April 26, 2024
The Hot Blog
amit on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
Christian on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
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
Potter, well on it’s way of making a fortune. I know. Out on a limb there.
Azkaban opened gangbusters then fell hard. I wonder if Goblet will follow suit, since it has even more (or is it even less?) for the die-hard Potter fans to hate.
I expected more out of Walk the Line this week.
wow. zathura REALLY bombed. that sucker was at least $100 mill to make.
Get Rich has to be viewed as a disappointment almost as big as Zathura, getting neither the critical or commercial success I think they were hoping for. FWIW–Goblet of Fire is about 7-9% ahead of Azkaban’s opening day, and Azkaban was set to have a better opening day (a Friday with school out in much of the US for the kiddies).
Walk the Line at 20+M for the weekend has got to be viewed as a solid start, especially against Goblet.
Zathura is mroe because its budget was bigger and its a sequel.
$24 mill open for Walk the Line is huge, wtf were people expecting?
That number for Potter seems really high. Are Thursday night #s included?
Either way, this shows how frontloaded the film is. Expect a softer weekend multiplier for this than the other Potter films, leading to a final weekend of 95-99. Anything close to 99m and WB will fudge it over 100m for the Sunday estimate.
Great job, Potter! The franchise that keeps on giving.
Potter’s Thursday night shows were at 12:01a, as has been the new game in town… but technically, it is Friday.
Who had the better year cash wise, George Lucas or Joanne Kathleen Rowling?
Walk the Line has made 25 overall. Not opening weekend. Big difference. I expected and many more expected a bigger nationwide opening from it.
Josh, WTL will make betw 22-25 mill this weekend, what are you smoking?
Interview With The Vampire, Ransom and Unbreakable are the only dramas with better openings in November. Cruise/Pitt/Rice, Gibson/Howard, and Shyamalan’s first after Sixth Sense.
It will also better Ray’s opening by a million or two, even though Ray’s opening weekend competition was tens of millions lighter.
Expecting more than this for opening weekend is ridiculous.
The real question now is whether it can have a $30 million 5-day Thanksgiving weekend.
also, i think sometimes studios play “with the competition”, such as in the case of Zathura, thinking the overflow/sold-outs will go to the 2nd choice. But with mutiple prints at multiplexes, the sold-out show is less of an issue than it used to be, so the 2nd fiddle gets no boost at all.
I stand corrected. I forgot those were one night grosses. Now I’m content and it hit what I expected.
Excellent point, Martin.
Saw Walk the Line last night, and I’m convinced it was the best movie I’ve seen all year. Amazing stuff… even more amazing since poor James Mangold directed it. Who would’ve thought the man who made the misfire that was Copland had something this good in his chamber.
I think that Walk the Line could potentially gross 80-90 million. Word of mouth should be excellent, and it’s got two appealing leads. Should be strong through the holiday season and could even hit 100 if it gets the award boost.
David, can you re-post your Walk the Line review? I remember you saying how much you enjoyed it and I couldn’t seem to find it in the archives.
http://www.moviecitynews.com/reviews/walktheline.html
Thanks David.
It seems there are two Henny Hills. Is this blog big enough for two of us?
Zathura’s fall is pretty hard, but it’s not as bad as people were saying because:
(a) the production budget wasn’t $100m, it was closer to $65m (as per boxofficemojo). Makes sense since it had five actors and the biggest star in the movie (Tim Robbins) was basically a cameo.
(b) it wasn’t _really_ a sequel. Same premise as Jumanji, yes, but none of the same stars or director or anything else.
Sony really did screw the pooch with the Zathura release date. I’m not saying it would have been a big hit on another date, but it certainly would have had a better chance of gaining a foothold.
If Sony was using last year’s Polar Express as a model, then their distribution folks have some ‘splaining to do: not only was there no Potter to kill PE’s second week, but they had a major star, a holiday theme that could play through Christmas, and the IMAX 3D gimmick which really helped the word of mouth of the film. Zathura’s got none of these.
Chicken Little should end with a mid-40s drop, as expected. It should finish with Shark Tale numbers. Great for Disney.
^ To expound on my Chicken Little comment above, I think Poland is wrong to predict $11m for the film. Look at Santa Clause 2’s performance in 2002: It opened the same weekend as CL, and had to contend with Potter 2 in its third weekend, just like CL.
SC2’s third Friday gross was $3,566,459 (not too disimilar to Chicken Little’s). It ended the weekend at $15,102,078. Can Chicken Little get above $15m? I think it can.
honestly, if anyone doubts that a movie like ZATHURA is not a $100 million + investment, they’re out to lunch. At this rate, it’s as bad a flop as THE ISLAND and STEALTH.
Just saw WALK THE LINE…very impressive stuff in a lot of departments. Best acting Witherspoon has delivered to date, and Phoenix, as usual, was just perfect. I want to seem him play a dark cop now or something like that. But as much as I liked it, I sort of feel that it’s gonna get snubbed overall. I predict oscar noms for both Phoenix and Witherspoon, and Mangold to get nominated for writing, along with the other guy who’s name escapes me. Dennis something or other i think. But I enjoyed it a lot and I think the word of mouth will be great. A big Thanksgiving week/weekend to come for sure.
The effects alone in Zathura make it close to 100 plus $.
Even at 65mill, it doesn’t look good for Zathura.
With prints and advertising added in, Zathura may be up to $100 (but probably not), and all figures I can find for its production budget agree that it’s in a different ballpark than the $120-140 million productions of Stealth and The Island. And if you see Zathura (I did last night- pretty mediocre) you’ll see that it does indeed look like a mid-budget movie.
The title stinks too.
Harry Potter looks like a monster here. People were really clamoring for a big, good movie.
Box Office Mojo’s cost estimates are generally the studio story… which is almost always wrong.
Still, I believe Zuthura’s production was under $100 million, even with effects – which are now mostly in-house, keep in mind.
70 looks like a good round number because if you have seen it. You know there is no way they should be paying top dollar for those effects.
Not a good choice by Jon Favreau on a follow up to Elf.
I agree Bruce. I thought it was a very strange follow up to Elf.
Now he’s doing a period hot-rod film! John, what happened???
After Elf I expected more from him as a director. Never would have guessed he’d take on the sequel to Jumanji without Robin Williams and no stars.
I didn’t think Elf was that good. I think they owed a ton to Will Ferrel and his comedy. I feel they left a lot ot of that movie that hurt its flow but people will overlook it because its a comedy.
i already said on another thread, but I’ll say it again…ChickenLittle was bad bad bad, and too bad for Zathura, which was the better movie. The kidsters in the crowd laughed MORE at the Ice age II trailer than for the entire Chicken Little.
“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash…”
Walk the Line will pick up steam–if last night and tonight were anything to go by–in several different bars and just so happens that in each one the man in black’s greatest hits was on heavy rotation. People were talking about the movie and frank amazement re. Reese’s perf. The man in black is most beloved in these here parts.
Estimates for Harry Potter are all over the map. I heard an early estimate of $39.2 million (confirmed by a WB source) and then both BoxOfficeMojo and showbizdata have it closer to $36 million
Walk the Line (which I’ll be seeing some time in the next week) is doing rather well, I think, for a film in its situation: awards contender with a mid-November release. I can think of a bunch of movies in its shoes from the past few years that did worse a the box-office, Sideways (biggest weekend was $8 million) comes to mind.
Zathura’s failure isn’t really a surprise. The second half of the film has a long breaking-the-flow scene, a plot point I didn’t fully comprehend, and a too-quick ending. Disastrous in a family film, let alone any film.
Zathura’s failure isn’t really a surprise, because it looked silly and with a name like Zathura, i would excect people to go “…?”
Why didn’t they make something about Zathura to do with Christmas? Even horrible Christmas movies make cash! Santa Clause 2 (and soon to be 3), Christmas With The Kranks, Elf, etc… except that Ben Affleck one that was released in August or whatever. That hasn’t even been released in Australia yet I don’t think. Theatrically or straight-to-dvd.
Box Office Prophets (my fave box office site) is saying 35.6, saying it could go on to make 92.5 this weekend.
Walk the Line made $1mil more than Ray did, so that’s great!
I was actually impressed with Derailed’s numbers. Down 55% from Friday, so it’ll be under 50% on Monday most likely. Which is good for a movie that scorned as that one was.
Why is The Legend of Zorro still there? GO AWAY. You’re not wanted.
Walk the Line is a much better movie than Ray. I am really glad it is making money and will gain momentum. This week coming up is a big one for it.
“Walk the Line” will hold up or get killed depending on Thanksgiving bookings. “Rent” opens wide/mainstream while “Pride & Prejudice” goes semi-wide/upmarket.
Also, why is everybody so ultra-excited about “Harry Potter 4”? It is a franchise and a sequel that is targeted to ages 12-18. Watch it burn out fast after Thanksgiving.
At least that overhyped franchise did not break the record set by “Spider-Man”.
They did make something about Zathura to do with Christmas. It was called The Polar Express.
potter is not dead in the water yet as far as long-term prospects, depends on word of mouth and the competition. The last potter went away quick, too dark, mixed reviews, and decent competition. Goblet feels like it has more legs to me.
Potter will likely hit $80 million for the five day weekend, just like the first installment.
Why are people ultra-excited about it, you ask? Because it has it all. Adventure, Romance, Mystery, and Dragons. This is like asking why people were excited for Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. Sheesh.