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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Klady

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What is there to say? Bond is following Batman in the “we loved the reboot, so we are showing up in record numbers for the next one.” Unfortunately, I don’t suspect that the crowds who loved Casino Royale will be quite as thrilled this time out. But the opening will have the effect Sony is seeking, not just for this film, but more importantly for the next film or two or three, which they do not have distribution rights to… yet. This kind of show of muscle says to Broccoli and Wilson, “We are the place for you… how can you put yourself in MGM’s hands when you don’t know what they can do and you know that we can kick ass for you.”
Changeling continues to run in near-lockstep with Flags of our Fathers (the distribution pattern varies them slightly).
Perhaps the biggest story amongst the holdovers is The Secret Life of Bees cracking $30 million. The film has passed Quarantine and Nick & Norah to be the biggest grossing under $12 million movie of the fall season and could be on its way to passing the Tyler Perry entry, The Family That Preys. It looks like it will also outgross Changeling. Like President-elect Obama, it seems that this film, once ghettoed as a

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45 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady”

  1. LexG says:

    My packed-capacity went into QOS cheering and stoked, and came out looking like they’d been mugged. Or like they’d just seen the Bond equivalent of “Phantom Menace.” Which they pretty much had.

  2. Once again, expectations seem to be the problem. QoS is a fine, if minor, Bond offering. It falls into the Man With the Golden Gun/For Your Eyes Only category of entertaining but slightly forgettable Bonds.
    The climax is a letdown, but the Opera House and boat chase are very good set-pieces. I take on good faith that the groundwork is being planned for QUANTUM becoming the new SPECTRE. I’m also hoping we’ll get Q in the next one.
    My biggest complaint is that they chose the wrong Bond girl for the movie. Strawberry Fields should’ve been the main girl. Gemma Arterton showed more personality and sexiness in her brief scenes than all of what’s-her-name’s many scenes of looking depressed and moody.
    And the banter between Craig and Dench is priceless. I hope they keep it up.
    I think they should consider doing a remake of On Her Majest’s Secret Service. Or, let Christopher Walken have a second chance of creating a classic Bond villiam.
    Finally, the opening-credits-and-song was among the best of the series. The guy at Time.com must be tone deaf if he thinks the Carly Simon song is one of the best of the series.

  3. LexG says:

    For Your Eyes Only and Golden Gun weren’t as moody and downcast and depressing, and sure as hell didn’t have those bullshit Forster-plus-Haggis liberal-guilt-movie moments like the on-cue shots of the Bolivian locals’ well drying up on cue, with lots of tight closeups on their parched suffering.
    Also, looks like the writers are either big “Eiger Sanction” fans, or they just assumed no one else in the world still is.

  4. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Fox aimed “The Secret Life of Bees” to black adults on one side and arthouse/upmarket on the other. Pic is getting a second wind because of events around Jennifer Hudson.

  5. I’d say the box office model is more Bourne than Batman. Just like Pirates 1 and 2, the sequel’s three-day take more than tripled the three-day of the original. While Bourne 2 almost doubled the weekend of Bourne 1. QoS looks to have a 1.75x increase, so it’s a closer match. Now if you count the five-day openings of Batman Begins and Pirates 1, then their respective upticks are about 2x so the comparison works.
    The Secret Life Of Bees is certainly one I’ll check out on DVD, mainly thanks to Ebert’s positive mark. As for The Family That Preys, it’s a shame that it underperformed as it’s easily Perry’s best film yet. It’s not perfect, but it’s radically different than his other films. The actors almost all underact when needed, there is genuine moral ambiguity and/or shades of gray, and the ending is genuinely downbeat for many of the key characters. Warts and all, the slow progression of Tyler Perry as a filmmaker is certainly one worth studying.

  6. Blackcloud says:

    “The guy at Time.com must be tone deaf if he thinks the Carly Simon song is one of the best of the series.”
    You are in a very, very small minority if you think it isn’t.

  7. Blackcloud says:

    If they want Quantum to be the new SPECTRE, then just bring back SPECTRE. It’s as if they’re reluctant for a Bond movie to be a Bond movie.

  8. steamfreshmeals says:

    Is that a “good”, “solid”, “great”, “too early to tell” result for “Slumdog Millionaire which has been given a Best Picture and Director nom by the industry? Did it perform outside of NY & LA? Based on ten screens i assume maybe SF and Toronto opened as well. I know Searchlight is going slow, protecting their spends, and waiting for the award recognition to roll in.

  9. bmcintire says:

    David, if you think that the brass at Sony has any more say over a Bond film than did the brass at MGM, you are deluding yourself. There is not a single step in that machine that is not specifically dictated by EON, including the choice NOT to shoot any footage on this one in IMAX. They offer a distribution and marketing platform, and little else that could not be offered by almost any of the majors. The now 22 (or 24) Bond titles held in perpetuity by MGM Home Video are what will keep them there.

  10. jeffmcm says:

    “Pic is getting a second wind because of events around Jennifer Hudson.”
    Chucky, my hat off to you for constantly finding new ways to be bizarre.
    Also, only Variety-headline-writers use phrases like “Pic is…”

  11. LYT says:

    Anyone else seen BALLAST? I wasn’t planning on it, but got the awards screener, and I must say I’m really glad I did. Very simple movie, but great, in that David Gordon Green/Terrence Malick style.

  12. I read EON don’t own the copyright to SPECTRE.
    The best Bond songs are: Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are forever, Live and Let Die, You Know My Name, Another Way to Die.
    The songs by Rita Coolidge, A-ha, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, Lulu, and Moonraker are all a bust.
    The songs by Garbage and Madonna are interesting, if a bit underwhelming. A view to a Kill, isn’t the train wreck one would think, but it sure isn’t Live and Let Die,
    For Your Eyes Only should be much better than it is. Like the movie, Thunderball is overrated, while You Only Live Twice is underrated.
    From Russia with Love and the Louis Armstrong song are fine, but not spectacular, The theme of On Her Majest’y Secret Service is one of the best in the series. The Propellerheads update is pure bliss.
    As a rule, when the bond songs try to be moody ballads they seem to notwork. For better or worse, they need to be in-your-face productions.

  13. a_loco says:

    My last post didn’t show up…strange, DP should check on that.
    Anyhow, I remember there was a discussion about James Bond and Canada a while back, and I ran across this list of James Bond’s connections to our Great White Northern nation:
    http://www.anevibe.com/headlines/james-bond-and-canada.html

  14. Blackcloud says:

    Doesn’t Sony own SPECTRE? Since they distribute the films now, and own MGM, I’m sure they could figure something out if enough money (or whatever else) changed hands.

  15. jeffmcm says:

    I thought MGM had purposely sought to consolidate the Bond rights by buying Never Say Never Again and the original Casino Royale to avoid these kinds of confusions.

  16. christian says:

    Having “Quantum” be the name of an organization is Enormous Dumb to paraphrase Harlan Ellison.

  17. GayAsXmas says:

    Lately, I am more interested to see how the title songs are actually used in the films, rather than as stand alone songs. Two modern examples come to mind – the Madonna song is a bit wretched when listening to it on its own, but it works brilliantly in context with the opening of Die Another Day. Thus I would say it is a success (whether that is due to frantic saving from the titles/editing people, or whether Madonna was asked for something jagged and jarring, I have no idea). I was also completely bleh about song for Casino Royale but I thought the score composer did a fantastic job of encorporating the melody as the major theme for the film. It sounded lush and very-Bond like.

  18. bmcintire says:

    Sony Equities is a minority holder in MGM. The Broccolis/EON own everything to do with Bond, so I am pretty sure they hold the rights to SPECTRE.
    Hilariously, MGM sold the rights to the then-untapped SPIDERMAN property to Sony in exchange for CASINO ROYALE (1968).NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was a direct purchase from Warner Bros., held under the condition that Warner would pursue no further development of Ian Fleming’s written works (without the direct participation of either MGM or EON).
    THE PINK PANTHER 2 ends a very contentious relationship between the execs of Sony and MGM. Without yet another grab by Sony to purchase MGM (a road down which they do not want to return), QUANTUM OF SOLACE will be the last Sony sees of Bond. 20th Century Fox would be a much more likely partner, due to their worldwide home video distribution deal with MGM.

  19. Blackcloud says:

    Having recently been to Montreal for the first time, and having been to Toronto and Vancouver several times, I would thoroughly enjoy seeing any of those fine cities featured as a locale in a 007 flick.
    Jeff, I figured the same thing about the consolidation of rights. I thought that’s what the payoff once the McLory/Sony failed was all about.

  20. I read McLory owns SPECTRE.

  21. SJRubinstein says:

    Quasi-Uniformed Armchair Nuclear Terrorists/Universal Manipulators?

  22. brack says:

    I don’t think QoS was as bad as David’s making it out to be. I for one am sick of Bond movies that are exactly the same but with different villains, girls, and gadgets. This Bond actually is growing as a character. That’s a new take on Bond, and I think people are going to enjoy it for the most part.

  23. Haven’t seen QoS (it’s not out until next week) but “Another Way To Die” is atrocious. I love me some White Stripes and Alicia Keys, but they should have gotten Duffy to sing the song. I know they’re not trying to be retro Bond at all, but honestly… who thought White and Keys would be a good combo?

  24. polarbear2 says:

    I don’t think MGM actually owned the rights to Spider-Man. They were one of several companies that had claims on the property.
    Also, while EON may legally use the name “Spectre” now, after thirty years of nuisance law suits, they are probably just as happy not to go there.

  25. LexG says:

    BUT WHAT OF THE THISTING BOLIVIAN PEASANTS??!?!?!?!
    What the hell was that BABEL/CONSTANT GARDNER-style guilty realism doing in a Bond?
    I’ve notcied a lot of *crix* (Variety jerkoff speak for critics) all up boned up for this Gemma Arterton. While I’m PLEASED AS PUNCHED that critics are taking a shine to a hot chick, doesn’t OLGA OWN her off the screen?
    See, this is where I differ from critics and film buffs. I think a lot of you guys still have a hardon for that old-school Howard Hawks witty repartee, so when some motormouth camp chick shows up vamping and rat-a-tat-tatting her dialogue like vintage Hepburn, you guys SWOON.
    Hey, whatever floats your boat, but OLGA is all pouty and single-minded and sweaty and tan and doesn’t say a lot; LOOKS OVER SUBSTANCE = FUCK YEAH.
    (The other chick was cute but Olga by a country mile.)
    THEY SHOULD HAVE A MOVIE WHERE THE HOT CHICK SHOWS UP AND BOND DOES A LINE WHERE HE SAYS “The name is BONER. JAMES BONER” And they do that SPRING POPPING SOUND EFFECT.
    That would RULE.

  26. David Poland says:

    BMc… never suggested otherwise. But Sony is marketing and releasing the film… and the argument is that they have done better than MGM’s current team could.
    Sony’s mission at this point is to convince Broccoli that they are the place to release the NEXT film. Not sure what else you read into it.

  27. LexG says:

    As for that song,
    ALICIA KEYS OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNS.
    Do any of you guys think she’d go out with me?

  28. yancyskancy says:

    Lex: For a chance with Alicia Keys or any big star, there’d have to be some kind of a meet-cute. I suggest you open a little book shop in Notting Hill. Maybe she’ll duck in there some day to avoid the paparazzi. It will help a lot if you resemble Hugh Grant.
    When I heard she was in Smokin’ Aces, I rolled my eyes. Ditto Chris Pine, whom I had only seen in Just My Luck at that point. Turns out most of the OWNAGE in that lame pic came from those two unlikely suspects.

  29. LexG says:

    Well Yancy I consider SMOKIN’ ACES a MASTERPIECE on par with TAXI DRIVER and GODFATHER II, but I have to say KEYS and Pine brought the fucking ownage in that; KEYS made it more like SMOKIN’ BONEAGE with her total hotness, and that JUST MY LUCK/PRINCESS BRIDE-whatever douche somehow showed up rocking some fucking awesome sides-shaved semi-Hawk looking like Sarsgaard in SALTON OWNAGE and fucking with Affleck even after he laid him out.
    HOLY SHIT that OWNED; He should rock the same fucking awesome hair in Star Trek and he and Urban and Saldana should go around the galaxy fucking up motherfuckers with guns and shit while metal and hip-hop plays on the soundtrack because those three own and everyone else is some TV-ass bullshit.
    ALICIA KEYS = BONER.

  30. yancyskancy says:

    Sorry, Lex: with the notable ownage exceptions mentioned, I find the flick neither smokin’ nor aces. I’ll grant it has a few skillful set pieces, but Carnahan’s in-your-face direction lacks the sheer loopy fun of the similarly paced Crank. The convoluted story line that occasionally bubbles up from the mayhem is half predictable/half preposterous. Andy Garcia works some weird Alabama-by-way-of-Cuba accent, and don’t even get me started on that Ritalin kid, who makes the pancake-lovin’, karate-kicking boy from Cabin Fever look like Opie Taylor.
    But we’re in agreement, in every way, about Keys.

  31. LexG says:

    Yeah, that Ritalin Kid SUCKED and was totally unfunny in the worst way; But you know what OWNED is when Pine gets his ass HANDED TO HIM by POOR MAN’S BRECKIN MEYER FROM THE RING AND TORQUE on that rooftop parking lot. You think he’s gonna let him get away then FUCK YEAH, homeboy up and OWNS THE FUCK OUT OF HIM with nary a glance. That’s some FIVE STAR MASTERPIECE SHIT RIGHT THERE.

  32. Shut up Lex. Everybody and their dog knows that Smokin’ Aces isn’t as good as the movies you mentioned, so just stop. We don’t believe it, you don’t believe it (and if you do then what are you doing here?) and you’d save us a lot of time by just not saying it at all.

  33. Spacesheik says:

    Kevin McClory (who died in 2006) owned the rights to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and any usage of Ernest Stavro Blofeld. He produced the original THUNDERBALL and remade it as NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN with Connery.
    There were unproduced scripts out there: WARHEAD 8 and JAMES BOND OF THE SECRET SERVICE which were variations of the THUNDERBALL motif and they were used (with the help of producer Jack Swartzman) as the basis for NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN in ’83.
    McClory tried to bring back Timothy Dalton as Bond in 2000 with a further variation of THUNDERBALL called WARHEAD 2000 A.D. (according to Wikipedia):
    “Once again, McClory’s hold on the Thunderball film rights came into question and the project was eventually scrapped in 1999 after Sony settled out of court with MGM/UA, ceding any rights to making a James Bond film. In 2004 Sony acquired 20% of MGM; however, the production and final say over everything involving the film version of James Bond is controlled by EON Productions, Albert R. Broccoli’s production company and its parent company Danjaq, LLC.
    Prior to Sony’s settlement with MGM in 1999, they filed a lawsuit against MGM claiming McClory was the co-author of the cinematic 007 and was owed fees from Danjaq and MGM for all past films. This lawsuit was thrown out in 2000 on the ground that McClory had waited too long to bring his claims. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later affirmed this decision in 2001.”
    I thought Timothy Dalton was an underrated, excellent Bond, the precursor to Daniel Craig’s ruthless, tough incarnation. No one had a problem when Dalton was in LIVING DAYLIGHTS (everyone praised his tak) but they turned on him after LICENT TO KILL (still one of my favorite Bonds.
    Would have loved to see Dalton in a remake of THUNDERBALL…Oh well.
    Come to think of it, Dalton would make a pretty intriguing ‘M’ if Judi Dench ever left the series.

  34. LexG says:

    SINCE NONE OF YOU FILM SCHOLAR FUCKS RECOGNIZED MY ABOVE POST,
    CLINT DRIVES JACK CASSIDY OUT TO THE MOTHERFUCKING DESERT TO LET HIM DIE ROASTING IN THE SUN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE *****IN THE EXACT SAME FUCKING WAY IN EIGER SANCTION**********.
    YOU SHOULDVE FUCKING KNOWN THAT.

  35. Spacesheik says:

    Dahling, the only thing I remember about the EIGER SANCTION is George Kennedy’s beer gut.

  36. Cadavra says:

    Hey, the only thing I remember is Brenda Venus taking off her shirt. Now THAT owned!
    David: I, sitting at home in a bathrobe, could do a better job of distributing anything than MGM could.

  37. counthaku says:

    RE: Secret Life of Bees
    Fireproof also quietly passed $30 million on a budget of 500,000. Pretty remarkable.

  38. chris says:

    “Bees” was never a “black women’s picture.” That book was a huge, Middle America book club favorite, putting it right in that Meryl Streepy demographic’s sweet spot.

  39. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “Book club” = Oprah.
    If jeffmcm thinks my P.O.V. is bizarre he must not have been near a magazine rack in the past month.

  40. jeffmcm says:

    Non sequitur, Chucky. Your POV is bizarre no matter what.

  41. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Jennifer Hudson had her mother, brother and niece murdered — around the time “Secret Life of Bees” was released. The murders got mentioned on the cover of People.
    If my P.O.V. is bizarre, then jeffmcm is auditioning to fill in for Bill O’Reilly.

  42. martin says:

    Oh, your POV is definitely bizarre. It could also be right, but I don’t think so.

  43. chris says:

    NO, Chucky book clubs existed long before Oprah. So they do not equal Oprah. And, even if they did, her audience is not simply “black women.”

  44. yancyskancy says:

    “Jennifer Hudson had her mother, brother and niece murdered” — hey, watch that phrasing Chucky. Or did I miss a late-breaking twist in this story?

  45. jeffmcm says:

    WTF does Bill O’Reilly have to do with anything?
    Real-life tragedies may attract attention to a movie, but they’re not sure-fire ticket sellers (or else the agents would be murdering their clients’ families regularly).

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