adaptations and a decrease in his popularity. Musical critics believe Corden isn’t talented enough to handle any role in Wicked. And fans began this petition to encourage directors and producers to not include Corden in this timeless musical. But enough negativity. James Corden still hosts The Late Late Show on CBS at 12:35 am and still receives good reviews from loyal watchers. His YouTube channel for The Late Late Show has maintained a whopping 27.1 million subscribers since the last episode/segment featured on the channel.

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Two films that are signaling hope for movie theaters this Thanksgiving!

On By aliceherrickIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Disney’s “Encanto” and Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” have been box office hits- a optimistic premise for theaters trying to get back on their feet post-pandemic.

With the amount content offered throughout the various streaming services we have access to, it’s easy to forget about the theater-exclusive films that are released. But with families together for the Thanksgiving holiday, heading out to the movies is once again an activity worthwhile- and thank goodness there are two films that are neither franchised or rebooted that both adults and kids can enjoy this holiday. CNN Business reported, “Disney’s ‘Encanto,’ an animated film featuring music written by ‘Hamilton’ creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, is expected to have a $35 million domestic opening over the five-day holiday — enough to win the weekend. As for MGM’s ‘House of Gucci,’ a true crime film starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, that film could slide into the No. 2 spot.”

This is welcome news for The Motion Picture Association. The 2020 global pandemic hit the entertainment industry particularly hard. According to Forbes, movie theater turnout had dropped from the billions in yearly attendance to only about 240 million in 2020- an all-time low. Now that businesses are back open and much of the country is fully vaccinated, people are flocking back to theaters for the full over-priced experience. Alright, alright- that may have been a little cynical, but I’ve never gotten over the fact that I had to pay $6 for Milk Duds when I went out to see the Dune reboot. Speaking of reboots (smooth transition), it’s theorized that both “Encanto” and “House of Gucci” have been so successful for not being connected to any other films. In the past decade, viewers have been bombarded with films that further a story; Star Wars, Marvel, James Bond, and even a live action Clifford the Big Red Dog has it the big screen. However, “Encanto” and “House of Gucci” are giving audiences a breath of fresh air by having their story stand on their own, and the impressive box office numbers should serve as a lesson for film executives- originality is key! That’s not to say that those are the only two movies worth watching in theaters right now. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” have both been commercial and critical success in the mainstream thus far.

With so much content striving for our attention right now, as well as aspects of the lockdown still impacting business, it’s easy to see how movie theaters have struggled. Though, these box office numbers are promising in getting back to that normality that we all crave. So now may be the perfect time to grab your friends, hide some snacks in your bag, and enjoy a film on the big screen again! (Not Clifford though, no one needs to see that.)

Justice Department to abolish anti-trust laws from the 1940’s

On By William StroughIn Distribution, Movie, Technology2 Comments

With the new release of Apple Tv + and Disney + the world has entered the streaming age. More and more movies and shows are turning to streaming platforms today and leaving the old ways of movie theaters behind. The cinematic landscape is changing and old antitrust laws over movie distribution are becoming obsolete and now hurting the industry they were designed to protect. In 1949 Congress passed the Paramount act that limited the eight largest movie studios from buying and owning movie theaters which stops them from controlling the entire movie distribution system. The Paramount act also made it illegal for studios to limit the number of theaters in one area that could play a movie. The Act also made it illegal for theaters to use “block booking” which was a practice that movie studios used. “Block booking” was when movie studios forced theaters to show their bad movies before they showed the good movies. 

These laws were very important during the time when cities and towns had one theater with one screen and showing one bad movie would waste everyone’s time and money all so the movie studios would not lose any money. Today however most cities and towns have multiple movie theaters and those theaters now have multiple screens which show many movies at the same time. With the changing landscape in today’s film industry and increases in technology these antitrust laws are now becoming obsolete mostly because now there are 3 movie theater companies who control more than half of all screens in the US. 

Removing the Paramount Act would not hurt these giant companies because they are too big now. Smaller, independent, theaters are the ones that are going to be hurt by the removal of this act. If movie distributors are allowed to block book again movie theaters would be crowded with just movies that would bring in a crowd. By removing this Act you are hurting not just small indie movie theaters but also the entire film industry by giving these companies the ability to control the distribution.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/business/media/movie-distribution-rules.html

’Stranger Things’ have helped Netflix stay on top

On By Chris ColeIn Netflix, StreamingLeave a comment

As the competition for streaming platforms continues to grow, Netflix is having to defend its popularity amount audiences. According to the New York Times, Netflix loss 126,000 domestic subscribers earlier this year. However, Netflix was able to get those subscribers back according to the article. Author Edmund Lee explained, ”The third-quarter results benefited from Netflix’s best-known series, ’Stranger Things, ’ which introduced its hugely anticipated third season over the Fourth of July weekend. The series drew 64 million households in the first four weeks it was available, the company said.”

This was a big comeback for the company and not only helped them draw in more viewers but helped line Netflix’s pockets. Netflix’s stock jumped more than 8% in after-hours trading last week. In addition, the company also reported a large jump in profit from $665 million to $5.2 billion in revenue. This rise in profit follows the addition of 6.8 million new customers this quarter, with 520,000 of them in the United States. Netflix has big plans and big movies to help them beat the soon-to-come streaming platform competitors, Disney and Apple. Both of which plan to release their streaming platforms in November. As of now, Netflix is the nation’s largest digital television network, with over 158 million customers around the world, including 60 million in the United States.

Kids movie ‘Abominable’ removed from Vietnam

On By William StroughIn Censorship, China, Content Restriction1 Comment
Image result for abominable map
The “nine-dash line” that caused Vietnam to remove Abominable from theaters

As we have recently seen, nothing is spared from Chinese international politics not even a cute animated movie. The Dreamworks animated film “Abominable” has recently been pulled from all Vietnam theaters for showing a chinese map that contains the “nine-dash line” The movie which follows a chinese girl who befriends a yeti has no intention of starting a political outrage but yet here we are. The nine-dash line in question is a hotly contested border created by the Chinese that includes a lot of territory that the governments of Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all claim they have. 

Since China has made the claim in 1940 and created the nine-dash line, they have defended the territory their extensively. They have created islands and added infrastructure on those island so people can live there. They also have their navy defend the waters from other governments.This comes during a very problematic time for China or more importantly human rights, with China erasing any content they deem insults the government. South Park released was completely erased from the Chinese internet after they insulted China’s censorship laws. China has a 8.87 billion dollar movie market and Hollywood and other companies want to get a piece of the market but are sacrificing their rights or at least bending to Chinese censorship. The inclusion of the nine-dash line in the movie was there to appease the Chinese government but failed to respect the other countries involved in this dispute. It is scary to see so many companies and corporations give up their rights to appease a foriegn government based solely on money but I do not think this is going to stop and moving forward I think China is going to start threatening more companies into this censorship. Hopefully more media companies like the creators of South Park take a stand against this kind of censorship because if movies like Abominable can not escape the limelight any movie or show is a target for censorship.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/asia/abominable-vietnam-china-map.html