US release: 1st January 1990
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$0 The big screen adaptation of Wicked has been on the cards for a while now, but hit a block when director Stephen Daldry stepped down, now Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu has stepped in.
— Jon M. Chu (@jonmchu) February 2, 2021
The American director has just completed the movie In The Heights, a musical which will hit cinemas, hopefully, later in 2021 after release delays.
The sequel to Crazy Rich Asians, China Rich Girlfriend might also be on his schedule which will be film back to back with the third film Rich People Problems although rumours suggest Chu won't direct.
The film version of the hit musical about the witches of Oz has been in the works for a while, it should have hit cinemas in December of 2019, the same time as another musical adaptation hit, Cats!
No release date or cast has been given yet, and with COVID still a global issue it could be a couple of years before we see it, IMDB are showing a 22nd December 2021 which seems a but tight, maybe 2022 seems more likely?
Being held in Anaheim California August 23rd - 25th the Ultimate Disney Fan Event is held by the company on a bi-annual basis and gives the fans news on the latest movies, TV shows and theme parks.
What can we expect for this years event? With a new Star Wars movie around the corner, the end of the phase 3 Marvel Cinematic Universe, a new Frozen movie on the horizons and an area of the Disney theme parks dedicated to Star Wars!
There may not be a new trailer coming out of the D23 expo for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker but we can expect a behind the scenes reel, as we did with the last 2 films, with new footage and most likely, and just maybe we'll get an official movie poster.
There may also be some news on the new trilogy of films that are set for release every other year from December 2023.
There has been a feeling that we have had too much Star Wars in recent years so after this years movie expect the whole franchise to go quiet until the promotion starts for he 2023 movie.
Disney are releasing their own streaming service this year, Disney+, and the Star Wars Universe ig going to feed into this a lot over the years between The Rise Of Skywalker and the next cinematic adventure including the much anticipated The Mandalorian for which there will likely be a trailer.
Lets not also forget that other Lucasfilms franchise, Indianan Jones. The next movie has already been delayed but is going ahead with Harrison Ford, little is known but with a whole area dedicated to the film studio there could well be some mention of the original tomb raider.
The MCU phase 3 went out with a massive bang and Avengers: Engame became the top grossing movie of all time and Spider-Man: Far from home grossed over a Billion at the box office, so the phase 4 has a lot to live up to.
The first spanner in the works is the breakdown of the Disney and Sony (who own Spider-Man) partnership so don't expect to hear anything from the Spidey franchise, but with the acquisition of Fox by Disney every other Marvel character can now be used by Disney so expect to see the likes of X-Men and Fantastic 4 cropping up, not that we'll hear anything at D23.
There should be more news on the confirmed project like Shang-Chi, Black Widow and Thor: Love And Thunder, maybe there will even be a trailer for the Scarlett Johansson starring movie which is the first of these movie out the door next March.
Again the Disney+ streaming service, due for launch this year, will be a major part of the MCU going forward with the prospect of TV series adding to the Universe as well as movies.
One of the properties that Disney aquired when it bought Fox was James Camerons former highest grossing movie Avatar and all planed sequels.
They have been a long time coming but with the opening of the Pandora area (the planet in the movie) in Animal Kingdom in Orlando Disney are keen to get the sequels made and have announced they will be released bi-yearly fron 2022.
There will be an Avatar area as the expo and the possibility of more information of the sequels which are being made back to back.
Lets not forget the animated Disney Movies! On the horizon is Frozen II, which is kind of a big deal, the original film is still the true highest grossing animated movie of all time (not counting the new The Lion King movie) and became a cultural phenomenon back in 2013.
The trailers have promised much and we could see more footage from the film which is set for release at the end of 2019.
It has been announced that there will be a Moana area coming to Epcot in the revamp of the Walt Disney World park, this could be a sign that there is a sequel to the 2016 animated movie.
Pixar will also be showing off its future movies Onwards and Soul at a presentation during the weekend.
Little has beed seen from these movies from the digital animated arm of the company except for a trailer for Onwards, so fans are excited to see more and this is the perfect platform.
There is of course much more that will come out of the Expo so come back regularly to get all the latest news.
Toy Story 4 makes its debut at the top of the UK box office pushing 4 week champ Aladdin down to number 3, but its all good news for Disney who have back to back number 1 films.
The fourth in the series that started back in 1996 and was the first feature film for the fledgeling company Pixar makes its debut on the UK box office with £13.3 Million.
The original toy story made its debut with £5.35 million, but adjusted for inflation this is about £11.5 Million, in a very similar ball park.
For a better comparison Toy Story 3 made its debut in July 2010 to a phenomenal £21.2 Million which would be £27 Million adjusted for inflation, so this new film has a way to go.
The Disney live action film falls from the top after a fantastic 4 week run and takes £1.2 Million on its 5th weekend.
This pushes the films total UK gross to an excellent £32.5 Million, its still got a way to go to beat the live action champ Beauty And The Beasts £72.4 Million but it has done probably better than expected.
The films disappointing debut has continued this weekend as the Men In Black reboot falls to 3 with £1 Million bringing its 2 week total gross to £5 Million.
The Elton John film is hanging onto its top 5 place and this week is at 4 with £783,785 to boosts its total to £21 Million after 5 weeks.
Directed by David Yarovesky and Starring Elizabeth Banks and David Denman this horror superhero film makes its debut at number 5 with £509,030 and is the second highest new film of the week.
The Marvel film is 9 weeks on now and is about the leave the box office chart but after a record smashing run the film has a total UK gross of £88 Million and the film will most likely be the top grossing film of the year.
After a suggestion that Mission:Impossible Fallout would be the last of the series its now been confirmed that we will get 2 new films in 2021 and 2022.
Christopher McQuarrie will write and direct the films and of course Tom Cruise will star and produce them as has been the winning combination for the last couple of outings in the series.
The two movies will be film back to back and released on consecutive summers in 2021 and 2022 which could suggest a continuous story across the two films.
Its early days so more info will flood the internet over the coming years!
Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 pic.twitter.com/V6SNvZx2La
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) January 15, 2019
Missions: Accepted#MissionImpossible
— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) January 14, 2019
Movies cost too much, and Hollywood blockbusters cost way too much, unless your name happens to be James Cameron and you can make back to back billion dollar movies the chances are your film will struggle to make big money at the box office. It makes me laugh then to see that the production budget of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 has been slashed from $300 million to just $200 million!
I'm old enough to remember when the likes of Terminator 2's (there's that Cameron fellow again) production budget went over $200 million and it was a massive deal because no other movie had done that, in fact most movies back in the early ‘90s cost less than $100 million.
Because of the budget cuts it means that some of the extravagant scenes in the film have been cut completely, and shooting locations will have less time spent at them. This is all down to the new Disney boss who is trying to tighten the belt on money spent.
The last Pirates movie took over $1bn dollars in world box office takings, so is it money well spent or does even Disney think they have taken the series one step too far? I think they took it one step too far when they made the sequel.