Latest news with #AtomicMonster
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Eight-Year-Old Arabella Olivia Clark Lands Lead Role In Uni & Atomic Monster's Supernatural Horror Film ‘Other Mommy' From Rob Savage
EXCLUSIVE: Here's a young talent to watch: Eight-year-old Arabella Olivia Clark (Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere) has landed the lead role in Other Mommy, Universal and Atomic Monster's new supernatural horror film from director Rob Savage. Clark joins a cast that includes the previously announced Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass and Dichen Lachman. More from Deadline Jessica Chastain To Star In Rob Savage Horror Film From Atomic Monster & Universal Based On Josh Malerman Novel 'Incidents Around The House' 'The Odyssey': Tickets For Christopher Nolan's Homer Epic On Sale This Week Universal Pictures Promotes Niels Swinkels To Focus Features International Distribution President Based on the book Incidents Around the House by Bird Box's Josh Malerman, the film centers on 8-year-old Bela (Clark), who lives in a home strained by her parents' troubled marriage, only to see her life further upended by a sinister entity she calls 'Other Mommy.' When this malevolent presence emerges from her closet, persistently asking 'Can I go inside your heart?', Bela refuses. But soon, Other Mommy's manifestations become increasingly aggressive, threatening the safety of Bela's family. The film is being produced for Universal by Atomic Monster/Blumhouse in association with Spin a Black Yarn. Succession's Nathan Elston adapted the screenplay. James Wan is producing, with Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Macdara Kelleher, Savage, Malerman and Ryan Lewis exec producing. Alayna Glasthal is the executive overseeing the film for Atomic Monster. The film falls under supernatural horror, one of the 24 thriving subgenres identified in a Blumhouse study conducted with Sage Outcomes, which surveyed over 2,000 horror fans and experts, as discussed at the company's inaugural Business of Fear event. Clark continues to be on a roll after landing three high-profile films last year. In 2024, she shot Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White, where she plays Bruce Springsteen's sister, Virginia; 20th's remake of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, where she plays Young Polly; and Lionsgate's thriller The Housemaid with Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. Appearing prior to that on ABC's Not Dead Yet, the actress is repped by the Osbrink Agency, Brave Artists Management, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About 'Stranger Things' Season 5 So Far 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Box Office Preview: ‘F1' to Leave ‘M3GAN 2.0' in the Dust With High-Octane $40M-$50M U.S. Opening
An aging driver and a menacing AI doll go up against each other at the box office this weekend in what's a test for two challenged genres — Formula 1 racing pics and horror titles. If box office pundits are correct, Apple Original Films' critically acclaimed F1: The Movie will leave Blumhouse and Atomic Monster's sequel M3GAN 2.0 in the dust with an impressive domestic opening of $40 million to $50 million. Warner Bros., which is distributing and helping Apple to market the big-budget summer tentpole, is being more conservative in suggesting in the high $30 million range. More from The Hollywood Reporter Denis Villeneuve to Direct Next James Bond Film How 'M3GAN 2.0' Star Violet McGraw Kicked Off a Wave of Good Fortune for Blumhouse 'M3GAN 2.0' Team on Delivering a "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" Version of Their Killer Dancing AI Robot Overseas, the action sports drama is forecasted to take in $75 million for a worldwide opening of $115 million or more against a net production budget of at least $200 million before marketing. (Sources tells The Hollywood Reporter the production budget is far higher, but there's no way of confirming whether that's the case.) The film has a huge advantage in having a lock on Imax screens for three weeks, in addition to other premium large-format screens, including Dolby Cinema, for part of that time. Presales have been strong, and Apple and Warners have been holding aggressive sneaks to spark word-of-mouth. F1, starring Brad Pitt and directed by Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, is a seminal moment for Apple as it tries to jump-start its theatrical ambitions after getting driven off the road with box office misses Killers of the Flower Moon, from Martin Scorsese, and Ridley Scott's Napoleon. Taking on Formula 1 is a bold move — top Apple exec Eddy Cue is a lifelong fan of the sport and sits on the board of Ferrari NV — since it has never been the marquee sport in the U.S. that it is overseas. In 2013, the wheels flew off of Ron Howard's F1 movie Rush, which topped out at $26.9 million domestically and $97 million globally. Ford v Ferrari, starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale, fared far better in 2019, grossing $117.5 million in North America and $108.7 million overseas for a global haul of $226.3 million. But there's a major caveat: That film wasn't a Formula 1 movie, but rather a biographical drama with definite pro-America themes about the real-life U.S. engineer who helped the Ford Motor Co. build a car that could trump Ferrari and win the Le Mans race. Formula 1, replete with plenty of fiery crashes, is nevertheless the world's most prestigious motor racing competition and is increasing its fan base in the U.S. — thanks in part to hit Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive. In Kosinski's film, Pitt plays an injured former F1 driver who comes out of retirement to team up with a younger driver, played by Damson Idris. Javier Bardem stars as the F1 team owner who orchestrates the scheme. Acclaimed composer Hans Zimmer wrote the score for the movie after working with Kosinski on Top Gun: Maverick. Universal is forecasting a $20 million-plus opening for M3GAN 2.0, which would be $10 million less than the first film's $30.4 million record domestic opening in December 2023 on its way to earning $117.7 million in North America and $226.3 million globally against a minuscule $12 million production budget, not adjusted for inflation. Jason Blum's Blumhouse and James Wan's Atomic Monster reteamed to make the follow-up for Universal. It launches amid a saturated market for horror fare. Nevertheless, pundits say the sequel is still likely to be a profitable piece of business for all involved, considering the budget was just $15 million. The events of M3GAN 2.0 is set two years after the AI doll went on a murder spree to protect her young human charge (Violet McGraw) and was subsequently shelved. Her creator (Allison Williams), the aunt of the young girl, is now a high-profile author and advocate for government oversight of AI. But when another AI creature emerges that is even more dangerous, M3GAN is resurrected and mayhem ensues. Filmmaker Gerard Johnstone returned to direct the sequel from a story he wrote alongside Akela Cooper, and based on characters created by Cooper and James Wan. Actors Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps return alongside McGraw and Williams, while franchise newcomers include Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp and Grammy winner and 11-time Emmy nominee Jemaine Clement. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘M3GAN' 2.Oh No: Why Blumhouse & Atomic Monster Sequel Sputtered & Crashed At The Box Office
After becoming a surprise hit at the 2023 winter box office to the tune of $180 million worldwide off a $12M budget, fueled by a flaming-hot TikTok dance meme, there was no question that Blumhouse and Atomic Monster had to make a sequel to M3GAN. The psycho-doll movie was back, and this time she was a girl. She even argued with Chucky on social media which excited young females (53% women, 44% under 25). At a time in the post-pandemic box office, particularly during a post-Christmas when most of the country was in a deep-freeze, M3GAN seduced. More from Deadline 'Jurassic World Rebirth' About To Get Loud With $260M Global Opening Over Independence Day Stretch – Box Office Preview 'M3GAN 2.0' Review: The Killer Doll Is Back But In A Kickass Mission To Defeat An Even Greater AI Threat In Fun, Action-Packed Sequel Cynthia Erivo's Edith's Daughter & Platinum Dunes Producing Feature Take Of 'Saturation Point' At Universal But this time around, moviegoers had no interest in making a playdate with the doll as Blumhouse's release M3GAN 2.0 via Universal posted a horrible opening of $10.2M ($17M worldwide) this weekend, -66% off from the original's $30.4M U.S./Canada opening. When M3GAN 2.0 hit tracking three weeks ago on NRG, a then-future was conceived that it had a shot at rivaling Apple Original Films' Brad Pitt Formula One racing movie, F1, each debuting to $30M+ apiece. No way in hell. Why did M3GAN 2.0 arrive so high on tracking? Blame the fact that sequels register a greater total awareness than original movies (tracking didn't foresee F1's $57M opening) in box office forecasting. Rival tracking firms spotted interest for the Gerard Johnstone-directed part two lower than awareness — a tell-tale sign. Never mind that exits were better than original movie, a B+ to a B. Once a movie is behind in its opening, it's very hard to make up that gap in audience exits alone. Critics were smitten with M3GAN two years ago at 93% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, but this time they had decided they had enough of the short dress routine at 57% Rotten. 'The results are thoroughly middling — not funny enough to qualify as comedy, not exciting enough to qualify as action, not smart enough to qualify as a cautionary tale, and certainly not weird enough to keep the M3gan ethos alive,' exclaimed New York Magazine film critic Bilge Ebiri. As far as WTF happened, sequels to gimmick horror movies are hard. There's a fine line between replicating the original and veering too far from the original. M3GAN 2.0 veered. How did Paramount pull off Smile 2 with a domestic opening of $23M, on par with the first? Not only was part two different in the neurosis of a pop singer, but the Melrose lot sold it on scares (in addition to wicked grinning people showing up at major events). M3GAN 2.0 was campy out of the gate, and marketed to the Nth degree on her sass. The official trailer begins ironically with Boyz II Men's 'It's Hard to Say Goodbye' and builds to Britney Spears' 'Oops, I Did It Again' set against the doll's battle with a new foe, the A.I. beastess, Amelia. Exhibitors and others found the elevator pitch to be a retread of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The antagonist, M3GAN, was now the protag. One example of the humor in the trailer is when Allison Williams' Gemma tells M3GAN, 'You threatened to rip out my tongue and put me in a wheelchair.' Responds the femme-bot, 'I was upset!' When it comes to promoting any movie, materials are only as good as the movie itself. Hence, Uni leaned into the camp and the humor. Outdoor street ads in Los Angeles aimed at the LGBTQ+ moviegoers, who showed up big for the first movie, had the tagline 'Miss me, Queens?' Uni dropped teasers in all the right spots, i.e. the Grammy Awards, Super Bowl and a first trailer release timed to Universal's presentation at CinemaCon Las Vegas, where 30 M3GAN dancers showed up on stage. There were spots across NBA Finals, Premiere League Finals, the American Music Awards, finales of Suits LA, The Voice and American Ninja Warrior. Nine influencers were cast in the film and also cross-promoted: Roblox launched its 'M3GAN's Lair' integration – which used 'smart character' tech for the first time ever to let players build their own M3GAN with looks from the film. TikTok pulses targeted conversations surrounding events like the Grammys, Coachella, the Met Gala, SNL, the NBA Finals and Pride. M3GAN's fans caught her declaring 'Hot M3G Summer' in a spot on the Las Culturistas podcast and doing viral custom intros to Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild' video, which reached at least 2.6 million users on X. The doll was a draft picked by WNBA star Kelsey Plum and walked the tunnel with the player before the LA Sparks v. Seattle Storm game. M3GAN then turned to dancing in the stands… She reached 77M followers with an appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars. She was everywhere with social media analytics firm RelishMix reporting that M3GAN 2.0's online reach was +27% ahead of other horror franchises with 263M followers across Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and YouTube. But all of Universal's horses and all of Universal's men could not persuade moviegoers to see M3GAN again. RelishMix noticed the gossip about M3GAN 2.0 with 'some taking umbrage with the look of the titular character, posting 'That face looks CG, I liked the last one which was kind of a mask, and a mix of familiar and unfamiliar,' and, 'Is it me or did the graphics get worse?' Meanwhile, some were already hedging their bets, sharing, 'A movie which you know how exactly it's gonna play out.' As well, 'Changing genres was a grave mistake. The box office will reflect that.'' Some sources are trying to blame the release date, but clearly the PG-13 sequel was after a different audience than the dude movie that is F1 which pulled in 62% men. M3GAN 2.0 had a bigger proportion of women at 53%. There's no reason why there couldn't be wide release counter-programming aimed at women this past weekend. It goes back to the movie, period: If M3GAN 2.0 was seductive enough in raised stake scares, we'd see a different outcome here. In a do-or-die year for horror movies, was she too soon on the heels of 28 Years Later ($50.3M domestic through its second weekend) and Final Destination: Bloodlines ($136.6M through weekend 7)? Again, if she was freaky enough to turn heads, she'd have no problem following the boys. It's not often that a horror sequel completely tanks at the box office after a blockbuster first edition. Some of the most notable corpses when it comes to horror sequels include 2000's Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 which died at $26.4M domestic, $47.7M worldwide after the found-footage jaw dropping success of 1999's The Blair Witch Project with $140.5M domestic/$248.6M worldwide. Then there was 1982's Amityville II: The Possession which unadjusted for inflation grossed $12.5M stateside, a mere 14% of the original 1979 hit which minted $86.4M per Box Office Mojo. 1977's The Exorcist: The Heretic was also sent to hell by moviegoers with a $30.7M domestic take, a 16% fraction of the 2x Oscar-winning take of 1973 original's $193M domestic gross (lifetime wound up being $233M in U.S./Canada). Yes, M3GAN 2.0 comes at a time when Blumhouse is on a bad streak with The Woman in The Yard ($22.4M domestic), Wolf Man ($20.7M) and Drop ($16.6M). Thank God they make 'em cheap, this one at $25M before P&A. Will M3GAN 2.0 be profitable? With low batteries like this, she's no Energizer Bunny ala her first version which cleared close to $79M in net profit. James Wan's Atomic Monster, Blumhouse's sister brand, is also a producer here. We expect more from the horror maestros who delivered ingenious scares like Saw, Paranormal Activity and The Purge. Incubate more and rush less. Better hope for Blumhouse resides in Black Phone 2 (Oct 17) and Five at Freddy's 2 (Dec 5) while Atomic Monster has New Line's Mortal Kombat 2 (Oct. 24) and The Conjuring: Last Rites (Dec. 5). Then there's Blumhouse's Soulm8te, another A.I. horror movie set in the world of M3GAN on Jan. 9 next year. Universal will certainly want to separate that pic's sell from this nasty doll. Best of Deadline Who Is [SPOILER]? The Latest Big Marvel Reveal Explained 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg
Geek Tyrant
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Why M3GAN 2.0 Malfunctioned at The Box Office and What Went Wrong For Blumhouse and Atomic Monster — GeekTyrant
When M3GAN hit theaters in early 2023, it was lightning in a bottle. It was a low budget, high concept, film that was TikTok gold. A killer A.I. doll doing a creepy-cute dance launched Instant meme status. The film made $180 million globally off a $12 million budget and became a pop-horror icon almost overnight. So of course, Blumhouse and Atomic Monster greenlit a sequel, but a lot of us knew it wasn't going to hit like the first. You just can't force a replication of that, but they certainly tried. M3GAN 2.0 stumbled out of the gate, opening with just $10.2 million domestically, down a brutal 66% from the original's $30.4 million debut. The global haul? A soft $17 million. So, What happened, other than the fact that it was a forced bad idea? Let's start with expectations. Three weeks before release, tracking suggested M3GAN 2.0 could go toe-to-toe with Apple's F1 r acing drama with Brad Pitt , But tracking is often inflated for sequels due to brand awareness alone. As one insider put it, 'Rival tracking firms spotted interest for the Gerard Johnstone-directed part two lower than awareness, which is a tell-tale sign.' And that gap between interest and intent became all too real when audiences just… didn't show up. The problem isn't just marketing, it's the movie itself. Critics were no longer charmed, dropping the Rotten Tomatoes score from 93% on the original to 57% for the sequel. Audiences felt it too. New York Magazine's Bilge Ebiri summed it up: 'The results are thoroughly middling - not funny enough to qualify as comedy, not exciting enough to qualify as action, not smart enough to qualify as a cautionary tale, and certainly not weird enough to keep the M3gan ethos alive.' That 'ethos', the twisted blend of camp, satire, and horror, was lost in the sequel. M3GAN 2.0 tried flipping the script, turning its villain into a protagonist in what everyone, including the filmmakers, compared to a Terminator 2 retread. It leaned hard into the humor and sass, opening with a trailer set to Boyz II Men and Britney Spears , and marketing tags that include 'This Bitch vs. That Bitch', and forced quotes like 'Hold on to your Vaginas.' There were also street ads in Los Angeles aimed at the LGBTQ+ moviegoers, who liked the first movie, pushing the tagline 'Miss me, Queens?' She even made a cameo on RuPaul's Drag Race, walked the WNBA tunnel, and got her own Roblox lair, but none of it helped. The producers even cast nine influencers in the film, who also cross-promoted it, which shows you what good influences are as they did nothing to help ticket sales.
Gizmodo
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
James Wan Offers a Mildly Discouraging Update on That ‘Train to Busan' Remake
Released in 2016, Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan proved there were still plenty of fresh thrills to be mined from the zombie genre. It spawned an animated prequel and a sequel, and nobody was surprised when an American remake, to be titled The Last Train to New York, was announced. A 2023 release date made things official… almost. Obviously, The Last Train to New York—which at one point had Timo Tjahjanto (May the Devil Take You, this year's Nobody 2) attached to direct and Gary Dauberman (It and It Chapter Two) penning the script—has yet to actually get off the ground. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, would-be producer James Wan said The Last Train to New York is still 'a passion project' for his company, Atomic Monster, while also making it sound like it's very much on the back burner right now. 'Everything about it is really exciting,' he said. 'I hope that could get off the ground eventually. Got to be honest with you, I'm not quite sure where it sits right now.' If The Last Train to New York ever happens, it sounds like horror fans should expect more of a reimagining than a remake—though you have to suspect 'zombies on the subway' will still play a big part of the story. 'Creatively, it takes place in the same world as Train to Busan,' Wan told EW. '[The zombie outbreak is] happening epidemically around the world. So if Train to Busan is this particular slice of the story in South Korea, we want Train to New York to be the one set in America.' There's been no shortage of zombie tales for the gruesomely inclined lately—28 Years Later just hit theaters—and American remakes of foreign horror hits don't always succeed. However, The Last Train to New York does sound intriguing. Are you holding out hope it'll eventually come into the station? Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
