Weekend Estimate by Klady: The Dregs Of December
There’s not much more to say about this weekend, is there?
Young Adult slightly won the $ battle with Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, but Tinker won the per screen war handily, which suggests to me that the base for Tinker – adults in big cities – is more focused and interested than the base for YA at this point. The result is pleasant for both films and where it leads is not realistically predictable at this point.
I have no idea what The Adventures of Tintin is doing in limited release. Odd to me. But I guess they feel compelled to spread the news that Tinitin exists. Next week, yet another Paramount movie will debut in a truncated release, as M:I Ghost Protocol does a week of IMAX only before going wide. With Hugo, that makes four in a row. Someone called Steven Zeitchik!
The awards season is looking a little less lustrous as many of the leading titles are doing mediocre business at the box office. Will this be a game changer for the field as The Academy starts voting after the new year (like sane people)? Hard to say. There is an “inside the bubble” world and and an “outside the bubble” world. And there is the anticipatory notion that nominations will drive business. But if I were Focus, for instance, I would be very excited about promoting the success of Tinker in limited, whereas if I were Searchlight or The Weinsteins, I’d be a little anxious about how The Descendants and The Artist are playing. War Horse could be the nuke of the season, as it seems likely to be the biggest commercial hit in the field this season. And Paramount, which is still revved for Hugo, should keep pushing hard. Getting the film up to $70m or more by the end of the holidays is now looking like it could count for a lot.
“I Melt With You” is a loathsome specimen. I can’t believe Magnolia even bothered giving it a theatrical release.
****SPOILER ALERT****
It’s like “The Hangover” if the Wolf Pack had all taken turns committing suicide through the course of the film.
(Come to think of it, I might have liked that “Hangover” better. Heck, I would have been satisfied if Bradley Cooper had been the only one who offed himself before the end credits.)
The worst debut or wide expansion for a movie on this weekend since 1996(!!!!!). Enough said.
Warner Bros. has had a disastrous fall so far…”Harold and Kumar 3″ is their most profitable movie since September. Thank god for “Sherlock 2” eh?
Tintin is opening in Quebec only this weekend DP.
I agree with your quote about War Horse being the biggest commercial hit in the field this season. I haven’t seen the film (i have to wait until January in Greece) but the first time i saw the trailer i didn’t thought -like many- “Oscar bait”, i thought “Huge box office hit”.
So are we just dismissing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Oscar nom potential now? Seriously, are we?
I think THE DESCENDANTS is clearly performing well. I’m confused on how anyone could say differently. It will be in theaters, with its probable awards boost, until Feb., and it is at close to 25 million without hitting 1,000 screens yet.
TINTIN is getting an early release in Quebec, which as a French-speaking nation, is already very familiar with and fond of the source material.
“So are we just dismissing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Oscar nom potential now? Seriously, are we?”
Isn’t that the thing about potential once a super-anticipated literary adaptation hits the screen? Doesn’t this happen like EVERY December since god knows when?
Doesn’t movieman’s description of I MELT WITH YOU also kind apply to VERY BAD THINGS? Wasn’t Jeremy Piven in that one too?
Even before I heard about the release of TINTIN a friend on Twitter who’s visiting Montreal happened to tweet yesterday about how excited she was to see it in French. She liked the movie.
Is it subtitled or dubbed in French in Quebec?
Now that I think about it: do they ever reanimate the lip sync for different languages? The only dubbed animation I’ve ever seen was Princess Mononoke, and I remember reading that they wrote the English script to match the existing animation. Everything else I’ve seen has been either native English or subtitled.
This is completely based on what my friend said on Twitter, but she said that it was in French with no subtitles.
French speaking province, not nation.
Oh shit. Arisp just pissed off Quebec. Prepare for fist shaking and possible use of bread as weapons!
Arise did no such thing. Speaking from Vancouver, BC, Quebec is a province. Ask my six year old kid.
Bulldog, are you really going to act as if the Quebecois want to be a part of your country? Really? They are like Canada’s Flemish!
They don’t want to be part of the country; they only do when it suits them (you know, all the FREE things they get being part of Canada, oh, and the free yearly money HANDOUTS). They’re a whiny, deluded bunch of halfwits, their “cause” meant something in the SEVENTIES, not anymore. They’re part of a country that is voted, year in and year out, as one of the “best” in the world (whatever criteria that entails, don’t ask me I haven’t lived there in over 10 years, but still). And despite all the shit they’ve caused for 40 years, they’re still in the country. I worked many years with the hard-core Quebecer union guys when I worked in film production up there, and they are friendly and generous by nature, but their “dream” is a fraud.
To add insult to injury, “New Year’s Eve” performed pretty badly overseas as well….
“Puss in Boots” did a killing though…another 45 million.
im usually not ringing the gong of bad box office, but man these last few weeks have been abysmal. i can’t remember a louder proclamation of “NO ONE CARES” from the movie going public. The stuff being hailed by critics isn’t doing great. The good worth of mouth films aren’t doing great. The terrible, star filled pieces of junk aren’t doing great.
It really feels like the general movie going public has rebuked the vast majority of movies released into the marketplace for the last few months.
Im looking forward to SH: Game of Shadows, and normally i would think Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 would be a box office success, but at this point who knows?
When everything across the board (other than twilight) is eating it at the box office, i have to wonder what turns this around?
The movies are costing more, and so many seem to lack mainstream crossover appeal. Maybe we’re just so stuck on North American box office as a metric for success that we need to stop concerning ourselves with what has become but a piece to a much larger puzzle.
It is funny how people seem to be staying away from these movies.
TinTin at 70 screens in Canada pulled in 25% of Hugo’s weekly take despite being at 2530 fewer theaters.
And what has happened to David Gordon Green? Man. Between Your Highness and The Sitter he has really, really tarnished his brand. I’m having a hard time drawing a line from George Washington to The Sitter. Can we add him to the list of filmmakers who are getting progressively worse.
Maybe we could call it the Kevin Smith Award for Wasted Potential.
I’m a little shocked at what has happened to David Gordon Green as well. I thought Undertow was pure brilliance and Snow Angels was as dark as a black hole. It seems like something clicked after making something so serious. He just likes to make stoner comedies I guess. Nothing inherently wrong with that but after showing so much potential it leaves you scratching your head. I am fan of Your Highness but the Sitter does not look good. It’s a shame, he was my favorite young American director.
Just saw “New Year’s Eve” and it is like a WARM BATH.
Everybody needs to RAISE THEIR GLASS. The main thing the trailers don’t make clear, NYE = BELUSHI ALERT. Why he’s not in the cast roll-call is a mystery, since everybody loves a little Belushi.
Also, Alyssa Milano apparently is finding work as a movie extra now. And Til Schweiger wears a really stupid hat. It lacked the propulsive beauty of Valentine’s Day, but is still a fun time at the movies… De Niro was in good form, too… I wish everybody would stop ragging on him. Though his BRING-DOWN-THE-HOUSE trailer-capper line isn’t in the movie… I even waited through the credits hoping it’d be there as a tag.
Was a little surprised to see who Duhamel’s “mystery” flame was. GOD DUHAMEL should be the biggest star in American movies. He RULES. RULES. LOOK AT HIM.
Lex, I always respect your die-hard movie going ethos. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to take NYE “for free” on HBO because I found VD so painful. Although, I am kind of delighted that Belushi is in it, which is quite the surprise.
I just got back from MELANCHOLIA, and while I’m not sure I’m prepared to say anything that articulate about it, it was strong, wild, beautiful, and surprisingly (at least to me, anyway) emotional stuff. Dunst does amazing work in it, and it’s a thematic and visual tour de force for LVT.
….just wanted to throw this out there after thinking about “Young Adult” for a few days:
For me, “YA”–and Reitman’s seemingly invisible, yet effortlessly elegant directorial touch–echoed the great work Michael Ritchie did back in the early-to-mid ’70s.
Tough, unsentimental, astringently acerbic, sometimes uproariously funny and packed to the gills with memorable character performances.
Good Gawd, Lex. Really??? The only moments in “NYE” that I didn’t find punishingly cruel were the bits with Pfeiffer and Efron which I found surprisingly charming, even touching. The rest made “VD” look like the greatest thing that happened to H’wood rom-coms since Meg Ryan met Tom Hanks.
You’re so right about “Melancholia,” JKill. No film this year startled, amazed, delighted and, yes, moved me as much.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed until Oscar nomination announcement day that Dunst gets a Best Actress nod for what was the single best performance I saw all year. (And yes: that includes the elder Korean lady from “Poetry.”)
Nowhere else to post this but…the Boardwalk Empire finale…wow. That’s all I can say. Im speechless. I can’t artculate at this time how much I disagree with that decision. It was ballsy. I’ll give Terence Winter that. I’m seroiously contemplating if I want to continue with the show.
(Contains SPOILERS.)
Yeah, I definitely feel your pain/consternation, Monco.
Never saw THAT coming.
But I think what pissed me off the most****SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE “BOARDWALK EMPIRE” SEASON FINALE YET****
was what Margaret does with that land deed in the final scene. (Aurgghhh!!!!!!!!!!!)
And after the offing of Sean Bean in the first season of “Game of Thrones,” maybe it’s becoming an “HBO Thing” to kill popular lead characters in their hour-long dramatic series’.
JKill, it’s really only one scene of the Belush, so it’d fall under the “cameo” category, but it still brought a smile to my face.
FWIW, I still did like Valentine’s Day a lot better… NYE falls into that awesome/bad realm for me where deep down I know it’s kind of terrible and a waste of everybody’s talent… but I like peppy music and good-looking people falling in love and celebrity cameos– also, with all the Oscar murk and gloom around, it seemed kind of refreshing to just see a big dumb movie I didn’t have much investment in.
Movieman and Monco…
Yeah, I’m actually angry at both Nucky and Margaret, which I don’t think was the idea.
Wait… LUCK premiered tonight on HBO?? WTF?
Helluva way to close a season, huh, Rob?
Turning the audience against the two most likable (remaining) characters doesn’t seem especially prudent.
Damn.
It’s a “sneak preview” of the pilot episode, Arisp.
They’ll surely be repeating it ad nauseam once the show has its actual premiere in January.
watched Cat Run 2011 … super fun action comedy
Janet McTeer is awesome in this .
trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWAmkBBFVDY
“The Québécois nation motion was a parliamentary motion tabled by Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper on Wednesday, November 22, 2006[1] and approved by the Canadian House of Commons on Monday, November 27, 2006.[2] The English motion read:
“That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.”[3]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_nation_motion
new stuff on tv.
luck and bag of bones on tv …
why hasn’t DP reviewed these yet ?
one has James Bond and the other has the dude from Rainman movie . this should be on dp/30 emmywatch
you movie critics have lost your minds …
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards – Best Picture
“The Tree of Life”
Monco, that’s the road he went down, and Nucky paid by losing his land. I just wish we could have a time skip next year for obvious reasons.
Going back to David Gordon Green for a moment: anghus, are you serious, saying that he’s “tarnished his brand”? Of course, I know what you mean: his name is no longer synonymous with beautiful Malick-ish indies among the movie equivalent of people who complain about rock bands selling out by gaining any kind of an audience.
But the idea that DGG’s $200,000-grossing indie movies constituted a “brand” that he would be wise to maintain seems a little myopic. I’m fascinated by all of the tut-tutting of critics and film fans about this kind of thing, as if (a.) three broad comedies are indicative that he will never make another kind of movie again, just as apparently four indie dramas were supposed to signal that he’d never make anything funny, (b.) DGG’s comedies are awful when they’re actually pretty interesting, visually distinctive, and sincere, and (c.) his career COULD somehow have continued indefinitely without even a mini, indie-sized hit.
Don’t get me wrong: I ADORE Green’s earlier movies. Undertow was on my ten-best list for 2004 (massively underrated movie) and Snow Angels topped my list in 2008 (ditto). I would never say Your Highness, say, is better than those. But all three of his comedies (mainly Pineapple, but the other two to some extent) are worthwhile, and I bet most of you didn’t even bother to see The Sitter.
I wrote a bit about this in my Sitter review: http://bit.ly/sZUEYE — it’s definitely a movie that feels like it’s been cut down to the bone (I didn’t even realize it was 80ish minutes when I saw it, but it definitely felt truncated), but it’s consistently amusing and, like DGG’s other two comedies, surprisingly sweet-natured. And it’s not a stoner movie at all. Even Your Highness, for all of the pot references at the outset and in the title, is more, as they say on the DVD commentary, a movie FOR stoners (due to its genre) than a movie ABOUT stoners.
In any case, DGG is apparently doing more of a sci-fi dramedy for his next movie, and sure, I hope it’s even better than his comedies and in the quality ballpark as Snow Angels and Undertow, but if you make seven movies over the course of eleven years or so, it’s fine to switch it up and maybe try different genres for different periods.
Isn’t DGG still working on the Suspiria remake, too? Or is that one officially dead now? Undertow and Snow Angels are good, but my favorite DGG is All the Real Girls. Your Highness and The Sitter look like decent Saturday night home viewing when not much else is on.
Wife and I saw J. Edgar over the weekend. It’s pretty dry and slow, but we really liked it all the same. He was such a fascinating man. I’m not sure any movie could ever really do him justice. The greatest hits approach is understandable for a 140-minute movie, but you feel like a whole lot is left out when it’s over. Leo is good, as is his makeup. Hammer’s makeup, yeah, not as good. Great cast too, full of many actors it’s always nice to see: Denis O’Hare, Stephen Root, Zach Grenier, etc. And I can’t remember the last time I saw Josh Hamilton in something. Anyway, it’s certainly flawed and not among Eastwood’s best, but it’s still a solid B+. Kept me engaged throughout.
What’s interest in MI: Ghost Protocol like? I like Brad Bird and I want to see it (though not nearly as much as I want to see, say, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), but are general audiences really clamoring for another Mission: Impossible movie? You’ve got Sherlock Holmes 2 a few days before it, and then a ton of competition on the 23rd. Are teen boys really psyched to see it? Seems like it’s going to disappoint.
Paul D, I definitely feel like Sherlock Holmes is far more the franchise du jour than Mission Impossible… I feel like tons of women are clamoring to see the next Sherlock but not so much with Cruise/MI. Personally, though, I’m way more excited for MI (bought IMAX tickets for Friday already), because of Bird, and because the MI movies are pretty awesome in general. Well, not the second one; I just rewatched all three, and the second was actually worse than I remembered (I enjoyed it at the time, though not as much as the first). But the first and third are sleek, well-made, fun spy movies. In terms of pure fun movies, there’s nothing I’m looking forward to as much as MI4. And for what it’s worth, ten or so of my friends were down with buying tickets way ahead of time, which would put it about on par with any number of big summer movies. But my friend circle (nerdy, NYC-based, largely in publishing and related fields) are probably not representative of the populace at large.
I agree about J. Edgar — dry, slow, not Eastwood’s best… and yet also pretty interesting and quite well-acted, even oddly moving at times.
Oh, and Josh Hamilton is in Margaret… as a stage actor (similar size of bit part, really). I think he does a lot of theater in NYC, which I assume is how he knows Lonergan in the first place.
I’d heard someone refer to Suspiria as DGG’s “next” but I don’t think that’s correct — I think Q, this time-travel/love-story thing, will come in before. Haven’t heard much about Suspiria since Natalie Portman dropped out. Seems just as well to me; I’d rather not see him remaking anything, especially a movie that most people seem to agree is already pretty great.
Yeah I imagine because of Bird a lot of film nerds are looking forward to MI:GP, but my sense is that general audiences are not really all that excited about part 4. I think it’s got a real uphill battle ahead of it and would be surprised if it makes more money than MI:3. I really want to see Margaret but will have to wait for DVD. And yeah I’m fine with DGG not remaking Suspiria. Would rather see him make something like Q.
DGG is great. Some people would have him making the same movies for the rest of his life, but there’s more to a varied and interesting career than that. I like most of his stuff, I like his transition to comedies. Pineapple and Your Highness are really great without actually BEING great, if you know what I mean.
And Your Highness is DEFINITELY a stoner movie. Pretty much every character except the romantic leads are shown doing drugs, and even the hero gets talked into smoking a bong.
Perm, I don’t know, I was surprised by how few of the jokes actually revolve around weed. If it were a Cheech & Chong movie, it would’ve climaxed with McBride smoking up and becoming super-strong and awesome or something.
I guess it depends on what you’d consider a weed comedy…like Cheech and Chong were the undisputed kings, but that was also the only joke they had. But in Your Highness there still seemed to be a weed joke or reference every 5-10 minutes, and then of course you had what was my favorite part, where they’re chasing the sheep and smoking while the romantic music plays. A fucking troll gets a close up smoking his pipe, that’s pretty hilarious.
Why Cheech and Chong suck while Your Highness doesn’t is that there’s a ton of other humor as well…but it’s still a stoner comedy to me.
Anyone notice the “New Years Eve” actual was 700k lower than the estimate…so only 13.0 million for the weekend. Oof.