Dejana

Mockingjay - Part 2 begins with the lowest opening weekend of the Hunger Games franchise. Maybe we're seeing the core HG fanbase (still pretty sizeable) and the grosses of the first two were inflated by casual audiences who liked the hook of the actual games. A single Mockingjay wouldn't have received the ill will of a Part 1, and would've had more momentum coming directly out of Catching Fire. Lionsgate will make more for splitting the finale, but it's a less than triumphant finish for the series. I wonder if they're kicking themselves for not thinking of it sooner, giving each part of the split finale its own title, to try to fool people into thinking it's not half of a movie. We shall see how the Divergent franchise fares next year. November 20–22, 2015: 1 (N) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 $102,665,981 | 4,175 Theaters | $24,591 Avg. | $102,665,981 2 (1) Spectre $15,043,729 | 3,659 Theaters | $4,111 Avg. | $154,146,608 3 (2) The Peanuts Movie $13,203,590 | 3,671 Theaters | $3,597 Avg. | $99,346,727 4 (N) The Night Before $9,880,536 | 2,960 Theaters | $3,338 Avg. | $9,880,536 5 (N) The Secret in their Eyes (2015) $6,633,000 | 2,392 Theaters | $2,773 Avg. | $6,633,000 6 (3) Love the Coopers $4,134,130 | 2,603 Theaters | $1,588 Avg. | $15,128,355 7 (4) The Martian $3,700,000 | 2,086 Theaters | $1,774 Avg. | $213,039,442 8 (12) Spotlight $3,603,466 | 598 Theaters | $6,026 Avg. | $5,879,577 9 (5) The 33 $2,240,000 | 2,452 Theaters | $914 Avg. | $9,900,692 10 (7) Bridge of Spies $1,945,000 | 1,532 Theaters | $1,270 Avg. | $65,177,412 11 (6) Goosebumps $1,760,000 | 1,787 Theaters | $985 Avg. | $76,014,312 12 (21) Brooklyn $1,150,000 | 111 Theaters | $10,360 Avg. | $2,159,225 13 (9) Hotel Transylvania 2 $775,000 | 828 Theaters | $936 Avg. | $166,401,741 14 (8) Prem Ratan Dhan Payo $640,000 | 283 Theaters | $2,261 Avg. | $3,972,506 15 (15) Suffragette $500,000 | 517 Theaters | $967 Avg. | $3,548,019 16 (13) The Intern $425,000 | 514 Theaters | $827 Avg. | $74,171,677 17 (19) Room $384,828 | 160 Theaters | $2,405 Avg. | $2,901,838 18 (11) My All American $369,000 | 1,314 Theaters | $281 Avg. | $2,207,000 19 (10) The Last Witch Hunter $342,482 | 624 Theaters | $549 Avg. | $26,822,658 20 (24) Pan $325,111 | 365 Theaters | $891 Avg. | $34,012,065 Trumbo $258,816 | 47 Theaters | $5,507 Avg. | $587,568 Carol $253,510 | 4 Theaters | $63,378 Avg. | $253,510 By the Sea $193,030 | 126 Theaters | $1,532 Avg. | $320,627 Legend $86,836 | 4 Theaters | $21,709 Avg. | $86,836 Steve Jobs $84,420 | 126 Theaters | $670 Avg. | $17,614,323 Global Totals: SPECTRE: $524.1M Overseas Total | $677.8M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $273.4M Overseas Total | $486.4M Global Total HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2: $263.6M Overseas Total | $430.0M Global Total THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2: $146M Overseas Total | $247M Global Total EVEREST: $157.4M Overseas Total | $200.6M Global Total GOOSEBUMPS: $32.7M Overseas Total | $108.7M Global Total THE PEANUTS MOVIE: $9.8M Overseas Total | $108.7M Global Total BRIDGE OF SPIES: $20.4M Overseas Total | $85.6M Global Total PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION: $58.5M Overseas Total | $76.5M Global Total CRIMSON PEAK: $42.4M Overseas Total | $73.5M Global Total PREM RATAN DHAN PAYO: $43.4M Overseas Total | $47.4M Global Total STEVE JOBS: $5.1M Overseas Total | $22.7M Global Total THE DRESSMAKER: $10.7M Overseas Total BY THE SEA: $0.62M Overseas Total | $0.933M Global Total

The King's Speech made more than $100 million ($138M domestic, $414M worldwide on a $15M budget) and none of the others were abject flops shown up by an Ashton Kutcher version of the same story, just small movies ($15 million budgets at the most, or even smaller, at $5 or $7 million) that at minimum made twice as much as they cost, and many times more when taking worldwide box office into account. Steve Jobs cost $30 million with an advertising budget to match, and all the concerns revealed by the Sony hacks last year—that the budget was too high, the star power too low—have seemingly been validated. Maybe it will get some nominations, but I can't think of a perceived flop of this magnitude in the last ten years that actually won any of the big Oscar categories.

Eagerly waiting to see how Annalise explains away the parking garage footage of Nate/Sinclaire/Asher/Bonnie...Oliver hacks into the system and deletes the day's footage? Frank throws around another pile of cash? The cameras were conveniently on the fritz?

I imagine that if they'd cast Gillian Anderson as Cora, they'd have gone in a different direction in casting the Crawley sisters, save Laura Carmichael. A totally different show, but when The Brady Bunch was first being developed, TPTB hadn't settled on actors to play the parents, so the producers also cast three brown-haired girls and three blond boys, in case they chose a brunette Carol and fair-haired Mike. I borrowed Lady Catherine, the Earl and the Real Downton Abbey from the library last week and in the photos and the cover portrait, Lady Catherine reminds me a bit of Laura Carmichael physically, yet Catherine was regarded as a lively beauty in her day. Laura can look so different than Edith in real life; I can't put my finger on exactly how they play down her looks on the show. it would have been interesting if they hadn't, and in an alternate universe where Gillian Anderson was Cora, Laura was cast as the lookalike daughter, with another fair-haired actress as Sybil and Edith stuck out like a sore thumb by being a brunette. I do agree that Gillian would've bailed after three seasons or not agreed to that many to begin with, leaving the Earl of Grantham a widower. Mary could've turned her catty venom on potential stepmothers, rather than Edith.

In the UK there was a very notorious case in the 1990s of two boys who were about ten, luring away a toddler from a shopping center to his death. The boys were eventually released and given new identities as adults, but I don't know if the juvenile system in any US state has provisions like that. Not that how the law actually works has any bearing on HTGAWM storylines, so my next Christophe/Wes theory is "Witness Protection", another way to explain the name change, but don't people usually stay away from the place they used to live? OTOH, Wes has consistently been portrayed as someone who doesn't think the rules apply to him...but is that because he got his first lesson in learning they don't, as a kid?

So, Christophe's mom was killed by someone shady and his name got changed to Wes as some sort of witness protection deal?

Of the "OLD white women", Jane Fonda is Best Supporting Actress in Youth. She's made herself very visible so far in awards circles and is hardly a longshot for a nomination. Charlotte Rampling is also a pretty serious Best Actress contender for 45 Years. Helen Mirren, eh, but she might show up in the Best Actress - Drama category at the Golden Globes for Woman in Gold by sheer force of name recognition. Even with the movie completely flopping, Kate Winslet is probably safer for a nomination from Steve Jobs than Fassbender, given the competitiveness of their respective categories and her Oscar history vs. Fassbender's. She wasn't the face of the movie so it's not going to be considered her flop, so to speak. Mirren is really the only one there who doesn't have much of a shot for an actual Oscar nomination this season, even with two FYC campaigns going (the other for a supporting role in Trumbo). I found the Hollywood Reporter's defense of themselves kind of eye rolling, but I do think the studios are a much much bigger problem in terms of why the Oscars can end up being #SoWhite in certain years. When there are black actors in the awards conversation, they're absolutely included in these roundtables. Take Lupita Nyong'o: overnight, the fashion media fell in love, proclaiming her the new style queen and she was heralded as the picture of poise and grace, in contrast to that phony hillbilly vulgarian JLaw (not my personal feelings, but the internet backlash that year was along those lines). She won the Oscar but pretty much everyone predicted that Margot Robbie, another supporting actress from a 2013 awards contender, would have far better long-term career prospects, because studios and directors would (comparatively) struggle to cast Lupita in substantial roles. When Spike Lee got his Honorary Oscar last weekend, in his speech, he said, “It’s easier to be the president of the United States as a black person than to be the head of a studio." There's a clip at the link, and listen to how well that goes over with the audience (lol). Another problem for minority actors and filmmakers is that Oscar excludes a lot of acclaimed/popular movies that don't tick the boxes of things AMPAS likes (a whole other issue), so the awards hopes are all wrapped up in a handful of movies. Even if Oscar didn't go Unbroken or Nightcrawler or Fury or Mr. Turner or Inherent Vice in a big way, they could still find white actors to nominate for The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game and American Sniper and Foxcatcher (and so on). But if Selma has a screener debacle and Top Five underwhelms, that's it for black Hollywood's Oscar hopes that year.

Isla had a baby in March; maybe the pregnancy overlapped with filming and she passed on the role due to the physical demands.

November 13–15, 2015 Estimates: 1 (1) Spectre $35,400,000 | 3,929 Theaters | $9,010 Avg. | $130,700,181 2 (2) The Peanuts Movie $24,200,000 | 3,902 Theaters | $6,202 Avg. | $82,489,856 3 (N) Love the Coopers $8,400,000 | 2,603 Theaters | $3,227 Avg. | $8,400,000 4 (3) The Martian $6,725,000 | 2,788 Theaters | $2,412 Avg. | $207,407,616 5 (N) The 33 $5,845,000 | 2,452 Theaters | $2,384 Avg. | $5,845,000 6 (4) Goosebumps $4,650,000 | 2,805 Theaters | $1,658 Avg. | $73,487,390 7 (5) Bridge of Spies $4,289,000 | 2,688 Theaters | $1,596 Avg. | $61,695,554 8 (N) Prem Ratan Dhan Payo $2,400,000 | 286 Theaters | $8,392 Avg. | $2,787,433 9 (6) Hotel Transylvania 2 $2,350,000 | 1,834 Theaters | $1,281 Avg. | $165,244,692 10 (8) The Last Witch Hunter $1,500,000 | 1,479 Theaters | $1,014 Avg. | $26,076,579 11 (N) My All American $1,365,000 | 1,565 Theaters | $872 Avg. | $1,365,000 12 (23) Spotlight $1,353,630 | 61 Theaters | $22,191 Avg. | $1,800,400 13 (9) The Intern $1,230,000 | 855 Theaters | $1,439 Avg. | $73,377,742 14 (7) Burnt $1,146,000 | 1,614 Theaters | $710 Avg. | $12,741,519 15 (16) Suffragette $1,000,000 | 496 Theaters | $2,016 Avg. | $2,544,280 16 (10) Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension $885,000 | 785 Theaters | $1,127 Avg. | $17,782,317 17 (14) Sicario $745,000 | 529 Theaters | $1,408 Avg. | $45,199,756 18 (13) Woodlawn $635,000 | 808 Theaters | $786 Avg. | $13,615,355 19 (21) Room $578,151 | 133 Theaters | $4,347 Avg. | $2,287,446 20 (12) Crimson Peak $490,935 | 531 Theaters | $925 Avg. | $30,828,975 Brooklyn $485,000 | 23 Theaters | $21,087 Avg. | $832,996 Steve Jobs $394,000 | 326 Theaters | $1,209 Avg. | $17,374,733 Truth $157,987 | 157 Theaters | $1,006 Avg. | $2,290,424 Trumbo $141,933 | 20 Theaters | $7,097 Avg. | $247,894 By the Sea $95,440 | 10 Theaters | $9,544 Avg. | $95,440 Global Totals: SPECTRE: $413.1M Overseas Total | $543.8M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $270.0M Overseas Total | $477.4M Global Total HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2: $252.6M Overseas Total | $417.8M Global Total MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS: $229.0M Overseas Total | $309.0M Global Total EVEREST: $155.3M Overseas Total | $198.4M Global Total PAN: $86.1M Overseas Total | $119.3M Global Total MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: $60.0M Overseas Total | $105.4M Global Total GOOSEBUMPS: $29.7M Overseas Total | $103.2M Global Total THE PEANUTS MOVIE: $8.0M Overseas Total | $90.5M Global Total BRIDGE OF SPIES: $19.2M Overseas Total | $80.9M Global Total PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION: $56.0M Overseas Total | $73.8M Global Total CRIMSON PEAK: $41.5M Overseas Total | $72.3M Global Total PREM RATAN DHAN PAYO: $31.0M Overseas Total | $33.4M Global Total STEVE JOBS: $3M Overseas Total | $20.38M Global Total THE LADY IN THE VAN: $3.5M Overseas Total | $3.5M Global Total BY THE SEA: $325,000 Overseas Total | $420,440 Global Total

I don't think the Academy hates Leo at all, or that the sixtysomething men of AMPAS even know what a Tumblr meme is. If anything, I think DiCaprio is probably taken for granted: he's young, he has time, let's give it to someone else who's even more overdue or made more of a career turnaround, this year. Some of his Oscar bait didn't pan out for him personally, but it ends to fall more on the noble failure side of things, rather than insipid rom-coms or dumb action movies. All the AMPAS voters who deplore franchises probably respect him more for avoiding them all this time. Some years he was nominated, I didn't think he was the best. Sometimes, he was caught up in Oscar politics, like how actors can't be nominated twice in the same category in the same year, so he got in for Blood Diamond rather than The Departed (which halfheartedly pushed he and Matt Damon in Supporting because they had other performances in contention), or Christoph Waltz, "Supporting Actor" in Django Unchained despite being onscreen for the bulk of the run time and having more dialogue than the title character. DiCaprio's missed nominations for strong performances, but it's happened to other actors, too.

To win, Fassbender needed Steve Jobs to have done at least respectably, especially with awards season just starting up. A Best Actor contender can survive a movie not being a huge hit with enough passionate supporters, especially if the project isn't seen as mainstream to begin with and was never expected to make a lot of money. Sometimes a movie can be predicted for so long and be viewed so late, that by the time it's assessed not to be very good, it's not enough to stop months' worth of momentum and it gets enough votes for the nominations, anyway. SJ, though, has flopped too early and loudly, in terms of media coverage, to overcome the stench of failure, though a backlash to the backlash might happen by the time Oscar ballots go out. Concussion screens tomorrow at AFI Fest and Will Smith has made the cut in Best Actor before without it needing to be a huge Oscar movie overall (The Pursuit of Happyness). Tom Hanks hasn't gotten career-best reviews for Bridge of Spies but it's the sort of movie that would play well with AMPAS voters and people may want to make up for the Captain Phillips snub a couple of years ago. Still, his odds are probably better next year with the Captain Sully movie. If Leo still doesn't win this year, I wonder if he'll try Broadway or something.

Spectre dropped to $70 million with the actual numbers.

The spoiler came from a stray order of service left behind at a church where the show was filming, for a wedding between Edith and "Herbert".

The opening weekend for Spectre doesn't reach the heights of Skyfall ($90.56M), though few expected it to, and it's still one of the better starts for the series. On the other end of the spectrum, Jem and the Holograms officially ended its run after 14 days with a final gross of $2,184,640 from 2,417 theaters. Truly outrageous(ly bad)! November 6–8, 2015 Estimates: 1 (N) Spectre $73,000,000 | 3,929 Theaters | $18,580 Avg. | $73,000,000 2 (N) The Peanuts Movie $45,000,000 | 3,897 Theaters | $11,547 Avg. | $45,000,000 3 (1) The Martian $9,300,000 | 2,855 Theaters | $3,257 Avg. | $197,067,346 4 (2) Goosebumps $6,965,000 | 3,051 Theaters | $2,283 Avg. | $66,440,954 5 (3) Bridge of Spies $6,086,000 | 2,767 Theaters | $2,199 Avg. | $54,971,952 6 (4) Hotel Transylvania 2 $3,550,000 | 2,274 Theaters | $1,561 Avg. | $161,293,404 7 (6) Burnt $3,003,000 | 3,003 Theaters | $1,000 Avg. | $10,211,287 8 (5) The Last Witch Hunter $2,650,000 | 2,286 Theaters | $1,159 Avg. | $23,571,701 9 (11) The Intern $1,810,000 | 1,071 Theaters | $1,690 Avg. | $71,407,251 10 (7) Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension $1,650,000 | 1,087 Theaters | $1,518 Avg. | $16,281,378 11 (8) Our Brand Is Crisis $1,500,000 | 2,202 Theaters | $681 Avg. | $6,000,632 12 (9) Crimson Peak $1,180,000 | 1,131 Theaters | $1,043 Avg. | $29,849,805 13 (13) Woodlawn $1,150,000 | 922 Theaters | $1,247 Avg. | $12,537,198 14 (14) Sicario $1,100,000 | 722 Theaters | $1,524 Avg. | $43,972,391 15 (10) Steve Jobs $823,000 | 421 Theaters | $1,955 Avg. | $16,684,073 (finally passes Ashton) 16 (28) Suffragette $779,000 | 222 Theaters | $3,509 Avg. | $1,135,568 17 (12) Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse $630,000 | 1,151 Theaters | $547 Avg. | $3,151,219 18 (17) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials $600,000 | 441 Theaters | $1,361 Avg. | $79,809,643 19 (15) Pan $571,341 | 508 Theaters | $1,125 Avg. | $32,942,691 20 (N) Miss You Already $552,503 | 384 Theaters | $1,439 Avg. | $552,503 Room $473,957 | 87 Theaters | $5,448 Avg. | $1,406,104 Spotlight $302,276 | 5 Theaters | $60,455 Avg. | $302,276 Brooklyn $181,000 | 5 Theaters | $36,200 Avg. | $237,389 Trumbo $77,229 | 5 Theaters | $15,446 Avg. | $77,229 Rock The Kasbah $59,021 | 201 Theaters | $294 Avg. | $2,745,733 Love $51,829 | 25 Theaters | $2,073 Avg. | $122,075 Global Totals: INSIDE OUT: $494.3M Overseas Total | $850.215M Global Total ANT-MAN: $337.9M Overseas Total | $517.425M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $261.4M Overseas Total | $458.5M Global Total HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2: $242.9M Overseas Total | $404.2M Global Total MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS: $218.5M Overseas Total | $298.3M Global Total SPECTRE: $223.1M Overseas Total | $296.1M Global Total EVEREST: $148.1M Overseas Total | $190.9M Global Total THE INTERN: $108.6M Overseas Total | $180.0M Global Total PAN: $81.1M Overseas Total | $113.5M Global Total GOOSEBUMPS: $25.8M Overseas Total | $92.2M Global Total BRIDGE OF SPIES: $17.0M Overseas Total | $71.9M Global Total CRIMSON PEAK: $39.7M Overseas Total | $69.6M Global Total PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION: $50.8M Overseas Total | $67.08M Global Total THE PEANUTS MOVIE: $4.6M Overseas Total | $49.6M Global Total THE DRESSMAKER: $6.3M Overseas Total SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE APOCALYPSE: $2.3M Overseas Total | $5.45M Global Total

Wasn't Wes born in...I want to say Haiti? Maybe it was just his mother. I think he was telling Rebecca about all this at some point, but I might have been tuning out their scenes... Anyway, with Michaela being adopted, maybe the writers won't want to go to that well again with Wes. I'll go with the theory that someone Annalise successfully defended in the early 2000s was involved with Wes' mother and her suicide (that will turn out to be a murder).

It's been a while since I saw Dave but there was a fair amount of commentary on the corrupt nature of Washington's power brokers and the inability for Congress to actually do anything, but it's a fish-out-of-water comedy first, which broadens the appeal. Looking further down the BOM list of Political Campaign/Election Movies you have: The American President — $60M (the equivalent of $114.7M in 2015 dollars) Wag the Dog — $43M ($76.5M in 2015 dollars) The Ides of March — $40.9M (it's from 2011) Primary Colors — $39M (adjusts to $69.3M) It probably is fair to say movies very rooted in politics can be a tough sell with the country so polarized ideologically, but perhaps the non-American setting with Our Brand Is Crisis hurt matters even more. It's easy to sell international heists and car chases but politics, not so much. Before Sandra agreed to star in OBIC, George Clooney was linked to the project for years, potentially as a director and star, and I wonder if it wouldn't have done a little better with him. Not because men are better box office draws than women, but IMO that sort of talky, socially-conscious fare for grown-ups is more in his wheelhouse. So, even if a movie of that ilk had weak reviews, I think more of his fans would have been willing to give it a shot. It's similar to how All About Steve looked ghastly from the trailers, was abysmally reviewed and dumped on Labor Day weekend, but still opened to $11 million and managed decent box office legs with a 3x multiplier. It was Sandra Bullock in a rom-com and The Proposal was nearly three months old by then. Sandy has so many beloved romantic comedies and dramas in constant TV rotation, whose overall critical reception isn't the best, but people like them, anyway. Sandra Bullock in a lightly promoted, poorly-reviewed international political comedy/drama? Not to say that stars can't branch out from their comfort zones, and sometimes it works out well, like Gravity. When the critics aren't on board, the genre has a ceiling on box-office potential even in best-case scenarios, and it's not the sort of movie that fans were clamoring to see the star make...well, there goes the opening weekend audience.

Here are Box Office Mojo's lists of Political Satire Movies and Political Campaign Movies. There's some overlap between the two, but the top movies domestically (unadjusted) are Fahrenheit 9/11 ($119.2M), The Campaign ($86.9M), the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate ($65.96M), Dave ($63.3M) and The Adjustment Bureau ($62.5M). That's two movies from the 2010s, two more from the 2000s, different types of movies (comedy, thriller, documentary) and we're not talking Marvel money here, but there can be an audience for a movie with a political setting. The budget for Our Brand Is Crisis is reportedly $28 million and it was based on a documentary from 2005 of the same name. The Walk and Everest were also based on documentaries, and there have been a couple of Steve Jobs docs, too...maybe that's the real story of these fall flops, that every documentary doesn't need to be turned into a feature film. In terms of the overall box office, such as how many billions of dollars were made in theatrical for one year, or what a studio has made, it's typically tallied by calendar year, so in that sense, American Sniper counts for 2015. OTOH, in lists of a year's top-grossing movies, it usually goes by the year the movie was released, so it's also not incorrect to say that Sniper was the top-grossing movie of 2014. There have been many times where a year's top movie made it there in the next year: Titanic is considered the most popular movie of 1997, even if it made more money in 1998, and it took Catching Fire until January 2014 to make more than Iron Man 3 to become the top film released in 2013. Still, it's usually not an American Sniper situation where the movie that "won" had such a limited release and made so little of its final total in the actual year it was first released.

My feeling (which may be completely wrong) is that The Hunger Games franchise has a greater appeal to casual movie fans than some of the YA other properties. Of course, there are superfans, but compared to some other franchises, I think a smaller percentage of its overall movie audience lives and breathes for the characters and the world. As far as YA fantasy/sci-fi goes, HG is not the most convoluted story to catch up with/dive into midway: a good way to bring in people not scared off by the premise yet not hugely invested, but that lack of investment keeps those noncommital fans from showing up and paying to see the first half of a story. The ride-or-die fans will complain all the way but still show up in droves. To compare, Deathly Hallows - Part 1 dipped around $6 million from Half-Blood Prince, and Breaking Dawn - Part 1, $19 million from Eclipse. It'll be interesting to see if the Divergent gambit of giving the two finale parts different titles (rather than Part 1 and 2) does anything to stop that franchise's popularity slide. Probably not, because they're still both Allegiant adaptations, but they might as well try something. greenbean, studios often see a smaller percentage of international box office (with China, for example, it can be 25 percent for Hollywood films but higher with Chinese co-productions). Sometimes, they pre-sell the rights to a local distributor for a set fee, and that distributor gets to keep the money the movie makes from actual ticket sales. Smaller studios do this when they don't have an operation up and running in a certain market, and it's also a way to help cover a movie's budget ahead of its release (or in China, to get around the quotas--they allow 34 Hollywood movies per year under the revenue sharing model). The downside is if the movie becomes a bigger hit than expected the studio loses out, but it saves them on flops. OTOH, if the movie happens to be part of a series, the last film's performance has an impact on the fee for the next movie.

Most of the adult dramas released in the fall have hopes for Oscar glory. They're trying to position themselves so that they're neither forgotten by critics and the different groups by the time the nominations are handed out, nor seen too late to make a dent compared to all the other awards bait that's already come along (i.e. what went wrong for Selma last year). The last three Best Picture winners were all October releases, so a lot of studios big and small have hopped on the bandwagon. I don't remember it seeming like such a glut before, with so many flops. The second Harry Potter movie dropped 20% from Sorcerer's Stone, maybe a little less. The Maze Runner has a much smaller audience, so in theory, there was the potential to reach a broader audience, because it didn't start out as a massively known property. Personally, that Group Hopper sketch from SNL kind of ruined the YA dystopian film for me, or crystallized what I already felt about the also-rans of the genre. Unless one of them brings something dramatically different to the table, I don't think any more of them are going to break out massively in the next few years. OTOH, maybe it's as simple as people actually liking the maze aspect and losing interest, not to have that featured as much. Some theorize that the same thing happened with Mockingjay, since the story wasn't about Katniss in the arena. Sure, there was a Part 1 effect with the Potter and Twilight finales, too, but not $87 million worth like with the Hunger Games franchise.

All About Steve co-stars Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper both flopped individually this weekend with their new movies, with Sandra having her worst wide opening weekend ever as a headliner, in pure dollars. Fans of adult drama have had a lot of options this month, possibly too many, given the number that have underwhelmed. OTOH, Bridge of Spies is having excellent holds, even if it got off to a smaller start. 1 (1) The Martian $11,400,000 | 3,218 Theaters | $3,543 Avg. | $182,806,753 2 (2) Goosebumps $10,210,000 | 3,618 Theaters | $2,822 Avg. | $57,104,415 3 (3) Bridge of Spies $8,060,000 | 2,873 Theaters | $2,805 Avg. | $45,202,616 4 (5) Hotel Transylvania 2 $5,830,000 | 2,962 Theaters | $1,968 Avg. | $156,004,480 5 (4) The Last Witch Hunter $5,162,398 | 3,082 Theaters | $1,675 Avg. | $19,025,259 6 (N) Burnt $5,002,521 |3,003 Theaters | $1,666 Avg. | $5,002,521 7 (6) Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension $3,450,000 | 1,530 Theaters | $2,255 Avg. | $13,569,623 8 (N) Our Brand Is Crisis (2015) $3,430,000 | 2,202 Theaters | $1,558 Avg. | $3,430,000 9 (8) Crimson Peak $3,110,000 | 2,112 Theaters | $1,473 Avg. | $27,745,980 10 (7) Steve Jobs $2,580,000 | 2,493 Theaters | $1,035 Avg. | $14,540,683 (Ashton's is ahead after 24 days) 11 (9) The Intern $2,385,000 | 1,521 Theaters | $1,568 Avg. | $68,539,744 12 (N) Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse $1,770,000 | 1,509 Theaters | $1,173 Avg. | $1,770,000 13 (12) Woodlawn $1,685,000 | 1,255 Theaters | $1,343 Avg. | $10,655,973 14 (10) Sicario $1,675,000 | 1,073 Theaters | $1,561 Avg. | $42,032,211 15 (11) Pan $1,122,000 | 1,158 Theaters | $969 Avg. | $31,767,732 16 (32) Truth $900,914 | 1,122 Theaters | $803 Avg. | $1,151,491 17 (14) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials $750,000 | 671 Theaters | $1,118 Avg. | $78,831,670 18 (15) Jem and the Holograms $387,925 | 2,417 Theaters | $160 Avg. | $2,028,755 19 (18) The Visit $368,740 | 412 Theaters | $895 Avg. | $64,367,670 20 (13) Rock The Kasbah $354,955 | 2,012 Theaters | $176 Avg. | $2,430,726 Room $269,500 | 49 Theaters | $5,500 Avg. | $766,702 The Witness (Wo shi zheng ren) $190,000 | 40 Theaters | $4,750 Avg. | $190,000 Suffragette $155,000 | 23 Theaters | $6,739 Avg. | $258,118 Love (2015) $30,124 | 2 Theaters | $15,062 Avg. | $30,124 Global Totals: INSIDE OUT: $490.4M Overseas Total | $845.9M Global Total ANT-MAN: $334.5M Overseas Total | $513.7M Global Total THE MARTIAN: $245.5M Overseas Total | $428.3M Global Total MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS: $196.1M Overseas Total | $274.9M Global Total STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON: $38.7M Overseas Total | $199.8M Global Total EVEREST: $132.9M Overseas Total | $175.2M Global Total THE INTERN: $101.3M Overseas Total | $169.8M Global Total PAN: $76M Overseas Total | $107.7M Global Total SPECTRE: $80.4M Overseas/Global Total (UK: $63.8M) BLACK MASS: $18.6M Overseas Total | $80.1M Global Total CRIMSON PEAK: $34.2M Overseas Total | $61.9M Global Total THE LAST WITCH HUNTER: $38.4M Overseas Total | $56.3M Global Total PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION: $37.8M Overseas Total | $51.2M Global Total SUFFRAGETTE: $11.3M Overseas Total | $11.5M Global Total

It's annoying that Hollywood's idea of giving women more roles is to make a female version of movies that have already been done. Not that they don't stick men in tons of remakes, but something about this "female Ghostbuster/21 Jump Street/Ocean's 11" wave feels a bit patronizing.

It's very early on but it is going to occur to Rafael to do a paternity test at some point, right? He shouldn't trust Petra at all, not to mention that the sample shouldn't have been viable and I wouldn't have put it past Rafael's assistant to have made his own donation, and she's really pregnant by him. You would think that the situation would have led to even one comment from Rafael about Petra's previous pregnancy this week, between the doctor's visit and the weighing of the options for dealing with the new pregnancy.

Adele has a big deal with NBC for her album promotion, so I wondered if DWTS would snub the song in retaliation. It'll be number one for a while and a huge sensation, so probably not. The DWTS "singers" had better not decide to take on Adele. I'm glad TPTB use original recordings more often now.