Hello, everyone! It’s One Of Us’ weekly article series, “The Weekly Wrap-Up.” Covering everything from film announcements to comic books, “The Weekly Wrap-Up” ensures that the biggest stories of the week are analyzed and discussed by our team of writers. This week we talk about the box office records that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been shattering, and the second trailer for Disney’s anthropomorphic animated feature, Zootopia.
Star Wars The Force Awakens Breaks… The Box Office, Pretty Much
Have you guys heard about this new Star Wars movie that came out last month? Yeah. Me neither.
But seriously, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last half of a month, you’re at least aware of the phenomenon that is the latest entry in the galactic franchise. As of this writing, Star Wars The Force Awakens has managed to gross over $740 million domestically, surpassing Titanic to become the #2 domestic release of all time and only $20 million behind Avatar‘s domestic record. Worldwide however, The Force Awakens is still sixth for all time, needing to pass not only Avatar and Titanic in the top spots, but also #3-5 Jurassic World, The Avengers and Furious 7, respectively. This isn’t even including the literal list of records the film has broken already, including the fastest film to gross $1 billion, the biggest opening weekend worldwide for an IMAX release and the biggest worldwide December opening weekend, amongst several others.
The long and short of all of this is: Star Wars made a mega ton of money. Not that surprising admittedly, but it confirms that the franchise was sorely missed and that the hype for further entries is real. I’m curious to see if next year’s Rogue One will top these records or even come close to them given its status as a spin off and without the characters like Rey or Finn. Of course, it’ll make money. You could slap the Star Wars title on the next Colin Firth period piece and it would make a hell of a lot of money. I’m just curious if every Star Wars movie Disney releases from now on ends up capturing that same zeitgeist of attention or if it has more to do with the decade long gap between films in the series. Then again, it’s nice to see a solid blockbuster with diverse leads and a welcome return to a long suffering franchise quickly make a case for finally putting something as overrated as Avatar off the top spot. In any case, it seems clear that everyone took Lucile Bluth’s advice:
Zootopia Trailer #2
Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush, Zootopia takes place in the modern mammal metropolis of the same name. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, Zootopia is a melting pot where animals from every environment live together; a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything. However, when rookie Officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), to solve the mystery. Zootopia also features the vocal talents of J.K. Simmons, John DiMaggio, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk, Idris Elba and Tommy Chong.
While Disney Animation’s track record as of late has been quite spectacular, releasing such films as The Princess and the Frog, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6, I haven’t been the biggest fan of the early trailers and marketing for Zootopia. Though I think the animation and character designs look amazing, the humor, particularly the teaser scenes featuring the sloths, felt extremely forced and overlong to me. Despite my initial misgivings, this second trailer has made me significantly more positive about the film. Not only do we get a better sense of who the character are, but we also learn that the film will be tackling race and gender issues, two topics Disney has been called to task on for decades.
Outside of the welcomed social commentary, I’m really starting to like the characters and how they’re all interacting with one another. Goodwin’s Judy Hopps in particular stands out to me. If the trailers are to be believed, her character’s optimistic attitude will play off well with Bateman’s sarcastic and dry-witted Nick Wilde.
Zootopia will be released in theatres March 4, 2016.
