San Andreas and Aloha open in wide release in movie theaters this weekend. Woman In Gold and Insurgent make their way to Keller 8 in South County while The Boy Next Door is among the new releases at Redbox.

Don’t pay regular price for a ticket to see one of these new releases in the theater. Sign up now for MoviePass at MoviePass.com

Recapping Last Weekend

As far as Memorial Day Weekend box offices go, this year’s was particularly bad. The combined U.S and Canada receipts totaled $190 million. That figure ranks as the lowest since 2001. As the Wall Street Journal points out, that figured looks really bad when you consider that average ticket prices have gone up 44% in that time. Even a weak box office has to have a winner and this year’s was Tomorrowland with just above $33 million in tickets sold.

I saw the film over the weekend and thought it was excellent. It will likely go down as financial miss from Disney, but that’s not because it’s a bad movie. Disney just spent too much money on it and marketed it in probably the wrong way. As Scott Mendelson puts it on Forbes, that “failure is not about audiences rejecting originality”.

Pitch Perfect 2 had a relatively strong second weekend of release with $30.8 million in ticket sales. Mad Max: Fury Road finished in third place with $24.6 million. Both films have been in theaters for two weeks with Pitch Perfect 2 earning $128.6 million domestically thus far and Mad Max earning $97.8 million. The latter has performed better in foreign market and thus has earned $230.8 worldwide to the former’s $190.3 million. The a cappella film will be considering the bigger financial success however when you consider its budget was $29 million versus $150 million.

Poltergesist opened with $22.6 million for fourth place and Avengers: Age of Ultron stayed in the top five with $21.7 million.

 

San Andreas

Dwayne Johnson attempts to save his family and California from an earthquake in San Andreas. Don’t go into this movie thinking you’re going hear dialogue on a sophisticated level. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is tying the premiere of San Andreas into his plans encouraging residents to be better prepared for a major quake. A major earthquake along the San Andreas Fault is expected to hit sometime in the next couple of decades.

San Andreas opens tonight with a showing at MX Movies in downtown St. Louis. Screen Rant is predicting a $33 million opening weekend.

Aloha

Aloha is a romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, John Krasinski and others. McAdams plays the role of Cooper’s ex while Emma Stone becomes his new love interest. The film has been attacked recently by the Media Action Network of Asian Americans for basically being “too white”. Even the film’s title has been attacked by at least one talk show host. This film was actually first cast six years ago and was referred to as the ‘Untitled Cameron Crowe” project for awhile. It was caught up in the infamous Sony Attack where form Sony Co-Chairman Amy Pascal made everyone aware she wasn’t a fan of the movie. The again, Amy Pascal made us aware of quite a few things about her and the way she handles things.

ComingSoon.net predicts Aloha will be lucky to crack the $10 million mark in its debut.

Catch It Before It’s Gone

Keller 8 Cinemas in South County welcomes Woman In Gold and Insurgent this Friday. I found Woman In Gold to be pretty interesting and also enjoyed Insurgent as a sequel in the Divergent series. I’d suggest Insurgent as the movie you should see in theaters.

Make It A Redbox Night

Among the new offerings at your local Redbox this week are The Boy Next Door, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Seventh Son.

The Boy Next Door with Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman and Kristin Chenoweth wasn’t great by any means, but it might be worth your $1.20

 

More Movie News

Jaws is heading back to theaters to celebrate its 40th anniversary. On Sunday June 21 and Wednesday 24 the classic film that basically made Sharknado possible will be shown in select theaters around the country. I presume the full location list will become available tomorrow when tickets go on sale.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Trailer

 

G.I. Jane and Jane Reacher among movies leaving Netflix in June.

Fox and Apple today launched a new app on Apple’s iOS system. The Movie of the Day app will offer a movie a day that users could purchase “at a heavily discount price“. You won’t e upright purchasing the movie, but instead you’ll have a digital copy for 24 hours that you can watch. Movies are said to range from $5-$10. Is this a joke? Someone actually thinks this is a good idea? If you know someone who buys a movie through this app you should do them a favor and punch them in the face. It might knock some sense into them. Oh, a Google Play version should be available soon in case you were worried.

Hailee Steinfeld plays an assassin turned high schooler in Barely Lethal.  Steinfeld was great in Pitch Perfect 2 and recently signed a record contract with Republic Records.  This film with Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Alba is not getting very good reviews. In fact, it is currently available through DirecTV but will get a presumably very limited theater release this weekend. Check out Hailee Steinfeld at the Barely Lethal premiere.

 

So while Dwayne Johnson is starring in San Andreas this weekend, he’s also in the new trailer for Ballers. Ballers  premieres June 21st on HBO. “The Rock” will play retired football players Spencer Strasmore in the series.

 

Because people are dumb, there was controversy over Michael B. Jordan being picked to play The Human Torch in Fantastic Four. Jordan’s response to the “trolls of the internet”?

“Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s okay to like it.”

Andy Serkis will play a character named Supreme Leaders Snoke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Trailer

 

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