Lionsgate’s Angel has Fallen rose high above industry expectations with an opening of $21.4 million, nearly matching its 2016 predecessor London has Fallen. It’s the series’ worst opening, but the first entry to spend time at no. 1. Other new release Overcomer also did better than expected, grabbing the no. 3 slot with $8.2 million, and Ready or Not did quite well with $8 million for a no. 6 finish. The no. 2, 4 and 5 slots were occupied by holdovers Good Boys, The Lion King and Hobbs & Shaw- Box Office Mojo

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hit the $200 million mark internationally this weekend, making it just the second original film to hit that mark in 2019 alongside Jordan Peele’s Us- The Hollywood Reporter

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will not be involved in producing Sony’s Spider-Man movies for the forseeable future. Initial reporting indicates that Disney, which owns Marvel Studios, approached Sony with a take-it-or-leave-it deal that would have seen budget and revenue from Spider-Man movies split 50/50 between the companies. While at first glance this seems completely fair, it’s important to understand within the context of their previous deal — since 2011, Disney has paid $35 million to Sony per movie in exchange for 100 percent of profits from Spider-Man merchandise, with Sony only receiving box office proceeds. Merchandising revenue is a significant part of a given film’s bottom line, and is often much more important to blockbusters than actual ticket revenue. The reported 50/50 split would have kept all of merchandise with Disney and possibly could have extended to spinoff Spider-Man movies like Venom and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which Disney was not previously involved with- Deadline

Sony made a statement downplaying Deadline’s reporting on the financials of the situation, saying Disney pulled Feige away to focus on properties that still owned by Marvel Studios. This would fit with the general modus operandi — both Disney and Marvel and Warner Bros. and DC have coordinated comic and movie properties in the past, both to bolster more obscure characters with upcoming movies and to downplay characters whose cinematic rights were owned by other studios, but Feige is known as a massive Spider-Man fan who loved working on those movies- The Hollywood Reporter

Jeff Goldblum at the D23 Expo spoke for all of us on the subject- Buzzfeed

As this is happening, the webslinger’s most recent outing, Spider-Man: Far From Home, is being re-released in theaters with four extra minutes of an action sequence that was prominent in the trailers but removed from the theatrical release. It is the second consecutive MCU movie to be re-released over a holiday weekend with a vulnerable slate of new movies — Avengers: Endgame was sent back into theaters near Independence Day, and Far From Home will be in theaters over Labor Day weekend- Screen Rant

Then, over the weekend at the D23 expo, Disney flexed its might with a full weekend focusing on dozens of shows and movies it will offer on its Disney+ streaming service starting Nov. 12, from classics as far back as Mary Poppins to previously unannounced content like a Lady and the Tramp remake. The service will house several new Marvel television series, including ones that tie directly into the MCU, as well as the hotly anticipated Star Wars series The Mandalorian-  Deadline

The 25th James Bond film will be titled No Time to Die, which could be read as a passive-aggressive rebuttal to director Danny Boyle’s rumored desire to kill off the character at the film’s end. Boyle split with the project and was replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga in August 2018.More than a decade after star Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond, Casino Royale, was viewed as a blast of fresh air to the franchise with its hard-edged realism, No Time to Die at first glance seems to be a return to the more ridiculous Bond films of previous generations- The Hollywood Reporter

Mere weeks after Business Insider’s scintillating report about how MoviePass locked millions of paying customers out of service, the subscription platform has confirmed a data breach that puts subscribers’ credit card information at risk- Variety

Twenty days before he’s scheduled to stand trial in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers moved to have his trial held elsewhere, saying that negative media coverage means it will be impossible to find an unbiased jury. Weinstein has been accused of abusing his standing in the film industry for varying degrees of sexual misconduct by more than 80 women, and is the face of the #metoo movement. Though the negative coverage of Weinstein has been international and constant for almost two years, his legal team is saying that Manhattan’s majority Democrat population is meaningfully more biased against him by this coverage, and suggested moving the trial to the more conservative Suffolk County- The New York Times

Martin Scorsese’s $159 million epic The Irishman, which will premiere at the New York Film Festival in September, is expected to be a major Oscar contender, but it is still unclear how or whether the film will release theatrically. The film is a Netflix property, and the streaming service has a long-standing grudge with major theater chains because it insists on releasing its films online in lockstep with any potential theatrical release, which negates the traditional three-month window of theatrical exclusivity. Netflix has been negotiating a theatrical release with AMC for months, but Regal and Cinemark are currently not in discussions with the streaming service- The New York Times

A Twitter movement to boycott Disney’s upcoming Mulan started two weeks ago when star Crystal Liu tweeted her support of Chinese police, who have been accused of using excessive force against pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. There is immense pressure on Chinese stars to publicly side with the government. Disney has remained conspicuously silent, but as the protests and calls for a boycott continue, the giant may be forced to weigh its American viewers against those in China, one of the fastest-growing movie markets in the world- The Hollywood Reporter

Communications professor and film historian Chris Yogerst puts The Hunt’s cancellation into context with the long history of politicians pointing to Hollywood as a cause of social ills. Universal Pictures pulled the film, which features Americans being kidnapped and hunted for sport by the mega-rich, from its Sept. 27 release slot after President Donald Trump connected it to the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio- The Hollywood Reporter

And finally, Japan has selected Weathering With You, a Climate Change-themed romance anime, as its 2020 entry for the Best International Feature Oscar. It is the first time the country has selected an anime for the category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film until last year, since 1998’s Princess Mononoke- The Hollywood Reporter

Leopold Knopp is a UNT graduate. If you liked this post, you can donate to Reel Entropy here. Like Reel Entropy on Facebook and reach out to me at reelentropy@gmail.com.