BTS win top artist at American Music Awards
South Korean superstars BTS were crowned artist of the year at the American Music Awards on Sunday, brushing aside challenges from Taylor Swift, Drake and The Weeknd as they took home a total of three awards and teamed up with Coldplay for a raucous “My Universe” and closed the show with “Butter.”
“Seven boys from Korea, united by love for music, met the love and support from all the armies all over the world,” said BTS’ RM after the group won the artist of the year for the first time. “This whole thing is a miracle. Seriously, we would never take this for granted.”
The band was named favorite pop duo or group and got the favorite pop song award for “Butter.”
The fan-voted awards show aired from Los Angeles on ABC with a mix of live and pre-taped performafter
ances. Silk Sonic’s Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak
kicked off the awards on a funky, R&B and pre-taped note with their “Smokin Out the Window” and Jennifer Lopez pre-taped her “On My Way” from her upcoming romantic comedy “Marry Me.”
An earlier scheduled performance of “Butter” by BTS and Megan Thee Stallion was scrapped after the rapper cited personal reasons for dropping out Saturday. She turned out to be a big winner: named favorite female hip-hop artist, her “Good News” winning for favorite hip-hop album and her “Body” was crowned favorite trending song, a new award this year.
Olivia Rodrigo came into the night with a leading seven nominations but only took home the crown for favorite new artist of the year. “Writing songs is my favorite thing in the whole world and I am so grateful for everyone who has embraced my music,” she said.
Rodrigo lost favorite pop album to Taylor Swift’s
“evermore.” In a taped speech, Swift told her fans: “I’m so lucky to be in your life.” Swift also won for favorite female pop artist, giving her a career total of 34, the record for the most awarded artist in AMA history.
‘Ghostbusters’ reboot posts solid opening
Busting ghosts is still a fairly lucrative business almost 40 years.
Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, the latest attempt to revive “Ghostbusters” drew a sizable audience to theaters, while “King Richard,” like most dramas in the pandemic era, is struggling.
With a reverence for nostalgia and a few highprofile cameos in its arsenal, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” opened above industry expectations with $44 million in ticket sales from 4,315 locations, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Sony movie directed by Jason Reitman and starring Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace is playing exclusively in theaters.
Its first weekend is trailing Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters” with Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, which had a $46 million opening in June 2016. Aside from the somewhat unpredictable pandemic-era moviegoing habits, the crucial difference is that “Afterlife” cost about half as much to make.
The weekend’s other high-profile offering didn’t fare as well. “King Richard,” the well-reviewed drama starring Will Smith as the father of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams, earned $5.7 million from 3,302 locations, missing its modest expectations by almost half. The Warner Bros. film was released simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters.
Although traditional blockbusters have managed to draw decent audiences, dramas have disproportionately struggled during the pandemic. Most have debuted in the $3 million range. One of the more successful launches was the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” which opened to $8.8 million.
But the outlook could be promising for “King Richard” with its 92 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, A CinemaScore from audiences and long awards season runway. In 2018, “Green Book” opened on Thanksgiving weekend to only $5.5 million, but by the end of awards season it had grossed $85 million.
Meanwhile, in limited release from A24, Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon” had the best limited platform debut since February 2020 with $134,447 from five screens. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as man looking after his 9-year-old nephew.
The box office is still far from where it was prepandemic. The weekend leading into Thanksgiving usually gets around $200 million in ticket sales, but this weekend will net out around $83 million.
The 2021 North American box office could net out with around $4 billion. In 2019 it was $11.4 billion. And there are still some major movies on the horizon in December, like “West Side Story,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “The Matrix Resurrections.”