Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
‘Moana 2’
cruises to another record weekend
The Walt Disney Co.’s animated film “Moana 2” remained at the top of the box office in its second weekend in theaters as it brought in another record haul.
The film added $52 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. That brings its domestic total to $300 million, surpassing the original, and its global tally to a staggering $600 million.
The amount set a record gross for a movie on the weekend following Thanksgiving weekend, unseating “Frozen II,” which earned $35.2 million in the same time frame in 2019. The numbers are not adjusted for inflation. Originally conceived as a Disney+ series, “Moana 2” has already broken into the top five highest grossing releases of the year. Its performance means Disney has three films in this year’s top five, including “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The studio also has another big movie on the way before the year ends: Barry Jenkins’ “Mufasa,” out Dec. 20.
The weekend also showcased several new releases, including A24’s horror comedy “Y2K” and the Jude Law crime thriller “The Order.” But nothing was ever going to present significant competition to the enticing Thanksgiving leftovers, “Moana 2,” “Wicked” and “Gladiator II.”
Second place at the box office was occupied by “Wicked,” which added $34.9 million, bringing its domestic total to $320.5 million in three weeks. Globally, the musical adaptation released by Universal is at $455.6 million. “Gladiator II” followed in third place with $12.5 million, while “Red One” came in fourth with $7 million.
“These holdovers are going to create the momentum that’s going to put an $8.5 billion-plus box office year on the horizon,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore.
Pre-pandemic, $11 billion had become the annual norm for the movie business. Since then, the closest the industry has gotten to that number was last year, which cracked $9 billion. This year started off slow and up to a few months ago, Dergarabedian said, even hitting $8 billion for the year was in doubt. But in the two weeks since Thanksgiving, the deficit from last year has narrowed by over 5%.
The newcomers struggled to make a significant impact. Even the 10th anniversary rerelease of Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar,” which played in only 165 theaters, did better than “Y2K” ($2.1 million) and “The Order” ($878,000) combined. Paramount reported that the science fiction epic starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway brought in an estimated $4.4 million. IMAX also noted that all the 70mm IMAX presentations of “Interstellar” were sold out through the weekend.
“I was thrilled so many moviegoers took advantage of the original IMAX experience of ‘Interstellar’ this weekend,” Nolan said in a statement.
The biggest of the many newcomers was the Indian action pic “Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2,” which earned $4.9 million. Sony and Crunchyroll’s anime release, “Solo Leveling – ReAwakening,” made $2.4 million. Fathom also released pop duo for KING + COUNTRY’s “A Drummer Boy Christmas” concert in theaters where it made $2.1 million.
“It’s a really diverse marketplace,” Dergarabedian said. “There’s event cinema, international cinema, a re-release of a 10-year-old film. It’s easily one of the most eclectic and interesting lineups I’ve ever seen.”
Next weekend theaters are in for another influx of bigger movies, with both Sony’s comic book film “Kraven the Hunter” and the animated “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” opening in wide release. Awards contenders “Nickel Boys” and “September 5” will also open in a limited number of theaters.
Ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ sold in auction
MINNEAPOLIS | A pair of iconic ruby slippers that were worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” and stolen from a museum nearly two decades ago sold for a winning bid of $28 million at auction Saturday.
Heritage Auctions had estimated that they would fetch $3 million or more, but the fast-paced bidding far outpaced that amount within seconds and tripled it within minutes. A few bidders making offers by phone volleyed back and forth for 15 minutes as the price climbed to the final, eye-popping sum.
Including the Dallas-based auction house’s fee, the unknown buyer will ultimately pay $32.5 million.
Online bidding, which opened last month, had stood at $1.55 million before live bidding began late Saturday afternoon.
The sparkly red heels were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case.
Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018. Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly exposed as the thief until he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded guilty in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.
His attorney, Dane DeKrey, explained ahead of sentencing that Martin, who had a long history of burglary and receiving stolen property, was attempting to pull off “one last score” after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value. But a fence — a person who buys stolen goods — later told him the rubies were just glass, DeKrey said. So Martin got rid of the slippers. The attorney didn’t specify how.
The alleged fence, Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, was indicted in March. He was also in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he made his first court appearance. He’s scheduled to go on trial in January and hasn’t entered a plea, though his attorney has said he’s not guilty.
The shoes were returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. They were one of several pairs that Garland wore during the filming, but only four pairs are known to have survived. In the movie, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy had to click her heels three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”
As Rhys Thomas, author of “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” put it, the sequined shoes from the beloved 1939 musical have seen “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”
Over 800 people had been tracking the slippers, and the company’s webpage for the auction had hit nearly 43,000 page views by Thursday, said Robert Wilonsky, a vice president with the auction house.
Among those bidding to bring the slippers home was the Judy Garland Museum, which posted on Facebook shortly after that it did not place the winning bid. The museum had campaigned for donations to supplement money raised by the city of Grand Rapids at its annual Judy Garland festival and the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to help the museum purchase the slippers.
After the slippers sold, the auctioneer told bidders and spectators in the room and watching online that the previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52 million, for the white dress Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windy subway grate.
The auction also included other memorabilia from “The Wizard of Oz,” such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West. That item went for $2.4 million, or a total final cost to the buyer of $2.93 million.
“The Wizard of Oz” story has gained new attention in recent weeks with the release of the movie “Wicked,” an adaptation of the megahit Broadway musical, a prequel of sorts that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Executive of Tyler Perry Studios dies
in plane crash
ATLANTA | The president of Atlanta-based Tyler Perry Studios died Friday night when the small plane he was piloting crashed on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The studio confirmed on Saturday that Steve Mensch, its 62-year-old president and general manager, had died.
“We are incredibly saddened by the passing of our dear friend Steve Mensch,” the studio said in a statement. “Steve was a cherished member of our team for more than eight years and well-beloved in the community of Atlanta. It’s hard to imagine not seeing him smiling throughout the halls. We will miss him dearly. Our heart goes out to his family as we all send them our prayers.”
The crash happened in Homosassa, about 60 miles north of Tampa. Photos from the scene show the plane having come to rest upside down on a road. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.
The single-engine Vans RV-12IS was registered to Mensch at his home address in the Atlanta suburb of Fayetteville, according to FAA records.
Mensch helped advocate for and maintain Georgia’s film tax credit of more than $1 billion a year. Those lavish subsidies have made Georgia one of the most active places in the United States for film and television production.
Mensch got into the movie business when he started working for Feature Systems, which provides equipment for the movie industry. He was hired by Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting to run its studio operations, later becoming director of strategic production partnerships. It was there that he began to lobby state government for more aid to movie and television production.
Ric Reitz, an actor who also helped create the tax credits, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Mensch helped market the state before the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and helped launch the Georgia Production Partnership, an entertainment industry lobbying group.
“He was trying to formulate the vision for the marketplace before the Olympics and wanted a think tank of people in the community to make Georgia competitive,” Reitz said. “He was an important figure in the our growth to become a strong film and TV market.”
After a year helping plan and build a giant studio in China and brief stint helping to open Third Rail Studios in suburban Atlanta. Perry hired Mensch to help create and run his namesake studio in 2016. The studio sprawls across 330 acres (135 hectares) of a former Army base in southern Atlanta that Perry acquired in 2015.
Mensch died on the same day that Perry released “The Six Triple Eight,” a war drama about an mostly Black and all-female World War II battalion. The film was shot at the Atlanta studio.
Mensch is survived by his wife, Danila, and three children.
—From AP reports
