Half of Canadians have negative opinion of latest Liberal budget: poll
A new poll suggests the Liberals have not won over voters with their latest budget, though there is broad support for their plan to build millions of homes.
Doctor Strange and his multiverse got to linger a little longer atop the weekend box office as Tom Cruise and "Top Gun" wait in the wings.
Marvel's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" was the top-earning film of the weekend for the third straight week, bringing in US$31.6 million in 4,534 North American theaters, according to studio estimates released Sunday.
"Downton Abbey: A New Era" made a strong opening showing for Focus Features with $16 million from 3,820 theaters, but there has been no real blockbuster competition for "Doctor Strange."
"This film has had a pretty wide open marketplace," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "This weekend really is, this is the proverbial calm before the storm."
That storm will come in the form of the long-awaited, and long-delayed, release of "Top Gun: Maverick," the sequel that arrives next week on Memorial Day weekend, 36 years after the original smash hit and cultural landmark.
It flies in amid sky-high hype.
"The marketing for this movie has really been going on for about three years." Dergarabedian said. "That's a pretty long runway to guild up excitement."
Cruise had the film festival in Cannes, France, abuzz on Wednesday with a whirlwind appearance for the film's European premiere that included a fly over of French fighter jets and an honorary Palme d'Or award.
"Top Gun" represents two seemingly fading phenomena -- the major movie star and the big-screen-only experience, for which Cruise has been a tireless ambassador. And the industry is hoping they will help bring a more familiar summer for theaters.
"This is going to be one of the most important Memorial Day weekends ever, considering what the stakes are," Dergarabedian said. "We didn't have a traditional summer movie season for two years."
Before the pandemic, the summer box office season generally brought in more than $4 billion annually. After an essentially non-existent 2020, the 2021 take, in a year of recovery, was $1.75 billion. This year's crop of films, which also includes "Jurassic World Dominion" and "Thor: Love and Thunder," could double that, Dergarabedian said.
But while the world waits, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" crossed the $800 million mark in global grosses, surpassing "The Batman" to become the top-grossing film of the year.
Released by the Walt Disney Co. and directed by Sam Raimi, " Doctor Strange 2 " benefitted from being the first Marvel movie to follow "Spider-Man: No Way Home," in which Benedict Cumberbatch's sorcerer played a pivotal role.
It also builds upon the popular Disney+ series "Wandavision" and contains a number of cameos that fans didn't want to be spoiled.
Holdover family films "The Bad Guys" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" took the third and fourth spots. Universal's "The Bad Guys" added $6.1 million in its fifth week. "Sonic 2" earned $3.9 million in its seventh.
Director Alex Garland's folk horror thriller "Men" brought in $3.3 million for production company and distributor A24.
Meanwhile, "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is still going strong even after nine weeks in release. The A24 film picked up an additional $3.3 million, down only 6% from the previous weekend, bringing its total grosses to $47 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," $31.6 million.
2. "Downton Abbey: A New Era," $16 million.
3. "The Bad Guys," $6.1 million.
4. "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," $3.9 million.
5. "Men," $3.3 million.
6. "Everything Everywhere All At Once," $3.1 million.
7. "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," $1.9 million.
8. "Firestarter," $1.9 million.
9. "The Lost City," $1.5 million.
10. "The Northman," $1 million.
A new poll suggests the Liberals have not won over voters with their latest budget, though there is broad support for their plan to build millions of homes.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
Appointing a trusted person to help with financial obligations can give you peace of mind. In his personal finance column for CTVNews.ca, Christopher Liew outlines the key benefits of naming a confidant to take over your financial responsibilities, if the need ever arises.
The federal government has added $36.4 million to a program designed to support people who have been seriously injured or killed by vaccines since the end of 2020.
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.
Australian police arrested seven teenagers accused of following a violent extremist ideology in raids across Sydney on Wednesday, as a judge extended a ban on social media platform X sharing video of a knife attack on a bishop that started the criminal investigation.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.