Month: June 2008

Get Smart‘s first-choice number was 26 compared to 12 for The Love Guru, so it’s no surprise that Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Duane Johnson and Alan Arkin have kicked Mike Myers‘ backside. Smart will end up with $36,627,000 and $9300 a print by Sunday night. The Love Guru opened and closed with a projected $13,976,000 and $4600 a print. Game over.
The Incredible Hulk will make $21,171,000 by Sunday night, which represents a drop from last weekend of about 62%. Not a good hold, especially given that Hulk is not going against another big action film this weekend. It was off 70% last night from previous Friday. On its second Friday Ang Lee‘s Hulk dropped 76.5% with an average weekend fall of 67% or thereabouts, so the new Hulk is doing a little better, but not by much.
Kung Fu Panda will make $20,873,000 — off 36% from last weekend. A decent hold. The Happening will cbe off 67% by Sunday night — a weekend tally of $9,973,000. Indy 4 will make $8070. The total cume is over $290 million, meaning it’s sure to crest $300 million. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan willl make a projected $7,031,000 this weekend, off 57% — it’ll be a push to $100 million.
Sex and the City will hit $6,170,000 — off 37%, $132 million cume. Iron Man has topped $300 million with this weekend’s take of $4,034.000.
Tracking on Disney/Pixar’s WALL*E (opening 5.27) is 84, 41, 10 — a very strong number one week out for an animated feature. Wanted (also 6.27) is tracking at 75, 40 and 5 — fair, not so hot. Will Smith‘s Hancock (7.1) is running at 85,52 and 16 — huge. Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy (7.11) is tracking at 69, 33 and 5…okay, decent, not stupendous. Journey to The Center of the Earth (7.11) is running at 59, 17 and 2 — trouble.
Eddie Murphy‘s Meet Dave (also 7.11) is running at 36, 17 and 0 — a bad number no matter how you slice it. I’m guessing that the regular folks started to sour on the guy when the news got out that he bolted out of the Oscar ceremony after he failed to win for Best Supporting Actor. That was the thing that tipped the scales. A Murphy comedy getting a zero first choice three weeks from opening? You tell me what it means, but how many interpretations can there be?

“Akin to being locked with a clergyman and a clown in a flaming car hurtling over a cliff.” — from a review of Mike Myers‘ The Love Guru by the Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell. Proving that there’s sometimes an upside to watching terrible movies. They can get you so worked up that you succumb to a kind of temporary insanity, and out of that fanged-tooth madness come images of deranged clowns, flaming cars and the comfort of an early death, Thelma and Louise-style.

Updated: The thrust of this Anne Thompson Variety piece is that Will Smith is pretty much the only guy right now whose movies can’t seem to fail, no matter how mediocre they may be. The article is written with a sportswriter-like aplomb and a seasoned understanding of the how the marketplace works, etc., but it’s basically a show of obeisance before box-office power.
The best thing that could happen to the guy, of course, would be to fail as this would make him dig deeper and try harder, which would lead to growth and maturity as an artist-performer. Smith has made exactly three “growth” movies since he graduated from Fresh Prince of Bel Air — Six Degrees of Separation (’93), Ali (’01) and The Pursuit of Happyness (’06). Three such efforts in 15 years time obviously indicates an attitude of cruising and contentment. Which, of course, a true artist should never embrace. Although I have to say he really nailed that dog-dying scene in I Am Legend.
Stay anxious, stay hungry. Just ask Bob Rafelson.

My father died last night. I got the news right after last night’s memorial service for former Orion and Magnolia exec Jay Peckos at the Landmark Cinemas. I’m mentioning this because a touching photo montage (one of those computer-driven deals with a music soundtrack) was shown at the Peckos tribute, and I’d like to create the same kind of presentation for my dad’s memorial service, which will be held in Southbury, Connecticut, next month.
Except I want to mix in some video clips with the stills. To edit this together on my laptop I’ll first need to transfer some 8mm videocassettes to disc, but I don’t want to pay the rates charged by pirates who do this sort of thing for a living. If anyone knows of a cheaper backdoor way to go, please advise. Sorry but I hate paying retail. Can’t hurt to ask.

For me, Man on Wire (Magnolia, opening in late July) — the story of Petit’s illegal high-wire walk between the World Trade Center’s towers in August 1974 — is the most stirring and suspenseful film of its kind that I’ve seen since Touching The Void. It’s too electric and gripping to be called a mere documentary; another term has to be found. The L.A. Film festival screening happens tonight at Westwood’s Crest theatre.

Man on Wire director James Marsh (l.) and celebrated wire-walker Phillipe Petit about 75 minutes ago (4:25 pm, give or take) at the Four Seasons hotel.

In honor of tonight’s swear-along screening of Scarface at the John Ford Anson amphitheatre, a YouTube clip that features all 226 f-word expletives.

Three of my favorite scenes from Karel Reisz‘s Who’ll Stop The Rain? Rich cryptic dialogue on this level (which is largely taken verbatim Robert Stone‘s novel) has almost completely disappeared from movies. Clip #1 — “I’ve been waiting all my life to fuck up like this.” Clip #2 — “All my life I’ve been taking shit from inferior people…no more!” Clip #3 — “I hate jailbird chess…I hate the style…like a fuckin’ little tweety bird…’eeww, here‘s a move!”

An interview between original Inglorious Bastards director Enzo G. Castellari and Quentin Tarantino on the forthcoming three-disc DVD (out 7.29) of his 1978 film reveals that Tarantino’s new version of the film, which may be shot and released sometime before 2010, will be a two-parter like Kill Bill. This, at least, is what Harry Knowles is reporting. Good God.

The interview, says knowles, also reveals that Tarantino “has been writing almost non-stop on Inglorious Bastards.” Is that why Tarantino said at last month’s Cannes Film Festival that he’d finished a first draft? After talking about wanting to make this thing for…what, the last nine or ten years?

My only concern about Burn After Reading, the comic tone of which seems exqisite in its dry, deadpan-ness (being a smart but broad lampoon of stupid people with delusions of grandeur), is that it’ll be too fully appreciated and digested by the time in opens in mid-September. Meaning that people may go to it saying, “Yeah, yeah, we get all that, fine. But that was last summer and this is September, so what else can you show us?” I’m speaking, of course, about a very small group of online trailer-watching aficionados.

Pierre Morel‘s Taken (20th Century Fox, 9.18.08) is a thriller about an ex-spook (Liam Neeson) using his espionage skills to save his estranged daughter (Maggie Grace) from baddies who’ve kidnapped her and sold her into the slave trade. A rescue is necessary because once a beautiful young woman has been abducted and sold, she has no choice but to do what she’s been told to do, and is of course powerless to attempt an escape on her own.

“Hillary Clinton is taking a month off from her job as senator to rest up from her campaign. How does that work? You’ve been neglecting your job trying to get a better job. You don’t get that job, so you to take a month off from the job you were trying to get out of and go on vacation. Imagine if you tried that with your boss. ‘Hey boss, listen — I’ve been looking for another job, and I’m exhausted. I want to take a month off. Here’s where you can send my checks.'” — from a Jay Leno monologue delivered the night before last (i.e., Wednesday).