Movies
Box Office Explosion: ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’
Marking the third best weekend opening of all time (thank god it wasn’t the first), Summit Entertainment’s sequel The Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed an estimated $140.7 million from 4,024 theaters at the domestic B.O., according to insiders close to the numbers. Not only that, New Moon led what’s expected to be the second-best weekend ever at the domestic B.O. in terms of overall ticket sales, trailing only the weekend that Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” opened, and that was in summer. New Moon‘s boffo opening trails only Warners’ The Dark Knight ($167.2 million) and Sony’s Spider-Man 3 ($151.1 million). New Moon bumped Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($135.6 million) from the No. 3 spot in terms of top opening for a three-day weekend. Read our review or make sure to write your own to tell all of BD what YOU thought.
Movies
R-Rated ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe’ Director’s Cut Gets New Title and Streaming Premiere Date
After a slight delay, Disney has finally announced a new streaming date for the R-Rated director’s cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. According to Gizmodo, it’ll also come with a new title.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn begins streaming on Hulu on August 14.
The new cut was first teased in an interview with director Chris Carter on the Fail Better With David Duchovny podcast from last year, where he teased a much scarier movie he intended.
“Now I have a chance to go back and make the scary movie that I always intended to make,” Carter explained last year. “It’s not just doing a Director’s Cut to do a Director’s Cut. It’s really kind of bringing to life something that for me was on the page and never got to the screen.“
The director’s cut of the film was initially set to arrive on Disney+ in June, but quietly disappeared from the schedule without a word. Polygon reported the delay was “due to some last-minute adjustments being made to the film.”
The release’s new “Vrach Frankenshteyn” title certainly suggests those adjustments have been made, likely referring to a Frankensteining of bonus footage.
In the film, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) have been out of the FBI for several years, with Mulder living in isolation and Scully having become a doctor at a Catholic hospital, where she has formed a bond with a critically ill child patient.
When an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped, and a former Catholic priest who has been convicted of pedophilia claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, Scully is asked to bring Mulder back to the bureau to consult on the case because of his work with psychics.
The brand new R-rated cut will “faithfully restore the filmmaker’s original vision.”
Look for it on Hulu next month.