 |
 |
By Helen Storey
Staff Writer
4 September 2009
|
THIS week sees exciting news for Hollywood, a whole host of glitz and glam as the Venice Film Festival opens and the most popular Blockbuster titles.
Best ever US film summer
Hollywood has been celebrating its best summer ever in terms of box office takings.
According to US film magazine, Variety, the summer's takings so far have hit $4.17bn (£2.4bn), beating the previous record of $4.16bn in 2007.
Although reports state that the current economic climate is driving up ticket sales, box office takings took a dip last year.
The rise has been attributed to some of the year's best hits such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which alone took $399.4bn.
Other summer favourites included Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($294.3m), DisneyPixar's Up ($289.6m) and, surprise smash, The Hangover (270.2m).
With such a successful summer, you can look forward to some exciting new releases to add to your DVD rental queue. When the autumn drizzle starts to kick in, you can stick on one of this year's summer scorchers, and reminisce about the summer drizzle instead.
Venice Film Fest opens
Take a walk down the red carpet (or float there in a gondola) and keep up to date with all the goings-on at the Venice Film Festival, which opened earlier this week.
Although it's not as famous as the Cannes Film Festival, its Italian counterpart still had such stars as Eva Mendes, Nicolas Cage and Viggo Mortensen gracing the carpet.
There are 24 films competing against each other to with the coveted title of The Golden Lion.
The glitzy gala kicked off with a distinct Italian flavour, as Cinema Paradiso director, Guiseppe Tornatore, opened the festival with his new Sicilian drama, Baaria.
Best start keeping an eye out for the movers and shakers of the festival, and get those winners in your rental queue (perhaps even from Cinema Paradiso DVD rental )before anyone else does.
This week's most popular Blockbuster titles
Finally this week, a run-down of the most popular rented titles by Blockbuster users.
Which cinematic masterpiece holds the coveted top slot? Is it a classic war epic, or a recent box office super-hit?
Well, not really no. It's Disney's family flick, Race to Witch Mountain, which stars Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) as a taxi driver who picks up two teen runaways. Did we mention they also have supernatural powers?
Next up is an equally surprising choice with Management. Jenifer Aniston stars in this not-another-rom-com, which sees her co-star Steve Zahn chasing her across the country in search of love. Woody Harrelson takes a slight step down from his Natural Born Killers fame to star alongside Aniston as her rich boyfriend.
In third place is thriller, Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. The film involves secret lovers, spies, new formulas and all the covert secrecy you could ever want.
You can rent all of these movies from blockbuster.
 Online DVD Rental
DVD Rental Guide
|
