Films

War narrative Dunkirk has continued to sell well in UK box offices. It only fell 18% in its second week and now, in its third week, it took more money over the weekend than any film aside from Beauty and the Beast. It is a much stronger performer than director Christopher Nolan’s previous films in their third frames. Dunkirk took £4.62m in its third weekend and has so far totalled £38.2m.

Dunkirk has done very well compared to rivals The Emoji Movie and Valerian, both of which have performed poorly in the UK box office so far. The Emoji Movie has been called the worst family film of 2017 so far. Valerian has an enormous budget but looks like it might be a flop, with very few critics predicting it will pick up. Luc Besson’s films have always had a kind of eccentric charm but this one might not quite make it.

The cast of Love Actually, which was released in 2003, will now be reuniting for a short film made for Comic Relief. Director Richard Curtis will once again be taking the lead in the film, which will be shown on the 24th March 2017 during the Comic Relief television special. This is an apt choice, as Curtis was also one of the founders of Comic Relief back in 1985.

During the short TV special, the cast will once again be playing the same characters fourteen years on. Many of the originals will be appearing, including Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson and Martine McCutcheon.

Whilst Curtis says that he would never write a full sequel to Love Actually, he says that he is excited to create the short film and to catch up with the characters now. Many of the original cast have been able to return for the film and it will help to make Comic Relief a great success once again.

Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, told fans attending a global event for Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them that the upcoming movie starring Eddie Redmayne will be the first of five total movies in the series spinoff of her Harry Potter stories. This is new news as the author originally considered the spinoff idea to be a trilogy of films.

In addition, director David Yates, who beamed into the TCL Chinese Theatre from London via satellite with Rowling and Harry Potter film series producer David Heyman, also teased that the second movie in the follow-up series will be set in another global capital city — though he wouldn’t say which one. Another tease: he said the first Fantastic Beasts will feature a cameo by a young Albus Dumbledore as well as another character from the original Harry Potter movies, Gellert Grindelwald. A dangerous wizard whose friendship and later enmity with Dumbledore plays a large role in the parent series’ backstory, Grindelwald was also tied to the final Harry Potter book’s magical Macguffins the Deathly Hallows and to the eventual fate of Lord Voldemort.

Microsoft have confirmed that a film based on the Gears Of War is in development with the rights optioned by Universal. No director or screenwriter is attached to the project, nor were any details about the project provided. However, Rod Fergusson, head of Microsoft subsidiary The Coalition that develops new Gears of War content and franchise co-creator, said today that the film would not be based on any particular game but would instead be a new story set in the universe.

Set on the fictional planet of Sera, the series follows a squad of beefed up commandos living in a bombed out post-apocalyptic society who battle swarms of alien creatures called Locusts. The first game, released in 2006, has spawned three proper sequels including the just-released Gears Of War 4, as well as a side-story, Gears of War: Judgment. Developed by Epic games, Microsoft acquired the franchise in 2014. The series has grossed $1 billion in grosses since 2007.

Watching a movie can be a bit of a mission sometimes. Maybe you have an insanely busy schedule, perhaps you are in just one of those moods and have the attention span of a flea right now.

Maybe there is a way to watch movies without them feeling like they are getting in the way of things. Perhaps it all comes down to when you want to watch the movie.

Scheduling a movie for a certain day of the week can be a great way to structure the days around it. You know you are going to be watching the film on that day, so it will encourage you to finish other tasks around it, this way you can fully enjoy watching it.

Maybe you’d like to watch the film with friends or housemates. Having a ‘movie day’ each week can be great as it will give everyone a set time that they can watch the movie together.