MCN Columnists
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Friday, October 17th, 1997 - Comments Off on WEEKEND PREVIEW
Be Sociable, Share!

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Hollywood makes bizarre bedfellows. As Miramax was busy suing Sony over their use of “from the creator of Scream” to sell I Know What You Did Last Summer, they were bidding to win the rights to make the tri-quel to The Terminator following T-2, one of Sony’s biggest hits ever. Speaking of hits, I expect the aforementioned next spoke on the Kevin Williamson Scream-cicle (really cycle, but it doesn’t sound as cool), to win the weekend, stealing The Devil’s Advocates soul. Both films could cross the $12 million barrier, though Last Summer could be the first really big opening of the fall and toy with the $20 million mark.
The only other wide opening is Fox Mulder in Playing God, which I see as the number five finisher with about $5 million. Outside of that, it should be a pretty standard weekend of slowly-dropping fortunes. In third place, look for Seven Years In Tibet to drop about 25 percent to $7.5 million after word gets out that Brad’s hair bleach is more consistent than his Germanic accent. Kiss The Girls should take its first deep cut (20 percent off for $7.2 million) opposite genre openings Devil and Summer
The Second Five should be headed up by In & Out, retaking a lead on Soul Food and passing the $50 million mark with a 30 percent drop to $3.8 million. Soul Food may be getting a little stale, taking sixth with a 35 percent drop to $3.65 million. Also taking the 35 percent hit, Dreamworks first effort, The Peacemaker is about ready to drop it’s load on Europe, shooting for seventh spot and another $3.4 million. Disney’s implosion-on-the-launch-pad, Rocketman, will do well to drop just 30 percent and take ninth with $3.1 million in just it’s second (and kid competition-free, I might add) weekend. In the 10 Spot, L.A. Confidential, making it’s likely last stand in the Top 10 with a 20 percent drop to $2.9 million. It’s been fun trying to get people to see you, boys. It’s hush, hush for now.
Last week, my predictions were challenged. Come on, I can take it! Email me!

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments Off on WEEKEND PREVIEW

Comments are closed.

Pride

Comments Most Recent Archives

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon