This week, as people continue to deal with the death of Tim Curry — legendary actor and, in many ways, a hero to misfits across the world — his movies and roles are naturally coming back into focus as people renew their love for everything he gave us.
Pennywise the Dancing Clown will obviously be near the top of that list.
Bill Skarsgård’s movie version is amazing in its own right, but Tim Curry created something in 1990 that simply stuck. That face. That voice. The humor mixed with menace. Curry’s Pennywise became an image burned into pop culture and helped establish the character for an entire generation.
But there’s another Tim Curry movie we’d like to celebrate right now, one that deserves just as much attention:
Clue.
Tim Curry’s performance as Wadsworth in Clue was, hands down, one of his greatest.
He was basically a real-life comic book character running around that mansion as this collection of wealthy, eccentric and increasingly suspicious people attempted to figure out who was murdering everyone around them.
And Curry never stopped moving.
Especially during that incredible final act, when Wadsworth practically reenacts the entire movie — racing from room to room, retracing everyone’s steps, changing voices, throwing himself around the mansion ..
He even a medical issue from it!
Tim Curry once described the toll this role took on him: “I actually had a sort of incident of high blood pressure towards the end, when all of the conclusions were happening, because I was running around like a mad person. They took me to the doctor and I had to take pills for a week, my blood pressure was so high. Which was very tiresome.”
Clue is one of those rare movies that remains fun across generations. Kids can watch it and laugh at the physical comedy. Adults pick up on an entirely different layer of jokes. People from completely different backgrounds and generations have discovered it, quoted it and watched it over and over again.
And I think a tremendous amount of that comes down to Tim Curry.
Go back and watch Clue sometime and mentally remove him from the movie.
Just imagine those same scenes with everyone else.
It’s still a good cast. It’s still a clever story. There are still funny performances.
But something is missing.
It doesn’t quite hit.
Tim Curry was the electricity running through that movie. There was something special about what he did with Wadsworth that elevated everyone around him and helped turn what could have been a forgotten 1980s comedy into a movie people are still watching and loving more than 40 years later.
The world lost a great actor, and for many people who grew up watching him, it almost feels like we lost an old friend.
So perhaps this weekend, or whenever you find a little spare time in life, go back and revisit some Tim Curry.
Sure, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and IT will understandably be near the top of the list.
But give Clue another watch.
And while you’re watching it, try to imagine that movie working without Tim Curry.
Spider-Man continues his dominance at the box office, a run that at this point has lasted almost the entire month of August.
And now, with summer winding down, the question becomes: How much longer can this Marvel hero continue to grab the No. 1 spot each weekend?
Because he did it again.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is heading toward an estimated $22 million for the weekend, giving the film its fifth consecutive weekend at No. 1 and pushing its domestic total to around $891 million. That puts $900 million within striking distance and continues to showcase Spider-Man as possibly the strongest movie story of the entire year.
Five weeks in, people are STILL going to see this movie.
Coyote vs. Acme finally arrived in theaters this weekend after its bizarre journey from being essentially shelved and nearly disappearing altogether to actually getting a theatrical release. And audiences apparently wanted to see it.
The live-action/animated family film is looking at roughly a $13–14 million opening weekend, putting it into a battle with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, now in its seventh weekend, for second place.
And perhaps even more interesting: people seem to really like Coyote vs. Acme.
The movie currently sits at 95% with critics and 94% with verified audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, which could give this one some legs beyond opening weekend. For a movie that at one point looked like it might never even be released, that’s a pretty remarkable turnaround.
But once again, the weekend belongs to Spider-Man.
Five weekends.
Five victories.
Nearly $900 million domestically.
Summer is almost over, but apparently Spider-Man isn’t ready to give up the box office just yet.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is on the verge of knocking Titanic out of the all-time global box-office top five!!
Over the weekend, Brand New Day racked up another $39 million domestically (and $109 million globally) bringing its totals to $854.9 million domestic ($2.22 billion globally).
That puts Brand New Day just $44 million shy of overtaking James Cameron’s Oscar-winning 1997 hit, something Brand New Day should easily manage in a week or so..
So what does that mean, did everyone actually want to see He-Man but just decided to wait until they could watch it at home as part of their Prime subscription? Or is the fandom that went to see it in theaters multiple times now just leaving it stream all day long on repeat? (this one sounds possible).. Either way, the numbers are pretty remarkable.
According to Nielsen’s U.S. streaming rankings, Masters of the Universe pulled in 1.173 BILLION minutes viewed during the week of July 20–26, putting it ahead of every movie and television series on the overall streaming chart.
HE-MAN!
The movie didn’t arrive on Prime Video until July 22, meaning it accumulated those numbers with only about five days of availability during Nielsen’s measured week.
That’s one heck of a turnaround for a movie that spent much of June being labeled a theatrical bomb that the world just scoffed at like Skeletor making a sarcastic comment to Mer-Man..
The movie finished its domestic theatrical run at roughly $65 million, and the worldwide numbers weren’t enough to make its reported production budget look particularly pretty. For weeks, the conversation surrounding Masters of the Universe wasn’t about whether there would be another movie … it was whether Hollywood had once again tried to resurrect an ’80s franchise that simply didn’t have enough life left in it.
Maybe that conversation was premature. Because now people are watching He-Man. A LOT. And this isn’t just one strange Nielsen week, either. Amazon’s own worldwide Prime Video rankings still had Masters of the Universe as its #1 original movie for August 10–16.
That suddenly makes the future of this franchise a lot more interesting.
No sequel has officially been announced, and obviously streaming success doesn’t automatically erase what happened at the box office. But Amazon MGM happens to own the movie, and Amazon also happens to own the streaming service where He-Man is suddenly doing enormous numbers.
So maybe the question isn’t whether Masters of the Universe deserves another $170 million theatrical gamble. Maybe the question becomes whether Masters of the Universe 2 belongs on Prime Video.
Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned this summer, apparently people really did want to see He-Man. They just might not have wanted to leave the house to do it.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has amassed a heroic $1.67 billion after just 12 days in theaters, including $1.01 billion internationally and $655 million domestically. It’s the second-fastest movie to reach the billion-dollar mark overseas, behind only 2019’s comic book behemoth “Avengers: Endgame.”
Among its numerous milestones, “Brand New Day” has already become the biggest movie of the year as well as the 12th-highest-grossing release of all time. It’s a testament to the enduring popularity of Peter Parker, as well as the pent-up demand for Tom Holland’s fourth solo adventure as Marvel’s web-slinging hero.
It’s been 24 years since one of the most poignant movies we’ve ever seen was released.
Signs, with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix.
Over the past 24 years, I can’t even describe how many times I’ve watched this movie. To the point where, probably 23 years ago, my VHS copy was basically ruined from overuse. Somewhere in this house there’s a DVD that probably has plenty of dust on it now, but also plenty of scratches from the number of times it was put into a DVD player.
We’ve hunted down any place streaming it for free. We’ve rented it probably way too many times from various streaming services.
The movie was something in 2002.. it had significance and a message and touched on a connection between people…
We are not a stranger to the critique that the graphics at the end are goofy.. the CGI alien imagery hasn’t exactly aged gracefully. We know people laugh at the water falling onto the alien’s shoulder. The movie has been mocked, parodied and satirized plenty of times since 2002.
But in 2002, Signs was the Horror Report Movie of the Year.
Here is a snippet of we immaturely said that year:
You had to be there.
You have to remember the context in which Signs arrived. M. Night Shyamalan had already given us The Sixth Sense, one of the greatest box-office sleeper stories of its time and a movie that completely changed the conversation around him.
The entire country was talking about The Sixth Sense.
And here’s something else that’s almost quaint to remember now: people actually tried not to ruin the ending. People enthusiastically wanted their friends and family to experience that ending in a theater the same way they did. Unless you went searching around the internet for somebody willing to spoil it, we somehow managed to remain relatively spoiler-free.
Shyamalan followed The Sixth Sense with Unbreakable and then, in 2002, came Signs.
And he used some of that same magic again. Except the ending of Signs wasn’t really about delivering another giant twist. It was something more meaningful.
Yes, Signs is technically about an alien invasion of planet Earth and one small family’s fight inside a farmhouse outside Philadelphia to survive it.
There are frightening images. There are jump scares. There’s an alien walking past a birthday party that probably scared the living hell out of plenty of people sitting in theaters in 2002.
But if you’re watching Signs today simply for the jump scares or the alien effects, you’re probably going to be disappointed.
Because that’s not really what the movie is about.
It’s about a minister who loses his faith after his wife dies through what seems like the cruelest possible act of random fate.
It’s about Joaquin Phoenix’s Merrill Hess, a man who once seemed destined for something greater but never quite got there. He had talent. He had promise. He had baseball. And now he’s working at a gas station and living with his brother.
It’s about two children traumatized by the death of their mother, trying to understand their own grief while simultaneously watching their father transform into a different, almost unrecognizable version of himself. And in the middle of all of this, aliens invade Earth.
The alien invasion is the metaphorical backdrop for everything else happening inside that farmhouse.
Coincidences that might not be coincidences and faith lost and eventually rediscovered. Trauma, with grief and regret, all get incorporated..
The question of whether the terrible and seemingly random things that happen to us have some meaning that we simply can’t see while we’re living through them.
And how you keep the light on when the world around you suddenly seems filled with shadows.
There’s another piece of the history that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Signs was made in the shadow of September 11, 2001.
The movie was being made during that period, and the bonus documentary material released with the film even captured members of the production discussing what it was like when 9/11 happened. As a matter of fact, filming started on September 12, 2001..
It’s difficult to explain to someone who wasn’t old enough to experience that period just how much 9/11 permeated almost everything afterward.
The country had suddenly experienced the horrifying realization that something almost unimaginable could happen on an otherwise normal morning.
And then Signs came along with a family standing inside a farmhouse, watching television and listening to the radio as something unimaginable happened to the entire world outside.
I don’t think you can completely separate those things.
Maybe that’s one reason the movie hit so differently in 2002.
And now 24 years have passed.
We recently went back and watched Signs again. It’s currently streaming on Apple TV—which we’ll call “free” with the obvious asterisk that you have to pay for Apple TV to get that particular version of free.
And boy, does 2002 look like 2002.
There are VHS tapes and VCRs. Old baby monitors become an important piece of technology. There aren’t smartphones constantly buzzing with notifications. Nobody is refreshing social media looking for the newest shaky alien video.
Instead, our protagonists watch television and listen to the radio to find out whether the world is ending.
Of course things would be different today.
But strangely enough, the important things wouldn’t be.
Because Signs is grounded in something that technology hasn’t really changed.
It’s not simply a horror movie.
It’s a deeply profound story about a spiritual awakening during a horrific moment.
Kind of like 9/11.
And kind of like life itself for a lot of people.
Over the past 24 years, I’ve told countless people to watch Signs. I don’t know how many actually listened. I don’t know how many watched it and thought I was crazy for loving it so much.
That’s okay.
I’ve also remained loyal to Shyamalan through some of the years when seemingly everybody else decided they were done with him.
We’ve even told countless people to watch Lady in the Water, another movie people dismiss because they think the premise is goofy or the story is strange.
But Lady in the Water tells you what it is. It’s a bedtime story.
And underneath that strange bedtime story is another profoundly human idea about trauma—how it changes a person, how it can change the soul and how accepting what happened to you can become part of reclaiming your identity.
Maybe that’s why these movies have stuck with me.
Because Signs, to some degree, healed me in 2002.
And for the past 24 years, I’ve gone back to it during moments when I needed some spiritual healing or maybe just an awakening.
I know.
It’s just a movie.
But after watching it this many times over this many years, there’s still something nagging at my mind.
If an alien invasion ever really happened, maybe the aliens really would be stupid enough to invade a planet covered in the one substance capable of killing them.
Maybe water really would do it.
Who knows.
But something else seems far more believable.
If an alien invasion happened today, there would be families inside farmhouses, apartments and homes across the world going through exactly the same struggle as the Hess family.
Because right now there are already plenty of people fighting profoundly deep battles trying to figure out who they are, what they believe and how to put themselves back together after something changed them.
Twenty-four years of technological advancement hasn’t changed that.
Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix’s characters didn’t have smartphones, social media or most of our modern conveniences.
But they had exactly the same emotions we have today.
Trauma and heartbreak.
Fear and hopelessness.
Resilience and courage.
And the desperate search for some kind of meaning in the face of an earth-shattering crisis.
That’s what Signs is.
So watch it again.
Don’t worry about whether the CGI alien looks convincing in 2026.
Look at the people inside the farmhouse instead. And maybe see if you can reclaim a little bit of the spirit you had when you first watched it all those years ago.
And if you’re watching Signs for the first time?
This is what we said about the movie during our “movie of the year post” 24 short years ago, without grammar corrected 🙂 :
Priests are scandalous all around us. Elders are corrupting minors. Television ads are selling sex to children. Government is selling our secrecy for safety and we let them. Politicians who lie and cheat and steal to get their positions of power are corrupting institutions of power we once respected because our founding father gave us a reason to. We have no heroes anymore, we, often times and in many individual cases, have nothing to have faith in. SIGNS illustrates to us that faith has faith in us to make the right choice, to see the signs. A glass of water is half full. In this film it matters.
Everything matters. It’s the ultimate message for life Shaymalan wanted to send. It’s also the ultimate reason I chose this film as the movie of the year. It gave me a glimmer of hope. It made me wonder. It made me think about things in a different way. It filled me with spirit, I left the film each time feeling more faithful and spiritual than any church service on earth can make me. I saw the SIGNS. I just hope I never close my eyes again.
HORROR-REPORT’S FILM OF THE YEAR 2002: SIGNS
Don’t watch it as a 24-year-old alien movie whose special effects you’re supposed to judge against what Hollywood can create today.
Watch it as a story about people trying to survive something they don’t understand.
Maybe, somewhere in their struggle, you’ll recognize a little bit of your own.
And maybe you’ll find one of the signs you’ve been looking for.
We’d be remiss if we did not report about something that many people excited about. Grown Ups is getting a sequel..
Netflix posted the image today of the grown ups now all grown up back in action for the third movie. Since Netflix is posting it would be assumed this will not be a theater release but instead streaming.
Also presumably the movie will be a little bit worse than the second and the second was a little bit worse than the first but, it’s still cool to have another one coming..
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has officially swung into theaters and absolutely rocked the box office in all the right ways. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker alongside Zendaya, with Sadie Sink making her Marvel debut as Jean Grey.
The movie is amazing .. the money rolling in is deserved..
You can feel it and see it in the crowds. People of every age and every background are heading to theaters together, and they’re leaving with smiles on their faces. That’s something very few movies accomplish anymore. Most movie audiences feel fragmented, but Spider-Man manages to unite audiences in genuine excitement and joy.
We all need a hero..
The acting is superb, the action sequences are thrilling for a big screen, and the storyline never loses sight of the human element that has always made Spider-Man so relatable. Tom Holland once again proves why he has become the defining Spider-Man of his generation, while Zendaya helps rekindle Peter and MJ’s unforgettable romance but yet somehow forgettable romance (You’d have to see the movie..)
Sadie Sink’s as Jean Grey was handled perfectly, leading to several scenes that were surprisingly emotional.
After seeing Sadie wield incredible powers on the big screen, some couldn’t help but think she almost feels like the version of Eleven we never got on Stranger Things!
One of the movie’s greatest strengths is that you don’t necessarily have to be a Marvel encyclopedia to enjoy it. Casual moviegoers can simply sit back and experience a fantastic superhero adventure, while longtime Marvel fans will have a blast catching the countless Easter eggs and connections sprinkled throughout the film.
If there’s been one recurring criticism, even with its outstanding 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, it’s that the movie is darker and more serious than previous Spider-Man films. BUT OF COURSE IT IS!
The stakes have grown. Peter Parker’s existence is becoming more of a burden than a blessing, and watching him wrestle with anger, loss, responsibility, and maturity makes for a far more compelling hero than simply watching him crack jokes in every scene.
We’re not quite ready to call it the movie of the year just yet, but it may very well be the movie of the summer.
Will it receive Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, or Best Actress? Certainly not. And that’s precisely why so many people have grown frustrated with the Academy Awards or accolades of that nature.. A movie that millions of people genuinely love, one that fills theaters and creates shared memories, will likely be ignored while smaller films seen by only a fraction of the audience receive the industry’s highest honors. But that is besides the point of this opening weekend..
So here’s to Tom Holland and everyone involved in making what may very well be the best Spider-Man movie yet. More than anything, thank you for giving audiences a couple of hours to escape reality and reminding us what going to the movies is supposed to feel like.
Rarely does a movie come around with nearly 100% scores for both critics and audiences on rotten tomatoes.com but we have our film doing that. The Odyssey is being already called the potential movie of the year and all eyes will now be on how much money it makes.
Critics are already calling it the best film of 2026…
It is directed by Christopher Nolan, and based on Homer’s epic poem, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, with an ensemble cast including Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Zendaya. It’s a mythic action epic shot entirely on IMAX film..
It’s also meant to be seen on an IMAX screen this weekend…
Upon entry, every attendee will be handed an exclusive, custom-engineered scratch-and-sniff card divided into specific, numbered panels. Audiences must watch the screen closely; when a corresponding cue flashes mid-scene, it’s your green light to scratch the matching card block.
Fans are guessing what the localized cards contain.. maybe the clinical, sterile sting of laboratory chemicals .. fresh neon-green stabilizers to the nauseatingly sweet aroma of Hollywood dressing room perfumes, overripe food, and iron-heavy puddles of stage blood..
