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‘Jurassic World: Rebirth' roars to top of North American box office

‘Jurassic World: Rebirth' roars to top of North American box office

Kuwait Times09-07-2025
'Jurassic World: Rebirth' -- the latest installment in the blockbuster dinosaur saga -- stomped the July 4th weekend competition at the North American box office, raking in a whopping $91.5 million in its debut, industry estimates showed Sunday. The Universal film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali, takes viewers to an abandoned island research facility for the original Jurassic Park theme park, where secrets -- and genetically mutated dinosaurs -- are lurking.
'This is an excellent opening for the 7th episode of an action-adventure monster series,' said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. 'The series has been especially good overseas and so far foreign business is outstanding. Dinosaur action is understood in all languages and across all cultures.' 'F1: The Movie,' the Apple and Warner Bros. flick starring Brad Pitt as a washed-up Formula One driver who gets one last shot at redemption, slipped to second place at $26.1 million, Exhibitor Relations said.
(From left) British actor Rupert Friend, American actress and singer Scarlett Johansson and English actor Jonathan Bailey pose for a photo session during a press conference to promote the film "Jurassic World: Rebirth" in Seoul.
English actor Jonathan Bailey attends a red carpet event to promote the film "Jurassic World: Rebirth" in Seoul.
American actress Scarlett Johansson attends a red carpet event to promote the film "Jurassic World: Rebirth" in Seoul.
'How to Train Your Dragon,' Universal and DreamWorks Animation's live-action reboot of the popular 2010 film, held in third place at $11 million. The family-friendly film tells the story of a Viking named Hiccup (Mason Thames) who strikes up a friendship with Toothless the dragon. In fourth place was Disney/Pixar Animation's latest original film 'Elio,' at $5.7 million in the United States and Canada. 'Elio' tells the story of a young boy who is mistaken by aliens as an intergalactic ambassador for Earth. The voice cast includes Oscar winner Zoe Saldana.
In fifth place was Columbia Pictures' zombie sequel '28 Years Later,' which took in $4.6 million. The Danny Boyle-directed threequel picks up -- as the title suggests -- more than a generation after the initial outbreak of the Rage Virus. Rounding out the top 10 were:
'M3GAN 2.0' ($3.8 million)
'Lilo & Stitch' ($3.8 million)
'Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning' ($2.7 million)
'Materialists' ($1.3 million)
'Ballerina' ($725,000)—AFP
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Julia Roberts, Jude Law to feature at star-packed Venice Film Festival
Julia Roberts, Jude Law to feature at star-packed Venice Film Festival

Kuwait Times

time9 hours ago

  • Kuwait Times

Julia Roberts, Jude Law to feature at star-packed Venice Film Festival

US megastar Julia Roberts is to make her debut at the Venice Film Festival this year, which will also feature Jude Law playing Russian leader Vladimir Putin and a hard-hitting film about Gaza. Roberts is one of many A-listers set to appear at the increasingly influential Venice film extravaganza from late August for the premiere of her latest movie, the Amazon-produced 'After the Hunt'. Directed by Italy's Luca Guadagnino, a Venice regular, it tells the story of a sexual assault case at a prestigious American university and will run outside the main film competition, according to festival director Alberto Barbera. 'It is the first time that Julia Roberts will walk the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival so we're very happy to have her,' Barbera told reporters in a presentation of the August 27-September 9 line up. The main competition category, where 21 features will vie for the prestigious Golden Lion for best film, includes a host of star-packed productions including 'The Wizard of the Kremlin' by Olivier Assayas. The movie is an adaptation by French director Assayas of a best-selling book about Putin's rise to power, featuring British actor Law as the Kremlin strongman. Law told Deadline in January that the role was 'an Everest to climb', adding that he was 'looking up thinking, 'Oh Christ'.' Other high-profile, in-competition movies selected by the festival include the latest thriller from American Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow titled 'A House of Dynamite' and 'Father Mother Sister Brother' by Jim Jarmusch, starring Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett. Benny Safdie's film about a wrestling champion 'The Smashing Machine' has Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the lead role alongside Emily Blunt, who delivers a 'memorable performance' as his wife, according to Barbera. A much-discussed new interpretation of 'Frankenstein' by Guillermo del Toro will also be in the running for prizes, with Barbera saying that producer Netflix 'has not skimped on the means made available to del Toro's imagination'. American director Noah Baumbach returns with 'Jay Kelly', a comedy co-written with his wife Greta Gerwig, featuring an A-list cast that includes George Clooney playing an actor with an identity crisis. Feature on Gaza Alongside five Italian films, a handful of arthouse productions as well as the Hollywood blockbusters, festival organizers have also selected a feature about the war in Gaza in what is the most overtly political offering in the main competition. 'The Voice of Hind Rajab', by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, reconstructs the death of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed last year by the Zionist forces. She and several relatives were fleeing a Zionist offensive in Gaza City in January 2024 when their car came under attack. In a case that led to international outrage, Rajab could be heard pleading for help in a desperate phone call to rescuers from the Red Crescent after she was left as the sole survivor in the badly damaged vehicle. She and two Red Crescent workers who went to find her were later found dead. Barbera said it was one of the films that 'will have the biggest impact on audiences and critics, and I hope there will be no controversies'. 'I'm moved when I think of the movie,' he said, adding that Ben Hania had reproduced Rajab's phone calls in her film. Around 370 actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were 'ashamed' of their industry's 'passivity' about the war in Gaza, including Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche. Other highlights in Venice will include the return of American director Gus Van Sant who is set to show his first movie since 2018, 'Dead Man's Wire', out of competition. Among the documentaries, German director Werner Herzog will project his latest film, 'Ghost Elephants', about 'a mysterious herd of ghost elephants in the jungles of Angola,' according to Barbera. Herzog will be presented with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.—AFP Sofia Coppola will premiere a documentary about her friend and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, while fellow American directors Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus have persuaded veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh to collaborate for a film about him called 'Cover Up'. The head of the jury for the main competition at the 82nd edition of the festival will be US film director Alexander Payne who is best known for films such as 'Sideways', 'The Descendants' and 'About Schmidt'.--AFP

The villains steal the show in 'Fantastic Four: First Steps'
The villains steal the show in 'Fantastic Four: First Steps'

Arab Times

time17 hours ago

  • Arab Times

The villains steal the show in 'Fantastic Four: First Steps'

LOS ANGELES, July 24, (AP): More than six decades after Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created a superhero team to rival the Justice League, the Fantastic Four finally get a worthy big-screen adaptation in a spiffy '60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism. Though the Fantastic Four go to the very origins of Marvel Comics, their movie forays have been marked by missteps and disappointments. The first try was a Roger Corman-produced, low-budget 1994 film that was never even released. But, after some failed reboots and a little rights maneuvering, Matt Shakman's "The Fantastic Four: First Steps' is the first Fantastic Four movie released by Marvel Studios. And a sense of returning to Marvel roots permeates this one, an endearingly earnest superhero drama about family and heroism, filled with modernist "Jetsons' designs that hark back to a time when the future held only promise. "First Steps,' with a title that nods to Neil Armstrong, quickly reminds that before the Fantastic Four were superheroes, they were astronauts. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (a soulful Ebon Moss-Bachrach) flew into space but return altered by cosmic rays. "We came back with anomalies,' explains Reed, sounding like me after a family road trip. They are now, respectively, the bendy Mister Fantastic, the fast-disappearing Invisible Woman, the fiery Human Torch, and the Thing, a craggy CGI boulder of a man. In the glimpses of them as astronauts, the images are styled after NASA footage of Apollo 11, like those seen in the great documentaries "For All Mankind' and "Apollo 11.' But part of the fun of the Fantastic Four has always been that while the foursome might have the right stuff, they also bicker and joke and argue like any other family. The chemistry here never feels intimate enough in "First Steps' to quite capture that interplay, but the cast is good, particularly Kirby. In the first moments of "First Steps,' Sue sets down a positive pregnancy test before a surprised Reed. That night at dinner - Moss-Bachrach, now an uncle rather than a cousin, is again at work in the kitchen - Ben and Johnny immediately guess what's up. The rest of the world is also eager to find out what, if any, powers the baby will have. We aren't quite in our world, but a very similar parallel one called Earth-828. New York looks about the same, and world leaders gather in a version of the United Nations named the Future Foundation. The Thing wears a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Someone sounding a lot like Walter Cronkite reads the news. And there's a lot to read when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) suddenly hovers over the city, announcing: "I herald your end. I herald Galactus.' The TV blares, as it could on so many days: "Earth in Peril. Developing Story.' Yes, the Earth (or some Earth) might be in danger, but did you get a look at that Silver Surfer? That's Johnny Storm's response, and perhaps ours, too. She's all chrome, like a smelted Chrysler Building, with slicked-back hair and melancholy eyes. He's immediately taken by her, but she shoots off into space. In a rousing, NASA-like launch (the original Kirby and Lee comic came eight years before the moon landing), the Fantastic Four blast off into the unknown to meet this Galactus. But if the Silver Surfer made an impression, Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) does even more so. Fantastic Four movies have always before gone straight for Doctor Doom as a villain, but his entrance, this time, is being held up for "Avengers: Doomsday.' Still, Galactus, a planet-eating tyrant, is no slouch. A mechanical colossus and evident fan of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis,' he sits on an enormous throne in space. Sensing enormous power in Sue's unborn child, he offers to spare Earth for the baby. What follows casts motherhood - its empowerments and sacrifices - onto a cosmic plane. There's a nifty chase sequence in space that plays out during contractions. The two "Incredibles' movies covered some similar ground, in both retro design and stretchy parent and superhuman baby, with notably more zip and comic verve than "The Fantastic Four.' That's part of the trouble of not getting a proper movie for so long: Better films have already come along inspired by the '60s comic. But as good as Vanessa Kirby is in "First Steps,' the movie is never better than when the Silver Surfer or Galactus are around. Shakman, a former child actor who's directed mostly in television (most relevantly, "WandaVision' ), proves especially adept at capturing the enormous scale of Galactus. "First Steps' may be, at heart, a kaiju movie. What it certainly is, though, is a very solid comic book movie. It's a little surface over substance, and the time capsule feeling is pervasive. This is an earnest-enough superhero movie where even the angry mob protesting the superheroes turns quiet and pensive. I was more likely to be moved by a really handsome chalkboard than I was by its vision of motherhood. But, especially for a superhero team that's never before quite taken flight on screen, "First Steps' is a sturdy beginning, with impeccable production design by Kasra Farahani and a rousing score by Michael Giacchino. Even if the unifying space-age spirit of Kirby and Lee's comic feels very long ago, indeed.

King's musical sage Errollyn Wallen blazes new path
King's musical sage Errollyn Wallen blazes new path

Kuwait Times

time2 days ago

  • Kuwait Times

King's musical sage Errollyn Wallen blazes new path

Told she would never belong in the world of classical music, Errollyn Wallen has risen to become the composer to King Charles III and the first person of color in the historic role. The 67-year-old became the Master of the King's Music last year, a 400-year-old post and one of the classical world's top honors that involves composing works for landmark events and advising the king on musical matters for royal occasions. 'He's very musical, which everybody's really thrilled about,' Wallen told AFP. 'He likes listening to music and he is curious about it - he has broad tastes, which is really wonderful,' added Wallen, who premiered her 'funky' new composition 'Elements' at the first night of the renowned Proms music festival in London on Friday. Charles showed a lighter side in March when he shared his favorite songs from around the Commonwealth in an Apple podcast, revealing a surprising appreciation of disco, reggae and Afrobeats and including hits from such artists as Kylie Minogue and Diana Ross. In a sign of his musical conviction, Charles sought advice from Wallen - 'but in the end the king chose his own' songs, she said. 'It was important for him to choose tracks that brought back personal memories to him and that's the power of music,' said the pianist, violinist and singer. 'Think of the people he's met, all the great musicians. It's incredible,' added the self-confessed cake fanatic. Teacher inspiration Wallen was born in the former British colony of Belize in 1958, and soon showed signs of a precocious talent. 'My parents said that as a baby, I didn't cry, but I was always singing.' She moved to London aged two and her mother and father then relocated to New York, leaving her and her siblings, one of whom is the jazz trumpeter Byron Wallen, in the care of her aunt and uncle. 'I was always making up songs for any boring chore,' she recalled. Wallen credits a junior school teacher for setting her on her current path. 'I was very lucky that at school, all of us nine-year-olds were taught to read and write music, but also introduced to orchestral music.' However, she received little encouragement to pursue a career as a composer. 'I love my family, but I think there was the idea that you wouldn't step out of the ordinary,' she explained. Another early memory is of a non-music teacher telling her 'you know, little girl, classical music isn't for you'. 'These subtle messages going in that I might be good at music, but I wouldn't belong to that world. 'But I was so curious and passionate about music... I think the negative messages didn't go in deeply.' 'So shocked' Indeed, taking the road less travelled only strengthened her conviction and 'led me into other paths of music making which has stood me in great stead'. 'I was a keyboard player and I played music in the community and care homes - it opened my eyes to how music can touch people.' It was at boarding school that the classical bug really took hold, and it was later nurtured at Goldsmiths', King's College London and King's College, Cambridge. Wallen also appeared as a backing artist for the 1990s girl group 'Eternal' and performed as a tap dancer, having trained as a dancer in London and New York. She had her own recording studio, and her work includes 22 operas and a range of orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions. Her arrangement of Hubert Parry's 'Jerusalem' was performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2020, and she also composed a piece for the Paralympics Opening Ceremony in 2012. But she still admitted to being 'so shocked' when the palace called last July, generating headlines about her being the first black woman to assume the role. 'I had to remind the palace, I'm the first black person, full stop. There's never been a person of color in this role, since 1626.' Charles I created the role to take charge of his personal band, but today it mainly entails advising and composing. 'I wrote something for the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey earlier in the year... and I did say to the palace my main objective is to be a kind of music ambassador,' she said, adding that 'children are my priority'. She aims to get for 'children some of the things that so many of us had for free' when it comes to a musical education. — AFP

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