Sorry about being so late today… Bar Mitzvah day.
So we will find out whether Super 8 has super legs. It’s not a terrible opening, but it’s right in the middle of the pack of the 10 wide releases so far this summer.
The X drop isn’t terribly encouraging either.
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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
No, it’s a great opening and sets the course for a terrific $35+ million weekend.
Not too shabby for a $50 million film.
How are there real people who actually believe this nonsense about it being a $50 million film?
I’d be more surprised by “non-real” people discussing its budget.
It looks exactly like a 50 million dollar film.
I called the First Class drop. Word of mouth had not been good or bad, just ambivilent.
So if Super 8 drops 60% next weekend and crawls to 100 million, how successful is that
So far it seems like all the big movies are falling between $125 and $225 with no sure-fire hits. Hopefully Potter and Transformers can pull through.
“Potter,” yes. “Trannies 3,” no.
And no way is “S-8” dropping more than 15-20% next weekend. WOM will be off the charts, and it’s on its way to $200-million minimum at the domestic b.o. thanks to the kind of legs we haven’t seen since “Avatar.”
Also look for a $75-$90-million opening for “Lantern” next week.
And a $100-million-plus opener for “Cars 2” the weekend of June 24th.
If Cinemark’s Boardman Ohio 7-plex is playing your movie, you simply cannot fail. And if you’re unlucky enough to open at Regal’s Bdm OH 10-plex, you might as well start writing the b.o. obit now.
definitely got the sense that the film was done “on a budget” but that didn’t do one thing to keep me from loving it.
transformers is going to be HUGE — the audience response to that trailer is insanely good
why would anyone think Super 8 would have a 60% drop in its second weekend?
I would be SHOCKED to see Green Lantern come close to $90 million opening weekend…where are the early reviews? Never a good sign…
Cinemark’s Boardman Ohio 7-plex – “Just exit the rainbox at the pot o gold and look for the parking lot next to the gigantic unicorn farm. You can’t miss us!”
While I think the trailers are effective, I’m curious if there’s going to be a drop on T3 from the other two just because the last movie was so underwhelming, to put it mildly.
I’m not sure how the second X-MEN weekend is a bad thing.
Wolverine – 69 percent drop
Last Stand – 66 percent drop
X2 – 53 percent drop
X-Men – 56 percent
FIRST CLASS should have the smallest drop of the series.
The embargo for Green Lantern is apparently Wednesday, which is when I’m seeing it. I know people HAVE seen it, but WB has been clamped down. I expect the trades to leak Monday and dribbles to come out Tuesday. Hoping for the best (good, but kid-friendly and light), preparing for the worst (Last Airbender-level heartbreak).
Oh man, Scott, that is not only a worst of worst case scenarios but I think impossible. Martin Campbells most disasturous effort would be a thousand times better than Airbender.
Just the casting alone ensures something tolerable.
You didn’t call crap. Also those ambivalent idiots are going to face the Begins treatment so all will be well in the end.
Don’t doubt the gl people. Seriously.
Triple- It’s true! I’ve said it before: whoever’s booking that house could make a killing in Vegas. Their instincts are positively uncanny
90% of the time. (On the other hand, the schmuck who books the competing Regal should have been canned years ago.)
Sure, I added a bit of hyperbole for the sake of sarcasm (I don’t really believe that “S-8” can hold quite that strong in the heat of summer blockbuster season; and I don’t realistically expect “Lantern” to open quite that huge either). But since they’re both Cinemark babies, anything is possible. And whoever bets against “Cars 2” is playing a fool’s game.
What makes me nervous is that “Trannies 3” is booked at the Regal, a theater that has a reverse Midas touch. On paper it looked like the summer 2011 movie to beat. Yet its local venue should definitely be cause for alarm. The last time that Regal house won the lottery was when they somehow managed to steal “Avatar” away from their Cinemark competitor in 2009. Everything for them has been downhill ever since.
I literally said the word of mouth was fairly average and I didnt see a strong hold.
Then again, when did facts ever stop io from taking a contrary position?
For the record, ill take the same bet next weekend. WOM on
Super 8 is about the same as First Class. Good not great, so I would expect a 55% drop. Didnt both First Class and Super 8 have a B+ Cinemascore?
Isn’t DP a little old to be Bar Mitzvahed?
You’re never too old to be Bar Mitzvahed if you haven’t done it yet and still want to, but I digress. That’s my point Anghus. I’m a HUGE Martin Campbell fan (not a secret, I know), so for him to indeed royally screw the pooch would be as painful (in a cinematic sense of course) as watching M. Night Shyamalan so utterly fail last year.
foamy, I think youve just constructed the plot of the next Happy Madison production:
The 40 Year Old Bar Mitzvah
Jkill — TF2 may have been a mess (though I found it to be extremely entertaining and yet another triumph of CGI for Bay) but it still made over $400 million domestic. That means that a certain segment of the audience went to see it two and three times. There is no way that TF3 doesn’t do at least $350-375 million domestic, and at least $600 million internationally.
Yeah, I have to agree with actionman on this, at least to a degree. In fact, I think audience feelings about movies, and word-of-mouth in general, is sort of overstated/misrepresented in analysis of box office stuff. No, there probably weren’t a lot of people who liked Transformers 2 way more than the first one. But at the same time, that movie wouldn’t get to $400 million if people hated it as much as film critics or hardcore movie fans did; it’s not like it opened to 250 and just coasted the rest of the way and was out of theaters in three weeks.
But more importantly: I guess a bad entry or two can leave a bad taste for a franchise, but I doubt most people buying tickets to Transformers 3 really think that much about the previous movies in terms of “well, the first one was really much stronger in terms of emotional hook and story…”… I think they think, hey, another Transformers movie, I like that! And if the ads continue to look cool and remind them it’s out, they go.
Maybe that sounds condescending. But I just think the majority of people going to movies don’t necessarily have these DEEPLY HELD OPINIONS that we all do. Probably 80% of what 80% of people see falls into the “okay to pretty good” range for them. Witness Cinemascore, and how pretty much everything gets in the B- to B+ range, and a movie that gets a B+ from audiences isn’t even considered all that well-liked! And a movie under a B is considered something audiences must’ve HATED. If I “give” a movie a B+, it’s likely one of the better movies I’ve seen in awhile. But I’m not sure if, for a lot of moviegoers, that vast space between “WOW” and “UGH” has much distinction in the long run. I mean, as much as I’d love to believe that X-Men: The Last Stand was as reviled by audiences as it should’ve been, in reality it performed pretty similarly to the first two movies and this new one, just sliiiightly more frontloaded.
In terms of every single penny up on the screen, the trailer for TRANSFORMERS 3 was impressive.
I was using AT WORLD’S END and MATRIX REVOLUTIONS as the type of thing I’m talking about, in that they were follow ups to fincially huge but quality-wise highly debated films. (For what it’s worth, I love RELOADED…) Both, while still doing very well, dropped compared to the second entry.
Jesse, I don’t think that theory is condescending. I think it just acknowledges that what is central and important to our lives as movie fans is not as central for others.
Actionman, if I was a betting man, I’d bet you’d be right. Even if it does dip domestically, it seems like foreign will make up or supercede the gap. Look at ON STRANGER TIDES, which looks like it will end up quite a bit below the last two domestically, but is HUGE in general.
I hated both Transformers movie, and even I can admit the trailer for umber 3 is mindblowingly good.
Jkill, I also loved Reloaded
The Matrix Triligy is still my favorite blickbuster series, warts and all
My feelings toward Reloaded were highly conditional and put into words only upon watching Dead Man’s Chest with a youngling. He asked what I thought of it and I replied that I wouldn’t know until after I see At World’s End.
In both cases, #3 killed any affection I might have felt for #2.
(My reevaluation of Reloaded was especially painful; after convincing us that the only way the movie could make sense is if The Real World was another level of the Matrix, by insisting in Revolutions that Neo really does have actual magical abilities the Wachowskis took a crap on any respect I had for the series.)
I never fully understood Revolutions. Your explination doesnt quite match up with what I remember. How did you come to that conclusion.
I really like the movie and am pulling for SUPER 8, but:
Do studios really spend a FULL YEAR and countless tens of millions promoting something like some massive EVENT… in the hopes of a 30 mil weekend?
The promo has been RELENTLESS, and maybe it’s just that skewed Internet thing where geeks talk up Kick-Ass or Scott Pilgrim like the MUST-SEE TEEMING CROWD MEGAMOVIE OF ALL TIME then you go to the theater and there’s four people in there… But based on ONE FULL YEAR of hype, you just KNOW that SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE thought this was gonna do 75-100 mil this weekend. Nikki was quoting the Paramount guys as doing cartwheels, but after that AMAZING BUILDUP, how is 30 “overperforming”?
I thought it’d do 100 easy by Monday.
Haven’t all the other films been sequels or adaptations? “Super-8” holding its own with those titles is an accomplishment, even if you personally didn’t care for it.
I never understood Matrix Revolutions either. I thought by the end it was shown that Neo wasn’t the chosen one but the little girl who the oracle was protecting was the true chosen one. Neo’s job was to reinsert his code into the matrix to “restart” it and stop smith. Or something….
To keep with current topics: I thought super 8 sucked really hard. I finally Tree of Life and it was stunning. I really haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I fully admit my indifference to S8 may be from seeing it a day after ToL. I think a lot of movies will seem inconsequential to me after Tree of Life.
Does anyone have a run time on “Trannies 3” yet?
I’ve heard everything from 99 minutes (Fandango) to 2 hours/45 minutes (according to a theater manager who’s getting the film).
Michael Bay’s moderator on his forum says 152 minutes. 142 without credits.
A fan over there has no clue what a “credit crawl” refers to.
For what it’s worth – I briefly talked to a Paramount contact about the T3 running time several days ago as I too was shocked by the 99 minute running time listed by Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo, and Fandango (I was going to write about it if I could get it confirmed). Basically, the official line is that the movie isn’t finished and there is no official running time. Also emailed Capone (the AICN critic who reviewed it a couple weeks ago), and he said it felt close to 150 minutes. As it is, tickets are already on sale at certain theaters, and show times seem to be spaced nearly 4 hours apart, so I’m guessing its between 134 minutes (the time allegedly claimed by Bay’s Twitter feed) and the aforementioned 152 minutes. Again, for what it’s worth. Had it been 99 minutes, that would have been news, but another Transformers film running 2.5 hours is not.
And I would add that despite my general theory, I do think you can see some clear audience rejection of the third Pirates and Matrix installments, dropping way off from peak series gross… but at the same time, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that those two both came out less than a year after their predecessors, creating a combination of audiences actually remembering that they didn’t much care about the second-movie cliffhanger and also probably a sense of fatigue; there wasn’t much time to build up anticipation between installments. I know the Wachowskis wanted the sequels released close together (allegedly even closer together than they were), but I bet if Reloaded and Revolutions came out two years apart, Revolutions would’ve made an extra 50 or 60 million. Same deal with Pirates 3, actually, even though its gross was nothing to sneeze at.
Ask more casual moviegoers now what they thought of those series now, and it would probably be more like yay or nay, not “well, the second one had interesting moments but it wasn’t really paid off in the third one”… hence, the failings of Transformers 2, even if some audience members were attuned to them, won’t be fresh in their minds two years later.
I must be the biggest Matrix Revolutions fan around, btw. There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t work in it, but I found a lot of it fascinating and/or amazing-looking.
Anghus, at the end of Reloaded, Neo stopped some squid robots with the power of his mind. This would have made sense if The Real World was just another level of the matrix, but Revolutions and the Wachowskis flat-out stated that no, The Real World really is the world outside the matrix, and Neo does have special abilities out there. (Perhaps the Wachowskis and audiences would have been more receptive to a multi-tiered reality if Inception had come out first?)
And yet Trannies 2, as bad or weird as it might have been, wasn’t pitched as a conclusion to 1, which was the problem with Revolutions and At World’s End. These weren’t self-contained movies but conclusions to the second in each series, so if one failed then both failed.
Loved all three Pirates movies. The first Matrix is a masterpiece, Reloaded is a good sequel, Revolutions was better than most people give it credit for being but it’s def the weakest part of the trilogy.
thnx for the “T3” running time info, guys.
guess we’ll find out when we find out.
what kills me is that nobody provides accurate runtimes anymore.
you used to be able to depend on Variety–the “showbiz bible” and all.
but not even they seem to get it right most of the time.
whenever i see a run time listed, i have to guess whether that’s before or after end credits: and sometimes it’s more like something in between.
maybe it’s because there are just too many movies being released today, and the rt police can’t keep up, lol.
I need to rewatch the Matrix Trilogy. I had so much fun with those movies back in the day.
For runtime stuff, http://www.bbfc.co.uk/recent/ has become the go to place. At least this summer, a lot of the big releases have been rated across the pond earlier than here and with the runtime been noted it’s become a great source.
i’ll have to give it a try, Nick: thnx.
Outstanding, Nick!
I found runtimes for “Larry Crowne,” “Bad Teacher,” “Monte Carlo,” “Zookeeper” and “Green Lantern” on there. And the fact that they actually list seconds (as well as minutes) makes me
think they must be fairly accurate.
Yeah, SamLowry’s right about The Matrix…the second was awesome, but then you see the third and you realize the second movie added up to diddly-squat. It added NOTHING to the overall story. And then you realize the Wachoskis really didn’t care about making sense, they just wanted to make some dumbass anime movie where shit happens just because it’s cool, or whatever. Not only did part 3 make me dislike part 2, but even dislike part 1 a whole lot more.
As for SUper-8, I can’t imagine they’re goig razy over a 30 million opening. Still, what could you hope for? I figured maybe, MAYBE 50 at best. But even that seemed out of whack. So I guess it’s a good opening.
FWIW, I’ve asked that somewhere, too– Runtimes used to be ironclad, but they are always not only wildly off now, but vary wildly from site to site; I remember when “Pride and Glory” (the Norton cop movie) came out, everyone had it listed something as way, way less than the 130-minute epic it actually was; Yahoo currently lists “Something Borrowed” as “one hour, 42 minutes,” which it surely isn’t (it’s 10 minute longer, at least), and half the theaters and movie sits list “Midnight in Paris” as 88 minutes, the other half list it at 100. At some point I guess everyone’s just taking a wild guess? The L.A. Times is always, ALWAYS wrong.
I used to imagine like Leonard Maltin was sitting there with a precise stopwatch, but I guess that’s not the case. And doesn’t some stuff screen before credits are added? (Variety used to mention when something, like “Black Hawk Down,” was screened sans credits.)
I continue to maintain that what I refer to as “The Superman Fight” in MATRIX REVOLUTIONS was a perfect ending to that series, a great fufillment of Neo’s arc, and one of the coolest action scenes period of the last several decades.
I’m beginning to think all those r/t police stopwatches must have broken from overuse, Lex, lol.
Too many damn movies anymore–and that’s a cold, hard fact.
Didn’t catch “MiP” until a Friday matinee (missed the 10 A.M. press screening in Cleveland screening last week: shoot me, it’s a 90-minute drive one way), and was quasi-depressed to see that Woody’s biggest movie in years (decades?) couldn’t attract more than 6 people, including moi, for a 1:50 show in fiddle-f**k Boardman, Ohio.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Oh, yeah. I totally dug “MiP:” it’s among my top three favorite Woodys of the past decade (along with, duh, “Match Point” and “VCB”).
Thought Adrien Brody was a total hoot as Dali, and was wildly impressed with the dude who plays Hemingway (checked him out on IMDB and didn’t recognize any of his credits).
Heh, spent all 88 (or was is 100?) minutes of MiP trying to place the Hemingway guy, knowing I’d seen him somewhere… Damn, it’s the bald dude with the giant Emmanuel Levy mustache from LAW AND ORDER: LA.
And isn’t the Fitzgerald guy also the villain from THOR?
Yep, Fitzgerald was played by the dude from “Thor.”
Definitely preferred him in “MiP,” tho.
Haven’t seen an ep of “L&O” since the original NY version with Sam Waterston and Jerry Orbach.
And I’m pretty sure “MiP” is 94 minutes–including end credits.
But I could be wrong, lol.
Enjoyed telling my screening companion that the chick who played Zelda Fitzgerald originated the role of Steph in LaBute’s “reasons to be pretty” off-B’way a few years back….since I’m currently directing the “Youngstown premiere” of “rtbp” which (note to Leah) opens next Friday.
wish me luck, Hot Bloggers.
Now I’m wondering how Skeet Ulrich’s partner from L&O ends up on Woody Allen’s radar. It’s one of those eternal mysteries to me, how really mercurial directors who you tend to think of as being off in their own little world go about casting their movies… and because of that, how certain workaday actors sometimes end up in these maniacs’ movies.
That’s not a dig at the Hemingway guy, he KILLS it…
But once in a while I’ll wonder, like, how did Thomas Gibson or Lelee Sobieski end up on KUBRICK’S radar? Like Pacino or Hoffman never worked with Stanley Kubrick, but the guy from Dharma and Greg did…
Or Tara Reid ending up in an Altman movie, or Shawn Hatosy in a Michael Mann film, or just about anybody who turns up in a David Lynch movie…
Lex: I’m guessing that Thomas Gibson ended up on Kubrick’s radar because of his role opposite Cruise and Kidman in FAR AND AWAY, either because they recommended him or Kubrick saw the film and dug him.
I always thought it was great that Dwight Schultz from THE A-TEAM ended up opposite Paul Newman in FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY (back when Joffe had some cred). Not a great movie, but you know lots of bigger names must’ve been angling for that part, only to see it go to Howling Mad Murdock.
Lex, the L&O guy (Corey Stoll) did a Broadway play with Scarlett Johansson last year. I assume that’s where Allen got wind of him.
break a leg, movieman! hope it kills
(i’m keen to see ‘midnight in paris’. and ‘tree of life’. i feel so out of the loop)
maybe corey stoll can play ‘bronson’ in the american remake
LexG, you’ve heard of imdb, right?
Ha. Dude, come ON. At least I was asking who the guy was HERE. I love it when on the IMDB message boards people ask questions about the cast and crew on the VERY PAGE of the movie they’re inquiring about. “Did Kenneth Branagh really direct THOR?”, asked on the page where he’s listed eight inches north.
Thanks, Leah.
Rehearsals have gone extremely well. My leads (Greg and Steph) are so moving that I tear up every time we rehearse scenes 3, 5 and 8.
I think this is going to be a very, very strong production.
Of course, we still don’t have all of the furniture we need for our sets yet.
And the softball team jerseys ordered for two of the actors in the softball game scene still haven’t arrived.
Plus, I don’t know whether my all-things-tech person has recorded the music I requested between scenes (I’m using a soundtrack composed entirely of Philadelphia soul music from the ’70s: the Stylistics, the Delfonics, etc. because it seems so apt for the play’s blue collar vibe).
Or….or…..
Welcome to the magical world of community theater, lol.
But the performances are THERE. And that’s the most important thing;
as always.
way late, but movieman if you check back on this thread, it’ll all come together, after all you have…four whole days yet before dress rehearsal! (your music selection sounds choice; please let us know how your opening weekend goes; i did a bit of boning up on the play but didn’t get a chance to actually read it yet, i’ll try to rectify that, just crazy busy at the moment). community theatre is terrific, so many talented people, i have so many fond memories. i grew up in youth and community theatre, i was such a little ratbag always hanging around, loved everything about it. during rehearsals for ‘south pacific’, i’d stay on afterwards and watch the set being built/decorated, the guys would be like, ‘what do you want, girl?’ and i’d pester them to help, just to do any little thing, so i ended up doing LOTS of painting (when i saw my name in the programme credits for set decoration – a complete surprise – it was like the proudest moment of my young life. what a dork.)
Leah- I did a lot of community theater between second grade and high school, but kind of lost the bug once I left home for college. It wasn’t until I started reviewing c/theater five years ago that I felt the urge to jump back in again.
At this point, I’m actually toying with the idea of taking an acting role in somebody else’s production. But the conditions really need to be perfect scheduling-wise, so I’m not sure when that might actually happen.
Until then, I’ve got my hands full prepping this “baby” for its opening nite close up on Friday, lol.
Will most certainly let you know how everything turns out. Thanks again for all those encouraging words!
my pleasure, give em hell movieman