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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Klady – Oh Those Mayans

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The Day After Tomorrow numbers for Emmerich. Not shocking. Not even interesting. living testament to marketing and people’s willingness to rush out to see the world destroyed by CG.
A Christmas Carol‘s hold is, like many Fri-to-Fri numbers, a little exaggerated, this time for the better. The film played a lot stronger on Saturday that on hysteria Friday (the day the film was tagged, unfairly, as a disappointment forever), so a 37% hold, which is great these days, really won’t be clear until Saturday’s drop is known… late tonight. the film will likely pass the second weekend number on The Santa Clause 2, which went on to to $140m domestic. #4 Christmas-themed movie of all-time is well within range.
Precious is heading to a $35k per number on 174 screens. Still very impressive. The film seems to be using a variation of No Country… a little faster… a little hotter…

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24 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady – Oh Those Mayans”

  1. Chucky in Jersey says:

    All it proves is people are willing to drink the studio Kool-Aid.

  2. Hallick says:

    “All it proves is people are willing to drink the studio Kool-Aid.”
    And coming up next, the Mythbusters will put to the test a theory that fire burns, and that ice cubes will keep a drink colder than bouillon cubes.

  3. I went into 2012, dragged by my disaster-porn loving wife (she loves Air Emergency, Seconds From Disaster, and the like), expecting to hate it. But lo and behold, the thing actually works. The key is that they spent so much money on special effects that they couldn’t hire ‘stars’. So instead we have a 2.5 hour disaster movie fronted by Chiwetel Ejiofor (acting god), Oliver Platt (character acting god), and Thandie Newton (a vastly untapped resource). Yes Cusack and his ultra-wholesome family was a distraction, but they weren’t nearly as front and center or syrupy as I feared. Woody Harrelson has great fun, Danny Glover wears his ‘Shooter’ dentures as President (watch how he says ‘catastrophe’ during his speech to humanity), and the movie is meaner about life and death that you’d expect. It’s not art, but it’s a surprisingly solid popcorn B-movie which gets more juice out of its Ejiofor/Platt verbal duels (Ejiofor isn’t always right and Platt isn’t an unfeeling evil bureaucrat) than it does out of its end of the world CGI. Yes, the film kinda avoids dealing with the whole ‘everyone on earth is going to die’ pathos, but we’ve got Deep Impact for that.

  4. After Paranormal Activity we now have a second movie making a huge top ten debut on less than 200 screens in the span of a month.

  5. LYT says:

    It proves that the Tyler Perry name can sell stuff he isn’t even in.

  6. martin says:

    Precious opened in the top 12 last weekend, on only 18 screens.

  7. EthanG says:

    The “Christmas Carol” drop should be seen as standard given the fact there is ZERO competition in the marketplace for family fare right now. Watch what happens next week when “New Moon” and “Planet 51” open. I still think it maxes at $120 million, with $105 million the likely number.

  8. leahnz says:

    i let the boy choose and to my surprise he picked ‘the imaginarium of doctor parnassus’ over ‘2012’ or ‘christmas carol’; he was enchanted by it as was i, still lingering with me today. good to see gilliam in vintage form doing what he does best, a charming, intimate, bittersweet fantastical delight (on a sad note i found heath’s last perf rather flat; i think he’s actually a bit miscast as ‘tony’, who is more convincingly portrayed by the three actors who stepped in to help finish the film, but that is but a small compliant about such a little gem)

  9. leahnz says:

    oops, ‘parnassus’ isn’t even on that list of estimates, a case of ‘taken’/’the boat that rocked’/’young victoria’ redux whereby we bizarrely get a movie out of the blue way before anywhere else? i’ll never understand those witches stirring the the international distribution schedule cauldron

  10. bulldog68 says:

    When I used to live in Trinidad, movies opened on a Wednesday, so very often many films would open two days prior to the states, or if not, then the following Wednesday. I always found that difference a bit odd.
    Your boy choosing Imaginarum over the other two shows some individuality Leahnz. Or is it his momma’s influence? I tease. How old is he? I’ve recently started letting my eight year old watch more adult fare. She literally bawled her eyes out for The Bucket List and Seven Pounds. Both films she wanted to see.

  11. Bob Violence says:

    Parnassus opened in some European countries (plus Australia) last month — it’s an independent production handled by different distributors pretty much everywhere, so there’s nobody in much of a position to determine an “international distribution schedule”.

  12. leahnz says:

    well that makes perfect sense, bob v
    (tho i must admit i do like to have a good whinge about the (fictional) witches who stir the international distribution schedule cauldron for mainly the opposite reason, being that we so very often have to wait inexplicably long for the theatrical release of too many films and i like to blame SOMEONE; i’m convinced it’s a conspiracy to make us feel like we’re sheep dags dangling off the ass-end of the world)
    bulldog, my wee lad is almost 11 going on 30. he’s nuts about movies (actually he’s very much like sharlto copley described himself at age 11 in DP’s interview going around making home movies on his parent’s betamax camera, tho thankfully our tech is a bit better; my boy’s movies are hilarious, often a blend of live-action and stop-mo claymation. one of my biggest regrets is letting him watch ‘robot chicken’ before i realised how rude and inappropriate it is for kids, but it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle). i’ve tried to give him a well-rounded age-appropriate movie education and he’s watching more sophisticated fare now, particularly in the last year — his all-time fave is ‘aliens’, and as much as ‘aliens’ kicks ass and is absolute legend in my book, i get sick of watching the DVD special features, esp. anything to do with stan winston and the alien queen because the boy is obsessed with that giant frickin’ puppet (when i told him winston is one of the departed it was a gloomy day in our house)
    anyhoo, he does have fairly eclectic taste in movies and likes all kinds of stuff but he’s also a pretty typical boy and loves his action/adventure (i’m sorry to say i know every single line of the first ‘transformers’ flick by heart, not something i’m particularly happy about but i can deal with it, i detest bay but i have a weird little soft spot for the first ‘trannies’). i think ‘doctor parnassus’ got the nod because when he was trying to decide which movie to see on the day and watched the trailers/read the synopsis for each, he recognised terry gilliam’s name from ‘time bandits’ – a timeless fave in our house – so i think that sealed the deal
    (just to say, i think movies can be great emotional outlets for kids, a good way to safely explore situations and feelings; movies are often criticised for desensitising kids to violence and portraying sexuality unrealistically – and probably rightly so – but i also think movies can be a wonderful outlet/trigger for emotions and imagination in children, i know they were for me)

  13. Leah, let’s not get started on those blasted international distribution witches. They’re horrible, but it was nice to get stuff like Dr Parnassus early. Young Victoria and (apparently) The Board That Rocked weren’t worth it.
    This time of the year is worst, having to wait until February’s Oscar nominations for movies like Precious and A Single Man. At least The Hurt Locker isn’t going direct-to-DVD though anymore!

  14. Sam Worthington is on an Aussie chat show right now wearing flip-flops (I hate using American terms, but it beats confusion) and shorts. He also brang along a cask of good and a packet of snags. Next month he’ll be on Letterman (or whoever) wearing a suit. Wonderful.

  15. Mikkel says:

    Speaking of The Boat That Rocked (and apologies, if it has been raised before): What is up with the title change?
    Always seems a bit, well, peculiar to me when movies have different English titles (although it certainly beats Danish distributors changing English-language titles to other titles in English – that always annoyed the hell out of me).

  16. movieman says:

    That’s interesting, Leah.
    Was “Parnassus” a wide release in NZ, or is it playing exclusively at big-city arthouses?
    Sony Classics hasn’t committed to a wide break yet over here (it opens in limited release on Xmas Day in NY and LA), but I’m guessing that it’ll be that rare SPC movie that (eventually) makes it to the boonies. The Depp/Ledger participation pretty much guarantees that.
    I don’t, however, expect “The Young Victoria” to be so lucky (even “wide-ish” releases seem beyond Apparition’s reach if the disaster of “Black Dynamite” is any indication). I’m already on record as having loved “Victoria” (“Parnassus,” not as much). Too bad it won’t be seen by the majority of Yanks who might actually want to see it until the DVD release.
    Speaking of Sam Worthington, did anyone else see last week’s “South Park”? Their pre-emptive mockery of “Avatar” (where it was renamed “Dances With Smurfs”) was “S.P.” at its finest.
    Finally caught up with a screener of “Bronson” last week, and wow! The film itself isn’t great–although it is pretty darn good–but Tom Hardy was bloody brilliant. I didn’t even recognize him from his memorable turn as Handsome Bob in
    “RocknRolla” last year. If IMDB is to be believed, Hardy seems on the verge of a major breakthrough, lining up big-ticket items right and left (including, if I’m not mistaken, the Mel Gibson role in George Miller’s “Mad Max” revamp).
    Kind of reminiscent of Eric Bana post-“Chopper,” or S. Worthington post…..? What Aussie film was it that catapulted Worthington to int’l prominence (and helped land him those “Terminator”/Cameron gigs?) It certainly couldn’t have been “Somersault” since that only seemed to benefit Abbie Cornish at the time.

  17. marychan says:

    movieman.
    In the case of “Black Dynamite”, Apparition just used the P&A money from Sony; so you should not just blame Apparition for it.
    Anyway, Apparition’s own acquisition “Bright Star” is enjoying respectful result in limited release. “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” (another Sony film that is released by Apparition) is also enjoying modest success.

  18. movieman says:

    The point I was making, Mary, is that Apparition doesn’t have the Weinstein-ian chutzpah (or deep pockets) to take a prestige pic that skews arty like “Young Victoria” (or “Bright Eyes”) into more than just limited (i.e., “arthouse ghetto”) release.
    And while neither “B/Dyanmite” or “Boondock 2″ are remotely arty/”specialized,” another distrib would have probably opened them on 1,000 screens minimum.

  19. movieman says:

    …make that the Miramax Golden Days era of “Weinstein-ian chutzpah”…

  20. marychan says:

    Apparition is releasing “B/Dyanmite” or “Boondock 2” on behalf of with Sony (which would pay the bill for prints and advertising costs); Apparition comes up with the marketing and distribution plans according to Sony

  21. leahnz says:

    movieman, i had a quick gander and it looks like ‘parnassus’ is in wide release here (as you already know i dug ‘young victoria’ as well)
    kam: STILL no theatrical release date here for ‘hurt locker’, perhaps fated for DVD this side of the ditch, but i finally saw it by other means on a decent screen, just superb. i must admit there is NOTHING i’d like more than to see kathryn walk off the stage with the directing oscar for 09, not that i even give much of a shit about academy awards but just because kathryn puts so many of the boys to shame and it would be epic to see an amazingly skilled female director bust up the boy’s club and take it home for the FIRST TIME
    (mikkel, i wish i had some insight into why film titles are changed for different parts of the world, it’s an enigma. i remember reading somewhere that ‘harry potter and the philosopher’s stone’ was changed to ‘sorcerer’s stone’ for north america because the word ‘philosopher’ was deemed too obscure and difficult to pronounce, which i find hard to believe. but if that’s true, i would be very insulted if i was american/canadian)

  22. LYT says:

    Mikkel, in the case of The Boat That Rocked, “Pirate Radio” is actually a different cut of the movie, shorter by 20 minutes.
    In some cases, however, movies get renamed internationally if they bomb stateside. I used to live in Ireland, and Howard the Duck was released as “Howard: A New Breed of Hero” while Adventures in Babysitting was “A Night on the Town.”

  23. Spacesheik says:

    PIRATE RADIO’s longer cut THE BOAT THAT ROCKED has already been released in Europe and you can order the Blu-ray from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boat-That-Rocked-Blu-ray/dp/B0027P94CQ/ref=sr_1_2/278-0112212-6320739?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1258395507&sr=8-2.
    As for title changes this is sometimes normal in both UK and US – one I remember was DC CAB being renamed STREET FLEET in the UK.

  24. The Big Perm says:

    Is Mel Gibson definiely not going to be in Mad Max 4? That’s a crying shame if so. People say he’s too old but hey, he’s still a huge star…and really, is a Mad Max movie that physically taxing? He just needs to do lots of inserts behind a steering wheel and then the stuntmen do the car chases.

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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