Moviefone Editorial

Tag: paddington-2

  • ‘Paddington 2’ Is Now the Best Reviewed Movie (Ever) on Rotten Tomatoes

    Marmalade for everyone!

    “Paddington 2” is the unlikely hero that managed to win over every single cynical critic. It set a new record as the best-reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. The sequel currently has a 100 percent “Fresh” rating with 169 fresh reviews and zero rotten reviews. That means it dethroned “Toy Story 2,” which has 163 fresh reviews with zero rotten. (The first “Paddington” movie, which came out in 2015, is at 98 percent fresh.)

    Of course, RT is just one of many metrics. Often, especially these days, audiences don’t agree with the critics. This time, they seem to be close to the same page. “Paddington 2” has a Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score of 89 percent, with the average fan rating set at 4.4/5 from 4,744 user ratings. “Paddington 2” has a Cinemascore of A, a Metascore of 88 from Metacritic, and an 8.2 rating from IMDb users.

    In honor of the sweet bear himself, check out Moviefone‘s exclusive interviews with Paddington’s human costars Hugh Grant and Hugh Bonneville:

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  • ‘Jumanji’ Stays Strong, Topping ’12 Strong,’ ‘Den of Thieves’ With $20 Million

    LOS ANGELES, Jan 21, (Variety.com) – Sony’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” has won its third weekend box office title with ease, topping newcomers “12 Strong” and “Den of Thieves,” with $20 million at 3,704 North American locations.

    Afghan war drama “12 Strong” took second with $16.5 million at 3,002 sites for Warner Bros. and STXfilms’ “Den of Thieves” followed with $15.3 million from 2,432 venues. Fox’s “The Post” finished fourth with $12 million at 2,851 venues and its fifth weekend of “The Greatest Showman” remained a solid draw in fifth with $11 million at 2,823 screens.

    “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” has shown remarkable staying power, declining only 28% this weekend and lifting its 33-day North American total to $317 million — the 61st highest of all time. It’s Sony’s fifth highest domestic grosser of all time, trailing only the first three Spider-Man titles and last summer’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”

    “Jumanji” is also singular in winning the box office in its third, fourth and fifth weekends after finishing second in its first two weekends to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” “This is an unprecedented and unusual box office trajectory for a wide release blockbuster,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore.

    The action comedy, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, has also kept overall domestic business healthy with the year-to-date total at $730.1 million through Sunday, up 2.1% from a year ago. The weekend’s total hit about $137 million, down 6% from the same frame in 2017 when “Split” opened with $40 million.

    “Another great performance by the seemingly unstoppable ‘Jumanji’ powers the pre-Oscar nominations weekend while bolstered by a pair of solid debuts from ’12 Strong’ and ‘Den of Thieves,’ but this was not enough to beat a tough weekend over weekend comparison to the year ago stellar performance of M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Split,’” Dergarabedian said.

    “12 Strong,” starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, had been tracking in the $14 million to $17 million range. The movie is based Doug Stanton’s 2009 bestseller “Horse Soldiers,” which centers on CIA paramilitary operations officers and U.S. Special Forces sent to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Prospects for ongoing business are solid, given its A Cinemascore.

    Production companies for “12 Strong” are Alcon Entertainment, Black Label Media, and Jerry Bruckheimer Films with Nicolai Fuglsig directing. Bruckheimer began developing the film in 2009 while at Disney.

    The R-rated “Den of Thieves,” starring Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, finished well above forecasts, which had been in the $9 million range. The film follows the intersecting lives of an elite unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and a successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Los Angeles.

    Christian Gudegast is directing from his original screenplay, based on a story by Gudegast and Paul Scheuring, and is produced by Tucker Tooley and Mark Canton, who spent 15 years developing the film. “Den of Thieves” carries a $30 million budget and generated a B+ Cinemascore.

    “It’s incredibly satisfying to have this in theaters and performing so well after all this time,” Tooley told Variety. “STXfilms has done a great job activating social media on this.”

    “The Post” centers on the 1971 legal battle by the Washington Post and New York Times over the publication of the Pentagon Papers and stars Meryl Streep as WaPo publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as editor Ben Bradlee. It showed respectable staying power with a 37% decline from its first weekend in wide release and has totaled $45.2 million domestically.

    “The Greatest Showman,” starring Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, remained a powerful draw with a remarkable small decline of 12% in its fifth weekend. The domestic total has hit $113.5 million while the international box office is at $118 million.

    Warner Bros.’ second weekend of family comedy “Paddington 2” finished sixth with $8.2 million at 3,702 sites, followed by Lionsgate’s sophomore session of Liam Neeson‘s “The Commuter” with $6.7 million at 2,892 venues. Both titles have reached $25 million in 10 days.

    Disney-Lucasfilm’s sixth weekend of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” came in eighth with $6.6 million at 2,456 locations for a 38-day total of $604.3 million. It trails “The Avengers” by less than $20 million for the fifth spot on that list.

  • 5 Reasons Why ‘The Post’ and ‘The Commuter’ Kicked Ass at the Box Office

    “The Commuter” was supposed to be on a train to nowhere this Martin Luther King Day weekend.

    Weak reviews and a pile-up of competition from two new wide releases (“Proud Mary” and “Paddington 2“) and one newly-wide holdover (the now-nationwide “The Post“) were supposed to derail the new Liam Neeson thriller, or at least keep it from debuting above $10 million.

    As it turned out, however, “Commuter” saw an unexpected fare bump, to about $13.5 million from Friday to Sunday, good for a third-place opening. “The Post” did even better, expanding from 36 theaters to 2,819 and coming in second with an estimated $18.6 million for the three-day weekend. Meanwhile, “Proud Mary” and “Paddington 2,” both expected to premiere in the mid-teens, barely cracked $10 million apiece and debuted in a virtual tie for seventh place.

    What are the lessons of this weekend at the box office, aside from “Never count out Liam Neeson”? Here are five takeaways.

    1. It’s a Good to Be an Adult Moviegoer
    The December holidays are over, kids are back in school, and awards-season movies are out in force. So this is the rare time of year that mature adults may feel welcome at the multiplex. They also make up the core of Neeson’s audience, which is why he’s released so many thrillers in January and February over the last decade, from “Taken” and “The Grey” through “Non-Stop” and “Taken 3.”

    You can also credit the older audience for the success of “The Post.” It’s those viewers who are still big fans of sixtysomethings Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, and who maybe even remember the 1971 Pentagon Papers battle that the movie chronicles. And “Proud Mary,” whose poster made it look like an old Pam Grier movie, also seemed to target more mature ticketbuyers, though it also may have proved that even the older audience is still finite. Which reminds us…

    2. “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” Is Still Unstoppable
    It’s not nostalgia among older moviegoers for the 1995 Robin Williams adventure that’s driving sales for the youth-oriented, video game-themed reboot. Dwayne Johnson‘s action comedy was the weekend’s top film for the second time in a row, declining just 27 percent from last weekend for a three-day take estimated at $27.0 million.

    In its fourth week, it’s already earned $283.2 million, making it Sony’s sixth biggest domestic hit of all time. By next week, it will have overtaken “Skyfall” to become Sony’s top-grossing movie outside of the “Spider-Man” franchise. It’s not like there aren’t lots of other action alternatives in theaters (including a little movie called “Star Wars: The Last Jedi, currently in sixth place with a weekend take estimated at $11.3 million). But “Jumanji” is the one the kids like.

    3. Is Taraji P. Henson a Movie Star?
    Jury’s still out. Last January, she seemed to be, leading the cast of the hit “Hidden Figures.” Does the estimated $10.0 million premiere of “Proud Mary” mean that “Figures” was a fluke, or that moviegoers would rather see Henson solving math problems than kicking ass as an action anti-heroine?

    Not necessarily. Sony’s Screen Gems division barely marketed the movie and didn’t even screen it for critics. That’s never a good sign, at least not to critics, whose support is important for movies that cater to older viewers. Especially during a month when those older viewers have plenty of other options at the multiplex. Maybe “Proud Mary” would have done better had it opened at another time, or been more aggressively marketed. Or maybe Henson should just consider herself lucky that TV audiences have embraced her as Cookie on “Empire.”

    4. Everyone Loves Paddington (Overseas, That Is)
    Marketing was an issue for the kid-movie sequel, too. 2015’s “Paddington” did pretty well in North America, grossing $76.3 million. The lovable bear’s sequel has unanimous support from critics, so why did it tank?

    The movie was hastily sold to Warner Bros. — after original distributor, TWC, suffered their Weinstein scandal. Warners had just two months to come up with a wide-release distribution and marketing plan. Apparently, that wasn’t enough time. Besides, “Paddington 2” was trying to compete in a marketplace where “Jumanji,” “Star Wars,” and “Coco” are still vying for kids’ attention and ticket dollars. Perhaps this bear should have hibernated a few months longer.

    5. What Golden Globes Boost Did Winners Receive at the Box Office?
    Seems like the only one riding a victory at last Sunday’s awards show to greater glory is Oprah.

    “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” may have been the big trophy winner, but even though it went back into wide release this weekend in its 10th week and grabbed another estimated $2.3 million, it’s still way down on the box office chart at No. 16. And that’s a healthy increase in business compared to fellow Globe winners “Lady Bird” and “I, Tonya,” which saw more modest increases. Or “Darkest Hour,” which actually slipped 25 percent from last week. Contrast that with “The Post,” which raked it in despite being shut out at the Globes.

    By the way, check out “All the Money in the World,” which also earned some Globe nominations but no prizes. The movie has generated a ton of buzz, first for replacing the disgraced Kevin Spacey at the last minute with Christopher Plummer, then for adding $10 million to its $40 million cost for those last-minute reshoots, and finally, for the seemingly gender-based pay gap between star Michelle Williams, who did the reshoots for union scale wages, and supporting actor Mark Wahlberg, who took home $1.5 million for his overtime work.

    Both stars are represented by the same talent agency, WME, and on Saturday, Wahlberg announced he was donating his fee in Williams’ name to Time’s Up, the newly-created initiative to fight systemic sexism in Hollywood, while WME was donating $500,000 of its own to the activists.

    Despite all those headlines, the movie has made back just $23 million of its $50 million cost after three weeks in release. This weekend, it made just an estimated $1.2 million, down 67 percent from a week ago, for a 19th-place finish and a per-screen average of just $827, meaning just a handful of tickets sold at each screening. With a CinemaScore grade of just a B, it’s clear that audiences aren’t anywhere near as enthusiastic about the drama as critics, awards voters, or entertainment journalists are.

    It’s a good lesson that, for all the current discourse about stopping Hollywood predators, addressing gender inequities in the entertainment industry, and how awards voters should handle the movies and performers who are suddenly problematic in the post-Weinstein moral landscape, it’s not clear that rank-and-file moviegoers care about any of it.

    Sometimes they just want to enjoy the adrenaline rush of watching Liam Neeson, Dwayne Johnson, or even Meryl Streep do something heroic.

  • Watch Hugh Grant of ‘Paddington 2’ Weigh In On Marmalade and Bears

    This weekend the wonderfully adorable (and just plain wonderful) “Paddington 2” arrives in theaters everywhere. A remarkable sequence to the equally delightful 2014 film “Paddington,” the new film sees everyone’s favorite bear (voiced once again by Ben Whishaw) winding up on the wrong side of the law and being sent away to prison (where he befriends Brendan Gleeson), while trying to clear his name and implicate the true villain (Hugh Grant). This is a movie that is sweet, charming, thoughtful and smart.

    So you can imagine our thrill when we got to sit down with Grant, his costar Hugh Bonneville, and “Paddington 2” writer Simon Farnaby and director Paul King. What was on our mind? Why, their honest thoughts on marmalade, of course. We also wanted to see how many other pop culture bears they could name. The results leave something to be desired.

    Watch the videos below and go see “Paddington 2” this weekend!



  • Robert Downey Jr. Wants to ‘Bury the Hatchet’ With Hugh Grant After Two-Decade Feud

    Hugh Grant recently told People that Robert Downey Jr. “hated” and “wanted to kill” him. Way harsh, Tai. But apparently the “Avengers” star no longer feels that way.

    Grant is now promoting “Paddington 2,” and he recently did some word association with People’s editor-in-chief Jess Cagle. Grant was asked about several past costars, including RDJ, with whom he worked in the 1995 movie “Restoration.” Guess they didn’t get along.

    Here’s how Grant responded to the name “Robert Downey Jr.”:

    Hugh Grant: “Hated me. Hated me. We did a thing called ‘Restoration’ and he took one look at me and wanted to kill me.”

    Jess Cagle: “Why would he hate you on sight?”

    Grant: “I don’t know. I was so hurt.”

    Cagle: “I don’t think anybody really hates you.”

    Grant: “He did.”

    Any other day, we’d take that will several grains of salt. This is the same Hugh Grant who, in the same interview, joked that his two-time costar Emma Thompson is “not remotely sane” and just gets “nuttier and nuttier as the years go by.” He also said his “Music and Lyrics” costar Drew Barrymore “did hate me a bit” and there was tension on that set. He may very well just be a giant pain in the tush to everyone on sets. But he also likes to quip and exaggerate.

    So on their own, his remarks about Downey didn’t mean much — until Downey validated them by tweeting that he was ready to make peace with Grant:


    Robert Downey Jr. is not someone who tweets very often, and it’s rare to see him respond to reports. But he was quick to respond to this, so he must’ve seen some truth there and felt they had both matured enough to move forward.

    Good for him. And good for Hugh Grant. Also, good for “Paddington 2,” which is currently holding strong with a 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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