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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Early Box Office Analysis

Both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Red Eye will be behind only Freddy v Jason and Mortal Kombat as the biggest openers in the third weekend of August in history.
Does that seem like splitting hairs? Not to me. The first 10 days of August have become

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21 Responses to “Early Box Office Analysis”

  1. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Curious you brought up “Lilo & Stitch 2”. It is direct-to-DVD as you put it — and this week I saw it advertised on a billboard in a neighborhood near my home.
    “Valiant” isn’t so much Disney animation pickup as pro-war picture being dumped amid the Cindy Sheehan story. BV originally was going to handle “Valiant” as a latter-day “Chicken Run”.

  2. Stella's Boy says:

    Tying Valiant to Cindy Sheehan? That’s an angle I never considered.

  3. JckNapier2 says:

    Quite the contrary, if anything, certain righties will be upset as there is a scene where a captured pigdeon invokes the Geneva Convention to prevent himself from being tortured, and it works! Since right now the ACLU is fighting the administration to get pictures from Abu Gharib released (pics and video which cleary show rape, murder, and child molestation by low ranking soldiers, at the behest of unaccountable private contractors, NOT higher command soldiers), I was a little saddened at the mention, more so that some might have taken it as a political statement. They haven’t thus far and yay for that.
    Scott Mendelson

  4. PandaBear says:

    Cindy Sheehan should just move on and mourn in private instead of ruining her sons heroic memory like this. He reenlisted. He was 23. He believed in the cause. How do you think he would feel if he knew she was doing this? She is going to look back in time and regret this charade and being used by Left Wing groups. I do feel sad for her.

  5. PandaBear says:

    On a real movie note I hope the 40 Yr Old Virgin becomes a hit because it was really that good.

  6. Wrecktum says:

    Tying Valiant to the Sheehan mess is a giant, idiotic stretch. Vanguard/Ealing has been developing this flick for years. It was supposed to be the UK’s first big push into CG animation, and it failed. It was released in the UK months ago with little fanfare and with poor results.
    Disney bought the U.S. rights last year, as part of its plan to secure relationships with up-and-coming CG houses in the wake of the stalled Pixar negotiations (another example is The Wild, scheduled for release in ’06). Valiant was never intended to be a hot summer pic (especially when it turned out it wasn’t very good) and initially it was going to either be buried in the spring with a very limited release or sent straight to video. It was moved to summer to help shore up the weak ’05 BV summer slate, and was expanded to a wide release after a revised marketing campaign was given high marks. But make no mistakes: even with a retooled marketing campaign and increased theatre count, the film was never expected to be a high earner.
    So, please stick the Sheehan thing up your ass. It has nothing to do with Valiant, which is performing as expected.

  7. sky_capitan says:

    bah. Don’t get into daft over-the-top statements that the son would be embarrassed by his mother’s actions, or that she’s ruining her son’s heroic memory, or she’s naive and being used by the left-wing. If she was pro-war, she’d be attacked by some of the left wing as being a pawn of the right-wing, and dishonouring her son’s memory blah blah blah. Whatever.
    I’m glad to see Dukes fade (it deserves to), and that Wedding Crashers is still in the top 5. Haven’t looked, but when was the last time a movie spent that many weeks in the top 5?
    Virgin did better than I thought, but I think I’m looking forward to seeing High T with Carrell more.

  8. Brasileiro says:

    Hi, I’m from Brazil and I always follow the discussions on this blob, but this is my first comment. I was hoping David or any of you could answer my question, even if it isn’t directly related to the topic.
    “The Island” is doing pretty well here, as it is in most foreign countries, except the US. Since it is being handled by Warners, I was wondering how’s each studios cut determined, do they split 50/50, or Dreamworks gets domestic and WB gets overseas? ‘Cause this movie is going to make at least 150 million internationally, so if WB gets it all, they’ll be ecstatic, but it seems a bit unfair, since this was a Dreamworks project from the begining.
    And did any of you follow Parkes/MacDonald comments on the failure of the movie. I thought the producers trying to blame the flop on the actors was ridiculous! Here in Brazil, the movie is being advertised as a slick, sexy, sci-fi action flic, and even if the couple is not that well-known around here, their chemistry and good-looks certainly were a big selling point.

  9. JckNapier2 says:

    Slight correction about Shehan’s son. From all reports, he did NOT believe in the cause, he knew it was wrong and grew stronger about it as the war went on. But he DID believe in not abandoning his men, and that’s why he went back. Obviously, there’s a difference between loyalty to people and loyalty to a cause. Whether it makes a difference is debatable, but it’s worth mentioning.
    Scott Mendelson

  10. martin says:

    “Slick sexy sci-fi action” sounds about identical to the US campaign. The US campaign wasnt awful, but $40-50 mill. should have been the Island’s budget with those 2 stars. People can bitch all they want about Parkes/Mcdonald’s inappropriate comments, but inappropriate is not the same as incorrect. Scarlet and Ewan are not proven audience gatherers, and to expect Michael Bay and slick action to be the sole selling point when all his previous films have been heavily star-loaded (with perhaps modest exception to PH). The choice were either The Island with 2 major stars as a summer release, or the Island as a low-budget early fall/early new year release. To spend $150 mill. on a Ewan McGregor/Scarlet Johanssen movie is just downright stupid.

  11. martin says:

    Virgin is already a hit, no need to hope for it. $50-60 mill. for Virgin is a very solid #, and it will surely make lots of money for everyone on DVD.

  12. David Poland says:

    Please try to keep the “idiotics” and “up your ass”es to a rarity. It is unneccesssary and it would really be nice if no one felt personally attacked on here… your feelings were well expressed (on both sides) and the harsh exclamations just hurt feelings.
    As for The Island, I don’t know. This came up in discussions yesterday and I will endeavor to find out an accurate answer next week… unless someone on here really knows.

  13. jeffmcm says:

    Even if you believe Parkes and MacDonald were correct, please remember: they hired these actors, they greenlit the budget, it’s their fault for the movie underperforming. Not Johannson and McGregor’s.

  14. cullen says:

    I guess the opening #’s on RED EYE and 40 YR OLD VIRIGN are good…but I expected 5 million more for each of them…but in the end, these two movies really have zero established star power behind them. Granted, the ideas are easily-marketable and the trailers have been good for both and the actors in both are all up-and-comers but without big names, it’s clear that things are tougher. They both might end up having long legs and I bet Red Eye will at least (havent seen Virgin yet but plan too).

  15. martin says:

    the fact is that there are countless reasons/excuses for why The Island bombed. Stealth was always an iffier sell, it could have gone either way. But the Island was meant to truly be a tentpole film, one of a handful of expected huge openers. As it was coming in it looked pretty, and for movie geeks it looked like an interesting change of pace for Bay films, a mix of his good action plus some smarts. But it was almost as if the movie geeks did the marketing on it. They never really figured out what would appeal to the moviegoer that doesn’t even know who Michael Bay is. The elements of it never connected, the story, the actors. It looked like a dull action demo reel. It’s amazing how many commercially stupid choices were made along the way on the Island. A movie made and sold by people clearly insulated from the society they hoped to sell tickets to.

  16. Wrecktum says:

    “Please try to keep the “idiotics” and “up your ass”es to a rarity.”
    Well, what would you expect from someone with the name “Wrecktum”?

  17. jeffmcm says:

    A little off topic, but:
    are there any horror movies coming between now and Halloween aside from The Cave, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (both in the next 2-3 weeks) and Saw 2?

  18. Joe Leydon says:

    “The Fog”

  19. PandaBear says:

    The Wrectum does have a point.

  20. David Poland says:

    Wrecktum does have a point, but I love this blog when people are being civil and I feel a headache coming on when they are not.
    Whatever your tag, taking it somewhere personal just doesn’t make the conversation more interesting.

  21. Angelus21 says:

    Wrectum. Damn near killed him.

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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