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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Box Office Hell – Pre-New Years

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14 Responses to “Box Office Hell – Pre-New Years”

  1. RoyBatty says:

    (please move when item is listed separately)
    Wonder what will happen now that both Letterman has signed his side agreement and Bear, Sterns saying it should be settled in favor of the writers.
    I skimmed the post David made on failure of WALK HARD to get an audience and don’t remember him mentioning if he thought the strike might have had the biggest impact on those numbers. Apatow comedies are wholly dependent on the very audience that turns into late night shows, esp Daily Show. With no appearances by the actors, it really lowered the film’s profile.

  2. Alan Cerny says:

    Don’t be surprised if JUNO winds up in the top 5. The showing I went to was sold out and word-of-mouth seems to be overwhelmingly positive.

  3. IOIOIOI says:

    Will Juno even have enough screens to open in the top five?
    That aside; Walk Hard will not fail in the long run. It will gross it’s 50 million or so from DVD and other ancillaries. It only failed in the theatre because it came out on the wrong damn day of the year. Move it to November or October, and it does not fail. Location. Location. Location.

  4. LexG says:

    Did Woody Allen’s CASSANDRA’S DREAM get officially pulled from year-end consideration?
    I seem to remember it having a 12/28 limited release date, but LA Times’s site doesn’t have a review up today, and I can’t find it playing in any theaters; IMDB now lists a 1-18 release date.
    Much as I was looking forward to a new Allen flick, I’m a little relieved, as it’s one less movie I have to run out and see in the next few days.

  5. scooterzz says:

    lex– i got a press release from twc on 12/13 saying that the release date had moved to 1/18… since there was no mention of a ‘limited’ december run, i assumed they dropped it….

  6. LexG says:

    Thx for the info, scooterz.
    A straight, singular January release date doesn’t bode well, but you never know.
    Hell, I liked even the Biggs/Ricci one, so what do I know?

  7. movieman says:

    I think Weinstein decided to put all of their eggs in Denzel and Oprah’s basket (with a little love left over for Blanchett in “I’m Not There”).
    I saw “CD” at Toronto and enjoyed it very much. It’s not “great” Woody, but it’s definitely in the top-tier (more “Match Point”/”Crimes and Misdemeanors” than “Scoop”/”Hollywood Ending”). And historically, many of Woody’s most beloved films have been released very early in the year (“Hannah and Her Sisters,” for example, opened on February 7, 1986).
    I’m not saying that “CD” is necessarily Oscar-worthy, but I wouldn’t get too worked up about the date change. There were (as usual) too many damn movies scheduled to open between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day anyway. Separating it from the year-end clutter might actually prove to be a smart move in the long run.
    Also, compared to the usual January flotsam (“Mad Money,” “First Sunday,” etc.), I’m guessing that “CD” is going to look pretty damn good to my fellow inkstained wretches, lol.

  8. That’s the same argument people used to say Zodiac could still make it with Oscar, by comparing it to Silence of the Lambs, which was released in February. But the times are different.
    In fact, does anyone know what the earliest release to get a nomination was since, oh say, 2000? We’ll eliminate City of God because that was a big ol’ miracle.
    “Will Juno even have enough screens to open in the top five?”
    Borat.

  9. movieman says:

    I didn’t say that Weinstein’s decision to move “Cassandra’s Dream” to January was a preliminary Oscar salvo for ’08. It’s not “Hannah and Her Sisters,” and probably won’t be remembered by this time next year anyway. I’m sure that Harvey & Co. are smart enough to realize that.
    What I did say was that “CD” is a damn good movie and should stand out (to my fellow critics if not audiences) like a truffle in a sea of Hamburger Helper next month when “Meet the Spartans,” “Rambo” and “First Sunday” are its screening room compatriots.

  10. movieman says:

    “Juno” seems like a lock to become Fox Searchlight’s biggest hit to date (remember: “Borat” was released by Fox proper, not F-S).
    $100-million isn’t out of the question.
    Not really sure whether a less competitive/congested release date would have made all that much difference re: “Walk Hard.”
    It always seemed more like a “cult” than mainstream (i.e., “Superbad”) success anyway. DVD immortality is practically guaranteed, however.

  11. movieman says:

    …and deserved. It’s a smart (maybe too smart for its own good) and seriously funny movie.

  12. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “Juno” isn’t selling out in the great Garden State. “I Am Legend” and the Chipmunk movie are. Even “The Golden Compass” had a half-full hall for the early evening show I was at last night.
    As for overall takings “Juno” still has to surpass “The Full Monty”, which was from Fox Searchlight in US/Canada.

  13. Movieman, you asked if it were possible for a movie to make the top 5 on the amount of screens that Juno has. I said Borat. The fact that Juno is Fox Searchlight wasn’t part of it.

  14. movieman says:

    it wasn’t me who asked whether it was possible for “Juno” to crack the top 5 on less than a thousand screens….actually i agreed with you that it could, and only pointed out that they were released by 2 separate Fox marketing divisions.
    (“Borat” definitely looked more like FS than F proper, though)
    but a hit is a hit, etc., and i couldn’t be more pleased that “Juno” is doing so well

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