Hasta La Gadget!

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Smurfs may be feeling kind of blue.

The cuddly creatures’ once-promising film franchise is looking awfully creaky after “Smurfs: The Lost Village” stumbled at the domestic box office this weekend. The Sony release opened to a negligible $14.1 million. The film was an attempt to reinvigorate the series after 2013’s “The Smurfs 2” racked up a disappointing $347.5 million on a hefty $105 million budget. It’s a fall from quite a height. The first film, 2011’s “The Smurfs,” had showed such promise, grossing $563.7 million globally, but interest in the big screen adventures of the creatures has waned with each sequel.

With the Smurfs failing to generate much excitement, DreamWorks Animation and Fox’s “The Boss Baby” captured first place at the North American box office for the second consecutive weekend, earning $26.3 million to push its domestic haul to $89.4 million. Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” came in second, pulling in $25 million to push its stateside grosses to a lordly $432.3 million.

Box office analysts blame the glut of family titles for hobbling the Smurfs. “They should have waited a few weeks to open it,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations.

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Bock was ready to write the obituary for the franchise, saying, “A major studio does not open an animated film at $14 million and expect to have a sequel.”

This weekend is something of a throat clearing for the industry. “The Fate of the Furious,” the latest chapter in Universal’s long-running chronicle of vehicular carnage, is slated to roar into theaters next Friday. It should dominate ticket sales, racking up an $100 million debut and keeping Vin Diesel in designer tank tops for the foreseeable future.

“It’s looming large on the horizon,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. “It’s going to be a monstrous debut.”

New Line and Village Roadshow’s “Going in Style” took fourth place with $12.5 million. The comedy about three retirees who rob a bank stars Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine. It’s a low-budget remake of a 1979 comedy of the same name and cost $24 million to produce. The film resonated with older crowds, with 72% of the audience clocking in over the age of 50.

“The chemistry of the three guys really works together,” said Jeff Goldstein, domestic distribution chief at Warner Bros., New Line’s studio parent company. “They have fun together and it shows. It was a core part of the film’s appeal.”

Paramount’s “Ghost in the Shell” rounded out the top five, grossing $7.3 million to bring its domestic gross to a disastrous $31.6 million. The Japanese manga adaptation is shaping up to be one of the year’s biggest bombs. Dogged by “whitewashing” controversy after Scarlett Johansson nabbed a part intended for an Asian actress, “Ghost in the Shell” won’t stand a chance of recouping its $110 million production budget.

Sony isn’t ready to wave the white flag on the Smurfs. The studio notes that the previous two films earned more than 70% of their gross from foreign markets. The studio is also pleased with the film’s A CinemaScore, a sign that audiences are responding to the picture.

“We delivered a film that I think is the best yet,” said Rory Bruer, Sony’s domestic distribution chief. “Word-of-mouth should be strong.”

Sony also reined in costs. “Smurfs: The Lost Village” has a $60 million production budget, a fraction of the previous two entries’ price tag. However, the weak result extends a punishing period for Sony. The studio has been dogged by bombs such as “Life” and “Inferno,” while highly anticipated releases such as “Passengers,” a science-fiction romance with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, struggled to turn a profit.

In limited release, “Their Finest” opened on four screens in New York and Los Angeles to $77,000 for a per-screen average of $19,250. The comedy is set in World War II-era London and follows a troop of propaganda filmmakers. EuropaCorp bought the picture out of the Toronto Film Festival ― STX is distributing “Their Finest” on its behalf.

Neon, a new label from Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League and indie veteran Tom Quinn, debuted “Colossal” to $125,809 from four theaters. The off-beat monster movie stars Anne Hathaway and enjoyed a solid $31,452 per-screen average.

Overall ticket sales were up more than 15% on the prior-year period. Last year at this time Melissa McCarthy’s “The Boss” topped charts with a $23.6 million bow. Thanks to hits such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Logan,” 2017 continues to outpace 2016, with revenues up 5%.

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Days of angry protests in Venezuela came to a head over the weekend, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demand the departure of the country’s unpopular president, Nicolas Maduro. 

Rallies went out in cities across the country on Saturday, the largest of them in the capital, Caracas. Protesters in the capital chanted “Liberty, Liberty” and carried signs saying “Dictator Maduro!” and “Elections Now!”

While protesters say Saturday’s demonstration in Caracas started peacefully, the day ended in fierce clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Officers in riot gear used tear gas and water cannons to prevent marchers from proceeding. Some protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs and lit garbage on fire. Around a hundred protesters broke into an office of the Supreme Court.

Opposition activists say dozens of people were detained on Saturday. 

Saturday’s protests came after ten days of intense unrest, sparked by the Supreme Court’s decision last month to strip the country’s Parliament from most of its powers.

On March 29, Venezuela’s highest court ruled that it would take over the legislative powers of the National Assembly, the country’s opposition-controlled Congress. 

The move by the Supreme Court, which was stacked with Maduro-allies during the last session of the National Assembly before it fell in opposition hands, sparked fierce condemnation from activists, international powers and even supporters of President Maduro. 

Luisa Ortega, Venezuela’s attorney general, called the ruling “a rupture” of the constitutional order.

While the court eventually reversed the ruling amid growing pressure, the decision galvanized the opposition and set off tense protests throughout the following week. 

The unrest claimed its first victim on Thursday, when a police officer shot a law student dead on the outskirts of Caracas. Opposition leaders said 19-year-old Jairo Ortiz was killed as authorities tried to break up a protest. The Interior Ministry confirmed Oritz’ death and vowed it would charge the police officer who shot him, but disputed claims that Ortiz was a protester.

Demonstrators were angered anew on Friday, when the national comptroller’s offices announced opposition leader Henrique Capriles would be barred from holding office for 15 years.

While the government accused Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate who narrowly lost the election to Maduro in 2013, of breaking contracting laws and improper management of donations, the opposition says the move is intended to crack down on the opposition ahead of new elections in 2018. 

“When the dictatorship squeals it’s a sign we’re advancing,” Capriles said in a speech on Friday. “The only one who is disqualified here is you, Nicolas Maduro.”

Discontent with Maduro’s policies is at an all-time high as Venezuela battles a dramatic economic and humanitarian crisis. 

Falling oil prices and economic mismanagement brought about a recession that the IMF predicts will last until at least 2019. As the economy shrank, Venezuela faced growing poverty and crippling shortages.

Today, unemployment is up and wages have declined dramatically. Stores across the country lack basic food products. Hospitals go without medicines and essential medical equipment.

As opposition intensified, Maduro has stepped up the crackdown on dissent. More then a hundred political prisoners are currently behind bars, the New York Times reported recently, up from 89 a year ago. “The level of repression has risen to a brutal level,” Alfredo Romero, who heads Penal Forum, a human rights organization that tracks political arrests, told the newspaper.

For now, there’s no end in sight to the protests. Demonstrators are expected to rally again on Monday and a large rally is planned for Wednesday, April 19. 

“It’s been two years since I’ve been out on the streets,” Richard Morton, a 43-year-old electrical engineer told Reuters. “I’m out today because I see people acting in solidarity and the lawmakers are backing us up more. Plus the economic situation is insufferable. No one can live here.” 

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Multiple outlets are reporting that Janet Jackson’s marriage to Wissam Al Mana, her husband since 2012, is over.

The couple recently welcomed baby boy Eissa Al Mana on Jan. 3, months after the 50-year-old announced she was postponing her Unbreakable World Tour in order to plan her family. Brother Tito confirmed the news last summer during a radio interview with Andy Cohen.

Page Six offers conflicting reports over whether the split was amicable, with one source claiming Jackson thought her husband, 41, “had become too controlling during the pregnancy.” 

It is unclear at this point whether the couple had a prenuptial agreement or whether Jackson will seek spousal or child support. Page Six reports Jackson’s net worth at $250 million, an impressive nest egg that is nevertheless paltry when compared to Al Mana’s fortune.

In 2013, the singer revealed she had married the Qatari businessman and billionaire in a private ceremony the year prior, speaking up only to dispel rumors of an extravagant ceremony. It was the third marriage for Jackson, who was previously married to singer James DeBarge (which was annulled) and music video director Rene Elizondo.

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In a major victory for the movement to improve access to higher education, New York is set to become the only state that offers free tuition at four-year colleges.

Deemed the Excelsior Scholarship, the free tuition plan is included in the $163 billion state budget approved Saturday by the The Democrat-controlled Assembly. The Republican-led Senate will vote on the budget Sunday evening; and with Senate Leader John Flanagan (R-Long Island) supporting it, it’s likely to pass. 

The Excelsior Scholarship will cover tuition for any New Yorkers whose families earn less than $125,000 a year and who are accepted to one of the state’s public community colleges or public four-year universities ― which cost approximately between $4,350 and $6,470 annually. 

The scholarship is applicable to around 80 percent of the 940,000 families with college-aged children in New York, says Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who first proposed the tuition-free degree program in January. 

“Today, college is what high school was—it should always be an option even if you can’t afford it,” Cuomo said in a statement Saturday.

“There is no child who will go to sleep tonight and say, I have great dreams, but I don’t believe I’ll be able to get a college education because parents can’t afford it. With this program, every child will have the opportunity that education provides.”

If approved, the program will be phased in over three years, first applying to families earning up to 100,000 this fall. Those who take advantage of the opportunity must be enrolled full-time and maintain a certain grade point average and number of credits each year. 

While the program is similar to what Cuomo first proposed in January, a recent addition to the tuition plan requiring students to live and work in New York after graduation for the same number of years as they received the scholarship is alarming to some student aid experts, the magazine Inside Higher Ed noted. If students breach that, the scholarship will be converted to student loans, though some exceptions may be provided in cases of extreme hardship or out-of-state graduate programs. 

With similar free community college programs already in place in Tennessee, Oregon and Minnesota, New York’s plan to extend tuition coverage to four-year universities builds upon the college accessibility efforts championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. 

Last week, Sanders introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate that would provide free tuition to all public colleges and universities for families earning less than $125,000.

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James Thompson, the Democrat running to fill the House seat vacated by Trump administration appointee Mike Pompeo, is seeing a last-minute fundraising surge in the days before Tuesday’s unexpectedly competitive Kansas special election.

Thompson, a civil rights attorney and Army veteran, raised approximately $240,000 in 20,000 individual donations, much of it since Thursday, according to his campaign manager, Colin Curtis. The haul was bolstered by an ActBlue fundraising campaign backed by several progressive grassroots groups, including Daily Kos, Democracy for America, and Our Revolution.

The surge in donations shows a groundswell of support for Thompson, the first Democrat to face voters in a federal election since Donald Trump won the presidency in November. The Democratic Party, however, is staying away from the race.

Thompson dismissed his party’s failure to invest the race as “establishment thinking.”

“A lot of people don’t want to be proven wrong,” Thompson told The Huffington Post on Sunday. “If they were in Kansas, they’d have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“This is already a victory,” Thompson continued, because it proves that by taking the fight to working-class voters, Democrats can make even the deepest red districts competitive.

“I grew up in poverty,” Thompson said. “I want to give people the same chance I had.”

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee communications director Meredith Kelly said “it’s fantastic” that Thompson “is receiving such a surge of grassroots support.”

“There’s no doubt that we will need small donors across the country to pitch in and help us fight back against House Republicans this cycle,” Kelly said on Sunday.

Despite the late infusion of cash and early voting that shows higher Democratic turnout compared with previous elections, Thompson remains a heavy underdog in the ultra-conservative district. Trump won the district by nearly 30 points in November. Pompeo, a tea party Republican, quit the seat to serve as Trump’s CIA director.

Thompson’s campaign said it raised a substantial portion of its last-minute fundraising ― about $85,000 ― via its website over the weekend. Daily Kos appeals accounted for about $143,000 of the total raised, while Democracy for America appeals brought in $12,000. Our Revolution, the progressive group aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), helped contribute $900.

Thompson’s campaign said it would use the funds to purchase advertising and bolster its voter outreach efforts. 

Thompson’s campaign will receive the funds raised via the ActBlue campaign on Monday, on the eve of the election. His campaign, however, has already been spending accordingly.

Republicans also are pouring significant money into the race. They’re also dispatching high-profile conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Vice President Mike Pence, to stump on behalf of state Treasurer Ron Estes, Thompson’s GOP opponent.

Along with Tuesday’s election in Kansas, Democrats are also looking to special elections in similarly conservative districts in Georgia and Montana as key tests of anti-Trump enthusiasm ahead of next year’s congressional midterm elections. 

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