Weekend Movie Update: 'Uncharted' Tops Box Office; Lost Orson Welles Film Recovered

“Uncharted” from Sony Pictures SONY maintained its top position at the U.S. box office this weekend, generating $23.2 million in ticket sales from 4,275 theaters.

What Happened: The big screen adaptation of the popular video game has grossed $83.8 million in domestic ticket sales for its first two weeks in theatrical release. However, the film saw its box office grosses decline by 47% for its second weekend in theaters.

“Dog” from MGM/United Artists Releasing was the second top grossing film this weekend with $10.1 million from 3,827 screens. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” from Sony ranked third with a $5.75 million take in its eleventh week in theatrical release on 3,002 screens.

The Walt Disney Co.’s DIS “Death on the Nile” generated $4.5 million from 3,420 venues and Paramount’s PARAA “Jackass Forever” snagged $3.1 million via 2,913 theaters.

Another Paramount offering, the 50th anniversary re-release of the Academy Award-winning classic “The Godfather,” absorbed $1.2 million in a limited release at 156 theaters operated by AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC.

What Happens Next: For the coming weekend, the major film release is “The Batman” from AT&T’s T Warner Bros., with Robert Pattinson inheriting the role of Gotham City’s most complex crime fighter. The studio is releasing “The Batman” as a theatrical-exclusive presentation without a simultaneous streaming premiere.

Not surprisingly, no other film is going head-on against “The Batman” for a nationwide rollout. A few smaller films are opening in limited release, including the Paramount and Saban Films thriller “Asking for It” starring Vanessa Hudgens, Kiersey Clemons and Alexandra Shipp; A24’s science-fiction drama “After Yang” starring Colin Farrell (who plays The Penguin in “The Batman”) and Jodie Turner-Smith; and Quiver Distribution’s “The Changed” from acclaimed independent film director Michael Mongillo, starring Jason Alan Smith, Clare Foley and Tony Todd.

Also Happening: A long-lost short film created by Orson Welles in the early 1970s has been rediscovered, according to an article published by the online Wellesnet resource.

Welles directed, wrote, produced and starred in six short films for release in Cartivision, a home video system created by Avco Broadcasting Corp. and sold by Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1972 but discontinued before VHS video technology became the dominant video-based home entertainment format.

The recovered film from a surviving Cartivision video is “Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah,” which contains monologue performances by Welles as the Greek philosopher and the Biblical shipbuilder. Welles devotes eight minutes to Socrates presenting his defense against criminal trial charges of being a corruptive influence, and the other 10 minutes reimagines Noah as a Yiddish-accented raconteur recalling the Great Flood – Welles would recreate that monologue in an appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show” (see video below).

Welles’ estate has digitized the recovered film from its obsolete format and is planning to make it available for public viewing. Another Cartrivision short film made by Welles, a recitation of Ring Lardner’s “The Golden Honeymoon,” survives and was shown at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005. The other four films he created for the format are considered lost.

Photo: Screen shot of Orson Welles performing the Noah monologue from the recovered film "Two Wise Men: Socrates & Noah," courtesy of the Estate of Orson Welles and Wellesnet.