Box Office: ‘Superman’ Continues To Soar For Second Week As New Releases Flop

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July 20, 2025

SUPERMAN held strong at the box office for a second week

Superman– $57.25M/$235M

Warner Bros. is soaring over tall buildings after Superman fell just 54% in its second week, even with some presumably strong competition. The James Gunn-directed superhero film now has $235M domestically and $406M worldwide. Those stateside numbers are enough to surpass Superman Returns’ $200M in 2006 and barrels in on Man of Steel‘s $291M in 2013.

2. Jurassic World Rebirth– $23.4M/$276.1M

3. I Know What You Did Last Summer (review)- $13M

The first of two attempted reboots that went belly-up, Sony’s I Know What You Did Last Summer opened to a dismal $13M. A legacy sequel to the 1997 slasher film, itself sortof a poor cousin to Scream, and the disappointing 1999 film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, managed to open weaker than both of them despite original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. returning. Reviews were bloody terrible, too, with critics giving it a 38% on RT and audiences just 68%.

4. Smurfs (review)- $11M

Meanwhile, Paramount’s turning red over their failed reboot of Smurfs, which opened to just $11M. The new animated/live-action film was fronted heavily by Rihanna as the voice of Smurfette, along with contributing some new music, but neither audiences or critics cared about seeing the blue elfings back on the big screen. Sony’s recent trio of films fared much better, with the final one, 2017’s Smurfs: The Lost Village, earning $197M globally. This new one won’t come close unless it really smurfs it overseas.

5. F1: The Movie– $9.6M/$153.6M

6. How to Train Your Dragon– $5.3M/$250.7M

7. Eddington (review)- $4.2M

A24 released Ari Aster’s pandemic thriller Eddington into 2111 theaters for $4.2M. It’s an okay number for the neo-Western led by Pedro Pascal, Joaquin Phoenix, and Emma Stone, centering on the rivalry between a small-town sheriff and the mayor during COVID-19 lockdowns. Aster is maybe too good at the anxiety he creates in audiences, because I don’t know anyone who wants to go back to those times, and that probably affected this box office. Aster’s previous film, 2023’s Beau is Afraid, only made $12M overall.

8. Elio– $2M/$68.9M

9. Lilo & Stitch– $1.5M/$418.1M

Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch became the first MPA film to cross the $1B billion mark globally. It’s now the #2 movie overall behind Ne Zha 2‘s $1.89B.

10. 28 Years Later– $1.3M/$68.7M

‘Guns Up’ Interview: Luis Guzmán On His Latest Great Supporting Performance Opposite Kevin James And Christina Ricci

By

Travis Hopson

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July 20, 2025

Luis Guzmán talks with Travis Hopson about GUNS UP

For more than fifty years, Luis Guzmán has been one of our best character actors, which is why filmmakers including Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, and Brian De Palma have sought him out repeatedly. Guzmán’s latest, Guns Up, is an action-comedy led by Kevin James and Christina Ricci, hitting theaters this week on July 18th. And of course, it’s got Guzmán stealing every scene he’s in as Ignatius Locke, a crime boss whose code of ethics threatens a rift with a rival.

Written and directed by Edward Drake, Guns Up follows Ray Hayes, an ex-cop and a family man, who leads a dangerous life as a mob enforcer. On the brink of retiring to fulfill his wife’s dream of opening a restaurant, Ray’s final job goes sideways, and suddenly he’s got just one night to get his family to safety.

Having been a fan of Guzmán since I first saw him in films such as Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and Out of Sight, it was a real treat to spend a few minutes discussing Guns Up with him. We talked about what it takes to be a great character actor, how he gets up for the diverse array of characters he plays, and even his thoughts on the advancement of Latino actors in Hollywood.

It was a great conversation. You can check it out below, and please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel!

‘ The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ First Look At Paul Walter Hauser As Mole Man, John Malkovich Cut From Film

By

Travis Hopson

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July 19, 2025

When The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens next week, it will be missing one key supervillain. Director Matt Shakman confirmed to Variety that John Malkovich, who was set to play Red Ghost in the Marvel film, won’t appear in the final cut. Disappointing news, for sure, but there’s hope we’ll get to see his performance in deleted scenes.

Shakman said, “There were a lot of things that ultimately ended up hitting the cutting room. When we were building a ’60s retro-future world, introducing all of these villains, introducing these four main characters as a group, as well as individually, introducing the idea of a child — there was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie and some things had to go ultimately in terms of shaping the film for its final version.”

The scene would’ve been a flashback featuring Red Ghost and his army of Super-Apes, but ultimately it didn’t fit with the flow of the film.

Fortunately, another key Fantastic Four villain is sticking around. USA Today has revealed the first look at Paul Walter Hauser as Mole Man, ruler of the underground kingdom of Subterranea. The image shows Hauser decked out in Mole Man’s familiar green outfit and peculiar protective glasses.

Shakman and Hauser talked about this version of the character, which they describe as a “union boss.” He sounds more like the classic interpretation which is less of a baddie than the protector of his people.

“He is living sort of in the shadows like a villain would, but he’s also taking care of an entire race of people and trying to live his life without being bothered,” Hauser explained, noting that his opposition to the Fantastic Four is political in nature. “It’s a power struggle, but within that, there are compromises and alliances made.”

The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters on July 25th.

‘A Little Prayer’ Trailer: David Strathairn And Jane Levy Star In Southern Family Drama From ‘Junebug’ Writer

By

Travis Hopson

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July 18, 2025

Two years after we reviewed A Little Prayer at its Sundance world premiere, the film by Junebug writer Angus MacLachlan is finally hitting theaters in August from Music Box Films. Starring David Strathairn and Jane Levy, the film centers on the respected pillar of a Southern community as he deals with his rambunctious family members.

Others in the terrific ensemble include Celia Weston, Will Pullen, Anna Camp, and Dascha Polanco.

MacLachlan directed and also wrote the screenplay. The film marks MacLachlan’s first project since 2017’s Abundant Acreage Available.

SYNOPSIS: Bill is a pillar of his Southern community: a business owner, a veteran, and the proud patriarch of an unruly but loving family. His daughter Patti has returned home after the collapse of her marriage, while his son David struggles to stay afloat. He has brought David into the family business, but harbors doubts about his discipline and commitment. Bill gravitates towards Tammy, his daughter-in-law and the only other person in his rambunctious household who values contemplation and repose. When Bill begins to suspect that David may be straying from his marital vows with a coworker, the father must confront the perplexing inscrutability of his son’s choices and their consequences for the rest of the family. A heart-tugging drama about finding kindred spirits in unexpected places, A Little Prayer is a sensitive and searching portrait of an American family from writer-director Angus MacLachlan.

You can read Cortland’s review here. A Little Prayer hits theaters on August 29th.

‘Street Fighter’: Indian Action Star Vidyut Jammwal To Play Dhalsim In Video Game Movie

By

Travis Hopson

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July 18, 2025

Legendary’s Street Fighter might be the most interesting movie being cast right now. Every announcement is just so out of left field, and it’s driving fans of the Capcom fighting game batty. The latest addition isn’t so wild, but it fits into the pattern of being unpredictable. Deadline reports Indian action star Vidyut Jammwal has been cast as the stretchy-limbed guru Dhalsim.

Dhalsim was introduced with Street Fighter II in 1991, and is a fire-spitting yogi with stretchy limbs. The casting of Jammwal reimagines the character significantly. Jammwal is making his big Hollywood debut with the role, after he put his martial arts skills to good use in the hit Hindi action franchise, Commando.

Jammwal joins an eclectic cast that includes, WWE superstars Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns as Guile and Akuma, respectively, New Japan Pro Wrestling veteran Hirooki Goto as E. Honda, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken, 50 Cent as Balrog, Andrew Schulz as Dan, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Orville Peck as Vega, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, and Jason Momoa as Blanka.

Street Fighter is expected to hit theaters in May 2026.

New ‘Judge Dredd’ Movie In The Works From Taika Waititi And ‘The Fall Guy’ Writer

By

Travis Hopson

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July 18, 2025

New JUDGE DREDD Movie is coming from Taika Waititi

Released in 2012, Dredd, the second feature film adaptation of the violent comic book, starred Karl Urban and was penned by Alex Garland, becoming a cult favorite. Despite the film making no money at the box office, fans have fought for years to get a sequel of some kind. Well, that never materialized, but more than a decade later Judge Dredd is back with a reboot by…Taika Waititi?

THR reports Waititi will direct a new Judge Dredd movie penned by New writer Drew Pearce. Apparently, Hollywood is buzzing over this project and it’s easy to see why. Waititi’s irreverent sense of humor and background directing two Thor movies for Marvel make it seem like a perfect fit.

That said, the timing for this is all off. Waititi is just finishing his adaptation of Klara and the Sun. It also follows the shelving of his planned Akira movie that that had been developing for years. The main problem is that a Judge Dredd movie should’ve been done years ago when it was still hot.

Working in its favor is that Waititi and Pearce are both big Judge Dredd fans. Pearce, who also wrote Iron Man 3, Hobbs & Shaw, and directed Hotel Artemis, has the right background. Waititi’s comedic skills should be just right for Judge Dredd, tells the hyper-violent and satirical story of the ultimate law enforcer in the future city of Mega-City One, a place riddled with crime. The comic was first adapted into a disastrous `1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone.

Review: ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Legacy Horror Sequel Unexpectedly Hooks You Back In

By
Travis Hopson
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It’s 1997, and high school movies are burning hot, whether they be comedies or Scream, which pumped new life into the horror genre. The success of that film spawned its bastard cousin, I Know What You Did Last Summer, led by two icons of the era, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Its cultural footprint basically amounts to Hewitt screaming “What are you waiting for?” at the top of her heaving lungs, but it was popular enough to give us an inferior sequel two years later, notable only for putting two Black actors, Brandy and Mekhi Phifer, on the movie poster. But to watch Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s belated reboot and its dedicated, almost comical devotion to its predecessors, you’d think I Know What You Did Last Summer was The Exorcist or something.

That’s actually one of the good things about this legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer. Gray-bearded Gen Xers don’t get treated like idiots for remembering this franchise fondly, and newcomers can easily jump into this silly, easy-to-follow story of a hooked serial killer who targets spoiled rich brats in need of some karmic retribution. If you find yourself rooting for the murderer, that’s actually kind of okay, in the same way you sorta cheer on Death to finish off the annoying protagonists in Final Destination.

The story is basically the same, except that the town of Southport, North Carolina now looks like Outer Banks on steroids, and the characters are just as vacant. Chase Sui Wonders plays Ava, and all we really know about her (ever, I must admit) is that her mother’s dead, she used to date the most unconvincing political consultant ever, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), and that she’s indecisive about everything. She’s back in town on the Fourth of July for the wedding of her pampered bestie, Danica (Madelyn Cline), to dudebro Teddy (Tyriq Withers). Along with their estranged pal Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), the old friends follow the festivities with a late night blunt and some shenanigans on an infamously deadly road, causing a speeding driver to skid over the cliff and into the waters below. Oops. They decide right then and there to never talk about it again. But one year later, a letter warning “I Know What You Did Last Summer” leads to the group and their loved ones being stalked by a killer sporting a slicker, a hook, and a vicious spear gun.

A slicker-clad killer who uses a hook as a weapon? This is obviously a copycat killer, odd since Southport has worked hard to scrub its murderous history from the Internet. So the kids turn to the only two people who survived the original assault in 1997, Hewitt’s Julie James and Prinze’s Ray Bronson, now divorced and bitter enemies. Julie wants nothing to do with this latest round of murders. But Ray owns the local bar that employs Stevie, and is something of a protective guardian to her.

Robinson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sam Lansky, loads the film up with references to the original lore, including a cameo appearance that will make fans of the ’90s teen scene cheer. While it doesn’t totally make sense why I Know What You Did Last Summer needs to ape established horror tropes (as Scream does intentionally), the screenplay works overtime to establish a semi-logical reason why it does. The reveal, while not impossible to piece together, still manages to be somewhat shocking for what it does to the canon as a whole.

Based on an idea conceived by Robinson and Scrambled filmmaker Leah McKendrick, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a film designed by women and it carries distinctly feminine messaging. Without giving too much away, it’s the female characters who drive the narrative and show more loyalty and physical toughness in the face of danger than their one-note male counterparts. While an attempt to hammer home an overall theme about sucky men is too “Internet cool” to be effective, a mid-credits scene does a better job at getting what this film is all about. “Nostalgia is overrated”, Julie James says once the violent ordeal has reached its climax, but nostalgia is what I Know What You Did Last Summer is hanging its hook on, and there’s nothing wrong with having a soft spot for it.

I Know What You Did Last Summer opens on July 18th.

Review: ‘Smurfs’
Don't Bother Smurfin' It To Theaters For This Unfunny, Forgettable Reboot

By
Travis Hopson
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When I was a kid, The Smurfs were a constant presence on my television screen, especially on Saturday mornings. While they were never my favorite, there was something comforting about the community of kind-hearted blue elflings, each with a name that signified their one outstanding trait. This was long before I ever cared that they were a creation of Belgian artist Peyo. Years later and this multimedia franchise has grown to include two successful films by Sony Pictures and one misguided, unnecessary reboot in 2017. And now it’s Paramount Pictures’ turn to try and keep them relevant with the simply-titled Smurfs, and the result will have you wishing Gargamel’s cat Azrael would finally get his wish and devour them once and for all.

Smurfs has largely been promoted as a movie for superstar musician Rihanna, who voices Smurfette, produces the film, and contributes key songs integral to the story. Unfortunately, Rihanna’s voice does not fit for Smurfette at all. Rihanna’s voice is great in other things, such as the hit animated film Home from 2015, but it’s not expressive or exuberant enough for Smurfette. So with the character being the centerpiece, it’s already a major hurdle. Making matters worse is an unbearable hip-hop dance party kicking things off, with Papa Smurf (John Goodman) manning the turntables like he’s DJ Kool. No thank you!!

The story gets going when Papa Smurf is kidnapped by Razamel (JP Karliak), the older and more evil brother of Smurf nemesis Gargamel, who is also voiced by Karliak. They’ll have to save him, of course, meaning the Smurfs will have to put their various talents together for such a dangerous adventure. That’s a problem for No Name Smurf (voiced by James Corden), and you should be able to figure out why. He’s got no obvious talents, no “thing” that he can call his own, which makes him a misfit in a colony of blue misfits, basically.

Smurfs is directed by animation vet Chris Miller, known for directing Puss in Boots to ridiculously great success. It has a script by Pam Brady, known for her work on South Park, Team America: World Police, and the underrated Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. All of those projects are clever and mature in different ways, but you won’t find any of that in Smurfs. Instead, you get cheap gags and an overload of easy pop culture nonsense. Even the story’s core plotline, that of No Name’s identity crisis, gets smurfed to the background.

If there’s a plus side, it’s that Smurfs is relatively ambitious in attempting to turn the franchise in a different direction and expand on the mythology. Nick Offerman voices a brand new character, Ken, Papa Smurf’s estranged brother who has lived in our world, seen in live-action, long enough that he understands humanity better than the rest. He even lived in Paris and had some weird relationship with Mama Poot (voiced by Natasha Lyonne) of the fuzzy race of Snooterpoots. Sandra Oh voices Ken’s daughter, Moxie, who appears to be a twist on the fanfic Moxette Smurfette character, only she’s like a ninja agent or something. Dan Levy plays Razamel’s beleaguered assistant, Joel, who desperately needs better job references. A wholly uninteresting aspect of the plot involves the search for a magical book that Razamel, a forgettable baddie at best, needs so he can join some cool clique of evil wizards.

Visually, Smurfs is designed to resemble Peyo’s comics, but enhanced with a mix of modern computer animation and live-action. Miller, who worked on the classic film Cool World which also combined those techniques, delivers a crisp, vibrant blend of 3D and 2D animation that pops from the screen. It’s just a shame that it couldn’t be in service of a better movie because . Smurfs does the blue cartoon mascots and their fans no favors. But if there’s a reason to smurf it to the theater, it’s the brilliant SpongeBob Squarepants short, SpongeBob: Order Up, that precedes it.

Smurfs opens on July 18th from Paramount Pictures.

Supergirl Sucks Down A Slushee And Warns You To “Look Out” In New First-Look Poster

By

Travis Hopson

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July 16, 2025

SUPERGIRL hits theaters on June 26th 2026

The hype for next year’s Supergirl has already begun. Anyone who saw Superman over the weekend already knows this (I won’t reveal how), but it becomes more clear today with James Gunn’s release of a new poster featuring star Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, who is very different from her boyscout cousin from Metropolis.

Backing up Gunn’s recent assertion that Kara Zor-El is a “total mess” compared to Superman, the new poster features Supergirl sucking down a blue slushee with blood on her hands, in front of a sign graffitied to read “Look Out” rather than “Look Up”, her cousin’s DCU tagline.The long leather duster over her costume also seems to indicate a surly attitude, likely gained by fighting and partying her way from planet to planet after Krypton was destroyed. It might also explain why her dog, Krypto, is in such dire need of obedience training.

Supergirl is directed by Craig Gillespie and based on the Tom King and Bilquis Evely comic book. The story involves Kara traveling across the galaxy with alien Ruthye Marye Knoll on a quest for revenge.

Eve Ridley plays Ruthye Marye Knoll, with Matthias Schoenarts as villain Krem of the Yellow Hills. David Krumholtz plays Kara’s father, Zor-El, with Emily Beecham as her mother, Alura In-Ze. Jason Momoa is also expected to appear as DC Comics antihero, Lobo. Of course, Krypto the Super-Dog will be around, too.

Supergirl hits theaters on June 26th 2026.

‘Hoppers’ Teaser: Pixar’s New Sci-Fi Comedy Is Basically ‘Avatar’ With Beavers

By

Travis Hopson

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July 16, 2025

Pixar continues to struggle launching new, original franchises. The recently-released Elio only has $118M worldwide after weeks in theaters, one of the studio’s lowest totals ever. But there’s hope that Pixar’s inventive new film, Hoppers, will turn things around when it arrives next year.

Hoppers kinda sounds like a twist on James Cameron’s Avatar, something that is jokingly acknowledged in the new teaser trailer. The story involves scientists who have learned how to “hop” a human consciousness into an artificial animal form so it can live and communicate with other animals.

All it needs is some blue CGI and 100% more Sam Worthington.

SYNOPSIS: In “Hoppers,” scientists have discovered how to “hop” human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals! Using the new technology, Mabel (Curda) will uncover mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined.

The voice cast is led by Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, and Jon Hamm.

Daniel Chong wrote and directed Hoppers, based on an original idea he’d been developing since 2020. Chong is known for the Cartoon Network animated series and feature film We Bare Bears. There was some slight controversy surrounding Hoppers when ex-Pixar staff revealed they were told to “downplay” the story’s environmentalism messaging. Not exactly a good look.

Hoppers hits theaters on March 6th 2026.