Los Angeles — The Godzilla-King Kong combo stomped on expectations as “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” roared to an $80 million opening on 3,861 North American screens, according to Sunday studio estimates.

 

The monster mash-up from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures starring Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry brought the second-highest opening in what has been a robust year, falling just short of the $81.5 million debut of “Dune: Part 2.”  Projections had put the opening weekend of “Godzilla x Kong: Frozen Empire” at closer to $50 million.

 

Last week’s No. 1 at the box office, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” was second with $15.7 million for a two-week total of $73.4 million.

 

“Dune: Part Two” stayed strong in its fifth week, falling in the third spot with an $11.1 million take and a domestic total of $252.4 million.

 

The last matchup of the two monsters from Warner Bros. and Legendary, 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong,” had a much smaller opening weekend of $48.5 million, but that was a huge number for a film slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and released simultaneously on HBO Max.

 

The newer film had the second biggest opening of the studios’ broader MonsterVerse franchise. “Godzilla” brought in $93.2 million in 2014.

 

Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters,  

according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

 

1. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” $80 million.

2. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” $15.7 million.

3. “Dune: Part Two,” $11.1 million.

4. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” $10.2. million.

5. “Immaculate,” $3.3 million.

6. “Arthur the King,” $2.4 million.

7. “Late Night With the Devil,” $2.2 million.

8. “Tillu Square,” $1.8 million.

9. “Crew,” $1.5 million.

10. “Imaginary,” $1.4 million.
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Vatican City — Pope Francis on Sunday celebrated Easter Mass with tens of thousands of Catholics at Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City before his traditional blessing, as concerns persist over his health.

The 87-year-old arrived in a wheelchair to preside over the Mass from 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) in cloudy and windy weather, with the events broadcast live around the globe.

Francis will pronounce the “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and the World) blessing at midday where he is expected to bring up the international conflicts raging worldwide.

For Christians, Easter Sunday marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is the culmination of Holy Week, a major part of the Catholic calendar followed by 1.3 billion people.

The pope on Saturday presided over the Easter Vigil at the Vatican in front of some 6,000 people from around the world, a day after his last-minute cancellation at a major Good Friday procession revived questions about his health.

He delivered a 10-minute homily in Italian, speaking without any undue difficulty and condemning “the walls of selfishness and indifference” in the world.

At the end of the 2½-hour service he showed little sign of fatigue, taking time to greet and bless some of the worshippers.

In a brief statement Friday, the Vatican had said that “to preserve his health ahead of tomorrow’s vigil and the Easter Sunday Mass, Pope Francis will this evening follow the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum from the Santa Marta Residence,” where he lives.

Health concerns

The last-minute decision raised questions about how long Francis can continue to lead the Catholic Church.

A Vatican source told AFP on Friday there was “no particular concern” about his health and the decision to pull out had been “simply a measure of caution.”

The Argentinian Jesuit had also canceled his participation in the “Via Crucis” in 2023, but that followed a three-day hospital stay for bronchitis, and was announced well ahead of time. Weeks later, he underwent a hernia operation.

Up until Friday, the pope had attended his various engagements throughout the week, but he recently appeared tired and has sometimes delegated speaking roles to colleagues.

Francis, who never takes holidays, made his last trip in September, to the southern French city of Marseille. In December, he canceled a much-anticipated attendance at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

His next scheduled trip is to Venice on April 28. The Vatican has not yet confirmed a planned trip to Asia and Pacific Ocean nations for this summer.

Francis has previously left the door open to stepping down if he can no longer do the job. That would follow the example of his immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pope since the Middle Ages to voluntarily step aside.

But in a memoir published this month, Francis wrote that he did “not have any cause serious enough to make me think of resigning.” 
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Washington/Los Angeles — A California college is seeking the return, “no questions asked,” of an iconic image of Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong created by famed American artist Andy Warhol.

Two weeks ago, Orange Coast College discovered that one of Warhol’s signed silkscreen prints of Mao was missing from its vault. The portrait has an estimated value of $50,000.

Doug Bennett, executive director for college advancement at Orange Coast College, told VOA’s Mandarin Service that the print was purchased by a person close to the school from a gallery in Laguna Beach, California, in 1974 and donated to the school anonymously in September 2020.

But now, even before it was put on display, it’s gone missing.

Bennett said he hopes someone just took the print by mistake, adding that the college wouldn’t ask questions if it was returned.

“Someone perhaps took it and put it in their office or put it in their home and thought it was OK to do. Or maybe it was misplaced, but I don’t think it was like a ring of art thieves that stole it,” he said.

Warhol made the portraits of Mao in the 1970s after U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China.

“When it [the portrait of Mao] first came out in the 1970s, it was very controversial, still maybe to some people,” Bennett said.

From 1972-73, Warhol used the image of Mao from the Little Red Book, widely circulated in China, as a template to create 199 richly colored Mao silkscreen works in five series.

The school immediately launched an internal investigation after discovering the print was missing on March 13. A week later, a report was made to the Costa Mesa Police Department in Orange County, where the school is located. The police are investigating.

“It’s a high priority for the police department, and two detectives are assigned to the case and are working on it,” Bennett said.

The Costa Mesa Police Department told VOA the investigation is ongoing but did not provide any new details.

Police and the school are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.

Warhol, who is known as the godfather of the pop art movement, began using ubiquitous objects such as Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles as subjects for his creations in the 1960s, kicking off the movement.

A summary of the Mao portraits by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York says this about the series: “As interpreted by Warhol, these works, with their repeated image painted in flamboyant colors and with expressionistic marks, may suggest a parallel between political propaganda and capitalist advertising.”

In 1982, Warhol visited China and took a photo in front of the portrait of Mao in Tiananmen Square. Five years later, Warhol died.

In 2013, Warhol’s works toured China, but the Mao series was forced to be withdrawn. At the time, Chinese state media claimed that the Mao in the works “far exceeded the officially acceptable image.”

However, the Mao series has become one of Warhol’s most sought-after celebrity portraits by collectors. According to data from Sotheby’s auction house, in 2015, a Mao painting was sold for $47.5 million. In 2017, another painting of Mao was sold for $12.7 million.
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DES MOINES, Iowa — The Powerball jackpot climbed to an estimated $975 million after no one matched the six numbers drawn Saturday night, continuing a nearly three-month stretch without a big winner.

The winning numbers drawn were: 12, 13, 33, 50, 52 and the red Powerball 23.

No one has won Powerball’s top prize since New Year’s Day when a ticket in Michigan hit for $842.4 million, bringing the number of consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner to 38. That winless streak nears the record of 41 consecutive drawings, set twice in 2022 and 2021.

The $975 million prize is for a sole winner who chooses an annuity paid over 30 years. A winner opting for cash would be paid $471.7 million. The prizes would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.

As the prizes grow, the drawings attract more ticket sales and the jackpots subsequently become harder to hit. The game’s long odds for Saturday’s drawing were 1 in 292.2 million.

Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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ROME — Pope Francis presided over the Vatican’s somber Easter Vigil service on Saturday night, delivering a 10-minute homily and baptizing eight people, a day after suddenly skipping the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum as a health precaution.

Francis entered the darkened, silent St. Peter’s Basilica in his wheelchair, took his place in a chair and offered an opening prayer. Sounding somewhat congested and out of breath, he blessed an elaborately decorated Easter candle, the flame of which was then shared with other candles until the whole basilica twinkled.

Over an hour later, Francis delivered a 10-minute homily in a strong voice, clearing his throat occasionally.

The evening service, one of the most solemn and important moments in the Catholic liturgical calendar, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus. The Vatican had said Francis skipped the Good Friday procession to ensure his participation in both the vigil service Saturday night, which usually lasts about two hours, and Easter Sunday Mass a few hours later.

The 87-year-old Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter that have made it difficult for him to speak at length. He and the Vatican have said he has had bronchitis, a cold or the flu.

He has canceled some audiences and often asked an aide to read aloud some of his speeches. But the alarm was raised when he ditched his Palm Sunday homily altogether last week at the last minute and then decided suddenly Friday to stay home rather than preside over the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum reenacting Christ’s crucifixion.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to “conserve his health.”

The decision appeared to have paid off Saturday night, as Francis was able to recite the prayers of the lengthy vigil service and perform the sacrament of baptism for the eight adults. The baptism is a traditional feature of the Vatican’s Easter Vigil service.

In his homily Francis referred to the stone that the faithful believe was removed from Christ’s tomb after his death. Francis urged Catholics to remove the stones in their lives that “block the door of our hearts, stifling life, extinguishing hope, imprisoning us in the tomb of our fears and regrets.”

“Let us lift our eyes to him and ask that the power of his resurrection may roll away the heavy stones that weigh down our souls,” he said.

Holy Week is trying for a pope under any circumstance, given four days of liturgies, rites, fasting and prayer. But that is especially true for Francis, who canceled a trip to Dubai late last year, just days prior, on doctor’s orders because of his respiratory problems.

In addition to his respiratory problems, Francis had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalized twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall. He has been using a wheelchair or cane for nearly two years because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, Life: My Story Through History, Francis said he isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign and that he still has ” many projects to bring to fruition.”
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ROME — The Vatican confirmed Pope Francis would preside over the Easter Vigil service Saturday night, after he decided at the last minute to skip his participation in the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum as a health precaution.

The Vatican’s daily bulletin confirmed Francis would lead the lengthy vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most solemn and important moments in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The service, which is due to begin at 7:30 p.m. and usually lasts two hours, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and includes the sacrament of baptism for eight adult converts.

The 87-year-old Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter that have made it difficult for him to speak at length.

He has canceled some audiences and often asked an aide to read aloud some of his speeches. But he ditched his Palm Sunday homily altogether and decided at the last minute Friday to stay home rather than preside over the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum reenacting Christ’s crucifixion.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to “conserve his health” in view of the vigil service Saturday and his even more taxing obligations on Easter Sunday. The pope is due to preside over a morning Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square and deliver his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) speech praying for an end to global crises.

While Francis also skipped the chilly Good Friday procession last year because he was recovering from bronchitis, his sudden absence from the event this year raised concern. His chair was in place on the podium, and his aides were preparing for his arrival when the Vatican announced five minutes before the official start time that he wasn’t coming.

In addition to his respiratory problems, Francis had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalized twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall. He has been using a wheelchair or cane for nearly two years because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, “Life: My Story Through History,” Francis said he isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign and that he still has “many projects to bring to fruition.”
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new york — Doris Kearns Goodwin, Laurie Anderson and the president of the Harlem School of the Arts, James C. Horton, are being honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

The academy announced Friday that Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, is receiving a Gold Medal for biography. Anderson, the celebrated avant-garde performer, will be given a Gold Medal for music. Horton, who has run the renowned Harlem school since 2022 and has worked in education for decades, is being cited for his “significant contribution to the arts.” 

All three will be presented their awards in May, when the academy formally inducts its new members, among them the Oscar-winning composer John Williams and the novelist Alice McDermott. 

The arts academy is an honor society founded in 1898 that has 300 core members and each year awards numerous prizes and grants.
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LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. 

Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed. 

Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor. 

“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,” his cousin said. 

 

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” 

He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury. 

“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir “An Actor and a Gentleman.” 

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16. 

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.” 

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen. 

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera. 

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands. 

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964. 

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people. 

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal. 

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go. 

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go. 

“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.” 

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned. 

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.” 

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left. 

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist. 

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.” 

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night. 

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote. 

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father. 

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos. 

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role. 

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir. 

“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.” 

He said his statue was in storage. 

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.” 

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.” 

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones. 

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.” 

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu. 

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19. 

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett. 

Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.
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TOKYO — Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project.

“What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?” he said, sadness in his voice, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.

Oppenheimer does not directly depict what happened on the ground when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turning some 100,000 people instantly into ashes, and killed thousands more in the days that followed, mostly civilians.

The film instead focuses on Oppenheimer as a person and his internal conflicts.

The film’s release in Japan, more than eight months after it opened in the U.S., had been watched with trepidation because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who spoke at a preview event for the film in the southwestern city, was more critical of what was omitted.

“From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” he was quoted as saying by Japanese media. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film’s scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.

In a sign of the historical controversy, a backlash flared last year over the “Barbenheimer” marketing phenomenon that merged pink-and-fun Barbie with seriously intense Oppenheimer. Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed Barbie in the country, apologized after some memes depicted the Mattel doll with atomic blast imagery.

Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor at Sophia University, who specializes in U.S. politics, called the film an expression of “an American conscience.”

Those who expect an anti-war movie may be disappointed. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said.

“The work shows an America that has changed dramatically,” he said in a telephone interview.

Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.

Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job.

“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to Oppenheimer. Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan.

Nolan heartily agreed.

Hiroyuki Shinju, a lawyer, noted Japan and Germany also carried out wartime atrocities, even as the nuclear threat grows around the world. Historians say Japan was also working on nuclear weapons during World War II and would have almost certainly used them against other nations, Shinju said.

“This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer published by the Tokyo Bar Association. 
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