By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-in-the-making, self-financed epic “Megalopolis” flopped with moviegoers, while the acclaimed DreamWorks Animation family film “The Wild Robot” soared to No. 1 at the weekend box office.
“The Wild Robot,” Chris Sanders’ adaptation of Peter Brown’s bestseller, outperformed expectations to launch with $35 million in ticket sales in U.S. and Canada theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. “Wild Robot” was poised to do well after critics raved about the story of a shipwrecked robot who raises an orphan gosling. Audiences agreed, giving the film an A CinemaScore. “Wild Robot” is likely set up a long and lucrative run for the Universal Pictures release.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, predicts “The Wild Robot” “may take a page from the ‘Elemental’ playbook by opening to respectable box office and then looking toward long-term playability.” Pixar’s “Elemental,” which like “The Wild Robot” wasn’t a sequel, debuted with a modest $30 million but went on to gross nearly $500 million worldwide.
Family movies, led by the year’s biggest hit in “Inside Out 2,” have particularly powered the box office this year. David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment, said the genre should reach $6 billion worldwide in 2024 — which, he noted, “is back to pre-pandemic levels.”
“Megalopolis,” Coppola’s vision of a Roman epic set in modern-day New York, was never expected to perform close to that level. But the film’s $4 million debut was still sobering for a movie that Coppola bankrolled himself for $120 million. Following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, critics have been mixed on Coppola’s first film in 13 years. Audiences gave in a D+ CinemaScore.
By any financial measure, “Megalopolis” was a mega-flop. But from the start, the 85-year-old Coppola maintained money wasn’t his concern. Coppola fashioned the film, which he first began developing in the late 1970s, as a grand personal statement about human possibility.
“Everyone’s so worried about money,” Coppola told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of the film’s release. “I say: Give me less money and give me more friends.”
Studios passed on “Megalopolis” after Cannes. Lionsgate ultimately stepped forward to distribute it, for a fee. Coppola also picked up the tab for most of its $15 million in marketing costs. The film, which stars Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel and Aubrey Plaza, also played in about 200 IMAX locations, which accounted for $1.8 million of its ticket sales.
After three weeks atop the box office, Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” slid to second place with $16 million in its fourth weekend of release. The Warner Bros. sequel to the 1988 “Beetlejuice,” starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, has amassed $250 million domestically in a month of release.
Third place went to “Transformers One,” the Transformers prequel starring Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry. After its lower-than expected debut last weekend, the Paramount release collected $9.3 million on its second weekend.
“Megalopolis” was even bested by the Indian Telugu-language action film “Devara: Part 1.” It grossed $5.1 million in its opening weekend, good enough for fourth place.
Also debuting in theaters was Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night,” an affectionate dramatization of the sketch-comedy institution on the night it first aired in 1975. On the same weekend the NBC series began its 50th season, Reitman’s movie launched in five New York and Los Angeles theaters and collected $265,000, good for a strong $53,000 per-theater average. “Saturday Night” goes nationwide in two weeks.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “The Wild Robot,” $35 million.
2. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $16 million.
3. “Transformers One,” $9.3 million.
4. “Devara: Part 1,” $5.1 million.
5. “Speak No Evil,” $4.3 million.
6. “Megalopolis,” $4 million.
7. “Deadpool & Wolverine,” $2.7 million.
8. “My Old Ass,” $2.2 million.
9. “Never Let Go,” $2.2 million.
10. “The Substance,” $1.8 million
Changing OpenAI’s Nonprofit Structure Would Raise Questions and Heightened Scrutiny
The artificial intelligence maker OpenAI may face a costly and inconvenient reckoning with its nonprofit origins even as its valuation recently exploded to $157 billion.
Nonprofit tax experts have been closely watching OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, since last November when its board ousted and rehired CEO Sam Altman. Now, some believe the company may have reached — or exceeded — the limits of its corporate structure, under which it is organized as a nonprofit whose mission is to develop artificial intelligence to benefit "all of humanity" but with for-profit subsidiaries under its control.
Jill Horwitz, a professor in law and medicine at UCLA School of Law who has studied OpenAI, said that when two sides of a joint venture between a nonprofit and a for-profit come into conflict, the charitable purpose must always win out.
"It's the job of the board first, and then the regulators and the court, to ensure that the promise that was made to the public to pursue the charitable interest is kept," she said.
Altman recently confirmed that OpenAI is considering a corporate restructure but did not offer any specifics. A source told The Associated Press, however, that the company is looking at the possibility of turning OpenAI into a public benefit corporation. No final decision has been made by the board and the timing of the shift hasn't been determined, the source said.
In the event the nonprofit loses control of its subsidiaries, some experts think OpenAI may have to pay for the interests and assets that had belonged to the nonprofit. So far, most observers agree OpenAI has carefully orchestrated its relationships between its nonprofit and its various other corporate entities to try to avoid that.
However, they also see... Read More