Netflix Officially Renews “Stranger Things”

From dark horizons, It’s official, Netflix’s smash hit 1980s-set supernatural series “Stranger Things” has been renewed by the streaming service for a second season to air next Summer.

The new season is also going a little longer with a nine-episode order, up from the eight for the first season. The Duffer Brothers are returning to pen and produce the series which will focus on the same characters and be set in the Fall of 1984. However, the pair are being coy about one key player who seemingly died in the finale, saying their fate is “up in the air”.

The nine episodes already have titles too – “Madmax”, “The Boy Who Came Back To Life”, “The Pumpkin Patch”, “The Palace”, “The Storm”, “The Pollywog”, “The Secret Cabin”, “The Brain” and “The Lost Brother”.

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Box Office

From ew, Continuing 2016’s streak of micro-budgeted horror successes, Screen Gems and Stage 6 Films’ Don’t Breathe took in an estimated $26.1 million, almost tripling its $10 million production costs after a mere three days in wide release.

Debuting on 3,051 screens, Don’t Breathe averages an impressive $8,559 per theater as the distributor’s effective marketing campaign (teasing chills instead of gory spills) pays off. Hitting its target demographic, the film averages an A- score with moviegoers under the age of 35, who’ve proven their appetite for scary movies is insatiable this year as they also carried June’s The Conjuring 2 to $102.4 million, and boosted both The Purge: Election Year and Lights Out to $79 million and $65.5 million, respectively, in July.

Overall audiences weren’t as impressed with the film as critics, however, as the film’s CinemaScore grade drops to a so-so B+ when the survey scope widens to include all ages. Still, with numbers spearheaded by Don’t Breathe, year-to-date box office is up around 5.5 percent from the same frame last year, with nine of the last 10 weekends outperforming their 2015 counterparts thus far.

Falling to No. 2 for the first time since it debuted is Warner Bros.’ DC Comics adaptation Suicide Squad, which sheds 42 percent of its audience for a weekend finish at around $12.1 million. Its domestic total now stands at approximately $282.9 million. The $175 million film, with an ensemble cast that features Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, and Viola Davis, has grossed $635 million worldwide.

Animated holdovers Kubo and the Two Strings and Sausage Party finish the weekend at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, with the LAIKA stop-motion title jumping a spot from its fourth-place finish last week.Kubo falls a mere 37 percent across its second Friday-Sunday performance, pulling in an estimated $7.9 million, while Sausage Party dips another 50 percent to add around $7.7 million over its third weekend outing.

Rounding out the top 5 with an estimated $7.5 million is the action sequel Mechanic: Resurrection, as the Jason Statham genre pic averages $3,322 from 2,258 screens. The Lionsgate/Summit flick, a continuation of the 2011 remake, The Mechanic, also stars Jessica Alba, Michelle Yeoh, and Tommy Lee Jones. While critics weren’t exactly kind to the movie (it stands at 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 4/10), audiences were a little nicer, as it tiedDon’t Breathe’s B+ CinemaScore grade.

It’s worth noting that STX Entertainment’s Bad Moms, now in its fifth weekend of release, adds $5.7 million to its ballooning total this weekend, bringing the film’s collective haul to a hair over $95.4 million to date. Featuring an all-female cast (Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith), Bad Moms’ impressive performance (atop long legs) at the box office falls in-line with other female-fronted comedies like Sisters, Spy, Trainwreck, and Bridesmaids, a group of well-received titles hitting big with a relatively-underserved demographic, proving there is an audience willing to pay to see women in the kind of adult-oriented films Hollywood has traditionally reserved for men.

Jason Bourne, while slowly descending the domestic charts, where it finishes with $5.2 million this weekend, debuts to a solid $50 million from theaters in China (it opened there Tuesday), bringing its global total to $347.9 million — the second-best performance for a franchise film, trailing behind The Bourne Ultimatum’s $442.8 million.

Outside the top 10, Roadside Attractions’ Sundance hit Southside with You, the dramatic retelling of Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date, grossed a lukewarm $3 million on 813 screens, averaging $3,764 per-screen. The film should stay afloat thanks to strong critical reviews, however, as it’s one of the best-reviewed titles of the week (93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.4/10).

The Weinstein Co.’s boxing drama Hands of Stone, starring Edgar Ramirez, Usher, and Robert De Niro, underperforms, even by platform standards, with a soft estimated $1.7 million on 810 screens. To get a jump start on the traditionally-lucrative Labor Day weekend, Weinstein plans to expand the film to 2,500 locations on Wednesday.

Check out the Aug. 26-28 weekend box office estimates, below:

1. Don’t Breathe - $26.1 million
2. Suicide Squad - $12.1 million
3. Kubo and the Two Strings - $7.9 million
4. Sausage Party - $7.7 million
5. Mechanic: Resurrection - $7.5 million
6. Pete’s Dragon - $7.3 million
7. War Dogs - $7.3 million
8. Bad Moms - $5.8 million
9. Jason Bourne - $5.2 million
10. Ben-Hur - $4.5 million

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Rogue Binks

Terminally Ill Star Wars Fan Manages To See Rogue One Before Dying

From cinemablend, The campaign to somehow allow terminally ill Star Wars fan Neil Hanvey to see Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story succeeded, and just in time. In a post shared with friends, family members and Star Wars fans around the globe who helped spread the word on Hanvey's condition -- as well as his final request -- Neil's wife Andrea explained that the screening took place, and that Neil died shortly after the screening. She writes:

On behalf of all our family we would like to thank everyone who has passed on their condolences following Neil's death last night. We would also like to thank the tens of thousands of people who supported the #RogueOneWish campaign. All the messages of love during the past week have given us a great deal of comfort during a very difficult time. We would also like to thank everyone at St Michael's Hospice, especially Amy Duncan, without who #RogueOneWish would not have happened. All donations at Neil's funeral will go to the Hospice's Family Support team and will be used to fund work with children and young people. An online donation page will be set-up shortly.

A bit of backstory. Neil Hanvey, his wife Andrea, and the staff at St. Michael's Hospice launched a campaign using the hashtag #RogueOneWish to try and get Disney and Lucasfilm to show Hanvey the upcoming spinoff movie early. Social media jumped on board, and the viral campaign even reached Mark Hamill, who showed his support for making the screening happen. Well, it happened. On Saturday night, according to the following Facebook post, Neil Hanvey was able to screen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Two days later, he was gone.

On behalf of Neil Hanvey, his wife Andrea and all his family, we want to thank everyone who supported the #RogueOneWish...Posted by St Michael's Hospice on Monday, August 22, 2016

This isn't the first time the team behind the rejuvenated Star Wars franchise reached out on behalf of a terminally ill fan to grant a dying wish. You may recall that in the run up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams moved mountains to answer the call of a similar social-media campaign for Star Wars fan Daniel Fleetwood to screen a rough cut of the movie. The hashtag #ForceForDaniel was used to spread the word on that campaign, and the internet responded in overwhelming fashion.

Stories like this show the deep compassion and camaraderie felt in the Star Warscommunity. But they also show how plugged in Kathleen Kennedy and her directors are to the people for which they are making these movies. It's a beautiful and compassionate story about fan respect, and one that I'm thrilled the Star Warsuniverse is able to share. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens in theaters on December 16, and after hearing stories like this, it makes me want to pay to see it multiple times, just as a way of saying thank you.

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Making of Blair Witch

Over the years in this crazy town, I've gotten to work with a lot of super talented people, and Ben Rock is one of them. He directed a couple short films that I wrote, directed me in a bunch of plays that I acted in, and became a buddy. Now he's written a little retrospective about working on the movie that gave him his start, and I thought you horror nerds might be way into it. Read more here!