We take a look back at news of note in the world of film.

Black Panther Lights Up Box Office Once Again

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever took an unsurprisingly tidy sum at the box office over its first weekend of release, including a domestic weekend total of $181.3 million. Despite the strong showing, the sequel couldn’t best Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness’ opening weekend earlier this year, coming in 6 million short, but now holds the all-time record for the highest opening weekend gross in the month of November.

Black Adam placed a distant second in the US, with $ 8 050 473 in its fourth week, not too far ahead of romcom Ticket to Paradise, which is holding well at $5.9 million, also in its fourth week. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile put up an impressive hold in its 6th week of release with $3.2 million, down just 5 percent from the previous weekend.

In limited release, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans opened in 4 theatres, raking in an average of $40,395 between them, making it the title holder of 5th best per theatre average of the year.

Ghibli Account Mysteriously Posts Lucasfilm Logo

Lucasfilm has been dedicated exclusively to Star Wars and the upcoming Indiana Jones 5 (plus some sort of Willow reboot series), but something new might be on the way. Or it’ll just be another of those Star Wars Visions one-offs; previously a selection of anime short films comprising spin-offs set in the Star Wars universe. There’s zero indication as to the nature, extent or legitimacy of the collaboration, but a video posted by the official Studio Ghibli Twitter account has sent tongues wagging.

The 15 second clip is vague as can be; the glinting Lucasfilm logo, followed in short order by the classic graphic Ghibli logo. Could this move involve studio head Hayao Miyazaki’s final film at last set for release in 2023? Lucasfilm is one of the innumerable infantrymen stationed at mothership Disney, the distributor of Ghibli’s Americanised dubs. Of course, all of this presumes that Ghibli would be adapting or otherwise shifting towards Lucasfilm. There is, however, a much more frightening possibility: Lucasfilm live-action adaptations of Ghibli projects. Cause to shudder with trepidation. Here’s the tweet.

New Godzilla in Development at Toho

One project from a Japanese film giant we have no need to wonder about is the next iteration of Godzilla on home turf. Toho, the studio which originated Godzilla and is responsible for the vast majority of the renowned reptile’s appearances, has announced the first Godzilla film set inland since 2016’s Shin Godzilla, to be directed by Takashi Yamazaki, via Twitter. Japanese audiences can expect the film to make landfall as soon as November 2023.

Snoop Dogg Biopic

The project is currently in the capable hands of Allen Hughes (Menace II Society), with Snoop providing free license to the entirety of his catalogue for use in the film. Said the rapper, “I waited a long time to put this project together because I wanted to choose the right director, the perfect writer, and the greatest movie company I could partner with that could understand the legacy that I’m trying to portray on screen, and the memory I’m trying to leave behind. It was the perfect marriage. It was holy matrimony, not holy macaroni.”

The writer in question is Joe Robert Cole, who certainly won’t be short on material. The storied life of the Doggfather seems a little episodic and more than a little busy to try to adapt into a feature-length biopic. After all, what is Snoop Dogg’s defining moment, or the core thread of his life? Will Martha Stewart make an appearance?

Host of the 2023 Oscars Revealed

It’s Jimmy Kimmel… again. You can’t blame the Academy for wanting to play it safe after the series of unfortunate catastrophes that have befallen the telecast in recent years. Kimmel famously hosted the 2017 ceremony, before being invited to host again in 2018 (probably to make up for the Moonlight-La La Land-snafu). Since then, the Academy has experimented with a host-less format three years running, with duties falling upon the trio of Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes last year, viewership plummeting all along the way.

It’s clear that the show is in need of a guiding force, and nominating Kimmel (pun entirely intended) won’t cause too much of a ruckus. As for why Kimmel was up for a third term, maybe he’s jealous that ever since a certain slap occurred, he’s only hosted the second most infamous night in Oscar history. As he put it; “Being invited to host the Oscars for a third time is either a great honour or a trap.”