عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

'Eternals' Leads Box Office Over 'Clifford the Big Red Dog'

A guest purchases a ticket in front of a box office at AMC movie theater in Lincoln Square, in New York city, US. Reuters file photo
A guest purchases a ticket in front of a box office at AMC movie theater in Lincoln Square, in New York city, US. Reuters file photo
TT
20
TT

'Eternals' Leads Box Office Over 'Clifford the Big Red Dog'

A guest purchases a ticket in front of a box office at AMC movie theater in Lincoln Square, in New York city, US. Reuters file photo
A guest purchases a ticket in front of a box office at AMC movie theater in Lincoln Square, in New York city, US. Reuters file photo

Marvel's comic book epic "Eternals" is once again dominating over domestic box office charts, Reuters reported.

In its second weekend of release, the superhero adventure has collected a leading $27.5 million from 4,090 North American theaters. Through Sunday, "Eternals" crossed the $100 million mark in the US and Canada, with box office receipts at $118 million. Though it wouldn't be a particularly notable benchmark in pre-COVID times, only a handful of films have surpassed $100 million in 2021.

"Eternals" declined 61% from its $71 million debut, a drop that falls somewhere in between Marvel's other pandemic releases, "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (which declined 52% in its sophomore outing) and "Black Widow" (which declined 67% in its sophomore outing). "Shang-Chi," like "Eternals," is playing only in theaters while "Black Widow" premiered on Disney Plus (for $30 on top of monthly subscription fees) on the same day it opened in cinemas.

Compared to recent entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Eternals" hasn't gotten the best reviews. It is the only installment to receive a "rotten" rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, and it's one of the few to land a CinemaScore grade lower than "A" from audiences. Those factors didn't affect Sony's comic book sequel "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," which has similar audience score and critic sentiment. However, moviegoers have come to develop much higher expectations (and standards) for Disney's MCU, a franchise that is critically and commercially in a league of its own.

Speaking of "Venom," the second feature film that centers on Tom Hardy's alien symbiote became the second COVID-era release to surpass $200 million at the domestic box office. After nearly two months in theaters, the movie placed at No. 5 with $3.7 million from 2,538 venues, propelling revenues to $202 million.

"Shang-Chi," which is the highest-grossing film of 2021 with $224 million to date, is the only other film to cross $200 million this year.

In second place on domestic box office charts, Paramount's family friendly adventure "Clifford the Big Red Dog" pulled in $16.4 million from 3,700 locations between Friday and Sunday.

The film, which is available simultaneously on the streaming service Paramount Plus, got a jump on the weekend by opening in theaters on Wednesday, has generated $22 million in its first five days of release.

"Clifford" had a decent start considering its hybrid release, though analysts believe it would have made even more money by having an exclusive theatrical window before moving to digital platforms.

However, family crowds have been slow to return to cinemas because young children have only recently been able to get vaccinated against COVID-19, so Paramount wanted to couch ticket sales while boosting its nascent streaming service in the process.

"The streaming option is not helping these movies," says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. "Without it, their value would be greater on each and every platform." Still, he says, "this is a very solid opening in the face of difficult family moviegoing conditions."

"Dune," the sci-fi spectacle from Warner Bros. and Legendary, placed third with $5.5 million from 3,282 screens. To date, the movie has grossed $93 million while playing concurrently on HBO Max.

Most Viewed

 
Entertainment

Movie Review: The Villains Steal the Show in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
TT
20
TT

Movie Review: The Villains Steal the Show in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
From left, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn arrive at the premiere of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" on Monday, July 21, 2025, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

More than six decades after Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created a superhero team to rival the Justice League, the Fantastic Four finally get a worthy big-screen adaption in a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.

Though the Fantastic Four go to the very origins of Marvel Comics, their movie forays have been marked by missteps and disappointments. The first try was a Roger Corman-produced, low-budget 1994 film that was never even released.

But, after some failed reboots and a little rights maneuvering, Matt Shakman’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is the first Fantastic Four movie released by Marvel Studios. And a sense of returning to Marvel roots permeates this one, an endearingly earnest superhero drama about family and heroism, filled with modernist “Jetsons” designs that hark back to a time when the future held only promise.

“First Steps,” with a title that nods to Neil Armstrong, quickly reminds that before the Fantastic Four were superheroes, they were astronauts. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (a soulful Ebon Moss-Bachrach) flew into space but return altered by cosmic rays. “We came back with anomalies,” explains Reed, sounding like me after a family road trip.

They are now, respectively, the bendy Mister Fantastic, the fast-disappearing Invisible Woman, the fiery Human Torch and the Thing, a craggy CGI boulder of a man. In the glimpses of them as astronauts, the images are styled after NASA footage of Apollo 11, like those seen in the great documentaries “For All Mankind” and “Apollo 11.”

But part of the fun of the Fantastic Four has always been that while the foursome might have the right stuff, they also bicker and joke and argue like any other family. The chemistry here never feels intimate enough in “First Steps” to quite capture that interplay, but the cast is good, particularly Kirby.

In the first moments of “First Steps,” Sue sets down a positive pregnancy test before a surprised Reed. That night at dinner — Moss-Bachrach, now an uncle rather than a cousin, is again at work in the kitchen — Ben and Johnny immediately guess what’s up. The rest of the world is also eager to find out what, if any, powers the baby will have.

We aren’t quite in our world, but a very similar parallel one called Earth-828. New York looks about the same, and world leaders gather in a version of the United Nations named the Future Foundation. The Thing wears a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Someone sounding a lot like Walter Cronkite reads the news.

And there’s a lot to read when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) suddenly hovers over the city, announcing: “I herald your end. I herald Galactus.” The TV blares, as it could on so many days: “Earth in Peril. Developing Story.”

Yes, the Earth (or some Earth) might be in danger, but did you get a look at that Silver Surfer? That’s Johnny Storm’s response, and perhaps ours, too. She's all chrome, like a smelted Chrysler Building, with slicked-back hair and melancholy eyes. He’s immediately taken by her, but she shoots off into space. In a rousing, NASA-like launch (the original Kirby and Lee comic came eight years before the moon landing), the Fantastic Four blast off into the unknown to meet this Galactus.

But if the Silver Surfer made an impression, Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) does even more so. Fantastic Four movies have always before gone straight for Doctor Doom as a villain, but his entrance, this time, is being held up for “Avengers: Doomsday.” Still, Galactus, a planet-eating tyrant, is no slouch. A mechanical colossus and evident fan of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” he sits on an enormous throne in space. Sensing enormous power in Sue’s unborn child, he offers to spare Earth for the baby.

What follows casts motherhood — its empowerments and sacrifices — onto a cosmic plane. There’s a nifty chase sequence in space that plays out during contractions. The two “Incredibles” movies covered some similar ground, in both retro design and stretchy parent and superhuman baby, with notably more zip and comic verve than “The Fantastic Four.” That's part of the trouble of not getting a proper movie for so long: Better films have already come along inspired by the '60s comic.

But as good as Vanessa Kirby is in “First Steps,” the movie is never better than when the Silver Surfer or Galactus are around. Shakman, a former child actor who’s directed mostly in television (most relevantly, “WandaVision”), proves especially adept at capturing the enormous scale of Galactus. “First Steps” may be, at heart, a kaiju movie.

What it certainly is, though, is a very solid comic book movie. It’s a little surface over substance, and the time capsule feeling is pervasive. This is an earnest-enough superhero movie where even the angry mob protesting the superheroes turns quiet and pensive. I was more likely to be moved by a really handsome chalkboard than I was by its vision of motherhood.

But, especially for a superhero team that’s never before quite taken flight on screen, “First Steps” is a sturdy beginning, with impeccable production design by Kasra Farahani and a rousing score by Michael Giacchino. Even if the unifying space-age spirit of Kirby and Lee's comic feels very long ago, indeed.