Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell flopped hard at the box office
And these numbers are frankly embarrassing. Have you heard of the new movie A Big Bold Beautiful Journey? It’s an R-rated fantasy & romantic drama starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farell that tells the emotional story of a time hopping couple.
Sony reportedly paid $50 million dollars to acquire the project and then it dropped another $45 million dollars on its production. Well, the movie opened on 3,330 screens in North America last weekend and it grossed just $3.5 million dollars at the domestic box office, landing at #6. Worldwide, it did $8 million. Meaning it’s a massive bomb, that could lose 9 figures in theaters. The movie failed to even reach its already basement level projections of $7M domestic.
So what happened here? On paper the movie seemed like a good bet. It was directed by Kogonada, who made After Yang. It was written by one of the writers of The Menu and it features two pretty big stars. This was Margot Robbie’s first starring role since Barbie. But SONY fatally under marketed the film, its R rating limited the audience and it got horrible reviews. Not to mention this genre being a hard sell to begin with.
An AI generated movie is coming to theaters everywhere next year
And tell me, would you go see this? Mainstream animated movies tend to cost anywhere from $100 million to $200 million dollars to make and can often take 2-5 years to produce, using a team of hundreds of people. OpenAI says it can do the same thing way faster, with fewer people, and for way less money.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the company will release CRITTERZ in theaters worldwide next year — after a planned debut at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie will be made with the company’s AI tools, including Chat GPT 5. And OpenAI says it will only take nine months to produce, employ a production team of roughly 30 people and cost just $30 million dollars.
Critterz is “about forest creatures who go on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger.” The characters were created by Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, who hand drew them in 2022 for an AI-generated short film.
It should be noted, not everything in Critterz will be AI. The script was written by some of the writers of Paddington in Peru. The movie is going to cast human actors to voice the characters. And it will hire artists to draw sketches that will then be fed into the AI tools. OpenAI is hoping that by making this movie, it will show Hollywood what’s possible But will audiences embrace it? We’ll see.
Marlon Wayans is firing back at critics
Have you heard of HIM? It’s director Justin Tipping’s new horror sports movie, starring Marlon Wayans that opened in theaters last weekend. Despite the fact that it was produced by Jordan Peele, critics were not kind to HIM.
As of Sunday evening, just 28% of the 124 reviews assessed by Rotten Tomatoes were positive. Most reviewers panned it for having a messy finale, underdeveloped ideas, and visuals that looked cool, but didn’t always land. Indiewire called it “A fumble after another” while Vulture called it “ a high-budget student film.”
But Marlon Wayans was not about to let those criticisms slide. He took to Instagram, writing, “I respect critics. Their job is to Critique. I respect their work. It shapes our industry. But an opinion does not always mean it’s everyone’s opinion. Some movies are ahead of the curve. Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted and it’s subjective.”
Wayans included a slideshow of his past movies that were panned by critics, but went on to be fan favorites like White Chicks and Scary Movie. He explained, “I’ve had a career of making classic movies that weren’t critically received and those movies went on to be CLASSICS." So don’t take anyone’s opinion just go see for yourself.”
Martin Scorsese is re-teaming with Leonardo DiCaprio
And they’re bringing Jennifer Lawrence along for the ride. Big movie news: Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Lawrence are circling a January production start on What Happens at Night, an adaptation of Peter Cameron’s 2020 ghost story novel.
Apple Original Films is in negotiations to co-finance and produce the project alongside Studiocanal, which developed the screenplay. Patrick Marber has adapted the novel, which follows an American couple who travel to a remote, snowbound European town to adopt a baby. Once checked into a vast, nearly deserted hotel, they encounter a bizarre cast of characters. As the couple struggles to bring home their child, the world around them grows increasingly uncanny. forcing them to confront truths about themselves and their marriage.
Scorsese had originally been attached only as a producer when Studiocanal acquired the rights in 2023, but momentum shifted after DiCaprio stepped away from other projects and Lawrence emerged as a co-lead. The pairing marks another heavyweight collaboration for Scorsese and DiCaprio, who last worked together on Killers of the Flower Moon, also backed by Apple. Casting is expected to ramp up quickly for the film’s ensemble of eccentric supporting characters. While distribution details are still being finalized.
The best-selling author behind this upcoming Sydney Sweeney movie leads a secret double life
Because some people are just wild over achievers. On December 19th, Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are releasing The Housemaid, a psychological thriller about a maid who discovers her employers’ dark secrets. The movie is based on the 2022 best seller by author Freida McFadden.
McFadden has written dozens of books since 2013 and sold more than 17 million units total, becoming the top selling thriller author in the US. But get this, Freida McFadden is not her real name — it’s a pseudonym. And writing books isn’t her full time job — it’s her side hustle.
You see McFadden is actually a practicing doctor with a specialization in brain disorders. She’s also married and has two children. She writes her best selling thrillers and medical humor books in the early mornings and late evenings. She told the NY Times she writes under a pseudonym and protects her real name for the sake of her patients and professionalism as a doctor.
“At work, I want to be a doctor. A lot of my books have medical stuff in them, and I don’t want people saying, ‘Is this based on me?’ It feels unprofessional.” But in the FAQ on her website, she says still working as a doctor has helped her as an author, “First of all, I’m able to write medical scenarios with a high degree of accuracy. Second, knowing that I had a stable job to pay the bills made me feel more comfortable spending money on marketing.”
That said, McFadden says that her success has a writer has required her to scale back her medical practice, “I’ve taken a step back from my physician career and now work only 1-2 days per week.” Some people just have all the talent