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$0With Christmas a long distant memory we continue into January with the first new number 1 film of the year with 1917 which replaces Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker at the top.
Sam Mendes critically acclaimed single shot war movie makes its way to the top of the global box office having been on limited release in America, its the movies debut weekend on the global box office though and takes $54.4 Million from 22 countries.
The films total gross so far is $60.4 Million and with the awards season looking to be fruitful this should become a high grossing movie.
The final film in the Skywalker saga falls to number 2 this weekend after 3 weeks at the top with $39.2 Million from 56 countries.
The film total gross after 4 weeks of release is $989.5 Million and the $1 Billion mark should get passed by next weekend, the film is behind both the previous two movies in the sequel trilogy.
The sequel movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black falls to number 3 this week with $36.6 Million from 66 countries which gives the film a total of $671.1 Million after 6 weeks of release.
Disney's sequel movie falls to number 4 this week with $24.8 Million from 54 countries which gives the film a total gross of $1.3 Billion after 8 weeks of release.
Another Disney release is at 5 as the Will Smith starring movie falls with a weekend gross of $16.5 Million from 41 countries with pushes the films total gross to $115.2 Million after 3 weeks of release.
The original Terminator film came out of no-where, it was the second film by the young fledgeling director James Cameron and it was fresh and exciting and had a story that was clever and captivated audiences.
The follow up came 6 years later and with the hype and incredible (for the time) special effects the film was going to be a hit, Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the height of his fame.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day was a massive box office hit, which had a good story, despite some plot holes, with over the top exciting action and it went on to gross over $500 Million globally which adjusted for inflation would be about $1.2 Billion today.
After that the rights to the franchise moved all over the place, then in 2003 we suddenly got Terminator 3: Rise Of THe Machine, and despite the film having fairly good reviews, starring Schwarzenegger and grossing over $400 Million globally it felt more like a stand alone movie than part of the series.
Then the big trouble started and we got Terminator Salvation in 2009, directed by McG and starring Christian Bale the film reportedly had a very troubled shoot and with Schwarzenegger on California Governor duties he didn't star just appearing as a computer generated Terminator towards the end for a brief second or 2.
Despite this negativity of both the film and the plot it still grossed nearly $400 Million, but the series was stagnating and each film was grossing less and less as each film went on.
The series needed a reboot and in 2015 Schwarzenegger came back and director Alan Taylor tried to get a feeling of the origin film in a reboot that mixed the story from The Terminator changing the time line and creating a new path for the series, but things were too confusing and the film flopped and talk of a followup ended.
It must have seemed like the ideal situation, bring back Schwarzenegger, bring back Linda Hamilton as the original Sarah Connor, and to top it off bring back the original creator James Cameron to write the story and produce the movie, he's too busy directing Avatar 2 so passed that duty off to Deadpool director Tim Miller.
What we have here then is series fatigue, after the 2015 reboot promise the paying public and fans have simply lost hope in trying to get a film which brings back the memory of the first 2 films, Dark Fate does not do this.
Then we have the talent, Arnold Schwarzenegger is no where near the star he was in 1991, arguably the biggest, and he is no longer the mean looking muscle machine he once was, then Linda Hamilton who rarely appears in films these days so do audiences know who she is or connect with her? Then James Cameron, after Avatar, which granted was the biggest film ever until this year, is hardly a household name anymore, these elements don't make for a must see movie.
The original 1984 story has now been told again and again in the Terminator movies, how many time can the story of a robot sent from the future to kill someone who is in turn protected by another person/machine sent from the same future, despite how much you mix things up, audiences are clearly bored of this rehashing in each reboot.
Special effects today have to have the WOW factor to sell a movie, Terminator 2 had it, but its harder to do in a day and age when almost anything is possible and sadly Dark Fate simply fails to have it.
The film reportedly had a troubled post production with director Miller and writer/producer Cameron disagreeing over the edit, and it shows, it leaves you feeling like you have just watched a disjointed movie when you leave the cinema.
Finally, and maybe this is a personal thing, the title, Dark Fate is a bit cheesy and doesn't come close to Judgment Day or even Salvation, Rise of the Machines was even a good sub title. A title shouldn't matter but it has got to sell the film, Genisys was not good and Dark Fate is even worse.
The movie will struggle to make $300 Million at the global box office, this in a day and age when tentpole movie are expected to take over a Billion is not good enough, the series future is looking bleak and it could be this is the last nail in the coffin.
There is one last hope that might bring the series back! If James Cameron can find a story somewhere within that is different but keeps within the Terminator universe, and if he decides to direct the movie himself we may just get a 7th movie, its a big ask with his involvement in the Avatar films, but this might mean we get a good few year before another movie, no bad thing.
Like many other long running series, Alien for example, the series won't just lie back and enjoy the success it's had, we most likely will see another movie in the series but it will be for another generation, and once we have forgotten the bad box office run of Terminator: Dark Fate.
2018 has kicked in and as always we take time to reflect on what is coming to the cinema in the coming 12 months and list the 10 films were looking forward to.
Normally this is an easy list to conceive, but this year we have had to narrow it down from a short list of 20 movie, so some films like All The Money In The World and The Press have missed the list, not because were not looking forward to them but these 10 films we are really looking forward to.
So here we are, in release order, the list of 10 films we are looking forward to in 2018.
Coco - The new film from Pixar, and although it doesn't capture us initially as much as say Finding Nemo or Toy Story it has things about it that cant be ignored, mainly its a Pixar movie.
Fifty Shades Freed - The last in the Fifty Shades series, we loved Fifty Shades of Grey, but hated Fifty Shades Darker, but were looking forward to this although we know it will have bad dialogue and probably flop!
The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro latest film and one which has had the critics overly excited, could be the directors best film since Pan Labyrinth.
Tomb Raider - Were old enough to remember the original video game and still have the memory of Angelina Jole in out heads, but this is a reboot and looks gritty and exciting.
Ready Player One - You cant ignore a good sci-fi films and you certainly can ignore it when Steven Spielberg has directed the film, this has the potential for highest grossing film of the year.
Avengers Infinity War - But then there is the third Avengers movie to think about, and with the Marvel Cinematic Universe seemingly doing no wrong with audiences eager to spend money this could be a massive grossing film in 2018.
Solo A Star Wars Story - And then there is the annual (despite it only being a few months since the last one) Star Wars movie which although not part of the main saga is a film which will pull on the nostalgia of many fans and hopefully answer quite a few questions.
Deadpool 2 - There is no denying the popularity of the original Deadpool film and the inevitable sequel will pull a similar crowd, lets hope its no Kick Ass 2!
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom - Audiences love dinosaurs and all the time these films are making big bucks Universal will deliver, follow up the 2016 origianl and fifth in the series in total, expect big money if nothing else.
Fantastic Beasts The Crimes Of Grindelwald - Suprisingly we though the original Fantastic Beasts was better than all the Harry Potter films so we have high hopes for this, and written by J.K. Rowling herself she knows this universe and how the please the fans better than anyone.
Marvel and Disney continue their run of top film by taking their latest Doctor Strange to the top head of 2 other new releases.
Its a new IP for the superhero studio but these days that doesn't matter as Doctor Strange takes $84.9 million on its opening weekend of release.
Not as high as the more established series in the MCU but still a good opening and one which should see the film go up their with some of the best in the long running series.
Second on the chart this week is Troll which debuts with $45.6 million and coming in third is Hacksaw Ridge which takes $14.7 million.
Falling from the top after 2 weeks is Boo! A Madea Halloween, the film lands at 4 this week with $7.8 million, still good considering Halloween is a distant memory now.
Longest run on the UB box office this week is Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children which has now been around for 6 weeks, but the highest total grosser, on its debut, is Doctor Strange.
It's not often that I take much notice of the Star Wars fan email that I get in my inbox on regular occasions these days, and usually wants to sell me something, but this time something caught my attention, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is about to be 30 years old!
Now apart from the sudden terror that I had of, how old does that make me, the email details the fact that this past weekend is the 30th anniversary of the screening of first images from the film in the form of a trailer.
I clicked the link and watched the trailer, first of all you start to realise how much cinema has changed in 30 years, and trailers certainly have a different job these days, but 2 things happened to me, first I thought about how people must have been amazed sitting in the cinema watching this, the trailer was attached to a re-release of Star Wars (something which rarely happens these days) and not only was this the only way could have got to see the trailer, no internet back then, and home video was for the rich, but the trailer was there to give people a taste of the movie, not market the film to the hilt.
The second thing that happened was I remembered when I first saw footage of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, a UK programme called The South Bank Show had done a special on Star Wars and at the very end they showed a quite long clip of the film. To note is the fact hat back on those days there was a quite lengthy gap between a film being released in the UK and America.
For a moment on Saturday it was a good trip down memory lane, so check out this link and enjoy the trailer of The Empire Strikes Back.