Category: Новини

Indiana Jones, and executives at the Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm, made a somewhat dispiriting discovery this weekend. Moviegoers didn’t rush to the theater in significant numbers to see “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and say goodbye to Harrison Ford as the iconic archaeologist. 

The film, reportedly budgeted north of $250 million, came in on the lower end of projections with $60 million in ticket sales from 4,600 North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. 

Including $70 million from international showings in 52 markets, “Dial of Destiny” celebrated a $130 million global opening. It easily earned the No. 1 title but was not the high-rolling sendoff for one of modern cinema’s most iconic actor/character pairings that anyone hoped. Disney is projecting that it will make $82 million domestically through the fourth of July holiday and $152 million globally. 

“Dial of Destiny” is the long-delayed fifth installment in the Steven Spielberg/George Lucas-created adventure series that began in 1981, and the first Spielberg himself hasn’t directed. Veteran James Mangold stepped in to take the reins overseeing the Spielberg-approved script, which finds an older Dr. Jones retiring from his university job and swept up on a new adventure with his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). 

“It’s impressive that a franchise that’s over 40 years old is No. 1 at the box office. But there’s no question there were higher hopes for the debut of this movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “This is Indiana Jones. This is a summer movie icon.” 

The film had its splashy premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with a fitting celebration of Ford, who has said this was his last time playing the character. 

But then it was hit with lukewarm reviews. This was an unexpected and unwelcome hurdle, considering it was coming after the maligned fourth film, 2008’s “Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Another contributing snag was that a significant portion of the target audience, older viewers, don’t tend to buy many tickets on opening weekend for big blockbusters. But even “Crystal Skull,” budgeted at a reported $185 million, managed to gross over $790 million. 

“Sometimes reviews don’t matter, but the sentiment coming out of Cannes was very powerful,” Dergarabedian said. “It set off a narrative where people were already feeling disappointed, and they hadn’t even seen it.” 

Second place went to “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” with $11.5 million, bringing its domestic total to around $340 million. “Elemental” landed in third place with $11.3 million. 

Aside from “Dial of Destiny,” the weekend’s other main new opener was the animated “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” which debuted in sixth place with $5.2 million. 

“Dial of Destiny’s” underwhelming debut comes just a few weeks after both Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” and Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” had lackluster openings in North America. “Elemental,” like Indy 5, also premiered at Cannes to middling reception. 

And yet, “Elemental” in its three weeks in theaters has held on much better than “The Flash,” which plummeted again to $5 million, bringing its domestic total to $99.3 million. Disney also saw similarly promising holds with “The Little Mermaid,” now at over $280 million domestically and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3″ which has grossed over $345 million. After the holiday, Disney will be responsible for nearly half of the summer box office earnings. 

“The entire story isn’t told on the opening weekend,” Dergarabedian said. 

Disney has a “clear weekend” ahead with no competing blockbusters, when studio heads can reasonably hope for more families and older audiences to buy tickets. But things will only get more challenging for “Dial of Destiny” in the coming weeks with a crowded July. “Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part I” opens on July 12, followed by “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” on July 21. 

“The ups and downs at the box office are giving us whiplash,” Dergarabedian said. “And we’re still on the cusp of some of the biggest movies of the summer.” 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

1. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” $60 million. 

2. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $11.5 million. 

3. “Elemental,” $11.3 million. 

4. “No Hard Feelings,” $7.5 million. 

5. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $7 million. 

6. “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” $5.2 million. 

7. “The Little Mermaid,” $5.2 million. 

8. “The Flash,” $5 million. 

9. “Asteroid City,” $3.8 million. 

10. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $1.8 million.  
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SYDNEY — China rallied to claim its first women’s basketball Asia Cup title since 2012 as it beat five-time defending champion Japan 73-71 in an epic final on Sunday.

Trailing at halftime it appeared China may fall for a third consecutive time in a title game as reigning champion Japan scored the last 14 points of the first half to lead by nine points.

Led by player of the tournament center Xu Han, China seized the momentum early in the third quarter and took what proved a match-winning lead late in the game to end its 12-year wait for a gold medal in front of a large crowd in Sydney.

Xu finished with a match-defining 26 points and 10 rebounds to complete the feat of recording a double-double in every game of the tournament. Siyu Wang scored 17 points.

Maki Takada led Japan with 17 points and four rebounds, with Saki Hayashi scoring 12 points for Japan.

China’s title follows its silver medal at the women’s basketball World Cup, also held in Sydney, late last year.

Japan and China met in the 2019 and 2021 title games with the Japanese prevailing in both to claim their fourth and fifth titles.

Earlier Saturday, host nation Australia claimed its third consecutive bronze medal as it cruised past New Zealand 81-59 to repeat its result from Bengaluru, India in 2019 and Amman, Jordan in 2021.

Alice Kunek contributed a team high 19 points and Anneli Maley completed a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds, while Tess Madgen scored 14 points with five rebounds and three steals for the Opals.

The eight-team regional tournament doubled as qualifying for next year’s Olympics, with the semifinalists — Japan, Australia, China and New Zealand — qualifying for Paris 2024.
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FIFA revealed eight different armbands highlighting social causes that sides will be able to wear at the women’s World Cup as world football’s governing body seeks to avoid a row that erupted at last year’s men’s World Cup.

Captains from a number of European countries, including England and Germany, planned to wear a “OneLove” armband in rainbow colors in Qatar in support of LGBTQ rights.

However, they abandoned that stance after being threatened with sporting sanctions just days before the tournament kicked off.

The armband had widely been viewed as a symbolic protest against laws in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.

The “unite for inclusion” armband for the women’s World Cup is similar in style to the one outlawed with the words alongside a heart shape in rainbow colors.

Other causes highlighted include gender equality, ending violence against women, hunger and the rights of indigenous people.

Captains will be able to wear a different armband for each match corresponding to the cause being promoted or support one cause for the entire tournament.

“Football unites the world and our global events, such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup, have a unique power to bring people together and provide joy, excitement and passion,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

“After some very open talks with stakeholders, including member associations and players, we have decided to highlight a series of social causes – from inclusion to gender equality, from peace to ending hunger, from education to tackling domestic violence – during all 64 matches at the FIFA Women’s World Cup.”

The women’s World Cup, which will be hosted by Australia and New Zealand, begins on July 20.
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Alan Arkin, the wry character actor who demonstrated his versatility in everything from farcical comedy to chilling drama as he received four Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has died. He was 89.

His sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony confirmed their father’s death through the actor’s publicist on Friday. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said in a statement.

A member of Chicago’s famed Second City comedy troupe, Arkin was an immediate success in movies with the Cold War spoof “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and peaked late in life with his win as best supporting actor for the surprise 2006 hit “Little Miss Sunshine.” More than 40 years separated his first Oscar nomination, for “The Russians are Coming,” from his nomination for playing a conniving Hollywood producer in the Oscar-winning “Argo.”

In recent years he starred opposite Michael Douglas in the Netflix comedy series “The Kominsky Method,” a role that earned him two Emmy nominations.

“When I was a young actor people wanted to know if I wanted to be a serious actor or a funny one,” Michael McKean tweeted Friday. ‘I’d answer ‘Which kind is Alan Arkin?’ and that shut them up.”

Arkin once joked to The Associated Press that the beauty of being a character actor was not having to take his clothes off for a role. He wasn’t a sex symbol or superstar, but was rarely out of work, appearing in more than 100 TV and feature films. His trademarks were likability, relatability and complete immersion in his roles, no matter how unusual, whether playing a Russian submarine officer in “The Russians are Coming” who struggles to communicate with the equally jittery Americans, or standing out as the foul-mouthed, drug-addicted grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine.”

“Alan’s never had an identifiable screen personality because he just disappears into his characters,” director Norman Jewison of “The Russians are Coming” once observed. “His accents are impeccable, and he’s even able to change his looks. … He’s always been underestimated, partly because he’s never been in service of his own success.”

While still with Second City, Arkin was chosen by Carl Reiner to play the young protagonist in the 1963 Broadway play “Enter Laughing,” based on Reiner’s semi-autobiographical novel.

He attracted strong reviews and the notice of Jewison, who was preparing to direct a 1966 comedy about a Russian sub that creates a panic when it ventures too close to a small New England town. In Arkin’s next major film, he proved he could also play a villain, however reluctantly. Arkin starred in “Wait Until Dark” as a vicious drug dealer who holds a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) captive in her own apartment, believing a drug shipment is hidden there.

He recalled in a 1998 interview how difficult it was to terrorize Hepburn’s character.

“Just awful,” he said. “She was an exquisite lady, so being mean to her was hard.”

Arkin’s rise continued in 1968 with “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” in which he played a sensitive man who could not hear or speak. He starred as the bumbling French detective in “Inspector Clouseau” that same year, but the film would become overlooked in favor of Peter Sellers’ Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” movies.

Arkin’s career as a character actor continued to blossom when Mike Nichols, a fellow Second City alumnus, cast him in the starring role as Yossarian, the victim of wartime red tape in 1970’s “Catch-22,” based on Joseph Heller’s million-selling novel. Through the years, Arkin turned up in such favorites as “Edward Scissorhands,” playing Johnny Depp’s neighbor; and in the film version of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” as a dogged real estate salesman. He and Reiner played brothers, one successful (Reiner), one struggling (Arkin), in the 1998 film “The Slums of Beverly Hills.”

“I used to think that my stuff had a lot of variety. But I realized that for the first twenty years or so, most of the characters I played were outsiders, strangers to their environment, foreigners in one way or another,” he told The Associated Press in 2007.

“As I started to get more and more comfortable with myself, that started to shift. I got one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten from someone a few days ago. They said that they thought my characters were very often the heart, the moral center of a film. I didn’t particularly understand it, but I liked it; it made me happy.”

Other recent credits included “Going in Style,” a 2017 remake featuring fellow Oscar winners Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and “The Kominsky Method.” He played a Hollywood talent agent and friend of Douglas’ character, a once-promising actor who ran an acting school after his career sputtered.

He also was the voice of Wild Knuckles in the 2022 animated film “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

Arkin also directed the film version of Jules Feiffer’s 1971 dark comedy “Little Murders” and Neil Simon’s 1972 play about bickering old vaudeville partners, “The Sunshine Boys.” On television, Arkin appeared in the short-lived series “Fay” and “Harry” and played a night court judge in Sidney Lumet’s drama series “100 Centre Street” on A&E. He also wrote several books for children.

Born in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, he and his family, which included two younger brothers, moved to Los Angeles when he was 11. His parents found jobs as teachers, but were fired during the post-World War II Red Scare because they were Communists.

“We were dirt poor so I couldn’t afford to go to the movies often,” he told the AP in 1998. “But I went whenever I could and focused in on movies, as they were more important than anything in my life.”

He studied acting at Los Angeles City College; California State University, Los Angeles; and Bennington College in Vermont, where he earned a scholarship to the formerly all-girls school.

He married a fellow student, Jeremy Yaffe, and they had two sons, Adam and Matthew.

After he and Yaffe divorced in 1961, Arkin married actress-writer Barbara Dana, and they had a son, Anthony. All three sons became actors: Adam starred in the TV series “Chicago Hope.”

“It was certainly nothing that I pushed them into,” Arkin said in 1998. “It made absolutely no difference to me what they did, as long as it allowed them to grow.”

Arkin began his entertainment career as an organizer and singer with The Tarriers, a group that briefly rode the folk musical revival wave of the late 1950s. Later, he turned to stage acting, off-Broadway and always in dramatic roles.

At Second City, he worked with Nichols, Elaine May, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara and others in creating intellectual, high-speed impromptu riffs the fads and follies of the day.

“I never knew that I could be funny until I joined Second City,” he said.
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A screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood has been going on for two months,  grinding scripted TV production basically to a halt and costing California millions in losses each day. Angelina Bagdasaryan has more in this story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian        
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