World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
The Billie Eilish/James Cameron concert film hits streaming and a new horror/comedy releases from Bollywood to fight a “berserk” Spidey!
Not a huge amount of doom and gloom to report today, thankfully — no major industry deaths have crossed my desk in the last 24 hours, so we can just get stuck into the releases, of which there are plenty.
Streaming-wise, today’s the day: Billie Eilish’s concert film Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live) lands on Paramount+, having already done a reasonably tidy $37 million worldwide during its brief May cinema run.
It’s joined this week by Ricky Gervais’s new adult animated comedy Alley Cats, which hits Netflix tomorrow — a “potty-mouthed” (their words, not mine) project from a man who can always be trusted to deliver the unpredictable and sometimes controversial.
Over in Mumbai, Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar have reunited after 15 years for the horror-comedy Bhooth Bangla, which opened in Indian cinemas today — the pair have a long history of comedy hits. It arrives while Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still doing “absolutely berserk” business (their phrase, and rather a good one) at the Indian box office, having built serious momentum across its opening weekend there.
In Nigeria, the Official Selection Committee has just opened submissions for the country’s entry to the 99th Academy Awards, while Ibrahim Jammal’s The Almajiri, which landed on Prime Video on August 1 as part of ‘Native Filmworks’ First Features initiative’ is reported to deliver something a bit different from the usual Lagos output. (I must try to catch it: good Nigerian films never seem to disappoint when I see them at the LFF.)
In China, Sony’s has had a proper result: Spider-Man: Brand New Day has now banked $121 million there in its first five days, including the biggest IMAX opening day for a Hollywood release in the country since Avengers: Endgame — no small feat given how badly superhero films have been performing there since the pandemic. It’s still not quite dethroning the locals: as reported yesterday, Pearl Studio’s animated All Wishes Come True! and Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer remain comfortably ahead for the year, and there’s a new domestic contender too, in the clumsily titled workplace satire sequel Johnny Keep Walking! 2, which opened respectably in fourth over the weekend.
That’s all for today.
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