Monday Mixer: Not just for the mornings anymore!

Posted Monday, July 21, 2014 at 12:44 PM Central
Last updated Monday, July 21, 2014 at 1:12 PM Central

by John Couture

Remember the days when my obsessive need for alliteration and belief that I could squeeze all of the news that's fit to print from the previous weekend into one digest format story in a matter of hours? No? Well, no worry because those days are behind us.

As you may have noticed above, we're missing one of the Ms in our weekly feature. After much consternation and introspection, Tim and I have come to the conclusion that forcing the whole Morning aspect of the Monday Mixer was becoming a bit tedious. Not only that, but the quality of the product was suffering as we rushed to get everything published before the clock struck noon.

So, from here on out, it will simply be the MM, the Monday Mixer. It might come out in the morning, it might not make it until the afternoon, but it will still make it, on Monday, or else it might become the TM. Yeah, at that point, we might need to re-evaluate everything.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, how's it going? It's good to be back in the driver's seat although, I'm sure many of you enjoyed Tim's little trip down memory lane last week. For those asking (no one has), the house sale went through. I'd say it went smoothly, but that would be a lie. I'd also say that the last week has been great, but being held up in a small hotel room with two toddlers is more efficient than water-boarding when it comes to torture.

So yeah, I'm happy to be back to work and ready to dig in. Grab your morning cup of joe and let's see what happened the last few days.

Box Office 411

Our Ape overloads continued their reign over the box office for the second straight week. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes hauled in another $36 million to bring its two week haul to almost $139 million. The 50% drop from opening weekend is very consistent with the second week fall of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The first film finished up with just over $175 million and it appears that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is set to blow past that number in the next week or so. When the dust settles, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes end up north of $225 million. With this Summer seeing one flop after another, it's always good to see some nice signs of life.

Speaking of flops, this weekend saw plenty as Sex Tape sent out an S.O.S. for more Viagra after its rather flaccid opening weekend "haul" of $15 million. That performance is pretty limp even by Jason Segel standards, but it did do $5 million more than his previous film The Five-Year Engagement. With that in mind and the easy to forget opening in fourth place, I would be shocked if Sex Tape broke the $35 million barrier.

It's hard to call any film that is a theatrical sequel to a film that was supposed to debut direct-to-video a failure, but Planes: Fire and Rescue opened to a soft $18 million. That performance was only about $4 million under the original film's debut, but I think they were hoping the sequel would outperform the original film. As it stands, Planes: Fire and Rescue will benefit from the dirge of family-friendly films over the next couple of months, but it will still struggle to get to $75 million.

Finally, the one newcomer that did "decent" business this past weekend was The Purge: Anarchy. The sequel brought home just over $28 million, which was down slightly from the original film, but the studio is hoping that this film has much better legs being that it's a known commodity now.

The Purge opened last year on June 7 to a very nice $34 million, but was quickly lost in the Summer blockbuster extravaganza and failed to double its opening number. With better legs, I wouldn't be surprised to see The Purge: Anarchy end up with over $75 million in its box office coffers.

Quick Hitters

• First up is J.J. Abrams is sweetening the pot on his charity Omaze event as the finish line approaches. Now, not only can you win a trip to the set of Star Wars: Episode VII, but you could also win an advance screening of Episode VII in your hometown for you and 20 of your friends/family.

  Also in the video is the reveal of cool blue X-Wing and one of those pesky Imperial mouse droids. Could this be a tip of the hat to more death star chicanery? Perhaps, but probably not.

• Speaking of Star Wars, Badass Digest has what they claim to be plot details from Episode VII. You can click here to get the full scoop and potentially be spoiled, but I'll simply say that I'm skeptical at best.

  According to the post, Luke's severed robotic hand will be the instrument to kick off the new trilogy's action. Yeah, like I said, I don't buy it either. But it's interesting to read nonetheless.

• Because James Franco isn't in enough things these days, the trailer from the his latest film Palo Alto just dropped. Besides writing the short story upon which it is based, he also plays a soccer coach with a penchant for his underage players.

  The trailer has plenty of what you expect and then some.

• Finally today, it is with great sadness that we report that versatile actor James Garner has died. Probably best known as TV's Maverick, Garner made quite a second career later in life as a comic actor in films.

  He will be missed.

I always hate to end these things on such a downer, but James Garner lived a full life and I couldn't think of a better way to pay respect to the actor than to watch one of his films between now and next week. Until then, mix well!