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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Klady – These Is Them

Title – Distrib – Gross * – Theater – % Change

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11 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady – These Is Them”

  1. marychan says:

    Is the Box office performance of THAT IS IT may not be disappointing? Depend on different expectation of different people.
    But Sony and AEG had wished for much better result, so the performance is disappointing for them.
    By the way, it looks like THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY would become a good success for Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group. Congrats to SPWAG, Troy Duffy and other people involved in this film.

  2. martin says:

    BD2 should have gotten a wider release this weekend. I know a lot of people that caught it on DVD, it’s kind of a cult classic. Would have done a solid 8-10 mill open if they’d gone over 2000 theaters.

  3. EthanG says:

    So DP, is this a critique of AEG and Sony, which wildly overpaid/overestimated the potential for this film, thus setting off the media frenzy.
    It’s not the fact that $40 million won’t be great for a concert film…Michael Jackson was arguably the most famous person alive at the time of his death. And yet in North America he’ll do probably 25 million less than Hannah Montana…hilarious!!! Sony will make money off this, but not as much as it stands to make from “Zombieland.” Not by a long shot.
    Nice per theatre for “House of the Devil” considering it’s already VOD.
    Boondock Saints 2 is very disapointing. It could have done $5 million this weekend in 100 theatres if it had any kind of marketing whatsoever. Literally everyone that I know is shocked to hear it’s coming out this weekend…and in a frenzy to see it. Apparition has a way to go….

  4. marychan says:

    I don’t think it is the fault of Apparition. They just market/release this film with the P&A money from Sony. (In this case, I don’t think Sony gives too much P&A money to Apparition)
    THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY is actually from Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group’s Stage 6 label. Most films from Stage 6 went straight-to-video, so it is lucky that SPWAG/Stage 6 agree to give THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY a very modest theatrical release.
    The very modest theatrical release of THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY is clearly for helping drive DVD sales/rentals. About $5000 PTA (at the opening weekend) would be a success for this film. Afterward, this film would do much better in DVD/Blu-ray market (which is the film’s main market).

  5. The Big Perm says:

    So if Paranormal Activity isn’t the most profitable movie ever, what is? Not it terms of money made, but the ratio of how much spent vs how much made. Blair Witch? Halloween?

  6. martin says:

    Mary, I disagree. Boondock could have done quite well in a standard theatrical release, it was not so niche that it needed to go directly to DVD (minus this token theatrical run). Money was left on the table due to this decision, IMO. Money that would have also paid off on ancillaries.

  7. EthanG says:

    Top 5 (caveat on Paranormal Activity…it’s unknown how much the reshot of the last scene cost):
    1. Blair Witch-248 million worldwide on $35,000
    2. Tarnation-1.1 million worldwide on $218
    3. Paranormal Activity
    4. Mad Max
    5. Supersize Me
    6. Night of the Living Dead.
    7. Rocky
    8. Halloween
    9. American Graffiti
    10. Once
    Of course that doesn’t take into account P&A on the films, just the production budgets and worldwide gross.

  8. jeffmcm says:

    It’s likely that professional sound mixes on Blair Witch and Tarnation raised their budgets a bit above the $218 level.

  9. Lota says:

    Deep Throat should be on that most profits list. Porn doesn;t have much P & A to cut into profit does it?
    ALso–there’s some other Indies that could be on that list and they are escaping me for the moment. Argh

  10. Telemachos says:

    MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING. What was the budget on THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY?

  11. Bob Violence says:

    Deep Throat should be on that most profits list. Porn doesn;t have much P & A to cut into profit does it?

    There was no reliable tracking system for porn films, so nobody really knows how much it made. And mafia accounting is probably even more creative than the Hollywood kind.

    Tarnation and Blair Witch come closer to half a million each after post-production costs (clearances for Tarnation, reshoots for BWP, mixing for both).

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