Released in the US this weekend, Friday, 10th May 2024, there are 5 new releases looking to take your attention and where available could hit your local cinema and try and replace The Fall Guy from the top of the North American box office.

Check out other new releases from around the world.

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom
• Nothing Can't Be Undone By a HotPot
• Poolman
• Not Another Church Movie

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

• The movie is directed by Wes Ball, it is the directors 4th movie.
• Wes Ball also directed Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 2018 which grossed $58 Mil. in the US and grossed $288.3 Mil. globally.
• It stars Freya Allan who also starred in Gunpowder Milkshake (2021).
• The film also stars Kevin Durand who's last movie was Abigail (2024).
• This movie is released in movie theatres.
• The MPAA age rating is

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom

• The movie is directed by Mitsuo Fukuda, it is the directors 8th movie.
• Mitsuo Fukuda also directed Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Special Edition: The Hellfire of Destiny in 2006.
• It stars Takehito Koyasu who also starred in Hello World (2019).
• The film also stars Yuichi Nakamura who's last movie was Haikyu!! The Movie: Decisive Battle At the Garbage Dump (2024).
• Mitsuo Fukuda directed Takehito Koyasu in Mobile Suit Gundam: Seed Special Edition II: The Far Away Dawn
• This movie is released in movie theatres on limited release.

Nothing Can't Be Undone By a HotPot

• The movie is directed by Sheng Ding, it is the directors 10th movie.
• Sheng Ding also directed A Better Tomorrow 2018 in 2018.
• It stars Mi Yang who also starred in Iron Man 3 (2013).
• The film also stars Qian Yu who's last movie was The Pioneer (2021).
• This movie is released in movie theatres on limited release.

Poolman

• The movie is from director Chris Pine.
• This movie is a directorial debut.
• It stars Annette Bening who also starred in The Search (2014).
• The film also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh who's last movie was Sharp Stick (2022).
• This movie is released in movie theatres on limited release.

Not Another Church Movie

• The movie is from director James Michael Cummings and Johnny Mack.
• This movie is a directorial debut.
• It stars Mickey Rourke who also starred in Year of the Dragon (1985).
• The film also stars Jamie Foxx who's last movie was The Burial (2023).
• This movie is released in movie theatres.
• The MPAA age rating is

Check back on Monday to see what new movies made it onto the Weekend Box Office Chart.

Next week there are 7 new movies released

• Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry - Tuesday, 14th May - streaming
• Greedy People - Thursday, 16th May
• Imaginary Friends - Friday, 17th May
• IF~2024 - Friday, 17th May
• The Strangers: Chapter 1 - Friday, 17th May
• I Saw the TV Glow - Friday, 17th May
• Back to Black - Friday, 17th May

While the ninth Fast movie continues to do well across the globe before the release of Black Widow next week and hence stays at the top animated feature The Boss Baby 2 makes a new entry at number 3.

Also making a new entry this weekend is The Forever Purge which is at number 4 and Chinese movie The Pioneer makes its debut at 7 with over $10 Million.

Global box office QuickView

• Number 1 - Fast & Furious 9 (3rd Weekend total)
• Highest debut - The Boss Baby 2 (@3)
• Longest Run - Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (15 weeks)
• Highest total gross - Fast & Furious 9 ($491.506 Million)

Global box office top 5 breakdown 2nd - 4th July 2021

Fast & Furious 9

The ninth movie in The Fast Saga remains at the top of the global box office for a second consecutive weekend with $47.8 Million from 51 countries, a rather large 56% drop from last weekend.

The movie has now been on release globally for 7 weeks and has taken $491.5 Million, the movie should break half a billion by next weekend.

1921

The Chinese movie jumps up to number 2 this weekend as its release in more countries, this week its count is 4 and it takes $21.6 Million, an expected 46% increase from last weekend.

After 2 weeks of release the movie has taken $45.7 Million globally.

The Boss Baby 2

The animated sequel makes its global debut this weekend at number 3 with a debut gross of $18.8 Million.

Released in only 9 countries so far the movie will stick around for a while as it opens across the globe.

The Forever Purge

Also making a debut this weekend is the fifth movie in The Purge series which enters at 4 with $16.3 Million from 23 territories.

Cruella

Closing out the top 5 this weekend is Disney's hit movie which takes $11.5 Million from 44 countries, a slender 19% drop and after 6 weeks the movie has taken $204.3 Million.

The Star Wars announcement at CES 2011 yesterday was that the Saga would be released on Blu-ray in September of this year , no exact date was given but the 3 box set's that will be released are available for pre-order now.

In what was considered a relatively low key event for such a huge announcement involved Darth Vader, a handful of Stormtroopers and Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn coming out and making a short statement.

The 3 box sets that will be released are an Original Trilogy Box Set, a Prequels Trilogy Box Set and a 9 disk Saga Box set that will include 3 diska with over 30 hours of extra material, of which there was no mention of content.

Thankfully there was no mention of any Star Wars 3D, it's no secret that Lucas is working on a retrofit for the films but maybe that will be a separate release and this one will not be effected, it's a long time till September though. Also no mention of the Star Wars Holiday Special, we can live in hope that this will be cleaned, converted to HD and included.

The film are available on Amazon.co.uk with current prices at £33.99 for the two trilogy sets and £69.99 for the Saga set.

There was a press release to follow which gave far more information

THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE

THE MOST ANTICIPATED BLU-RAY RELEASE IN THE GALAXY

IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR WORLDWIDE PRE-ORDER STARTING TODAY

LAS VEGAS (Jan. 6, 2011) – The most anticipated Blu-ray release ever – the Star Wars™ Saga – emerges from light speed this September 2011. For the first time, all six of George Lucas' epic films (Episodes I-VI) are united in one complete set. Fans worldwide are able to pre-order now with online retailers.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:

-          Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films)

-          Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III)

-          Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI)

STAR WARS: THE COMPLETE SAGA ON BLU-RAY will feature all six live-action Star Wars feature films utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with three additional discs and more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more.

Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will be available for $139.99 US/$179.99 CAN and the Star Wars: Trilogy Sets for $69.99 US/89.99 CAN.  Pricing for each set will vary by international territory.

Flanked by a  legion of his finest  Imperial Stormtroopers, Darth Vader himself joined Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to announce the release, vowing  “The forces of the Empire will be at your disposal to assure the success of this endeavor.''

“The Star Wars Saga is the most anticipated Blu-ray collection since the launch of the high-def format,” Dunn said. “The epic franchise pioneered sound and visual presentation in theatres and is perfectly suited to do it again in the home, with a viewing experience only possible with Blu-ray.”

“With all six episodes available for the first time in one collection, this is a great way for families and home audiences to experience the complete Saga from start to finish,” said Doug Yates, Vice President of Marketing, Online, Distribution, Lucasfilm Ltd. “And with the quality of high-definition, Blu-ray provides the most immersive home experience possible.”

“The Star Wars franchise has been one of the most anticipated Blu-ray releases by Amazon's customers,” said Bill Carr, Vice President of Music and Video at Amazon. “We think that Star Wars will be incredibly popular with our customers, and we expect pre-orders to be very strong.”

Of all the TV manufacturers that sell sets in the UK Samsung sold more than any other in 2009, in fact they have a very impressive 23% of the TV marker above the likes of Panasonic and Sony.

Is this any surprise? Probably not, they make good quality, very good looking TV's, and they always sit very prominently in showrooms, and look better than many of the others.

I'd argue that Pioneer, Panasonic and maybe even Sony make better sets, but they are not as good looking as the Samsung sets.

2010 will be an interesting to watch as there are 2 major advancements in TV technology on the way, first and probably more important is OLED which allows for ultra thin TV's with fantastic picture quality and low energy use. The other is 3D TV which is a matter of opinion, I personally don't see it catching on, but if this years CES show was anything to go by, it'll hit big this year.

I personally hope we get larger screens, my 42 inch is great but a nice 60 inch that I can easily mount onto the wall with a wireless connection built in that I can get full 1080p streaming video on would be nice.

For home video enthusiasts today is a very sad day as Pioneer have announced they will stop making laserdisk players this month (June 2009).

Initially brought to market in 1978 under the name of DiscoVision the 12 inch disks were going to revolutionise home entertainment and bring that cinema quality high definition picture to the home.

Although the technology inside the huge players was far superior to that of it's magnetic tape (VHS and Beta) equivalents the lack of storage (60 minutes on each side) and high price stopped them from becoming a mainstream purchase.

American video enthusiasts took to the devices as did the Japanese, but Europe never really embraced the devices. VHS had a strong hold, and by the time people realised that their £15 film on the fragile tape was a bad idea and looked for alternatives the 5 inch DVD was hitting the market.

Here is a list of the top selling films on the Laserdisk format: -

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
2. The Lion King
3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
4. True Lies

Despite it's hard life the format has laser 30 years and sold a quite respectable 360 million units. Disks didn't shift that many, Star Wars was one of the biggest sellers with 100,000 sold and The Lion King not far behind, although exact sales data is hard to find.