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Reuters

  • Fantastic Four bombs at the box office with $26.2 million weekend

    Fox’s hopes of rejuvenating the comic book characters and turning the super-team into a cinematic juggernaut to rival “X-Men” have flamed out given that the film debuted to a dreadful $26.2 million across 3,995 theaters. With a production budget of $120 million, plus millions more in marketing costs, the film will need to get a boost from foreign crowds if it wants to avoid being a write-off.

    The studio was banking on a cast of up-and-coming actors like Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller and a wunderkind director in the form of “Chronicle’s” Josh Trank to push the Human Torch, the Thing, Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic into the modern era, but production difficulties may have doomed the project. Trank reportedly exhibited bizarre behavior on set that was so extreme it cost him his gig directing a “Star Wars” spinoff. He seemed to acknowledge those tensions, blaming studio-mandated reshoots for the poor critical notices in a tweet Thursday that he subsequently deleted.

    “This turned into a nightmare for Fox,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong and the whole thing fell apart.”

    “Fantastic Four’s” opening is well below the $40 million-plus debut that most analysts had projected and trails the $56 million launch of 2005’s “Fantastic Four” and the $58 million bow of 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” It’s the worst opening for a movie featuring Marvel Comics’ characters since “Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance” debuted to $22.1 million in 2012. A C- CinemaScore means that word-of-mouth is going to be toxic.

    “The confluence of clearly the decidedly negative reviews with the combination of social media did not help the cause,” said Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson.

    He was not willing to write off the “Fantastic Four” series yet, but stressed that the studio would be engaged in a rigorous postmortem about the film’s failure. The foursome’s future might be as supporting players in other comicbook characters’ movies.

    “We have a lot to look forward to in our comicbook character universe,” said Aronson. “We may find different ways to feature these characters in the future, but it’s early and we’ll have to see what form that takes.”

    The film’s opening weekend crowd was 60% male and 51% under the age of 25.

    “Fantastic Four’s” anemic opening was good news for “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” which edged out the comicbook movie to capture first place on the box office charts. The Paramount sequel earned a strong $29.4 million in its second week in theaters, pushing its domestic total to $108.7 million.

    It was a crowded weekend at the multiplexes with four new wide releases piling into theaters. Among the new entrants, STX Entertainment’s “The Gift” fared best, with the thriller picking up $12 million across 2,503 theaters and nabbing a third place finish. That’s a solid debut considering the film, which Blumhouse Productions co-financed and co-produced, cost a mere $5 million to make. It marks STX’s first theatrical release — the studio was launched in 2014 by producer Robert Simonds with the goal of making the kind of mid-budget films that studios have largely abandoned in favor of superhero adventures.

    “This is an exceptional start for our company,” said Kevin Grayson, STX’s domestic distribution group president. “We got to battle test our marketing and distribution groups.”

    Grayson said the film has been playing more like a psychological thriller than a horror movie, so he believes it should hold up well in coming weeks instead of fading quickly. The audience skewed older and female, with women making up 53% of the opening crowd and 73% of ticket buyers clocking in at over 25 years old.

    “We knew people were chomping at the bit to get more adult-skewing product,” Grayson said.

    Sony’s “Ricki and the Flash” got off to a slower start, picking up $7 million from 1,603 theaters. The film stars Meryl Streep as an aging rocker re-connecting with her estranged family and the hope is that the picture, which appeals to older crowds, will gradually build its audience in the coming weeks. It cost an economical $18 million to produce and is the first release from the rebooted Tri-Star, the label Tom Rothman was overseeing before he took the reins as head of Sony Pictures.

    “It’s an audience that is probably going to come out over a period of time,” said Rory Bruer, distribution chief for Sony. “Films like this have a tendency to play for many, many weeks to come.”

    The final new release, Lionsgate’s “Shaun the Sheep,” didn’t make much of a stir, opening Wednesday and earning $4 million this weekend and $5.6 million in its first five days in theaters. The studio paid roughly $2 million for the rights along with promotion and advertising costs. The break-even point is at approximately $15 million, making it a low-risk investment.

    Among art house players, Sony Pictures Classics’ coming-of-age drama “Diary of a Teenage Girl” earned $54,525 on four screens, with a per-screen average of $13,631. IFC expanded World War II thriller “Phoenix” from four to 27 screens, where it generated $135,810, bringing its domestic total to $259,492. Focus World bowed thriller “Cop Car” in three locations and on-demand. It took in $27,000 for a per-theater average of $9,000 and is of particular interest to Hollywood as it was directed by Jon Watts, the man who just took over the Spider-Man franchise.

    The top five was rounded out by Warner Bros.’ “Vacation” with $9.1 million and Disney and Marvel’s “Ant-Man” with $7.8 million, pushing their totals to $37.3 million and $147.4 million, respectively.

    Final numbers are still being tallied, but the overall box office will be down steeply compared to the same weekend a year ago, as none of the new films could match the $65.6 million debut of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” or the $42.1 million second weekend of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” It’s the second straight week of declines, a sign that ticket sales are slowing down entering the dog days of summer.

  • Debutant Worker powers New Zealand to T20 triumph

    Worker’s contribution powered New Zealand to 198 for five at the Harare Sports Club, a total far too challenging for the home side, who could only muster 118 for eight.

    Left-hander Worker came in at No. 3 and took eight balls to get off the mark but, once into gear, brought up his swift half-century off 33 balls with one of his four sixes. Martin Guptill (33) and Luke Ronchi (29) also contributed to a steady run haul.

    Zimbabwe lost a wicket in each of the opening three overs after which they were always well behind in the chase.

    Only Craig Ervine, who had scored a maiden ODI century last week, offered any resistance after being dropped first ball. He scored 42 off 46 balls.

    New Zealand, who also beat Zimbabwe 2-1 in the ODI series, now head to South Africa, where they play two T20 internationals and three ODIs.

  • Father of Palestinian toddler killed in arson attack dies of wounds

    Suspected Jewish attackers torched the home of Saad Dawabsheh in the West Bank village of Duma on July 31, killing his 18-month-old child and seriously injuring his wife and a second son, an act that Israel’s prime minister described as terrorism.

    A spokeswoman for Soroka hospital in Israel where Dawabsheh had been receiving treatment said he died early on Saturday.

    Hundreds of Palestinians rallied at Dawabsheh’s funeral in Duma and called on militant factions to take revenge for the deaths.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet has come under growing pressure to crack down on violent far-right Jewish groups since the attack which claimed the life of the toddler and the man while the government decided to allow harsher interrogations of suspected Jewish militants with methods once reserved for Palestinian detainees.

    It also said it would start detaining citizens suspected of political violence against Palestinians without a trial, another practice previously used only on Palestinian suspects.

    Netanyahu put out a statement expressing his “deep sorrow” over Dawabsheh’s death.

    “When I visited the family at the hospital last week, I promised we would use all the tools at our disposal to catch the murderers and bring them to justice, and that is what we are doing,” he said. “We will not accept terror from any side.”

    The United Nations repeated its call for swift action against the attackers.

    “Political, community and religious leaders on all sides should work together and not allow extremists to escalate the situation and take control of the political agenda,” said Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

  • Texas judge gives man a choice: get married or go to jail

    According to court documents obtained on Friday, Smith County Judge Randall Rogers gave the option to Josten Bundy, of Tyler, Texas, who was arrested in March on a charge of assault causing bodily injury, a misdemeanor. Bundy had gotten into a fight with the ex-boyfriend of his then girlfriend and now wife.

    The judge said he would grant probation if Bundy married his 19-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Jaynes, within 30 days, write Bible verses and attend counseling. If he declined, he would go to jail, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by Tyler TV broadcaster KLTV.

    “Is she worth it?” Rogers asked Bundy, according to the transcripts.

    The bride’s father was angry at the judge for pressuring the pair into marriage and was looking into whether this was judicial misconduct, he told KLTV.

    “He (the judge) can’t do this by court ordering somebody to be married,” the bride’s father, Kenneth Jaynes, said.

    The judge was not available for a comment.

    The couple, who had talked about eventually getting married but did not have immediate wedding plans, is happy that they have tied the knot. But did not appreciate being forced into it, they told the broadcaster. They were not immediately available for comment.

    “It just felt like we weren’t going to be able to have the wedding we wanted,” the new bride told the TV station.

    “I didn’t even have a white dress.”

    The newlyweds have posted a photo of their wedding on Facebook taken from the county court. – Reuters

  • One Direction break streaming record as they top UK chart

    One Direction’s fourth number one single racked up a record 2.03 million plays in its opening week across chart-reporting streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and others, the Official Charts Company said.

    Calvin Harris and Disciples’ “How Deep Is Your Love” jumped six places to second spot among the singles while last week’s Number 1 “Black Magic” by Little Mix fell to three.

    In the albums charts, London indie rock band The Maccabees claimed their first Number with their fourth studio album “Marks To Prove It.”

    British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas was at number two with “Blood,” just ahead of Years & Years’ “Communion” at three.

    Black, one of Britain’s best-known singers and TV presenters who started her career at Liverpool’s Cavern Club alongside the Beatles, died from a stroke at her Spanish villa on Aug. 1 at the age of 72. Her “The Very best of” album was up at 14 as fans bought her records in tribute while her 1964 hit “Anyone who Had a Heart” rose this week to No. 41 in the singles charts.

  • Twelve dead as Mali hotel siege ends, hostages freed

    The gunmen had seized the Byblos Hotel in the town of Sevare, around 600 km (400 miles) northeast of the west African nation’s capital Bamako, early on Friday and held off troops who quickly surrounded the building.

    The attack, far to the south of the Islamist militants’ traditional desert strongholds, was the latest in what appears to be a growing campaign against Malian troops and U.N. personnel by remnants of an al Qaeda-linked insurgency.

    “(The siege) seems to be over and it has ended well,” said a Malian defence ministry spokesman, Colonel Diaran Koné. “We freed the four hostages. But unfortunately we also found three bodies at the site.”

    A spokeswoman for Mali’s U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, said four U.N. contractors – two from South Africa along with a Russian and a Ukrainian – had been freed in the pre-dawn raid by security forces.

    “At no point were they discovered by the terrorists in the hotel. They were hiding,” Radhia Achouri said, adding that the mission was verifying whether any other MINUSMA personnel were present inside the hotel.

    Three hostages died during the ordeal, Malian government spokesman Choguel Kokala Maiga said, adding that authorities were still attempting to confirm their nationalities.

    Five soldiers and four gunmen, including one who officials earlier said was strapped with explosives, were also killed, he said.

    Seven suspects have been arrested in connection with the attack, according to a government statement released late on Friday.

    Ukraine and Russia had previously confirmed that their citizens were among the hostages. Russian news agencies, citing a press attache at Moscow’s embassy in Mali, said a Russian hostage employed by the airline UTair was among those freed on Saturday.

    At least one French national was also believed to have been staying at the hotel, Malian military officials said on Friday.

    A French foreign ministry official said Paris was attempting on Saturday to verify whether any of its citizens had been among the hostages.

    SMALL ARMS FIRE

    A 2013 French-led military operation drove back Islamist fighters, who had taken advantage of an ethnic Tuareg rebellion and a military coup to seize territory in the north a year earlier.

    While the United Nations has managed to broker a tenuous peace agreement between the government and Tuareg separatists, Islamist fighters left out of the negotiations have mounted a insurgency.

    Former colonial ruler France and other Western and regional nations fear Islamist fighters could turn the remote region into a launch pad for attacks further afield if they regain power there.

    Describing the security forces’ operation early on Saturday, a Sevare resident living near the hotel told Reuters: “The assault … took place between 4 and 5 o’clock this morning. We didn’t hear heavy weapons this time. There was just some small arms fire.”

    On Friday Malian forces had used heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, in a failed attempt to dislodge the gunmen that then gave way to the prolonged stand-off.

    The resident and a Malian military source said a special unit of the Malian gendarmes had carried out Saturday’s pre-dawn raid.

    Koné, the defence ministry spokesman, said that French forces had backed the operation. But a French army spokesman said French soldiers had not been directly involved in the assault on the hotel.

    “We played a coordination role with MINUSMA and the Malian armed forces, but this is a normal role that we play all the time,” the official said.

  • Ruthless England thrash Australia to regain Ashes, Clarke retires after series

    Ben Stokes had Mitchell Starc caught by Ian Bell at second slip for nought and Mark Wood bowled Josh Hazlewood for a duck.

    Wood produced another ferocious full-pitched delivery to shatter Nathan Lyon’s stumps and complete the rout, sparking wild celebrations on the pitch and all around the ground.

    “It’s unbelievable. I couldn’t be happier,” England captain Alastair Cook told reporters.

    “For what we’ve been through over the last 18 months, to play like we did has been fantastic. I’m so proud of this young team and the way they’ve taken this opportunity.”

    Adam Voges was unbeaten on 51 in Australia’s total of 253.

    England lead the series 3-1 with one match to play.

    Clarke to hang his boots after series:

    Australia captain Michael Clarke will retire after the final Ashes test against England this month, he told Australian television on Saturday.

    Clarke was speaking after England won the fourth test at Trent Bridge by an innings and 78 runs to regain the Ashes.

    “I want to play the last test at The Oval and give it one more crack. The time is right,” the 34-year-old said.

    “You never want to walk away. My performances over the past 12 months have not been acceptable to me.

    “Test cricket is about the Ashes. We tried our best, I certainly tried my best but we got outplayed.”

    Clarke has played 114 tests and scored over 8,000 runs, including 28 centuries.

  • After Zayn’s exit, One Direction break streaming record as they top UK chart

    One Direction’s fourth number one single racked up a record 2.03 million plays in its opening week across chart-reporting streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and others, the Official Charts Company said.

    Calvin Harris and Disciples’ “How Deep Is Your Love” jumped six places to second spot among the singles while last week’s Number 1 “Black Magic” by Little Mix fell to three.

    One Direction

    In the albums charts, London indie rock band The Maccabees claimed their first Number with their fourth studio album “Marks To Prove It.”

    British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas was at number two with “Blood,” just ahead of Years & Years’ “Communion” at three.

    Black, one of Britain’s best-known singers and TV presenters who started her career at Liverpool’s Cavern Club alongside the Beatles, died from a stroke at her Spanish villa on Aug. 1 at the age of 72. Her “The Very best of” album was up at 14 as fans bought her records in tribute while her 1964 hit “Anyone who Had a Heart” rose this week to No. 41 in the singles charts.

  • Williamson’s knock sets up New Zealand series win

    New Zealand batted first and after starting cautiously finished strongly in a total of 273 for six wickets from their 50 overs.

    Zimbabwe’s openers added 97 runs in reply but the hosts lost wickets at regular intervals and fell well short of the target, bowled out for 235 in 47.4 overs.

    Williamson fell 10 runs short of a century but did record his sixth 50 in ODI cricket to provide the backbone of the visitors’ innings.

    He featured in a 56-run partnership with Martin Guptill (42) and a 70-run stand with Grant Elliott.

    Williamson was caught after some sharp thinking from Craig Ervine, who took the dismissal on the boundary by padding the ball back into the air as his momentum threatened to carry him over the ropes before recovering to catch the ball.

    New Zealand kept up hit a steady tempo with James Neesham, in for the injured Ross Taylor, and Nathan McCullum contributing a lusty 50 runs in the final five overs.

    Sean Williams top-scored for the home team with 63 and Hamilton Masakadza made 57.

    Zimbabwe won the opening match of the series, all played in the capital, by seven wickets but lost the second when New Zealand reached their target without the loss of a wicket.

    New Zealand now go on to play a limited-overs series in South Africa.

  • Jennifer Aniston weds Justin Theroux in LA – reports

    People magazine and Us Weekly, citing unidentified sources, said the couple, who have been dating for four years, exchanged vows in front of some 70 family members and friends at their Bel-Air home on Wednesday.

    Representatives of the couple did not return requests for comment. But celebrity news website TMZ.com posted photos of a stage, an outdoor dance floor, dining tables and a large cake being brought into the house that Aniston and Theroux share in Bel-Air, a posh hilltop neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

    “Guests were told it was a birthday party for Justin. Jen and Justin wanted to surprise guests and guests were certainly surprised,” People magazine reported, citing a source.

    “Jen has been very good at keeping her wedding planning secret. Only her closest confidants knew that the party was actually a surprise wedding.”

    Aniston, 46, whose first marriage to actor Brad Pitt ended in divorce 10 years ago, met actor and “Tropic Thunder” screenwriter Theroux, who turns 44 next week, in 2008, and the couple announced their engagement in 2012.

    People and Us Weekly said guests at the wedding included Aniston’s “Friends” costar Lisa Kudrow, comedians Ellen DeGeneres and Chelsea Handler, TV’s “America’s Got Talent” judge Howard Stern and British actress Emily Blunt.

    Aniston has forged a lucrative film career in romantic comedies such as “Marley & Me” and “Just Go with It,” since the hit TV comedy “Friends” ended in 2004, having made her a global star.

    Her love life, including romances with musician John Mayer and actor Vince Vaughn, has been the focus of intense celebrity media speculation since the split with Pitt, who went on to strike up a relationship with Angelina Jolie. Pitt and Jolie married quietly in France in August 2014.