Month: June 2021

Either the novelty of returning to movie theaters faded the weekend after A Quiet Place Part II opened, or the studios haven’t given moviegoers a big enough incentive to return en masse since, as this weekend’s entire box-office looks to be around $45 million. That’s not only less than last week’s $57 million but less than the $47 million that A Quiet Place Part II opened with over Labor Day weekend.

This weekend’s middling debut was The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, the sequel to the surprise 2017 hit, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which opened with $21 million and went on to earn $176 million. Recall, however, that the original Ryan Reynolds, Sam Jackson, and Salma Hayek film made its money during one of the slowest months of August in years, at least until the pandemic came along. Back in 2017, however, it felt like moviegoers would take any excuse to go to theaters, which is not a knock against the original The Hitman’s Bodyguard (which I enjoyed), but a reflection of the lack of competition that month (remember the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower? No one else does, either).

In any respect, it’s four years and a pandemic later, and now moviegoers need a bigger incentive to return to theaters, especially when there are more options (and less hassle) at home and the theatrical window on so many movies has narrowed (A Quiet Place Part II, for instance, will premiere on July 12th on Paramount+ after its Memorial Day opening). Plus, the biggest movie of this weekend was probably Pixar’s Luca, which premiered — for free — on Disney+.

The end result: A fairly lackluster $10 million for The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard over the three-day weekend and $15 million since it opened on Wednesday. That’s not great, although to be fair, reviews for The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard were not great, either (25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 43 percent of the original). Audiences, however, liked it more than critics (79 percent audience score but a soft B Cinemascore).

The $10 million total was enough to make it to the top film of the weekend, although not by much, as A Quiet Place Part II came in with $9.4 million to bring its total to $125 million after four weeks, easily making it the biggest movie of the pandemic. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, meanwhile, held OK, dropping 53 percent in its second weekend to earn $6.25 million and bring its total to $20 million.

Disney’s Cruella, which is also available for a $30 surcharge on Disney+, is holding much better, earning $5.1 million in its fourth week to bring its theatrical total to $65 million. That, on top of its premium access receipts, is clearly enough to warrant a sequel, which is already in development. In its third weekend, Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It earned another $5 million to bring its total to $53 million.

Finally, the box office of In the Heights, continues to disappoint. It earned $4.5 million to bring its 10-day total to just under $20 million. However it’s still available on HBO Max where it’s apparently not doing great on the streaming service, either. That’s a shame, because — colorism controversy aside — it is a fantastic film.

Next weekend we will finally find out how well the post-pandemic box office can really do, as the highly anticipated F9: The Fast Saga finally opens, which may signal the true arrival of the summer box office. The film has already earned $292 million overseas, including $200 million from China alone.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo

Sports just mean more when you’re younger, and sometimes in very different ways. Which is why Joey Votto getting thrown out of a Reds-Padres game on Saturday was a disaster for a young Votto superfan named Abigail whose plight went viral online.

On Saturday night, Votto was ejected in the top of the first inning along with Reds manager David Bell for arguing a called third strike when the third base umpire said he offered at a 1-2 pitch outside of the zone.

Votto was heated, and had to be restrained by his manager as he yelled at multiple umpires. It was quite a scene. Getting ejected that early over balls and strikes is rare, and it happened to be the worst possible time to get tossed for a fan attending their first major league game.

The face of the young girl really says it all, as she’s clearly upset that the guy on her shirt had an extremely short outing at Petco Park. The Reds social media team reached out to the family on Twitter in an attempt to make things right, and Votto himself did the job before the game was over. A few innings later, the young girl had an autographed baseball with a very special note penned on one side.

“Joey Votto is SO KIND- he signed this amazing ball for her!!” the tweet said. And the note is pretty succinct: “I am sorry I didn’t play the entire game.”

It’s a hilarious message out of context, but the perfect gift for someone who — despite the ejection — got an extremely special moment with their favorite player on Saturday. Votto probably is very sorry, both for Abigail and the fact that he didn’t get to finish what was a 7-5 loss to San Diego. But at least Abigail got some popcorn and a signed baseball. Pretty good night at the ballpark if you ask us.

The Daily Show is taking a summer break, and show host Trevor Noah bid a heartfelt farewell to fans until the show returns on September 13. How the show looks when it comes back, though, is a bit of an unknown. But before we fast-forward to fall, Noah said goodbye in what may be his last show from his home studio after more than a year of filming remotely.

“As for me, on the TV show, we’re going to be taking a little break,” Noah said on Friday. “Why? Because it’s time to go outside. It’s been a crazy time we’ve spent together and when we started it was going to be 21 days.”

It was, of course, far longer than 21 days. And even with large parts of the United States slowly finding a bit more normalcy in the still-ongoing pandemic thanks to vaccinations and the return of summer, Noah remained inside for The Daily Show. And in an emotional monologue, he said there was plenty to learn from all that time making the show from home.

“Every single month we carried on, never knowing when the thing was going to end because we were never really warned when the thing was going to begin. During that time, we found new ways to do things, we found new ways to make a show, we found new ways to communicate with an audience and we found new ways to live as human beings,” Noah said. “Now, as the future comes, I wanted to take a moment to think about what that new will be. I don’t know if the world will go back to normal tomorrow, but I know I’m striving for a certain sense of normalcy, but I don’t know what that will be. I do know it will be shaped by what I’ve experienced during this time.”

Noah will stay busy in the summer, with a stand-up tour traveling across the United States. But after more than a year making shows at home, he seemed both wistful and eager to get out of that same room and start living again. As Deadline noted, Noah has already spoken about some changes that may be in store when the show returns in September, though he isn’t exactly sure what those changes will be.

Earlier in the week, Noah told Arsenio Hall that he had a “few surprises” in store when he does eventually go back to the studio.

“I’m going to take a bit of time to figure out what the new show is going to be. This conversation we’ve been having over the past 15 months made me realize that people are too angry and too happy being angry. We don’t have conversations anymore, we distil every idea into black and white, there’s no nuance, we don’t leave room for conversation and I don’t want to be a part of that.”

We’ll have to wait and see just what the show looks like after the summer, and if Noah returns with The Daily Show as well.

[via Deadline]

Things could be going better in the world of Ben Simmons right now. While the Philadelphia 76ers are one game away from the Eastern Conference Finals — they’ll take on the Atlanta Hawks in a Game 7 in the City of Brotherly Love on Sunday evening — Simmons has struggled mightily, to the point that he’s been taken off the floor at times by Doc Rivers.

His scoring has completely cratered in the last two games, scoring 14 total points while shooting 4-for-10 from the field across both contests. He’s not shooting in the second half of games at all, and in this series, Simmons is 14-for-44 from the free throw line, which comes out to a 32.6 percent clip. Perhaps Philly can outlast the Hawks, but any hopes of winning a ring will depend on Simmons finding his form on the offensive end of the floor.

In an attempt to get Simmons back on track, Shaquille O’Neal used Inside the NBA and the fact that they both went to LSU to get a message across.

“Camera!” Shaq said, alerting the camera to focus on him as he took off his glasses. “Ben, you went to LSU. Man up, man. Man up. Stop messing around. Come on, now. You know better than that.”

Some trash talk came via Charles Barkley about LSU, then he and Shaq had a back-and-forth about the university. But hey, if Simmons does bounce back in a big way in Game 7, I guess you can say it’s because he has the eye of the Tiger(s).

Kevin Durant has hit a whole heck of a lot of incredible shots in his NBA career. In terms of difficulty and the moment in which it came, one of his best came on Saturday night against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, but it came with a major catch: it did not lead to the Brooklyn Nets winning the series.

With one second remaining in regulation, Durant hit an absolutely ridiculous turnaround jumper over PJ Tucker to tie things at 109. It was an impossibly difficult shot, but Durant’s toe was just on the three-point line, so instead of winning the game, the jumper led to the teams playing an overtime period.

The Nets struggled mightily in the extra frame, and the Bucks came out on top, 115-111. After the game, Durant was asked about the jumper, and blamed his size 18 sneakers for being the reason that the Nets’ season is over.

Obviously there are dozens of far more pertinent reasons why Brooklyn lost this game than Durant’s shoe size, but the margins were so tight that this really does illustrate how even the tiniest thing was going to come back to bite them. Having said that, Durant scored 48 points, which is a Game 7 record, so this was an all-time performance regardless of his size 18s.

The Boys is currently filming its third season in Canada right now despite, well, everything. And given the excitement fans have had through two seasons of the Amazon Prime series, the matter of when they actually get to watch the show is a hot topic on social media. But if fans are smart, well, they should maybe stop asking the show’s Twitter account when that release date is coming.

The show’s official Twitter account, apparently tired of getting questions about a release date that has yet to be announced, issued a warning on social media on Friday night: stop asking or else it never comes out.

“Every time you ask when season 3 is coming out the release date moves back one day,” the tweet said. “See you in 2033!”

This is almost certainly not something that has any bearing on the actual release date of the show, but it certainly fits the cheeky presence it has had on social media throughout its run. And even star Jack Quaid couldn’t help but troll a bit in a reply to the tweet.

Meanwhile, Quaid and Erin Moriarty got their vaccinations while up north in between filming scenes.

That’s good news all around for keeping things on track for a third season, and the Twitter account doesn’t have anything to do with when Amazon decides to let the world see Season 3.

Kevin Durant did everything in his power to get the Brooklyn Nets to the Eastern Conference Finals, although ultimately, the team came up just short. Durant was spectacular, scoring an NBA Game 7 record 48 points with nine rebounds and six assists, but it was not quite enough, as the Milwaukee Bucks picked up a thrilling 115-111 overtime victory.

Still, Durant is going to receive a ton of praise for him performance, both in this game and throughout the series against the Bucks, where he gave Milwaukee every single thing it could handle. And after it ended, Durant shared a heartwarming moment with his mother, Wanda, known lovingly by NBA fans as “the real MVP.” The two hugged on the floor once the result became inevitable, with Wanda appearing to offer up some encouragement.

It wasn’t the only time the cameras caught Wanda on the night, as we got a wonderful clip involving herself and Bucks forward PJ Tucker. While he’s on the other team and needed to harass Durant all series, the two are friendly, and when Tucker realized the fan who was chirping at him was Wanda, he smiled amid the heat of the competition and told her he loved her.

The Milwaukee Bucks are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals. Despite a record-setting night by Kevin Durant, Milwaukee was able to take down the Brooklyn Nets in a war of attrition, coming out on top at the conclusion of an overtime period, 115-111, marking the second time in three years that the Bucks will play for a conference title.

The man of the evening for the Milwaukee, as is so often the case, was Giannis Antetokounmpo. While Durant stole the show, Antetokounmpo put up his own dominant performance, scoring 40 points, hauling in 13 rebounds, doling out five assists, and going 15-for-24 from the field in 50 minutes of work. Much has been made of his free throws this series, but he made more than he missed despite constant heckling from the crowd at the Barclays Center, going 8-for-14.

Beyond him, Khris Middleton closed things down the stretch, hitting big shots and initiating the offense in the waning minutes of regulation and overtime. Middleton stuffed the stat sheet: 23 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and five steals. Jrue Holiday struggled, going 5-for-23 from the field, but hit some big shots down the stretch to get things to overtime, while Brook Lopez pinched in 19 points and eight rebounds.

All of this was barely enough, as Durant put forth a masterpiece. His 48 points were a record for a Game 7, regardless of the round, while he chipped in nine rebounds and six assists.

Durant also managed to force overtime with one of the most bonkers shots you’ll ever see. Despite getting hounded by PJ Tucker, Durant shot a turnaround fallaway jumper from the perimeter that somehow went in. He probably wishes his shoes were about three sizes smaller and the Nets ultimately came up a bit short, but still, this is going to go down as one of the best shots in recent NBA history.

James Harden, still obviously hobbled by his hamstring injury, nearly had a triple-double with 22 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists while playing 53 minutes, leaving it all on the floor despite the bum wheel. Blake Griffin’s Brooklyn renaissance came to an end, but he, too, impressed, going for a 17-point, 11-assist double-double.

Now, Milwaukee will take a collective breath and wait to see which team it will face with a spot in the NBA Finals on the line. That will all get sorted out on Sunday, when the Philadelphia 76ers and Atlanta Hawks will face off in their own Game 7 tilt. The game is scheduled to tip off at 8 p.m. EST on TNT.

Phones and social media have always been a source of contention in relationships, and DaBaby learned that the hard way tonight. After the North Carolina rapper retweeted a post that seemed to be supporting Tory Lanez and calling Megan Thee Stallion into question, the “Thot Sh*t” rapper took to the social media platform herself. Here’s the tweet that started it all, that DaBaby’s account had initially retweeted:

“I guess @DaBabyDaBaby and @torylanez cool now bc the both shot somebody and don’t have to do no jail time.” But it’s unclear why DaBaby would tweet this as it isn’t necessarily flattering to him? Anyway, here’s Megan’s first response:

“Support me in private and publicly do something different…these industry men are very strange,” she began. “This situation ain’t no damn “beef” and I really wish people would stop down playing it like it’s some internet sh*t for likes and retweets.”

But according to DaBaby, he never meant to retweet the offending post! He followed up multiple times claiming it was a glitch in the system:

“Baby got enough problems of his own my n—-, ion got nooooo reason to inherit the next MF problems,” he wrote. “Y’all chasing a story y’all ain’t gone get. I’m out n—-s bidness while still successfully doing business. Idk what type of Illuminati sh*t Twitter got goin on.. I ain’t retweet nothing but “Ball If I Want To” promo. I ain’t retweet that silly sh*t. Then once ppl start tagging me & I saw it and tried to delete it and undo the retweet Twitter didn’t let me. Type sh*t yall on?”

Then he quoted Megan’s first irate tweet with this response:

“You done let these folks get the best of you thug. ion got no bad energy for ya. You know like I know I ain’t no “industry” n—- , let em fool you into thinking that you trippin. Stand on what you stand on without feeling like I’m against ya. Stay focused my g.”

Megan didn’t take too kindly to that response, and had her own to fire back — of course, DaBaby also appeared in the “Skat” video with Tory Lanez this week, which is likely part of her issue.

“My stance hasn’t changed at all YOURS has,” she wrote. “We already spoke abt this in private and you specifically said “that ain’t even no good business move why would I promote that sh*t” but now this ain’t your “beef” ? That ain’t real. But you stay on ya “business” my g.”

And DaBaby doggedly still tried to deny it all.

“You ain’t tweeting nothing I ain’t tell dat n—- directly. I told him da same shi*. lol,” he wrote. “Whoever cleared it cleared it, so what. Sh*t still ain’t enough of my bidness for MFs to be feelin some type of way bout my pretty chocolate ass. Gettin into dat don’t feed my ppl.”

Still trying to clear his name, DaBaby lamented the situation once more, noting he doesn’t even fight with the women he dates online like this — and rapper Pardison Fontaine, who has been linked to Megan romantically, saw his chance to jump in.

“Ion even go back n forth w/ my own b*tches on the net now I’m on dis mf goin back n forth w/ another n—- woman about some sh*t another n—- accused of,” he lamented. “How tf dat work? Y’all n—-s hell. Happy Juneteenth tho, we started this b*tch off wit a bang didn’t it ? Luv u Meg.”

And here’s Pardi’s response:

“You a clown ass n—- doin doin clown ass sh*t then tryin to back pedal,” he wrote. “N—- that’s what it is .. u don’t ever gotta address her again.”

Well! Let this be a lesson to watch your retweet button carefully on those verified accounts? Also, full support of Megan and however she decides to deal with and respond to DaBaby’s erratic social media behavior.

Dogecoin and NASCAR have a much longer relationship that, say, Elon Musk. But the car with the meme-based cryptocurrency didn’t fare too well in its return to the racing circuit on Saturday.

Dogecoin has shown up at auto racing events in the past, starting when Reddit handed driver Josh Wise a sponsorship of the meme coin in 2014. But the crypto is a very different dog these days, and the Dogecar, as it’s known, has popped back up in 2021 for a handful of races for Stefan Parsons.

The car’s running actually made #dogecar trend on Twitter for a while.

That car, though, struggled in Nashville in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday. In Stage 2 of the Tennessee Lottery 250, Parsons got into trouble just before the start/finish line and wrecked, taking a hard hit on the front end of the car into the exterior wall.

The replay shows what would be an end to the day for the No. 99, which glided past the finish line sideways in what was very good advertising for the car’s front end but not the way anyone involved in the Parsons team would have liked to finish.

The wreck caused Parsons to finish 36th, in last place on the day. Meanwhile, the actual Dogecoin dipped a bit on Saturday, still far from the dollar value so many meme investors are dreaming it will one day reach.