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    “Transformers” Tops Box Office With $100M Debut

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments2311 Views
    This photo released by Paramount Pictures shows Stanley Tucci, left, as Joshua Joyce and Li Bingbing as Su Yueming, in "Transformers: Age of Extinction," from Paramount Pictures. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Andrew Cooper)

    By Derrik J. Lang, Entertainment Writer

    LOS ANGELES (AP) --

    "Transformers: Age of Extinction" is ruling the box office.

    The fourth installment in filmmaker Michael Bay's morphing robots series earned $100 million in North America during its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut for a movie this year, according to studio estimates Sunday, bumping "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and its $95 million debut.

    The Paramount blockbuster also earned $201.3 million from 37 international territories, specifically making $90 million in China, where "Age of Extinction" was partially filmed and co-produced by partners like state-owned China Film Group.

    "Age of Extinction" stars Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz as a human father and daughter who aid the shape-shifting robots from the Hasbro toy franchise. The sequel introduces the popular Transformers based on the likenesses of dinosaurs.

    "I think putting Mark Wahlberg front and center accomplished what we wanted to do, and that's re-energize the franchise," Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said. "He appeals to audiences, both critically and as an action star."

    "Age of Extinction" topped the previous entry in the series, "Dark of the Moon," which took in $97.8 million during its opening weekend in 2011, but failed to eclipse the $108.9 million debut of the second film, "Revenge of the Fallen."

    The first three "Transformers" films starred Shia LaBeouf as a teenager who befriends alien robots Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Bumblebee. The original 2007 film made $70.5 million and went on to gross $319.2 million.
    ___
    Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.

    1. "Transformers: Age Of Extinction," $100 million.

    2. "22 Jump Street," $15.4 million.

    3. "How To Train Your Dragon 2," $13.1 million.

    4. "Think Like a Man Too," $10.4 million.

    5. "Maleficent," $8.2 million.

    6. "Jersey Boys," $7.6 million.

    7. "Edge of Tomorrow," $5.2 million.

    8. "The Fault in Our Stars," $4.8 million.

    9. "X-Men: Days of Future Past," $3.3 million.

    10. "Chef," $1.6 million.

    Category:News
    Tags:box officeMichael BayTransformers



    Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”

    Friday, November 22, 2024

    When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.

    Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.

    But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.

    As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.

    "Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."

    "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More

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