The Latest Movie News UPDATE

  John Wesley Downey updates True Film Fans on this past weekend's
   box office results, which include a movie from 1999 (!), the Star Wars
   prequel the Phantom Meance due to the May Fourth Be with You weekend.
   Ryan Gosling is # 1 but did the movie cost too much? 

    We'll salute to a fan favorite  Bernard Hilll RIP who played iconic roles in
    Lord of the Rings (Theoden) and Titanic  (The Captain).  
 
   John will alert you to cool episodes of True ilm Fan that include
    "The Devil's in the Details" a deep dive into the 1973 horror classic
   The Exorcist.  A fun episode spotlighting sports films.  And a look at the battle
   on set between Stanley Kubrick and Shelley Duvall.  John says internet information
   on that story is wrong and needs more information and contest, and he'll have it for
   you.  So subscrie and tell outhers about the  True Film Fan podcast available on
   your I Heart Radio app or whever you get your podcasts.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, I'm John Weissie Downy andthis is your True Film Fan Podcast Update.
This is for the weekend May thirdthrough fifth, and we're going to
deal with the box office results forthe weekend and talk a little bit about
an iconic actor who has passed away. First of all, the number one
movie of the weekend was Fall Guy, made about twenty eight million dollars.
It was a Ryan Gosling film basedon an old TV series. Did a

(00:22):
little bit less than was projected.A lot of people in Hollywood say that
they spent way too much money onit. It's going to make it difficult
for them to reach a break evenpoint. But we'll see what's going on
with that as time goes by.Coming in second, an interesting placement for
this weekend's box office. It wasa re release of The Phantom Menace,
the Star Wars film from nineteen ninetynine. Why did they release it in

(00:45):
theaters? It was in celebration ofthe May fourth Star Wars holiday or whatever
you want to call it. Maythe fourth be with you. It made
about ten million dollars, which isn'tbad for a movie that had already made
hundreds of millions of dollars. SoI guess you can call that us ass.
I think that's something Disney did justfor the fans. Coming in third
the R rated tennis movie, whichis doing very well for Zendaia. She

(01:08):
is the star of that movie andher her star is definitely ascending. It
made about seven point six million dollarsover the weekend. So far, it's
made about thirty million. In fourthplace, we have a new movie called
terrou It's a typical sort of lowbudget horror movie. The cast of characters
discover that when they're playing to rowthat they have unleashed a dangerous entity.

(01:32):
Made about ten point two million dollars, which is not too bad or a
movie that is not already a franchise. Coming in fifth place this weekend,
Godzilla and King Kong New Empire madefour and a half million. It's already
up to one hundred and eighty eightmillion domestics, so it's already a big
success. Coming in at number sixfrom the Studio A twenty four, the

(01:52):
quirky studio that makes movies that havea different sort of viewpoint. Civil War
made three point five to five million. It's already made about sixty two million
at the box office. So it'sdone well. Unsung Hero came in with
three million dollars at seventh place,coming in at number eight. A movie
still hanging around. People love thisone. Kung Fu Panna number four made

(02:14):
two and a half million. It'salso made about one hundred and eighty eight
million dollars in box offices so far. When we're talking about these cumulative totals,
we're talking about everything in North America, the United States, and Canada.
Abigail came in ninth it's a movieabout Dracula's daughter. Made two point
eight million. Altogether, it's madeabout twenty three million, and in tenth

(02:37):
place, still eking out lare afew bucks. It's a Ghostbuster's Frozen Empire
for a total so far of onehundred and nine million dollars domestically. So
a lot of people are going tosee movies. But I wouldn't call this
a robust weekend. I believe it'sabout half of what the weekend was a
year ago. At this time.I want to take some time out to

(02:58):
talk briefly about a famous actor characteractor. A lot of you probably do
know his name, Bernard Hill,but many of you probably know his face
better because he was in two.He was in two of the biggest movies
of all time, actually three.He was in two of the Lord of
the Rings movies as Theoden and TwoTowers and Return of the King. And

(03:20):
of course he played the Captain ofthe Titanic in the James Cameron film in
nineteen ninety seven. Very quiet actor, very very highly regarded in the industry.
He was born in nineteen forty four. He had done hundreds of roles
in TV, stage and film.He was also in I Claudius, which
was a very prestigious production, andhe was also in Clint Eastwood's true crime

(03:43):
movie. So the guy got around. He was much beloved among Lord of
the Rings fans and he will bemissed. A very quality actor. Famous
story about him working on Titanic.James Cameron came to him to Bernard Hill
during the filming of Titanic and said, Bernard, you're not doing anything.
I can't see you doing any acting. You just seem blank. I'm looking

(04:04):
at you through the camera. Dosomething emmote and Bernard Hill, taking a
real risk standing up to James Cameron, said oh no, James, it's
there. You'll see it on thescreen. In the editing room. I
work very subtle, and to JamesCameron's credit, he started watching the dailies

(04:25):
and saw that Bernard was right.He knew what he was doing in front
of a camera. So that aloneis a major victory for an actor to
come out on top of James Cameronanyway, Rest in peace, Bernard Hill.
Want to talk about some of thepodcasts that we have coming up in
the future. We're going to dosome very interesting things here with the True
Film Fan podcast. We're going todevote an entire podcast to something called The

(04:47):
Devil's in the Details. It's adeep dive into the Exorcist with lots of
minutia and trivia and behind the scenesinformation that you may not have heard.
I think you're going to want tohear that. I've been putting that together
there for months and it's going tobe a very special podcast for people that
like horror and that are particularly interestedin The Exorcist. Of course, I'm

(05:09):
talking about not all the ripoffs thathave been out over the last few years.
I'm talking about the masterpiece that WilliamFriedkin made back in nineteen seventy three.
We're also going to have one ofthe podcasts devoted to sports. We're
going to spend a whole forty minuteson sports movies, and I'm going to
bring in some experts on athletics andsports, and we're going to talk about
the quality of the acting when itcomes to executing the sport itself on camera.

(05:33):
I have some experts come in thatknow a lot more about sports.
We're going to talk about all kindsof sports movies, Rocky, you name
it, any of them, slapshot, basketball movies, baseball movies,
you know. We'll probably talk aboutBullder, and we'll probably talk about Field
of Dreams. We'll talk about abunch of sports movies. And then another
podcast that I have planned in thenear future, I'm going to do a

(05:55):
whole podcast forty minutes on Stanley Kubrickversus Shelley Davall. This has been an
internet topic for years about the behaviorof Kubrick and de Vall on the set,
and not only am I going totalk about that, particularly in that
particular incident and give it a greatdeal of context that a lot of people
don't have. I'm also going totalk about behavior on movie sets in general

(06:18):
and some of the crazy things thatgo on and what's actually expected. So
got lots of interesting things coming uphere on the True Film Fan Podcast over
the next couple of months. Ihope you'll subscribe. That way, you
don't have to look for us.It'll just be delivered to you every week,
and I hope you'll tell other peopleabout it. I'm John Wesley Downey,
and thank you for listening.