Gabe Cohn

Doeringer, known for his appropriations of works by famous contemporary artists, had been holed up in his studio on a graffiti-speckled block in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, working on his new project. On Friday, he will debut “Christy’s,” a show at the Chelsea gallery space High Line Nine curated by A Hug From the Art World. Doeringer will be exhibiting and selling bootleg versions of artworks up for auction this month at the Post War and Contemporary Art evening sale at Christie’s New York.

The authentic versions of the works, on view at Christie’s New York beginning Saturday, include pieces by Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Their expected sale prices reach well into the millions.

The asking price for Doeringer’s copies? A flat $1,000 each.

“In the art world, auction prices are pretty much the only public record of what a work is worth, so it sort of sets the value of artists’ work,” Doeringer said. “The idea was to take this event and knock it off and make these multimillion dollar works of art available for a lot less.”

On the studio walls hung Doeringer’s versions of works by Frank Stella, Wayne Thiebaud, Kaws, Giorgio Morandi, Rauschenberg and Warhol. The knockoffs are smaller than the pieces they’re based on and with clear imperfections — a wobbly line here, a visibly pasted-on bit there — but instantly recognizable.

“They’ll fool you from a distance,” Doeringer said. “They won’t fool you close up.”

Doeringer, 44, who has an MFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, has made his bootlegs of famous art since 2001, when he began selling homemade copies of works by artists like Elizabeth Peyton, John Currin and Damien Hirst from a stand he set up on West 24th Street, near galleries that was showing some of the very work he was appropriating.

He was inspired, he said, by vendors selling knockoff handbags on Canal Street in downtown Manhattan.

Since then, he’s exhibited in actual galleries, and recently started making more altered riffs on famous works. (“Those in search of exact look-alikes, beware,” Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times in a review of Doeringer’s 2014 exhibition, “Paintings &amp; Sculpture,” which featured his takes on Warhol soup cans at the now-shuttered Lower East Side gallery Mulherin &amp; Pollard. “These works are not copies as much as updates based on current company designs.”)

What does Christie’s think of Doeringer’s latest imitations?

“We’re flattered,” Alex Rotter, the chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, said in an email. “Whether it is art or music, a good bootleg version reminds you of an experience that you enjoyed and want to hold onto. We hope people will come and experience the original artworks at Christie’s as well as the bootleg versions in Chelsea — both are free and open to the public. I may do some shopping myself.”

Making the bootlegs — Doeringer is creating versions of around 30 artworks for the “Christy’s” auction — involves working backward. For a knockoff of Warhol’s “Double Elvis,” a silk-screen portrait of two identical, overlapping images of Elvis Presley in cowboy regalia, Doeringer found a digital version of the original photo Warhol used — a publicity still from the Don Siegel western “Flaming Star” — and created a stencil from it. So Doeringer’s version, titled “Andy Warhol (Double Elvis),” was essentially made using a digital approximation of Warhol’s method.

For a collage copy of Thiebaud’s “Eating Figures (Quick Snack),” a painting of a man and a woman sitting holding hot dogs and drinks, Doeringer painted a white background and chair legs onto canvas and stuck on top of it a digital print of the two people taken from an image of the original painting — which he pulled from the Christie’s website.

For an impromptu in-studio demonstration of how he created a scaled-down version of Jeff Koons’ “Rabbit,” an iconic stainless steel sculpture that Christie’s estimates will sell for $50 million to $70 million, Doeringer inflated (by mouth) one of several plastic rabbits he bought online. Its shape, it had to be said, was strikingly similar to Koons’ sculpture — though it was also translucent neon yellow and had a cartoon face.

“It’s not exactly right,” he said, holding out the fully inflated bunny. “But it’s pretty close.”

‘Christy’s’

Through May 30, High Line Nine, highlinenine.com.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/arts/design/eric-doeringer-christies-auction-andy-warhol-robert-rauschenberg.html" id="e9f5b059-a8a0-3cac-ae95-f0fe4a316e95">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — “I’ve never actually had to go to court over one of these things,” Eric Doeringer said last week, standing in front of a wall of his latest artworks. “Generally, when they ask me to cease and desist, I do that.”

Move Over, Richard Prince. Here Comes Bootleg Art From 'Christy's'

First, the physical: SummerStage’s main venue has undergone a $5.5 million renovation, with a new stage, canopy, new LED screens, sound system, lighting and improvements away from the stage for both general audience members (raised bleacher seating) and those in the VIP area (a new balcony).

Good news for musicians: SummerStage has also built new dressing rooms.

“It started with the need to replace the canopy on our stage,” the City Parks Foundation’s executive director, Heather Lubov, said in a phone interview.

“As we thought about it, we really thought the venue needed a refresh overall,” she said.

Along with these changes comes a change to the way the festival approached booking: SummerStage signed on with the global initiative Keychange, which asks festivals to pledge to a 50-50 gender balance in their programming.

“We always go into a season looking to book a very diverse set of artists,” Lubov said. But, she added, “This is the first year that we’ve hit 50-50.”

The full lineup includes more than 100 performances, most of them free, in 18 parks across the city.

In addition to King and Durand Jones &amp; the Indications, the main Central Park space will host the R&amp;B; singer Corinne Bailey Rae; the New Orleans bounce musician Big Freedia; the jazz musicians Jack DeJohnette and Ravi Coltrane; the indie rock acts Japanese Breakfast and Alvvays; a Latin Grammy Awards-related event and many more, in addition to previously announced benefit shows from George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Kurt Vile, the B-52s and others. Merce Cunningham’s centennial will be recognized, and events will commemorate the 50th anniversaries of the Harlem Cultural Festival and the Stonewall Riots.

A full lineup is available at cityparksfoundation.org/summerstage.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/arts/music/summerstage-renovation.html" id="31cf4916-ffd2-36d6-a89d-c5116d7a284d">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — When the R&amp;B; singer Emily King and the soul group Durand Jones &amp; the Indications open the newly minted Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage festival in Central Park in June, they will be kicking off a new era in more ways than one.

SummerStage Will Have a New Feel This Season

It worked fairly well for both of them.

Warner Bros.’ “The Curse of La Llorona,” the latest horror movie from some of the producers of the popular “Conjuring” series, topped the domestic box office with $26.5 million in ticket sales. That’s a solid start; the movie reportedly cost just $9 million to make. While it pales in comparison to the $53.5 million that “The Nun,” a recent “Conjuring” offshoot, made during its opening weekend in September, it is above the roughly $21 million opening weekend that analysts expected for “La Llorona.”

Directed by Michael Chaves, “La Llorona” stars Linda Cardellini as Anna, a widow. The plot involves Anna and her two children, Chris (Roman Christou) and Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen), being haunted by La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), a weeping woman based on a figure associated with Mexican folklore. In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis called the movie “an enjoyably old-fashioned ghost story.”

Warner Bros. also took the No. 2 spot with its lighthearted superhero movie “Shazam!,” which brought in $17.3 million during its third weekend. Its domestic gross is now $121.3 million.

The other new movie this weekend was Fox’s faith-based “Breakthrough,” which landed in third place with $11.1 million. Based on a 2015 incident in which a Missouri teenager survived after being submerged for 15 minutes in a frozen lake, the movie stars Chrissy Metz as a mother who prays for her son (Marcel Ruiz) to make a seemingly impossible medical recovery.

Disney’s “Captain Marvel,” in its seventh week, rose from sixth place last week to fourth, earning another $9.1 million this weekend. The movie, which was the debut of Brie Larson’s superhero, now has a cumulative domestic total of $400 million — just in time for Larson to outpace herself as part of the “Avengers” ensemble this week.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/movies/curse-of-la-llorona-box-office.html" id="9abd1d34-c4c1-3841-abcc-e7589446560d">The New York Times</a>.

With “Avengers: Endgame” positioned to wipe out any competitors come Friday, only a couple of studios dared to roll out new movies this weekend.

'Curse of La Llorona' Is No. 1 as Box Office Braces for More 'Avengers'

Warner Bros.’ “Shazam!” made $25.1 million domestically, a solid sum that kept it in first place after a strong debut last weekend.

That PG-13 film centers on a teenager (Asher Angel) who can transform into a hero with an adult body (Zachary Levi) by speaking the word “shazam.” Based on a DC Comics character, "Shazam!” has a jaunty and lighthearted tone, and its continued box-office success provides further evidence of the success of Warner Bros.’ shift away from the dark mood of “Suicide Squad” and “Justice League.”

“Shazam!” picked up an additional $35.9 million outside of North America this weekend, according to Warner Bros., which brings the film’s worldwide gross to $258.8 million. That’s more than double the roughly $100 million the movie cost to make.

But a mix of wisecracks and superpowers is no guarantee of success, as evidenced by another new movie: Lionsgate’s “Hellboy,” financed by Millennium Media.

That film, a bloody, R-rated affair with a cherry-red, semi-demonic superhero (David Harbour) at its helm, landed in third place with a dreary $12 million in North American theaters this weekend, well below analysts’ expectations. A reboot of the Guillermo del Toro movies (themselves based on comic books by Mike Mignola), the new “Hellboy” was directed by Neil Marshall, with Harbour taking over the title role from Ron Perlman. It had a production budget of $50 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Though it keeps the unserious tone that helped del Toro’s movies develop a cult following and stand out from other superhero stories, the new “Hellboy” arrived to poor reviews from critics — it currently holds a 15 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

More successful was Universal’s “Little,” which landed in second place with $15.5 million, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. It had a reported production budget of around $20 million.

“Little,” a comedy directed by Tina Gordon, is like “Shazam!” in reverse: The story is about an adult CEO (Regina Hall) who gets transformed into her 13-year-old self (Marsai Martin).

Paramount’s “Pet Sematary,” based on the novel by Stephen King, came in fourth place with $10 million domestically.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/movies/shazam-hellboy-box-office.html" id="1c152204-9503-3182-af9f-f324a6d6da27">The New York Times</a>.

Two superheroes, both alike in not taking themselves too seriously, had very different experiences at the box office this weekend.

'Shazam!' Keeps Box-Office Lead as 'Hellboy' Flounders

Disney’s “Captain Marvel” rode a wave of enthusiasm for more diverse superheroes, a hunger for blockbusters at a quiet time of year and a large helping of ‘90s nostalgia to sell $153 million in tickets in U.S. theaters over the weekend.

It was easily the best stateside debut weekend of any movie this year as it breezily outperformed expectations and brought the domestic box office a much-needed boost.

The Brie Larson-led movie’s opening weekend was the seventh best of any in the 21-film Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, behind the $174 million brought in by “Iron Man 3” and just ahead of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” which made $147 million during its first weekend. (Topping that list: “Avengers: Infinity War,” which took in $257.7 million when it debuted.)

“Captain Marvel” is the first film in the franchise dedicated to the story of a female superhero. DC-Warner Bros. and their Gal Gadot-led “Wonder Woman” broke a comic book glass ceiling in 2017, but “Captain Marvel” had an even stronger opening, bringing in more than $50 million more than “Wonder Woman,” which sold around $100.5 million in tickets during its opening weekend.

An origin story whose soundtrack trades in the likes of Salt-N-Pepa and Nirvana, “Captain Marvel” is set principally in 1990s California, where Larson’s hero crash-lands and eventually teams up with Nicholas Fury, a government agent familiar to Marvel fans and here played by a younger-looking, digitally rejuvenated Samuel L. Jackson. Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening and Lashana Lynch play other major roles.

Moviegoers who didn’t see “Captain Marvel” this weekend mostly picked between two other films. Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” now in its third weekend, brought in about $14.7 million. And Lionsgate’s “A Madea Family Funeral,” the swan song of Tyler Perry’s long-running title character, sold $12.1 million in tickets according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Other than “Captain Marvel,” there were no first-week movies in the top 10.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/arts/captain-marvel-has-the-years-best-opening-weekend-at-the-box-office.html" id="300804a3-c412-3c97-ad93-09b02304a257">The New York Times</a>.

If movie studios needed another reminder that audiences are craving for new kinds of superpowered heroes, they got it this weekend.

'Captain Marvel' Has the Year's Best Opening Weekend at the Box Office

After several lackluster weeks at the box office, many have wondered when things would pick up this year. A step in the right direction came this weekend: Audiences turned “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” into a bona fide hit.

The third installation of Universal’s animated dragon series sold $55.5 million in tickets, exceeding most analysts’ expectations and giving the franchise the best opening weekend of any of its three movies.

That figure is especially impressive given that the latest (and supposedly final) “Dragon” installment had a slightly lower budget than either of the previous movies — about $129 million, against $165 million for the original (2010) and $145 for the second (2014), according to Box Office Mojo.

Also notable: The two best opening weekends this year have both been for the final installments of trilogies. Until this weekend, M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” held the top spot. That superhero thriller opened last month to about $41 million in its first weekend.

The latest “Dragon” likely benefited from a lack of competition — it was the only newcomer in the box office’s top five this week — and strong reviews (it currently holds a 91 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Big-name voices probably helped, too: The series features Cate Blanchett and Gerard Butler as the parents of its protagonist, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel). Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington lent their pipes to lesser roles (though Ben Kenigsberg, in his review for The New York Times, wrote that you suspect that some of the actors “stopped by the recording studio only briefly”).

There’s a gulf in sales between “Dragon” and this weekend’s second-place movie: Fox’s “Alita: Battle Angel” brought in just $12 million this weekend according to comScore, which compiles box office data. That’s not a great second-week showing for a film that cost roughly $170 million to make. Since opening, the Robert Rodriguez-directed movie has grossed an estimated $60.7 million domestically.

Landing in fourth place, after “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” grabbed third, was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “Fighting With My Family,” the comedic drama based on the life of professional wrestler Saraya-Jade Bevis (known as Paige and played here by Florence Pugh). It opened in Los Angeles and New York earlier this month, but it got its first taste of nationwide ticket sales this weekend, bringing in about $8 million.

That’s respectable for a movie that had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival just last month and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, was produced for only about $11 million. The fact that Dwayne Johnson was a producer probably didn’t hurt.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/movies/how-to-train-your-dragon-box-office.html" id="4613d940-9360-3160-a241-93ec4a7988a8">The New York Times</a>.

Maybe the studios just needed a dragon this whole time.

'How to Train Your Dragon' Brings Hope to the Box Office

The auction house on Friday announced a redesign and expansion of its headquarters on the Upper East Side that is being led by designer Shohei Shigematsu of the Rem Koolhaas-founded firm OMA. The exhibition space there will grow to over 90,000 square feet from 67,000, and the project will include the addition of several new galleries, which will open May 3.

The goal, Shigematsu explained in a phone interview, is to make “a series of different size and different height rooms that really create a diversity of gallery space.”

Among the new galleries are nine for discreet private sales and one dedicated to small-scale objects, like jewelry and watches. Three, two-story spaces will be set aside for exhibitions, as well as a 150-foot-long space intended to showcase full collections. The redesign will also add a coffee bar to the lobby.

The auction house says that the expansion is costing them about $55 million. And the project comes at a time of apparent financial stoutness for Sotheby’s, which said its auction sales totaled $5.3 billion last year — a 12 percent increase over 2017, according to the auction house. It’s also a time of change for them; the house announced in December that its chief operating officer, Adam Chinn, would be stepping down.

When the expansion is unveiled, it will come alongside an auction of impressionist, modern and contemporary art that includes Mark Rothko’s “Untitled” (1960). That work, a color field painting of burgundy oil on canvas, caused a stir this month when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced plans to sell it and put the proceeds toward efforts to diversify its holdings.

The buzz surrounding the auction of the Rothko is convenient for Sotheby’s, which will now have an elaborate new space to show it off in. The sale is on May 16.

One of the more unusual characteristics of the new space, Shigematsu pointed out, is the presence of columns in some of the galleries.

“Columns could be considered a hazard for gallery space,” he said. “But these concrete columns actually show the history of this building.”

“It’s part of the character of the space,” he added.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/arts/design/sothebys-new-york-headquarters.html" id="aa2462dc-8096-3a2b-a19d-5749e3f6383d">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — The upper crust of New York’s art world will soon have about 2 acres of gallery space to peruse at Sotheby’s — about a third more than is there now.

Sotheby's New York to Expand Gallery Space

On one hand, Fox’s “Alita: Battle Angel,” an effects-laden, dystopian, sci-fi action movie with a bionic heroine, easily topped this weekend’s domestic box office. It exceeded most analysts’ expectations by bringing in about $27.8 million in the lead-up to Presidents Day.

On the other hand, that amount is modest next to the roughly $170 million it took make the movie, produced in part by James Cameron and based on a manga series by Yukito Kishiro. A digitally augmented Rosa Salazar leads a cast that also includes Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali.

While it was Robert Rodriguez — best known for the “Sin City” and the “Spy Kids” movies — who directed the film, Cameron’s name has been used heavily in the movie’s marketing, echoing the way Peter Jackson’s was employed to push another expensive sci-fi movie, “Mortal Engines,” in December. (Jackson was a writer and producer of that film, but it was directed by Christian Rivers.)

“Mortal Engines” was one of the biggest flops of 2018, opening to about $7.5 million domestically against a budget of around $100 million. Fox had initially planned to release “Alita: Battle Angel” in December, when it would have gone up against a tangle of holiday crowd-pleasers. The studio’s decision to push the release to February seems to have helped Cameron to avoid, at least, a “Mortal Engines"-like disaster.

Second place at the box office was Warner Bros.’ “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” This sequel about toy-brick people, voiced by Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks, brought in about $21.2 million during its second weekend in theaters according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. (If there’s a lesson to take from the top two movies, it’s that audiences gravitate toward the not-quite-human.)

Warner Bros. also took third place with “Isn’t it Romantic,” a comedy that opened about $14.2 million in ticket sales this weekend. The movie, both a romantic comedy and a commentary on romantic comedies, stars Rebel Wilson and Liam Hemsworth.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/movies/alita-battle-angel-lego-movie.html" id="72b897e6-b356-38b8-a152-6ae89d6d0145">The New York Times</a>.

How do you judge the performance of a very expensive cyborg?

'Alita: Battle Angel' Leads a Weak Box Office

Universal’s M. Night Shyamalan-directed superhero movie earned about $19 million during its second weekend in theaters, comfortably topping the North American box office against two relatively weak newcomers and a slew of holdovers.

In fact, none of the top three films shifted at all.

STX’s “The Upside,” starring Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, maintained its second-place position with $12.2 million in domestic sales this weekend, its third in theaters.

And a trident-wielding Jason Momoa defended his territory, with “Aquaman” again landing in third place with about $7.4 million in domestic ticket sales. Overseas, the film made around $7.8 million, bringing its global tally to $1.09 billion, according to Warner Bros. The movie has been in theaters for six weeks.

The weekend’s highest-placing newcomer was 20th Century Fox’s “The Kid Who Would Be King” in fourth. The latest movie from cult British writer-comedian Joe Cornish, “The Kid Who Would Be King” opened this weekend to about $7.3 million in sales, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. The PG-rated movie is a contemporary retelling of the King Arthur legend, in which a 12-year-old boy (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) finds the sword Excalibur jutting out of a lump of stone at a construction site.

Even with some serious star power, Aviron’s “Serenity,” with Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway as exes reunited under difficult circumstances, failed to break into the top five. It sold just $4.8 million in tickets during its opening weekend, landing in eighth place, after being panned by most critics (its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently 21 percent). Moviegoers were no kinder, with ticket buyers giving the film a D+ grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Perhaps the most notable sign of life during this ho-hum January weekend came courtesy of Tuesday’s announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees. Universal’s “Green Book,” nominated for five Academy Awards including best picture, expanded by about 1,500 screens around the country, bringing in $5.4 million this weekend (its 11th in theaters). It landed in sixth place.

And Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” which tied “Roma” for most nominations with 10, added about 1,000 locations, selling about $2.6 million in tickets. Netflix has not released box-office figures for “Roma,” which is in limited release in theaters and is available on the streaming platform.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/movies/glass-box-office-oscar-nominees.html" id="5c45589a-6691-39a6-ad9b-d14f9824de24">The New York Times</a>.

While most of Hollywood was busy talking about last week’s Oscar nominations, viewers stepping up to buy tickets said one title more than any others: “Glass.”

'Glass' Tops Box Office Again as Oscar Nominees Get a Boost

The actor, who until now was probably best known for the television drama “Mr. Robot,” was speaking a little more than an hour after the announcement of the Academy Award nominations, which totaled five, including best picture, for “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It was a somewhat unexpected outcome given the film’s famously rocky road to the screen: Bryan Singer was shown the door midway through production but is still the credited director.

Speaking on the phone from Paris, Malek talked about Singer, Mercury and, yes, those teeth. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Where were you when you heard about the nomination?

I am in Paris, doing some work. And it’s snowing, it’s absolutely stunning. So to get this news in this environment seems quite serendipitous I think. It all feels like a magical fairy tale. I try not to be as aware of these days when nominations come out, as I think every other rational person is. So it was an exceptional shock, because I didn’t know today was the day.

People talk about shoes and other costume elements helping them get into character. Did the teeth do that for you?

People talk about the teeth and makeup and wardrobe. But it’s the makeup artists and the costume designer that help me the most. So to get to talk about why we need the teeth or what size the teeth are and why (Jan Sewell, the hair and makeup designer) had to make my nose more aquiline — it’s those conversations that are just as helpful to me as having the physical teeth themselves.

How did you think about creating a compelling screen character out of a real person, one with such a distinctive personality?

I wanted to demystify him as a rock god and discover his humanity. I could link myself to him in a way — I’m a first-generation American, he’s an immigrant. And he was struggling with his identity and his sexual identity at a time when it was very difficult and stigmatized and, quite honestly, still is stigmatized in many places to be anything other than heterosexual. Instantly, that’s a human being to me. And then you look at the songs he wrote. I used that almost as a diary as to what he was going through year after year.

Did the songs do more for you than YouTube videos or footage of him?

The music always grounded me. It was such a support to know that this man who at times felt very, very similar to me and very unusual, very distant from me at other times — I could always ground it in what I could hear him trying to reach in his music. He could hold everyone onstage in the palm of his hand, but the music sometimes made me feel that he just wanted to be held in someone’s hands as well.

How much of a role did Bryan Singer play in your conception of the role?

I’d been working on this for about a year prior, so it was all hands on deck with myself and with (his movement and dialect coaches) and all the archival footage that was out there. I exhausted everything that was online and everything written about him and every documentary — and I’m still watching them. I went back and watched the making of Live Aid the other day again.

So Singer was less involved, then? It was more soaking up as much information as you could?

Yeah. I asked Graham (King) to have this piece made — our producer — long before Bryan was even in conversation.

Why did you feel so strongly about it?

I thought if this movie ever does get made and someone does give it a green light, there’s no way I’m going to be ill-prepared. I thought the worst that happens is I learn how to inhabit Freddie Mercury and one day that could be something I share with my friends. If it did go forth and I was unprepared — that would be the most tragic thing.

Do you have a favorite Queen song?

I love them all, man, I really do. But I never thought I would like the deeper, older cuts, the earlier tracks as much as I do now. I keep listening to them. I think there are certain roles where you want to almost just walk right away from. And he is one that I never quite want to distance myself too far from.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/movies/rami-malek-oscar-nomination.html" id="fd65bffa-fb9a-3db9-a499-d096221a7be7">The New York Times</a>.

Rami Malek on Freddie Mercury, Bryan Singer and the Oscars

For Rami Malek, his first Oscar nomination — for his turn as Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” — means talking about teeth. He said that preproduction discussions about the singer’s pearly whites, including their size, their shape — were as important as the chompers themselves.

Only days after quashing the idea that he would return as host of the Oscars, the actor and comedian is back at the top of the box office in STX’s “The Upside,” a dramedy starring Hart as a black parolee who becomes the caregiver and pal of a wealthy, white quadriplegic man played by Bryan Cranston. Despite an unenthusiastic reception from critics (the film has a 40 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the film exceeded most analysts’ expectations, selling $19.6 million in tickets during its first weekend in theaters.

The movie’s performance is especially notable given the controversy that has embroiled Hart while he’s been trying to promote it. In December, shortly after Hart was announced as the Oscar host, he dropped out when several tweets and comments that were deemed homophobic resurfaced from his past. Since then, his appearances to talk about “The Upside” have also involved discussions about the controversy, as was the case with a spot on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” at the beginning of the month that briefly stoked rumors that Hart could be reinstated as host (he has since definitively ruled it out).

But audiences didn’t seem to want to punish Hart: They bought enough tickets to allow “The Upside” to beat out the titanic “Aquaman” and claim the top spot at the box office.

Not that Warner Bros., the studio behind “Aquaman,” has much to complain about. The superhero movie led by Jason Momoa brought in $17.3 million domestically this weekend and about $27.9 million overseas, bringing its cumulative global ticket sales to $1.02 billion, according to the studio. The film had spent three straight weeks atop the domestic box office, and its strong international turnout has cemented Momoa — a “Game of Thrones” alumnus — as a moneymaking leading man.

Sony’s “A Dog’s Way Home” was the only other debut in the top 10, landing in third place with $11.3 million during its first weekend in theaters, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. This family film directed by Charles Martin Smith stars a real dog making a difficult journey alongside a CGI cougar. “If you’ve ever wondered what ‘The Grey’ might have been like if Liam Neeson were a dog,” Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The New York Times, “you must see this movie.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/movies/the-upside-kevin-hart-box-office-no-1.html" id="9ac96dbe-11af-3f70-a4a5-9ddab807f93a">The New York Times</a>.

He’s still not hosting the Academy Awards, but Kevin Hart has a No. 1 movie to celebrate.

'The Upside' Takes Kevin Hart to No. 1 Amid Oscar Controversy

The Warner Bros.-DC Comics movie starring Jason Momoa continued to lead ticket sales over the weekend, taking in an estimated $30.7 million at the end of a lazy week at the box office. The movie, now in its third week in theaters, put a triumphant cap on Hollywood’s 2018 box office comeback. And it has continued to do well overseas, where it brought in $56.2 million during the weekend, according to the studio. Combined with its cumulative domestic sales, that brings the movie’s total global ticket sales to about $940.7 million, meaning it could soon surpass $1 billion.

But while the staying power of “Aquaman” at the top spot points to the film’s continued success, it also points to the fact that there simply isn’t much competition during Hollywood’s post-holiday exhale.

The only new movie in the top 10 this week, Sony’s “Escape Room,” exceeded most analysts’ expectations and landed in the No. 2 spot with $18 million in sales. A thriller directed by Adam Robitel, the film capitalized on the phenomenon of real-life “escape room” puzzle games, where players (or corporate employees on a team-building trip) are trapped in a room and have to complete a series of challenges to get out. “Escape Room” features a deadly version. While its opening weekend sales were modest beside those of “Aquaman,” the $18 million is a win for Sony given the movie’s $9 million budget.

There are few surprises elsewhere in the top 10. Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” came in third with $15.8 million for the weekend, while Sony’s well-received “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” came in fourth, making $13 million according to Comscore, which compiles box office data.

Paramount’s “Bumblebee” rounded out the top five with $12.8 million. Sony’s “Holmes and Watson,” with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, solidifying its status as a flop during its second week in theaters, came in 10th with $3.4 million.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/movies/aquaman-leads-the-box-office-into-the-new-year.html" id="30070a4c-ff66-3974-ac26-7f818cad9c74">The New York Times</a>.

There’s always a bigger fish — unless you’re “Aquaman.”

'Aquaman' Leads the Box Office Into the New Year

The Warner Bros.-DC Comics movie starring Jason Momoa continued to lead ticket sales this weekend, taking in an estimated $30.7 million at the end of a lazy week at the box office. The movie, now in its third week in theaters, put a triumphant cap on Hollywood’s 2018 box office comeback. And it has continued to do well overseas, where it brought in $56.2 million this weekend according to the studio. Combined with its cumulative domestic sales, that brings the movie’s total global ticket sales to about $940.7 million, meaning it could soon surpass $1 billion.

There are few surprises elsewhere in the top 10. Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” came in third with $15.8 million this weekend, while Sony’s well-received “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” came in fourth, making $13 million according to Comscore, which compiles box office data.

“Aquaman,” which marked the arrival of a moneymaking superhero for Warner Bros. when it debuted last week, sold an estimated $51.6 million in tickets in North America between Friday and Sunday. The film also continues to do well overseas, where it made $85.4 million this weekend for a foreign total of $560 million, according to the studio.

Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” the family musical sequel, actually did better this weekend than when it opened last weekend, presumably bolstered by families looking for something that would excite both kids (uplifting music) and adults (Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt in 1930s garb). The film was this weekend’s No. 2 performer at the box office and brought in about $28 million domestically, a 19 percent increase from its opening weekend.

Other movies that benefited from a post-holiday bump included Sony’s critically lauded “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which made $18.3 million this weekend (11 percent more than the previous weekend), and Warner Bros.'s “The Mule,” a Clint Eastwood film that made $11.8 million this weekend for a 24 percent increase, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. Disney’s “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” an animated sequel with a title character voiced by John C. Reilly, made $6.5 million in its sixth weekend, a 39 percent increase.

Less jolly news for Reilly was the performance of Sony’s “Holmes &amp; Watson,” which was released Christmas Day. The Etan Cohen-directed comedy, with Reilly playing the sidekick to Will Ferrell’s Sherlock Holmes, earned just $7.3 million over the weekend for an estimated total of $19.7 million in ticket sales since its midweek release — a disappointing result for a film that cost Sony $42 million to make. Another Christmas Day release — Annapurna’s “Vice,” with Christian Bale as Dick Cheney — performed comparably, bringing in $7.8 million over the weekend and $17.7 million over the course of the week.

“Bumblebee,” Paramount’s very well-reviewed “Transformers” prequel, made $20.5 million over the weekend to take the No. 3 spot.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/movies/aquaman-mary-poppins-returns-holiday-box-office.html" id="8f8382ea-d94d-39fb-a335-f1bfa17b68be">The New York Times</a>.

More than Spider-Man or a transforming Volkswagen — more even than a magical nanny — an underwater escape with Jason Momoa as Aquaman proved itself to be the most appealing diversion for audiences over the post-holiday weekend.

'Aquaman' Keeps Its Box-Office Lead as 'Mary Poppins' Gets a Holiday Boost

“Aquaman,” which marked the arrival of a moneymaking superhero for Warner Bros. when it debuted last week, sold an estimated $51.6 million in tickets in North America between Friday and Sunday. That figure comes despite somewhat unenthusiastic reviews from critics; audiences, who gave the film an A-minus in CinemaScore exit polls, may have helped the movie through word-of-mouth. The film also continues to do well overseas, where it made $85.4 million this weekend for a foreign total of $560 million, according to the studio.

Less jolly news for Reilly was the performance of Sony’s “Holmes &amp; Watson,” which was released Christmas Day. The Etan Cohen-directed comedy, with Reilly playing the sidekick to Will Ferrell’s Sherlock Holmes, earned just $7.3 million over the weekend for an estimated total of $19.7 million in ticket sales since its midweek release — a disappointing result for a film that cost Sony $42 million to make. It doesn’t take a master detective to see that negative reviews (the movie holds a 9 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) likely contributed to that outcome. Another Christmas Day release — Annapurna’s “Vice,” with Christian Bale as Dick Cheney — performed comparably, bringing in $7.8 million over the weekend and $17.7 million over the course of the week.

Nearly eight decades after the 1941 original, Disney’s live-action “Dumbo” arrived in theaters this weekend to $45 million in ticket sales, topping the domestic box office. But that figure fell slightly below analysts’ expectations of around $50 million, and overall made for a moderately disappointing opening for the Tim Burton film, which reportedly had a production budget of $170 million. An additional $71 million in overseas sales brings its global weekend total to $116 million.

Like the animated original, Burton’s “Dumbo” follows the trials and eventual triumph of an elephant outcast. Unlike the original, the new film is led by famous flesh-and-blood actors: Danny DeVito, Colin Farrell, Eva Green and Michael Keaton. It’s a darker (if PG-rated) take on the story, with DeVito playing the owner of a scrappy circus that gets bought by a powerful big-city entrepreneur and amusement-park owner (Keaton), who intends to exploit the circus’ discovery of Dumbo, the flying elephant.

“Dumbo” is the latest in a string of live-action, CGI-buttressed Disney remakes. Its slight underperformance may be due in part to the unenthusiastic reception it received from most critics — it currently holds a 50 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. By comparison, last year’s Winnie-the-Pooh tale from Disney, “Christopher Robin,” received 72 percent positive reviews, and 2017’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast” holds 71 percent. Remakes of “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” are slated for release later this year.

There probably wasn’t much competition between “Dumbo” and this weekend’s other big movie.

Universal’s “Us,” Jordan’s Peele’s family-unfriendly follow-up to his landmark 2017 feature debut, “Get Out,” easily landed in second place, selling $33.6 million in tickets, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. That’s more than enough to send its cumulative sales past the $100 million mark: after two weekends, the film has now made about $128.2 million domestically.

That puts “Us” slightly ahead of where 2018’s “Halloween” was after its second weekend. “Halloween,” which carried both the name recognition and baggage of a 40-year-old franchise, had a North American total of about $126.7 million by that point. But it also had a significantly higher debut weekend ($77.5 million versus the $70.3 million brought in by “Us”).

The other newcomer in the top five was Pure Flix’s “Unplanned,” an R-rated Christian drama about a young woman who founds an anti-abortion organization. That movie opened to $6.1 million this weekend, landing in fifth place. Neon’s “The Beach Bum,” the latest comedy from director Harmony Korine which stars Matthew McConaughey as a Florida pothead, flopped with just $1.8 million in domestic sales.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/movies/dumbo-box-office-us.html" id="82423d56-12e7-358e-a163-92a7270d8b30">The New York Times</a>.

“Dumbo” was no runt — but it was no mammoth hit, either.

'Dumbo' Falls Short of Box-Office Expectations but Still Comes in 1st

Disney-Marvel can breathe easy. Their latest superhero origin story, the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe dedicated to a female superhero, sold an estimated $69.3 million in tickets nationwide this weekend, bringing its North American total to around $266.2 million.

That’s a higher figure than the lifetime domestic gross of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” ($259.8 million), and already makes “Captain Marvel” the 13th-best-selling film in the current 21-movie Marvel series — with room to grow.

“Captain Marvel” has done well internationally, too, with $120 million in overseas sales this weekend, according to the studio, for a global total of $760 million. While the figures aren’t earth-shattering, they indicate a solid success for Disney-Marvel.

That success came despite attempts by trolls to derail “Captain Marvel.” Before its release, the film was the target of efforts at online sabotage by users apparently lashing out against its star, Brie Larson, who has been outspoken in her support of more diverse representation in Hollywood movies. The campaign prompted review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to make major changes to its long-standing rules, including the elimination of audience reviews for movies that have not yet been released.

Free from any targeted online attack was Paramount’s “Wonder Park,” an animated family movie about a young girl who dreams up plans for an amusement park and sees them colorfully brought to life. That movie sold $16 million in tickets domestically this weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. While a far cry from “Captain Marvel,” the figure was more than enough to land “Wonder Park” in second place.

The only other newcomer in the top five was Lionsgate’s “Five Feet Apart,” in third. The movie, about a couple whose shared genetic disorder forces them to maintain physical distance from each other despite their growing romance, sold $13.2 million in tickets.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/movies/captain-marvel-box-office.html" id="1a11c1eb-d9dd-3cff-a5b4-eb0c83e060b1">The New York Times</a>.

As “Captain Marvel” swooped into its second weekend in theaters Friday, the question wasn’t really whether it would top domestic ticket sales, but by how much.

'Captain Marvel' Climbs the List of Superhero Hits

That’s not quite what Disney had wanted to hear after this weekend’s release of “Toy Story 4.” The studio had expected its latest animated blockbuster to debut with around $22 million more than that in domestic ticket sales — but $118 million is what it got.

Even the expected sales of at least $140 million wouldn’t have reached the $182.7 million that the previous Disney-Pixar movie, “Incredibles 2,” opened with last year. But the gulf between the two movies’ totals suggests that perhaps “Toy Story,” Pixar’s longest-running series, has limited power to convince families that they need to rush out for a fourth installment, which for many is a tougher sell than an initial sequel.

That being said, the franchise’s name recognition still counts for something. “Toy Story 4” made well over double the $50.8 million that “Coco” earned during its first weekend in domestic theaters in 2017. And it had the third-best opening North American theaters have seen so far this year, behind two other Disney releases: “Captain Marvel” ($153.4 million) and “Avengers: Endgame” ($357.1 million).

The studio said “Toy Story 4” brought in an additional $120 million internationally this weekend.

There was only one other brand-new release in the top 10 this weekend, the horror movie “Child’s Play,” from Orion Pictures, which opened at No. 2 with $14 million in domestic ticket sales. The movie is a re-imagining of the 1988 slasher film of the same name, which gave birth to the killer doll known as Chucky.

Third place went to Disney’s “Aladdin,” which made $12.2 million in its fifth weekend in American theaters, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. “Men in Black: International” dropped to fourth in its second weekend, bringing in $10.8 million and continuing to be a disappointment for Sony. The animated “Secret Life of Pets 2,” from Universal and Illumination, rounded out the top five with $10.3 million.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/movies/toy-story-4-box-office.html" id="04c8bb65-c019-31e3-a1fa-82c0681c9279">The New York Times</a>.

'Toy Story 4' tops Box Office, but falls short of studio's hopes

Gabe Cohn

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