You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from studio executives across Hollywood.
After a brutal year for the film industry, the North American box office is finally showing signs of life again.
That's mostly thanks to John Krasinski's post-apocalyptic thriller A Quiet Place Part II. The sequel collected a roaring $48 million in domestic cinemas between Friday and Sunday, exceeding expectations and posting the biggest three-day haul of the pandemic era.
The Paramount Pictures film, currently playing in 3,726 venues across North America, is expected to generate a sizeable $58m through Memorial Day on Monday.
Those ticket sales are significant because it's not far off from what the film was projected to make prior to the pandemic, with an original release date of March 2020.
The original A Quiet Place opened to $50m in 2018, meaning the studio's decision to hold the follow-up film until cinemas reopened to a significant degree proved to be prudent.
A Quiet Place Part II, which features Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe as a family forced to live in near-silence, has the benefit of getting an exclusive theatrical release. It will move to Paramount Plus, the streaming service owned by its parent company ViacomCBS, in 45 days.
About 75 per cent of US cinemas have reopened, with many locations still facing capacity restrictions.
Recent releases, including Warner Bros' Godzilla vs Kong and Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon, premiered simultaneously on digital platforms.
Despite its hybrid rollout on HBO Max, Godzilla vs Kong previously boasted the best start since Covid-19 hit, with $32m for the three-day weekend and $48m in its first five days on the big screen.
This weekend's other major release, Disney's live-action Cruella starring Emma Stone, pulled in promising numbers for a film that's currently playing on Disney+ in the US. The movie, a punk rock origin story about the puppy-hating 101 Dalmatians villain, is estimated to bring in $21.3m from 3,892 cinemas over the three-day weekend and $26.5m through to Monday.
Internationally, Cruella – which is in UAE cinemas – has posted $16.1m from 29 overseas countries. That brings its total earnings to $37.4m globally, with projections of $42.6m through to Memorial Day.
Elsewhere at the domestic box office, the horror film Spiral – starring Chris Rock and Samuel L Jackson – slid to third place in its third weekend of release. The chilling instalment in the gruesome Saw franchise added another $2.1m, taking its US tally to $20m.
Jason Statham's Wrath of Man landed in fourth place with $2m. After a month in cinemas, the vigilante action-adventure has grossed $22.7m.
Raya and the Last Dragon rounded out the top five on US box office charts. The family-friendly cartoon made $1.9m in its 13th weekend of release, amassing $51m to date.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
Draw for Europa League last-16
Istanbul Basaksehir v Copenhagen; Olympiakos Piraeus v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Rangers v Bayer Leverkusen; VfL Wolfsburg v Shakhtar Donetsk; Inter Milan v Getafe
Sevilla v AS Roma; Eintracht Frankfurt or Salzburg v Basel; LASK v Manchester United
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
