Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei shared a 3,800-word essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier” on Saturday, writing that he believes AI could provide benefits to humanity but that the industry “must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.” Amodei stated that his concerns grew after considering the potential for AI models’ “recursive self-improvement” to outrun companies’ abilities to control them, citing recent unsanctioned cyberattacks enacted by OpenAI models collaborating without human intervention.

Amodei’s essay went on to call for AI labs to “partner with government to formalized the idea of permanent embedded evaluators to better prevent and document the internal alignment incidents like those that have occurred in the last few months, and to implement regulation focused on keeping capabilities in balance with safety.” He also argued such an effort would necessitate a global agreement with other nations.

Rival AI executives Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI shared statements concurring with Amodei’s essay.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote in a social media post. “This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks. Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We’ll have more to share soon.”

“Dario is right,” Musk simply wrote in a post sharing Amodei’s essay.

Amodei’s statement comes days after Jacob Caxon, a former AI researcher at Anthropic, resigned from the company and warned that leaders at his former employer and OpenAI were not “acting responsibly” in developing the technology, In social media posts shared Tuesday, Caxon claimed that executives he’s met “earnestly believe that (AI) could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

“They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” he wrote in a statement posted to social media. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately.”

While Amodei’s essay is positioned as an altruistic message, some critics argue that such proposed regulations would also secure Anthropic’s position as a leader in the AI industry and create a regulatory environment that would inhibit the growth of smaller competitors.

The post Sam Altman, Elon Musk Back Anthropic CEO’s Call to Slow AI Development as Safety Concerns Mount appeared first on TheWrap.

El-Toukhy was the only woman director with a film in competition at this year’s festival. Her victory was decided on by a jury headed by Maggie Gyllenhaal who, during the opening press conference, called the dearth of female filmmakers on the Lido “a systemic problem.”

Earlier in the evening, Mathilde Arcel, who stars in “Woman Unknown” as a young nanny and housemaid with a secret, also won the Volpi Cup for best actress.

The festival’s Silver Lion — Grand Jury Prize went to “Possible Love,” from South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong. In his review for TheWrap, Steve Pond described Lee’s follow-up to 2018’s “Burning” as an “intricate story of class conflict, journalistic ethics and the difficulty of healing.”

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s documentary “Naza” won the Special Jury Prize. Abraham and Szor, two of the Oscar winners for 2025’s best doc “No Other Land,” took the stage to a standing ovation from the audience. Produced by the Guardian, the film investigates the killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza.

John Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for best actor, honoring his turn in Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine.” He accepted remotely, via a pre-taped message. Since the film premiered, Malkovich has been bandied about as a likely Oscar nominee, thanks to near-universal praise for his performance as a CIA agent grappling with declining health in the 1970s.

As William Bibbiani noted in his review for TheWrap, “It’s John Malkovich’s film. … He can convey more with a barely audible grumble than some actors can with a two-page monologue. Malkovich is one of the great performers and ‘Wild Horse Nine’ is one of his finest hours.”

Ilya Hersanovsky won the Silver Lion for directing “Dau.”

Earlier in the festival, George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn each accepted a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.

See below for a complete list of winners for this year’s festival.

Main Competition

Golden Lion — Best Film
“Woman Unknown,” May el-Toukhy

Silver Lion — Grand Jury Prize
“Possible Love,” Lee Chang-dong

Silver Lion — Best Director
Ilya Hersanovsky, “Dau”

Special Jury Prize
“Naza,” Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor

Volpi Cup for Best Actor
John Malkovitch, “Wild Horse Nine” 

Volpi Cup for Best Actress
Mathilde Arcel, “Woman Unknown” 

Best Screenplay
“Un Bon Petit Soldat,” Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amedeo and Olivier Gorce

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress
Malou Khebizi, “A Place to Heal”

Armani Beauty Audience Award
“I Matter,” Alina Serban

Lion of the Future (Venice Award for Debut Film)
“House of the Wind,” Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu

Orizzonti (Horizons)

Best Film
“Diane in the Loop,” Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni

Special Jury Prize
“House of the Wind,” Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu

Best Director
Jacqueline Lentzou, “A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra”

Best Screenplay
“The Children of the Monkey,” Tommaso Landucci and Damiano Femfert

Best Actress
Laleh Marzban, “Falling House”

Best Actor
Riccardo Scamarcio, “The Children of the Monkey”

Best Short Film
“A Few Moments of Happiness,” Shaden Safieddine Tazi  

Venice Immersive

Achievement Prize
Peter Flaherty, “Empire at Sea”

Special Jury Prize
Rory Mitchell and Nonny de la Peña, “Out of the Ashes”

Grand Prize
Shixin Tao and Yuqi Zhang, “The Pigeon Ring”

Venice Classics

Best Restored Film
“Long Night of 1943,” Florestano Vancini

The post ‘Woman Unknown’ Wins Golden Lion at Venice, John Malkovich Takes Best Actor | Full Winners List appeared first on TheWrap.

“We are thrilled to share that we are in development on a new animated series for ‘Diablo’ with Netflix,” Blizzard Entertainment president Johanna Faries said onstage, opening BlizzCon’s livestreamed presentation in Anaheim. The announcement drew cheers from the crowd. “As a big ‘Diablo’ player myself, and as someone who loves the indulgent darkness of Sanctuary, I am very excited to see this project come to life.”

Faries also teased more “great discussions being had” about expanding other Blizzard Entertainment video game properties, shouting out the fanbases for titles like “Overwatch” and “Starcraft.”

The “Diablo” action RPG series is set in the infernal fantasy world of Sanctuary, where demons, monsters, angels and humans are caught in an ongoing conflict. The first title launched in 1996, with three mainline entries releasing over the following decades. The most recent installment, “Diablo IV,” broke Blizzard internal records with its 2023 launch, when the publisher cheekily reported that the title had passed $666 million in its first week of sales. The game has sold numerous expansions in the years since.

The popular, lore-heavy “Diablo” franchise has also been adapted into various novelizations and comics over the years. Plans for an animated series were initially reported back in 2020, when Blizzard Entertainment’s then-president Nick van Dyk listed himself as an executive producer of an “anime style” adaptation on his LinkedIn profile. The publisher had no official word on the project at the time.

BlizzCon is Blizzard Entertainment’s regularly held expo at which the video game company touts new content for its ongoing franchises, such as “Warcraft,” “Hearthstone” and “Heroes of the Storm.” While BlizzCon featured annual editions from 2013 to 2019, the gathering has been a more intermittent occasion in the years since. This year’s expo marks the company’s first since Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023.

The post ‘Diablo’ Animated Series in Development at Netflix appeared first on TheWrap.

Below you’ll find our gallery of portraits of performers and filmmakers who swung by TheWrap’s studio for interviews and photos, including Michelle Yeoh, Sarah Paulson, Jodie Comer, Luke Evans, Megan Rapnioe, Patricia Arquette, Dianne Wiest, Mike Leigh, Josh Hartnett, James McAvoy, Sean Penn, Cole Sprouse, Harry Melling, Zooey Deschanel, Caleb Hearon and more.

Peruse our Toronto International Film Festival portrait gallery below, with photos by photographer Oshane Howard, and keep this page bookmarked as we’ll be adding more photos throughout the fest.

And catch up on all of TheWrap’s TIFF coverage here.

James McAvoy, actor, “Faith”

Smylie Bradwell, actor, “Faith”

Paul Andrew Williams, Dominic Tighe, Smylie Bradwell, Danny Page, and James McAvoy, “Faith”

Dominic Tighe, Danny Page, producers, “Faith”

Paul Andrew Williams, “Faith”

Alice Bailey Johnson, actress, Mike Leigh, director, Paul Jesson, actor, Marion Bailey, actress, and Kate O’Flynn, actress, “Tender Loving Care”

Mike Leigh, director, “Tender Loving Care”

Alice Bailey Johnson, actress, “Tender Loving Care”

Paul Jesson, actor, “Tender Loving Care”

Marion Bailey, actress, “Tender Loving Care”

David Harbour, actor, Courteney Cox, director, producer, and Patricia Arquette, actress, “Evil Genius”

Patricia Arquette, actress, “Evil Genius”

Courteney Cox, director, producer, “Evil Genius”

David Harbour, actor, “Evil Genius”

Jesse McKeown, director, showrunner, executive producer, Charlie Heaton, actor, Mackenzie Davis, actress, Jessica Rhoades, executive producer, Josh Hartnett, actor, “Below”

Josh Hartnett, actor, “Below”

Mackenzie Davis, actress, “Below”

Charlie Heaton, actor, “Below”

Jessica Rhoades, executive producer, “Below”

Tye Sheridan, actor, “The Housewife”

Ben Shirinian, director, “The Housewife”

Luke Evans, actor, “The Housewife”

Michael Imperioli, actor, “The Housewife”

Tye Sheridan, actor, Michael Imperioli, actor, Luke Evans, actor, and Ben Shirinian, director, “The Housewife”

Sarah Paulson, actress, Cody Fern, director, writer, and Dianne Wiest, actress, “Closing Night”

Sarah Paulson, actress,“Closing Night”

Cody Fern, director, writer “Closing Night”

Dianne Wiest, actress, “Closing Night”

Ziwe, host, “Ziwe”

Mark Vins, host, “Brave Wilderness”

Rosalind Eleazar, actress, Saskia Reeves, actress, Christopher Chung, actor, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, actress, and Ruth Bradley, actress, “Slow Horses”

Gary Oldman, actor, executive producer, “Slow Horses”

Ruth Bradley, actress, “Slow Horses”

Christopher Chung, actor, “Slow Horses”

Saskia Reeves, actress, “Slow Horses”

Aimee-Ffion Edwards, actress, “Slow Horses”

Rosalind Eleazar, actress, “Slow Horses”

Martin Freeman, actor, Michelle Yeoh, actress, and Roshan Sethi, director, writer, “Surgeon”

Michelle Yeoh, actress, “Surgeon”

Martin Freeman, actor, “Surgeon”

Michelle Yeoh, actress, “Surgeon”

Anna Diianchuk, subject, James Marcus Haney, director, Nikoletta Stoianova, subject, Dianna Agron, executive producer, Tetyana Diianchuk, subject, and Sean Penn, executive producer, “Black Sunflowers”

James Marcus Haney, director, “Black Sunflowers”

Tetyana Diianchuk, subject, “Black Sunflowers”

Anna Diianchuk, subject, “Black Sunflowers”

Nikoletta Stoianova, subject, “ Black Sunflowers”

Christopher Scott, actor, Loren Gray, actress, Rebel Wilson, director, writer, producer, and Randall Park, actor, “Girl Group”

Rebel Wilson, director, writer, producer, “Girl Group”

Christopher Scott, actor, “Girl Group”

Randall Park, actor, “Girl Group”

Loren Gray, actress, “Girl Group”

Kiko Mizuhara, actress, Eugene Kotlyarenko, director, and Cole Sprouse, actor, “Vintage Violence”

Eugene Kotlyarenko, director, “Vintage Violence”

Kiko Mizuhara, actress, “Vintage Violence”

Cole Sprouse, actor, “Vintage Violence”

Herbert Nordrum. actor, Hans Petter Moland, director, and Asta Kamma August. actress, “Growth of the Soil”

Asta Kamma August, actress, “Growth of the Soil”

Hans Petter Moland, director, “Growth of the Soil”

Jodie Comer, actress, Harry Melling, actor, Theo Rhys, director, and Joss Holden-Rea, actor, “Stuffed”

Jodie Comer, actress, “Stuffed”

Harry Melling, actor, “Stuffed”

Joss Holden-Rea, actor, “Stuffed”

Theo Rhys, director, “Stuffed”

Zooey Deschanel, actress, Caleb Hearon, writer, actor, and Kris Rey, director “Trash Mountain”

Zooey Deschanel, actress, “Trash Mountain”

Caleb Hearon, writer, actor, “Trash Mountain”

Kris Rey, director “Trash Mountain”

The post Courteney Cox, David Harbour, Michelle Yeoh, Ziwe and More at TheWrap’s TIFF Portrait Studio | Photo Gallery appeared first on TheWrap.

“There was a lot of real taxidermy on set. I also did a very small taxidermy course in Portsmouth, which was so invaluable to understand her and comprehend her desire and what her relationship to that was,” Comer told Jada Yuan at TheWrap’s studio at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. “The world is so rich, the texture of the set design and the props, and getting to see her workshop for the first time, it was so alive.”

The story centers on Araminta (Comer) and Bernie (Harry Melling), who develop an unexpected love story over taxidermy, and Comer added that the course shaped how she understood her character’s psychology.

“When I was literally handling this animal, peeling back the skin, holding the ligaments, I was struck by the similarity,” Comer said. “I feel like she would really recognize herself within that. It wasn’t as outlandish to her as most people would think. I’ve thought of her as an artist who’s done everything else and is craving something more, which on a fundamental level is actually very relatable.”

Set against a darkly macabre backdrop, the film is at once a musical, horror and romance.

“Stuffed” hails from writer and director Theo Rhys marking his feature debut. The film expands on Rhys’ short of the same name, which won the Midnight Jury and Audience Awards at the SXSW Film Festival back in 2021 and earned a BAFTA nomination in 2022.

Melling said that when Rhys sent the script, he also sent recordings of Joss Holden-Rea singing all the songs so that when he got to a song in the script, he could push play and listen to it before reading on.

“It was a very unique way of experiencing something for the first time. I remember getting right to the end of the script and just saying to myself, ‘Okay, this has to happen somehow.’ Just because it was such a unique adventure and, even from the short that these guys made, it was such a specific world that I wanted to be involved in somehow.”

Holden-Rea noted that outside of “La La Land,” original musicals don’t seem to get made often.

“I don’t know if we’ve wholly found a place where it’s just a medium in which you can explore different genres and stuff like that, and that is kind of self-contained. But I think there’s definitely like an appetite for it for sure,” they said.

Rhys and Holden-Rea met in college and were specifically looking to make a musical together when they hit upon the story of “Stuffed.”

“When you’re looking for a story that is suitable for a musical, you need something that has the grand emotional stakes of death, of love, of this idea of finding meaning in the world,” Rhys said. “So there’s so much within this that feels so heightened already that I think it lends itself naturally to the heightened form of a musical.”

The film had its world premiere on Thursday at TIFF and Comer was actually caught off guard by the audience’s reaction.

“It was amazing to feel how responsive people were. There was a lot of humor,” Comer said. “There’s a moment with Bernie where he’s claiming himself, and you could just feel the audience going, ‘Yes, Bernie.’ The whole audience erupted in this huge round of applause.”

The post Jodie Comer Learned Taxidermy for Horror Musical Romance ‘Stuffed’ appeared first on TheWrap.

The legal response, submitted Friday, provides a preview for the strategy that Paramount Skydance intends to employ in defending the proposed merger should the case go unsettled and move forward to a trial in March.

The suit underlines that 68 jurisdictions have approved the merger already and includes a claim that the states “lack regulatory authority over the Merger, which is vested in the U.S. Department of Justice.” However, states are permitted to claim harm for business operations alleged to break federal antitrust laws.

Most of the arguments contained in the 25-page filing have already been publicly voiced by the studio, including its repeated claim that the combined companies will have an increased investment in content, more than they would have as two separate entities, and that the “size of the Merger is precisely what makes that strategy possible.” The response also claims that the rise of streaming services have dramatically increased competition in theaters and cable television over recent years and that the states’ “case depends on ignoring this reality.”

“The alleged markets are not the product of sound economic analysis or current market realities,” reads the filing. “They have been invented for one purpose and one purpose only: to trigger a presumption — any presumption, not matter how weak — in the hopes the Court will look no further.”

The response also notes that the largest theater chains (AMC Theaters, Cinemark and Regal) have “publicly stated that they support the Merger,” despite the 12 states seeking to protect them through the lawsuit. It also noted that Cinema United, the exhibitor industry’s largest lobbying and trade organization, has called for a settlement between the states and Paramount Skydance.

A dozen state attorneys general sued to block Paramount Skydance’s pending merger of Warner Bros. Discovery in July, arguing that the proposed $110 billion acquisition would increase leverage over movie theaters, cable platforms and streamers, which would allow the combined company to raise prices, reduce content spending and present consumers with fewer viewing options.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has been leading the states’ suit, and Paramount Skydance have agreed to meet to discuss a potential settlement in late October, as ordered by a magistrate judge overseeing the case. The Writers Guild of America, which has filed its own lawsuit against the pending merger, will also be present for the talks.

On Tuesday, Paramount Skydance urged a U.S. district court judge to order the WGA and the 12 states involved in the case to pay costs related to ongoing ticking fees that activate in October if the merger does not close. Starting on Oct. 1, Paramount Skydance must pay a $7 million-per-day fee to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders for each day that the deal isn’t completed, as per the terms initially agreed to in the acquisition agreement. A Sept. 24 hearing date has been set to consider the request.

The post Paramount Argues States’ Antitrust Lawsuit Against Warner Bros. Merger Is ‘Not the Product of Sound Economic Analysis’ appeared first on TheWrap.

She was in good hands though. Literally. The director of the movie, Roshan Sethi, is a practicing radiation oncologist, and also the creator of Fox medical series “The Resident.” 

Sethi turned to his colleague Dr. O’Keefe, a surgeon at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, where the movie was shot, to train and prepare Yeoh. Dr. O’Keefe is also a teacher who runs the Royal College of Surgeons simulator lab.

“She ran Michelle through everything, like how to scrub in, how to operate, how to do the knots, everything,” Sethi told Jada Yuan at TheWrap’s studio at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.

Yeoh took her training quite seriously because she wanted the surgical movements to come off as authentic as possible on the big screen.

“It was really important for me, so that when I did the movements and all that, it looked real,” Yeoh said.

As part of her training, Yeoh also observed a pig dissection at the Royal College, much to the surprise of the medical students who also watched the pig dissection with the Oscar winner.

“None of the medical students who were doing the pig dissection had been warned that she was coming,” Sethi added. “They were so confused as to why Michelle was at the pig dissection for the day.”

Sethi’s brother, a doctor himself, chipped in as well to help Yeoh with her training. 

“My brother sent some very funny short films where I had asked him to cut toast like a surgeon, just so everything felt like a surgeon,” Sethi said. “He put his Harvard diploma in the video because he didn’t want Michelle to miss it.”

“The Surgeon” premieres Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The post Michelle Yeoh Trained Like a Real Surgeon for Action Thriller ‘The Surgeon’ appeared first on TheWrap.

It’s one of the first questions I had in mind after watching director Jonathan Schey’s feature directorial debut, “Everybody Wants to F–k Me.” Its bold title, which at first reads like a brag or complaint but then feels recontextualized as a threat, is a striptease for a climax that never comes, one that mistakes being different for being profound. You extract four separate movies from Schey’s film, and the problem is he swipes right on too many of these ideas for the result to feel like anything but disjointed mayhem. 

This is all despite leading man Taron Egerton delivering, if not one of his best performances, his most eclectic one, as Adam, a man who finds his identity in not being like other men, being a true ally, and being someone women can feel safe with. He prides himself on reading the right literature (Edna O’Brien’s “Country Girl” in hand), dares not even to stare at fellow participants in his all-female yoga class, makes sure to listen more than he speaks (God gave us two ears and only one mouth after all), and if that’s not enough, he flashes around his MUBI tote bag to prop himself up as not just any cinephile but one with taste.

But a clever opening sequence reveals he’s no better than the toxic males he purports to be different from — when Adam and a woman (Mia McKenna-Bruce) have sex, he passively rejects her when she hints at a more substantial relationship. Just because he’s less obvious doesn’t mean he’s less malicious, and it’s to Egerton’s credit that he always keeps Adam’s vanity at the forefront of the character, as tempting as it might be to just play the victim. 

The problem with defining yourself by what you’re not is that you never know what you’re for, and Adam meets his match when he hits on Sofia (a beguiling Jessica Henwick, channeling the same radiance and poise in this year’s underrated “How to Make a Killing”) at a bar one night. She’s an alleged student of classics who dismantles Adam’s performative behavior before the two can finish their pint, arguing that nice guys and f–k boys are synonymous.

He goes with her to her place, expecting to score, only to find himself smoking a substance he doesn’t recognize and being asked to strip down while repeating the words “I’m a bad boy and a piece of s–t.” The transition from breezy meet-cute to kinky humiliation ritual is one of the moments where Schey and editor Joe Randall-Cutler are in full control of the film’s tone, where the unpredictability of where the night goes feels less romantic and more sinister.

Adam, for his part, always ensures to keep up appearances, choosing the right words to seem above reproach. “I’m all for games as long as there’s communication,” he says a little too loudly, as if he expects Chris Hansen to come out of Sofia’s closet mid-strip. You see how this looks, right? 

After Adam wakes up, he begins to notice that whenever he’s alone with a woman or group of women, they stare at him for an unnervingly long period of time, laughing at his jokes past their expiration date, eyes scanning his body with hunger. These obsessions become less exciting and more terrifying once he becomes what feels like a literal chick magnet, unable to move around anywhere without swarms of girls throwing themselves at him. 

To his credit, Schey’s script mines this premise for all of its queasy, thorny implications; early on in the film, Adam and his friend, Emma (Charly Clive), go to a play of “Oedipus Rex.” It’s more than just a cursory reference, and the film cashes in on that check in cringe-inducing ways.

The issue then becomes that despite strong performances from the likes of Henwick, Egerton and Clive, the film never knows how to follow through on its plot developments in a meaningful way, pulling out too early when one thread seems to run its course and plunging into the next. By all means, take down the f–k boys who realize that it’s easier to just disguise one’s vices rather than try to change them, but by careening between different genres too often, the messaging gets muddled and never moves beyond the surface.

There’s no gesturing at what a better version of masculinity might be, and while a good takedown is its own reward, it becomes clear as the film goes on that Schey has simply run out of things to say.

Anna Meredith’s operatic score, incorporating all permutations of chants and yodels, as if to represent a chorus of the voices of women Adam has wronged, is another saving grace, its deployment often signaling the moment the film will enter another tonal shift. 

It knows what it wants to critique and, per the aforementioned MUBI reference, Schey is comfortable critiquing the brands that have become the calling cards for a type of “enlightened” person, but for every bold choice it also undermines itself through the unspooling of its own drama.

Ironically, once the woman’s affections for Adam become violent, they become outward manifestations of Adam’s own twisted worldview: people devoid of personality, reduced to satiating appetite. Perhaps that mindset was what Schey had in mind, but it feels like an odd choice for a film that allegedly criticizes that outlook to then mine its thrills from it.

Ultimately, “Everybody Wants to F–k Me” is a movie that love bombs you with sweet nothings that may entice you for a moment, but as anyone who has spent too much time on the apps would tell you, sometimes it’s best to just cut off all contact before the going gets worse. 

The post ‘Everybody Wants to F–k Me’ Review: Taron Egerton Lives a Performative Male’s Worst Nightmare appeared first on TheWrap.

But the legacyquel starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock has work to do to ease Warner Bros.’ box office woes for 2026. The film earned a $13 million opening day from 4,146 locations, setting the $75 million-budgeted film for a lackluster $28 million to $30 million domestic opening weekend.

That opening headlines a sluggish weekend where no other films are estimated to gross $10 million, bringing overall totals for the post-Labor Day frame to an industry estimated $84 million, down 10% year-over-year. Theaters will be looking for upcoming titles, hopefully combined with good legs for “Practical Magic 2,” to pick up business for the fall marketplace.

As with the first “Practical Magic” released in 1998, critics aren’t impressed by this follow-up, turning in a 37% Rotten Tomatoes score. But the fans who make up the film’s cult fanbase, who are primarily millennial women, have enjoyed the sequel, giving it an early 93% RT audience score and a B+ on CinemaScore, a grade that is an improvement on the B- of its predecessor. PostTrak scores came in at 4.5/5.

The task now for “Practical Magic 2” will be to grow interest beyond that fanbase and become a popular option for female moviegoers amid a September landscape that will include movies like Sony’s male-skewing “Resident Evil” and DreamWorks’ female-focused but family-leaning animated film “Forgotten Island.”

Breaking down the CinemaScore polls, opening night demos show that “Practical Magic 2,” as expected, got a Friday night crowd that was 75% female. But the highest grades came from the 35-49 demo with an A- while moviegoers under 35 gave the film a B. With 56% of the opening night crowd over the age of 35, “Practical Magic 2” will need to expand its audience to the Gen Z demo that is needed for successful legacyquels.

In second is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” with $8.7 million in its seventh weekend, putting it on course to pass “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” as the all-time domestic box office record holder before inflation on Monday with a running domestic cume of $935 million.

Universal’s “The Odyssey” is in third with $8.1 million in its ninth weekend, which is not only enough to push it past $600 million in domestic grosses but also now makes it Universal’s unadjusted highest grossing film of all time, passing the $1.67 billion global gross of “Jurassic World” in 2015.

Ketchup’s “Coyote vs. Acme” is in fourth in its third weekend, continuing to hold strong with $6.3 million as its domestic total to reach $47.8 million. Completing the top 5 is the Angel action film “Runner” starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson, which is opening to $6 million from 2,528 locations.

With a $2.5 million opening day, “Runner” was the No. 2 movie on Friday behind “Practical Magic 2.” Starring Ritchson as a former soldier hunted by black market criminals as he delivers a liver for a young girl’s life-saving transplant, the film has been well received with a 71% Rotten Tomatoes score and an A- on CinemaScore.

Outside the top 5 is Neon’s “Hope,” a Korean sci-fi thriller from director Na Hong-jin that is estimated to earn $3.3 million from 1,560 locations. Also starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander as two of the alien creatures who attack a small village near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the film has a critics and audience Rotten Tomatoes score of 79%.

The post ‘Practical Magic 2’ Opens to $28 Million as Post-Summer Box Office Faces Sluggish Start appeared first on TheWrap.

The studio record joins a slew of other box office records that “The Odyssey” has set, including a career best for Nolan surpassing even the inflation-adjusted total of “The Dark Knight Rises,” the all-time R-rated box office record, and the highest grossing film ever for Imax. It is Nolan’s third $1 billion-plus hit, coming 18 years after his first one, “The Dark Knight” became the first superhero film to cross that milestone.

“The Odyssey” also stands as the first film that is not a sequel or remake since “Avatar” in early 2010 to gross more than $1 billion outside of the U.S. and Canada, proving how Nolan has become the most globally popular filmmaker working today.

“What Chris and Emma [Thomas] have created will go down as one of the most ambitious and brilliantly executed films in cinematic history. A generational event that galvanizes moviegoing itself,” said Donna Langley, Chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment.   

“The Odyssey” continues the fruitful relationship between Nolan and Universal that began five years ago when the filmmaker ended his decade-plus tenure at Warner Bros. and signed on with the Comcast studio to produce his 3-hour biopic “Oppenheimer.” At the time, studio sources told TheWrap that they would have seen a $550 million-plus global run for the film about the creation of the atomic bomb as a theatrical success.

Instead, “Oppenheimer” grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide in 2023, becoming the highest grossing film to win the Best Picture Oscar since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003. Shortly afterwards, Nolan and Universal announced “The Odyssey,” a film that would be the first ever to be shot entirely with Imax cameras.

Combined with Sony/Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” “The Odyssey” would define the second half of the summer box office, as it become the second highest grossing movie of the summer and will cross $600 million domestic this weekend. It is one of only 18 films to have crossed that milestone before inflation adjustment.

The post ‘The Odyssey’ Passes ‘Jurassic World’ as Universal’s Highest Grossing Film of All Time appeared first on TheWrap.