Disney and Pixar’s environmental journey “Hoppers” topped the North American field workplace this weekend with $46 million in home ticket gross sales in its opening weekend, in accordance with studio estimates Sunday.

After including one other $42 million from worldwide showings, the movie celebrated an $88 million international launch in whole, the largest for an unique animated movie since “Coco” got here out in 2017.

But it wasn’t all good news for giant studio fare on the multiplex: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s R-rated reimagining of the Bride of Frankenstein story is flailing. A Warner Bros. launch, “The Bride!” starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, debuted to an estimated $7.3 million from 3,304 home places. It price round $80 million to provide, not together with advertising and marketing and promotion bills.

The two films had been hardly competing with each other for viewers — one being a PG-rated household pic, the opposite an audacious, R-rated, genre-blending experience. “Hoppers” arrived to a slew of fine opinions, whereas essential responses to “The Bride!” had been blended to detrimental and its viewers scores weren’t significantly better.

“Hoppers” win was a lot wanted for Disney and Pixar following final 12 months’s “Elio,” which was Pixar’s worst opening ever. The studio’s solely main successes currently have been sequels and franchises, whereas “Hoppers” is a win for unique fare. It additionally opened larger than 2023’s “Elemental,” which finally went on to grow to be a sleeper hit (“Elio” didn’t).

“Hoppers” had a reported $150 million manufacturing finances and opened in 4,000 places. Directed by Daniel Chong, the film is a few 19-year-old environmentalist who infiltrates the animal world within the physique of a beaver. It options the voices of Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm and Kathy Najimy.

“Hoppers” acquired a 94% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes, 75% “definitely recommend” from PostTrak polling and an A CinemaScore, suggesting it ought to have a protracted and worthwhile run in theaters.

“This is a fantastic original film from the incredible team at Pixar, and it’s wonderful to see audiences coming out with their friends and families to enjoy it together,” stated Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, in a press release. He additionally congratulated the filmmaking group on “a tremendous launch.”

“The Bride!” had a little bit of a bumpy path to theaters, with edits being made after reportedly poor take a look at screenings. Its launch date was pushed again from September, probably to present it some house versus Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which performed in theaters final fall earlier than hitting Netflix.

Men made up a slight majority of the viewers for “The Bride!” at 53%. The film at present carries a “rotten” 59% on Rotten Tomatoes and a lackluster C+ CinemaScore. Only 43% of that viewers stated they might “definitely recommend.”

And it doesn’t look like worldwide audiences shall be a lot assist: It made solely $6.3 million exterior of the U.S. and Canada, bringing its international debut to $13.6 million.

“Unfortunately, we came in light,” stated Jeffrey Goldstein, who oversees home distribution for Warner Bros., in a textual content message. “We have a tailored approach to our slate, investing strategically in talent, IP and original storytelling. It spans genres and budget levels and allows us to back bold, distinctive filmmakers … and sometimes things just don’t work out.”

Warner Bros.’ different latest launch, “Wuthering Heights,” in the meantime, has surpassed $213 million globally. And subsequent week, the studio, which is staring down new possession below Paramount, is predicted to comb the Oscars between “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners.”

“We’re coming off an incredible run of nine No. 1 openings in a row, and in an increasingly ‘risk-averse’ business like ours, we believe the business is better served with studios taking bold swings on originals like this one,” Goldstein stated. “Even the 1927 Yankees had 44 losses that season.”

Paramount’s “Scream 7” landed in second place in its second weekend with $17.3 million, down a whopping 73% and bringing its home whole to $93.4 million and its international whole to $149.5 million. Sony’s “GOAT” got here in fourth place with $6.6 million whereas “Wuthering Heights” rounded out the highest 5 with $3.8 million.

“When there’s this many holdovers in the top 10, it says we haven’t had enough horsepower in the newcomers to really get things moving,” stated Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s head of market developments.

But he anticipates that may change when the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi journey “Project Hail Mary” hits theaters on March 20.

With last home figures being launched Monday, this listing elements within the estimated ticket gross sales for Friday by Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, in accordance with Comscore:

1. “Hoppers,” $46 million.

2. “Scream 7,” $17.3 million.

3. “The Bride!” $7.3 million.

4. “GOAT,” $6.6 million.

5. “Wuthering Heights,” $3.8 million.

6. “Crime 101,” $2.1 million.

7. “Send Help,” $1.6 million.

8. “I Can Only Imagine 2,” $1.5 million.

9. “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” $1.5 million.

10. “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castlee,” $1.3 million.

© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.

Most film automotive chases contain screeching round metropolis corners, weaving out and in of visitors and nearly all the time smashing into a couple of police automobiles.

But for the dramatic pursuit that brings the Oscar-nominated “One Battle After Another” to its conclusion, director Paul Thomas Anderson wished one thing just a little bit completely different, his location supervisor Michael Glaser advised AFP.

What the pair discovered was a desert freeway that rolls up and down, like an asphalt serpent, with lethal blind peaks and treacherous hidden troughs.

The result’s a high-octane cat and mouse hunt like no different in trendy film historical past.

“Things appear and then disappear and then appear again,” Glaser stated. “It’s the ebbs and flows of the road. You can’t really see what’s on the other side.”

The so-called “River of Hills,” in southern California captivated Anderson, whose low-to-the-ground digital camera angles give the viewers the sweaty-palm really feel of truly being aboard the roaring Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger, or modified purple Nissan Sentra within the scene.

“One Battle After Another,” which has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards, follows washed-up leftist revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he’s compelled again into the sport when his daughter (Chase Infiniti) goes lacking.

Ferguson should battle by the psychological fog of many years of pot-smoking to attempt to keep in mind passwords and secure homes in his bid to greatest the deranged Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who has been employed by rich right-wing racists to hunt him down.

The movie’s closing sequence sees Bob desperately looking for his daughter as she tries to outrun Lockjaw within the desert.

Glaser, who took AFP to the stretch of Highway 78 in Imperial County the place a part of the chase was filmed, stated the street stands as a metaphor.

“It’s the characters pulling and pushing each other through something,” he stated.

The crew additionally filmed on one other stretch of street in Borrego Springs known as “The Texas Dip,” one of many round 200 areas Glaser provided for the film.

“It was the kind of thing where we shot over multiple days,” Andy Jurgensen, the Oscar-nominated editor of “One Battle After Another,” advised AFP.

“You just start shooting and just make sure you get all the shots from in front and behind of all the cars, and make sure that the distance kind of makes sense. And then it was just like: ‘Okay, let’s put it together’.”

Location managers are among the many first to hitch a venture and among the many final to go away, says Glaser.

The locations they discover are essential to the feel and appear of a film.

In some instances, they tackle a lifetime of their very own off-screen, just like the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from “Rocky,” which have turn out to be a spot of pilgrimage for generations of followers.

“I often think of locations as a subconscious character in the movie,” stated the 44-year-old Glaser.

They “create a mood, create a palette, create a feeling for characters, the places they inhabit.”

“One Battle After Another” ran the gamut of California areas, from north to south.

“Starting in Eureka, where everything’s green and lush, we step down to central California, where it’s a little bit more like wineries, oak trees, not quite as green, not quite as lush. And then you’re in the bleak starkness of desert as the characters wrap up their story.”

Before he obtained the script, Glaser had already begun his search, primarily based simply on the bullet level notes that the film’s manufacturing designer gave him.

He describes the method of scouting for this film as just like the best way a tree grows.

“Some branches would die off, and others would sprout up,” he stated.

This was significantly the case with the desert, whose desolation and desperation gave form to the movie’s third act and the journey its characters had been on.

“There’s nobody out here to watch over you or help you or confine you. You’re kind of on your own,” Glaser stated.

“One Battle After Another” arrives on the Academy Awards on March 15 as the favourite to win greatest image, providing Anderson his greatest probability at Oscars glory for the primary time in a profession that has seen him garner 14 nominations spanning writing, directing and producing.

For Glaser, whose work would not match neatly into any of the classes at Hollywood’s largest night time, any recognition the movie receives is shared.

“Everyone’s DNA is in the film,” he stated. “We’re not directing it. We’re not in front of the camera. But, you know, there’s a little piece of us.”

© 2026 AFP

There is one expertise Harry Styles won’t ever get to have, although he is been requested about it advert infinitum: Communing within the crowd at a Harry Styles live performance.

On “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” the celebrity’s fourth solo album and first full-length mission in 4 years, Styles goals to soundtrack the nameless exhilaration of being within the viewers. It’s a daring selection, following 2022’s synth-pop “Harry’s House,” which earned him album of the 12 months on the 2023 Grammy Awards, with bolder reference factors.

Styles began engaged on the 12-track album in early 2025 in Berlin, along with his longtime producer Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. The location proved to be a supply of inspiration for him: Styles’ listening habits grew to become extra digital, in keeping with the German capital’s repute. His working playlists featured acts like Four Tet, Floating Points and Jamie xx in addition to techno DJs Ben Klock and Fadi Mohem. Repetitive, bodily productions — synths that rumble with arpeggios and bass kicks — get very near meditation. That’s clear on “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” a remarkably constant album dead-set on evoking temper with out sacrificing music.

The first style arrived within the type of “Aperture,” a Styles’ opening observe if there ever was one, a five-minute slow-burn constructed of accelerating synths. He mentioned the track was no less than partially impressed by seeing LCD Soundsystem dwell and listening to ’80s English post-punks The Durutti Column. Freedom, he appeared to be teasing, comes from anonymity, a dance ground, and braking as music speeds.

And it does, with some restraint. Spirited experimentation carries all through the album, particularly, its stellar again half. The gamble pays off on the funky “Dance No More,” a unfastened rush of dopamine. (It takes a robust get together to press play and never come off wanting to affix within the chant, “Gotta get your feet wet / Respect / Respect your mother!,” recalling each Rick James’ “Super Freak” and drag tradition multi function.) Or the maximalist manufacturing and Spanish guitars of “Ready, Steady, Go!,” or the suggestive “Pop,” a lustful, electrical good time. The 2010s dance-punk band Hot Chip appears like a direct supply of inspiration.

Elsewhere, Styles’ voice is sacrificed, buried beneath his bold manufacturing, like on “Season 2 Weight Loss.” In others, he’s entrance and heart, as on “Coming Up Roses,” written by Styles alone and that includes a 39-piece orchestra organized by conductor Jules Buckley.

A well-known Styles, too, emerges in spurts, like in that track’s romance, or the album’s two lyrical references to Simon & Garfunkel on the nearer “Carla’s Song” and “Dance No More.” There’s additionally the late-’60s, early-’70s channeling “Paint By Numbers,” his acoustic guitar, singer-songwriter, “Matilda” second.

“Oh, what a gift it is to be noticed,” he sings. The easy assertion turns into an existential revelation, Styles’ realizing his fame is a conduit for group, not its supply: “But it’s nothing to do with me.”

“Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” takes large swings, however Styles’ method is commonly understated — like on “Are You Listening Yet?,” which by no means actually resolves however satiates, or the midtempo “American Girls.”

The freedom Styles seems to have been chasing has constructed a subversive album, one that does not play into any modern pop star rule ebook. It’ll show to be divisive for his loyal listeners, or on the very least, surprising. Still, threat doesn’t suggest “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” is wholly unrestrained, which can be its central hope. Because on the finish of the day, even within the early morning haze of a sweaty nightclub, strangers’ our bodies holding strangers’ our bodies, he’s nonetheless Harry Styles.

But the hassle to unshackle himself from expectation? That appears like elation.

© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.