Weekend Estimates by Expendable Klady
So… Expendables 2 is estimated about 19% behind the original’s opening… an improvement, but still behind.
Paranorman is also about there, 19%, off of Coraline, not a direct prequel, but from the same family.
Sony is fine with Sparkle, which they say cost them $14m.
And The Odd Life of Timothy Green oddly seems not to have had much family bump on Saturday.
In all that excitement, the weekend is UP from last year… which reminds us, yet again, what a worthless stat weekends vs last year really is.
The Dark Knight Rises passed $400m domestic, the 4th fastest to get there (29 days) in history. Can is stretch things out and become the 5th $450m domestic grosser in history?
Ted seems to be running out of steam here, losing a lot of its screens. Still it should pass Saving Private Ryan in the next week to become the #7 all-time R-rated grosser.
Right wing propaganda film 2016: Obama’s America hits $2 million. (Is it limited to movie theaters that allow concealed weapons?)
Amazingly, Robot & Frank did a similar number to Cosmopolis, in spite of the Robert Pattinson blitz… showing once again that Twilight love doesn’t necessarily convert to tickets sold. That said, they were the best of a slow arthouse group. I am amazed how many “what can I see?” questions i get from over 50s people this time of year. The list is too short.
Two quick thoughts…
The expansion of OBAMA’S AMERICA scares me. It’s on pace to be the 3rd biggest non-Michael Moore political documentary ever.
THE CAMPAIGN is doing fine. The movie is going to be the top grossing political satire of all-time, and fell less than ANCHORMAN or TALLADEGA in its second weekend. Hard to imagine the studio was expecting much more.
Didn’t COMPLIANCE open this weekend?
Et- The success of “2016” makes me a little nervous, too.
But “Fahrenheit 9/11” was a doc-blockbuster in 2004 (over $100-million), and Dubyuh still managed to get re-elected.
Maybe they’re bussing in teabaggers.
True movieman. Slate has a great piece on the idiocy of this movie.
Also love how they’re trying to legitimize “2016” in the ads by proclaiming, “…by the producer of ‘Schindler’s List.'” (Drumroll, please.)
One of the film’s six–count ’em–producers was a co-producer on the Spielberg film.
The rest have no feature film credits whatsoever, unless you count the one who was involved with that vile right-wing screed “Expelled” a few years back.
i finally saw To Rome With Love this week. Holy shit was it awful. Going to a Woody Allen film is like panning for gold. Most of the time you end up with a pile of dirt that is pointlessly time consuming. Every once in a blue moon you find that little nugget of gold.
This was not it.
Do people just read Woody Allen scripts and go “that’s brillant!” every single time?
Pretty sure they do not read the scripts. You see the cast, you see the budget, you say yes. It is good business.
In the Woody Allen PBS doc I believe the process was described by his then-producer as (and this is in the early 80s) “leave us two million dollars in a brown paper sack and you’ll have a movie in a year. And you have to be willing to do this three times.”
anghus, you realize that Steven Kaye is probably trying to find your home address now, don’t know?
A couple notable grosses overseas…
*TDKR passed TDK in overseas money. Now just about $900 million worldwide with a couple major openings left, it still has a shot at topping TDK worldwide.
*THE AVENGERS debuted with $18 million(!) in Japan. It’s going to reach $1.5 billion worldwide after all.
It was really nice knowing you Anghus.
There was a knock at my door. When i opened it no one was there. Just a copy of Anything Else and a severed doll’s head.
Whatever success 2016 achieves is meaningless in the greater scheme of things. The only people going to it are looking for validation of their belief that Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim terrorist, and would never vote for him no matter what. (It’s comparable to Ann Coulter’s string of best-sellers: the people who buy them probably don’t even read them, and no one with any decency or intelligence takes what she says or writes seriously.) No one will remember the movie come December, except for those wingers who will forever remain convinced that he’s “not one of us.”
“ParaNorman” is not ANY kind of sequel to “Coraline.” Other than the Laika connection, they have nothing to do with each other.
I came here looking for a well-informed, profane rant on the genius of Tony Scott from one LexG and I will continue to return until I find one.
Oy Tony Scott…. no one can ever understand what some people are going through… unbelievable and sad
Shocked. Just shocked. Depression? Drugs? Some horrible news he couldn’t handle?
I’m not a big fan of his movies. But the man had his staple, no doubt.
A great director of guilty pleasures…TOP GUN, MAN ON FIRE and TRUE ROMANCE are fantastic.
I am nowhere near defending the ludicruous charade that is 2016, but I have read that one of its redeemable areas is that is debunks the birthers. It says he was born in Honolulu. So for all its faults, of which there are many, at least it isn’t guilty of that one.
I’m guessing Scott had cancer or some other terminal disease and decided a quick death on his own terms was preferable to a slow, agonizing one.
That’s what I figured after watching the beginning of the DP30 shot last year but just reposted. I’m guessing lung cancer.
Anghus, To Rome with Love was fantastic. I’m sorry you couldn’t see it the way that I saw it.
2016 has a HUGE amount of grassroots promotion. I listen to 870 AM here in LA, which is all conservative talkers (I don’t agree with them, but liberal station KTLK has been ruined with irrelevant and obnoxious crap like Clark Howard): Prager, Medved, Hewitt, Gallagher, (Dennis) Miller, and every commercial break they advertise it, plus the hosts all do live-reading ads for it, PLUS they’ve all had Dinesh D’Souza on as a guest to promote it.
It would be a major failure of marketing if the base didn’t come out. Also, the marketing is smartly urging conservatives to take their liberal friends and have a discussion afterward.
NPR has to be a better alternative to obnoxious liberal talk radio than a conservative talk radio station. They ran a full-page ad in the NY Times last weekend, which I was kind of surprised to see. Where is it playing now? Middle America and red states? I don’t think it’s playing anywhere in the Milwaukee area.
It just shows how racist the right is that they and the left–who really, really don’t want to offend anyone–have worked together to neuter the guy over the last four years and yet they’re still scared shitless of him.
And I’ll put this here because I don’t want to slime the Top 5 topic, but I’ve repeatedly seen the anecdote about how Scott couldn’t “see” Top Gun until he looked at a Bruce Weber photo and saw “rock ’n’ roll, silver jets in a bright blue sky, good-looking guys”. Only then did he “get” it, after initially wanting to make “Apocalypse Now on an aircraft carrier”.
My question: Wasn’t there a script? Or did it matter so little that it could be rewritten with only the title remaining intact because the director has an entirely new vision?
BTW: I have seen a lot of TV spots for 2016 on — are you ready for this? are you sitting down? — MSNBC.
NPR bores me to death. I’d rather listen to a crazy rightie ranting and raving then that halting, mellow speech style trying to give me something reasoned, considered, and balanced (the exception is John and Ken – I don’t like the way they just yell at everything). I want entertainment when I’m driving.
I guess I’m old fashioned because I find reason and balance enormously entertaining. I don’t find lunatics ranting and raving the least bit entertaining.
Sam: No, TOP GUN had no script. It had a deafening soundtrack, lots of ADD editing, and a super-cute star. And that’s all. Its enormous success resulted in the end of the classically well-made action film (e.g., THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE WILD BUNCH, DIRTY HARRY) and the rise of the assault-on-your-senses-story-be-damned “tentpoles” we have today. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but Scott has to shoulder a fair amount of the blame for what action movies have become now.
Agreed, Cadavra. Scott was even quoted as saying (IIRC) “My brother makes art, I make rock and roll.” He knew it was disposable garbage (yes, rock and roll, that applies to you, too), but unfortunately it was profitable garbage. So thanks a lot, Mr. Scott, for giving us the ride movie; Michael Bay might still be cranking out commercials if not for you. Sigh.
And if the makers of 2016 want to toss cash around, the leftie stations might as well take it since it’s not like the movie’s going to change any minds.
Also, my talk radio criteria are a) be informative, and b) be entertaining, in that order. The TED Radio Hour satisfied the first directive last night by keeping me sitting in my car far too long, and though This American Life usually satisfies the second directive I tend to tune out, literally, whenever they present a short story. It feels like a waste of time.
I know that sounds odd coming from a writer, but I discovered long ago that my interest in other people’s fiction died when I realized I could write my own.
Just in case anyone missed this:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947988?refcatid=31
“I know that sounds odd coming from a writer, but I discovered long ago that my interest in other people’s fiction died when I realized I could write my own.”
One of the most pompous statements I’ve ever read. Way more pompous than odd.
Good review Joe. I’ve always found the idea that white people voted for Obama to not be labeled racist really far-fetched and ridiculous. As Timothy Noah mentioned in Slate right after the 2008 election, “Although Obama beat John McCain in the popular vote by an impressive seven-point margin, McCain beat Obama among white voters by an even more impressive 12-point margin. Obama got 53 percent of the broad electorate to vote for him but only 43 percent of the white electorate.”
I just find it hard to believe that white voters stood in the booth or whatever and thought, “I need to vote Obama so no one thinks I’m racist.”
LexG: Easy, fella. Not saying I disagree with your take on Sam’s comment. But don’t go having an aneurism about it. (Maybe Sam, like Mr. Aiken, misspoke himself.)
Paul: Actually, I have little trouble believing that some people voted for Obama to prove — to themselves more than anyone else — that they’re not racist. I have little trouble believing that some others voted for him because they wanted a chance to make history. (Many of these folks, I suspect, would not have voted for anyone — would have stayed home on Election Day 2008 — had Obama not been in the race, and these are people Team Obama will have to re-energize this year.) But I have no trouble at all believing that many more voted against Obama — not for McCain, but against Obama — because he is black.
Do you know anyone who fessed up to that Joe? Are these people who otherwise would not vote for a Democrat? I guess I can believe that it happened in extraordinarily small numbers, but not for a second do I believe it was anywhere near widespread.
Paul: As my old buddy Johnny Renoir once said: Everyone has his reasons.
Getting back to your review, I remember reading an interview with a conservative filmmaker a few years back. He was talking about documentaries and why there weren’t more conservative documentaries in theaters. He suggested that the right needed better filmmakers, ones capable of making well-produced and professional looking documentaries that people would want to pay to see. Sounds like 2016 aligns with that.
“NPR bores me to death. I’d rather listen to a crazy rightie ranting and raving then that halting, mellow speech style trying to give me something reasoned, considered, and balanced (the exception is John and Ken – I don’t like the way they just yell at everything). I want entertainment when I’m driving.”
And thus, the death of intellegent news.
For the record, Lex was already banned. His IP address changed.
I have no idea what link he was screaming about… though I would bet that it involved ABC News, so I’m not worrying about Ray’s choice, whatever it was.
I remain sad about him. One can only help people who actually want to be helped.
Ah, I had just gone through the page for the third time looking for the Lex post that folks kept referring to. Makes a bit more sense now…
Paul: Actually, I would place Undefeated in that category as well. No joke.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945619/
I have heard that it’s a well-made documentary. And I think the director is the interview I referred to earlier.
Darn, looks like I missed something. Guess it’s time to double-lock the door again.
And sorry, Paul, but I’ve been reading almost nothing but nonfiction for twenty years. I have to practically force myself to read fiction because from the first page I keep getting pulled out of the flow every time I notice odd choices made by the author, choices that could’ve gone in a much better direction.
Some authors’ styles or lack thereof irk me as well. I remember flipping to a random page of Harry Potter to read a few paragraphs and thought “Well, I can see why kids don’t mind this because they don’t know any better. But adults read this, too?”
Needless to say I haven’t bothered to flip through any of Stephenie Meyer’s oeuvre.
(And I’ll be the first to admit that the “literature” I read as a kid consisted almost entirely of movie novelizations, so yes, I started out wallowing in the muck but gradually realized how to pull myself up and out as I grew older and my tastes matured.)