It’s hard to figure what this Friday start will mean for the Toy Story 3 3-day. Last year, Up did $20m more than 3x Friday on its wide opening weekend. Before that, most Pixar films haven’t done 3x opening Friday. So…
Either way, this is at least 30% better than any previous Pixar launch.
On the film side, Jonah Hex was relegated to hell. It looks to beat out MacGruber as the worst studio opening of the summer. I guess it’s nice to have some kind of record!
http://www.soulduster.com/ on: Friday Estimates by Klady
http://www.rehabsandrentals.com/ on: Friday Estimates by Klady
Joe Leydon on: Weekend Estimates by MacKlady
Abi on: Weekend Estimates by MacKlady
betavaftrar on: 3-Day Estimates By Klady That Made The Clown Cry
Tashie Jackson on: Friday Estimates by Klady
Jeffrey Boam's Doctor on: Weeeknd Estimate Leftovers by Klady
DiggityDawg on: Weeeknd Estimate Leftovers by Klady
David Poland on: Weeeknd Estimate Leftovers by Klady
berg on: Weeeknd Estimate Leftovers by Klady
Weeeknd Estimate Leftovers by Klady
Friday Estimate by MuthaSmurfin’ Klady
4 Day Estimates by Vehicular Klady
Friday Estimates by Green Klady
4 Day Estimates by Wolfpack Klady
Weekend Estimates by Screaming Rio Klady
Friday Estimates by Rio de JaKlady
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
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
Yowch re: Jonah Hex.
Karate Kid got kicked in the knees but it should still pull out close to 30 this weekend. I am really shocked with this film’s success but that’s box office speculation I guess.
Good on the Toys with this opening and yesterday when I caught them film, the theatre I saw it in was barely full. This led to me concluding that the film might not make as much as people projected this weekend. Low and behold, right before the trailers started, everyone and their mother started pouring into the theatre. Easily the weirdest flooding of people into the theatre I have come across in a long long time.
Jonah Hex cost about 5 times as much as Gruber though.
My thoughts on HEX POWER, copied and pasted from Elsewhere but why not:
I had a fucking blast at HEX… By any objective standard, yes, it’s a mess, it’s choppy, it’s woefully short in the characterization department.
But I went in wanting Brolin being awesome, Fox being hot, Malkovich hamming it up, some cool supporting players making fools of themselves, and WALL TO WALL METAL.
And guess what… I got EXACTLY what I wanted from it, which might be the first time this summer. Not saying it’s the best movie of the summer, but I didn’t have to sit there watching Robert Downey build a goddamn pipe in his living room from the schematics of a 1972 scale model for TWENTY MINUTES. I didn’t have to watch Jake Gyllenhaal enter a goddamn ostrich race. Much as I loved Robin Hood, I didn’t have to see Jonah Hex skulking around a dusty brown castle for 45 minutes pretending to be a dead guy while romancing Cate Blanchett. I didn’t have to see MacGruber stick a stalk of celery up his ass and feel totally embarrassed walking out of the theater after 90 minutes of Will Forte taking a shit.
No, I wanted METAL, FOX, BROLIN, and gunfire, and I got exactly that. Utterly painless, unpretentious (though actually with more subtext and sociopolitical commentary than you’d expect, albeit heartily botched by the hack job on the editing)… Sometimes I daresay it approached actually being FUN and ENTERTAINING, instead of feeling like an NBC domestic drama that occasionally features a superhero or mythic character.
And now thanks to this movie I’ll finally remember who the hell Michael Fassbender is next time I see him, because he was GREAT.
And the Fox was so stunning I was practically drooling and muttering to myself at every appearance. She’s utterly disarming in the movie, at WORST she’s harmless eye candy, so anyone who hasn’t seen the movie who’s talking shit is either an angry gay guy who only likes PUT-ON, UNATTRACTIVE women who make aggressive comments in the press, or a bitter straight guy who wishes he could be with her. Because she’s absolutely awesome. As always.
But BROLIN is the main draw here and he commands the movie like a genuine Clint, Bridges, Russell, Tommy Lee Jones, Quaid, Swayze-style naturalistic bad-ass. Great job, and fun movie.
So as long as it approaches being fun and entertaining means it doesn’t actually have to be as long as there’s metal and gunfire? Dude, don’t make fun of Pixar anymore.
Fassbender was the only thing I liked about Jonah Hex.
If Lex can cut-and-paste his comments from an abandoned earlier thread, here’s one of mine re: “Jonah Hex.”
What were they thinking? With all of the serious talent Involved (Brolin, Malkovich, Fassbender, etc.) and the iintriguing post-Civil War setting, this is the best they could come up with?
Since WB clearly knew they’d blown the whole franchise thing months ago, why didn’t they just release a good, gritty, hard “R” cut of the film and called it a day?
I was actually kind of shocked at how little affect the movie has:
it’s like watching an extended episode of some Grade Z basic cable series (with real actors which makes it all the more depressing). The laughably circumspect 73-minute run time (minus end credits) is the biggest joke of all….if hardly an unwelcome one considering how remarkably dreary the film is.
Onward and upward, Josh.
Hex was never going to work because he’s not a superhero and WB wanted to make a superhero western. When the poster is hiding the character’s trademark scar, his distinctive quality, you’re F’d from day one. It’s as if everyone at Warners decided to blame will Smith for Wild, Wild West. God help Cowboys v Aliens.
The concept only had a chance if it was approached as a horror film with Hex as the monster. Put the scarred face front and center in the A&M and emphasize the double-meaning of the word Hex as a curse over a person. Something closer to Winston’s Pumpkinhead crossed with Unforgiven. There’s actually been a succesful adaptation of Jonah Hex on television, but he’s called The Undertaker.
Between this and The Losers, WB are sure to get cold feet on any non-traditional superhero products. That’s unfortunate, because the Murphy/Del Toro Deadman project probably had the best chance of working. Who knows, maybe that’s Guillermo’s SDCC announcement.
Its got to be a terrible feeling knowing that Branden Frasier can look at your opening weekend numbers and think “you poor bastard.”
Wow, Cyrus appears to be kicking some ass.
“Something closer to Winston’s Pumpkinhead crossed with Unforgiven.”
My ass would be in a seat. Love Pumpkinhead. Thought Winston had a future as a director. Then he did A Gnome Named Norm…or something. Good. His F/X work was ground-breaking until the day he died.
So, is LexG really Armond White on Adderall?? Is that what I am to understand? I have always taken Lex as pretty much 99% schtick, or “character posting.” The Jonah Hex review is half believable, half “oh, shut up!” Almost like he knows he’s full of shit rather than just giving us typical LexG posturing.
My point: I still think LexG is a character-poster, but that fucker has some character-poster development going on. He is a well-written character-poster. I am interested in seeing where his character-poster arc takes him, and us, over the rest of the 2010 season.
Might’ve been more appropriate to post this quick take on CYRUS in one of the 80 other threads about it, but new BO threads generally get more eyeballs:
Did anyone who saw CYRUS basically like it, love Reilly and Hill, but think that Tomei’s character was WOEFULLY underwritten, uncomplicated, unexplained, and idealized? The middle third of the movie REALLY suffers because you never have an inkling of what she’s about other than in relation to her crazy son, or why she’d be into Reilly. Which I never believed for a second, despite how good the rest of the movie was.
CleanSteve: Glad I can amuse.
“So, is LexG really Armond White on Adderall??”
I never really noticed it before, but Lex agrees with Armond more than anyone out there…
“True art is watching hot-chick Megan Fox (as Lilah the hooker) fearlessly staring at the most grotesque side of Jonah