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James Bond

Just make great movies, with great actors, and we’ll all be happy.

Will James Bond Continue To Be A Handsome White Dude After Daniel Craig Leaves?

The times are a changin’ for the James Bond franchise. Eon Productions is still looking for a director to succeed Sam Mendes and oversee James Bond 25, as well as figure out if the movie will remain at Sony Pictures or be released by a different studio. Once James Bond 25 is out of the way, it will be the end of an era, as it will mark Daniel Craig’s last time playing 007. It will be a long time until we learn who Craig’s Bond replacement will be, but Eon producer Barbara Broccoli hasn’t ruled out that the next person to play the spy who’s fond of drinking shaken, not stirred, martinis won’t be the traditional white man. When asked if the next James Bond could be a woman and/or person of colour, Broccoli responded:

“These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit. Anything is possible.”

While this is by no means confirmation that the next time we see James Bond, it will be a woman or person of color portraying the spy, Barbara Broccoli’s comment to Daily Mail reveal that the option, among others, hasn’t been ruled out. For over 50 years, James Bond has been played by a white man, and while each have ranged in age and occasionally had different hair color, there haven’t been many major visual differences between these incarnations. Given the loose continuity between each “generation” of James Bond movies, the franchise could certainly “relaunch” with a different kind of actor donning the tuxedo, much like how 2006’s Casino Royale was a reboot that introduced Daniel Craig as a Bond who was just beginning his career as a 007 agent. This doesn’t work quite as seamlessly as Time Lords regenerating on Doctor Who, but it’s a creative direction that’s at least on the table.

For now, though, Eon Productions is working on making sure that Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond ends with a bang. After months of rumors and speculation, Craig finally confirmed that he would play Bond for a fifth time. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade returned to pen the script, and last August, it was reported that Denis Villeneuve, David Mackenzie and Yann Demange were the frontrunners for the directing gig, though Villeneuve has since taken himself out of the running due to already being committed to the Dune reboot. So far Craig is the only actor confirmed to appear in James Bond 25, but it was rumored last September that Léa Seydoux might briefly reprise her role as Dr. Madeleine Swann, who debuted in Spectre.

James Bond 25 will be released in theaters on November 8, 2019, so keep checking back with CinemaBlend for updates on that movie, as well as what’s in store for 007 after that. Don’t forget to also browse through our 2018 premiere guide to see what’s being screened over the next 12 months.

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People

Good luck to them!!

300 Hollywood A-listers launch campaign against sexual harassment

More than 300 female actors, directors, screenwriters and other entertainment industry players launched a new campaign Monday to battle sexual harassment in workplaces across the U.S. and to fight for gender equality.

The campaign, organized by a group calling itself Time’s Up, includes a $13-million (US) fund to provide legal and communications support to victims of workplace sexual harassment, particularly in more vulnerable jobs such as in the service sector, agriculture and manufacturing.

Among the donors to the fund, according to a statement from Time’s Up, are Hollywood actresses Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon, as well as producers Shonda Rhimes and J.J. Abrams, talent agencies Creative Artists and William Morris Endeavor, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s foundation.

“The magnitude of the past few months highlights the fact that sexual harassment against women in the workplace is endemic and touches every industry,” Tina Tchen, a U.S. lawyer who will co-lead the Time’s Up legal fund, said in a statement. “This is the first of many concrete actions we will take.”

An open letter published by the movement acknowledges that the high profile of the U.S. media and entertainment industry has given many of its talents a prominent platform to bring forward revelations of sexual assault and harassment against dozens of men in positions of power. But “farmworker women and countless individuals employed in other industries have not been afforded” these platforms, the group says — which is in part why it decided to raise money for its legal fund.

“We particularly want to lift up the voices, power and strength of women working in low-wage industries where the lack of financial stability makes them vulnerable to high rates of gender-based violence and exploitation,” the open letter says.

The letter was published as a full-page ad in the New York Times and the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion.

Time’s Up is also campaigning for more women in positions of power and for pay equity, and is supporting the push for women to wear black, in solidarity with those who have been sexually harassed, at Sunday’s Golden Globes awards gala.

The movement came together in the wake of a series of high-profile sexual misconduct allegations that have emerged across the U.S. and around the world — largely against men in the media and entertainment industries — following the scandal around disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

The revelations have underscored what observers say is the pervasive nature of gender-based harassment, violence and discrimination in workplaces.

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Movies

I hope to see some new releases, and maybe STAR WARS again this week. It was a busy December.

Box Office: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Holds Off ‘Jumanji’ on New Year’s Weekend

In a battle of box office heavyweights, Luke Skywalker just managed to hold off Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the world rang in another year.

Disney and LucasFilm’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” retained first place for the four-day New Year’s holiday weekend despite steep competition from Sony’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” “Last Jedi” picked up an estimated $68.4 million, bringing its domestic haul to $533.1 million.

Don’t weep for “Jumanji,” however. The fantasy reboot, which finds Johnson, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart transported into a video game world, has outperformed expectations, picking up a lordly $66.5 million over the holiday weekend. It now has a hefty $185.7 million domestic gross and should continue to draw crowds in 2018. The “Jumanji” sequel has also done well internationally, racking up $350 million worldwide, and has provided a much-needed hit for a studio that has struggled to keep pace with the Disney’s and Warner Bros.’s of the world. It also scored with “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” a reboot of its wall-crawler franchise, and “Baby Driver,” but failed to turn “The Dark Tower” into a viable movie property.

Sony claims that “Jumanji” has a $90 million budget. Those veracity of those alleged production costs have raised eyebrows around town given the film’s Hawaii location and starry cast, but regardless of creative accounting and aggressive spinning, the result is impressive. A sequel seems preordained.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” closed 2017 as the year’s highest-grossing release and the seventh highest-grossing domestic movie of all time with $517.1 million. It will bypass its fellow franchisee “Rogue One” at some point on New Year’s Day to take the seventh spot on the stateside charts and has already blown past the $1 billion mark globally. The film carries a $200 million price tag, and has generated controversy for a series of creative decisions by director and writer Rian Johnson that have, depending on your perspective, either infused new energy into decades-old series or deviated dangerously from the Jedi canon.

It’s been a dismal year for the domestic box office, which ends 2017 with $11.12 billion in sales, down 2.3% from last year’s $11.38 billion and off slightly from 2015’s $11.14 billion, according to comScore. After a bruising summer, when revenues plummeted more than 6% in the wake of costly flops such as “The Mummy” and “Transformer: The Last Knight,” the gap did narrow. Fall and winter hits such as “It,” “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Coco,” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” helped make up the difference. The industry was also aided by record ticket prices. Empirically, fewer people made it to the multiplexes. Attendance is expected to hit a 27-year low when official numbers are tallied.

Universal’s “Pitch Perfect 3” took third place on the stateside charts, grossing $22.7 million for the four-day period and pushing its domestic total to just under $70 million. The a Cappella comedy carries a $45 million production budget and has been billed as the final installment in the franchise.

Hugh Jackman’s musical drama “The Greatest Showman” is finishing a close fourth with $20.7 million. The Fox-Chernin Entertainment production chronicles the rise of circus impresario P.T. Barnum. It got a boost from the holidays, and showed the biggest gain in the top 10 movies from the Christmas Eve weekend with an impressive 73% surge. The domestic total should hit $54.3 million through Monday. It’s a pricey movie, though. All that singing and dancing didn’t come cheap and “The Greatest Showman” cost $84 million to make.

Fox’s second weekend of “Ferdinand” rounded out the top five with $14.6 million, giving the animated comedy $56.8 million domestically.

Not every film was feeling the holiday spirit. Paramount’s “Downsizing” is a costly bomb. The comedy about a man (Matt Damon) who shrinks to the size of thimble in order to live in a materialistic utopia collapsed at the box office, eking out $6.1 million over the long weekend. Its total stands at $18.5 million — a paltry result given its $65 million budget. It also prolongs a box office losing streak for Damon. The actor also struck out with “Suburbicon” and “The Great Wall,” both of which opened during and flopped in 2017.

Warner Bros. and Alcon’s comedy “Father Figures” was another casualty of the Christmas crunch. The story of two twin brothers (Ed Helms and Owen Wilson) on a quest to find their biological father netted $5.1 million over the four-day weekend. Its total tops out at $14.1 million, making it unlikely that it will recoup its $25 million production budget as well its marketing costs.

And Sony’s “All the Money in the World” struggled to appeal to older audiences. The drama about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III attracted lots of attention for the filmmakers’ last minute decision to re-cast a key role played by disgraced actor Kevin Spacey. The breakneck reshoots took place in a matter of weeks, with Christopher Plummer assuming the Spacey part as parsimonious billionaire J. Paul Getty, and added $10 million to the film’s $40 million budget. Alas, audiences failed to show up. The movie grossed $7.5 million over the holiday weekend, bringing its domestic total to $14.7 million.

Foreign audiences picked up the slack as domestic attendance sputtered in 2017. The global box office is projected to hit $40 billion for the first time in history, propelled by the return of China. Total ticket sales in the Middle Kingdom grew by 22.3%, ending the year with $8.6 billion in revenues. That, at least, gives a beleaguered movie business some cause for celebration.

Categories
Jodie Foster

She’s not wrong.

Jodie Foster Says Studios Are ‘Ruining’ Movies With Big-Budget Superhero Blockbusters

Jodie Foster takes aim at big-budget studio movies, telling Radio Times magazine that they could spell doom for Hollywood in the way they shape the expectations of American audiences.

“Going to the movies has become like a theme park,” she told the magazine, according to the Telegraph. “Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking — you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.”

“It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world,” Foster continued. “I don’t want to make $200 million movies about superheroes.”

Foster made it clear that if she were to direct a superhero movie, it would have to be one with a compelling story and character at its core. Rather than doing a brainless action film, it would have to be about a character with a “really complex psychology.”

The Oscar-winning actress has shifted her focus to directing in recent years, most recently taking on an episode of the Netflix sci-fi anthology “Black Mirror.” In the interview, Foster described a “lack of respect” for directors in Hollywood that accepts only the “untouchable” likes of Steven Spielberg or Clint Eastwood.