As Hollywood heads off to France for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. LIH takes a look at a couple stories unrelated to Hollywood but impacts it just the same. The first being the opening of the Cannes Film Festival where we review the movie that opened the festival. Then we head over to the UK to get an update on the phone hacking scandal by News International. Here’s the full list of significant stories this week:
- The Avengers’ Earns $1 Billion In Box Office Sales And Sequel News
- Moonrise Kingdom opens the Cannes Film Festival
- Phone hacking scandal: Rebekah Brooks officially charged
The Avengers’ Earns $1 Billion in Box Office Sales and Sequel News
Only two weeks after The Avengers’ opened at cinemas it has passed the $1 billion mark in box office takings. In doing so it has smashed many other records.[1] The film can now boast about having the largest domestic opening and having the largest box offices takings in its second week. With these figures it was obvious that a sequel would be made. However Joss Whedon (The Avengers’ director and writer) hasn’t made his mind up on whether he will return to work on the second film or leave to focus on his own film ideas.[2]
Moonrise Kingdom Opens the Cannes Film Festival
The 65th Cannes Film Festival opened on Wednesday and Moonrise Kingdom was chosen to be the first film shown. The film is about a boy (Sam) and a girl (Suzy) who fall in love and decided to runaway together and the subsequent search for them.[3] Written by Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson (Wes is also the director), the film has an impressive cast. It stars Jared Gilman (Sam), Kara Hayward (Suzy), Bob Balaban, Francis McDormand, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton and Bruce Willis. After the film was shown it received a five minute standing ovation.[4]
Phone hacking scandal: Rebekah Brooks officially charged
On Tuesday it was announced that Rebekah Brooks (former chief executive of News International) and five others (including Brooks’ husband) had been charged with perverting the course of justice. Brooks in fact has been charged three times, one for concealing material from police officers between the 6th of July and the 19th of July 2011, one for removing seven boxes of material from the News International archives between the 6th of July and the 9th of July 2011 and one for conspiring to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment between the 15th of July and 19th of July 2011.[5] Rebekah and her husband of course deny the charges, but The Crown Prosecution Service believes there is enough evidence to prove they are guilty. The next court date is on the 13th of June this year.
[1] http://sciencefiction.com/2012/05/14/the-avengers-break-a-second-weekend-record-with-over-100-million-and-brings-in-1-billion-worldwide/
[2] http://sciencefiction.com/2012/05/16/joss-whedon-uncertain-about-avengers-2/
[3] http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/cannes-opening-night-crowd-turns-out-in-force-for-moonrise-kingdom-debut/
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Thanks for the review. Because they can’t be shown at the same time, of course there would have to be an order at Cannes. In terms of perception, I’m curious as to what (if any) impact time of presentation has on overall reception.
OMG! OMG! OMGGGGGGGGGG!!! I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH I WANT MOONRISE KINGDOM IN MY DVD PLAYER RIGHT NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, PLEASE GRANT MY LITTLE BITTY THEATER THE HONOR OF SHOWING THIS FILM!!! *sobs* pleeeeeease!!!!
Seriously, I am usually 99% wary of star studded casts, but here’s my thinking on this one. This cast actually has more talent in one actor than all the actors combined in the HW blockbuster ensemble movies. Added that these amazingly talented actors are all playing the cookiest, weirdest people and I love it!!!
I’m about to crawl out of my skin or climb the walls in anticipation of this film…