Matthew Monagle

As we head deeper into September, two things have become pretty clear about 2017 box office numbers: one, Hollywood desperately needs to bounce back a little bit from the doldrums of August, and two, whoever decided to hedge their studio’s bets with a September release date for a movie about a killer clown is looking like a [profanity] genius right about now. We’ll get to all of that in a moment, but first, here are the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:

It isn’t very often that a documentary becomes a hit with mainstream audiences, but that’s exactly what happened with Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me back in 2004. The documentary followed Spurlock on a month-long experiment in unhealthy diets, with the filmmaker eating exclusively at McDonald’s for weeks on end. The result was a smash hit: Super-Size Me grossed $11.9 million dollars  —  good for 25th all-time among documentaries  —  and even garnered an Academy Award nomination. More than that, though, is the effect the film had on the fast food industry, with publications like Refinery29 saying years later that Spurlock’s film likely helped companies “increase consumer awareness of size, as well as ingredients and nutrition.”

Today the world of comedy lost one of its brightest stars. Jerry Lewis was no stranger to controversy during his decades-long career, but his impact on both Hollywood and comedy in general cannot be denied. From his early days as Dean Martin’s partner-in-crime to his career-capping turn in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy  —  and countless box office success in the interim  —  Lewis’s impact on Hollywood will be a source of much discussion for years to come.

Given that David F. Sandberg launched his career on the basis of a viral YouTube short film, it only makes sense that Warner Bros. would look to leverage that narrative for the release of Annabelle: Creation, the fourth film in The Conjuring cinematic universe. Back in July, Warner Bros. announced the contest on its site, encouraging fans to create their own new additions to The Conjuring universe. The contest would feature winners in multiple countries, meaning multiple chances to win.

As long as there have been horror movies, there have been attempts to mix together horror movie characters in crossover films. Who can forget Freddy vs. Jason, the critically reviled  —  but financially successful  —  2003 film that pitted the stars of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises against each other? Not to mention those years where it was rumored that Evil Dead’s Ash might get thrown into the mix for a sequel; no matter how many middling reboots these franchises go through, there will always be someone who pitches a project where Hollywood just slams ’em all up together.

As someone in his early 30s, I feel like everything I do comes with the risk of hurting myself. I go for a run without stretching every single muscle? Hurt myself. I reach down to pick something up? Hurt myself. I sit in one position for an extended period of time without straightening out my back? Hurt myself. That’s just one of a dozen reasons why I find Tom Cruise so impressive: at 55-years-old, it’s not like Cruise is going to hurt any less after his physical activities, he just finds ways to pick himself back up after something goes wrong.

Leonardo DiCaprio has made a career out of playing historical individuals who were too smart for their own good. From Catch Me If You Can to The Aviator to J. Edgar to The Wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio’s niche is to play fiercely intelligent men whose vision often exceeded their grasp. So who better to play someone as notoriously ahead of his time  —  and just as notoriously impatient when it came to finishing projects  —  as Leonardo da Vinci? The world-renowned painter, architect, and inventor will apparently be the subject of an upcoming biography, one that DiCaprio’s production company quickly snapped up before it even hit bookshelves.

While Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been dominating the conversation, Rian Johnson’s film wasn’t the only movie featured in next week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. Their annual Fall Movie Preview includes updates and photos from a handful of upcoming releases, including Stephen King’s It, arguably the most highly anticipated movie of the fall. We’ve already seen Mark Hamill fight people with a lightsaber, but a bunch of kids running around the Northeast in the 1980s fighting a supernatural monster? Why, we haven’t seen that since Stranger Things came out! And that was a whole year ago!

They say the flame that burns brightest also burns quickest, which might explain America’s short-lived fascination with Anthony Scaramucci. Scaramucci was a singular political figure: from his methodical recreation of Donald Trump hand gestures to his, ah, poorly conceived late night phone calls, Scaramucci was immediately the most colorful character in an administration that already featured a surplus of memorable individuals. So when Scaramucci was fired from his official position as White House spokesperson, there was a half-ironic sense of loss, a feeling that we’d only begun to scratch the surface of Mooch madness.

For many people who grew up in the 1990s, Home Alone is a film that ages alongside them. When you’re a child, you feel an immediate kinship with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin, sharing in his delight at being able to run around the house entirely rule-free. The older you get, though, the more you find yourself goggling at the actions of John Heard and Catherine O’Hara‘s parents. How on earth could they manage to leave their youngest child behind? Was it really that easy to breeze through airport security in the ‘90s? Why do I still feel so sympathetic towards them even after all that?

Pop quiz, hotshot: what does an actor do after he retires from one of the most iconic superhero roles of all time? Answer: anything he wants! Nobody would fault Hugh Jackman for spending the next several years drinking mojitos on the beach and packing on some of the pounds he was contractually obligated to keep off for the X-Men franchise, but it sounds like Jackman isn’t about to rest on his laurels anytime soon. The actor has been hinting at an upcoming Disney collaboration over the last day, sharing suggestive photos of himself at Disney parks, and now a hot new rumor seems to explain why.

In a summer where most raunchy comedies seem to be flopping at the box office  —  Rough Night and Baywatch have certainly disappointed with their reviews and box office ratings — it looks like it might all come down to The House. The Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler comedy certainly has what it takes to win over fans; Ferrell and Poehler are both comedy stars in their own right, and the supporting cast features a mix of comedy veterans and rising stars who can and should sell every joke in the film.

Look, I’m no stranger to college acapella groups. When I was an undergraduate, a ragtag group of choir kids — myself most definitely included  —  organized the first men’s acapella group in the modern history of the university, and a quick Google search shows that the group is still alive and well to this day (no, I won’t tell you the name of the university or the name of the ensemble, so don’t bother asking). So am I pretty much as cool and influential as the Bellas in the Pitch Perfect movie series? Why, yes. I’d like to think so, yes.

For years now, America has been struggling with the allegations that Bill Cosby  —  once a beloved television father and comedian  —  may have used his position in Hollywood to commit a series of violent sexual assaults. For those unfamiliar with the timeline involved in the Cosby case, I would encourage you to check out ABC’s detailed recap of everything that led up to this past month’s trial, including the civil cases brought against the actor-comedian and the Hannibal Burgess joke that is widely regarded as the instigating event in bringing these accusations to the public. And today, as noted by Deadline, a Norristown, PA jury has forced the judge to declare a mistrial in Andrea Costand’s case against Cosby.

While most fans walked away from Universal’s Fate of the Furious impressed by the movie’s use of New York City, it was the film’s use of Cuba that really opened the eyes of American audiences. Back in April, Variety sat down with Fate of the Furious director F. Gary Gray and discussed what it was like to be one of the first major studio films to be shot on location in Cuba. Gray recalled several logistical challenges  —  hotel rooms, location shoots, and the like  —  while also complimenting the people they had met on their trip. By all accounts, Fate of the Furious was to be the film that opened up the Cuban film market to the broader Hollywood community.

Is Tom Hardy doing OK? I mean, financially? After years of alternating between prestige films (The Revenant, Dunkirk) and more idiosyncratic projects (Legend, The Drop), Hardy seems to have accepted a streak of surprisingly mainstream blockbuster roles. After being attached to Ubisoft’s video game adaptation Splinter Cell for several years, Hardy recently shocked fans by accepting the title role in Sony’s Venom spinoff. And now, perhaps most surprising of all, is the rumor that Hardy is very close to signing on for the role of Jafar in Disney’s live-action Aladdin remake. At this point, maybe we should create a GoFundMe for whatever gambling debt Hardy seems to have racked up.

Throughout the years, the one constant in the Terminator franchise has been Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even after director James Cameron quit the franchise, Schwarzenegger kept on chugging along, appearing in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine, Terminator Genisys, and even having his likeness pop up in Terminator Salvation while he was still the governor of California. So with the news that James Cameron would be taking the helm of the franchise again after Genisys flopped, fans have been wondering if the actor had one last showing in him as everyone’s favorite compassionate death machine.

It would seem that there are two stages every iconic musician must got through in the twilight of their career: induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a guest spot in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Such was the case with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who  —  in a nod to Johnny Depp’s appropriation of elements of his persona  — appeared in two films as the father of Jack Sparrow. And now the franchise has pulled in another iconic musician, with Beatles legend Paul McCartney sharing his slightly foppish character.

We’ve reached one of my favorite times of the year: the annual announcement by the Social Security Administration of the most popular baby names from the previous year. Why is that such a big deal, you might ask? Because each year we get to shake our heads at the number of parents who jump on the pop culture hype train and name their children after movie and television characters. While this year’s list showed that old-fashioned names such as Liam, Mason, and Olivia are back in style, it also featured a predictable handful of names from popular 2015 franchises. Sorry, kids.

I’m endlessly fascinated by the career of Daniel Radcliffe. Many actors coming off a childhood franchise as ubiquitous as the Harry Potter films would take a few years to reframe themselves as a dramatic actor or, at least, a major Hollywood sex symbol. Not so with Radcliffe. Radcliffe has chosen to fire off a rapid succession of utterly unique choices, from his demonic leading role in Horns to his supporting turns in Victor Frankenstein and Swiss Army Man (aka the farting corpse movie). I guess this is what Harry Potter money looks like; Radcliffe can spend the rest of his career making whatever bizarre choices he wants without anyone ever telling him no.