It was a rough night for “Rough Night.” This very, very bad movie was rejected wholesale by the audience. Scarlett Johansson and pals made just $3.35 million, and hope for a $9 mil weekend.  Yes. it’s disaster, but all the people involved deserve it. There is nothing funny or witty about “Rough Night.” It’s just vulgar and stupid. Demi Moore should sue the cinematographer. Ty Burrell is lucky he’s got his detergent commercial.

Even worse news for Colin Trevorrow’s “Book of Henry.” In semi limited release, the dramedy took in $507,765. This is quite a comedown from “Jurassic World.” It also bodes ill for “Star Wars 9.” Will Trevorrow be replaced? It could happen. The star of the week is apparently Matt Reeves, whose “War of the Planet of the Apes” may be the blockbuster breakout of the season.

The big story of the night was “All Eyez on Me.” Very poorly reviewed, the Tupac Shakur biopic still made $12.8 million. No stars, bad reviews, no soundtrack CD. But there was obviously an audience for this following “Straight Outta Compton.” A $30 million weekend is outstanding under these conditions.

The number 1 release of the weekend is “Cars 3.” Disney/Pixar picked up $19.5 million last night. They’re honking horns over at the Maus Haus. Kids are swarming theaters, parents are napping. All is good in Toon Town.

John Avildsen died today. The director of many hit films won the Oscar for “Rocky” in 1977. He left quite a nice legacy of films including “The Karate Kid,” “Lean on Me,” the original “Neighbors” with Aykroyd and Belushi.

Avildsen has two other films on his resume that are always worth watching. “Joe” starred Peter Boyle and a brand new Susan Sarandon in a character study that presaged Archie Bunker. Watching it now is like seeing a time capsule.

He also directed the great Jack Lemmon to his second Oscar in 1973’s “Save the Tiger.” (Lemmon also won for “Mister Roberts” in 1956.)

It looks like Avildsen more or less retired around 1999, but was thinking of a comeback next year with Richard Dreyfuss and an 89 year old Martin Landau in “Nate and Al.”

You can say this for Shia LaBeouf: he doesn’t shy away from tough roles or movies. He’s agreed to star in “Trial by Fire,” directed by Ed Zwick. This is based on the New Yorker story by David Grann about a man who was accused of setting a fire that killed his three children.

Todd Willingham maintained his innocence up til the end. But he was eventually sent to death row and finally put to death by lethal injection.  Through it all he was championed by a playwright named Elziabeth Gilbert, who will be played by the great Laura Dern. Gilbert has her own drama in the story– as Willingham was sent to death row, Gilbert was in a terrible automobile accident.

Since Willingham’s death, Gilbert– now recovered– has been an ardent speaker on being against the death penalty. There have also been investigations into the forensic science used in Willingham’s case– he may  have been innocent, as he claimed, but we’ll never know. Certainly the movie will have a lot of leeway in that direction, much like last year’s “Making of a Murderer.”

After this coming week, and several bad weeks (save for “Wonder Woman”) maybe Hollywood will be saved after all. Matt Reeves’ “War For The Planet of the Apes” will be a monster hit for 20th Century Fox. (The reviews are embargoed until Monday June 26th at 6 :00 am PT.   The film opens July 14^th.) 

At the first advance small screening for some crew and press, director/co-writer director and co-writer Reeves told the small group of crew and press that he just finished the film “a couple of days ago.” 

Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees and a revered animal advocate, saw the film in an unfinished version.  “She loved the movie, and I met her, just the most amazing person. She had her chimp doll, which I learned she carries everywhere, with her.  She won’t go to a movie that uses any animal in a cruel situation, so she loved this, since it’s all Weta [visual effects company] created.”

I asked him that the film seems to reflect exactly what’s going on today.

“We (Matt along with Mark Bomback) started writing this three years ago.   I wanted to make sure this is Caesar’s movie.  You see these two tribes and they’re both squatting on the same land, and the question is are they going to be able to co-exist or is it going to turn to violence? But it’s not Planet of the Humans it’s Planet of the Apes.  It’s a war movie, and we wanted it to root in stuff that feels real and to reflect human nature.

“The weird thing is that as we were starting to shoot this movie, there were all these events that were weirdly resonating and I was so like, ‘this is so odd.’  We didn’t set out to do all this timely stuff but it all sort of aligned, as it got closer.  So people thought we were writing about this situation and that. I had to tell people that, it took three years to make this movie. So in our exploration to make a war movie, there are some elements that seem to have relevance, which is cool.

“The leg of the story is about cementing Caesar’s position as the seminal figure of all ape history.  We were trying to make a biblical epic.  We watched “Ben Hur” and “Ten Commandments.”  All very mythic kind of ideas.  So this weird resonance of timeliness comes with the idea that these are mythic human stories that have resonance in the world as it is now.”

Regarding Woody Harrelson’s ruthless Colonel character, I mentioned to me it’s a cross between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. 

Reeves replied, “Woody plays a ‘Kurtzian’ type, referencing Marlon Brando’s infamous Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now.”

The domestic/ international junket is in London because Woody is shooting the Hans Solo movie there.

P.S. Andy Serkis is just wonderful. They are pushing him for Best Actor. Woody, Steve Zahn, Judy Greer are all great.