(L to R) Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Photo: TriStar Pictures.
Preview:
Celine Song is writing a ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ sequel.
Sony is backing the new movie.
There is no word yet if original cast members Julia Roberts or Rupert Everett will return.
Though the company hasn’t exactly had the best luck dusting off its back catalogue for sequel treatment –– neither ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ nor especially ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ have set the box office aflame or won over legions of new fans –– that, apparently isn’t stopping Sony.
(L to R) Cameron Diaz, Dermot Mulroney and Julia Roberts in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Photo: TriStar Pictures.
The original starred Roberts as food critic Julianne Potter, who discovers that her longtime friend, Michael (Mulroney), is planning to get married to Kimmy Wallace (Diaz). The two, who had a relationship in college, had vowed to get hitched with each other if they each remained unmarried by the ripe old age of 28.
Realizing she is in love, Jules plans to sabotage the event…
‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ has been remade several times in other countries, including Mexico and China.
Song certainly seems like a solid choice to write this –– she’s proved she can channel romantic longing and adult relationships, and would have a good take on where the characters are now.
What has the cast said about progress on a sequel?
(L to R) Dermot Mulroney, Julia Roberts in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Photo: TriStar Pictures.
Mulroney, while making the promotional rounds for one of his latest projects, Netflix series ‘The Hunting Wives’ teased what he’s heard in an interview with the New York Post:
“I know nothing about it. Last I heard, quote, lawyers were talking, unquote.”
So… yes, hardly the biggest update, but Song’s hiring surely points to the studio looking to propose something.
When will the ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ sequel be in theaters?
That’s tough to answer at this point –– with Song only just starting work on a script, no director attached and deals yet to be locked in with cast old or new, a release date is unlikely for now.
And Sony may also look to see how other legacy sequels such as ‘Practical Magic 2’ perform before truly committing to this one.
(L to R) Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Photo: TriStar Pictures.
List of Movies and TV Shows Featuring Dermot Mulroney:
Universal Pictures’ live-action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Preview:
The new ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a roaring success so far.
Dean DeBlois’ film has earned more than $197 million globally.
Disney’s own live-action conversion of ‘Lilo & Stitch’ fell to second place.
Looks like audiences were very ready to visit the island of Berk again.
Or perhaps the term should truly be re-visit, since the new ‘How to Train Your Dragon,’ a live-action re-imagining of the 2010 animated adventure, is essentially that movie told over again.
Still, audiences embraced it to the tune of $83 million at the domestic box office.
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The new movie, written and directed by Dean DeBlois (who co-wrote and directed the animated original before taking on its two follow-ups), has been a big success for DreamWorks and Universal, which dipped a toe (a claw, perhaps?) into the animated-to-live-action conversion following years of Disney doing the same.
How did the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ live-action movie do elsewhere at the box office?
(from left) Hiccup (Mason Thames) and Astrid (Nico Parker) in Universal Pictures’ live-action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Photo: Universal Pictures.
‘How to Train Your Dragon’ wasn’t just successful here.
It collected $114 million while landing in 81 overseas markets, ranking as the No. 1 movie at the international box office, and $197.8 million globally. Top territories include Mexico with $14 million, the UK and Ireland with $11.2 million and China with $11.2 million.
Here’s Universal’s domestic distribution chief Jim Orr on the success of the movie:
“Our filmmaker Dean DeBlois created an incredible tale with heart, action and emotion. Multiple generations are in love with it. With our audience scores, I can only believe we are going to have a long run throughout the summer.”
And this was ComScore analyst Paul Dergarabedian on one reason for it:
“PG has become the goldilocks of ratings, one that indicates a film is appropriate for kids but still has enough edge to appeal to young adults, teens and more mature moviegoers. This is certainly a trend that should carry over to ‘Elio,’‘Smurfs’ and ‘The Bad Guys 2,’ which are yet to come on the summer movie slate.”
It’s a success story, since the movie cost $150 million to make and an additional $100 million to market, but assuming it has legs at the box office, it’ll easily make some profit.
What else happened at the box office this weekend?
This weekend’s new arrival deposed the previous box office champ, Disney’s ‘Lilo & Stitch’, another example of a movie that was re-imagined in live-action from an animated original.
In a distant second place, the other remake has collected $15.5 million in its fourth weekend of release.
The company won’t be too worried, though, as the movie is already a blockbuster with $366 million domestically and $858 million globally. It’s on track to be the year’s first billion dollar release.
The weekend’s other major wide release, A24’s ‘Materialists,’ launched at No. 3 with a promising $12 million from 2,844 venues.
Though it was met with a mixed audience reception, the film launched above projections that had been sitting around $8 million to $10 million.
Directed by Celine Song in her follow-up to the Oscar-nominated ‘Past Lives,’ the movie follows a New York City matchmaker (Dakota Johnson) who finds herself in a love triangle with a wealthy suitor (Pedro Pascal) and an imperfect ex (Chris Evans).
A24 spent $20 million on the film, not including marketing fees.
(L to R) Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
The eighth entry in the Tom Cruise-starring action franchise has amassed $166.3 million in North America and $506 million worldwide to date.
Against its massive $400 million budget (partly the impact of covid and other delays), though, ‘The Final Reckoning’ doesn’t have the strength to climb out of the red in its initial theatrical run.
The film earned $9.4 million from 3,409 theaters in its second weekend of release, a 62% decline from its debut. So far, the movie has generated $41.8 million domestically and $91.5 million globally, hardly punching above its weight for the franchise.
What’s the future for the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ live-action franchise?
Even before this movie was released, DreamWorks and Universal were clearly enthused, as a sequel has already been ordered, with a date set for June 11th, 2027.
Given the response to this one, it certainly looks like cinemagoers will be back for it.
Mason Thames (right) as Hiccup with his Night Fury dragon, Toothless, in Universal Pictures’ live-action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Other Movies Similar to ‘How to Train Your Dragon:’
(L to R) Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
If you’re going into ‘Materialists’ thinking that this will be something of a traditional romantic comedy, think again. While the trailers may sort of sell it that way, ‘Materialists’ is quite different and deeper. Written and directed by Celine Song, whose 2023 debut ‘Past Lives’ was a melancholy exploration of memory and lost love, ‘Materialists’ looks at dating, romance, and love through the lens of a transactional society.
At its most basic level, ‘Materialists’ has a romantic triangle at its heart. But that three-way relationship is seen as a numbers game, with Song deftly outlining how cold logic and math can lead – if the participants are lucky – to some semblance of happiness, while also opening the door to disaster. The film is also an intimate, detailed character study of the three people at its center, how they perceive themselves, and how they perceive each other. While it wobbles a bit down the stretch, ‘Materialists’ is an emotionally resonant, culturally relevant look at how and why we expose ourselves to love, and the danger of treating people – especially women – as commodities.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Director Celine Song, Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans on the set of ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a professional matchmaker, working with well-off, usually older clients – both male and female – to help them find the perfect person with whom to fall in love. But many of Lucy’s clients have stringent or unrealistic expectations: the women are looking for a six-foot-tall man with a six-figure (at least) income, while the men don’t want anything too “intense or complicated.” As one man says, he doesn’t have much in common with women in their early twenties…so he wants to date women in their late twenties.
As for Lucy, she’s a self-described “voluntary celibate” who has broken up with her boyfriend John (Chris Evans) after five years. John, an unemployed actor, works as a cater-waiter to make ends meet and shares his crummy Manhattan apartment with two sloppy roommates. Having grown up poor and trying to pursue her own career, Lucy does not wish to live that way: she wants to be comfortable and taken care of, and sees marrying into wealth as the only way to achieve that – or so she thinks.
That’s why the matchmaking service she provides breaks love down to “checking boxes” on a list: the candidate’s age, height, salary, job, and even the state of their hair are all factored into the equation without a thought of whether these two strangers can connect in a more intimate, personal way. “Marriage is a business deal,” Lucy tells one of her clients who’s about to take the final step of walking down the aisle. “You can always walk away if the deal is no good.”
Dakota Johnson in ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
All of this is transactional for Lucy, so when she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal) at that same wedding, who she describes as a unicorn for seemingly checking off all her boxes effortlessly, she decides to begin dating him after he asks her out – even though she insists he can do better. And even though she and John are no more, he’s still in her life as a friend (who is also clearly pining for her). Lucy begins to wonder just what she does want out of a relationship – as her carefully structured philosophy about dating and romance begins to unravel around her.
Aside from a third-act plot turn that might have been handled a little more smoothly, ‘Materialists’ is top-notch storytelling about modern relationships and love – and how even those most precious aspects of human life can be somehow stripped down to, as Lucy says, a business deal. It’s only when she gets into a potentially lucrative deal of her own in that sense that she begins to realize what a shallow worldview that is, and how the same approach to her job may end in misery for her clients – and in the case of women, even danger.
Song’s script cleanly delivers all this through a spare, modest, yet impactful narrative and deftly rendered characterizations, filtered through lovely lensing of the movie’s New York locations by cinematographer Shabier Kirchner. In the end, the movie is a pointed critique of the society we’re living in now: where everyone thinks they’re entitled to everything, and you don’t have to work for it — even love.
Cast and Performances
(L to R) Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
Coming off the embarrassment of 2024’s ‘Madame Web,’ Dakota Johnson bounces back nicely here with perhaps the best performance of her career to date. Lucy is a complex, finely-drawn single woman in her mid-30s who has grown up poor and is deeply afraid of falling back into that situation, which has led her to not just view her own romantic life in a clinical way but boil her services as a matchmaker down to cold equations. Johnson does an excellent job of putting up Lucy’s armor, only to gradually show us the pain and doubt beneath.
The same could be said for Chris Evans – while his choices since exiting the role of Captain America have been hit and miss, ‘Materialists’ also represents his best work since putting down the shield. John is acutely aware of his circumstances, his lack of motivation, and his own deep desire for love and connection, and blames himself for letting Lucy get away. His own pain at seeing her is evident from the start, but he’s also desperate to maintain their connection by being the best friend he can be. This is a sensitive turn from Evans, who can be a come across as all surface with the wrong material, and demonstrates his underrated ability to portray vulnerability.
Pedro Pascal’s Harry is a bit less layered and defined than either Lucy or John, although he avoids stereotyping by being an incredibly wealthy man who does not see others around him as playthings – even when he reveals something about himself late in the game. Pascal is empathetic and charismatic as always. The other star player of the film is Zoë Winters (‘Succession’) as Lucy’s client Sophie, who delivers a monologue late in the film that is raw and just devastating, a cry of anger and frustration that will resonate with many single women of a certain age. The actor just nails it in a showstopper of a moment.
Final Thoughts
(L to R) Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in ‘Materialists’. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima.
Don’t get us wrong: ‘Materialists’ is not a somber meditation on late-stage capitalism infecting every aspect of our lives. It’s not somber, anyway. It’s funny, witty, and yes, melancholy, and it also doesn’t shy away from pointedly critiquing how the commodification of the most basic, wonderful, and complex of all human interactions is inherently not a good thing.
In other words, it’s not “just math,” despite what Lucy says early in the film. And ‘Materialists’ is not just, as we said early on in this review, a standard rom-com or even a typical romantic drama. It’s a movie with something far deeper on its mind, and Celine Song once again explores the intricacies of the human heart with candor and clarity, making this possibly one of the best movies made for adults that you’ll see this year.
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What is the plot of ‘Materialists’?
A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans are starring in ‘Materialists’.
This is the new movie from ‘Past Lives’ director Celine Song.
It’ll be a New York-set rom-com.
It’s fair to say that with ‘Past Lives’, Korean writer/director Celine Song has announced herself as a new cinematic voice.
Her romantic drama feature debut, which stars Greta Lee, Teo Woo and John Magaro, first garnered attention at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where its quietly powerful story of old friends and potential lovers reconnecting hit a chord.
It has since gone on to win numerous awards and dominate critics’ Best Of lists for the year and is in the running for two Oscars –– Original Screenplay and Best Picture.
You can imagine, then, that big-name talent would be beating down the down to work with her, and for the director’s next film, ‘Materialists’, she’s scored quite the potential cast in Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, who are all in talks to star.
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What’s the story of ‘Materialists’?
Here’s the official synopsis for the new movie:
“Set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, a city that never sleeps and is known for its diverse and dynamic relationships, ‘Materialists’ provides a unique glimpse into the lives of the city’s elite. Lucy’s expertise in matchmaking is highly sought after by those willing to pay a premium for her services. However, with a broke actor-waiter in her romantic past and a new attachment to a wealthy man, all signs point to a toxic love triangle that threatens to unravel the lives of all involved.”
According to the director, the new movie is inspired by the sort of spiky romantic comedies such as ‘Broadcast News’ that James L. Brooks specializes in, which makes us even more eager to see what Song could do with a film like this.
Who is backing Song’s new movie?
(L to R) Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives.’ Photo: A24.
The new movie reteams the director with distributors A24 and with producers Killer Films, both of which shepherded ‘Past Lives’ to screens.
