Your weekend time is valuable and at the end of a long week, the discretionary time must be spent to its maximum value. To help narrow down your choices on the film, television, and gaming fronts, every Friday, the Weekend Preview gives you the rundown of your options and an educated guess as to which ones make the most sense.
Drew and Nick predicted the box office returns for these films last Sunday. Check it out!
At the Movies
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Director: David Yates
Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell
Current RT Meter: 77%
Drew’s box office prediction: $78,000,000
Nicks box office prediction: $105,000,000
Hey, gang! I’m Brandon and I’ll be taking the reigns for my buddy Drew. Big shoes to fill so bear with me! I’ve picked one heck of a week to get started because this weekend brings lots of entertainment. We are all getting our money’s worth. The biggest splash in the cinematic pool will easily be Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Harry Potter spin-off that will bring in big, big bucks and create a new franchise for Warner Bros. David Yates is back to direct, J.K. Rowling wrote the script and Nick says things really come together nicely. Fans will likely take Nick’s advice and come out in droves. This movie’s box office haul will be – you guessed it – magical.
The Verdict: This thing is going to clean up. I hope you have your ticket purchased already.
Bleed for This
Director: Ben Younger
Stars: Miles Teller, Ciarán Hinds, Aaron Eckhart
Current RT Meter: 62%
Drew’s box office prediction: $8,000,000
Nick’s box office prediction: $10,000,000
Boxing movies never really go out of style, huh? Some are huge smashes (Creed) and some are…not (Southpaw) but most find audiences. How will Bleed for This do? It’s hard to tell. For awhile this seemed like an Oscar hopeful but the buzz has mellowed a quite bit in the last few months. Will Miles Teller’s intensity and charm connect with moviegoers? There will be plenty of people in theaters this weekend gobbling up Fantastic Beasts, maybe a few will branch off into Bleed for This too and punch up its box office.
The Verdict: It likely won’t be a boxing classic but could be the feel good movie America needs right now. Everyone loves an underdog story.
The Edge of Seventeen
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Stars: Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick
Current RT Meter: 95%
Drew’s box office prediction: $6,000,000
Nick’s box office prediction: $14,000,000
Let’s be honest: The Edge of Seventeen probably won’t set the box office on fire. That’s okay, a movie like this survives on word-of-mouth and it looks like Kelly Fremon Craig’s film will do wonderfully in that regard. The reviews on this film are spectacular with many comparing it to other high school coming-of-age classics like Mean Girls, Pretty in Pink and Juno. It feels and looks real and every teen comedy can use more authenticity and relatable characters. Audiences – especially young female audiences – deserve comedies that speak to them. Let’s hope The Edge of Seventeen finds its crowd.
The Verdict: It won’t bring in lots of money (it was never going to) but this is one to look out for.
On the Tube
The Grand Tour
After being canned from Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson (and co-stars Richard Hammond and James May) are back with The Grand Tour, a new Amazon series that will look and feel a lot like Gear. That’s what fans want, a return to high-octane normalcy. It’s been a long time since these three were together talking cars so you can bet Amazon will have a hit with this one. Buckle up.
The Verdict: Top Gear fans will be racing (get it?) to watch this ASAP.
The Affair
I’ve never seen The Affair but people rave about the Showtime drama. It’s full of secrecy, drama, sex and good-looking people doing very, very bad things. The show comes back for its third season on Sunday. While it might not be as fun as, well, anything else on TV, it’ll definitely be full of powerful acting, wonderful direction and more twists and turns than a roller coaster.
The Verdict: Feel good? Nope! Intriguing? Engrossing? Deftly made? Yes, yes and yes.
For the Gamers
Pokémon Sun/Moon
Pokémon Sun and Moon are finally here! Can you tell that people are excited? After months of Pokémon GO taking up people’s time, we have an official brand new game to obsess over. Which one are you buying, Moon or Sun? And how much time will you waste this weekend chasing new legendaries and iconic Pokémon? What about all the new Pokémon? How do the different versions play? Don’t be surprised if you see many, many people wandering around with their faces in a 3DS this weekend. As many of us now know, catching Pokémon can be pretty darn addictive.
The Verdict: You can once again catch Pokemon without getting off your couch! Consider me sold. This will easily be one of the biggest games of the year.
Watch Dogs 2
The first Watch Dogs was met with mixed reviews. There was a lot of potential in the Ubisoft open-world techno action game but it didn’t deliver. People seem much more intrigued with Watch Dogs 2, which promises to expand the scope and just about everything else too. Fandom’s Henry Gilbert reviewed Watch Dogs 2, praising the fun world and characters, even if the missions were predictable. It might not be perfect but it’ll allow you to hack into cars and security cameras and take over San Francisco. Sounds like a good time to spend your weekend to me.
The Verdict: While still not flawless, Watch Dogs 2 will give players plenty of destructive and mischievous things to do.