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The new romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians proved to be incredibly popular at the box office, so much so that Warner Bros. apparently greenlit the sequel as the first movie was still in theatres. Now it’s become even more clear how much of a commercial success the movie was. As Quartz noticed, Crazy Rich Asians recently passed The Proposal to become the highest grossing romantic comedy of the past 10 years in the United States.

Data from Box Office Mojo shows that Crazy Rich Asians has now made $165.95 million in the US, surpassing The Proposal’s $163.4 million from 2009. The highest-grossing romantic comedy ever in the US is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which brought in more than $240 million back in 2002. Other top performers include What Women Want ($182.8 million), Hitch ($179.5 million), Pretty Woman ($178.4 million), and There’s Something About Mary ($176.5 million).

Globally, Crazy Rich Asians has pulled in $217.8 million. With a reported budget of only $30 million, it appears to have been a massive commercial success, which probably explains why news about the sequel came to light so early.

Crazy Rich Asians could have been a Netflix movie. Author Kevin Kwan turned down a massive offer from Netflix for the film, instead opting to go with Warner Bros. because he wanted it to be an “old-fashioned cinematic experience.”

“We needed this to be an old-fashioned cinematic experience, not for fans to sit in front of a TV and just press a button,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I could have moved to an island and never worked another day.”

Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu is expected to return for the sequel. Casting and story details for the sequel are unavailable, but it’s likely the sequel may be an adaptation of Kwan’s 2015 book China Rich Girlfriend.

Making a Venom movie without Spider-Man is a unique challenge. But many of Venom’s issues have nothing to do with Spidey’s absence.

For example: Early in Venom, the Symbiote that will later be revealed as Riot escapes the Life Foundation’s custody and infects a woman in a marketplace in Malaysia, with the explicit goal of reaching San Francisco. The movie’s main story then begins: Eddie Brock makes some poor decisions, loses his job and his girlfriend (Michelle Williams’ Anne Weying), and hits rock bottom. Cue a six month time jump–and our friend Riot, still inhabiting the old woman from the marketplace, has finally made it–to the airport?

What was Riot doing for the six months between then and now? Did it go on a killing spree across Malaysia? Was it dormant or hibernating–something the movie never gives any hint that Symbiotes might be capable of? Was it biding its time pretending to be someone’s grandma? That blatant plot hole has nothing to do with Venom’s general 1990s cheesiness as a character, or the considerable challenge of trying to make a Venom movie without a single reference to Spider-Man. It’s just good, old fashioned, avoidable sloppiness.

Don’t get me wrong: The lack of Spider-Man does cause problems. Specifically, the entire premise–that Venom chooses to stick around on Earth, attach itself permanently to Eddie Brock, and betray its entire species–doesn’t really work in this movie. In the books, Venom’s obsession with Spider-Man gives it common purpose with Eddie, and cutting Spidey out of the equation necessitates something take his place as their end goal. The movie tries to get around that by clumsily painting Eddie and Venom as Breakfast Club style lovable “losers” (actual, direct quote: “On my planet, I am kind of a loser, like you”). It’s nonsensical, implausible, under-explained, and tonally weird; that line is easily the movie’s biggest laugh, but not in a good way.

Venom is surprisingly funny, mostly in the verbal abuse the Symbiote whispers directly into Eddie’s brain, usually after Tom Hardy’s character does something Venom considers cowardly or embarrassing. When Eddie holds his hands up in surrender to law enforcement, Venom laments that he’s “making us look bad;” when Eddie opts to take the elevator rather than jumping from a skyscraper, Venom calls him a “pussy.” These moments are deliberately played for laughs, and they land well enough. The bigger problem is why an alien parasite from space talks like a frat bro, or, extrapolating further, why it needs eyes and teeth if its main form is a shapeless, pulsing black goo. These essential curiosities of Venom as a character are never so much as acknowledged, much less explained.

On the plus side, Venom and the other Symbiotes look pretty good in this movie. The CG work is somewhat inconsistent, and it definitely goes through ups and downs when it comes to raw fidelity. But unlike in his other live action incarnations (looking at you, Spider-Man 3), Venom actually looks like Venom here. The alien comes off as both lithe and powerful; it leaps around gracefully, but its hulking form also exudes menace and strength. The visual effect of Venom’s vicious visage wrapping itself over Eddie’s head is creatively executed, and Symbiote-on-Symbiote fight scenes play out in unexpected ways, with human hosts and alien parasites struggling to remain linked while trying to rip and tear their opponents apart.

Hardy is as baffling in this role as the movie’s trailers have suggested he’d be. As a New York transplant living in San Francisco, he’s doing something like a caricature of an NYC cab driver’s accent, mixed with frequent slurred mutterings–and that’s before he encounters the Symbiote and his behavior becomes understandably erratic. Besides Hardy’s strange performance, Brock himself is not a likeable or relatable character. He thoughtlessly uses his girlfriend in a half-baked gotcha journalism scheme that gets them both fired, and it literally never occurs to him to so much as apologize to her, until Venom for some unknowable reason nudges him in the right direction later in the film. Brock lacks the depth of character to carry this movie, and Hardy lacks the charm to make up for the character’s shallowness.

Michelle Williams does just fine as Anne, although her attachment to Eddie is really inexplicable, as the two have zero chemistry. Even weirder is the willingness of her new doctor boyfriend (Reid Scott) to administer Eddie multiple MRI screenings, even after Eddie interrupts their fancy lunch date by climbing into a lobster tank–the Symbiote affects him in some truly strange ways.

Riz Ahmed does a great job as the megalomaniacal head of the Life Foundation, totally selling his character’s belief that humans will have to mutate themselves using alien parasites if we want to survive climate change. That said, it’s a pretty thin motivation, and Dr. Carlton Drake is an utterly one note villain. To be honest, the only character who actually experiences any kind of growth or change is the scientist played by comedian and actress Jenny Slate, who is terrific in this movie–and, unfortunately, underused.

Venom has all the ingredients of a decent superhero movie–10 or 15 years ago. With spotty CGI, poorly drawn characters, tonal inconsistency including forced “edginess” and awkward humor, sidelined female characters, and even cringeworthy licensed musical cues, it feels like a relic from the distant, pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe past. That may in part be attributed to the fact that it’s been in production in one form or another since at least 2008. But its problems go way past simply being “old school,” and ultimately, Venom lacks the charm, clarity, and ambition superhero fans have come to expect.

Toys R Us made the shocking announcement earlier this year that it would close 800 stores and lay off 33,000 employees as part of bankruptcy proceedings in the wake of “devastating” holiday 2017 sales.

But now, it appears that Toys R Us and its related brands may live on in some fashion. The same hedge fund groups that control Toys R Us, and decided to cancel a reorganisation that led to the major changes, have now apparently decided to cancel the bankruptcy and attempt to revive Toys R Us and its brands.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Toys R Us said in court documents this week that it received bids for the Toys R Us, Babies R Us, and Geoffrey the Giraffe brand names, but it decided that the bids would not be able to “yield a superior alternative…”

Instead, the new Toys R Us owners are looking to create a new “branding company” that “maintains existing global license agreements and can invest in and create new, domestic, retail operating businesses.”

As for the employees who were laid off, WSJ reports that two of Toys R Us’ private equity funders, Bain Capital and KKR & Co., plan to create a $20 million fund to give affected employees severance.

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Hollywood will try to turn anything that is popular into a movie, and the latest evidence of this is today’s announcement that a film based on Dance Dance Revolution is in development.

According to its official description, the DDR movie has incredibly high takes. “The project will explore a world on the brink of destruction where the only hope is to unite through the universal language of dance,” according to Variety.

Konami, which owns the DDR IP, is working with film company Stampede on the film.

DDR, which utilises a physical dance pad, launched in Japanese arcades in the late ’90s before coming to North America in the early 2000s. The game was a massive success, and Konami would go on to partner with companies like Nintendo on versions of the game, including DDR: Mario Mix.

There are no further details at this stage about the DDR movie, so we don’t know when it’ll enter production or any of the talent behind it. It seems like very early days for the project.

In other news about movies you never thought would happen, the Tetris film has an $80 million budget and plans to be the first in a trilogy of movies.

We’re giving away 25 Virtual Tickets to BlizzCon 2018 (scroll down to enter below)! The Virtual Ticket is a $50 USD value that unlocks hours of exclusive video programming from Blizzard, including livestreams of everything happening at BlizzCon, from the history-making moments at Opening Ceremony to panels, community events, cosplay contests, and epic closing acts.

The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket also comes with commemorative in-game items for every Blizzard franchise. Blizzard has already released in-game items for ticket holders such as a legendary skin for Sombra in Overwatch. Future items for Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm®, StarCraft® II, and World of Warcraft® will be released as they become available between now and BlizzCon.

BlizzCon takes place this November 2-3, but the celebration is already underway with exclusive video content premiering every week at www.blizzcon.com.

To enter for a chance to win a BlizzCon 2018 Virtual Ticket, scroll down below. No purchase necessary. Twenty-five (25) winners will be chosen when the competition ends October 21, 2018, at 11:59PM PT.

If you win a code, please go here for instructions on how to redeem it: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/11263.