On this installment of Collider Movie Talk (Monday January 25th 2016) we discuss the following issues:

  • Weekend Box Office
  • Producers Guild of America awards
  • Changes to the Academy's membership process
  • Batman v Superman TV spots
  • Labyrinth reboot

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MAIN TOPICS

It’s Monday which means it’s time for our weekend Box Office report brought to you by our friends at AMC Theatres. Coming in at #1 is the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Revenant, climbing up from the #2 position last week making $16 million. Coming in at #2 is Star Wars: The Force Awakens with $14.25 million, up one spot from its #3 finish last week. In 3rd position is last week’s #1 film Ride Along 2 making an additional $12.9 million. In 4th is the new Zac Efron/Robert De Niro film Dirty Grandpa making $11.5 million, and rounding out the top 5 is the new horror film The Boy making $11.26 million on just a $10 million budget.

Last night the Producers Guild of America held its annual awards ceremony in Los Angeles and surprised many people by naming The Big Short as their outstanding produced feature film of the year. The award was accepted by the film’s producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. The PGA Awards is considered by many industry experts to be a major indicator as to what could win the Oscar.

BUY OR SELL

Well speaking of the Oscars, the Academy has just announced sweeping changes in its membership process with the goal of doubling both its female and minority membership within the next 4 years. Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, herself an African-American woman, made an announcement which said the following:


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“Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade. In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members. In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars.

 

At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.

 

In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.”

During the NFL playoffs yesterday Warner Bros released new TV spots for the upcoming Batman v Superman, one of which gave us a fuller version of Bruce Wayne’s conversation with Alfred regarding Superman bringing the war to us.

On the heels of the sad passing of David Bowie, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Tri-Star Pictures has had a Labyrinth reboot in the works for a while. According to the report, Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman has been brought aboard to supply the screenplay. There is no definitive information if the new project would be a true reboot or some form of sequel.


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MAIL BAG

Hussain J.Shishtari writes: Big fan of the show and the entire crew, my question is: Why do tv directors get overshadowed by the show's writers? And the opposite happens in movies, where writers don't get that recognition that film directors get.

Alex Gabel writes: Since Game of Thrones will eventually come to an end, a lot has been said about ending the series with one or more feature length films. Do you like this idea? And if this were to be the case, how well do you think it will perform at the box office given its worldwide success on the small screen?

Jason Martinez writes: Hi everyone my name is Jason! Started watching the show 4 months ago, thanks to running into to a random Jedi Council episode on Youtube. But I'm emailing you today to talk about Doctor Strange and the great potential it has. To me they have a phenomenal cast for the film so far from the cast we know of. But just seems like Marvel didn't get the right director or group of writers for this film. Most have all worked on the same movies that weren't all that good so I was just wondering how y'all felt about this.