Captain Marvel Has Already Hit A Box Office Milestone

Captain Marvel Has Already Hit A Box Office Milestone

Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to pump out the hits, as every single blockbuster has been a critical and financial success. This includes the newest installation, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's 90's origin story Captain Marvel. Brie Larson finally made her Marvel debut as Carol Danvers, in a capsulated story that had connections to the greater MCU, including Guardians of the Galaxy. And it's making a ton of money at the box office.

Prior to its release, it wasn't clear how much of a hit Captain Marvel would be. Audiences hadn't met the title character yet, and there was some backlash and online trolling directed toward Brie Larson. But that hasn't stopped the blockbuster from raking in the cash, as it recently broke $500 million at the global box office. And it's not even a week old.

This box office update comes to us from Variety, and shows how Captain Marvel is going higher, further, faster than the film's haters predicted. Captain Marvel's success was far from guaranteed in the time before it finally arrived in theaters, although moviegoers are clearly shelling out cash to meet the ultra powerful protagonist.

Captain Marvel is the first time a brand new character has gotten their own MCU blockbuster in years, as both Spider-Man and Black Panther appeared in Captain America: Civil War before getting their respective solo movies. And while Hope became a superhero in Ant-Man and The Wasp, fans knew and loved her from the first movie.

Pre-sales for Captain Marvel no doubt helped its strong box office performance, as the hardcore Marvel fandom ran to theaters to see the penultimate installment of the MCU's Phase Three. In fact, it was among Marvel's strongest in regards to pre-sales, so its domestic opening weekend was winning before it began. The international markets have been particularly kind to Carol Danvers, as the movie has made $325.6 million in its first week in theaters across the world.

Ahead of the film's release, Captain Marvel star Brie Larson came under fire for comments she made about diversity in the press. With the film industry's focus on inclusion both in front of and behind the camera, Larson lamented that most film critics were white men. This comment proved to be the catalyst for some serious trolling, as haters took to the film's Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes pages, and sent audiences scores plummeting.

But the haters who claimed they were boycotting Captain Marvel don't seem to have made much of a difference, given how quickly the film has ascended to the $500 million mark. It should be fascinating to see how much more money the blockbuster makes for Marvel Studios, and how Brie Larson's signature character becomes a larger presence in the greater MCU.

Captain Marvel is in theaters now, and the title character will pop back up in Avengers: Endgame on April 26th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

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Why The Final Trailer Finally Got Me Excited For Dark Phoenix

Why The Final Trailer Finally Got Me Excited For Dark Phoenix

I have to be honest: Up until now, I haven’t been sold on Dark Phoenix as a theatrical experience. None of the trailers for this next and last in this run of X-Men films have made me feel as if this is a must-see blockbuster of epic proportions. Considering this is the end of an era, and the property’s popularity in the past, that had been kind of a worrying sign. Thankfully, there's been one final trailer to turn the tide for me.

When I sat down to watch this final trailer for director Simon Kinberg’s big turn at bat, I found I'm actually pretty excited to see the finished product that is Dark Phoenix. There’s a couple of really big reasons why this morning’s final trailer to the end of the X-Men universe as we know it has me absolutely hyped, and I'm glad to share them with you as we're not too far out from experiencing this pretty big happening.

Now comparing that trailer for Dark Phoenix to all others, there’s a pretty big jump in my feelings towards the material. The rhythm of this new trailer is the cleanest I’ve seen out of all of the Dark Phoenix materials, which is surprising considering there’s not all that much different in terms of what’s being presented.

All the other Dark Phoenix spots did have most of the same building blocks and story beats. Jean absorbs a weird energy source and becomes unstable, mystery character Jessica Chastain is encouraging her to embrace this new power, and the world feels like it’s going to be in for some massive hurting. This is the A-Z story we’ve been presented with, and for the most part I’ve remained skeptical, but willing to be swayed.

The swaying came with this final look at Dark Phoenix, as it lays it all of the same points we’ve seen, but with a better sense of urgency. We see a glimpse of the space rescue that starts it all, with a panicked Cyclops being a perfect catalyst to push the rest of the footage along. After that, it’s a pretty quick and sliding scale from Jean’s miraculous survival to her campaign of utter desolation. She’s embraced pain and she’s not afraid of inflicting it.

Which leads to another reason Dark Phoenix has me sold: Sophie Turner’s performance as Jean Grey. When added to the lineup in X-Men: Apocalypse, she was a key player, but still a member of a growing ensemble. Everyone knew how important she would be to the story, and it was touched upon briefly in that film as a sort of tease for the future.

Dark Phoenix definitely looks like it not only acknowledges that promise, it fulfills it entirely; and it’s because of the growth Turner is allowed to exhibit within this character. The scene in the final trailer that really sold me on Jean Grey as a threat is when she confronts Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. Up until this point, he’s felt like the most powerful mutant on the side of the protagonists in the X-Men films.

Regardles, that moment where Jean breaks his ever-important helmet and she tells him that threatening her isn’t the best idea is the sharpest contrast from the Jean we saw in X-Men: Apocalypse, and it properly sets the table for the main course: a fight between the X-Men and one of their own. Sophie Turner’s simultaneously threatening and sympathetic character makes it all go round more smoothly than I could have ever imagined. If you’re going to end a series like the X-Men, at least for the time being, you need to send them off on a pretty big note.

That’s what this Dark Phoenix footage really feels like it’s setting up. It’s the end of an era, with a grand finale to something that kicked off so long ago in X-Men, and was reborn in X-Men: First Class. Much like Avengers: Endgame has been spelling out the end of the line for the first story arc in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dark Phoenix’s last look before the big show has given weight to this apocalyptic event. There is a schism coming to the X-Men universe, and nothing will be the same once it’s concluded.

Prior to now, it hadn’t felt this serious, but now, it’s feeling pretty grave. The X-Men series has always been about fear of “the other,” with Charles Xavier and his mutants being on the side of good an acceptance. But now, with Jean Grey’s Phoenix powers, the man and his students are thrown into another microcosm of that argument; and they’re not exactly on the same side as they’ve traditionally been on.

If that’s not a note to end an X-Men story arc on, I don’t know what is; and this last trailer has given me so much to think about and anticipate with this new film. Again, all of this was in previous trailers, but the presentation in this latest one really drives all of the pieces home for me as a viewer. That’s even taking into account the fact that this trailer is more ambiguous about what exactly happens to Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, despite the promotional material previous to this point basically spoiling that plot point pretty obviously.

Having discussed all of that, let's take a look at the final trailer for Dark Phoenix one last time, and revel in what it portends:

This final trailer to Dark Phoenix not only has me ready to get out to see the spectacle that awaits, it also has me thinking this could be the best X-Men movie since First Class. I’m surprised that Fox didn’t lead with this sort of marketing push, because this would have been the best launching pad to a potentially huge and engrossing campaign overall. That being said, in the era of stealth release drops and streaming giants marketing a film mere hours before it’s set to debut, this could be the studio’s way of adapting to the modern marketplace.

It hasn’t been an easy road for Dark Phoenix, so revolutionary and outside-the-box methods such as this do feel like an experimental way to branch traditional theatrical promotions into the future. Whatever the case may be, I’m totally on board to see the full extent of the devastation that Jean Grey will bring to the X-Men universe. And I’ll be there on opening night to see first it among the die hard fans.

Dark Phoenix unleashes darkness upon the world on June 7th.

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Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Just Unveiled New Footage, Check It Out

Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Just Unveiled New Footage, Check It Out

While many fans are excited to see the next Star Wars movie, some of us are even more excited to live our first Star Wars experience. That what we've been promised when Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens at Disneyland and Walt Disney World later this year. While we've learned a lot about what things will happen when we first walk on the planet Batuu, we haven't actually seen what Black Spire Outpost will actually look like very much beyond concept art. However, some new footage was just dropped at Star Wars Celebration, and CinemaBlend has it. Check it out below.

In Star Wars movies, so much of what we see is never real. It's digital effects and movie magic. However, for Galaxy's Edge, everything is quite real. Everything from the rusted out landspeeder to the Millennium Falcon looks just as real as it does on the movie screen. In fact, some of the shots look almost identical the concept art that was released years ago, showing just how close to the mark Walt Disney Imagineering has come in trying to recreate the world of the galaxy, far, far away for us.

When music composed by John Williams is added, that's when it all really begins to feel like we're seeing a piece of Star Wars.

While there were no major reveals at the Disney Parks panel at Star Wars Celebration, like the opening date of the new land's second phase, the panel brought together all the pieces of information that we had in one place, expanding on details and confirming things that had previously only been rumor.

For people who are simply fans of Disneyland, Galaxy's Edge will offer all the things we expect from it, amazing attractions, delicious food, and cool merchandise, but for those of us that want to take the experience a step, or several steps, further, then there's going to be an immersive experience like nothing Star Wars fans have been able to be a part of before.

While the planet Batuu is a new place in the Star Wars galaxy for us, it's been around for as long as the stories that have been told. This means that if you look you'll see design elements that reference the prequels, the original trilogy, and the new trilogy as well. How Batuu experienced these events has helped shape the world that it is today. It used to be a well traveled planet, but is now on the edge of wild space, thus the look in the video that everything feels slightly rundown.

No doubt we're all waiting to live our own Star Wars experience. The day will come at Disneyland May 31, then on August 29 at Walt Disney World.

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Why Us Kicks Off With That Hands Across America Ad

Why Us Kicks Off With That Hands Across America Ad

The following contains spoilers for Us.

Three's a lot of odd, strange, and bizarre stuff going on in Jordan Peele's new film Us. However, one of the strangest things has to be the movie's opening scene. The film opens on a little girl watching television in the 1980s. Specifically, she views a commercial for the 1986 fundraising event Hands Across America. The ad isn't entirely random, as the event has a part to play in the larger story of Us. In fact, it sort of sets the tone for the entire movie, which is apparently why Jordan Peele decided to open the movie with it.

In addition to the Hands Across America commercial being important to the plot of Us, it also mirrors the film itself, because while the ad wants to be full of hope and optimism, Jordan Peele actually had a very different reaction to it. It seems that ultimately, it was the commercial which helped the writer and director figure out what he wanted to do with the movie, which is why he decided to open the film with it. According to Peele...

Old creepy commercials also come up in both, ones from the ’80s. In conceiving this movie, I arrived at the Hands Across America commercial from one of these moments of feeling as opposed to thinking. I found a real Hands Across America commercial — I don’t know what I was searching to find it, but I just had this feeling of dread watching the amusing, bright optimism on display. It took me back to a time where I was also afraid and young and vulnerable, and didn’t really know what was going on. So I probably said, ‘what if this was the first scene in the movie?’ And that began to answer questions about what I was working towards.

I'm old enough to remember the actual Hands Across America, but I'm never going to be able to think about it the same way again thanks to Us. The unwavering optimism of it all is almost terrifying, which is part of the point. Everything looks good but there's a feeling of something wrong underneath, which is exactly was Us is trying to say.

The first part of Us takes place in 1986, the same year that Hands Across America took place, but as we learn later in the movie, the commercial wasn't simply set to help set the time and place. The actual event has a part to play. Based on what Jordan Peele tells Polygon, it sounds like connecting his story to Hands Across America helped him figure out where to take the characters in his script, as he'd still had some questions previously.

It was certainly a unique and interesting way to open a movie, not to mention effective. The choice to use the commercial makes the audience wonder just what they're seeing and why, throwing them a little off balance for the story that is to come.

Us is in theaters now.

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E.L. James Admits People Are Already Circling Fifty Shades Author's The Mister For Movie Rights

E.L. James Admits People Are Already Circling Fifty Shades Author's The Mister For Movie Rights

E.L. James, the author of the Fifty Shades of Grey series, has a new book out on the shelves called The Mister. Even if you've never read the books, there's a strong chance that you are at least a little familiar with the three Fifty Shades movies. They went on to gross a combined $1 billion at the box office, and it sounds like some studios are hoping for lightning to strike twice. James claims that studios are already circling a movie adaptation of The Mister.

The author's three Fifty Shades books followed the often dicey romance of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. While the soap opera drama they faced often placed obstacles in their path, the series is really known for and associated with sex. Things get real steamy between these two, helping to propel the series to worldwide success.

E.L. James' newest book, The Mister, is similar in concept to Fifty Shades. The novel follows an entirely different couple named Maxim Trevelyan and Alessia Demachi. Maxim is a wealthy playboy aristocrat who falls for the mysterious Alessia, whose only possession is her dark past. And they totally have sex, though it's apparently more vanilla than Fifty Shades.

The Mister has only been out for about a week, but it's already apparently gotten attention from movie studios. E.L. James told the Metro that she has been approached by studios for a film adaptation, but didn't get any deeper than that. In her words:

People are asking, yes. I have been asked. It is a big commitment.

Obviously, that doesn't mean that a movie is storming into theaters next year. It sounds like conversations have only just started and there's no guarantee that a movie will even happen. I suppose some of that will depend on book sales, but that's already off to a good start. The Mister has sold 52,674 physical copies in its first week.

For the record, it doesn't sound like The Mister is well-liked at the moment. Critics gave the book negative reviews, but it's not like the Fifty Shades films were getting Oscar nominations. Critics usually weren't fans of the movies, but that didn't stop it from making money. Just because the book isn't getting good reviews now doesn't mean that a future movie won't.

It's still too early to tell if a movie about The Mister is in the cards, but so far the signs seem positive. For more movie news and updates, be sure to stick with CinemaBlend and we'll keep you informed as new information becomes available. In the meantime, there are plenty of other movies that we know for a fact are coming out this year. Don't forget to also to hit up our 2019 movie release guide to plan all of your theater visits for the ear.

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Shazam! 2: Why The Filmmakers May 'Move Quickly' On A Sequel

Shazam! 2: Why The Filmmakers May 'Move Quickly' On A Sequel

DC’s latest superhero blockbuster is here and it looks to be another step in the right direction for the studio once playing catch-up in the shadows of the phenomenon that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Shazam! is a different kind of comic book adapted flick for the DCEU, as it centers on a 14-year-old kid's refreshing perspective when he has incredible powers bestowed upon him.

Having a story that features a primarily young cast comes with one concern: They’re constantly growing up. That's one reason why a sequel for Shazam! may need to come sooner rather than later. Collider asked the film’s producer Peter Safran if they'd want to jump right back in for a sequel, since the "kids" will probably look very different a year from now. Here's Safran's response:

They're going to look like Zach does today. So we've got to move quickly with the sequel, for sure.

Per his comments, you can’t exactly keep a story going about a kid who turns into the adult superhero played by Zachary Levi if his younger counterpart is already an adult himself. Asher Angel, who plays young teen Billy Batson in Shazam!, is already 16-years-old right now. So if the studio waits even two years to give the sequel a greenlight, he’ll already be inching on adulthood by the time filming gets underway.

Having a 20-year-old switch into Zachary Levi’s Shazam -- who will be in his 40s a couple years from now -- wouldn’t have quite the same effect on audiences as the age difference introduced to audiences this weekend. There is always room for creativity in superhero films, though, so the filmmakers might be able to find a way to work around this without seeing the franchise lose its charm.

The plus side of this logistical complication is that if Shazam! does well, the studio may feel more compelled to get going on a sequel from the lightning-powered hero before pursuing other pending projects. This would be great news for fans of the recent DC release -- and considering the producer himself recognizes this, it might just be in the works already.

During another recent interview, Peter Safran and director David F. Sandberg both showed their interest in returning for a sequel, so the stars just might align with more ease for Shazam! 2 than other DCEU projects being considered to move forward into production.

This is a problem that Tom Holland’s new Spider-Man franchise is also facing, as the actor plays a 15-year-old boy in Homecoming. As Far From Home nears release, Holland is now a 22-year-old stuck in a role of a high-school student. The second movie was fast-tracked behind the first for this very reason, and they will be release just two years apart.

Shazam! certainly looks to be a success thus far, as it exceeded expectations on opening night with a $6 million haul and has a certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%.

Who’s already in for a Shazam! sequel? Stay tuned with us here at CinemaBlend!

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Elton John Reveals Most Studios Didn’t Want 'Sex And Drugs' In R-Rated Rocketman

Elton John Reveals Most Studios Didn’t Want 'Sex And Drugs' In R-Rated Rocketman

This weekend the story of Elton John takes the big screen in the form of the massive musical adventure Rocketman. The film is sort of an anomoly, as it's a big budget musical, but it's also rated-R. Those two things don't often go together, but since Elton John himself is something of a unique combination, it probably shouldn't be too surprising.

It turns out, that not every studio was quite on board with this particular combination however. Elton John says that many studios wanted to tone down the story in order to achieve the broader audience friendly PG-13 rating, but John says such a decision wouldn't have made sense because it wouldn't have fit his life. According to Sir Elton...

Some studios wanted to tone down the sex and drugs so the film would get a PG-13 rating. But I just haven’t led a PG-13 rated life. I didn’t want a film packed with drugs and sex, but equally, everyone knows I had quite a lot of both during the ‘70s and ‘80s, so there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company.

No biographical film is 100% accurate when it comes to what actually happened. Things will always be modified in some way for dramatic effect. However, there is a general feeling that a movie must be accurate enough to capture the essence of the person, and as Elton John himself says, you can't really do that with him without including sex and drugs.

It's not entirely uncommon for a movie to wallpaper over the darker parts of a true story. Especially when the subject is still alive, there's a natural inclination to focus on the more positive elements of a life story. Elton John could have wanted to see that happen here, but that wasn't what happened. In a piece he wrote himself for the Guardian, he says while he did work with producers and make a couple of "yea or nea" decisions (he doesn't specify what those were) about the film, but for the most part he kept himself away from the production, intentionally wanting to avoid casting his shadow over things.

Quite the contrary, Elton John clearly wanted his struggles with alcohol and drugs to be part of the film. He takes full responsibility for them, and says for that reason those elements aren't even difficult for him to watch. He knows they were his fault and is at peace with the decisions he made.

Based on the early critical reaction, it seems that the decisions that Rocketman made may be the right ones. The film is getting very positive reviews overall. The rest of the world will get to see it this Friday.

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