Can Harry Potter IV pass $200 million in 10 days or less? That is the golden question for the weekend.
Walk the Line should near $60 million in 10 days by the time the weekend ends. The solid show in a second weekend bodes well for a nice run into Christmas and position as the highest grossing awards movie when Oscar nominations are released in late January
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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” â 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 â 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 â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â 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 namedâ” “Yeah, sure â 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 Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs 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 didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â 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. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs 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
$20 million seems kind of high for Just Friends based on its first two days… Will have to make about three times yesterday’s box office to do that. I’m thinking closer to $16 million. (It’s not exactly a family type movie.) Also doubt that Yours, Mine will have the legs of the Kranks, not without the Christmas theme which would continue to pull people in.
That Weds-Thurs drop-off for Rent is terrible…the biggest drop-off for a Thanksgiving movie ever, including Alexander last year. Before seeing yesterday’s #s, I was thinking it could do closer to $30 million.
If HP4 does an average of $20mil the next three days it blows by the 3-day and 5-day Thanksgiving and does $200mil pretty darn fast. The real question is, can it do Sith numbers before Kong shows up? Also, can it do Polar Express IMAX numbers form the IMAX screens? Because if it does, is $400mil in range?
ice harvest is an odd one, anyone know how much it cost? there are so many elements to this movie that say “box office disaster” that I wonder how it got financing. The titles aren’t coming to me at the moment, but there have been a bunch of these dark comedies (x-mas time set ones too) that have bombed in the last decade. This one actually seems sorta interesting and has gotten some good reviews, but the track record for these types of movies is awful. Must have been fairly low-budget or been greenlit by blackmail.
Potter is huge. Everyone knew it would be but this is really big.
Rent better pick it up or it’s going to join Phantom of the Opera type bust.
Rent would be very lucky to get to the $155 million Phantom did worldwide. And they knew that, I think, even when they greenlit it.
if rent got great reviews and awards buzz it would easily do phantom #’s (more of a domestic tilt however). But the word is already out that it’s simply not very good. Plus, it’s getting killed by all the rent-haters out that there are calling not only the film crap, but the original broadway production as well. I always find it amusing how you don’t really know how disliked a play/tv show/musician/etc. is until they’re a big movie and all the haters are out on the front page. I always figured I was in the minority in thinking Rent was a pile of pseudo-bohemian crap but apparently many/most critics and many viewers feel the same way. Kind of reassuring.
Rent doesn’t have the name brand type thing that Phantom has worldwide.
Potter is running along very nicely.
$400 million is a pipe dream, however $280 million is clearly a lock. If it is keeps running, it will finish with $200 million this weekend, and $250 by the end of the next. Everything else beyond that is a mystery. The international numbers will clearly around $600-$650 million, making it the biggest release of the year, above even Star Wars III.
And O_o at Rent’s 50% drop. NOTHING else dropped more than 18%, and as a matter of fact, most everything else elevated.
Because I love the movie, i’m going to bring it up. Could a reason for Pride & Prejudice’ softer than expected Thanksgiving day gross be because, to be politically incorrect, it’s primary audience is females and many females have other things on their mind than seeing a movie??
I mean, the US is the same country that has cinemas open (and successfully so) on Christmas Day, so I can’t really guage what Thanksgiving means, but whatever…
(Why on earth are cinemas open for Christmas? That’s kooky)
Anyway.
That is a scary drop for Rent. If word of mouth isn’t very good it may fall short of $50. Phantom was actually a strange release. It kept the limited/semi-wide angle through it’s entire run I think, making $5mil or so per week. Rent went for the whole hog by going wide. In Phantom’s defence (I’m not that big of a supporter of the film. i merely thought it was okay), $50mil US is pretty great for an operatic musical these days.
Warner must be ecstatic about Harry’s numbers. It’s most definitely going to reverse the trend of downward numbers. So can we rest assured and know that HP will stay put on Thanksgiving from now on?
Who cares about In The Mix and Ice Harvest (a poor Bad Santa wannabe by the looks of it – by that i mean, dark comedy in the joyous season). Probably doesn’t help that both of these movies have horrendous name. What the fuck is the ice harvest?
THe thing that kept Polar Express chugging along to $160mil was IMAX. It’ll be interesting to see if Chicken Little can reach that number.
Christmas With the Kranks… Yours Mine & Ours… Cheaper By The Dozen… there really a theme. Each year has a horrible holiday family movie. This year we’re treated to a sequel to Cheaper By The Dozen, as well! Yay… *chirping crickets*
Hmm, i didn’t know where to put this, so i’ll put it here.
In the NYPost’s Turkey prizes, I’m not going to argue with any of them except one.
“
That’s a funny cultural comment up there about theaters being open on Christmas, Camel. Of course theaters are going to be open. What on earth else are you going to do with your family after you’ve finished opening presents? That or watch TV.
You are completely correct, though. Women are more likely to be busy cooking and shopping to see a movie like P&P right away. Give it a few weeks.
“Because I love the movie, i’m going to bring it up. Could a reason for Pride & Prejudice’ softer than expected Thanksgiving day gross be because, to be politically incorrect, it’s primary audience is females and many females have other things on their mind than seeing a movie??”
The big reason, I think, is that it looks like a stuffy period costume drama and the ads aren’t really separating it from all the similar poductions you can see on PBS, A&E, or other such networks. “From the makers of Bridget Jones’s Diary” means nothing if it’s not a modern romantic comedy.
Compare this with the trailer for Casanova, where despite going overboard on costume and period, they show that the movie might be actually entertaining (my brother, the last person who would see something like Casanova, even laughed at a couple of the gags). I’m not about to say Casanova will make more, but it seems to me the problem is with selling it. Oh, and in more “traditional” places, like here in the Midwest, the movie isn’t even playing in most spots.
Well, the theatre reports I got for Friday are not looking good and this may end up being the worst “Black Friday” at the movies in years. Usually, movies do much better on Friday from people going out as a family after shopping to see something together. In most cases, Harry Potter should increase a lot from THursday, but I’ve heard that it barely made more than Wednesday in a couple theatres.
When has nicole Kidman ever had any chemistry with a male costar? Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge? Cruise in Days of Thunder?
Re: theaters opening on Christmas Day… um, anyone ever hear of the Jews?!
Not everybody celebrates Christmas, even in the United States.
Mr. Poland and Mr. Staat are correct: “Pride & Prejudice” is getting killed because its ads resort to name-checking. Same with “The Ice Harvest” and “Zathura”.
Paramount used a Xmas angle of sorts to promote “Yours, Mine & Ours”. Newspaper ads yesterday read “30 shopping days left. 18 kids. You do the math.” Today the ads go back to the usual pull-quote hype. Duh!
BTW, did anybody notice the new ad campaign Fox did for “Walk the Line”? When there’s a new ad campaign after a picture comes out it’s a sign that movie might be in trouble.
based on #’s from the last few days, walk the line is hardly in trouble. it’s beating rent, yours mine and hours, etc. everything but potter. so i’d say the new ad campaign is a result of bigger box office than expected “holy shit we may hit all 4 quadrants” and are capitalizing on it.
What about Massachusetts? They still have blue laws in effect which date from Puritan times. Can theaters be open there on Xmas?
I think that ‘Narnia’ will take a bigger chunk out of the marketplace that ‘Potter’ is eating up right now…’Kong’ will be big, but it seems Christians are abuzz about another movie for them…and it certainly isn’t Kong.
kong feels like a well-reviewed godzilla to me, which may mean double the g98 box office, which means around $250 or so. A movie about a big ape, no matter how well-reviewed/received is not going to take over the US box offices for a long period of time. Problem is, most audiences are not in the daily “movie” loop, and Kong sounds like a really dumb, not very appealing time at the movies. It will do big with the core crowds and expand a bit, but the effort required to get the chicks and the adults into a Kong movie is more than any reasonable marketing budget could hope to achieve.
Chucky, your weekly rant against ‘name-checking’ is crazy as always. People don’t choose to not see a movie because they don’t approve of its marketing strategy. The three movies you mention are failing because they didn’t look like especially fresh or interesting movies. You really seem to hate ‘name-checking’ when it is in fact one of the best tools a marketer has.
What is “name-checking”? This ignoramus wants to know!
It’s a name for when advertising says something like. “Zathura, from the producers of Jumanji” or “King Kong, from the director of Lord of the Rings”. Obviously a good way to capitalize on a filmmakers’ prior success, no?
Ah, I didn’t know it had a name. Thanks, Jeff.
That could lead to some interesting ads: “Munich, from the director of E.T.” Or this one: “From the writer of Hamlet and Othello, Macbeth.” Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seeing either of those.
Theatres are open on Christmas so those of us of the Hebrew persuasion can go see a new movie without standing in long lines because the goyem are home opening their presents. đ
I’m most amused by the trend, usually by Disney, of advertising ‘from the ‘studio that brought you…’. Considering how varied most studio output is, I long for the day when we see ‘from the studio that brought you A Clockwork Orange and The Wizard of Oz, comes… Charlie And The Chocolate Factory!’
Scott Mendelson
Until they do indeed start advertising things such as “Munich, from the director of E.T.”, I think the strategy is good. I probably wouldn’t have wanted to see The Constant Gardener as much as I did if I didn’t know it was the director of City of God.
And I think for the casual moviegoer it means a lot more. “Oh, it’s from the guy that directed The Lord of the Rings? I’ll see that”. It also helps you get a good early thought of what the movie will be like.
Business for P&P was up something like 124% on Friday, where most movies experiences upsticks of around 75%. So…
So has Poland spilled the beans about that train wreck of a film he dangled tantalizingly above our noses a few weeks (months?) ago? If not, I’m assuming it still hasn’t been released yet?
How about a fresh round of guesses?
I still vote for AEON FLUX even though he mentioned it in the original post.
Actually, theaters are open on Christmas because business is freaking HUGE that day – yes, even for Christians. I worked at a theater in high school, and Dec. 25th was always a huge day for moviegoing. People hang with their families all day, and go to movies at night – it still feels like a family event, but at last you don’t have to talk to each other.
Name-checking is when the studio involved thinks “This Picture is a Piece of Shite, So We’ll Link It to a Previous Hit”. Mr. Poland and Mr. Staat have confirmed that thesis.
At least I’m not the moderator — those constant personal attacks on my P.O.V. would have been deleted.
As for those pissing on “Rent”: Quite a few arthouses are playing it, including the BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn and the Criterion Cinemas in New Haven. So are theaters where arty pix do well (Regal Union Square, UA East Hampton, Princeton Garden Theatre, AMC Hamilton to name a few).
Chucky I’m not trying to attack you personally, but you have never offered any rationalization of your position on the subject, just constant rants.