News of the Week: So Fetch - A 'Mean Girls' Movie Musical Is In The Works

We’re almost to the end of February, and in what is typically a slow month shows no signs of slowing down this year. As Hollywood gears up for the home stretch of awards season, news is bubbling up out of film fests and awards shows. This week brings news of Disney’s huge year, a movie musical of a beloved comedy, Hellboy making his return, and more.

As always, Atom Insider brings you a few hand-picked stories we think you’ll like. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Has A Solid Opening Weekend

Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had itself a solid opening weekend. Through Sunday, it racked up $225.3 million at the global box office, good enough for third place on the best all-time openings on Presidents Day weekend. $104 million of that came from North America, with the other $121.3 coming from overseas. That’s a great start, but still down a bit from pre-release projections thanks to it not performing as well in the Asia Pacific region as anticipated. Still, that’s not a total surprise – sci-fi heavy movies, for whatever reason, just don’t play as well in Korea and China as other genres, and Quantumania is, if nothing else, heavy on the sci-fi.

Disney Has Already Hit $1 Billion At The Global Box Office For 2023

Even with that slight dip in projections, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has helped Disney hit an eye-popping benchmark. The combined forces of Quantumania and Avatar: The Way of Water have already pushed Disney over the $1 billion mark at the box office for 2023, with the international re-release of Titanic also helping out. That’s a crushing pace, especially considering it’s not even the end of February, which is itself already a shorter month. Currently, Avatar 2 stands at a whopping $2.25 billion globally, good enough for third place on the all-time list, beating out James Cameron’s other mammoth movie – Titanic. It remains to be seen if Disney will break its own best collective box office record, which was set in 2019 with $11.12 billion. It’s doubtful, but with more heavy hitters coming to theaters this year, Disney will certainly add a few more billion to its total by the end of the year.

We’re Getting Yet Another Hellboy Movie

David Harbour in 'Hellboy' (Credit: Lionsgate) — David Harbour in ‘Hellboy’ (Credit: Lionsgate)

Yes, you read that headline right. Millennium Media has announced it’s rebooting the Hellboy franchise – again – and offered some plot and production details. Deadline has the plot details:

The new film will see Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man. In the comic, The Crooked Man was an eighteenth-century miser and war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins who was hanged for his crimes yet returned from Hell as the region’s resident Devil.

Brian Taylor (Crank) will direct the reboot, whose title is confirmed as Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Production is expected to begin next month in Bulgaria, though no one has yet been announced for the cast. Crucially, this is the first time Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has written a Hellboy movie script, along with his Dark Horse collaborator Chris Golden. Hopefully, they can right the ship and get the Hellboy franchise back on track.

Zach Galifianakis Joins Live-Action Lilo & Stitch Movie

The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis has his next project lined up, with reports that he’s officially signed on to Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch remake. The project is being helmed by Marcell the Shell With Shoes On director Dean Fleischer Camp. Mike Van Waes wrote the first version of the script and the most recent rewrite is from Chris Kekaniokalani Bright.

It’s unclear what role Galifianakis is playing, or if the story will be updated from the beloved 2002 animated movie. The original movie, set in Hawai’i, followed Lilo, a lonely young girl, and Nani, her older sister struggling to care for them both after the death of her parents. Their world is upended when an alien named Stitch, engineered to be a force of destruction, falls into their lives.

Tina Fey and Tim Meadows Reprising Roles in Mean Girls Movie Musical

So fetch: Tina Fey and Tim Meadows are officially returning to the world of Mean Girls. The pair, who had supporting roles in the iconic 2004 movie, will be reprising their roles as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duval, respectively, for the upcoming movie musical adaptation. As is well-known, Fey wrote the script for the original film, but slightly less well-known is that she also wrote the book for the stage musical version that hit Broadway in 2018. Interestingly, Fey revealed that the songs would be modified for the movie version, telling Seth Meyers when she stopped by his show, “The songs are sounding really more kinda pop. In Broadway everything has to play to the back of the house and in movies everything can come back in and things can play really intimately.”

Along with Fey and Meadows, the rest of the cast is rounding out nicely, too. Angourie Rice will star as as Cady, Reneé Rapp as Regina, Auli’i Cravalho as Janis and Jaquel Spivey as Damian. Production is expected to begin early next month.

Steven Yeun Has Signed On For Marvel’s Thunderbolts Movie

If there’s one thing Marvel Studios – or more specifically, longtime casting director Sarah Halley Finn – does incredibly well, it’s casting the right people for the perfect roles. The next big name joining the MCU, as it turns out, is The Walking Dead and Nope star Steven Yeun. Deadline scooped the exclusive that he’s signed on for Marvel’s Thunderbolts project. As with most Marvel roles, the studio is being tight-lipped about who Yeun is playing, but sources have said that it will be a significant role for Thunderbolts, but an important part of the MCU moving forward.

Black Widow writer Eric Pearson penned the script for the movie, which is being directed by Jake Schreier. Yeun is joining a cast that will see a number of familiar faces return to reprise their roles: Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster. Ayo Edebiri has joined in an undisclosed role, and, as it was reported a few months back, Harrison Ford will be stepping into the role of Secretary Ross, formerly played by the late William Hurt.