10. Chinese Doctors ($197,143,218/£142,009,160)

Despite only seeing a major release in China, Australia, and New Zealand this tale of a group of doctors working together in Wuhan to combat Covid-19 has become an unlikely hit at the box office.

9. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It ($201,965,074/£145,472,413)

The latest instalment in the popular Conjuring franchise, based on the real-life trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, was the first main series entry not directed by James Wan. Instead, it was directed by The Curse of La Llorona’s Michael Chaves. And although not as highly regarded as the other main Conjuring movies it definitely encouraged horror fans to return to the cinema.

8. Cruella ($222,184,131/£160,035,897)

Released simultaneously on Disney+ and in theatres this origin story for everyone’s favourite dog skinning maniac managed to outperform Disney’s previous live-action reinterpretation of an animated classic, Mulan (2020). But it remains one of Disney’s lowest-performing live-action adaptations of an animated movie.

7. Free Guy ($242,943,984/£175,030,208)

Free Guy follows a videogame NPC (Non-Playable Character) called Guy as he slowly becomes self-aware and breaks out of his predetermined path. Currently, Free Guy is one of the highest-grossing original IPs of the year.

6. A Quiet Place Part II ($297,372,261/£214,243,332)

While not quite as successful as the original, A Quiet Place 2, which takes the Abbot’s into the wider world outside their home, still performed admirably after a long release delay. And is currently the year’s highest-grossing horror film.

5. Black Widow ($372,376,568/£268,328,969)

Marvel’s highest-grossing film this year follows Black Widow as she goes off-grid and confronts her dark past. But its release has been mired in controversy. The film’s star Scarlett Johansson announced she would be suing Disney (Marvel’s owners) over Black Widow’s simultaneous streaming release. This is because it allegedly breached Johansson’s contract, which said the film would be released theatrically with her salary being tied to its box office earnings.

4. Godzilla vs. Kong ($467,863,133/£337,135,156)

The fourth entry in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse managed a higher income than its prior entry, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. And it also marked the second time the classic movie monsters have fought. The first being in 1963’s King Kong Vs Godzilla.

3. Detective Chinatown 3 ($686,257,563/£494,506,906)

Chinese cinema continues its presence in the top 10 with the Detective Chinatown series’ highest-grossing entry so far. This time detectives Tang and Qin are involved in a battle with the strongest detectives across all of Asia to solve a case in Tokyo.

2. F9: The Fast Saga ($710,873,160/£512,244,536)

F9 follows Dom and his crew as they battle against a new threat. Dom’s estranged brother. F9 is the highest-grossing Hollywood movie so far this year and the highest-grossing Hollywood film since the Pandemic started.

1. Hi, Mom ($822,009,764/£592,327,906)

So far the highest-grossing movie of 2021 is not a huge blockbuster, instead, it’s a small movie about a young woman travelling through time, who befriends her own mother and tries to give her a better life. It’s exceptional taking also makes Hi, Mom the highest-grossing film ever made by a solo female director.

This concludes our look at the highest-grossing films at the 2021 box office so far. And while the receipts for the high scorers are not as high as those of 2019 they are still higher than those of 2020 and the films are an interesting mix. With 3 foreign language films (all produced in China), 3 films not based on pre-existing material, 2 horror films and only 3 Disney/Disney affiliated movies being included. It shows that cinemagoers are looking for different film experiences to sit alongside big blockbuster releases. Let’s hope for even more diversity when the year-end list comes.

Also Read: Did High-End TV Replace The Mid-Bidget Indie Film?

Your contribution to Big Picture Film Club will allow us to continue to produce content. No matter the amount your contributions are greatly appreciated.

The post Top 10 Highest Grossing Films At Cinemas Worldwide In 2021 (So Far) appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

When the discussion turned to the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, one by one, each of us disclosed the details of various things that had happened to us. There were stories of unwanted advances on work-nights-out, reassessments of consent in light of this new movement, and a lot of self-blaming regarding how things had all played out. While our experiences all differed, we all had one distinct thing in common: we had told no one. We had not sought out workplace protocols, or been to the police, or reported our experience in any other way that might have presented itself. Instead, we all decided that it was our personal burden to bear. 

Now, as those once disgraced stars return to work or get out of jail on a technicality, I have been wondering about that night. At the time, it seemed to illuminate all we had been discussing in the news; the power dynamics at play and the ideas of shame or guilt were so strong that none of us had reported it. And yet, now, around four years later, nothing has changed; those actions we spoke about that night remain just as horror stories told between friends. 

Thinking back to the night and the sense of promise in those early stages of the Me Too movement, I began to wonder about something. In the 1980s, the devil himself, Ronald Regan, introduced a new economic policy that came to be known as “trickledown economics”. It has since been widely discredited as a viable solution but, under his plan, the wealthiest received tax cuts on the incorrect assumption that those rich folks would then invest that money into jobs or society, and it would “trickle-down” to help the poor. In actuality (as most rational people might have guessed would happen) they did not spend it but rather hoarded it for themselves. This policy pushed as a way of helping more impoverished communities did not affect them in the proposed way. Instead, it meant that, with less money being paid in taxes by the wealthy elite, services and programmes that the poor in America relied on were cut or severely underfunded.

Essentially, this same idea can be applied to Hollywood—only without one specific Republican figurehead. Instead, mainstream feminists suggest that Hollywood is the perfect battlefield in the fight for equality, but fail to consider what that really means for the average person. 

There has long been an idea that narratives played out by celebrities, not unlike Greek Gods for ancient men, represent something about how we, the ordinary people, live our lives; that some lessons are to be learned, or that somehow it will shift the culture. When the news explains that celebrities are fighting for equal pay, speaking out against sexism, homophobia or transphobia, or commenting on experiences of sexual harassment, it feels as though the suggestion is that a trail is being blazed, that the fruit of celebrity labours will be borne for us all. And yet, increasingly, these actions seem further and further removed from the reality of most people. Recently, when Scarlett Johansson filed a shocking lawsuit against Disney, mainstream feminists online lorded the power move of a woman demanding what she’s worth. However, while the essence of the politics at the centre of that suit may be the same as that of other equal pay disputes, the practicalities are not; one millionaire suing a corporation does not a feminist movement make. In fact, those affected by the gender pay gap are not those in the corporate world or Hollywood, but they are primarily black and brown women who stand to earn, on average, around 40% less than their white male colleagues and approximately 20% less than their white female ones. These women will not see the rewards of Johansson’s feminist stance. 

In her book The Right to Sex, Amia Srinivasan writes on the nature of this problem; when intersectionality is merely performative or a buzzword to be thrown around to suggest “wokeness”, feminism fails. She writes: “To reduce intersectionality to a mere attention to difference is to forgo its power as a theoretical and practical orientation.” Meaning that feminism which focuses only on the commonality between oppressed groups—instead of explicitly considering the experiences of queer, disabled, and black and brown folks, as well anyone who sits at an intersection between those things— only allows the least oppressed to benefit; typically rich, white, cisgender women. 

To consider this in relation to the #MeToo movement is to think about the benefits of such a movement and who was rewarded from it. For example, many mainstream feminists found retribution in men being outed as predators and celebrated if any charges were brought against them. I can understand this impulse; I even felt it myself occasionally as someone who has experienced assault. Yet to cheer for carceral punishment as a kind of win when those structures—the law, the courts, prisons, the police—are institutions riddled with sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism feels like murky water to wade in. #MeToo may have encouraged many people to speak up as a social movement, but only those with the privilege to enter into systems without the fear of prejudice will have seen results. If you have spent the past few years watching people who look like you be murdered by police, are you going to go to them to report a rape? If you have seen a legal system wrap itself in knots about whether your gender identity or sexuality is valid, do you think you’ll feel that that same legal system—made for and by cisgender men—will come down on your side? If you have felt unsupported by a system that sees your disabled body as a burden, would you feel safe reporting the violation of that body? 

It all interestingly ties together with a sense of the political upheaval of 2020; what is the role of carceral punishment when, for so many, those systems oppress more than they liberate? What use is police reform when forces refuse to accept the racism within their ranks is systematic? What use is reform when “1500 accusations of sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, exploitation of crime victims and child abuse, have been made against police officers in England and Wales” between 2012 and 2018? 

This is all the stark reality for most people who do not exist within those certain privileged classes, or Hollywood, but the jeering and excitement at men being brought to task by those same institutions that abuse so many women and trans folk feels like an odd feminist stance—celebrating the hand of state power being wielded against someone you dislike is often recourse that leads to that same hand being wielded against your own. 

This criticism is not a new one. In the early days of the movement, prominent black feminists like Roxane Gay and Ava DuVernay pointed out the racism at work already in the selective outrage and the tunnel-vision regarding the end goal. The idea that Me Too was to focus explicitly on sexual harassment and how to, legally, seek justice was to remove all sense of intersectionality and act as though everyone was on the same playing field and had the same protections. Srinivasan again: “he problem with Me Too as a mass women’s movement isn’t just a lack of ‘consistent’ application of concern and outrage across racial lines.’ Instead, the “fundamental problem is the presupposition that any such movement should be grounded in what women have universally in common.” Where Hollywood feminism falls short is in its refusal to see lines of race, class, sexuality, and disability. 

In that pub in 2017, my friends and I hadn’t felt we could seek help. For some of my friends, it was for fear of losing their job and having nothing to fall back on; for others, it was a sense of societal shame that wasn’t erased from their families or friends in the way people in the movement were suggesting it could be. As for myself, I was among the 85% of gay or bi men (at the time of my assault, I identified as male) who had not reported to a police force that has a long history of homophobia and violence against queer people; not to mention a stunning lack of awareness when it comes to sexual assault between men—something Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You highlighted so excellently last year. 

It cannot be denied that the Me Too movement has had its benefits in terms of discussion and consciousness-raising as well bringing to light just how prevalent these types of actions are; but enough time has passed now that we can see the holes—the very ones Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, and Louis C.K. are slipping through. Given that the focus was on legal justice, what do we do now that it hasn’t been served? 

Also Read: The Journey of Black Widow

Your contribution to Big Picture Film Club will allow us to continue to produce content. No matter the amount your contributions are greatly appreciated.

The post How Film Changed Me: On The Hollywood Trickle-Down appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

“There was an idea…”

It’s important to remember that Marvel Studios was not always the huge player it is today. Back in 2010, when Romanoff was introduced in Iron Man 2, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would ever get to the first Avengers film, let alone Avengers: Endgame. Back when Marvel was selling the rights to their characters, Lionsgate developed a film with David Hayter set to direct, but after the poor reception to films like Æon Flux it was cancelled, and the rights reverted back to Marvel.

In 2010, Scarlett Johansson was cast as Black Widow (after Emily Blunt had schedule conflicts) and appeared in Iron Man 2, as an ally and intermediary between Stark and Nick Fury. Johansson had some impressive acting credits, including Ghost World and Lost in Translation, but was not the household name she is now. She appeared in the team-up The Avengers where she was the standout to many, which furthered talks of a solo film. Johansson’s deal was for multiple films, which included her following appearances in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Around 2015 she noted that her original contract had been extended due to the character’s unexpected popularity, and Kevin Feige repeatedly saying a solo film was in development.

“Whatever it Takes”

In 2015, Marvel Studios underwent some restructuring. Instead of Kevin Feige reporting to Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, he now reports directly to Disney. Rumours have often said that Feige and Perlmutter clashed frequently. One of the notable decisions Perlmutter was against was the deal with Sony, meaning Spider-Man was almost not a part of Captain America: Civil War, which would have knock-on effects for the series. While Feige was pushing for films like Captain Marvel and Black Panther, Perlmutter was of the belief that these films would not do well (he was very wrong, as both grossed over $1 billion). With Perlmutter no longer having a say in the movies (but still being involved in TV), Fiege has more freedom and creative control with regards to what films are made and which characters appear

Unfortunately, Marvel Studios can be like a runaway train at times, once it starts it’s hard to stop. When Marvel initially announced Phase Three in 2014, the plans detailed films up until what was eventually revealed as Avengers: Endgame. Although the plan did change slightly, as Spider-Man: Homecoming was added due to the Sony deal, as well as Inhumans becoming a (poorly received) TV series and replaced with Ant-Man and the Wasp (another effect of the corporate shakeup). The presence of Captain Marvel in this original announcement signalled the first MCU film to star a solo female superhero. In theory, this slot could have been filled by Black Widow, but with Captain Marvel having a role Endgame and likely being already developed, it was chosen instead. As the two Avengers films were shot back to back, Johansson was likely not available to shoot a solo film during this time.

Of course, even when the film finally was about to be released, it was delayed by the pandemic, like many other big films, by over a year.

While it’s hard to argue that Black Widow shouldn’t have been released sooner, it’s good that it finally has arrived. As one of the original Avengers it was odd she hadn’t been given a solo outing (Hawkeye is receiving a series), it’s likely the last time Johansson will play the character and goes some way to adding context to her controversial fate in Endgame. The film implies that her legacy will continue, and it seems lessons have been learnt. It’s a shame but sometimes it really is better late than never.

Also Read: MCU Storylines That Are Still Unresolved

Your contribution to Big Picture Film Club will allow us to continue to produce content. No matter the amount your contributions are greatly appreciated.

The post The Journey of Black Widow appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.