Jacob Hall
Like any holiday that sees families congregating together and then desperately seeking activities where they don't have to talk to each other for two hours, this Easter weekend saw a strong bump at the box office thanks to a few new contenders and a handful of holdovers with some surprising staying power.
Director Michael Bay has promised that 'Transformers 4' (which we still can't believe isn't called 'Tr4snformers') will take the series in a new direction and the casting shows that he isn't kidding. Gone are Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox, in are Mark Wahlberg and the previously rumored but now confirmed Nicola Peltz.
It's Brad Pitt vs. a wave of zombies. Check out the new trailer below and ponder the future of the walking dead.
You can't imagine two films more different than 'The Croods' and 'Olympus Has Fallen,' but right now the two of them sit on top of the box office chart, both temporarily linked by the fact that a bunch of people apparently wanted to see them this weekend. It's the first time in forever that two films have opened to over $30 million at the same time...but it wasn't golden for all of the new releases.
For the second week in a row, 'Oz the Great and Powerful' lived up to its title and dominated the box office. One of the newcomers managed to fare surprisingly well in the face of Sam Raimi's blockbuster...but another simply got crushed.
'Grown Ups 2' actually exists and there are now two new posters to prove it. Despite being critically reviled, 'Grown Ups' made $162 million at the box office, making it one of Adam Sandler's highest-grossing films. Although it's hard to imagine anyone wanting a sequel (did anyone really like the first one?), the second outing of the man-children played by Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade is set to hit theaters this summer.
After a series of increasingly dire weeks at the box office, 'Oz the Great and Powerful' arrived and shook things up in a major way, earning the first truly massive opening weekend of 2013 and setting the table for all kinds of Oz-related content in the near future. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is something that we'll let you judge.
The first poster for 'The Hangover Part III' does an excellent job of being exactly what you wouldn't expect. Instead of the Wolf Pack standing around in various states of disarray (as was the case with the last two films), the poster is a pretty spot-on parody of the one-sheet for 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two,' with Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong standing in place of Harry Potter and Voldemort.
Jon Stewart may be one of the hardest working men on television, but it looks like he's about to take a break from hosting 'The Daily Show' for a few months. But he's not going on a vacation: he's going to direct a movie. 'Rosewater' will not only be Stewart's first time behind the camera, it will be something completely out of his regular wheelhouse.
For the past year, there's been one big question surrounding a potential 'Justice League' movie: how do you possibly compete with the likes of 'The Avengers'? Well, it looks like Warner Bros. may finally have a game plan: they want to bring back Christian Bale as Batman. And that's not all.
'Jack the Giant Slayer' may have taken the number one spot at the box office, but no one is celebrating -- it may sit at the top, but it sits at the top of one of the weakest box office weekends since, well, last weekend.
Vin Diesel has a lot riding on 'Riddick,' the third film in the franchise that kickstarted his career with 'Pitch Black' and then almost ended it with 'The Chronicles of Riddick.' The 'Fast and the Furious' star hasn't been shy about his love for Riddick and has spent the better part of year offering updates on the film from his Facebook page, sharing images from the set every few weeks. The latest image is one of the best so far, showcasing Riddick doing what he does best...