Thrice the hit

A still from the animated film The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie, an animated film that depicts a world based on the colourful toy blocks, collected $31.5 million to lead U.S. and Canadian box-office charts for a third consecutive weekend. The new Kevin Costner spy thriller 3 Days to Kill was a distant second after pulling in $12.3 million for the period from Friday to Sunday, according to studio estimates.
The big-budget Roman-era disaster movie Pompeii generated ticket sales of $10 million in its first week in theatres to claim the No. 3 spot. RoboCop, a remake of the 1987 science fiction film about a part-man, part-cyborg crime fighter, was fourth with sales of $9.4 million, according to studio estimates provided by box-office tracking firm Rentrak.
Since opening on February 7, Lego has been leading the box-office and has taken in a total of $183.2 million domestically, according to Rentrak.
The movie features the voices of Will Arnett and Elizabeth Banks and portrays a world under attack by the evil Lord Business bent on destroying the LEGO universe by gluing it together. The heroes include Batman, a pirate and an astronaut, all made out of the classic children’s interlocking blocks.
“Lego is significantly overperforming our wildest expectations,” said Jeff Goldstein, executive vice president for theatrical distribution at Warner Brothers, which distributed the movie. “It’s moved way beyond a family-based film to include tweens, young adults and older adults as well. It’s just funny,” he added, explaining its wild success.
The film has also benefited from little direct competition, though Disney’s Frozen, which opened back in late November, continued to place among the top 10 films at the box office.
The studio has already announced a Lego sequel, which it plans to release for the Memorial Day weekend in 2017.
Pompeii, which was made for $100 million, is set in 79 A.D. and stars Kit Harington from the HBO hit show Game of Thrones. The movie tells the story of a slave turned gladiator who attempts to rescue the woman he loves when Mount Vesuvius erupts. The opening fell short of the forecast by its U.S. distributor Sony of sales between $12 million and $15 million. 3 Days to Kill, written by French action film director Luc Besson, and starring Costner as an over-the-hill spy trying to connect with his estranged daughter, cost only $28 million to make. “We are pleased with 3 Days to Kill’s solid opening, which was right in line with our expectations for this lower budget action-thriller,” the studio said in a statement.
Both films received lackluster reviews, with fewer than 30 per cent of the notices collected by the site Rotten Tomatoes being favourable. Both also received ‘B’ ratings from audiences, according to CinemaScore, which gauges audience reaction. Rounding out the top five, The Monuments Men, directed by and starring George Clooney and based on the true story of U.S. soldiers who rescued art masterpieces from Nazi thieves, took in $8.1 million.

Alec Baldwin strikes back at critics, vows to leave N.Y

Actor Alec Baldwin said New York City’s tabloid media culture was forcing him to move out of town after a series of headline-grabbing incidents he was involved in last year, according to an article published recently. “I probably have to move out of New York,” Baldwin said in the New York Magazine article. “I just can’t live in New York anymore.” Emmy-award winning Baldwin, who was repeatedly portrayed in press accounts last year as a hot-headed homophobe and bigot, struck out at prominent gay journalists who had criticised his behaviour.
Baldwin described columnist Andrew Sullivan and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as the “Gay Department of Justice” after both men publicly criticised his alleged behaviour and language. “I haven’t changed, but public life has … You’re out there in a world where if you do make a mistake, it echoes in a digital canyon forever,” Baldwin said in a cover story entitled ‘I Give Up’. Last February, Baldwin was accused by a New York Post photographer who is African-American of using a racial slur.
Following Sopranos’ actor James Gandolfini’s June funeral in New York, Baldwin called a British reporter a homophobic slur in a tweet. The actor repeated his defense in the New York Magazine article that he did not view the term he used as a homophobic slur.
Baldwin, who grew up on Long Island, currently lives in Manhattan with his wife and new baby.
In the article, Baldwin also recounted a Broadway feud with Shia LaBeouf that led to his co-star being fired from the cast of the play, Orphans after the two argued during rehearsals. The show, Up Late with Alec Baldwin, was axed after the actor apologised for comments he made to a New York photographer, shown in a video on celebrity website TMZ.com that a gay rights group described as homophobic. “For me, (2013) was actually a great year, because my wife and I had a baby,” the actor said.
“But, yeah, everything else was pretty awful.”