April 24, 2024
Box Office
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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
Wow, THE WILD is flopping. I guess parents who had to watch MADAGASCAR 50 times on DVD don’t see the need in getting out of the house and catching a bad nigh-remake of it.
Am I counting this wrong, or is the SCARY MOVIE franchise actually more lucrative than most of the horror movies it spoofs? Did the SCREAM movies make this kind of money? Whatever happened to Neve Campbell?
I’d argue Anna Farris is worth a lot more to this town than Rachel McAdams is.
the Wild flopping? between Ice Age 2 and Benchwarmers, this is no big surprise at all.
rachel has hairy boobs.
Anna Faris didn’t open “Scary Movie 4.” She’s barely in the trailers, which are a string of bad celebrity cameos and parodies.
“The Wild” is an example of poor release date choice. With Ice Age 2 inexplicably becoming a super-phenom, they should have held it for a time it wouldn’t have been so lost. That said, at a 12-15M open, it’ll probably do around 50M, which, especially with ancillaries, will make it nicely profitable.
The Wild was never expected to do well. It’s being dumped into the Easter weekend to catch bored kids on spring break. Since it wasn’t ever designed to be a big hit, why must people call it a flop?
I’m missing some of the context for Dave P’s rant up above…who was saying that teenagers aren’t seeing movies? And if Scary Movie 4 and Benchwarmers are the movie’s they’re seeing…then it’s something we shouldn’t be happy about.
Wild cost like $100 million, how can a 12 mill weekend not be considered a flop??
It’s an expected/intentional flop, is what Wrecktum is saying.
If you haven’t been reading that Traditional Media (and too much of Hollywood) believes that teens aren’t going to the movies anymore because of iPods, DVDs, and video games, you haven’t been reading much.
I’ll put away the three books on my bedstand and get right on those back issues of Variety.
Seriously, though, we aren’t all obsessed with some of this business stuff like you are. No sweat if you want to assume we are, though, it’s up to you to determine how ‘inside’ your readership is.
Disney didn’t make The Wild, but I believe it was Disney’s hedge against Pixar going elsewhere. So yes, it is housecleaning.
Budget is probably lower than 100…with rumors putting it closer to 50.
jeff, david is referring to more than variety but all the major newspaper/entertainment columns. The concensus for many months has been that teens are being taken away by DVDs, video games, etc., that the teen audience is dwindling. Box office data lately disputes that charge. That’s a perfectly valid comment for this blog, and I’m not sure why you’d be visiting here if trends in moviegoing don’t interest you.
I missed it. No problem though, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something new this week.
If The Wild cost $50 mil to make, it won’t be a flop. Kids films have longer legs, so it probably makes 40 mil in theaters and twice that number with oversees box office/DVD sales and rentals.
David, with all due respect: What makes you so sure that TEEN-AGERS are the ones who are flocking in great numbers to see “The Benchwarmers”? Do you ever spend any time listening to Sports Talk radio? I do. And judging from what I hear, it’s the 25+ crowd (and older) who may be driving the b.o. stampede. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But maybe the (relative) success of “Benchwarmers” DOESN’T disprove the notion that teens aren’t avid moviegoers these days. I know that it’s dangerous to infer too much from anecdotal evidence, but: My 19-year-old son and his buddies don’t go to see many movies. And I’ve found that many of my college students are more interested in videogames, the Internet, etc.
I’d actually say Anna Faris is quite popular with young viewers. She has been the central focus (people wise) of all four Scary Movie’s (three of which have now been wildly successful), and I think she was solely the reason why Just Friends managed to do ANYTHING after opening weekend “The Scary Movie chick is soooo funny!” (i didn’t see Just Friends btw) Plus, if you wanna be pedantic, Lost in Translation is popular with the young set (granted the older part of the young set) and most love her in that, too.
Anyway.
Scary Movie 4? At least this one had some “scary movies” to spoof, like The Grudge (that movie deserved to be ripped to it’s plotless scareless shreds). That little boy that meows and hisses like a cat was the stupidest thing going. And you gotta love the poster for SM4 having a go at Memoirs of a Geisha. But, much like SM3 was launched on the back of Michael Jackson, SM4 was on the back of Tom Cruise/Oprah (I haven’t seen SM4 but THANK GOD they cast Debra Wilson from Mad TV. Her Oprah has always been hysterical.
The Wild? I’d say it was too close to Ice Age 2 than too similar to Madagascar.
It’s seemed to me from last year and now this year that it’s the teenagers who are STILL going, and the adults who aren’t. We’ve discussed before how adult dramas in the 70s and 80s could make $200mil, yet these days even the critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning ones can’t make it to $30mil sometimes.
Yeah, that’s why I was so confused about DP’s posting: it seems incredibly obvious that teenagers are still going to the movies in droves and any articles or trend pieces that might suggest otherwise must have seemed too out-of-touch for me to bother with.
You might not like the American The Grudge, but the original Japanese Ju-On (numbers 1 or 3) is really excellent.
Anyway, if Anna Faris hadn’t been in Scary Movie 4, I don’t think many people would have noticed. The trailers were more about Tom Cruise and Brokeblack Mountain than her.
You’re completely out of touch if you think Anna Faris has anything to do with Scary MOvie 4’s box office. She’s a decent actress in my opinion, but none of these movies have been bought, or sold, on her name.
Scary Movie may not even gross $45 mil this weekend. Two strikes against it: 1) sequel and 2) Easter weekend, where films normally make 40% of their weekend gross on Friday. I actually thought SM4 was an entertaining movie with plenty of laughs. The Benchwarmers on the other hand is incredibly awful with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I get the whole teenagers thing. That was the same reasoning people were using for the sudden drop in TV ratings a couple years back. And now columnists like Patrick Goldstein proclaim that iPods and video games are going to take over from movies. Mr. Poland was responding to the hype, not the actual reality of teenage boys.
Scary Movie 4 is doing well because it is the premiere parody franchise. Ice Age 2 was certainly helped by a certain amount of pent up demand for the sequel (or at least to watch the squirrel guy). Next time we wonder why Hollywood insists on making so many darned sequels perhaps we should instead wonder why people insist on watching them in droves.
According to Variety, THE WILD cost $80 million to make. Disnet is the financer of this movie.
Sorry….
I mean “Disney”, not “Disnet”
Faris may not be the sole reason for the opening of this film but her presence lends the series a continuity that it otherwise would not have.
Given that she can actually perform comedy of this style well and was the best thing in that overrated Coppola dirge of a few years back, I think she and her handlers can take at least a small part of the credit for this series being popular with the teenagers.
And she’s cute too!
To respond to what Joe posted. Joe, in general, if you are talking about teenage men to mid-twenties men, then they are going to play video games, enjoy the benefits of some sort of fast cable or dsl internet connection, and hang out at someone’s house. However, these same guys with girlfriends, then they go to the movies. My own infering, but teenagers are still going out with one another. Which means they still have to have some place, in the dark, away from parents, that enables them to pounce all over one another for an hour and half to two hours. Some teenagers do not go to movies but some do. Poland essentially has one again nailed the ridiculousness that was the SLUMP talk to the wall. Maybe too solid of a declaration, but it seems as even this year is progressing as well as those before.
At $80 m, The Wild is a flop. Why go to Canada for tax breaks and lower exchange rate when it’s still going to cost the same as a Blue Sky movie? Hoodwinked went to the Phillipines and cost only $16 m. The difference is Hoodwinked made $50 m while the Wild will probably not (weekend estimate is at $10 m only).
Scary Movie grosses $41 mil this weekend. It may cross the $100 mil mark, but there’s a good chance it will come up short.
If The Wild did cost $80 mil, then it is nothing short of a flop. Even oversees grosses and DVDs won’t help it turn a profit.
Also, since when is “barely scraping a profit” not a flop? The Island bared scraped a profit after foreign, DVD, etc. It’s still a flop. A major CG animated release from Disney opening to $9 mill is a flop, not matter how you cut it.
I adore Anna Faris, but I think you could have replaced her in Scary Movie 4 and the box office would not have been affected a lick. The movie might not have been quite as good, but it’s not exactly aimed at the most discerning moviegoer.
I’d like to see Faris get more props and better roles, but she has never been in a studio movie that was sold on her name. “Just Friends” was sold on Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart, not Ms. Faris.
Also, teenagers were definitely responsible for Scary Movie 4’s success, but it WAS off 15% from Scary Movie 3’s opening weekend. And I don’t know that one movie can disprove a trend…after all, look at how V for Vendetta (which was squarely aimed at young men) has underperformed, scraping to make it to even $68 million domestically.
Yeah, but Scary Movie 4 is (I’m guessing) dumb and familiar, while V for Vendetta was talky and fey.
Scary Movie 4 was also way up from Scary Movie 2 (which opened to only 20 mill). All that Scary Movie 4’s opening says in this regard is that teens are still going out in large numbers to theatrical releases. And V for Vendetta opened well, the audience was there. But it didnt get good word of mouth so it dropped off the charts.And even so, $65 mill. domestic for V is not a terrible number. It won’t go down as a hit but for an arty/thriller it did OK.
Looks like a $68 to $70 million ending for Vendetta. That’s cool.
Scary Movie 4 likely will be the first $40 million opener not to make it to $100 million.
The Wild was anything but.
I stand by my Anna Faris comment. I saw the movie today and it really is her show (as much as Neve Campbell was to “Scream” anyway). Faris is a terrific comedian who totally anchors these silly films… and clearly worth every penny. Returns on a Scary Movie without her would probably amount to Date Movie. Think about it, as much as the movie is a string of easy culture gags it’s also the further adventures of wacky Cindy Campbell. I think that connective tissue is important to audiences — else you get something like Speed 2.
(Best gag: An ear-chomping Mike Tyson stars in “Million Dollar Baby”)
Dude you’ve got your head so far up your ass your talking out of your mouth again. Scary Movie 4 is being bought and sold on concept, not talent. You honestly think teens are in line going damn, I gotta see Scary Movie 4 cause that Anna Faris is in it? No fucking way. It could have any other 20-ish brunette in there no one would know the better. Literally, the only moviegoers that even know her name are on a blog hosted by movie-insider David Poland.
I think Scream 4 without Neve Campbell would be a mistake.
I don’t think Crow is saying the reason SM4 was so successful was because kids wanted to see Anna Faris, but if you have even seen the Scary Movie franchise at all then you’d realise that Anna Faris is THE best thing about them. She has the perfect skills for it. Yes, the movie wasn’t sold on her but if you replaced her with a no name (which she was during #1 but isn’t now) the franchise would probably lose about $10mil on opening. It’s like any sequel when the main star doesn’t return. Anna returning to this franchise probably makes some people think that it’ll be at the same level of the other ones (or, at least 1 and 3). Anyway, that’s my thinking.
I didn’t think Disney actually financed The Wild – I thought they just distributed. Like Valiant.
And yes, V for Vendetta’s lower-than-expected gross can be directed at poor word of mouth. The movie wasn’t good so that doesn’t help when you’re trying to make four times your opening.
People probably don’t know Anna Faris by name, but the presence of her face, as well as that of Leslie Nielsen, tell moviegoers that they can expect more of the same. Which is all this audience really wants.
Actually, V suffered from this kind of word of mouth; “Duuuuuuuhhhhhh, it made me think!” Which was responded to with this, “Duh Duh Duh, I hate the thinking!” Excuse me. I went glib for a minute. It had to happen.
I think the word of mouth for V for Vendetta was more like “It’s better than The Matrix Revolutions” which is basically faint praise.
Again, it’s this kind of faint praise; “Duh Duh Duh.” Of course, Revolution has so much going on, that the Brothers made an alternate ending for the film for the The Path of Neo game. Which essentially played into the whole “Duh Duh Duh” thing. Because who wants to think at the movies? I mean, really.
If I’m making a comedy movie and I can’t get Reese Witherspoon (or if I don’t want to pay her high salary), who would I pick ahead of Anna Faris? I seriously can’t think of anyone. Dave talks about McAdams being a terrific bargain, but how about Faris? Well, actually, I have no idea what she makes per picture, but I can’t imagine it’s that much.
And this for an actress who has helmed an enormousely popular four movie franchise, provided some great comic relief in 2 critically acclaimed flicks (Brokeback and Lost in Translation), had significant parts in 3 low brow comedies that did very well against budget, had several appearances on “Friends,” and been in a well respected indie (May).
Looking at her resume, there are very few weak spots, and I would imagine that My Super Ex-Girlfriend will do very well. And, sure, most people don’t know her by name, but I’m willing to bet that if she’s in the trailer for Ex-Girlfriend, there will be a ton of people who will recognize her face and a decent number who will see it b/c they know she’s funny.
Faris and McAdams, maybe the 2 best bargains out there. Who would have thought that would be the case after The Hot Chick?
Faris’ name is strongly associated with Scary Movie, but I’m not sure she can be a star outside of that realm. She seems to be a solid supporting player and a gifted comedienne. The danger I find with her is a certain one-note-ness (I haven’t seen May though).
Going back to Vendetta… It had strong WOM, with a 89% user rating on rottentomatoes.com and a 8.2 on imdb.com, and making 4x the opening gross is unheard of unless you have awards or are Shrek. Having a 3x multiplier would’ve been nice, but few blockbusters even hit that nowadays.
No, Vendetta simply needed to reach for a wider audience later on, but that push never really came. Oh well. A success is a success.
Don’t discount “Thank You for Smoking”. That was probably the busiest movie of a slow Easter Sunday at an AMC megaplex near me.
Would anyone go see Chris Tucker in a non-RUSH HOUR movie? He seems to think not. Ask the same question about Faris…
I would go see Chris Tucker in anything IF he acted like he did in the Docu/Tv show “African American Lives”. Yes, he can be Non-annoying and actually said & felt some powerful things.
Inside Man only dropped 15%? Go Spike.
Likewise, I would see Faris in just about anything…I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in, and agree that she was one of the best things about Lost in Translation.
So it’s YOU who saw “Just Friends” and “Waiting.”
Weird, why would anyone do two Ryan Reynolds movies? (I saw neither of them).
“People probably don’t know Anna Faris by name, but the presence of her face, as well as that of Leslie Nielsen, tell moviegoers that they can expect more of the same. ”
yeah, exactly what I was saying. If Anna Faris suddenly decided she didn’t wanna do the next SM movie I’m sure at least a portion of people would see her leaving as some sort of sign. And, yes, I think has a gift for comedy that if she reigned it in a little (or just got a bigger role in a better movie) then she’d be set.
V for Vendetta may make you think, but it ain’t about anything particularly interesting. It was about as subtle as American Dreamz appears to be. Governments are bad. Boohoo. While I’m not usually a “get to the ‘splosions” sorta guy I just wished they would do SOMETHING in that movie other than talk. And then when they did have action scenes they were either slash-happily edited or in slow motion (!!!). It was just… aagh, frustrating. Plus, if you have a lead character wearing a mask that doesn’t move you DO NOT have a closeup of it that last’s longer than a few seconds. That was like Spiderman.
This week shows you that people will see any horror movie (even if its a comedy) on week one. With zero regard for reviews or stars or quality.
American Dreamz is also the worst film of the year. When they can’t even sell one joke over and over on a tv ad campaign, you know you have to run away as fast as you can. All the goodwill that the Weitz Brothers gained with ABOUT A BOY is thrown down the drain with this stinker.
So you’ve seen it?
I ask because you have a track record of slamming movies without seeing them.
He also is Hickstown, so of course he hasn’t seen it.
HicksVILLE.
All he needed to say was “American Dreamz WILL BE the worst film of the year” and not pretend like he has some insider knowledge.
Mandy Moore is very pretty, so the movie will be good.
lol, that’s my simplistic view. I could watch Mandy Moore all day. And I don’t even like chicks that way.