Friday Estimates by Love, Klady Style
December is different.
There were four $20m openers last year in December and five each in the two years before. And no film has ever opened to as much as $78 million in December. Yet, the two biggest grossers of all time opened in December. And year after year, the biggest grossers in the month are from the second half of the month… which is why studios tend to stay away from these first two weekends of Decembers with their bigger guns. Of 62 $100m domestic grossers launched in December, just 27 launched in the first half of the month.
So does New Line going back to the well with Garry Marshall’s feature film recreation of Love, American Style, this time without Julia Roberts, Queen Latifah, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx or anyone else – aside from Katherine Heigl – who might be confused with a box office opener, suggest that a much smaller opening should be a surprise to anyone but the people who greenlit it, thinking it was a new genre that could be relied on and not driven by the things that drive most openings? No. Add to the equation that the total domestic gross of Valentine’s Day was less than 2x the opening weekend and you can easily see that “fool me once” is in full effect.
As for The Sitter, it’s Jonah Hill’s first solo lead. The guy selling the movie isn’t the guy in the movie. Also, Get Him To The Greek only opened to $17m. Cyrus didn’t gross in total as much as this film will gross this weekend. In other words, this opening, based almost exclusively on Jonah’s face and the promise of profane talk from kids, is about right. This is the kind of movie that is built to be leggy, not to open huge. Whether it will hold is a question to be determined by word of mouth. Are 20 pretty-good jokes packaged around unreliable storytelling that doesn’t really push the envelope – think Porky’s or The Hangover without body parts – enough to keep them coming back? We’ll see.
There are two wide release movies opening in exclusive/limited this weekend: Young Adult on 8 and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy on 4. Their Friday numbers are neck-and-neck. For reference, The Tree of Life opened to $372,920 this spring on 4 screens, which was the biggest 4-screen open in modern history. Just behind it was The King’s Speech, which grossed 10x as much, just over $135m domestic.
An 8-screen launch is a much rarer occurrence, only listed 5 times on Mojo’s charts of 3-day per-screens over $33k. All five are high profile movies (Memoirs of a Geisha, Match Point, Dead Poets Society, 21 Grams, and The Commitments) and notably, 4 of the 5 were releases by majors (the exception being Dependent Focus’ 21 Grams). Starts range from $271k per to $683k per. YA looks to be on the low end of that. Only 2 of these films got past $25m and the high is Dead Poet’s $96m.
What does this mean? Well, not necessarily anything. Everything is possible. But so far, a very creative campaign from Paramount for an excellent, challenging, memorable movie clearly hasn’t become a huge “must see.” For what it’s worth, Juno did $413,869 on 7 on Dec 7, 2007 after opening on Wednesday, including a $121k Friday. YA is off of that by about 25%. If that held, YA would still do over $100m domestic. But probably not. Juno was a unique event. But Up In The Air‘s $84m domestic is not out of reach. Thing is, even if the movie grossed half of that, it will be a financial success for Paramount and Reitman. And in the world of “adult” movies, $40m domestic grosses are currently undervalued… and that’s bad. A quality “middle class” is what leads to all the grousing about an underserved adult movie market.
And did I mention… I really, really like this movie. I want it to succeed and to be perceived as being a big success so that others will follow.
Not a very encouraging start for “NY Eve,” is it? Maybe it’ll pick up a little closer to December 31st.
And “The Sitter” (which I actually didn’t mind: it’s definitely better than “Your Highness”) will probably be reduced to split-screen runs in most ‘plexes by Xmas Day Good thing Fox has “Chipwrecked” on deck for next weekend. (The less said about “Zoo”‘s b.o. chances the better. Tonite’s “let’s try again and see whether anybody shows up this time” sneak redux practically screams of desperation, doesn’t it?)
Great bow for “Tinker, Tailor” (terrific film–although, truth be told, I could barely make heads out of the labyrinthian plot), and a ehhhhh opening day for the delightful “YA.”
And here I was thinking the Reitman/Cody pic would do gangbusters in
“sophisticated, urban centers” and drop dead in the hinterland. Looks like it could wind up stiffing everywhere. Drat!
Only a 22 percent drop for Hugo. Nice to see it’s still in the top five.
Jeez, this weekend might end up even lower than last weekend. Good holds by the family films (other than Happy Feet) at least, maybe “Arthur” will leg it to $50 million after all.
Comin’ up on minute #15 for Diablo Cody.
We Bought A Zoo will be the inspiring, heartland (read Blind Side) sneak sleeper of this fall. Fox should promote it as such. It’s a film families – especially Christian ones – will love once the word gets out. Guess that’s what they’re doing.
,…what you forgot, Lion, is that Red Staters (i.e. Christians in the heartland) HATE-HATE-HATE Matt Damon because he’s a pinko, commie, socialist, liberal Obama lover.
I wouldn’t hold my breath about “Zoo” becoming a holiday sleeper, regardless of whether it’s any good or not. (Since when does quality have anything to do with b.o. grosses anyway?)
Fox should just be relieved that (a) they’ve got the ‘munks to help bail them out; and (b) “The Sitter” didn’t cost a whole lot.
While the first half of December is soft David, this weekend traditionally has had some life in it. “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” opened to a disappointing but not terrible $24 million last year. “Princes and the Frog” went wide with an okay $24 million the year before. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” did $30 million back in 2008. We can’t forget “Narnia” opened to a staggering $65 million on the same weekend in 2005.
This will be only the second time since 2003 that this weekend didn’t have a wide release opener of at least $24 million (“New Years Eve” will be lucky to get $18 million.) Yes, a lot of this is due to the family film caniballization, but still, another 10% year-over-year decline is not good.
Caddy, the premise of Young Adult comes across as real shit, but the movie might not. You can’t say she’s finished when she’s already had a TV show run for a few seasons, has an Oscar, and probably could get another TV show if she wanted it. She’s in our lives man. She’s in our lives and probably will be for years to come.
THE DESCENDANTS is fantastic, and it contains another classic Clooney performance. A very moving and human film.
Should be noted that Hugo added another 800 screens this week for that hold (and that it added 600 the week previous.)
Does Damon really a red state problem? The Bourne franchise didn’t make all that money exclusively in liberal, urban markets. He’s active and outspoken, but he’s doesn’t come across as smug like Baldwin or humorless like Penn. I’m not saying Zoo looks like a sure thing, but I doubt Damon’s politics have any effect on its performance.
I don’t think Matt’s politics will affect Zoo. Remember he’s the guy who said he was “disappointed” in Obama. But yeah, if it’s the guy from the Bourne movies, great. But Zoo looks dull. It looks like a follow-up to A Dolphin Tale.
I’m pretty sure that I read Damon is among the most despised H’wood celebs because he’s an unapologetic (and outspoken) liberal.
Clooney has a similar problem with Red Staters.
And remember, Damon’s “Bourne” movies were pre-Obama.
Obama’s election brought the politic sympathies of the “Hollywood Liberal Elite” under a glaringly bright microscopic lens.
But I was (mostly) jesting in response to Lion’s post which was so darn bullish about “Zoo”‘s b.o. prospects you’d sworn it was written by a Fox publicist.
uh: that shoulda been “political sympathies”
and:
“you’d have sworn.”
Gawd; sorry for that, Hot Bloggers.
Yeah, read Big Hollywood sometime: Damon is DESPISED, LOATHED, HATED with a FIERY INFERNO INTENSITY that surpasses even Sean Penn. I know people write off that right-wing “Hollywood hates our values” shit as far-fringe stuff by a handful of people, but there are at least thousands if not millions of “Red State” Americans who pledge they’ll never put down money to see Damon in anything.
Hey, POLAND, maybe the TINKER and YOUNG ADULT numbers were down, down DOWN because the only theater showing them was the scene of POLICE SHOOTOUT that closed down all of Hollywood yesterday, so nobody could get to the theater? Just spitballin’ here.
I would write that stuff off as a handful of people. I’m sure it looks like a movement on “Big Hollywood”, but as someone who lives in the middle of the country and knows Republicans/conservatives, I’ve never heard a single person boycott a Damon/Clooney movie because of their politics, or even dislike them. Normal people don’t care, either way. I do find that narrow demographic being offended by those two’s politics pretty funny though, since they seem to be pretty normal and mainstream Democrats. Apparently, everyone who is not foaming at the mouth is their sworn enemy.
I’m going to the “Zoo” sneak tonite.
Still keeping my fingers crossed for a Crowe comeback. But Damon is one of those actors I could watch in anything. He truly is his generation’s answer to Jeff Bridges.
Saw (and loved) “Tintin” today.
Leave it to Steven Spielberg to bring soul to performance-capture animation.
And whoever said that it was his best “pure action” flick since “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was right.
Spielberg’s 2011 (“War Horse,” “Tintin”) was nearly as strong as his 2002 (“Catch Me if You Can,” “Minority Report”).
I saw We Bought A Zoo a couple of weeks ago and thought it was pretty good, but it’s mainly for families, which is not a bad thing over the holidays. It didn’t feel like a typical Cameron Crowe film, except for the music. It’s certainly “liberal” in that whole Hillary/”It takes a village” kind of way, but the themes of family bonding, inspiration, taking personal responsibility for your actions, entrepreneurship, etc, should play well with Bible Belters. I think moms and their daughters will especially like it. I don’t buy the Damon boycott thing in the heartland. Never heard it mentioned, and I’m in the south.
I am going to go way, way out on a limb and predict at least $100 million domestic for We Bought a Zoo.
Matt Damon had a key supporting role in a big hit just last year, “True Grit.” And that one played well both on the coasts and in the heartland. Damon’s involvement didn’t seem to hurt the film, probably because the number of people who actively boycott his movies is not really as large as some people have suggested it is.
Yeah, I’m still skeptical. I saw True Grit in the South with a theater full of mostly….lower income white people, and they ate it up. The boycott thing sounds like something that might be big in certain corners of the internet, but irrelevant when it comes to mainstream audiences.
If you haven’t seen the fake Zoo twitter account yet, it’s worth checking out. @WEBOUGHTAZ00
Lots of sneaks do not, in general, mean desperation. They mean a studio thinks they have a movie that’s a word-of-mouth hit.
“of 62 $100m Dec grossers, only 27 opened in first half of month”
So roughly half then!?!
Movieman. I like Damon a lot but he is no Jeff Bridges.
I cannot imagine Damon in any of Bridge’s early roles like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Bad Company, Cutter & Bone. Even with dross like Against All Odds, 8 Million Ways To Die there’s no way that Damon could pull off that smoldering quality Bridges inherently had, but I can easily see Bridges nailing much of Damon’s output and improving on many of them. Let’s not even think of Damon in The Big Lebowski either.
Boycotts against certain actors are hard to gauge. How could you even know that a Clooney or Damon movie lost out x amount of dollars due to audience members’ personal boycotts? Besides, I’ve noticed that the kind of people who boycott actors don’t actually frequent the movies all that much.
Actually, I can think of one boycott of an actor that did seem to work: Mel. The Beaver was never going to set the box office ablaze but its performance was pretty astounding. In all the years since it’s been open, I’ve never been to the Landmark on a movie’s opening night (foreign pics included) and had the theater pretty much all to myself. That was pretty brutal. I felt bad for everyone involved (who wasn’t MG).
Against All Odds and 8 Million Ways to Die are two of THE GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, what is this blasphemy? Plus Bridges had better hair than Damon. Though if Damon wheeled out Bridges’ 8 MILLION Hawaiian shirt and stache, it would bring down the house.
Also can’t Damon pulling off Bridges’ look from KING KONG… Damon’s great, but he’s forever in that Structure-sweater-wearing, boring-hair 1998 mode from ROUNDERS… He makes great movies, but, yeah, he never seems street-smart or disreputable enough, even when he plays con artists or jerks. Affleck has a little of the same smirking townie deal, but he can play rougher or sketchier, just because he generally seems a little sleazier. It’s sort of like how Clooney is great at playing cons and assassins and jerks, but he still always seems so Caucasian and smart and elite. Bridges seemed like a rollicking shit-kicker at heart (which was odd, since he’s a Cali 2nd-gen movie star rich kid, and probably had a LESS rough-and-tumble upbringing than Damon.)
And, yeah, I think celluloidkid is right… Most of the people who talk big on conservative blogs are people who NEVER see movies. On Big Hollywood you always see commenters saying, “Another leftist Hollywood movie that won’t get my money!” and “I will never pay to see a Sean Penn movie!” But those sites are more political sites than movie sites, or at least the commenters are there for the message, not for the movies. And I’m saying this as someone who reads BH and likes hearing that perspective, because the rest of entertainment coverage is so overwhelmingly lefty and from inside the bubble. But in terms of the readership, most of them are way into Classic Hollywood stuff from that age that conservatives tend to romanticize… Never sounds like they remotely WANT to see new movies, they just commiserate about how corrupt Hollywood is.
Change of subject: Lex, what did you think of YOUNG ADULT?
i think trying to figure out a scenario where Young Adult makes 100 million is kind of hilarious.
The marketing is terrible. Reitman is the most successful director with the least recognized name. The guy made back to back award bait crowd pleasers and he still has to go by ‘the guy who made Up In The Air’. He needs a better PR rep. Cameron Crowe was getting name checked by the time he did Singles. I think by now the guy should have a much more accomplished name. And yet, Young Adult is being sold on ‘the guy from up in the air’ and ‘the girl who wrote Juno’.
How has Reitman not transcended into a brand when far less successful filmmakers like kevin smith, wes anderson, darren aronofsky (before black swan) and robert rodriguez have.
How much success does one have to achieve to get name checked?
im not a gambling man. but i’d put every dime in my pocket on Young Adult not hitting $100 million. Even without terrible marketing. But i said it before and i’ll say it again. They are trying to market the thing like Bad Teacher. The ads have the same vibe.
I think I have mentioned this before: At one point, Jeff Bridges was being seriously talked up — by Columbia, if not Scorsese or Schrader — for the role of Travis Bickle. No, I’m not making that up.
http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/you-talkin-to-me-scorsese-de-niro-keitel-and-foster-on-the-making-of-taxi-driver/
Young Adult was mostly great, Charlize plays the AWESOMEST WOMAN OF ALL TIME (her reactions to babies are the greatest thing ever), everything she says is funny, and it has the best ending imaginable… And of course I’m dreading hearing all the limp-dick critics complaining (a la Greenberg) that she isn’t relatable or likable. Which I think is bullshit, because I love, LOVE seeing someone misanthropic and narcissistic on screen, I relate 100% (see also, Rachel Getting Married) and IT IS REFRESHING to see a force-of-nature awesome sociopath egomaniac on screen.
But then something happens in the last act which felt sort of weird/wrong/unpleasant in a MIGUEL ARTETA way, right before a final course correction.
I also, as a ’90s kid, enjoyed all the musical shoutouts to Suicidal Tendencies, Cracker, 4 Non Blondes… it’s the kind of very specific stuff I wonder if older or younger critics even NOTICE. Like, to a guy like Jeff Wells, does he remember EVEN FLOW or Dinosaur Jr or stuff like that?
I liked it about on par with Juno, but not as much as Up in the Air.
I hope I have to eat my words in a few weeks, because I’d really, really like for “Zoo” to be a major hit.
“It’s the feel-great movie of the season.”
How’s that for a pop quote?
As Cameron Crowe-y as it is (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), the ultimate feeling I left with was the same one I used to get from Nora Ephron’s best rom-coms (I’m thinking in particular of “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle”). They’re like warm-and-toasty blankets you want to curl up with on cold winter nights: the kind of movies you look forward to accidentally discovering on cable in 5-10-25 years and not being able to turn the channel.
It made my eyes well up twice, and that’s a very good thing in a touchy-feely dramedy.
Of course, I pretty much knew I was gonna love it the moment Cat Stevens’ “Don’t be Shy” turned up on the soundtrack.
(And Damon’s two kids are both tremendous.)
Did I miss something???? Finke reported this on her website this morning:
The Adventures Of Tintin (Paramount) NEW [70 Theaters]
Friday $366K, Estimated Weekend $1.3M, Per Screen $19,869, Cume $1.4M
I know that it opened in Europe months ago, but I’m assuming those have to be North American figures.
(Did it–maybe–open in Canada?????)
No box-office stats for Tintin? It did open yesterday in Quebec — which, last I checked, was still part of North America, and thus part of the “domestic” box-office.
Whoops, I must have missed movieman’s post by mere seconds. Thanks for posting that!
As someone who LOVES Cameron Crowe, I’m psyched for ZOO. Also, glad to hear the good words about TINTIN, which I hadn’t been that excited about. (I have been getting misty eyed during the trailers for WAR HORSE, so I’ll be surprised to not at least kinda dig that one…)
I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to be pretty behind the 8-ball on the conversation here during my favorite movie season as I’ll be waiting for things to open. Case in point: “finally” seeing THE DESCENDANTS while everyone here is talking about YOUNG ADULT, which hasn’t even opened in my neck of the woods yet…
And I totally stand by my comparison of Damon w/ Jeff Bridges.
Consider.
Both are conventionally handsome, boy-next-door types who effortlessly evince considerable range, and have consistently worked with the most interesting, usually auteur-style, directors, box-office be damned.
Just look at Damon’s ouevre and his directors: everyone from Gus Van Sant to Francis Coppola, the Coens, Spielberg, Soderbergh (numerous times), Terry Gilliam, Kevin Smith (back when he was still good), Anthony Minghella, Doug Liman, Paul Greengrass, Eastwood, Redford, Cameron Crowe (who could be on the verge of a comeback), post-“Sling Blade” Billy Bob Thornton and even the Farrellys (back when it still meant something to work with them).
That’s a pretty enviable body of work/list of collaborators no matter how you look at it.
And using Bridges’ “Lebowski” iconic dude as comparison is unfair. Bridges was (minimum) ten years older than Damon is now when he played that role. I’m not really sure Bridges would have been a terribly convincing Dude at Damon’s (current) age either. That’s the type of character that demanded life-seasoning. By the late ’90s, Bridges definitely had it. Who’s to say Damon won’t have a Dude in him somewhere down the road? At this point, I wouldn’t bet against him.
Also like Bridges’, Damon has been pretty much consistently underrated throughout his career because–pace Bridges–he makes it look so damn easy.
welcome to my world jkill
jeff bridges’, clint’s and rob bottin’s hair combined has nothing on river’s immortal locks (crikey is that even remotely proper english?)
speaking of the beautiful one, for movieman (and any other riv/bogdanovich fans, weirdly i’d never seen this):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQRu01OQQhQ
oops helps if i put the link in
so fucking sad
Oh, yeah.
Damon also worked with somebody named Scorsese, lol.
I think that movie they did together won the Oscar for Best Picture.
I saw “Young Adult” & “Shame” today. They share more thematic similarities than I expected. Both were very good, and at times great. But, Charlize Theron’s performance as “Mavis Gary” in “Young Adult” is easily the highlight of the two and one that is destined to become legendary. She is absolutely stunning as the raging, bitter, and most of all very, very funny “young adult”. Miss it at your own peril. Wow.
Man, look at that list…Another thing I love about Damon is that he routinely takes either a co-lead or a substantial supporting role, which isn’t that routine for stars of his stature. (INVICTUS, HEREAFTER, TRUE GRIT, OCEAN’S TRILOGY, CONTAGION…) I think one of his highlights that goes overlooked is his performance in THE GOOD SHEPHERD, which I maintain is one of the great, unfairly overlooked movies of the last decade.
(oh dear, perhaps i’ve done something i’m oblivious of to offend movieman)
i’d imagine matt damon’s got a lot of good years still ahead of him, depending on his choices/priorities… he does kinda seem like he’s slowly marhmellowing out with his cutiepie wife and multitude of babies, but goodness knows acting careers can be cyclical in their intensity and choice of roles, bridges perhaps one of the best examples of someone who appears to be a consumate family man with a long and varied top-shelf career.
(generationally speaking, my boy idolises jason bourne/damon as his numero uno action badass movie idol. as an aside, SPOILERS the reveal in ‘the bourne ult’ that david webb actually volunteered for the assassin program – and that the man with the bag over his head was in fact ‘jason bourne’s first victim as an assassin rather than bourne himself as the insinuated victim of torture/mind control – was quite a shock to his rather dudley-do-right young teen sensibility, and instigated an interesting conversation in our house about whether or not redemption is possible, heroes and anti-heroes, and the merits of greengrass’s action/shaky cam)
Yes, the ZOO movie looks borderline excruciating (though that could very well be a function of the marketing — lately it seems as if studios go out of their way to pack their trailers with the most seemingly groan-worthy moments), but Matt Damon is by far the most versatile leading man of his generation. Apart from the BOURNE movies, he acted circles around Leo in THE DEPARTED, nailed MR. RIPLEY, was great in THE INFORMANT! and TRUE GRIT, and even exhibited great comic chops in STUCK ON YOU. He’s fearless as an actor, never mannered and constantly tries to stretch himself. He will be around for the long haul.
We Bought a Zoo looks so bad. It looks like a 70’s era Disney film that would have starred young Kurt Russell or Bill Bixby.
How on earth do you think that We Bought a Zoo looks bad? Seriously, that movie looks all uplifting and life affirming, but apparently that shit isn’t for everybody!
Zoo = Elle Fanning = must-see.
Every time I see the trailer I wonder if deep down Damon’s character is grumpy that his snot-nosed kid gets a cuter girlfriend than he does. (Though to be fair, on the flip side of that I also wonder how 25-year-old Scarlett feels about being paired with doughy 41-year-old Damon, especially in his new semi-mullet.)
Based on the afore-mentioned excruciating trailers I’m amazed We Bought a Zoo isn’t just called Solsbury Hill.
In a world where shitty horror movie trailers exist, please bring on more We Bought a Zoo trailers.
Chris really liked we bought a zoo…thinks Damon should get oscar
We Bought a Zoo – Movie Review by Chris Stuckmann
5 minute review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eX4XCJXBMU&feature=channel_video_title
good grief, this dripping disdain for the ‘zoo’ trailer prompted me to watch it, expecting something positively dreadful… it looks like a lovely little heartwarming family movie with neato animals and decent actors and cracking-wise hayden church in amiable best mate mode and matt damon in earnest, kinda foxy feathered-hair dad mode, rather innocuous, what’s there to hate so much
TINKER TAILOR is a masterful film. Why is no one talking about it anywhere?
Too intellectual? Too subtle? I don’t get it. How can anyone watch the movie and pretend Thomas Alfredson didn’t do a jaw-dropping, oscar-worthy job here?
After the overrated films I’ve seen lately, this one (the one I most wanted to see) surpassed all expectations.
Is there a DP with Alfredson?
I wouldn’t say it’s dreadful leahnz, just a bit too saccharine. The bigger problem it has is that for the feel-good holiday film of the year, it doesn’t have a concept that resonates with people. “Marley and Me” this ain’t.
maybe this is the year that Scarlett Johansson finally gets a dp/30 …all she had to do was be in a movie with Matt Damon.
Damon to Johansson : got 30 minutes to kill off ?
Johansson to Damon : i was going to play with my millions of dollars i got from the Avengers movie
why ?
Damon to Johansson : old dude does movie interviews. you should do one ?
Johansson to Damon : nah i rather play with my millions .
I like Nolte from his Dirty Harry days, but Big Hollywood is for far-right filmgoers who enjoy bashing anyone who wouldn’t vote for Palin. And even then half the commenters there don’t seem to like movies at all.
Zoo’s promo reminds me of October Sky. I’m sure it’s “good” and I’m sure I’ll like it when I see it, but it looks like a boring good. If that makes sense.
It actually should have opened this week. It’s going to get buried.
JKill- You’re right about “The Good Shepherd.” Terrific movie with a solid Damon performance anchoring an epic-scaled film. Still can’t believe it didn’t get more “awards play” than it did (which was basically nada) in 2006.
I wish DeNiro would put all of his creative energies these days into directing. Maybe then we’d be spared the sad spectacle of watching him prostitute himself in dreck like “The Killer Elite” and “New Year’s Eve.”
“Bronx Tale” and (especially) “GS” are both really good movies!
And no, Leah. You didn’t offend me in any way. How is that even possible, lol?
Krillian: What does Nick Nolte have to do with “Dirty Harry”? And what is “Big Hollywood”?
Sanj- Who/what is Chris Stuckmann????
Never heard of this guy before.
He looks like a frat rat living in his mother’s basement.
John Nolte. Used to comment as “Dirty Harry” at Wells’ site, now he’s Editor in chief of bighollywood.breitbart.com
LOL; okay.
I was trying to figure out what Nick Nolte had to do with “Dirty Harry” (the 1971 Don Siegel movie).
And I’ve never heard of that website before.
>Who/what is Chris Stuckmann????
he does lots of movie reviews .
watch more of them and see if you like his review style
Sanj- He seems callow and largely uninformed–like the majority of stuff that passes as “criticism” on the internet today.
His improv skills are commendable, though (I’m guessing he’s not working with a script). Probably was in the “extemporaneous” category on his high school speech time.
….speech TEAM…
movieman – well he is one of hundreds of reviewers on youtube .. they are just as fast as DP doing reviews but in video form …
Chris talks about product placement in this review ..
New Year’s Eve – Movie Review by Chris Stuckmann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJP8ZqBMaFU&feature=channel_video_title
I’d say Damon parallels Tom Cruise more than Jeff Bridges, when Tom Cruise is interested in being Tom Cruise the Actor and not Tom Cruise the Movie Star (i.e. M.I. Series). Damon is definitely more risky than Cruise ever has been. Would Tom Cruise have ever done Stuck On You? Though even Cruise is less Cruise these days. He hasn’t tried to make a guaranteed hit in ages. A third movie in a been there-done-that series like M:I is always risky. And now he’s done a 4th. Dude’s got balls of steel. It’s gotta be the Scientology. Wacka, wacka wacka!
The Cruise parallel isn’t bad, Brack. But Bridges is still the better fit.
While it’s true that Cruise did a brilliant job of micro-managing his career (and working with terrific directors like Scorsese, Stone, P.T. Anderson, Kubrick, Spielberg, et al), his (early) career was a pretty deliberate attempt to make himself into the biggest “movie star” on the planet. And it worked pretty well until the craziness set in.
Damon, like Bridges, is more about the work/craft, the journey, accruing a prodigious body of work they can be proud of.
And unlike Cruise, you don’t ever see Damon or Bridges sweat. Its their effortlessness which makes it easy to underrate them. (A problem Damon currently has, and which plagued Bridges during his younger days when contemporaries like DeNiro, Pacino and Hoffman made their thesping a lot more, uh, visible.)
Brack, are you being sarcastic when you say that continuing to make M:I sequels is risky? Because that seems like the opposite of risky to me. M:I 2 made $546 million worldwide, and it’s not like it was a logical conclusion to a story that had been set up in the first film. It was a very successful franchise movie, a sequel was inevitable. M:I 3 is the lowest grosser in the franchise, but it still made just short of $400 million worldwide. Looks pretty safe to me.
Does anyone else think this whole Damon = Bridges thing Movieman has got going is kinda loco? I just don’t see it at all. The argument is that they both don’t sweat?! Please call us when anyone on this planet can also see Damon as a Baker Boy.
“And no, Leah. You didn’t offend me in any way”
just quickly movieman: glad to hear it, so easy to misinterpret things on a blog (is ‘a thing called love’/riv/bogdanovich’ a no-go zone for you? you don’t have to say of course, i just thought the piece was sweet because of how fondly bogdanovich speaks of his time with river and samantha’s thoughts about working with her long lost love during what must have been his lowest point physically. i have mixed feelings about the movie itself but it’s kinda weirdly grown on me over the years, and a few of the songs – ‘until now’ in particular as sung by river – are haunting; one of the most intriguing aspects of the movie for me is the physical chemistry and palpable sweetness & desire between river and sam as they fell in love in real life while filming, it’s a bittersweet, sometimes hard to watch time capsule for me, one i think i’ve come to terms with but it’s taken a long time – and the director’s cut is an improvement)
I actually own a dvd copy of “Thing Called Love,” Leah.
It’s a very nice film, though not one of my personal favorite Bogdanovich’s (or Phoenix’s).
sdp – MI3 came out 6 years after MI2, which is a pretty long time, plenty for people not to care as much. The fact that MI3 made about $150m less than MI2 showed that there was a huge dip in interest, and continuing with the franchise not the smartest of ideas if the idea is only to break even. This one is coming out 5 years after the last one won’t help its cause either.
These days, is $397 million worldwide all that great for part 3 of a franchise that cost $150 million to produce? What’s worldwide P&A for something like MI3, $100 million or more? Seems OK but far from great, and even with good reviews, MI4 is going to have a tough time making more than MI3 considering the stiff competition. And do people really care all that much about the series anymore?