The live-action reboot of Mulan is set to premiere on March, 27 and it is the latest in a long line of Disney live-action remakes. These remakes are meant to bring some of Disney’s classics and reintroduce them to a new audience. While the majority of these movies are a financial success with Lion King and Aladin both breaking the 1 billion mark, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a strong critical response with both movies also getting panned by critics for being unnecessary. Mulan aims to combine the best of both worlds with a strong opening and an excellent critical response. After a strong campaign along with the Superbowl trailer, Mulan is poised for a strong opening weekend.
Ahead of the release, Mulan early screening already started building up positive buzz:
I’ve seen MULAN twice now and I must say it is grrrreat. Easily Disney’s best live action reboot. I think it’s also Disney’s first battle epic? It is beautiful & absorbing & rich & empowering. The cast is excellent and Niki Caro’s direction is just breathtaking.
Just saw the premiere of @mulan and it is truly a beautiful story of a woman with a mission to remain Loyal, Brave and True. You will not regret seeing this in theaters! 🙌🏻 Get ready to be inspired! #mulanmovie#disney#mulan
#Mulan is exciting, vibrant, emotional, and different from the animated version. It's definitely its own thing, which I dug – a more mature Disney film, featuring stunning production design & fight choreography. Director Niki Caro & star Liu Yifei are the big stand-outs, imo pic.twitter.com/p6IEQUDNBu
According to the early buzz, Mulan seems to be an excellent retelling of the original Disney classic. This is great to hear because after seeing the first trailers, I feared that the movie was taking itself too seriously. However, if the early response is to be believed, Mulan stands on its own as a fantastic movie.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that Mulan’s early buzz might not translate to box office success, the Coronavisur has already forced theater shutdowns, and NY in a state of emergency. These hurdles have already hurt the box office results of Onwards. Mulan is set to premiere March 27, directed by Niki Caro. Starting Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Gong Li, and Yoson An.
The New Mutants director, Josh Boone, in a recent interview with EW, went on record to confirm that his upcoming film never went through any re-shoots despite the mountain of rumors. This revelation is just another step on the long road of actually seeing this movie air. The New Mutants has gathered a reputation for itself as the little movie that could, once thought never to see the light of day, now the movie is one month away from release.
The saga of The New Mutants starts back in 2017 after Josh Boone and Knate Lee pitched the movie to Fox, the duo started filming between July to September 2017. The idea was to show a more mature horror take on the X-men franchise, with the premise of having a group of teenagers realizing that they have powers. Inspired by the New Mutant comic of the same name, the idea was greenlight following the success of Deadpool and Logan. The New Mutant was first slated to release in April 2018.
The movie quickly went through some trouble with rumors coming out that Fox wanted reshoots because the movie wasn’t scary enough. This rumor was finally shut down by Boone as he said in a phone interview, “Everybody said we did reshoots! We’ve never done reshoots,” he tells EW over the phone in late February. “And I’ll tell you this: if there hadn’t been a merger, I’m sure we would’ve done reshoots the same way every movie does pickups. We didn’t even do that because by the time the merger was done and everything was settled, everybody’s older.” With rumors of reshoots finally coming to a close, the real question now is, why did it take so long for the film to come out? The most accepted answer seems to be the Disney merger. The New Mutants finished filming by September 2017, news of the merger was announce December of the same year, leaving everyone confused. “We had heard nothing because of the merger,” Boone adds. “It was radio silence for about a year where we had no new information at all.”
After the merger was announced, the only X-men related films that premiered were X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and Deadpool 2. Both movies were sequels or successful franchises. The New Mutants is a spin-off with nothing to go on other than a strong cast, with a fantastic trailer. The movie quickly went silent, and no news came for almost a year.
After the merger, Disney announced Disney+ a streaming service promising the most extensive Disney collection of movies and tv shows. More rumors started coming in that Disney wasn’t interested in the movie, or that they were going to dump it in Disney+ with little fanfare. Not even Boone knew about the movie until he received a call to finish the post-production. “When they called me right before I went to go make The Stand and said, ‘Would you come finish the movie?’ I said, ‘I would f—in’ love to come finish the movie!’” While we may never know what the original plans for The New Mutants were, it is interesting to see how fans will react to the movie now, and more importantly, will this movie have any effect on the larger MCU.
The New Mutants is set to premiere April 3, 2020, directed by Josh Boone. Starting Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, and Alice Braga.
Marvel dropped the latest trailer for Black Widow, the long-awaited stand-alone movie for Black Widow. Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, is one of the original Avengers debuting back in Iron Man 2 ever since fans have been clamoring for a stand-alone Black Widow movie. However, even after three Iron man films, three Thor movies, and three Avengers movies, Black Widow has yet to had her time to shine. After Captain Marvel became the first female lead MCU film, fans started to hope that Black Widow was going to get her moment.
Black Widow places the titular character against her past as she comes face to face with the group that trained her (a group that was hinted at in Avengers 2). After battling intergalactic villains, it is refreshing to see Black Widow move towards a more spy thriller, to the style of Captain America 2: Winter Soldier.
The final trailer shows more of the family dynamic (along with the vintage Marvel Humor) between Black Widow and her family Red Guardian played by David Harbour, and Iron Maiden, played by Rachel Weisz. Also joining the cast is Florence Pugh, playing a character named Yelena.
However, the biggest standout of the trailer Taskmaster, the main villain of the movie. In the comic, Taskmaster is a mercenary with the ability to master any fighting style by merely observing his opponent. The trailer hints at this power as Taskmaster fights Red Guardian by pulling out Black Panther claws. Taskmaster has been silent for all the trailers. However, I am hopeful that he will show more personality during the movie.
Black Widow is set to release May 1, 2020, and it is the first movie to kick-off the summer movie season. With the hype of the MCU’s success, and the Olympics set this summer, premiering this early is a smart move from Marvel in order to secure a high audience turnout.
Black Widow premieres May 1, 2020, directed by Cate Shortland. Starting, Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz.
The Weekend Box office results are in, and as expected, Disney debut another winner to place under its belt with Pixar’s Onward. The modern time fantasy story of two brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, who go on a journey to discover if there is still magic left in the world. The movie debut with $40 million domestically, easily earning the top spot. However, despite making $40 million, the movie was filmed with a budget of between $100- $200 million, meaning that Onward not only debut at a loss, but it is also one of the lowest Pixar’s box office openings. Critics have praised the movie despite calling it a standard Pixar fare. Pixar’s Onward is sitting at an 86% fresh critic rating and a 96% audience response.
Now it is essential to mention that these numbers are only domestic. The worldwide market can help Onward make its money back. However, the biggest question to come out from this is, how did this happen? Onward was slated to make its money back, backed with strong early reviews, fans excitment over social media, and the Pixar name behind it. One of the things to consider is that Pixar usually debuts their movies around the summertime, or holidays in order to capture the largest children audience. This is not a strong argument mainly because Zootopia (2016) premier in March, and it was one of the most successful movies of that year. While not a Pixar movie, Zootopia was developed by the larger Disney studio. Another, (and most likely) reason is the rising tension with the Coronavirus. The widespread virus has forced China to close down theaters along with other public events. Despite the slow start, I believe that Onwards will still be able to make its movie back.
Taking second place is The Invisible Man making $15.3 million, earning an estimated total gross of $52.7 million. Despite the large gap between The Invisible Man and Onward, it can’t be underestimated the success of The Invisible Man, and hopefully Universal will adapt this formula going forward.
Taking third place is The Way Back, directed by Gavin O’Connor, the movie stars Ben Affleck as a widowed, former basketball player who struggles with addiction while planning a comeback as a coach of a high school team. The Way Back does not come off as anything exciting; however, what I believe helped to elevate this movie is the number of Ben Affleck interviews that came out throughout the last few days. These interviews shinned a light during his time playing Batman. These interviews raised public interest in Ben Affleck that must of help this movie. The movie is sitting at 87% on rotten tomatoes making $8.6 million. Finishing up the top five is Sonic The Hedgehog Movie at fourth place, making $8.1 million with a total gross of $140.8 million. The Call of the Wild takes fifth place earning $7 million with a total gross $57. 5 million.
Weekend Box Office Top 10 Results:
Onward- $40M
The Invisible Man- $15.3M
The Way Back- $8.6M
Sonic the Hedgehog- $8.1M
The Call of the Wild- $7M
Emma- $5M
Bad Boys for Life- $3.1M
Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)- $2.3M
Ever since the initial “leak,” of Robert Pattison’s batsuit, the internet has been waiting in anticipation for more details to be revealed. The wait is finally over as director Matt Reeves tweeted out the latest batmobile in a long line of iconic vehicles.
Right of the back, this version of the batmobile seems to have a more realistic take on the iconic vehicle with a mustang inspired design in contrast to the more classic car-inspired look from previous incarnations. Despite the change, this new version still feels in character, with what you would expect from the batmobile, which is just a regular car that has armored up to fight crime. This reveal comes weeks after the initial test screening of the Robert Pattison batsuit.
Matt Reeves The Batman, is still in productions, and it is set to release June 25, 2021. Starting Robert Pattison, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, and Colin Farrell.
On Monday 24, 2020, it was announced that Mission Impossible 7 had halted productions over the Coronavirus outbreak. Production for the film was set to take place over three weeks in Venice. After the reported accounts of the Coronavirus case in northern Italy, the production of the movie was placed on hold.
Left to right: Director Christopher McQuarrie, B Camera/Steadicam Operator Marcus Pohlus
and Tom Cruise (right) on the set of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.
“Out of an abundance of caution for the safety and well-being of our cast and crew, and efforts of the local Venetian government to halt public gatherings in response to the threat of coronavirus, we are altering the production plan for our three-week shoot in Venice, the scheduled first leg of an extensive production for Mission: Impossible 7,” a spokesperson for Paramount, the studio behind the “Mission” franchise, told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “During this hiatus, we want to be mindful of the concerns of the crew and are allowing them to return home until production starts. We will continue to monitor this situation, and work alongside health and government officials as it evolves.”
The Mission Impossible 7 hiatus is one of the highest-profile cases of the impact the Coronavirus is having on Hollywood; however, it is not the most significant. One of the markets that suffered the most, do to the Coronavirus is the Chinese film industry. Globally China is viewed as the world’s second-largest territory in terms of box-office, where any movie can make its money back. Chinese companies also fund different film projects, which is why a lot of newer movies tend to lean more towards a Chinese audience. Chinese New Year is viewed as one of the most important weeks of the Chinese film industry. However, due to the Coronavirus and the increasing death toll, many guarantee blockbusters were delayed days before their release. Recently the Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Chinese release date was postponed until a TBA date. Other delays that were announced were Disney’s Mulan Chinese release date been delayed indefinitely, and MGM also canceled the Chinese premiere of No Time to Die.
The financial impact the Coronavirus is having can not be underestimated, according to box-office data company Comscore box-office receipts in China in January and February totaled only $238 million, a significant downturn from the $2.148 billion revenue during the same period in 2019, and $2.378 billion in 2018. Box office revenue for the whole of 2019 was a record $9.2 billion, having risen 5.4%. A significant downturn such as this can not be taken lightly because it shows just how financially unstable to cinema market is in China, and how it could affect international movies who try find new life in the Chinese market.
imax theater China/ Corbis
Recently, The Berlin Film Festival also felt the impact of the Coronavirus as days before leading up to the event more than 118 cancellations from people attending either the festival. Director Jia Zhangke spoke in an interview with Indiewire the directors gives an inside look at the impact that the virus is having on movies moving forward. During the interview, Jia had this to say, “For some film companies and studios involved in pre-production, a lot of costs are going down the drain, and those that already started production have to be somehow cut short or suspended,” Jia said. “Some of them are already in the process of distributing films and they’ve paid for a lot of promotion and PR costs. The economy is now taking a huge hit, and I think the investment side will be hugely impacted as well.”
La Scala opera house announces further closure over coronavirus fears. Picture: Getty
The Coronavirus has already spread to other countries, with more than 230 cases reportedly effect in Italy. As a direct response, to control the spread, the Italian Government has announced that their northern areas Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Emilia Romagna will shut down all public events, this includes closing all schools, museums, concert halls and cinemas. According to ANEC, the National Association of Cinema Retailers, an estimated 850 cinemas or 1,830 screens, which represent 45 percent and 48 percent of the country’s total, respectively, have been closed in response to the outbreak. Week by week, the Italian box office has taken significant hits with a total gross from February 27 to March 1 was €2m ($2.2m) compared to €8.3m ($9.23m) for the first weekend of March 2019, according to Cinetel. Overall Italies’ box-office has dropped 75% since the Coronavirus outbreak reached the country.
In Japan, the Japanese government issued a directive urging the cancellation or postponement for at least two weeks of sporting events and other public gatherings. The closures are meant to protect the children, who are out of school for spring break, from exposure to the coronavirus. Shochiku, a Japanese studio, distributor, and theater operator, started offering refunds for advanced ticket viewers. Toho, an operator of the nation’s largest chain of theater, also made refunds available to customers last Friday.
A composite image showing a closed restaurant and empty baseball stadium in Hokkaido. Getty Images
South Korea, on the other hand, hasn’t necessarily canceled all filming, nor shows. Instead, producers have taken steps to minimalize exposure to the virus. A live press conference for the Korean Netflix series My Holo Love, starring Yoon Hyun-min and Ko Sung-hee, was canceled. Instead, the cast attended an online conference, answering questions the press sent in advance. CGV, South Korea’s largest theater chain, has shut down all nine of its venues in the southern city of Daegu, the country’s fourth-largest urban center, where nearly two-thirds of the confirmed infections have been reported.
A woman wearing a face mask walks past a poster for the latest James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” in Bangkok on Feb. 28. (Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)
In February, revenue in South Korea slid nearly 70 percent. According to KOBIS, the country’s national box office service, ticket sales for last month totaled KRW 62 billion ($52 million) from 7.3 million admissions, compared to KRW 189 billion ($158 million) from 22.3 million admissions over the same period last year.
“The situation now is much worse than what we’ve seen during the outbreak of [Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus] MERS in 2015,” said an official at the Korea Film Commission. “The audience dropped to more than 40 percent then, but there was no such thing as theater closures and the market revived after about a month. That’s not going to be the case with coronavirus. It’s very unusual to see a daily admission fall below 100,000. But that is happening now, and the outlook is unpredictable.”
Middle Eastern audiences have also chosen to stay away from theater admits the sudden outbreak of the virus. Outside of Italy, U.K has yet to reach the same number of coronavirus cases. Until the numbers increase, the U.K government will not make any drastic closures that will affect the film industry. However, it is estimated that the Global Film industry is set to lose $5 billion in revenue over the coronavirus.
Ever since the initial outbreak, the Coronavirus has had a massive impact on the global market. While it is not clear how long the virus will last, the effects are already being felt. With an estimated loss of $5 billion, it will be interesting to see where we are by the beginning of the summer.