Moviefone Editorial

Tag: will-ferrell

  • Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly Wreak Havoc in ‘Holmes & Watson’ Trailer

    Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly Wreak Havoc in ‘Holmes & Watson’ Trailer

    Sony Pictures

    In the first trailer for “Holmes & Watson,” comedy duo Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are just as bumbling and inappropriate as you’d expect as the legendary Sherlock Holmes and his not-so-bright sidekick.

    In this comedy (from “Get Hard” director Etan Cohen), they must save Queen Victoria from a death threat — while trying not to  accidentally kill her themselves. Or get stung to death by killer bees.

    The best bit of casting: Ralph Fiennes is Holmes’s archnemesis Moriarty and Hugh Laurie is Sherlock’s brilliant brother, Mycroft.

    The movie opens December 21.

    Sony Pictures
  • 10 Things You Never Knew About ‘Step Brothers’

    10 Things You Never Knew About ‘Step Brothers’

    Columbia Pictures

    It’s been ten years since Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly starred in “Step Brothers” and reminded us that they’re one of the great comedic duos of our time. And somehow, we doubt Brennan and Dale have grown more mature over the last decade. Celebrate this milestone by enjoying some fun trivia you might not know about this modern comedy classic.

    1. A car light advertising Hugalo’s Pizza can be seen in Brennan and Dale’s bedroom.  Hugalo’s is the company Ferrell’s character Ricky Bobby worked for in 2006’s “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” after losing his job as a race car driver.

    2. Director Adam McKay first conceived the film while editing “Talladega Nights,” after overhearing someone in the editing room mentioning “bunk beds.”

    Columbia Pictures

    3. While the part of Derek ultimately went to Adam Scott, both Jon Hamm and Thomas Lennon were considered for the role.

    4. The Sword that Brennan shows to Dale is a replica of the one used by Adrian Paul in 1992’s “Highlander: The Series.”

    CBS Television Distribution

    5. Both Ferrell and Reilly actually performed their respective parts during the big musical number. Reilly had previously learned to play the drums while working on 1995’s “Georgia.”

    6. Mary Steenburgen plays Ferrell’s mother in the film, despite only being 14 years older than Ferrell in real life. She previously played stepmother to Ferrell’s character in 2003’s “Elf.”

    New Line Cinema

    7. Actor Richard Jenkins only realized late into production that he had once worked for Reilly’s father in Chicago and, in fact, had met Reilly before when Reilly was four years old.

    8. The rough cut of the film clocked in at a whopping five hours, but McKay managed to trim the final version down to just 98 minutes.

    Columbia Pictures

    9. The high school where Brennan and Dale perform at the talent show is named after the actual school McKay attended, Great Valley High in Pennsylvania.

    10. Director Adam McKay shared his plans for a potential “Step Brothers” sequel in 2011 in an interview with Screen Junkies, revealing that one of the brothers will have gotten married and had children. However, both McKay and Ferrell have downplayed the possibility of a sequel in recent years.

  • Christina Applegate to Star in New Comedy Series, Netflix’s ‘Dead to Me’

    Christina Applegate in Vacation
    Warner Bros. Pictures

    Christina Applegate is ready to take on a new TV series, and what better a vehicle than one likened to HBO’s “Big Little Lies”?

    The actress has joined the forthcoming “Dead to Me,” a dark comedy written by Liz Feldman. Applegate will star in and executive produce the Netflix series, Deadline reports. She’ll work alongside her “Anchorman 2” co-stars Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who are executive producing through Gloria Sanchez Productions.

    The project has been likened to “Big Little Lies,” according to Deadline, and it seems the similarities stem from a dark secret and a dead spouse. Applegate is set to play Jen, a woman who is used to having her life together but who has been struggling since her husband’s death in a hit and run. She’ll apparently also have an anger problem and a dark sense of humor. The series itself will center on the friendship she forms with someone with a shocking secret. So far, we’re intrigued.

    Feldman not only wrote the series but doubles as showrunner. Meanwhile, the executive producers also include Jessica Elbaum. The series comes from CBS TV Studios, as well.

    Applegate last starred in a TV series in 2012, before NBC’s “Up All Night” ended its two-season run, so it’s exciting that she chose this project. More recently, she’s been busy on the big screen. Her recent films include “Bad Moms” and its sequel, “A Bad Moms Christmas,” as well as “Crash Pad.”

    “Dead to Me” is set for a 10-episode first season and is slated to start filming in Los Angeles this fall.

    [via: Deadline]

  • 9 Will Ferrell Movie Quotes That We’ll Freaking Love Forever

    I feel like at least 54 percent of conversations include Will Ferrell quotes.

    With so many iconic characters on his resume there’s plenty of material to run with. From “Anchorman” to “Old School,” these are just a few of the quotes fans will be repeating for years to come.

  • 16 Things You Never Knew About ‘Old School’

    “Earmuffs!” Cover your ears if you’re too young, but if you’re of a certain age, you’ll be astonished to hear that it’s been 15 years since “Old School” enrolled at the multiplex.

    Released on February 21, 2003, the modern-day answer to “Animal House” made Will Ferrell into a bankable movie star, put future “Hangover” director Todd Phillips on the raunchy-comedy map, helped coin the phrase “Frat Pack” to describe the loose brotherhood of movie comedy stars that included Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, and introduced a variety of bizarre hazing rituals to American college fraternity life.

    Like midterm exams, “Old School” keeps reappearing, at least in rotation on cable. Still, as often as you’ve watched it, there’s much you may not know about the college comedy. So read on and study carefully; there may be a pop quiz later.
    1. “Old School” was actually Phillips’ third movie about hard-partying college students. The first was his 1997 documentary “Frat House.” Phillips took that movie to the Sundance Film Festival, where he met fabled comedy filmmaker and “Animal House” producer Ivan Reitman. Reitman turned Phillips toward comedy and produced his next two films, campus farce “Road Trip” (2000) and “Old School.”

    2. The idea for a movie about three early-middle-aged men trying to return to their irresponsible fraternity days came from Phillips’s friend, ad man Court Crandall. He earned a story credit on the film, though the final screenplay was written by Phillips and his writing partner, Scot Armstrong.
    3. Armstrong and Phillips wrote the part of Bernard with Vaughn in mind, having been impressed by his comic performances in movies like “Swingers” and “Made.” But Vaughn had done such a good job of establishing himself as a serious dramatic actor that the studio didn’t want him for “Old School.” “They didn’t think I could do comedy!” Vaughn marveled in 2015. “Todd really had to push for me; I think he even told them to watch me on Letterman, to see that I could be funny.”

    4. That’s Phillips, by the way, playing the guy who knocks on Luke Wilson‘s door early on and says, “I’m here for the gangbang.”
    5. Patrick Cranshaw had been acting in films for 50 years before “Old School,” but it was his role as lube-wrestling frat brother Blue that finally made him famous at age 84. He died three years later, but not before hearing countless fans greet him with Ferrell’s line, “You’re my boy, Blue!”

    6. The three leads (Wilson, Vaughn, and Ferrell) teased each other on set. Wilson recalled Ferrell telling him he was sorry he hadn’t yet seen Wilson’s performance in “Legally Bland.” Wilson shot back with a warning that “you might just want to keep one foot back in TV just in case this whole movie thing falls through.”
    7. The house that Wilson’s friends transform into the home of their new fraternity is a real residential house located on Pasadena’s Bushnell Avenue, on a two-block stretch that has been used for locations in several Michael J. Fox movies. The same house appeared in “Back to the Future Part II” (Biff steals a kid’s ball and tosses it onto the house’s balcony), while down the street are George McFly’s 1955 home from the first “Back to the Future” and the house where the 1955 Lorraine lived in that movie — a house that was also where Fox’s character lived in “Teen Wolf.”

    8. The college scenes were largely shot in Los Angeles at UCLA and USC. There’s one helicopter shot of the campus, however, that may look familiar. It’s actually flyover footage of Harvard University, which Phillips recycled from “Road Trip,” though no ground scenes in either film were shot at the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus.
    9. Who’s the wedding singer who inserts subliminal profanities into the lyrics of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? It’s Dan Finnerty of The Dan Band, an act that became the toast of Hollywood nightclubs by performing a repertoire of songs made popular by female singers. A comic who’s married to Kathy Najimy, Finnerty would perform similarly inappropriate songs in Phillips’s “Starsky & Hutch” and “The Hangover.”

    10. Also, the church where Ferrell gets married showed up again two years later in Vaughn and Owen Wilson‘s “Wedding Crashers.”
    11. The last day of the shoot was devoted to the Mitch-a-Palooza party, the one that starts with a surprise performance by Snoop Dogg and ends with Ferrell streaking through town. Ferrell had already shot the streaking sequence — and yes, he ran naked for real, apparently horrifying local lookie-loos who had no idea they were going to be treated to full frontal Ferrell — but he needed some liquid courage to drop trou in front of the rap icon. “To actually be in front of Snoop Dogg that close naked,” Ferrell said, “that was more intimidating than anything.”

    12. Snoop Dogg so wanted to play Huggy Bear in Phillips’s upcoming adaptation of “Starsky & Hutch,” that the director was able to persuade the rapper to cameo as himself in “Old School” as a condition for landing the role he coveted in Phillips’ next movie.
    13. After his scene was complete, Snoop summoned Vaughn to party in his trailer. Wilson was miffed to find out about the revelry later; apparently, no one had invited him.

    14. The budget for “Old School” was reportedly $24 million. It made back $76 million in North America and another $11 million abroad.
    15. “Old School” not only made Ferrell a breakout star, but it also led to the coining of the term “The Frat Pack” to describe the group of comic actors and frequent collaborators that included Ferrell, Vaughn, Luke and Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and others.

    16. In 2006, Armstrong wrote a script for a sequel, “Old School Dos,” that would have sent the trio of aging frat boys on spring break. Ferrell and Vaughn nixed the idea as being too much of a retread. Wilson, however, was game, though he said he understood Vaughn and Ferrell’s position. “As funny as those guys are, they are pretty damn thoughtful and would hate to squander the goodwill of the first one with one where it just seemed like the studio was just trying to cash in.”

    Indeed, in 2016, Wilson was still game, saying, “I, of course, would do it at the drop of a hat.”

  • Jessica Chastain and Will Ferrell Will Host ‘SNL’ Next

    Expect a few poker sketches in the next episode of “Saturday Night Live.” Jessica Chastain (currently starring in “Molly’s Game“) and Will Ferrell (who turned his home into a casino in “The House“) are your next “SNL” hosts.

    That’s after “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” star Sam Rockwell‘s hosting gig this Saturday.

    As for musical guests: “There For You” singer Troye Sivan will headline the January 20 episode and country star Chris Stapleton will perform January 27. (But will there be enough cowbell? That’s the night Will Ferrell is hosting.)

  • 3 Reasons Why ‘Daddy’s Home 2’ and ‘Orient Express’ Stopped the Box Office Slump

    Is the Great Box Office Slump of 2017 finally over?

    Looks like it, based on this week’s fiercest competition, which was actually the race for second place. “Thor: Ragnarok” easily repeated at No. 1; even after losing 54 percent of last weekend’s premiere business, it still ended up with $56.6 million.

    The surprise was that the contenders for No. 2, Will Ferrell comedy sequel “Daddy’s Home 2” and Kenneth Branagh‘s all-star Agatha Christie remake “Murder on the Orient Express,” both did much better than expected. Pundits had predicted openings in the high teens or low 20s at best, but “Daddy’s Home” wound up debuting with an estimated $30.0 million, with “Orient” not far behind with $28.2 million.

    How did these two movies beat the odds? Here are some of the factors.

    1. Audiences Want Comedy
    There hasn’t been much to laugh at this year, in or out of the movie theater. Viewers are starving for a good comedy, but they haven’t seen much this year that made them laugh. A long string of supposedly sure-fire R-rated comedies failed this summer (notable exception: “Girls Trip“). Last week‘s modest numbers for the opening of “A Bad Moms Christmas” suggested that the raunchy comedy subgenre still has a little life left in it; this weekend, the movie lost just 31 percent of its debut audience and earned an estimated $11.5 million, good for fourth place. “Daddy’s Home” arguably had even broader appeal, from a bigger-hit original (2015’s “Daddy’s Home” earned $150 million), with bigger marquee names (Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg) and a PG-13 rating. It still opened about $9 million behind the original, but that film opened on Christmas Day. For a non-holiday weekend, $30 million is an opening worth celebrating.

    Of course, some might argue that the funniest movie currently playing, and the one that most primed audiences to come back to the multiplex and laugh, is “Thor Ragnarok.” And that brought in all the gold.

    2. Branagh Connected
    “Orient” seemed like a hard enough sell. What could be less trendy than a period Agatha Christie mystery, set aboard a luxury locomotive (“Luxury train travel? What’s that?” asked everyone under the age of 60), that was a hit movie way back in 1974?

    Paradoxically, it was the “Thor” series, Branagh’s biggest competitor this weekend, that revived his directing career and made “Orient” possible. He successfully launched the Marvel mini-franchise with 2011’s “Thor,” which led Disney to entrust him with its live-action reboot of “Cinderella,” which also became a smash. That gave him the freedom to remake “Orient” and even to cast himself and his massive shaving-brush mustache in the lead role. Outside of those two movies, “Orient” marks the biggest opening of Branagh’s three-decade career. Critics may not have thought much of the film, but audiences responded to his blend of panache, class, and wit, as well as his sense of fun.

    3. Rotten Tomatoes Scores
    Speaking of the critics, they didn’t rave about either of this week’s new wide releases. “Orient” earned a score of just 58 percent fresh, while “Daddy’s Home” got a dismal 16 percent. Nonetheless, both proved to be the kind of escapist fare audiences have been seeking, with paying customers giving “Daddy’s Home” an A- and “Orient” a B at CinemaScore. Both films also helped prove, as have many movies in recent months, that Hollywood’s alarm over Rotten Tomatoes’ supposed power to quash sales with low scores is misplaced.

    The older audience, the group that still supposedly reads critics, wasn’t deterred by the lackluster reviews this weekend. Exit polling showed that 84 percent of “Orient” viewers and 65 percent of “Daddy’s Home” viewers were 25 and over — even though the PG-13 comedy was designed to appeal to families. Maybe mature viewers have been so starved for adult-friendly movies in recent months that they were willing to overlook the flaws that irked the critics.

    Fall, after all, is supposed to be the season that lures the grown-ups off their living room sofas and into the recliner seats at the multiplex. It’s supposed to be the season of Oscar hopefuls, rather than the kiddie fare that prevails during the summer.

    Indeed, Oscar-hopeful season finally seems to be kicking in with last week‘s release of “Lady Bird,” which opened extremely well in limited release. This weekend, even though it’s playing on just 37 screens, the Saoirse Ronan coming-of-age dramedy cracked the top 10, coming in tenth with an estimated $1.2 million, which averages out to a stunning $33,766 per screen. (Compare that to about $8,400 each for “Daddy’s Home” and “Orient.”)

    “Lady Bird” joins a slate of current grown-up offerings that includes “Blade Runner 2049” (still hanging in there on 863 screens and finishing eighth this weekend with an estimated $1.4 million), the R-rated “Bad Moms Christmas,” “Orient,” “Daddy’s Home,” and even “Ragnarok,” which has drawn most of its audience front the over-25 crowd. So there are plenty of incentives to draw adults back to the theaters now, and it’s the grown-ups you can thank for helping bring the long slump to end.

  • ‘Daddy’s Home 2’ Trailer Piles on All the Fathers For Christmas

    So. Many. Dads. Christmas should be renamed Father’s Day in this new trailer for “Daddy’s Home 2.”

    Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell reunite in the sequel to their 2015 comedy. For Christmas, they decide to celebrate as one big “happy” family, including Dusty (Wahlberg), his ex-wife Sara (Linda Cardellini), their two kids, her husband Brad (Ferrell), Dusty’s new wife Karen (Alessandra Ambrosio), and her daughter.

    Joining the fun is Dusty’s intimidating dad (Mel Gibson) and Brad’s goofy father (John Lithgow). And while Dusty and Brad start out on good terms, this is one powder keg of a family holiday. Things only get worse when Karen’s ex (John Cena) shows up to add even more dad rivalry to the mix.=

    The sequel looks to deploy the same kind of slapstick, broad humor as the original, as seen in a gag where Ferrell cuts down a cell phone tower instead of a Christmas tree.

    “Daddy’s Home 2” opens in theaters November 10.

  • Are Audiences Done With the ‘Despicable Me’ Franchise?

    If you’re like millions of other movie fans around the United States, you celebrated July 4th weekend by going to the multiplex to see a film not made with American audiences in mind.

    Probably, that movie was “Despicable Me 3,” which topped the chart with an estimated $75.4 million earned from Friday to Sunday. The fourth film in the series (if you count the prequel “Minions,”) “DM3” boasted the widest domestic release ever, with 4,529 screens.

    And yet, the movie’s domestic take was well below what was predicted. Most pundits guessed it would open closer to $85 million, like “Despicable Me 2” did four years ago; some predictions went as high as $100 million. Instead, “DM3” saw the weakest domestic opening since the first “Despicable Me” debuted with $56.4 million in 2010.

    Sure, you could blame the calendar. After all, July 4 falls on a Tuesday this year, so holiday-weekend moviegoing will have petered out by the time Independence Day actually arrives. Four years ago, however, it fell on a Thursday, so long-weekend momentum favored “DM2.” In fact, the movie opened on Wednesday the 3rd, so it earned $59.6 million before the weekend even started, then grabbed another $83.5 million from Friday to Sunday.

    Then again, “Minions” opened two years ago on July 10, a week after the holiday, and still cleared $115.7 million in its first three days. How did the franchise’s premiere-weekend drawing power drop by $40 million in two years?

    It didn’t help that the new movie isn’t as appealing as the first three. It has the weakest reviews of the three “Despicable” titles, both at Rotten Tomatoes (just 63 percent) and at Metacritic (with a score of just 48 out of 100). Audiences liked it more than critics did, judging by its A- CinemaScore, but they still didn’t like it as much as the first three films in the franchise, which all landed A grades.
    Still, Universal is probably not complaining, since “DM3” earned an estimated $116.9 million overseas. Its worldwide total of $192.3 million is more than double the film’s reported $80 million production budget. And overseas revenue accounting for 61 percent of the movie’s earnings is typical for this franchise; all four films have earned more money in foreign markets than they did here.

    In fact, it’s typical not just for this franchise but for most of 2017’s top-earning movies — and even for several domestic flops — that nonetheless grossed enough overseas to make up for their poor showings here. As this column has noted in previous weeks, would-be blockbusters that underperformed here — including “Transformers: The Last Knight,” “The Mummy,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” — have seen foreign ticket sales save their bacon. And for movies that have done well stateside — “Wonder Woman,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Fate of the Furious” — have also made the bulk of their money abroad, with domestic earnings looking like little more than a nice bonus by comparison.

    It’s the rare movie made with American viewers in mind that has stumbled at the box office. This weekend’s new Will Ferrell/Amy Poehler comedy “The House” couldn’t muster better than a sixth-place debut, and it couldn’t even match modest predictions that had it premiering in the low teens, opening instead with just an estimated $9.0 million. It’s the worst wide-release opening since 1998’s “A Night at the Roxbury,” when Ferrell began his big-screen career as a leading man. Even that film, based on the “SNL” sketch, managed a $9.6 million premiere, and that was at 1998 ticket prices.

    Comedies do notoriously poorly abroad, due to language barriers and cultural differences. About the only reason Hollywood keeps making them is that they tend to be cheap enough to make back their budgets on domestic earnings alone. But this summer has seen several comedies struggle to connect with homegrown viewers, including “Snatched,””Baywatch,” and “Rough Night.”

    American audiences seem to be tired of raunchy, R-rated comedies. It’s possible that the wave of movies about grown-ups acting like frat kids, a cycle that started with 2009’s “The Hangover,” is finally played out creatively and commercially. Of course, all of these recent R-rated comedy flops, including “The House,” were poorly reviewed and generated lackluster word-of-mouth. If there was a good original movie aimed at American adults, they might actually pay to see it in theaters.
    Exhibit A: “Baby Driver,” which debuted this weekend in second place with an estimated $21.0 million from Friday to Sunday, a promising start given some early predictions that it wouldn’t crack $20 million. (Sony was smart enough to open it on Wednesday, so its domestic total is already an estimated $30.0 million.)

    That’s a pretty nice sum for a movie based on an original story, from writer-director Edgar Wright, with a leading man (Ansel Elgort) who’s never carried a picture at the box office on his own. It helps that the movie’s been riding a wave of hype ever since 2017’s SXSW festival in the spring, and that both critics and audiences have raved about it. As a result, adults flocked to the film; 54 percent of its audience is older than 25.

    Despite a British director and leading lady (Lily James), the action/crime caper seems to have been made with American audiences in mind. Indeed, it’s only earned an estimated $6.8 million abroad. With any luck, it’ll last long enough in theaters to make back its reported $34 million budget, plus marketing and distribution expenses. If it does, most of that return will come from American ticket sales.

    If it doesn’t, $34 million isn’t that big a risk for a studio used to spending nine-figure sums on would-be blockbusters. But it’s pretty rare for a distributor to pay that much for a movie with primarily domestic appeal. “Cars 3” is an exception. Disney spent a reported $170 million to make it, even though the “Cars” movies do appeal more to Americans than foreign audiences. But Disney will more than make up for the movie’s weak box office with billions in toy sales, for which “Cars 3” is just a glorified infomercial.

    Same goes for “The LEGO Batman Movie,” an $80 million toy ad that made 57 percent of its haul in North America, though it also grossed enough at the box office both here and abroad to earn a profit from ticket sales alone.

    But big-budget or small-budget, Hollywood movies that succeed by appealing mostly to American audiences are becoming such a rarity that such recent examples as “Get Out” and “Hidden Figures” look like flukes. For the most part, Hollywood would prefer to celebrate Independence Day (and every other weekend) by releasing movies dependent on foreign audiences.

  • Box Office: ‘Despicable Me 3’ and ‘Baby Driver’ Rule, ‘The House’ Crashes

    By Seth Kelley

    LOS ANGELES, July 2 (Variety.com) — The tiny, yellow, animated blobs have done it again.

    Illumination and Universal’s “Despicable Me 3” is cruising to an easy box office win during a busy holiday weekend. The latest in the franchise is opening to $72.4 million from 4,529 locations — the widest domestic release ever. That total is lower than earlier estimates, which pegged the film above $80 million (earlier tracking suggested it could land even higher), but nevertheless it remains the weekend’s big winner.

    Steve Carell plays double duty in “Despicable Me 3” as the series’ protagonist Gru, and now also his twin brother, Dru. The plot centers on the brothers, as they team up for a criminal heist. “South Park” co-creator Trey Parker joins the franchise to voice the villain. Critics are generally on the movie’s side, earning it a 62 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie earned an A- CinemaScore from audiences, which is lower than the A earned by the first two installments and “Minions.”

    Despite “Despicable’s” rule, perhaps the more interesting stories for the industry reside further down the box office chart.

    Starting with “Baby Driver,” from Sony’s TriStar Pictures, MRC, and Working Title. Edgar Wright‘s latest also appears to be his biggest box office hit, as it’s cruising to $30 million from 3,226 locations — that’s including the $5.7 million head start the movie got by opening early in previews on Tuesday.

    The movie centers around a character named Baby (Ansel Elgort), who becomes the getaway driver for a kingpin named Doc (Kevin Spacey). Music plays an integral role in the film since Baby suffered a traumatic experience as a child that left him with tinnitus, which he blocks out with music.

    “Edgar and our partners at MRC and Working Title have made one of the most original and entertaining films in recent memory, and we’re so thrilled to see it received as a bonafide hit in a crowded summer season,” said Sony’s distribution chief Adrian Smith.

    “Driver,” like “Get Out” earlier this year and “The Big Sick,” currently showing strong in limited release, is the kind of project that gets Hollywood excited about the chance for original ideas to also be financially viable. Wright’s film picked up buzz when it won the Audience Award and positive early reviews at the SXSW Film Festival. The movie’s marketing capitalized on its colorful aesthetic and emphasis on music.
    Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell‘s “The House,” meanwhile, is having trouble attracting visitors. The R-rated comedy from New Line, Warner Bros., and Village Roadshow is opening to $8.7 million from 3,134 locations, according to Monday finals.

    “The House” is the story of a husband (Ferrell) and wife (Poehler) who start an underground casino to help raise money for their daughter’s college fund. Andrew Jay Cohen directed from a script that he wrote with Brendan O’Brien — the two previously collaborated on the “Neighbors” movies.

    For the weekend’s top five, Paramount’s “Transformers: The Last Knight” should land in third with $17 million during its second weekend. “Wonder Woman” continues to be a force for Warner Bros., and is on its way to $15.6 million domestically during its fifth weekend. The movie has crossed $700 million worldwide and passed “Suicide Squad” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” at the domestic box office. And Disney and Pixar’s “Cars 3” should place fifth during its third week with $9.5 million domestically.

    After a strong start to 2017, a rather slow summer box office overall has brought the year-to-date box office numbers down to about even with last year.

    “A weak May followed by a June that failed to become the savior of the summer now puts July in the hot seat to deliver the goods and get us out of the summer season doldrums,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore.