Team News

The new Super Mario Bros. movie has broken box office records, marking the most successful global opening of all time for an animated film.

The family film – the second Hollywood version of the hit Nintendo game – took in $377 million worldwide in its first five days of release.

This surpassed the previous record of $358 million held by Frozen 2.

“The numbers are sensational,” noted analyst David A Gross, who said it “would easily be the No. 1 movie of 2023.”

In the movie “Super Mario Bros”, the Italian plumber with a mustache is the voice of Chris Pratt, while Jack Black plays the role of Bowser.

Although there was a lot of criticism from experts and “The Guardian”, which it described as boring, many fans seem to disagree, with the 56% score of critics on Rotten Tomatoes eclipsed by the 96% score of the audience. Even Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that “critics are so disconnected from reality!”

“The crowds didn’t seem to care about so many comments,” wrote Pamela McClintock of the Hollywood Reporter.

The film broke other records, including the best opening ever for a movie based on a video game and the best opening of 2023 so far, she said.

Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian told the paper: “This is one of the biggest box office performances in recent memory and is absolutely shattering all pre-release predictions.”

“Shrek” recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, with the franchise comprising multiple canonical movies, a couple of big-screen spinoffs, and multiple TV specials and streaming series since 2001.

The journey isn’t “ogre” yet. Fans might have more fairytale adventures to look forward to featuring the titular green monster, his waffles-loving best friend Donkey, and their fairy tale friends. In fact, the wait for another “Shrek” movie has been so long that “Shrek 5” will undoubtedly be met with some excitement across the board. It’s been over 10 years since the last sequel, “Shrek Forever After,” made us think that DreamWorks’ hit franchise had completed its run, but the appetite to make more “Shrek” movies never went away. A fifth installment was announced in 2016, though it hasn’t enjoyed the smoothest and swiftest journey to the screen thus far.

Filmmakers appear to still be amidst the very early stages of production, so that film will be coming along… eventually. Here’s all the news and developments for the still untitled fifth “Shrek” movie.

Given that it’s been 13 years since “Shrek Ever After,” the trajectory of “Shrek” releases has been disrupted. At the height of the franchise’s popularity, new “Shrek” movies came along every three years, having been released in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010, respectively. 

Originally slated for a 2019 release, it’s been all quiet on the Shrek front for a few years. According to Cinema Blend, Eddie Murphy (the voice of Donkey) previously publicly stated that “Shrek 5” could hit theaters in 2020, but that was more of an estimation than a concrete confirmation. According to Fandom, “Shrek 5” was reportedly and tentatively schedule for a September 30, 2022 release, indicated by a home media debut planned for the holiday 2022 season. The coronavirus pandemic undoubtedly stalled the film’s progress, so it’s currently unknown to the public just how far into production “Shrek 5” actually is. The positive news is that the project hasn’t been cancelled and remains a work in progress. 

Despite the title proposing that the next movie will be a continuation of what came before, “Shrek 5” is a reboot that promises to reinvent the wheel. The filmmakers aren’t interested in exploring familiar ground. But how they’ll go about revamping things remains to be seen. 

“The challenge for us has been to find something that really does feel like it’s not simply yet another film in a series of sequels,” Chris Meledandri said in an interview with Variety. At the same time, the super producer isn’t looking to forgot about what came before either, noting how he’s still “nostalgic” for the old characterizations and the vocal performers who brought them to life. Similar comments were echoed by Mike McCullers, who described the reinvention as “pretty big.” The screenwriter also revealed that the story is very “personal” to him, though he didn’t spill the beans on what to expect from it.

It seems that the creators are keeping the details of the story close to the vest for now. The vague summary indicates that viewers can expect something completely different, but with the spirit of “Shrek” remaining intact to some degree. The Variety report also highlights plans for the long-awaited “Puss In Boots” sequel, suggesting that NBCUniversal sees a big future for this particular fairy tale universe on the screen.

Eddie Murphy’s comments about the upcoming (but however indefinitely delayed) fifth “Shrek” essentially confirm that he’ll reprise the role of Donkey in “Shrek 5.” According to Radio Times, Mike Myers and Murphy are game to return to the franchise when and if they’re asked. “If I had to do ‘Shrek’ a year, I’d be thrilled,” Myers told GQ, while Murphy told Etalk (via EW) that he’d sign up for another installment “in two seconds.” DreamWorks animation consultant Chris Meledandri told Variety in April 2023 that the company was in the midst of working out deals with core cast members. “Talks are starting now, and every indication that we’ve gotten is there’s tremendous enthusiasm on behalf of the actors to return,” Meledandri revealed.

The “Shrek” movies are a rogues gallery of characters from the world of fairytales, so it’s highly probable that some fresh mythical beings will join the established players in “Shrek 5.” Viewers can also bet money on Dragon making an appearance due to her relationship with Donkey, and it wouldn’t be a “Shrek” movie without the Gingerbread Man stealing a scene or two. 

Humour makes a welcome return to the fantasy genre in the new Dungeons & Dragons film, which stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Regé-Jean Page. It’s sure to be a hit, writes Nicholas Barber.

Role-playing gamers have been addicted to Dungeons & Dragons for almost 50 years, but, up until now, it has only been made into one proper film, a turkey from 2000 that most people have sensibly forgotten. There are probably lots of complicated legal reasons why it’s taken 23 years for another Dungeons & Dungeons film to come along, but one issue could be that the game borrows a huge amount from JRR Tolkien’s novels, ie, it usually involves bands of elves, dwarves and humans going on quests and getting into fights. What that means is that any attempt to put Dungeons & Dragons on screen risks looking like a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. What can the producers do that Peter Jackson hasn’t done already?

The answer turns out to be a simple one: they can be funny. Fantasy adventures might be getting ever more gloomy and portentous on television, but the producers of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves have followed the Marvel Studios tactic of hiring comedy directors to make a blockbuster – in this case, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the directors of Game Night (2018). The film they’ve made is a feelgood, family-friendly caper, which is not a description you can apply to HBO’s House of the Dragon or Amazon’s The Rings of Power.

Chris Pine stars as Edgin, a Han Solo / Rick Blaine type who used to be a doughty soldier, but became a cynical rogue after his beloved wife was killed. His sidekick is Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), a scowling barbarian who has fallen out with her tribe and separated from her husband (an amusing surprise cameo): this is one of the few Hollywood films in which the male and female leads come across as genuine, loyal, platonic friends.

In an opening scene that establishes the light-hearted mood, Edgin and Holga are in prison for “grand larceny and skulduggery”, but they hope to talk their way into a pardon from “The Council of Absolution” – or, failing that, they hope to jump out of a window. Once free, they travel to a city ruled by their old crony, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), only to find that he has teamed up with a wicked witch (Daisy Head), and turned Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) against him. Determined to win back Kira, and to rob all the treasure that various visiting noblemen have stored in Forge’s magical vault, Edgin and Holga assemble a team of burglars who are almost as sweetly hapless as they are. There is Simon (Justice Smith), a sorcerer with self-esteem issues whose most impressive trick is to make himself “slightly blurry”. And there is Doric (Sophia Lillis), a woodland woman who can change into various animals, including an “owlbear”.

Rather than aiming for an epic odyssey, then, Goldstein and Daley opt for a bright, snappy heist movie modelled in part on Ocean’s Eleven, with a tongue-in-cheek approach to the supernatural that’s reminiscent of The Princess Bride and Ghostbusters. And the look of the film? Rather than labouring to make the clothing and architecture correspond to one particular historical period, the designers simply stick in whichever castles and costumes seem cool.

What’s welcome about the humour is that the directors, who also co-wrote the screenplay, haven’t been smug or snarky. It would have been easy for them to pepper their script with inside jokes about 12-sided dice and weighty rule books, or else to put in lots of winking references to present-day pop culture. Instead, the humour is silly and irreverent while being more-or-less sincere, and more-or-less invested in the reality of the world they’ve created.

It’s an attitude that’s embodied by Pine. It’s probably no coincidence that Goldstein and Daley’s previous film, the aforementioned Game Night, starred Jason Bateman, because Pine seems to have studied Bateman’s way of being unflappable, ironic, and just on the right side of smarmy, but still vulnerable enough for us to care about. But even if Edgin’s persona was pinched from Bateman, it fits Pine as snugly as his leather jacket: this, rather than Captain Kirk in Star Trek (2009) or Steve in Wonder Woman (2017), is the role that suits him best. Grant is even better as the slimy villain, a puffed-up clown who seems to have been inspired by certain senior British politicians.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES

Directors: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Regé-Jean Page

Run-time: 2hr 14m

Release date: 31 March in the US and UK

If the comic tone is skilfully judged, it’s clear that Goldstein and Daley didn’t concentrate quite so hard on other aspects of their film. The plot is so haphazard that viewers might struggle to say what the villains are hoping to achieve. They might also lose interest when the heroes go off on a wild goose chase in the middle, at which point Grant’s character is all but forgotten, and Regé-Jean Page pops in as a noble warrior, for no obvious reason except to get Bridgerton fans into the cinema. The cartoonish visual effects aren’t first-rate, either. In most contemporary fantasy, the CGI is so advanced that every last bristle on a monster’s hide looks tangibly real, whereas this film doesn’t convince you for a second that the characters are in an actual dungeon or facing an actual dragon. Presumably, the theory was that if viewers were smiling, they wouldn’t mind that they weren’t gasping or screaming.

It’s a theory that is just about vindicated. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is no masterpiece, but it’s warm, upbeat, unpretentious entertainment, and it’s bound to be popular. We certainly won’t have to wait another 23 years before the next Dungeons & Dragons film comes out.