MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com

The Weekend Report: September 13, 2009

Title Distributor Gross (avg) % change Theaters Cume
I Can Do Bad By Myself Lions Gate 24.0 (10,650) New 2255 24
9 Focus 10.4 (6,280) New 1661 14.8
Inglourious Basterds Weinstein Co. 6.5 (2,010) -44% 3215 104.2
All About Steve Fox 5.7 (2,530) -49% 2265 16.01
The Final Destination WB 5.5 (2,020) -55% 2732 58.3
Sorority Row Summit 5.1 (1,920) New 2665 5.1
Whiteout WB 5.0 (1,830) New 2745 5
District 9 Sony 3.6 (1,420) -49% 2560 108.6
Julie & Julia Sony 3.3 (1,400) -38% 2343 83.6
Gamer Lions Gate 3.2 (1,270) -65% 2502 16.1
G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra Par 2.5 (1,170) -52% 2120 142.9
The Time Traveler’s Wife WB 2.3 (1,040) -47% 2228 59
Extract Miramax 2.2 (1,370) -49% 1614 8.7
Halloween II Weinstein Co. 2.1 (910) -63% 2350 30.1
(500) Days of Summer Fox Searchlight 1.2 (1,560) -34% 790 30.1
Shorts WB 1.2 (720) -55% 1701 19.7
G-Force BV 1.0 (1,070) -48% 965 116.7
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood WB .93 (1,200) -49% 744 298.9
The Hangover WB .75 (1,330) -39% 564 273.2
September Issue Roadside Attract. .67 (6,040) 359% 111 1.2
Ponyo BV .65 (1,100) -50% 589 14.4
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) $87.80
% Change (Last Year) -9%
% Change (Last Week) -5%
Also debuting/expanding
Taking Woodstock Focus .37 (860) -75% 425 7.1
My One and Only FreeStyle .35 (3,040) -8% 116 1.1
The Other Man Image Ent. 52,800 (6,600) 8 0.05
Broken Hill Audience Alliance 36,700 (765)) 48 0.04
No Impact Man Oscilloscope 16,800 (8,400) 2 0.02
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Anchor Bay 16,600 (3,320) 5 0.02
Crude First Run 15,900 (15,900) 1 0.02
Walt & El Grupo BV 6,300 (2,100) 3 0.01
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop Koch Lorber 3,400 (3,400) 1 0.01
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Klady

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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