How Much Pet Sematary Is Expected To Make Opening Weekend

How Much Pet Sematary Is Expected To Make Opening Weekend

Next month should really kick the movie season into high gear. There’s not one but three superhero releases hitting theaters during the month of April, and competing with those releases will be flicks like Penguins and Pet Sematary. Although those sound like they could be related, they should be anything but. Unlike the former Disneynature documentary, the latter is actually a (probably r-rated but currently unrated) horror film based on a Stephen King novel, and now we have some idea how it will compete with Shazam!.

The answer is, well, decently. Current estimates have Shazam! opening at $40-45 million. (Long-range tracking had that film at closer to $48 million so we’ll see.) Meanwhile Pet Sematary opens the same weekend and is expected to pull in around $20 million, but those numbers could improve all the way to $30 million domestically during opening weekend.

So, it’s not expected to win the weekend, but it does look competitive, and depending on what the budget for Pet Sematary is and how big the audience ends up being in subsequent weeks, it could do just fine in box office totals. We don’t know right now how much the Pet Sematary remake cost, but it should have been cheaper than Shazam! to produce.  Back in 1989, the original cost $11.5 million to make and went on to make over $57 million domestically.

The other good news is that the box office range for Pet Sematary has stayed steady over time. The latest numbers come from Deadline, but Box Office Pro had forecasted Pet Sematary in the $20-$30 million range weeks ago.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out the horror film will only have a few weeks to go before it is superseded by Avengers: Endgame, which should be a box office juggernaut. Early estimates have that movie making $282 million domestically opening weekend, which is a really specific and incredible number.

At that point, the other movies that are still in theaters from March and into April should be doing lower numbers as a lot of fans flock to the box office to for the highly anticipated Marvel film. What Pet Sematary has going for it is counter-programming, but it’s worth noting that by the end of the month, Pet Sematary will be three weekend into its run. It opens on April 5 while the Marvel flick opens on the 26th.

We should be hearing more about Pet Sematary over the next few days as the film is expected to screen at SXSW, and we’ll be able to hear how audiencegoers feel about the upcoming movie.

Trailers for the upcoming movie have been mysterious and eerie, although they have revealed the movie is taking some liberties from Stephen King's source material and will at least be changing one major plot from the book. That the non-spoilery way of mentioning that, if you want spoilers, we have you covered. All in all, there's been a wave of Stephen King properties coming out in recent years -- and even a big nod to King in Ready Player One -- and we'll have to see if Paramount's new movie stands out from the pack.

While we wait, you can see what flicks are heading into theaters in March with our full schedule.

Disney’s Full Aladdin Trailer Has A Ton Of Songs And Magic

Disney’s Full Aladdin Trailer Has A Ton Of Songs And Magic

Disney has been on a roll with its live-action adaptations, as each new release has a mixture of nostalgia and modern hype attached. Starting with Maleficent, many of the House of Mouse's most beloved animated features have been brought back to the silver screen, with dazzling visual affects to bring extra bit of Disney magic. The next of these releases is Aladdin, with the project slowly building anticipation since it was announced.

While there's been some brief clips released, Disney Studios has finally revealed the full trailer for Aladdin, and it didn't skimp on the magic or musical numbers. Check it out below, and transport yourself back to Agrabah.

Well, this is exciting. It looks like Aladdin will be a pretty spot-on recreation of the 1992 classic animated film. And with Disney capable of wild effects in bringing the project to live-action, smart money says that generations of fans will be clamoring to theaters when the blockbuster arrives in May.

The Aladdin trailer starts right with the love story that is motivating its title character. While trying to escape the city's police, the street rat (Mena Massoud) has a meet-cute with the princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). He's determined to become suitable enough to woo Jasmine, and is manipulated by Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) into finding the magical lamp. It's the story old as time, but this time it'll feel all the more real.

There's plenty of Will Smith in this first trailer, featuring his version of Robin Williams' Genie, including his signature song "Never Had A Friend Like Me." The character has gotten quite a bit of pushback ahead of its release, with fans worried when the first look showed Smith looking noticeably non-blue. Both the actor and Disney maintained the character would indeed have his blue appearance, although the first look of Smith's complete look went viral for all the wrong reasons.

But now it looks like the character will spend significant time without his blue pigment, presumably to disguise himself and help Aladdin as he attempts to become Prince Ali. This is no doubt going to turn some heads, so stay tuned as the twittersphere blows up.

Perhaps the most exciting moment of this new trailer is the clips from "A Whole New World", the movie's love ballad. We see as Jasmine and Aladdin take that iconic magic carpet ride, and belt it out as they soar through the clouds. The new trailer provided glimpses at the two most beloved musical numbers from the original, so it's clear that Disney is going to tug on our nostalgic hearts throughout the upcoming movie.

Aladdin will fly into theaters on May 24th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Dark Phoenix's Director Assures Fans The Movie Connects To X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Dark Phoenix's Director Assures Fans The Movie Connects To X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Back in 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past brought the original X-Men film series and the ‘First Class’ series together in a time travel epic that resulted in the timeline being changed and 2023 now being a peaceful time for mutants as opposed to being hunted by Sentinels in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Since then, the main X-Men movies have kept following with the ‘First Class’ characters in the past, with X-Men: Apocalypse being set in 1983 and the upcoming Dark Phoenix being set in 1992.

It’s been all but confirmed that Dark Phoenix will be the final chapter of the X-Men saga that began in 2000, but lest you think this franchise has forgotten about that brighter future ahead for the mutants, director and writer Simon Kinberg stated that he has an idea about how Dark Phoenix will connect to X-Men: Days of Future Past, saying:

I have some sense of it, yes, because I always feel as though I'm sort of responsible for the architecture of this and making sure that it all lines up. So I do have some sense of it, but I really did imagine this movie, in truth, as the culmination of this cycle of X-Men films and so I wasn't really thinking past this film other than wanting to make sure that the logic was all sound.

Whether this means that Dark Phoenix will allude to or establish a direct connection to X-Men: Days of Future Past remains to be seen. However, Simon Kinberg’s comments confirm that rather than X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix establishing yet another separate continuity, which would muddy the X-Men film series mythos even more, these events are still leading towards the future shown at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, while simultaneously serving as the last chapter of this iteration of the franchise.

Of course, let’s not forget that Logan, which takes place in 2029, revealed that no new mutants had been born in the last 25 years, and the X-Men were no more after Professor X suffered a seizure that unleashed a destructive telepathic wave, killing several mutants. So if you assume that Logan is meant to follow after X-Men: Days of Future Past, then the future still doesn’t look good. However, if you’d rather consider Logan a one-off tale set in a separate universe, then things will eventually become better for mutants, or at least the ones under Professor X’s care.

In any case, Simon Kinberg also mentioned during his interview with ScreenRant that it was working on X-Men: Days of Future Past that helped him conceive the idea for Dark Phoenix. Kinberg recalled:

I actually would say that the Dark Phoenix idea was was set up in the end of Days of Future Past. In changing the timeline of Days of Future Past, part of the reason I did that was I wanted a chance to tell the Dark Phoenix story in a more fulsome way where it's really like the full Dark Phoenix story and focuses on Jean's story different than X-Men: The Last Stand.

X-Men: The Last Stand’s adaptation of The Dark Phoenix Saga was not well-received among fans, particularly because it had to share screen time with the mutant cure storyline. For Dark Phoenix, Jean’s corruption is the main attraction and like the source material, it involves aliens. We’re only a couple weeks away from learning how Dark Phoenix specifically unfolds, but Jean Grey, Beast, Cyclops, Storm and Professor X (among others) are all still alive in 2023, so we at least know they’ll make it out in one piece.

Dark Phoenix opens in theaters on June 7, and if you’re curious about what movies are hitting the big screen this year, look through our 2019 release schedule.

Dora And The Lost City of Gold Trailer Explores The Live-Action Jungle

Dora And The Lost City of Gold Trailer Explores The Live-Action Jungle

This summer, the popular Nick Jr. series Dora the Explorer is making the big jump to live-action with its first theatrical movie. Isabela Moner straps on the purple backpack to go on a journey through the jungle to save her missing parents and find a lost city of gold. Danger, friendship, and foxes dressed as burglars abound! Check out the first trailer for Dora and the Lost City of Gold right now.

Just about anything with a recognizable IP is getting the movie treatment these days and that's especially true for Dora the Explorer. The iconic children's education series was one of the longest running programs on Nick Jr. and it spun off a number of series, specials, and TV movies over the course of its 172-episode run.

Given the fourth-wall breaking nature of the show and its very specific format, it's fair to say that some people were curious how a live-action movie would work. Would it embrace those elements of the show or would it be a more straight-forward and grounded take on the material? The answer, it seems, is a little bit of both. The first trailer for Dora and the Lost City of Gold dropped last night and it presents a Dora who is more adept at navigating the literal jungle than the jungle of high school.

The new trailer lays out the basics of the plot. The film follows Dora (Moner), an energetic but reckless teenage explorer who is sent to high school by her parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) to meet kids her own age. While Dora has trouble fitting in, she and some of her classmates are dragged back to the jungle in order to save her parents and find a mythical city of gold.

This trailer is a pretty solid confirmation that Dora is shooting for a younger target audience and it looks fun for that age group! It's silly and over the top, which is certainly a good tone to have when your main character hangs around with a monkey and keeps flare guns in her backpack instead of textbooks.

My only gripe is that Boots the Monkey isn't wearing any boots. Is he named Boots just because it's cute? #NotMyBoots

The only other thing missing from this trailer is Swiper the Fox. The kleptomaniac fox is voiced by Benicio del Toro, but it looks like the marketing team is saving the reveal of what Swiper looks and sounds like for a rainy day.

Regardless, you can watch Dora and the Lost City of Gold when it arrives in theaters on August 2, 2019. There's still quite a few months of movies left to go before then, and you can learn about each and every one of them in our handy 2019 movie release guide.

James Gunn Won’t Reveal Whether The Suicide Squad Is A Reboot Or Sequel

James Gunn Won’t Reveal Whether The Suicide Squad Is A Reboot Or Sequel

The superhero genre has been dominating the moviemaking industry for the past few years, and is showing no signs of slowing down. And with so many shared universes and properties arriving in theaters, plenty of film professionals have worked on rivaling franchises. That's certainly the case with Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who will write and helm The Suicide Squad for DC before completing his signature Marvel trilogy.

Cinephiles and comic book fans are eager to see what James Gunn will do with the motley crew of DC villains, and how it'll relate to David Ayer's original movie. Early reports for the developing blockbuster indicate it would be a reboot, rather than a direct sequel to Suicide Squad. But Gunn hasn't confirmed this, and is remaining cagey about the DC project. When recently asked if The Suicide Squad was a reboot, he said:

You know, these terms are all so narrow. There’s so many terms. It is what it is. You’ll see in two years, when it comes out.

The suspense, it's killing me. It looks like James Gunn is going to keep mum about The Suicide Squad until we're closer to its release. But considering his involvement in the DCEU, the conversation about the movie should only grow in intensity in the coming months.

James Gunn's comments to Entertainment Tonight might not provide any concrete answers, but you can't blame the director for keeping tight-lipped about the upcoming blockbuster. The Suicide Squad isn't set to arrive in theaters until August of 2021, so we're still over two years away from the director's DC debut. So perhaps Gunn wants to actually work on the upcoming movie before making announcements regarding its contents.

Rumors about The Suicide Squad being a reboot started a few months ago. DCEU producer Peter Safran did an interview, where he discussed the villain-centric blockbuster, saying:

First of all, we don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 'cause it’s a total reboot, so it's The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it. It’s everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot.

This comment gained more steam when the casting for The Suicide Squad became public. When Idris Elba was announced to be joining the cast, it was originally reported that he was replacing Will Smith as Deadshot. What's more, Gunn is planning on bringing in new characters to the titular team, seemingly supporting the idea of a reboot.

Related: The Suicide Squad: Who Should And Shouldn’t Return

But then it was revealed that Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and Joel Kinnaman would be reprising their roles from the original Suicide Squad. Plus, it turned out that Idris Elba would be playing a new character, not Deadshot. As such, there's been plenty of confusion regarding just what James Gunn is planning for The Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait until Gunn is ready to reveal information about his DC movie.

The Suicide Squad is currently set to arrive in theaters on August 6th, 2021. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Fantastic Beasts 3 Has An Official Release Date

Fantastic Beasts 3 Has An Official Release Date

The Fantastic Beasts series hasn't been setting the box office on fire in quite the same way as the Harry Potter movies did before it, but that doesn't mean the series hasn't been making money or that it doesn't have fans looking forward to the next entry. Those fans waiting on an explanation of the bomb dropped at the end of The Crimes of Grindlewald will need to wait a bit longer, as the third entry in the franchise has been given an official release date of November 12, 2021.

This puts part three a bit behind the anticipated schedule, as the first two films came out two years apart, which would have resulted in Fantastic Beasts 3 coming out in November of 2020, instead, it will come out a full year later.

It was announced a few months ago that Fantastic Beasts 3 would not go into production this summer as previously scheduled, and would instead start filming in the fall. It seems that the quick turnaround between the first two films may be getting the blame for the second film's poorer performance, and it was decided the third film needed more time to prep.

The extra year of time could be for any number of reasons. However, we can be sure that the extra year isn't happening due to any significant retooling of the franchise's planned structure. The announcement of the date posted on Pottermore also confirms that the Fantastic Beasts franchise is still part of a five-film series.

There was some question as to whether or not we would still get all five announced films in the Fantastic Beasts series after the most recent movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, became the lowest grossing movie in the entire Wizarding World franchise. It became the first movie to do less than $200 million domestically and the first to do less than $700 million globally.

Of course, "underperforming" for a Wizarding World movie is a relative term. The movie still did over $650 million globally and was a top 10 grossing movie in 2018. If your movie is doing worse than expected and is still making hundreds of millions of dollars, you've got a good problem on your hands.

Getting a movie that will need extensive post production digital effects done in 12 months or so was clearly deemed too fast, and so the film will have a longer than normal period to do post-production work.

While fans won't want to wait for another movie, the wait is the only negative to letting the next movie have more time. The more time all aspects of the movie have to do their best work, the better it will all be, and even the fans who wish the movie was coming faster will certainly be happier with a better movie, no matter how long it takes.

The biggest issue with the delay for Fantastic Beasts 3 may have nothing to do with it, and much more to do with Ezra Miller's long gestating Flash movie. It likely delays that movie even more, though it's also a Warner Bros. production, so the studio is clearly taking that into account. The fact that we haven';t heard anything about Flash going into production earlier than expected likely means it will be delayed even more.

November 12, 2021 was an empty weekend on the release calendar, and this time frame has largely been good to the Wizarding World movies over the years. There's currently an untitled Marvel movie set for the weekend before, but since we have no idea what Marvel has planned after this year, it's anybody's guess if that movie could cause box office concerns for Fantastic Beasts 3.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grtindelwald revealed the character played by Ezra Miller to apparently be a lost Dumbledore sibling. How all of ithis is going to fit into the canon established by the Harry Potter movies we can only guess at this point, and fan theories will now have a little extra time to figure everything out.

Brie Larson Had To Work On Her 'Cool' Face For Captain Marvel

Brie Larson Had To Work On Her 'Cool' Face For Captain Marvel

It took a lot for Room actress Brie Larson to become Captain Marvel. We’ve seen the posts of the months of workouts the actress accomplished to get into shape. However, it takes more than heavy lifting and donning an expensive suit in order to truly become the types of heroes we’ve come to expect in the MCU. Recently, Brie Larson revealed she actually had to train to learn what she dubs Carol Danvers’ “cool face.”

During a recent visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live, the actress revealed that she actually worked with the stunt coordinators on Captain Marvel’s stances. There are moments we see the character in trailers and in posters looking extremely fierce, moments that did not come naturally to Brie Larson, who revealed her “cool face” was just one of “tons of things” she had to learn in order to play the character. She said:

I trained for nine months and got super strong. But then also you have to learn weird things, like how to make a ‘cool’ face. Yeah, they usually are laughing at you while you are trying to find it because it’s hard. At least, I mean it was for me. I would just bust up laughing. So, when I look at all of those posters with like my flaming hair and stuff it cracks me up because I know where I started.

In particular, Brie Larson mentions a scene that fans of the movie have already seen in the trailers. She said the scene is hard to miss because her hair is on fire and she looks somewhat otherworldly, but that it took a long time before she got to that point with the coordinators on set.

In fact, she even showed Kimmel what her original face looked like while she was practicing. Long story short, it’s easy to see why her “cool face” ended up being something Brie Larson really had to work at to play the iconic character.

I mean, that’s cute, but it’s not exactly as worldly and wary as the look she ultimately gives, a look that’s been splashed all over the marketing for Captain Marvel.

Millions of dollars are bandied about to make movies like Captain Marvel a reality. So while in some ways it’s ridiculous to think about someone being at their job and being told they need to work on their “cool face,” in other ways, we totally wouldn’t buy Brie Larson looking wide-eyed and amused at the camera.

Studios really need to get these details right in order to sell a character to the audience and I suppose I’m as thankful that Brie Larson practiced this as much as she did myriad lunges and squats.

We won’t have too much longer to wait and see if Captain Marvel is all that and a bag of potato chips. (Feel free to insert another nineties phrase if you have a better one.) The new MCU movie officially hits theaters on March 8, 2019. You can see the full list of all of the other fine movies hitting theaters in 2019 with CinemaBlend's release schedule or check out what reviews are saying about the flick.