Beyond the Screen #17: Maverick is Top Gun, Gran Turismo, Indiana Jones 5, Pinocchio Teaser, Triangle of Sadness and More

We take a look back at news of note in the world of film.

Top Gun Maverick jets to Top of Box Office

Debuting to an impressive $160.5 million total at the domestic Box Office over the 4-day Memorial Day weekend, belated sequel Top Gun: Maverick is making good on its exceptional critical reception and positive word of mouth, managing to land $124 million internationally for the three-day weekend despite its lack of a Chinese release, for a global total of $250 million. All this is to say that producer and star Tom Cruise’s insistence that the film be continually delayed for a viable theatrical release has paid off thoroughly, garnering Cruise his biggest opening weekend ever, and first opening above $100 million. Elsewhere, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness placed second with a 50% drop to $16 million in its fourth week ($38.9 million worldwide), followed by the debut of The Bob’s Burgers Movie with $12.4 million. Rounding out the top 5 for the weekend were Downtown Abbey: A New Era (which dropped a hefty 64% to $5.7 million in its second week) and The Bad Guys, bringing in $4.3 million in its sixth week of release. Worldwide, South Korea’s The Roundup placed third instead with $17.4 million.

Neil Blomkamp Approached for Gran Turismo Adaptation

Polyphony’s 1997 original Gran Turismo is a classic of the driving simulator genre, with a spate of sequels reliably renewing Sony’s gains every few years. A film adaptation has been in the works for a number of years now, shuffling in priority as audience interest waxes and wanes. According to Empire magazine, as studios recalibrate following the recent success of videogame movies like Uncharted and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Gran Turismo could be on the cards with Neil Blomkamp in talks to develop and direct the project.

Still from Indiana Jones 5

The as yet untitled fifth Indiana Jones film is set for a June 30th 2023 release date, though Disney remains tight-lipped about any plot details, footage, really anything at all. Still, director James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) and star Harrison Ford were gracious enough to release a first look photograph depicting Indy in an appropriately atmospheric and dank cave, crossing a rickety rope bridge in silhouette. Not pictured is the film’s extensive cast, featuring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Kretschmann, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Toby Jones, and Antonio Banderas.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Trailer

The previously teased trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One recently dropped with the Tom Cruise brand riding high off the back of Top Gun: Maverick. The teaser features the requisite array of locations (desert, metro, countryside) and daring stunts (all manner of things falling off of things), but curiously, in a departure for the Mission: Impossible brand, a ceaseless build that suggests a finality mirrored by the film’s title (‘Part One’ not withstanding).

Palme d’Or Goes to Triangle of Sadness

Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund secured his second win for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Triangle of Sadness, a satire on the vapid and hypocritical 1% typical of the director, though supposedly far less subtle and more manic than the Ostlund’s previous Palme d’Or winner The Square. Most films in competition divided audiences and voters alike, though the tar-black comedy was the safer bet. Laurels were pretty evenly distributed among the festival’s showing; the Best Director prize was awarded to Park Chan-wook for the slick and bleak Decision to Leave, while Boy from Heaven by writer-director Tarik Saleh took home Best Screenplay.

There were several ties at this year’s festival: between Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon and Lukas Dhont’s Close for the Grand Prix, Eo and Le Otto Montagne for the Jury Prize, and a shared Un Certain Regard between The Worst Ones and Joyland. Previous Palme winner Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker earned South Korea’s Song Kang Ho recognition as Best Actor, while Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s work in Holy Spider won her Best Actress. A set of Honorary Palme d’Or awards were given to Forest Whitaker and Tom Cruise for their collective contributions to cinema.

Rachel Zegler Cast in Hunger Games Prequel

Prequel film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, to be directed by Francis Lawrence who helmed three of the previous Hunger Games movies, has cast Rachel Zegler as key character Lucy Gray, a tribute from District 12. The character is noted for her singing voice, meaning Zegler will be putting her West Side Story bona fides to good use for the role. The updated logline reads: Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.

Pinocchio Teaser Trailer

2022 marks a strange set of competitors: a battle of the Pinocchios, with Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion adaptation bound for Netflix, while Disney backs Robert Zemeckis’ take. Paired again with Tom Hanks, a collaboration that’s been fruitful over the years, Zemeckis has cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, who can be seen throughout the film’s latest teaser trailer. Pinocchio himself features in the thumbnail, but not the trailer (apart from a glimpse or two).

Quentin Tarantino’s Second Book Announced

A synopsis for Tarantino’s first non-fiction title, Cinema Speculation, set for publication on 25 October, reads as follows: In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films.

Now, with ‘Cinema Speculation,’ the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans — and all movie lovers — could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the art form ever.