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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Numbers

Once again, iPhoning it in means less detail. But…
Tropic Thunder is making excuses for rolling out slower than a Pineapple Express, the most bizarre one – especially for a movie that chose a release date during the Olympics – being that Michael Phelps is slowing the movie’s roll. Or could it be… uh… that a comedy about arrogant people in Hollywood appeals more to the geeks and the older critics who are enraged by Holllywood excess than anyone else?
The big problem is not the marketing – the thing has been shoved down America’s gullet endlessly for months – or even the number – though the arrogance of this and Pneapple on back-to-back weeks is breathtaking – but the price tag. Pineapple will cover its $30m pricetag and much of it’s marketing in theatrical. At 100m+, Tropic will be sweating international, hoping against hope to do What Stays In Vegas numbers overseas.
Speaking of Fox, another exciting non-centenian, unripe opening for Fox… but even P-Goldy must admit that $10m+ for Mirrors is a positive surprise.
As is a good start for Vicki Cristina Barcelona on just 693 screens.
All of Klady’s estimates are on the front page…

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10 Responses to “Friday Numbers”

  1. yancyskancy says:

    Saw Tropic Thunder Thursday night. Liked it more than you without necessarily disagreeing with you about its problems.
    But I suspect the red band trailer scared off some women and sensitive souls. Lots of blood, gore and carnage mixed with the comedy — not a combo that screams mass appeal (I think Pineapple Express sold the action more than the violence). And much of the comedy is satire — another red flag, as you suggest.
    Downey is fantastic — if Kevin Kline could win an Oscar for A Fish Called Wanda, I don’t see why Downey wouldn’t have a shot at a nod for this.

  2. Aladdin Sane says:

    Downey’s this month’s Oscar talk Ledger!
    I still think out of the two performances, I prefer Ledger. Then again, on a whole Tropic Thunder’s sum isn’t as good as its parts. I laughed a lot, but yeah, at the end of it I didn’t really care. Maybe that’s the point.

  3. doug r says:

    Saw Tropic Thunder at a matinee. Laughed my ass off. Borat had brilliant parts, but overall TT was consistently hilarious. “I was wrong! I was wrong!” ROTFLMAO.

  4. LexG says:

    VCB = Rebecca Hall = complete, total and wholesale ownage. This chick needs to star in EVERYTHING.
    With those immediate Thursday drops and underwhelming weekend numbers, can “Pineapple” and “Thunder” be officially considered ONE-DAY WONDERS?

  5. EOTW says:

    Caught TT here in the heart of the midwest thia afternoon. The theater was less than 1/3 full. A few chuckles. The only time I laughed out loud was when Stiller did that thing in the jungle. Yeah. RDJ was great, but, as we all have known for years, he’s great in everything.

  6. I wish Keifer Sutherland had done a Dane Cook and complained about the key art for Mirrors. Those were some of the ugliest posters I’ve ever seen.
    Here’s hoping Vicky Cristina Barcelona has a big uptick on Saturday just to make it a bit more solid.

  7. DaneCookForLife says:

    Who so much like I hopes that Downey’s “bone” does grow with the color of change in his skin.
    Who want to make bet that he get more of the womans, because once you grow black you never glow back!

  8. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “Tropic Thunder” is skewing older per Variety. At least DreamWorks is using star power to promote the film.
    For the geeks out there “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” might be the first Woody Allen title available in DLP.

  9. Cadavra says:

    “Skewing older”: 25-39.

  10. jeffmcm says:

    “At least DreamWorks is using star power to promote the film.”
    …why?

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