The Playlist

Box Office: 'Pain & Gain' Takes Top Spot; 'Iron Man 3' Earns $195 Million Overseas, On Track For $1 Billion

By Gabe Toro
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April 28, 2013 12:01 PM
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Box Office

One could argue it was the under-performance of "The Island" that led Michael Bay into the world of "Transformers" but whatever it was, Bay has not made a film outside of that franchise in eight years. The three films in that series collected $2.6 billion worldwide, however, giving him the freedom to take another risk in "Pain & Gain." And one week before the beginning of summer (considered a dumping ground before the big guns come out to play), the picture was able to capitalize on a tidy $20 million opening.

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M83 Reveals He Nearly Quit 'Oblivion,' Studio Said His Music Was "Too Indie For The Film"

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 22, 2013 5:34 PM
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10 Comments

News

So yes, "Oblivion" landed this past week and it was a big, big hit taking nearly $40 million at the U.S. box office with another $61 million in the bank from overseas, leading to a very happy weekend for execs at Universal. And indeed, it was likely a nice couple of days for M83 aka Anthony Gonzalez, with the French electro-shoegaze maestro making it through this first Hollywood scoring gig, a major studio blockbuster and coming out looking pretty good. He even put in an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to help get the word out. But as he candidly tells Pitchfork, things weren't always so sunny on the movie.

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Box Office: Moviegoers Fall Into 'Oblivion' As Studios Prepare For Start Of Summer

By Gabe Toro
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April 21, 2013 12:01 PM
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3 Comments

Box Office

Tom Cruise could be seen as a leading man in a holding pattern right now. The fans still come out for his films, but maybe the base hasn’t grown despite an impressive box office record carried into the 2000’s. Though it depends where you consider that base should come from. “Oblivion,” his latest, banked a solid non-3D $38 million by the end of Sunday. One wonders what that does for the Cruise brand: consider that back in 2001, Cruise guided “Minority Report” to a very similar gross. Given more than a decade of inflation and absolutely zero competition as studios clear the decks for “Iron Man 3” in May, shouldn’t you expect more?

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What Are You Seeing This Weekend? 'Oblivion' & 'Lords Of Salem' Are 'In The House'

By Emma Bernstein
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April 19, 2013 5:19 PM
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1 Comment

News

Not even one month into spring, and it looks like the summer blockbuster season already has the jump on us: the latest big budget, big explosion, big sound, big picture Tom Cruise vehicle, as the only major release this weekend, should have no trouble rolling the big profits right in. Particularly as its companions are the usual indie fare - strong, certainly, but also full of niche appeal - with witchy horror, sports drama, sci-fi thriller, and a magical documentary rounding out the slate. On the plus side, the advanced season start date means that warmer weather and longer days are just around the corner. Summer is coming!

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Tom Cruise Before He Was Famous: His First 5 Films

By Jessica Kiang
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April 19, 2013 11:30 AM
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5 Comments

Features

From tiny, acne-ridden, squeaky-voiced acorns, massive oaks of megastardom can grow. Not literally, of course, in Tom Cruise's case (obligatory height reference), but in every figurative way possible, he is an enormous presence in Hollywood, as a producer, as a celebrity and most importantly as a greenlight-giving, budget-busting, bona fide movie star. For better or worse, we've few enough left of those. For anyone who grew up watching movies any time in the eighties, nineties or even noughties, Tom Cruise is simply a fact of life: an immovable object; a mathematical constant like Pi, that we'll never quite get to the end of defining. His movies succeed, his movies fail (all judged on the warped power-of-n matrix of the tentpole), but Tom Cruise TM endures, and will be jumping out of a building on a movie screen near you very soon, if he isn't doing just that, right now.

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Olga Kurylenko Talks Romance Behind ‘Oblivion,’ Sharing ‘Solaris’ With Joseph Kosinksi & Making ‘Empires Of The Deep’

By Charlie Schmidlin
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April 19, 2013 11:01 AM
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Interviews

Hitting theaters today, "Oblivion" brings a rarity to the multiplex: an ambitious, idea drive sci-fi blockbuster that also aims to be popcorn entertainment. The film tells the story of Jack Harper -- played by Tom Cruise -- a drone repairman, working on a battle scarred Earth that has mostly been abandoned, sometime in the distant future. He's only got a couple of weeks left on the job before he too will leave the planet for the moons of Saturn, but when a spaceship crash lands, and a mysterious woman (Olga Kurylenko) appears, everything he knows gets turned upside down.

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Watch: M83 Performs 'Oblivion' On 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 19, 2013 9:44 AM
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2 Comments

News

Today, Tom Cruise returns to theaters in Joseph Kosinski's heady sci-fi adventure "Oblivion," and as you already know by now, it's not just the action, intriguing story, the presence of Andrea Riseborough, crisp digital filmmaking and excellent special effects that will be worth paying the ticket price for. M83 has provided the soundtrack, which adds a unique propulsiveness and texture to the effort, and in the process it will hopefully make some more people aware of his excellent, non-soundtrack work. And certainly last night on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," he displayed what he does best.

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The 10 Best "Last Man On Earth" Movies

By The Playlist Staff
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April 18, 2013 2:05 PM
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13 Comments

Features

In this weekend's slick, sleekly-realized "Oblivion," Tom Cruise stars as a technician in charge of a decayed radioactive wasteland version of Earth. (Short version: moon was destroyed by alien somethings; shit got fucked up.) Sure, this is a post-apocalyptic vision (one soundtracked by a propulsive M83 score), but it also falls into the more niche category of the "last man on earth" sub-genre, one that will quickly get another entry in the form of Will Smith's "After Earth" (opening later this summer). In something of the spirit of the lone, lonely survivor who wants to collect around him his favorite things, we've foregone the apocalyptic event and started a small collection of our own -- our favorite "last man on earth" movies.

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'Oblivion' Director Joseph Kosinski Talks In-Camera Effects, Mies Van Der Rohe & M83's Longtime Influence

By Charlie Schmidlin
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April 16, 2013 7:00 PM
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0 Comments

Interviews

It's difficult to determine the more nerve-wracking scenario for director Joseph Kosinski: Helming a much-anticipated sequel to "Tron" for Disney as his first feature, or following it up with an original, $120 million sci-fi concept with Tom Cruise in the lead. The movie, about the last man on Earth whose life is forever changed when spaceship containing a mysterious woman crash lands, launching him into an unexpected adventure, has already opened overseas to big audiences.

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Check Out Mondo's Illustrated Gatefold Vinyl 2xLP For M83's 'Oblivion' Soundtrack

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 12, 2013 9:41 AM
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0 Comments

News

"Tron: Legacy" director Joseph Kosinski's "Oblivion" has nearly landed, but the early word is out on the Tom Cruise starring sci-fi action flick. Our review is somewhere in the middle, not quite wholly taken with the effort, but certainly impressed by the spectacle on display. And perhaps one reason to buy a ticket besides the top notch special effects work, is a chance to hear M83 in surround sound.

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