Names and faces

The strongly reviewed X-Men: Days of Future Past gave 20th Century Fox its best opening-weekend result since Avatar in 2009, ending a bumpy box office stretch for the studio and demonstrating the ongoing strength of superhero movies. But as strong as ticket sales were — Days of Future Past took in about $90.7 million over the first three days of the holiday weekend — Memorial Day 2014 will also be remembered for the crash of yet another Adam Sandler movie, Blended, which arrived with $14.2 million. Overseas, Days of Future Past, which cost roughly $200 million to make, took in an additional $171.1 million. Second place for the weekend went to Godzilla (Warner Bros.), which took in an estimated $31.4 million, for a two-week domestic total of $148.8 million. Blended, produced by Sandler and Warner for about $45 million and co-starring Drew Barrymore, arrived with estimated three-day ticket sales of $14.2 million — roughly 35 percent lower than pre-release estimates.

When Norm Macdonald was fired from his role anchoring “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live in early 1998, there was little recourse for his hard-core fans. “Time magazine had this thing,” Macdonald said. “If you wanted to keep Norm going, you had to clip out a coupon and send it to NBC.” If only Twitter had been around then, he mused. But in what has amounted to an unabashed “remember this name” plea, Macdonald has, over the past month, been at the center of a concerted campaign to enter his name into the running for the last remaining vacancy after the recent upheaval in late-night television. That spot is the Late Late Show on CBS, now occupied by Craig Ferguson, who has announced he will be stepping down at the end of the year.

A Section on 05/27/2014

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