Friday Numbers by Klady
12:07p Update
Things look grim for The Grind.
The issue this weekend of being #1 is really a non-issue. If Blades of Glory does $25m for 3 days and Grindhouse did $24m, that would be disappointing
May 8, 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
This message can give us some insights to explain why “Grindhouse” doesn’t do well.
http://talk.hsx.com/films/post.htm?0406161647.baronofbarons
Anyway, it is a terrible news for The Weinstein Company; most of their movies were bombs. (Even MGM is very unhappy for releasing Weinstein’s bombs in theaters.)
It also looks like fewer and fewer people want to support the Weinstein.
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/04/grindhouse_is_a_1.php
Can’t say I’m too surprised. In general, audiences just don’t get it when a movie is supposed to look intentionally bad (see SOAP).
Oh well. At least the Weinsteins still have their Scary Movie franchise!
It’s interesting that you’re insinuating that Grindhouse is a financial “failure” when it’s a three hour, R-rated movie (you can’t sweep that argument under the rug), opening on a usually family oriented weekend (the Weinsteins counter programming seems to have left them with egg on their face) playing on roughly 1 000 less screens than Blades Of Glory. Anyone expecting more than $15-20 million is deluding themselves.
Also, comparing Grindhouse to Snakes On A Plane is ridiculous. I expect Grindhouse to have much longer legs, and I think everyone will be surprised when it ends up taking $50-60 million by the end of its run.
The problem is Grindhouse should be an art house movie, not a traditional movie house movie.
By putting it in the same movie houses as 300 and Blades of Glory….just not a smart move. Once it got the buzz from the art house then you move it to neighborhoods.
montrealkid:
Grindhouse isn’t on 1000 less screens than BoG, it is in than 800 theaters (3,401 vs 2,624). Judging by the amount of showtimes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that Grindhouse is only on 2/3rds of BoG’s screens. Maybe even closer to half.
Not too surprising. 93 minute PG-13 Sports Comedy. 165 minute R Horror Fest. Not an easy sell to exhibitors no matter the talent.
From the message posted by Marychan:
“Most of the public will not get it , cause most are not total movie buffs and understand any homage to past movie genre or direction.”
Tarantino knows this so well there’s a patch of dialogue in “Death Proof” that nails that absence of memories on the head. But you don’t need to know jack about the genre to “get” what’s actually in the movie. It’s plenty primal.
“They just want to a see a top notch production and not the film quality they have been trying to rise above for the past 30 years or more. Glad I shorted it.”
Then you all just blew off one of the best action movies in years. Spoilering prevents me from throwing a laundry list of reasons why these presumptions (many of which I shared before I saw “Grindhouse”) are so far off the mark.
I might not have liked GRINDHOUSE, but I can see why it just didn’t pack them in, and that is it’s concept. It is a niche picture. I bet even 75%+ of the people who did go to see it had no real idea of the “grindhouse” concept. To many people it just looked like stupid, cheap crap, instead of a celebration of stupid, cheap crap.
The shallow drop-offs in the friday ests. are such that it makes it appear as though the audiences are in some regard avoiding the choices of the New films for this week, anyway.
>>>To many people it just looked like stupid, cheap crap, instead of a celebration of stupid, cheap crap.
And to many people they see nothing to celebrate and fetishize about stupid cheap crap.
Lota, it may also have been a product of many schools being closed.
Maybe Rob, but schools have been closed all week in many districts, for spring break, and for those that were open this week, Friday was only a half-day, so I’m surprised that Are we Done Yet wasn;t bigger, and for the older youngsters, Grindhouse.
The lack of drop-off (like nothing over ~30%) makes me think that those who were off chose to see something released last week rather than this week, maybe by good word of mouth or just lack of interest in GH, Reaping and AWDY, that’s all.
Well, I hope all you guys (by you guys I mean the people who didn’t see Grindhouse) are happy when we get a dozen more stupid Ice Cube “family” films and Will Ferrell “comedies” and we go years without another Tarantino flick. HAPPY LIKE A BITCH!
Also, holy cow on the Meet the Robinsons number. Down only 9%?! That’s amazing.
On the matter of 300 I’m still surprised it has/will make more money than last year’s Ice Age 2 considering that is an animated family film and it opened with roughly the same number as 300.
I’m always happy like a b*tch, Camel. Rohr. Or should I say woof woof.
But I’ll take less Will Ferrell til he does something with less vomiting and close-ups on his teeth.
Dave, what about Freedom Writers? Wasn’t that Ms Swank’s last film?
The ironic thing is that the Tarantino half of the film is actually the half that does the least amount of referencing or ‘celebrating’.
Sorry you’re such a stick in the mud, Grandcosmo.
>>>Sorry you’re such a stick in the mud, Grandcosmo.
I liked Tarantino’s half way more but I don’t see how I am a ‘stick in the mud’ just because I think other people wouldn’t have an interest in the project. I don’t see your logic there.
I’m just surprised that Rodriguez’s fans (they must be out there, right?) didn’t pull in more, especially since they could have just watched his half and the trailers and left if they wanted to.
Rodriguez doesn’t have fans.
I thought Sin City might have changed that, but i can’t think of another marquee filmmaker with as much press as he gets having no real identity.
He’s known more for technical achievement than creative quality.
Personally, i think he’s as mediocre as you get. He was more talented when he had little to no money. The bigger his budgets got, the lazier his films became.
It’s funny when you have a guy like Rodriguez who made Grindhouse films at the start of his career: El Mariachi, Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn. Then he actually tries to make a grindhouse film with a budget bigger than all three of those films, and it’s so disconnected.
The problem is Grindhouse should be an art house movie, not a traditional movie house movie.
The real problem is overbooking, a bad practice in summer that’s expanded to other seasons.
Most megaplexes near me were booking 2 prints of “Grindhouse” instead of only 1. It means you don’t sell out the first weekend, thus you don’t create a must-see factor for those who wouldn’t otherwise go.
It also forces megaplexes to not open “Hoax” or pick up “The Namesake”.
Chucky: AGreed. But I think we’re of the same mind. It needed to be in smaller number of houses, get the buzz, then move to big.
Insane. You would never platform a movie like this.
Thanks for the correction, Aladdin… but you still get the point, yes?
And let me AGAIN point out that GH attendance was higher than ticket sales indicate because younger teens bought tix to PG and PG-13 pix like DONE and BLADES and then snuck into GH. Why is this concept so difficult to sink in?