Knives Out Blockbuster



The streaming service has shelled out millions to buy the rights to “Knives Out 2” and “Knives Out 3,” Variety reports. The first film was a box office hit and earned an estimated $311.4. Knives Out is a great antidote to the Oscar contenders and family fare that dominate this time of year. It's a purely fun time at the movies thanks to its strong story and fantastic performances.

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The new murder mystery movie Knives Out is filled with famous actors many audiences already know and love. But there's one face in the cast who might not be as familiar to fans.. for now, at least. Ana de Armas, who plays Marta Cabrera in Knives Out, is a total standout in the film, and has audiences excited to see more of her (which they will).

In Knives Out, De Armas' Marta is the protagonist and caretaker of the famous and wealthy author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). When Harlan dies suddenly and gruesomely, Marta is forced to deal with his greedy extended family — and a big secret of her own — while a team of detectives investigate the whole situation. Even among the big, stacked cast, which includes Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Katherine Langford, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, and more, the relative newcomer stands out in her dynamic role.

With Knives Out as well as another major upcoming blockbuster, it's been a busy time for de Armas. 'I’m not complaining, because it’s taken me a long time to get here, and I’m living my dream,” de Armas told the Los Angeles Times. 'This is exactly what I want to be and what I want to do — but gosh, I’m tired. I feel like I repeat that a lot. But I’m tired. I think 2020 will be the year for me to sleep a little bit more.”

The actor might be going to sleep in 2020, but that'll be the year audiences will definitely be seeing a lot more of her. Here are the key facts you need to know to get ready for what's shaping up to be the Year of de Armas:

1. When She Arrived In Hollywood, She Didn't Speak English

De Armas was born in a small town just outside Havana, Cuba, in 1988. At age 18, she became a TV star in Spain, and she then moved to the U.S. in 2014 to take on Hollywood. She didn't speak English when she arrived, so she did months of intensive language studies before landing roles in movies like War Dogs and Blade Runner 2049.

Knives Out Blockbuster Movie

2. She Initially Turned Down 'Knives Out'

The character description for de Armas' character Marta simply said she was a 'pretty Latina caretaker,' and, unhappy with that description, she decided she didn't want to be involved with the project. She explained to The Hollywood Reporter:

Getting an email that described the character like that — without any more information or a script attached because it was high-profile and secret — just really didn’t speak to me. So, because of the character description, my imagination immediately went to a portrayal that was not necessarily very positive or exciting in relation to Latin culture.

Luckily, she learned Marta was much more nuanced. She said to THR, 'When I finally read the script, I realized that the description didn’t fit at all because Marta is so much more than that.”

3. She's Co-Starring In A Film With Ben Affleck

De Armas and Affleck are playing a wife-andohusband duo in the upcoming thriller Deep Water. The movie is expected to come out toward the end of 2020.

4. She's The Next 'Bond Girl'

Knives Out Blockbuster Cast

James Bond is known for having a badass woman by his side in each movie, and de Armas is going to play the part in the upcoming No Time to Kill. Unlike some Bond films of the past, however, the Los Angeles Times reports there will be 'a very different dynamic' between 007 and his co-star this time around.

Knives Out is in theaters now.

By Adam EpsteinKnives out blockbuster trailer

Entertainment reporter

Knives Out, the new film directed by Rian Johnson, is the last of a dying breed—the rare “mid-budget,” story-driven movie from a Hollywood studio that’s not tied to an existing franchise. It’s neither a low-budget indie nor a big-budget blockbuster.

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Knives Out House

Goldilocks might have found Johnson’s flick to be just right, but the American film industry increasingly prefers its movies at one of the two extremes.

Knives Out Blockbuster 2019

Produced on a $40 million budget, Knives Out—released in US theaters by Lionsgate tomorrow—is a throwback whodunit about a dysfunctional family that gathers after the mysterious death of its wealthy patriarch, a famous crime novelist. While they’re all together, a private detective is called in to assist the police investigate the novelist’s demise.

Unlike the majority of Hollywood films that boast one or two big stars, Knives Out is a true ensemble movie. (Marvel’s Avengers movies, of course, are an exception.) Actors like Chris Evans and Jamie Lee Curtis have relatively equal screen time, along with their nine co-stars. It most likely won’t have a sequel. There’s no merchandise to be sold and no extra content to consume. It’s just a movie.

“I said to my producer, ‘We want an all-star cast. We want that old-school, entertaining, we’re-putting-on a-big-show type feel,'” Johnson, who previously directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, told GQ. The film succeeds in that endeavor despite its modest budget and lack of franchise underpinnings. Johnson has said it was inspired by classic Hollywood murder mysteries like 1978’s Death On the Nile Pencil drawing tutorials pdf free download. , which also featured an A-list ensemble cast sharing the spotlight.

Hollywood used to make this type of movie all the time. In 1990, the average production budget of the 20 highest-grossing films in the US was $32 million, or about $63 million adjusted for inflation. This year, that average was an almost unfathomable $141 million. In 1990, Knives Out would have been a garden-variety movie; today, it’s an outlier.

That Knives Out exists at all is a minor miracle, but Johnson earned a lot of leeway after his successful Star Wars movie, and star Daniel Craig had already agreed to appear in the film before studios bid on the script last year. Lionsgate, considered a “mini-major” Hollywood distributor (smaller than Disney and Warner Bros., but bigger than an independent studio), is one of the few companies left still spending on mid-budget movies in an attempt to counter program the blockbusters.

CastKnives out blockbuster trailer

According to film researcher Stephen Follows, the percentage of films with budgets over $100 million has increased from just 4% in 2000 to more than 12% today. That big-budget explosion has come at the expense of mid-budget movies in the $20-60 million range, which have declined quicker than any other type of film.

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Studios no longer view these kinds of movies as smart investments. They’re not cheap like most independent movies and still carry substantial financial risk. But they also don’t have the huge ceiling as blockbuster movies. The bigger the budget, the bigger the risk, and also the bigger the potential returns.

Watch Knives Out

Films like Knives Out rarely become cash cows: This year, only three Hollywood films made for less than $60 million made the year’s top 20 highest-grossing list. Two of them were horror movies (Us and Glass), which can be made on the cheap, and the other was Joker, a film based on the infamous DC Comics character.

Knives Out Star

It doesn’t help that there literally aren’t enough movie screens to show these mid-budget movies amidst the deluge of blockbusters. “These huge franchise pictures are elbowing out midrange and lower-budget movies,” Jason E. Squire, a film professor at the University of Southern California, told the New York Times. “It’s harder for midsize movies to get theaters in the first place, much less hold onto them long enough to build an audience.”

Some mid-budget movies, like the Disney holiday comedy Noelle (Disney+) and Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk (HBO Max), are starting to find homes on streaming services while Hollywood struggles to attract audiences to theaters for anything that isn’t a franchise blockbuster. If it made more movies like Knives Out, maybe it would be more successful. Deadline reported Knives Out is on track for a solid $30 million debut at the box office.