Weekly Dip: The Core Problem with Video Game Adaptations

There's been little movement in the Box Office rankings this week. Despite the presence of new blood entering the arena the estalbished players have continued to cominate.

1. Deadpool & Wolverine (Weekend Gross £8 million)
2. Despicable Me 4 (Weekend Gross £2.6 million)
3. Twisters (Weekend Gross £1.2 million)
4. Inside Out 2 (Weekend Gross £939,000)
5. Longlegs (Weekend Gross £570,000)

Yes, despite the alleged charms of Zachary Levi in Harold and the Purple Crayon the Box Office reamins as static as ever. With Deadpool and Wolverine continuing to dominate while the other contenders duked it out among the family and adult film demographics. Likely fearing death by irrelevance most major studios are still holding back their releases. With the only fresh blood being the aforementioned Harold and the undeniably niche animation Kensuke's Kingdom. 

All that is set to change this friday though with the appearence of M. Night Shamylan's latest thriller Trap, romantic fare in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us and the subject of this week's column Borderlands. Despite a stacked cast and more marketing than you can shake a stick at the video game adaptation has already drawn fierce criticsm from preview screenings. However it raises the much more interesting question of why video games have had such a challenging history when it comes to adaptation.

The Core Problem with Video Game Adaptations 

Adapting the popular video game franchise Borderlands into a feature film should have been the easiest win of the year. Set on the wasteland planet of Pandora the games story is deliberately broad, you're a vault hunter looking for a treasure vault, in order to create a framework for fighting your way through hordes of bandits, mutants and monsters with a variety of colourful weapons and abilities. So logically, if you want to adapt it you grab some of the game's more distinct characters and have them fight their way through a seies of action setpieces with the same broad goal. Easy right?

Well no, for starters the characters you pick to help the film have to be enjoyable enough for an audience to invest in their fate. Not necessarily likable or compelling, we just have to enjoy watching them do their thing. Keanu Reeves has scowled his way through four John Wick movies on the flimliest of tragic back stories simply because the sheer speactacle of his ability is draw enough. With Borderlands director Eli Roth seems to have stuck to the paper-thin characterisation of the original game, the only modification being to fit the...let's say interesting casting choices. So the usually stoic Roland becomes yet another explosive Kevin Hart performance, Cate Blanchett's siren Lilith does little more than scowl and pose than an animated action figure.

So you can't enjoy watching the characters regardless of how good the actual action is. And by all accounts the action is not even that good. Roth, famous for small-scale horror films, directs his action incoherently in a blaze of imemorable set pieces. This is the one thing Borderlands needed to get right, no one was expecting Citizen Kane levels of storytelling. What they were expecting was a big screen version of the anarchic, colourful action of the games. Characters engaging in consequence-free violence against a series of unique and increasingly deranged psychopaths. To not even manage that demonstrates a serious failure to grapple with even the most basic elements of the source material.

Roth, of course is not alone in this. Hollywood has been mangling video games from the very beginning. Super Mario Bros (1993) relocated the bright, simplistic world of the games to a grimy 80s dystopian underworld. The Hitman adaptation ignored the core mechanic of invisibly manouvering through elbaorate locations to set up complicate, untraceable assasinations. The Resident Evil films largely set up it's own, increasingly insane internal cannon seperate from the events or characters of the games. Time and time again films seem much more interested in reworking games into more familiar genre films than nailing why the source material is so successful.

This is not to say that the essential mechanics need to always be translated to film. A theoretical Bioshock film shouldn't stop every twenty minutes to watch the lead playing Pipe Mania. But it should convey the feeling of a lone being trapped in a place driven mad by Objectivist philosophy while relying on the product of that very philosophy to survive. Not easy stuff, granted, but then why are you making a Bioshock film and not Rando McJack's Undersea Shootout? 

I don't expect any of this to make a blind bit of difference to the bigwigs in Hollywood who, at their most cynical, view video games as another reliable IP to mine. But on the off chance that the directors, writers and actors tasked with bringing these projects to life actually give a shit, I hope they understand that what they should be adapting, first and foremost, is the experience.

A Borderlands game should feel like the frantic, comical experience of trying to survive on Pandora, a Portal game should feel like trying to navigate your way to freedom via portals, a Legend of Zelda game should make you feel like a lost hero building up your skills and arsenal until you're ready to fight Gannondorf. 

Video Game adaptations will never by one-to-one translations. That's the nature of adaptation. But the very least the creative teams could do is try to capture the essence of what players love about the games they play. 

Weekly Dip: Downey Heralds Marvel's Doomsday

If there is any indication that blockbuster season has brought a lull to the industry it's the fact that the biggest story in movies is still an announcement from July. Before that though here's how the weekly box office shook out.

1. Deadpool & Wolverine (Weekend Gross £12.6 million)
2. Despicable Me 4 (Weekend Gross £3.1 million)
3. Twisters (Weekend Gross £1.5 million)
4. Inside Out 2 (Weekend Gross £1.1 million)
5. Longlegs (Weekend Gross £723,000)

Yep, as expected Deadpool and Wolverine cleaned house on it's opening weekend giving Marvel Studios it's biggest opening in two years. A badly needed boost to the company that's been struggling post-Endgame, post-pandemic, post-losing multiple stars for a variety of reason. In the family market Despicable Me 4 continues to dominate on the basic of strong IP reconition and broad appeal. Love 'em or hate 'em the Minions are as ubiquitous as it comes and will likely keep Dreamworks drowning in merch money for the next few years.

The only real surprise of this weeks Box Office contenders is Longlegs continuing it's respectable run for a mid-budget horror. While other contenders this year such as MaXXXine and Abigail couldn't get out of cinemas fast enough. Turns out leaving a good film running long enough for busy people to actually catch a screen yields better profits than a lightning-fast run followed by a dump onto streaming. 

Downey, Herald of Marvel's Doomsday

Shockingly the biggest news of this week is probably something that feels old at this stage in the news cycle (that stage been a mere six days later). San Diego Comic Con 2024 turned out to be a bumper event for Marvel, amid the early box office projections for Deadpool & Wolverine, an all-star panel for Captain America: Brave New World and the news that the Russo Brothers would be returning to direct the next two Avengers films. The centrepiece though was their coverage of the upcoming Fantastic Four film due in July 2025. Attendees were the first to learn the official release date as well as the intruigung title of Fantastic Four: First Steps. They also got to see some early footage which proved that the film would be partially set in an alternate history version of the 1960s.

However the Fantastic Four are almost inseperable from their recurring Marvel villain Victor Von Doom and the studio pulled out all the stops to reveal him in all his glory. A masked figure in green marched onto the stage, flanked by minions before pulling it off to reveal that the iconic character would be played by none other than Robert Downey Jr, last seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe dying heroicly after a decade long stint playing Iron Man. 

It was a move the elicited excitement and confusion among fans. Comic book afficiandos began wildly speculating on how the franchise would connect the deceased tech-billionaire superhero to the ruler of Latvaria. More cynical commentators remarked on what a desperate move it was from a studio that had been floundering for the last few years. While elsewhere on the internet a certain flavour of fan was up in arms that Marvel had so casually dicarded the Kang Dynasty, which I guess they were now suddenly invested in. 

The truth was that this was indeed something of a desperate move on the part of Marvel. While Deadpool & Wolverine would likely put them back in the black, the comic book movie studio, more than any other, thrives on a consistent prescence in the zeitgeist. Marvel relies heavily on a dedicated community of bloggers and journalists to analyse and speculate on its moves. A nerd industrial complex pouring over decades of comics to predict, explain and react to their every move. The announcement of Downey's return is the spark that community needs to get its fires not just lit but roaring hot.

And Marvel needs those fires hot again because after the slam dunk that was Avenger's Endgame, the studio has been struggling to decide on its next move. Promising new heroes like Shang Chi and Ms Marvel don't seem to have been given the space to make a name for themselves. Yelena Belova (AKA new Black Widow) has been shackled to the upcoming Thunderbolts film. The studio's attempt at serialised streaming has had diminishing returns while the films themselves seem to have been getting progressively worse. What's worse two actors who were intended to be the lynchpin of the franchise for the next decade are no longer available. Chadwick Boseman, now immortalised as the hero Black Panther, tragically died in 2020. While the actor portraying the new Thanos-level villain Kang was publicly convicted of assault in 2023.

Marvel needed to pull out something big, something that would set the stage for the future of the MCU so they went back to an actor that had helped elevate the franchise into the behemoth it is now. Bringing Downey back is the perfect storm of safe, relaible options that would also set the media ablaze and let them dominate industry headlines again. For me personally it is disappointing to not see one of the biggest entities in filmmaking try to bring in some new blood. Relying on increasingly aging established actors is the reason the Indiana Jones franchise has become such a bloated, hollow parody of itself. It's the reason IP is so much of a bigger factor in the industry than star power.

Plus, it's hard to not see this as having a jarring effect when it comes time to actually watch Doom onscreen. The immersion broken by constantly wondering when/if they're going to explain why he looks and sounds so much like Tony Stark.

In short last week's major announcement accomplished what it needed to for Marvel Studios. For people who wanted a well-crafted comic book story, well, they were left still wanting.

Weekly Dip: Rachel Sennott Used to Be Funny

Before we delve into my nakedly clickbaity title it seems that Inside Out 2 may indeed keep Pixar afloat for the forseeable future. Taking the top spot in this weeks Box Office Round up:

1. Inside Out 2 (Weekend Gross £11.3 million)
2. Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Weekend Gross £1.9 million)
3. IF (Weekend Gross £729,673)
4. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Weekend Gross £389,000)
5. The Garfield Movie (Weekend Gross £354,829)

Inside Out 2's £11.3 million makes it the biggest opening weekend of 2024, ahead of Dune 2's £9.3 million. It's proof that there is still an audience for Pixar's high-standard of emotive (in multiple senses) storytelling, even if they were once led astray by Disney's attempt to prioritise its streaming service. The continued high performance of Bad Boys speaks to tha lack of adult-targeted action fare right now, which will hopefully change with the arrival of Deadpool and Wolverine. The other notable result is the absence of Furiosa, less than a month after its opening weekend, cementing George Miller's intense actioner as a box office dud, regardless of its quality.

Rachel Sennott Used to Be Funny

Love her or hate her Rachel Sennott is one of the rising stars of American film and telvision at this moment. Starting out on the New York open mic scene the young comedian quickly turned to internet comedy where she developed the 'Messy Girl' persona that would become a staple of her career. The kind of girl who is prone to high drama, even of the ugly and unpleasant variety. It's the kind of character that has been raomanticised for laughs in shows like New Girl, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and even Broad City. However Sennott's interpretation has no romantic pretense, in her world the Messy Girl is the butt of the joke or, even more damingly, a figure of pity. She would go on to create two shows for Comedy Central with regular collaborator Ayo Edebiri, the two having met at NYU. One of which 'Rachel and Ayo Are Single' solidified the Messy Girl as Sennott's primary onscreen persona as well as her working relationship Edebiri.

It was a persona that served her well in 2020's Shiva Baby, an adaptation of a short film directed by Emma Seligman. It was a darkly funny take on the cringeworthy consequences of being an impulsive, disorganised mess of a woman. Seeing Sennot's character struggling to navigate a family funeral when both her ex-girlfriend and current sugar daddy are in attendance. After several years of internet infamy and smaller screen work Shiva Baby would be the film that propelled Sennot into the mainstream film conciousness. With the unintended result that audiences exclusively saw her as the Messy Girl she had been portraying. 

This was a label that followed her into her next feature film role Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, where once again she played up the insufferable appleal of the Messy Girl. Playing one member of a party of obnoxious rich kids who's own stupidity leads them to become trapped in a horror movie scenario. Her character Alice is a pitch perfect interpretation of a wannabe millenial influencer, a podcaster coasting off inherited wealth and looking to her friends for validation and clicks. While Shiva Baby was intended as a relateable situation in which her persona would garner sympathy, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies was all about vengeful catharsis. You are supposed to hate characters like Alice and her vapid, self-indulgent friends and relish in the sight of them turning on each other as the prestence of a potential killer only ramps up their insecurities and paranoia. 

Unsuprisingly it didn't work for everyone. We all have our limits and the quality of Sennott's work heavily depended on howmuch time you were willing to spend with deeply dislikable characters. This is one of the reasons I've never been keen on Benedict Cumberbatch's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, who was consistently difficult to tolerate for 90 minutes. For me, Sennott's appeal hit a ceiling in 2023's Bottoms, ironically the film that reunited her both with Seligman and Edebiri. Granted a queer comedy about two girls starting a fight club under false pretenses in order to attract their high school crushes was a difficult needle to thread. Hower Seligman had form with dark comedy and Bottoms promised to be a send-up of the kind of sleazy antics we'd seen teenage boys get up to in years prior.

In the end though Bottoms turned out (IMO) to be a creative misfire. In part because Sennott's character of PJ is such a paper-thin interpretation of what she can do. A try-hardy queer high schooler willing to do anything, no matter how sketchy or degrading to attract a completely disinterested love interest. A lead character can be unlikable, a character can be utterly pathetic, a character can even be utterly incapable but all those traits together make for an off-putting combination. Especially when both traits are in pursuit of an obviously misguided end. 

However one misfire isn't worth writing off Sennott as a talent completely. Whatever I might think, Bottoms has its fans and it hasn't stopped Sennott from continuing her ascent. Popping up in the high profile trainwreck The Idol and having lined up a role in the Italian historical drama Finally Dawn, which is currently doing the festival rounds. Regardless of how either project turned out it seems clear that the young comedian is seeking a broader range of work that can establish her as an actress beyond her Messy Girl origins. 

More pertinently 2024 sees the release of her latest, and most autobiographical work I Used to be Funny. Centered on stand up comedian struggling with PTSD caught up in a family crisis. Sennott has been very candid about her own history of performing stand-up, quitting because of the innate feeling that she was being 'laughted at' rather than 'laughed with'. I Used to be Funny clearly demonstrates a willingness to explore the psychological difficulties of being a modern-day jester. Something few comedians-turned-actors would be willing to do.

Yes, Rachel Sennott used to be funny and clearly still is. More importantly she's willing to be funny in a way that speaks sharply on the modern day reality of being a woman, being Jewish and being the object of amusement for millions of people. She can walk the line between comedy and drama easily enough to make her a darling of the indie scene. What the future will tell us is if she can translate that into mainstream success.

Weekly Dip: Inside and Out of Pixar Studios

We're well into the Summer Movie Season and so far a big winner has yet to emerge. Which has led to some interesting results in the weekly Box Office figures:

1. Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Weekend Gross £2.9 million)
2. IF (Weekend Gross £866,000)
3. The Garfield Movie (Weekend Gross £729,000)
4. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Weekend Gross £620,000)
5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Weekend Gross £436,839)

The successful opening weekend of the fourth Bad Boys movie (a franchise I've never been particulalry interested but seems to have a commited fanbase) says a lot about the enduring star power of it's leading men. Will Smith has had a quiet career following the whole 'assault' business at the Academy Awards in 2022. However Bad Boys proves he remains a box office draw and one of the few stars who can open a movie on name alone. Any stains on his reputation seemingly mitigated by his still entertaining chemistry with Martin Lawrence.

The fact that a 15-rated action film outpaced the two family-friendly releases says a lot about the vulnerable state of household finances. With families unwilling to part with the cost of multiple cinema tickets for films that will probably be on streaming in a few weeks. Granted IF and The Garfield Movie are somewhat underwhelming prospects. One a high-concept original feature sold on the star power of Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds, the other based on a fairly antiquated property with more appeal to nostalgic older consumers (Garfield started life as a newspaper comic after all). Aside from Kung Fu Panda 4 no family release has come out yet with the potential to dominate the box office, until now that is.

Inside and Out of Pixar Studios

Like many studios Pixar has not had a great time of it post-pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdowns led to Disney releasing many of it's Pixar films (Soul, Turning Red and Luca) directly onto streaming severely limiting the studio's potential profitability. In June 2022 Pixar returned to cinemas with Lightyear, a spin-off of the enduring Toy Story series. Despite being the fifth highest-grossing film of 2022 worldwide, with $226 million, the film was considered a box office bomb when factoring in its budget and marketing costs.

Many analysts, as well as Pixar employees blamed Lightyear's failure on Disney actions during the pandemic. By denying Pixar's films a theatrical release they had trained their audience to expect Disney films to be available on streaming. Meaning that all they had to do was wait a few months and they could save themselves the expense and trouble of dragging the family out to the cinema and paying upwards of $60 plus concessions. Pixar's subsequent release, Elemental, fared slightly better, making a minimal splash on release but over the course of its theatrical run it earned over $400 million worldwide.

By this point though the damage had been done both to Pixar's reputation and financial stability. Over the course of 2024 the studio has laid off approximately 14% of its workforce, as it attempts to veer away from streaming content and focus on theatrical releases. The fact that these layoffs included Gayln Susman, the producer who famously saved Toy Story 2 from deletion, only compounded the reputational damage. Ever since the first Toy Story debuted in 1995 Pixar established itself as a positive, altruistic workplace driven by enthusiastic story tellers. Backed by a string of critically acclaimed films it was a reputation that held firm until 2017 when John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer and one of the resident 'big kids' stepped down following allegations of sexual misconduct. 

Altogether layoffs and harbouring potential sex pests doesn't really gel with the idea of a company that values both the product and the people making it. What's more their uninterrupted string of successes was well and truly over; Brave, The Good Dinosaur and Onward were widely considered creative misfires. Pixar continued to release hits; Coco and Soul repesenting Pixar quality at its highest, but these were exceptions among a slew of lesser works in Turning Red, Luca and Elemental (granted a 'lesser' Pixar is still better than most films).

In 2024 Pixar is in desperate need of a hit that recalls their past glories, which is how we have Inside Out 2. A sequel to 2015's Pixar hit directed by studio veteren Pete Docter, made at a time when Pixar still beloved as a reliable source of heartfelt entertainment. The film itself handily demonstrates why this was the case. Inside Out is a maserpiece of animation and storytelling; leaning on Pixar's trend of imagining the hidden lives of mundane aspects of life; in this case our emotions. 

Centered on two polar opposites Joy (Amy Pohler) and Sadness (Phylis Smith),  Inside Out beautifully depicts the internal conflict of these two emotions. What happens when previously happy eleven-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias)is confronted with unavoidable sadness? How do they react when emotions like fear and anger take control for the first time? One standout element is just how Inside Out despicts the cartonnish antics of Riley's inner emotions manifesting in outburts that will feel all too real to your average parent.

Inside Out now resides in popular estimation as one of Pixar's best so a sequel has a lot to live up to, even if the studio's future wasn't resting on it's success. Inside Out 2 promises to bring more of its predecessors inherent charm, with the addition of more emotions to party. As this time around Joy and Sadness will be joined by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adele Exarchopolis).Which will certainly add a new energy to the film (and incidentally more models for merchandising) but risks diluting the simple, accessible emotionality of the first film. 

Making sequels is always a double-edged sword but currently Pixar is in a position where they need to turn out a guaranteed hit with audiences. With Toy Story 5 still in development, Inside Out happened to be their best candidate for the sequel treatment. All indications then are that it may not match the quality of the original but it might keep Pixar afloat long enough to reach those heights once more. 

Weekly Dip: Will Monkey Man Make an Action Star out of Dev Patel?

Blockbuster season has arrived, whether we want it or not. Studios jumping the gun on summer releases might explain the somewhat anemic state of this week's Box Office:

1. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Weekend gross £4.1 million)
2. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Weekend gross £3.9 million)
3. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Weekend gross £2.1 million)
4. Dune Part Two (Weekend gross £1.7 million)
5. Mother's Instinct (Weekend gross £267, 741)

A respectable second week for Ghostbusters even if it was leapfrogged by the two new franchises in town. Godzilla x Kong (the 'x' is silent) ramaging into first place just goes to show that despite the accusations of empty spectacle, this series really does have legs (300ft tall ones in fact). Critical consensus seems to be that Kung Fu Panda didn't really need a fourth chapter and yet it's performance suggests that it still has a lot of goodwill carried over from the first three. That and the lucrative nature of forcing a parent or guardian to shell out for extra tickets. Mother's Instinct is the real underperformer of the week, averaging just £577 per venue over the bank holiday weekend. An unsurprising turnout for a seemingly dour family drama with only the reliable talents of Anne hathaway and Jessica Chastain to serve as selling points.

Taken as a whole none of the entries broke the bank in any significant way, despite the school holiday. New Empire's takings matching those of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire from the previous, which as we covered was less than half of what Dune Part Two netted during a regular weekend. Maybe it's still too early in the year to expect major returns from big blockbusters, maybe audiences aren't especially keen on the current offerings. Whatever the reason it doesn't bode well for studios that insist on spending the GDP of small countries on these films in the hope of seeing a profit.  

Combat Monkey: Dev Patel the Action Star

Dev Patel has been an quietly ascendent talent in British film for decades now. So much so that it's kind of remarkable he hasn't peaked yet. Making his debut as the dorky Muslim teen Anwar in the tv series Skins, Patel quickly demonstrated his ability to carry a feature with Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. Since then he's stretched his unassuming presence to the limit with simialr roles in films like Chappie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and the short-lived TV drama The Newsroom. The peak of this persona was arguably The Personal History of David Copperfield, Armando Ianucci's 2019 adaptation of the Dicken's novel. Patel's Copperfield was at once vulnerable, capeable, funny and romantic, showing off the kind of range most actors only dream of. 

Yet, despite Mr Nice Guy being Patel's bread and butter he has flexed his action chops in roles that demand greater intensity. Starting with the role of Prince Zuko in 2010's The Last Airbender, The Green Knight and The Wedding Guest, which might be the first time he's been postioned as an action star in a feature. An astounding prospect considering his versilitiy. In addition to being a talented actor Patel is also a 1st Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo, his proficency for martial arts was even used for a gag in the first series of Skins. So it's kind of amazing that few films have tried to utilise Patel in more action-heavy roles. Especially considering the current state of the Western film industry.

Over the last few decades Hollywood has largely done a pisspoor job of cultivating new Action Heros for the modern eras. The Geri-Action Movie has become something of a recurring joke as a result of this; franchises like The Equalizer, Taken and Expendables, built around retirement age actors. While this move presents challenges (the budget for the last Indiana Jones inflated wildly due to the cost of making the 82 year old Harrison Ford move like a fortysomething) they consistently turn a profit because the actors involved can still sell tickets on their name alone. Newer names just don't have the pull of a Denzel or a Stallone. Despite the emergence of major physical talents like Zac Efron, Channing Tatum and Margot Robbie, they've usually relied on comedic subversions of action movie tropes. Or brand recognition as Robbie has managed to achieve full-on superstar status in part due to leveraging the DC Comics brand with her recurring role as Harley Quinn.

None of which provides fertile ground for an unassuming talent like Patel to be seen in the same context. Especially when his one big IP role was in the disaster that was The Last Airbender. Yet it's clearly something he's wanted to pursue as now we have Monkey Man, a film descibed as 'John Wick in Mumbai' that Patel directed and cast himself in. It's disappointing that Patel's been so underserved that he's felt the need to create his own opportunity to play the action, as exciting as the film looks. All we can do is hope that the film makes a big enough splash that the Hollywood sees the man's potential for bone-crunching thrills.

If not, well, it won't be the first time they've completely failed to see the obvious.

Weekly Dip: A Look Ahead to April in Cinemas

 

After all the pomp and circumstance of the Oscars the industry has entered a quiet period. Sliding out the odd pre-summer blockbuster before the really busy period kicks off. We'll go through the top picks for the months but first:

UK Box Office Results (Weekend 22nd-24th March)

1. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Weekend gross £4.1 million)
2. Dune Part 2 (Weekend gross £2.6 million)
3. Immaculate (Weekend gross £491,000)
4. Wicked Little Letters (Weekend gross £373,413)
5. Migration (Weekend gross £370, 415)

As the only big, established IP to hit cinemas Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire taking the top spot felt like an inevitablility. What's surprising is just how lackluster its dominance is; with £4.1 million being a far cry from the £11 million Dune Part 2 took earlier in the month. For it's money Dune 2 finally fell after three weeks as top dog proving that the series, based on an obscure series of science fiction books, has real appeal among the moviegoing public.

Elswhere in the chart Immaculate makes an impressive debut for horror film. Teaching us all a lesson in the viability of smaller, grungier, female-led original properties that Studios will naturally fail to learn. Olivia Colman's profanity farce Wicked Little Letters continues to appeal while kids animation Migration picks up whatever residual family cash is lying around. A fairly predictable week for the Box Office, only made interesting for the precarious position of the top dog.

April Makes for Indie-Dumping Ground

Looking over the releases it appears that studios have designated April as an appropriate dumping ground for all the indies it hasility picked up during all the excitement of Sundance. Several of the festival's high-profile films will be going on general release, which is good news for an indie fan like me who's too poor to make the annual trip to Utah. German Oscar nominee The Teacher's Lounge will be coming to the UK, which means we'll be just about the last country to find out what the fuss was about. the Daisy Ridley starring/produced by dramedy Sometimes I Think About Dying will also hit UK cinemas after a generally favourable response at the 2023 festival. Finally there is the satire The American Society of Magical Negros, starring Justice Smith, promising a thorough skewering of the pervasive trope. Of all the Sundance releases this is probably the one I'm most excited about. Smith made for a fun comedic presence in last year's Dungeon and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and after American Fiction I'm down for some more race-related satire. See also The Book of Clarence on April 19th.

The lone major blockbuster of the month actually comes this weekend (March 28th) with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Despite my fondness for 2023's Godzilla Minus One I just can't drum up any excitement for this. I only saw the 2021 release as it came out during a chaotic release schedule when cinemas needed all the support the could get. However this series has been such a cascade of empty specatacle that I routinely find myself bludgeoned into numbness by the sheer weight of all the stimuli. despite solid turns from Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry I don't see myself rushing to spend my limited time and money on this studio tentpole.  

Perhaps the real blockbuster this April will be on the small screen as Netflix brings us Rebel Moon Part 2-The Scargiver. The conclusion to Zack Synder sci-fi epic in which memorable protagonist Kora leads her asembled teams of rebels against the vile Imperium, led by Atticus Noble, in order to save the humble farming community of-I'm sorry is anyone still interested? It seems like even the most staunch defenders of Snyder aren't coming out to bat for the next Rebel Moon film. I dunno why I should even pretend to for the purposes of satire. I went into this franchise with an open mind, I like Zack Synder and I wanted to see his take on a Star Wars universe. But Rebel Moon Part One was just not good. Every step of the way Synder has been given the reigns to do whatever he wanted, to apply his visual style to the story he wanted to tell. Despite it all he couldn't even tell a decent rip-off of Seven Samurai. Snyder needs to seriously focus on being a director and not a storyteller, maybe then we'll have something to get excited about.