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THE MOST POPULAR FILMS AND SERIES

 The top domestic earning film this weekend was Superman.

  • $196,616,498.  There have been dozens of Superman films, with 11 of them considered to be re-makes.
  • #1 the weekend of July 4-6 was Jurassic World:  Rebirth  $152,305,936.
  • #1 the weekend of June 27-29 was F1: The Movie  $124,133,275.
The latest Worldwide box office (in 100 million $, with Rotten Tomatoes rating in parentheses):
You say, never heard of Ne Zha 2?  Click on it and you'll see:

After a great catastrophe, the souls of Nezha and Aobing are saved, but their bodies face ruin. To give them new life, Taiyi Zhenren turns to the mystical seven-colored lotus in a daring bid to rebuild them and change their fate.

From Wikipedia, a 2025 animated fantasy action adventure film from China.  It's a sequel to the 2019 Ne Zha (88/98). Is the highest grossing film of 2025, and already #5 all-time.  Has made $21 million in the USA.  An English-dubbed version with Michelle Yeoh in the voice cast will be released in the U.S. on 22August2025.  I just might go see this one.

Anyway, as I indicated yesterday, I had gone to a movie theater only once since the pandemic, and that was Barbenheimer, a twin-bill worthy of taking a chance in 2023 when COVID-19 was still lurking.  So yesterday I went out on an adventure.
  • At 9:50AM I entered the Ward movie complex and bought two tickets.
    • 10AM for F1: The Movie, 2 hours and 35 minutes long.
    • Lunch at Rinka.
    • 2PM for Jurassic World Rebirth.  Oh, by providing my phone number, I got a free ticket to this show.  They kept a record of my membership.
  • So what could possibly go wrong?  Well, I mistakenly walked into the Jurassic World film first.
    • I had prepared for this outing by this past week recording and viewing these three earlier versions:

  • Jurassic World: (2015)
  • Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: (2018)
  • Jurassic World: Dominion: (2022)

  • The first one in 1993, Jurassic Park, was highly rated (91/91), but each sequel just got worse and worse, with the 2022 production only getting 29/77 from Rotten Tomatoes.
  • Well, this 2025 film only got 52/71 scores, but was actually enjoyable.
  • Something to do with the large screen and great audio.
  • No doubt another one will be forthcoming, probably bringing back Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali.
  • Lunch at Rinka was terrific.
I had cold soba, sashimi, plus some small dishes, beer and sake.
  • Walked back into the theater, and noticed that F1 was not to show for awhile. So I was faced with a decision to make.  I could have gone to Ne Zha 2, but I avoid animated films.  Available was Superman, but I don't go to comic-book movies.  Cruise's latest Mission Impossible production was just about ready to air,  so this is where I went.
  • This "final" MI movie was not as good as MI Dead Reckoning Part One, which got 96/94 scores from Rotten Tomatoes.  But it was okay.
  • Tom Cruise is 63-years old.  Age is not a factor, but it seems more likely for Cruise to spin-off a new Ethan Hunt series.
  • Here is a list for his future:

Upcoming Tom Cruise Projects


Top Gun 3


Broadsword


The Gauntlet


Untitled Thriller


Edge Of Tomorrow 2


Deeper


Untitled SpaceX Thriller


Days Of Thunder 2


  • Perhaps, though, there will be a new cast for a future MI series, for there is nothing terminal about the subject matter.
I also this week completed Squid Game Season 3.
  • The third season in 6 episodes was somewhat tiresome.  Too much blood, too many deaths....what's the point?  
  • In addition, I couldn't remember relationships going back to the earlier series, which kind of makes you think about re-watching them.
  • As has been the case for most series, there is a degradation of Rotten Tomatoes scores:  Season 1 95/84, S2 83/63 and S3 78/51.
  • All in all, the twists and emotional points add up, and there is now the intriguing prospects of a continuation.
  • From the final scene, we see frontman In-ho peering into a Los Angeles alleyway at an American recruiter playing ddakji with a potential candidate for a future squid game.  This recruiter is Cate Blanchett, and there are rumors anyway of a series being developed by David Fincher.  There will be a continuation, but in the USA, for the Korean Squid Game is the most popular Netflix non-English series ever.

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