Your weekend movie news round-up!

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Monday blues? Banish all sad thoughts with our round-up of the must-read stories that are making the headlines.

Avengers: Infinity War breaks pre-sales ticket records

Just recently, Marvel's Black Panther shattered advance ticket sales, overtaking Captain America: Civil War to become the studio's best-performing movie in this area. However, Wakanda has now been toppled by another insurgent Marvel threat, Avengers: Infinity War, which has claimed the throne in terms of ticket sales.

Variety (via Fandango) reports Infinity War has become the fastest-selling superhero movie in the first 24 hours of release. It's overtaken previous record holder Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with third place going to Black Panther. With the latter barrelling towards Avengers Assemble's global box office total of $1.5 billion, we can only imagine how well Infinity War is going to perform.

Infinity War presents the most dire and deadly threat to the Avengers so far, as super-villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) invades Earth. Looking to claim the all-powerful Infinity Stones in order to balance the universe, he's poised to eliminate some key members of the Marvel ensemble.

Don't forget, the movie's UK release date has now moved up from 27th April to 26th April. Check out our Infinity War trailer breakdown


Black Panther continues to roar at the box office

Before Avengers: Infinity War arrives, Wakanda continues to reign supreme as Black Panther tops $600m domestically, according to Box Office Mojo. When added to its international takings, the movie has now taken $1.1bn worldwide, and has become the first movie since James Cameron's Avatar to top the box office for five straight weekends in a row. Prior to that, it was 1999's The Sixth Sense.

Domestically speaking (as in USA and Canada), the movie now only lags behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($619m), Avengers Assemble ($623m), Jurassic World ($652m), Titanic ($658m), Avatar ($760m) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($937m). After toppling the first Avengers movie (which it's sure to do in a matter of days), it will become the most successful domestic release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Not only that, it's now the second-fastest grossing domestic release of all time, behind The Force Awakens ($840m in its first month), reports Forbes. Can it possibly accumulate more records during its theatrical run?

While we speculate on that, check out the Marvel movies we want to see in Phase 4 of the MCU.


Lucas Hedges to play Shia LaBeouf... in a movie directed by Shia LeBeouf... about Shia LaBeouf

No, you haven't wandered into some weird Shia-esque art installation. It turns out the star of Manchester by the Sea and Greta Gerwig's Oscar-nominated Lady Bird will indeed be playing the controversial Indiana Jones actor, in a movie based on the latter's life.

The Hollywood Reporter indicates the film, titled Honey Boy, will be based on LaBeouf's relationship with his father. And just to melt your brain even further, the actor will be playing his dad. The movie is a fictionalised take on LaBeouf's early rise to stardom on the Disney show Even Stevens, during which time he experienced a troubled relationship with his alcoholic dad. 

It's the latest in a long line of odd behaviour from the troubled star, who infamously recorded a video of himself watching his own movies... in real time. He also turned up to a premiere with a paper bag over his head, publicly slammed both Transformers 2 and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which he starred, and reportedly got into a fight with Brad Pitt on the set of World War II drama Fury.

Here's a taster of Shia in action...