The number 1 movie this weekend was “The Little Things,” starring Denzel Washington and Jared Leto, from Warner Bros. It made about $4.8 million in 2,171 theatres. Like all new WB Movies it was also put on HBO Max.

Disney thought they’d cash in on a Denzel moment so they re-released “Remember the Titans” from 2000, for no special reason. It was just to confuse fans who were wandering around movie theaters. They picked up a mere $65.000 in 730 theaters, not really worth it in the end. The 20th anniversary of that film’s release was back in September. So what was the peg here?

“Wonder Woman 1984,” also from WB, previously on HBO Max, scooped up another $1 million bucks but couldn’t cross the $40 million line. Warner Media says HBO Max subs went through the roof when “WW84” was first shown, so maybe it was all worth it.

“News of the World” crossed $11 million. I hope Academy voters are watching this film at home. It should be one of the top 10 on their ballots including Nomadland, The Father, Soul, Minari, Chicago 7, Billie Holiday, Ma Rainey, One Night in Miami, Judas and the Black Messiah, and Sound of Metal. Two movies I really liked are sadly out of the conversation, but find them anyway: Let Them All Talk, and The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Wanna see some acting? Like some real acting? Then you’ll have sit through the uncomfortable but searing “Mass,” written and directed by Fran Kranz.

Guess who he is? He’s the son-in-law of “Charlie’s Angels” star Jacklyn Smith. I met him a few years ago when he acted in “You Can’t Take it With You” on Broadway and stole the show. Ditto “Death of a Salesman.” Nice guy, very talented. I wondered what happened to him.

This is what happened: he’s written and directed a play for a quartet of actors that will find its way to Broadway after the movies and make a fortune. It’s easy to produce, and it’s important. And moving.

The “mass” here is a mass school shooting, and it seems that two couples must meet to discuss the aftermath of in which 10 children were killed. And the shooter, one of their fellow students. Ann Dowd and Reed Birney are parents of the shooter. Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs’s son was killed in the shooting. The latter couple wants no money. They want an explanation. What happened? Why did Hayden lose his mind and go on this shooting spree? What was the turning point in his life? They want their son, Evan, back. Unfortunately, Hayden’s parents have plenty of explanations and none. They tried to do everything right.

When the movie starts, it’s like a play that’s been opened to make a film. There’s a long preamble in which we arrive at an Episcopalian church that’s been chosen for this meeting. Only, we don’t know what the meeting will be, and don’t know for some time even after we meet the two couples. It’s all very Beckett or Ionesco, very existential. What’s happening? What is is that’s bringing this foursome to a table in a church office?

You know, we’re never going to get a satisfactory ending. Two young boys are dead. One killed the other, but it wasn’t “personal.” He was just shooting everyone. Yet it is personal to Evan’s parents. We’re deadlocked from the beginning. But Kranz’s script is unusually rich in the plumbing of this mathematical problem. And the actors are literally on fire. Ann Dowd will just break your heart. She and Isaacs, in opposite couples, are emotional wrecks. Birney and Plimpton are maybe more methodical, but they are equally devastated and devastating. The casting directors really deserve awards for assembling this foursome. They give a masterclass from which everyone could learn something.

See you all at the 2022 Oscars.

Apple has gotten to the core of Sundance.

The computer/phone company with a burgeoning film firm broke the Sundance record today. They bought “CODA” for $25 million.

They broke last year’s record of $22.5 million for “Palm Springs” bought by Neon and Hulu.

I told you in my review that “CODA” was big. Directed by Sian Heder and based on a French film, “CODA” stands for Child of Deaf Adults. In this case, the child is 18 year old British actress and singer Emilia Jones, who plays a teen who can sing like a bird. Only problem is her parents and brother are deaf, and can’t hear her.

Heder set her version among fishermen in Glouchester, Mass., and this gives the film a lot richness and texture. Luckily, she shied away from having a lot Boston accents. But the warmth of the characters and the situation– of course, the girl joins the high school choir, is discovered to be a phenom, and tries out for Berklee School of Music– add up to a home run of a film that everyone will enjoy.

Co-stars in the film include Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, and 21 year old Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, of “Sing Street” fame. “CODA” will be a major player in 2022 awards season, if we ever finish the 2021 awards season. I do hope Apple puts this film in theaters and doesn’t just relegate it to TV screens and computers. It deserves a big setting.

I can’t wait to see who picks up the soundtrack, and who signs these kids to record contracts.

PS You have to realize how Apple, Amazon, and Netflix have so changed the way deals are done now at places like Sundance. Those companies have unlimited cash. Plunking down $25 million is pocket change for them. It’s very different than when Miramax, or Fine Line, etc– the O.G. indie film companies– battled to get product. They were sweating it. Very new world we have here.

“Dear Evan Hansen” is already a movie.

While we were buying toilet paper, Universal spent the last few months shooting the Tony winning Broadway musical as a film this September.

Ben Platt returns as Evan, the boy who lied, with an all-star cast subbing in for the Broadway performers. Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan, Nik Dodani, DeMarius Copes and Danny Pino are in the cast.

Stephen Chbosky directed the pic from a script by Steven Levenson, who wrote the book for the stage musical, with music and lyrics by “La La Land” Oscar winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Marc Platt and Adam Siegel will produce for their Universal-based Marc Platt Productions. Michael Bederman, Levenson, Pasek and Paul and the executive producers. If they get Oscar nominations, Marc Platt and Ben Platt will be the first father-son duo at the awards maybe ever.

“Dear Evan Hansen” opened on December 4, 2016 on Broadway and played through mid March 2020. That’s a short time before a movie is usually made from a hit show. But who knows if the theatrical version will return next summer or fall? And wouldn’t the movie siphon off the legit audience?

Anyway, that’s the plan, although nothing is written in concrete, as we know.