Disney returns in monster fashion as the long-awaited animated sequel “Frozen 2” destroys the competition on its opening weekend.

The latest installment of Paramount’s “Terminator” franchise, “Dark Fate”, directed by “Deadpool”’s Tim Miller fell flat on its face in its opening weekend domestically, collecting a fleeting $29M. Billed as the ‘true’ sequel to “Judgement Day” following what is viewed by many as a plethora of failed sequels, “Dark Fate” has widely been hailed as the best since “T2”, though evidently not enough to stop it from only just beating the dismal opening of the last installment, “Terminator: Genisys”

The media frenzy is in full swing at this time of year with Oscar conversations even higher on the agenda than they would normally be, given this season’s three-week lighter run than previous years.

This week at the box office saw Disney’s mini-hiatus end, as they returned atop the box office with “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”, in a week that also saw “Joker” edging toward yet more R rated milestones, and in which three Oscar hopefuls debuted in limited release.

Warner Bros’ much talked about ‘Joker’ continued to laugh off competition as it stayed firm at number one atop this weekends box office.

This week saw the release of one of the years most anticipated films. In the shape of the Todd Phillips directed and Joaquin Phoenix starring, “Joker” from Warner Bros. The origin story of the comic worlds most famous villain, bowed to an enormous $93.5M (a figure which could rise when actuals are released tomorrow) and thus lifted it above the 93.8M “Justice League” made during its bow in 2017. Not only did the Venice golden lion winning film have the highest opening in October history (after last years Venom), but it also goes down as the fourth-highest total for an R rated film.

There’s a lot to admire in “The King,” director David Michod’s somewhat loose take on Shakespeare’s ‘Henriad’. From the ever-impressive Timothee Chalamet (once he gets over his early trouble with the British accent) to Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris’ wonderfully low-key performances.

The last few weeks have been full of discussion about the differing opinions of critics and audiences. From Brad Pitt’s new sci-fi epic, “Ad Astra,” and it’s dwindling audience reactions (43% audience score on rotten tomatoes, and a 7.1 IMDb score which is still falling fast), to both Ansel Elgort (with the help of his mum) and Frank Stallone (brother of Sly) appearing to take aim at critics following their ravaging of “The Goldfinch” and “Rambo:Last Blood” respectively. Both of which, if you look at aggregators rotten tomatoes and IMDb, have significantly higher audience ratings than critical scores. And these instances aren’t the most high profile discrepancies in the last year either. Both Sony’s Spider-Man spin off “Venom,” and Fox’s Oscar winning “Bohemian Rhapsody,” especially the latter almost starting a full-scale war. Both films were ripped apart in reviews for their ‘poison of dullness’ (Venom) or their appearance as having gone through the ‘rusty machinery of the Hollywood biopic’ (Boh Rap), however it didn’t stop either marching north of 700M at the worldwide box office, and the latter from sweeping home some Academy Awards, with its star Rami Malek taking home the best actor Oscar for one.

It’s fair to say that whatever you think of Jennifer Lopez’s acting career, there is no doubt that none of her past films have captured the imagination of critics and audiences the way her latest project has. “Hustlers,” in which Lopez plays Ramona, the top dancer for New York strip club Moves, has hit the sweet spot both critically and commercially, giving Lopez not only the best reviews of her career, but also the biggest opening weekend for a live-action film she has starred in ($66M), thus excluding her turn in 2012’s “Ice Age: Continental Drift” (a great shame). As the magnetic Ramona, she takes Constance Wu’s Destiny under her wing and begins to show her the ins and outs of what life as a high-end stripper can be.

Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers” has had a magnificent box-office run so far, after two weekends on screens, the acclaimed, New York Magazine article inspired drama has taken $62M in the US and $72M worldwide, however, its impressive tally won’t be getting added to In Malaysia after the country deemed the film too explicit for audiences.

Ansel Elgort took to Instagram yesterday to argue the case for his new film “The Goldfinch” after its near across the board critical panning.

This weekend marked a moment in history for studio Focus Features, as ‘Downton Abbey’ opened to a $31M haul, representing the largest opening weekend in the studio’s history.

Following on from our previous piece on this year’s incredibly exciting Foreign language Oscar race (now called Best International feature Film) and more namely the race between some countries films to bag their nations nomination, today France revealed which of their three big hitters would be being put forward for consideration for January’s Oscar nominations.

It’s safe to say ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ has hardly gone down in history as Sylvester Stallone’s greatest hour. Well, critically speaking anyway. Stallone’s return as veteran Green Beret John Rambo (the first time he’s donned the famous headband since 2008) has received the worst reviews of any of the now five films in the franchise. The new, almost ‘Home Alone’ esque thriller currently sits at a dismally low 29 on Metacritic and 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, scores that have prompted Stallone’s younger brother Frank to question the very idea of a film critic, stating ‘What qualifies them to critique anyone’s work’ whilst also labelling those who he believes have gone in too harshly on ‘Last Blood’ as ‘pompous windbags’.

Every year it happens. There are a handful of films that refuse to do the fall festival circuit and would rather just wait for AFI or, better yet, just be released without any festival exposure.

Rewind your mind back to March 4th this year. Netflix, streaming giant extraordinaire and budding Movie studio, come into Oscar night with a real chance of taking home the Academy’s top prize. Alfonso Cuaron’s powerfully intimate semi-autobiographical hit ‘Roma’ had the entire weight and monetary power of the world’s biggest streaming service behind it throughout its awards run and was many people’s favourite to become the first foreign language film to snatch Best Picture.

In a hugely historic turn of events, Todd Phillips’ Joaquin Phoenix starring “Joker” has taken the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Back in Easter time, news dropped unexpectedly that Quentin Tarantino would be dropping his eighth Movie, 2015’s ‘The Hateful Eight’ onto Netflix as an episodic series, containing all the footage he shot for the Movie that sadly, didn’t make it to the final cut.

In an extremely surprising turn of events, Ben Wheatley, best known as a director of cult films such as ‘Kill List’, ‘High Rise’, and ‘Free Fire’, will be helming the sequel to Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider reboot that hit screens last year.