The Biggest New Releases And The Surprise Films Worth Finding

You can tell it’s the school holidays the moment the rain hits: queues get longer, faces get more stressed, and the same question keeps coming up at the counter. Will we get in. We kick things off with the moviegoing advice we wish every family heard before jumping in the car, from when to visit during peak holiday crowds to why booking ahead saves your whole day.

From there we zoom out into the New Zealand box office and what it reveals about timing. Why do some kids’ movies start slow and then surge. Why do holiday releases pop immediately. And why can a franchise like Super Mario pull massive numbers even when critics are grumpy. We also share the trailers that feel like genuine events, including the Michael Jackson docudrama and why it could be a true crowd magnet.

We then dig into the “nice surprise” corner of the schedule: You Me And Tuscany as a light Italy-set rom-com that people may need to discover, plus why we’re making space for language films like Adu 3 with English subtitles when locals request them. Finally, we preview what’s coming next, including Fuse, Solomio, and The History of Sound, a music-rich drama that deserves a proper cinema run.

If you like smart, friendly movie chat and practical cinema tips, subscribe, share this with a film-loving friend, and leave us a review. What are you seeing on the big screen next?

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Transcript

Rainy Holidays And Booking Tips

SPEAKER_02 0:10

G'day Ross, how are you? Oh mate, I'm pretty good. I'm I'm dry. That's a plus. Yeah, I know. Look, it's been a bit of a wet old start to the holidays, and I just looked at the forecast and all the whole week has got that little rain symbol, which is not great.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

But it's good for you. Well, it's not great for uh if you're if you're outside trying to do something nice, but if you're inside watching the movies, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Absolutely best place to be.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, and everybody knows it too, because uh as happens with every time we get a bit of rain, Brent, the cinema fills up, the cues get longer, the faces look a little bit more stressed, but you know what? We're battling on through and everybody's having a pretty good time.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Well, I saw your tips on your Facebook page and I thought they were pretty good and a pretty good reminder.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah, look, we try and do that every holiday, it's just to send a little tips out to people so that they know um the best times to come to the movies during the holidays, when it's going to be busy and and uh best way to book, especially if they're coming from a long way. And I think that's just something that everybody should sort of plan. It's it's it's a good idea to plan to go to the movies. It's uh it's really sad when you see a family walk in and all the kids and they go, Oh, can we get into that movie? Sorry, it's completely sold out, and it's been sold out for like two hours, and they've just driven like 45 minutes to get there, and you think, Oh. So just yeah, people book a ticket. If you were going to the movies and it's busy, make sure you book. I know people don't like paying a booking fee, but it's a lot less disappointing than uh having to take the kids home again and listening to them for the next 45 minutes, whinging at you.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

As a 10-year-old who went to Star Wars when it played at the Cinerama in Queen Street and had to bus in 40 minutes from New Lynn, get in the huge queue to go see it, then it was sold out, get on the bus, tears streaming down his face. I get it.

Show Welcome And Last Week’s Bet

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, look, well, we've come a long, long way since uh Star Wars bread. Technology is really good. I mean, literally, people walk in, they've got the email, they've made their bookings, they've got their par codes ready, they walk in, they go beep. And I, in fact, I always say the beep. I don't know why. This is a weird thing I do. I go beep when I'm standing there, um, make the kids have a laugh, and then we um you know get them into their cinema as quickly as possible, as long as they've uh not got to buy 50,000 popcorns. But look, that's another story. We'll talk about popcorn one day. We'll do a deep dive into popcorn. We will. Anyway, folks, we're going completely off track. We're already three minutes in, so welcome to Eat Sleep Movie Repeat, brought to you by Cathay Cinemas, Carrie Carrie, and Leto Cinemas Hamilton, your home of fine film from all over the world and even here in New Zealand. Um, but this is a show about new movies heading your way. We're talking about what's happening in the next few weeks. We uh do little deep dives into uh certain things, we have a bit of fun, and we always do a bit of a guessing game at the end of each show just to see whether or not uh Brent and I are as clever as we think we are. And uh Brent, last week we we were doing, I'm just gonna quickly have a check here. We um It was Hoppers, wasn't it? It was Hoppers, yeah, it was a kids' film. So yeah, look, because we're so deep in the holidays, I get a bit confused here, Brie, because we've got first we had that very wet Easter weekend, we've got a Cyclone that's heading our way. By the time this comes out, hopefully it's passed. Uh, you know, you've got Super Mario Brothers leading the charge, you've got Magic Faraway Tree, you've got Hoppers that we talked about last week. You've also got old movies like Goat and Um Zootopia still bringing in the people where they love those films. So, look, we did talk about Hoppers, Pixar's new animated feature. So, Brent, you thought it would achieve about$600,000 in its opening week, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I did, yeah.

Holiday Box Office And Mario Boom

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, and I was being very pessimistic, but I just wanted to slide in below your number, and I went$590. Um, and Brent, the film did not too bad, but it didn't get to where we thought it would, and this is probably because it didn't start in the holidays. It pulled in uh$333,000, which is which hands me a win, but doesn't get to where we thought it would, but it does get the holidays off to a great start. And as I said, don't let that number fool you. Uh when a movie opens and it's outside the holidays, it's pretty standard that parents will hold off taking the kids to the movies because they want to, you know, take the during the holidays. So the film has definitely picked up. And speaking of a good start, see the magic faraway tree that popped off with a$497,000 haul in its first week, but that opened right onto the holidays. So that just shows you the difference between sort of stepping outside the holidays versus being in the holidays. And of course, the number one film, Mario, Super Mario Brothers. Wow. Now, this was really interesting. Did you see any of the um critical reviews on this?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

No, I didn't, but I all I saw was the box office numbers ticking over around the world and how big that movie is.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, look, I mean, it was always gonna do well. It's a franchise, it's a well-known IP, and the first movie did fantastic. Now, the critics were really a bit harsh on this, really gave it a bit of a serve, saying it wasn't as good and all the rest of it. But the rest of the world who likes going to the movies completely ignored that, and the film has already raked in$1.7 million in New Zealand. Wow. It will possibly be the first movie of 2026 release that jumps into the$5 million club. Now there are two movies already at that point, which is Zootopia and um Avatar, but they did release last year. So um for the 2026 year, we don't have anybody in the$5 million club yet. But uh Project Hail Mary is sitting at 3.6 and is still going very strong because that is such a good film. I cannot recommend that film enough, folks. If you if you're listening to this and you've never haven't been to the movies in absolutely ages, and you want to see a great, fun, enjoyable film, go and see Project Hail Mary and get it up into that 5 million club.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Especially with Artemis and everything flying around the moon at the moment. Space is a cool thing. Oh, yes, space is back and bigger than ever, really, isn't it? Have they landed yet? I don't even know. No, no, I think they're we're waiting for that. And by the time the podcast comes out, they will be back.

Trailers That Feel Like Events

You Me And Tuscany Rom-Com Pitch

Language Films And Audience Requests

Next Week’s Releases And Hidden Gems

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, they'll be back totally fine. Nothing went wrong, folks, nothing to see here. Uh now, if that's not enough for everybody, um, has anyone have you have you seen the m the Michael Jackson trailer, Michael? Yes, I have. Man, that guy's pretty good, isn't he? Oh, absolutely fantastic. There's a really good thing on YouTube, which is a behind the scenes about the actor who's Michael Jackson's nephew, who plays Michael Jackson and the dancing. We put it onto our Facebook page. Honestly, that trailer, um, the baseline of don't stop till you get enough kicks in, your feet start going. And I have a feeling that Michael could absolutely break the bank worldwide when that movie comes out. Because I've had so many people, and not just older people like you and I, old old crusties, but so many kids have been coming in and they're super keen to see Michael because that music is just you know timeless. Absolutely. Okay, Brent. Well, if Michael is not enough for you, uh, the movie that I'm now completely convinced is going to dominate uh uh like Barbie before it a couple of years ago is The Devil West Prada. Look, I love Anne Hathaway, I love um Emily Blunt, um Meryl Streep, and uh Stanley Tucci in his role all day long. When that film first got announced, I was like, Devil West Prada 2, oh okay, yeah, okay. Then I saw the first trailer and I was like, you know what, it's starting to pull me in. But the second, most recent trailer, it dropped a couple of days ago now. It is reminds me of old school filmmaking, old school trailering. Everything about that trailer makes me want to go and watch that film as a guy. I can only imagine that everything about that trailer is making women across the country really step up and go, you know, that's a movie for me. So I think The Devil Wears Pirata is gonna be massive, and we'll probably talk about that closer to the time when that opens. Um, look, there's one film that uh has come out, uh, which we are gonna talk about. Uh actually, sorry, two, but we'll talk about one this one first, is You, Me, and Tuscany. Now, You Me and Tuscany, um, it's one of those films that's popped out um out of America. I I'd say you'd almost call it like a B-grade film. I don't I don't like to use that term, it's not really B-grade, it's there's nothing wrong with this film at all. But it's just one of those nice romantic comedies that's kind of slipped in, a lot like the other romantic comedy, which is coming out in another week or so, which is called Solomeo. Both of these films are set in Italy. Um, one stars uh Halle Berry. Um, sorry, Halle Bailey, my apologies, Halle Berry. Uh now she was last seen in The Little Mermaid, and it stars um Reggie Jean Page. Now, Reggie Jean Page is best known for playing Simon Bassett, the Duke of Hastings, who was in the first period drama of Bridgerton. Um, he then went on to do um, you know, he got global fame from that movie. He won some awards. He's also starred in Roots, um, uh, The Grey Man, Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves, and uh 2025's Black Bag. He's a really versatile actor, uh, British actor. So at New Me in Tuscany, this woman um played by Halle Bailey, she plays this woman Anna, and she decides she's going to go to Italy after a chance encounter with a very handsome Italian man who says, I'm over here on a holiday and my Italian villa is empty. So she thinks, you know what? I'm gonna go to Italy, check it out, and I might just stay at his place one night because you know he won't know I was there. And of course, that all works fine until she wakes up in the next morning and gets caught by his family. And she basically basically sort of suggests that maybe they're engaged to be married and that's why she's there, which then of course creates the as you can imagine, sort of the turmoil as they all get very excited about this new woman, and then she meets the handsome uh cousin uh the cousin played by Reggie Jean, oh uh Reggie Jean Page, sorry, and she thinks, oh actually, he's really alright. I quite like this bloke. Now, if you've seen the trailer, once he slips the old shirt off under the uh Tuscan sun, well, well, well. It's a pretty it's just one of those nice little rom-coms that'll do really, really well. And we're gonna see what we can guess about how well that film will do. Now, I think the thing with this film is that it's a film that people have to discover. I don't know if it's gonna start out too well, Brad. So I'm not gonna attempt at my bet on how well it will do in this first week. But I think these are the films that we used to get a lot of. They're those sort of filler films that pop in, they're 80 minutes long, 100 minutes long. You go in, you just have a nice bit of fun, you come out feeling good. Um, I we're all too tied up in what's going on in the world right now, and uh a lot of us need a good laugh. So go and see a comedy, go take your kids to a nice kids' film, and or come and see a nice rom-com. That's the way to go, I think. Yeah. Now, the other film I just want to talk about real quickly is a film that we did we never played it. And uh it's coming, we're bringing it in. Um, it's a Malayam language film called Adu 3. Uh now, the reason we're bringing this film in, and we're also bringing a couple other films in, which I might mention in a minute, um, is because you know, we don't get a lot of these language films coming our way. Uh, also the population um amount of people who uh speak Malayan in Northland is quite small. So it's really hard for us, unlike Auckland, where you do get these big crowds, and and these films do really, really well. It is hard for us sometimes to take these films, but I really do want to try and make sure that we as a business are catering to everybody. So this is um I do three, it opened about two weeks ago, but we did have people asking us if we could get it in. Uh, and it's basically a comedy about an eccentric gang who are basically up to no good, and it's like it's typical Indian uh film fair where it's really over the top, it changes on a dime. But you know, if you're a fan of Indian film, it's well worth seeing. And it we do have it in um we do have it in uh English subtitles as well. So if you're interested in seeing something different, that's always worth having a look at. And uh again, we take people's um suggestions quite seriously. So when somebody rocks up and says, Hey guys, could you play X Film? We're certainly willing to have a look and see if we can. Yeah. Now, because there's not a lot of films opening and because it is the school holidays, I mean there are other films opening, but we can't take everything otherwise, you know, we're running a small theatre, we haven't got 50 screens, otherwise, we'd be talking about other 10 films. Uh, I want to just quickly talk about the films that are coming up in the next week. So we talked about Michael Jack earlier. Now that's opening uh Wednesday, the 22nd. It opens on Wednesday, which is kind of weird, but there's one extra day there if you're interested, so uh go and check that out. And it's all about it's doco drama, it's all about his ambition, how he's fueled to be and you know, relentlessly pursuing himself to become the biggest entertainer in the world. And uh you and I, you know, we we're both music fans, so uh favorite Michael Jackson film. Sorry, favorite Michael Jackson song song, so we're talking about film. Well, you could say film, didn't he?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Oh, but we like films, think about thriller. Um, one of my favorite songs is um Leave Me Alone, Michael Jackson. Have you ever watched that? Uh it was at the height of when they're hassling him and he put it out, but it's such a catchy number.

Predictions And What’s Coming Soon

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, look, I I remember that for me. I'm probably more in that 80s and and 90s kind of vibe. But look, don't stop do you get enough was just such jam. That that is still a dance floor filler for me. You know, absolutely, yeah. It just that everything about our film just works. Yeah. Film, I keep saying film, I do mean music. Sorry. Um, the other movies we've got coming up, we've got a movie called Fuse. This is a movie about a bunch of construction workers in London who unearth an unexploded uh World War II bomb, and that forces an evacuation. So, of course, that gives an opportunistic group of thieves this great opportunity to use that chaos to get in and rob a bank. So that's uh bit of an action film coming up. Uh, I did touch on Solomio earlier. Now that was um the Kevin uh Kevin James, I'm gonna say Kevin James film. Um that this was meant to open back in um Valentine's Day, and then it got pushed back, and then it got pushed back again. Um, trying to find the right time to put it in there because they were very worried about it being overshone or overblown by other big films. So again, romantic comedy, 100 minutes long, um, probably a good laugh. Uh, not to everybody's tastes, because it uh I mean again, the American comedy sometimes doesn't work for everybody, but I think it looks quite good. And we're also gonna take, again, this is one of those requests. Um, we had a request from some people to get hold of the movie The History of Sound. And that played in the um, I think it was the British and Irish Film Festival last year, from memory. Uh may have been the International Festival, I can't quite remember. But uh we did manage to get hold of that film, and we're gonna be playing that coming out of the school holidays as sort of a counterpoint to all the kids' movies we've been playing. Um, and this is one of those films, uh possibly it's actually on streaming already, but it's one of those films that I think people would really just haven't discovered yet about this guy and his friend, um, male friend, if you get my drift, um, they meet. This is in uh 1917. He this guy goes to the Boston Music Conservatory, he meets this new guy. Um, in the 20s, they walk through the forests of America and they're actually collecting folk songs, trying to preserve the essence of the um American folk music for future generations, and then it the guy's life sort of carries along, and then it sort of gives you that um backwards, forwards kind of um, you know, thinking back the past and stuff. But the music in this film is a absolutely phenomenal, like American folk music. I'm can't rave enough about this film. Uh, so I think it's worth checking out. 128 minutes long. If you uh do see it on streaming, I'd recommend it. But uh give that a crack. And uh yeah, it's again, I think it's just the musical vibe. The musical films and um these kind of docudramas and musical, I don't know, they just take you somewhere else besides you know sitting there, they hit you in a different way. So yeah, like I said, Michael, I think that's gonna be huge. And if you're rocking around up and out, up the top of the North Island and you think you want to see the history of sound, come and check that out. Cool, alrighty, prediction time.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

This is gonna be a tricky one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

So, Yumi and Tuscety, as I said, it is um one of those discoverable films with the kids' films on at the moment, everything out oh, and of course, Project How Mary, everybody's kind of focusing their dollars on those. So uh I'm gonna shoot low. Brent, I'll tell you what, I'll go first because I'm gonna shoot low. Um, not because, again, not because the film's not a fun ride and a good time. I just think there's so much going on at the moment with mums are kind of directing their money to the kids at the moment, not themselves. So I'm gonna say the film does I'm gonna say the film does$110,000. And I know that's low, but I just think that it's the right number.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Okay, I'll say$225.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

$225. Oh, that's a big spread. Oh, somebody's gonna be happy next week. Well, bear in mind, we last time we did this, we were all back to zero after the uh Oscars. Yeah. So and now I've got one up on you, so I am one up.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Oh, that's all right. Look, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

You'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah, well, we've still got a whole year to go. It's okay. We do I'm not banning.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I'll tell you what, it's it's not a whole year. It's already April. Oh, true. Crike here guys. We've had Easter already, folks. Where is the year going? I need to get my egg together then. Mate, it's freaking me out. I'll tell you what though, folks. We have got some amazing, amazing films coming up. And in the sort of uh middle of this year, oh boy, you guys are gonna be so spoiled. There is some cool, cool content coming out, you know. And I think that it's going to be that Steven Spielberg movie, I think it's in June.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I cannot wait for that. And it looks great.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

It is great. We we have to plan quite far ahead when we're trying to work things out. And when we were sitting in the office today, just going through this period, and I was like, well, that's a big move, that's a big movie. That's a big movie. It's like every two weeks, it's just something that's gonna pop out and really, really rock your socks. So uh yeah, we've got some cool stuff coming up, and some Mandalorian movie's gonna be in there as well somewhere. You know, maybe some Avengers at the end of the year, maybe a Dune movie, you know, a minions and monsters movie. We've got um Scary Movie. What else we got? Oh, golly. Really getting into it now.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, and it's a year of science fiction movies.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

It's our year again. It is, it absolutely. It's it's a year for it's a year for blokes, old crusty blokes like us, to get off their backsides, grab their kids, and go and see a film.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Okay, and on that note, we'll wrap it up there and we'll see how our prediction goes next time.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Thanks for listening to Eat Sleep Movie. Repeat, repeat a movie podcast available at Bunsprout, Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.