By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com

Friday Box Office Estimates

Posted Saturday, January 18th, 2014 - Comments Off on Friday Box Office Estimates
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Remember a month ago, when The Best Man Holiday opened to $10.7 million, headline writers were shocked. Last weekend, when Lone Survivor expanded with a $14.4 million Friday, headline writers were shocked. Today, with Ride Along Opening to a $14.4m Friday, will they be shocked yet again?

Yes, Virginia Journalist, there are people who don’t see the world through “our” eyes. Those same people tend to be portly represented in tracking, making traditional reads of the market research tool look foolish on days like today. Obviously, Universal’s marketing department understands this better than the media, having “surprised” the media two weekends in a row.

Meanwhile, Paramount marketing, which tends to being the smartest out-of-the-box studio thinkers in town, failed to sell the straight-forward action drama based Ina hit franchise. I kinda smelled trouble when I started seeing the character outdoor campaign was heavier on every character other than the lead of the film. Bad sign.

I have talked to Team Par about Wolf, but I haven’t really inquired about Jack Ryan. But the willingness to push the film into January, the lack of trying to sell Chris Pine, the minimal push on Ryan and his young movie star wannabe Mr & Mrs Smith wife, etc, seem to suggest that there was a lack of enthusiasm about the film.

American Hustle got a clear Oscar nominations bump. Wolf got a small one. Her, not much of one. Wolf really needs a reimagined 2nd push. There is more money there. America needs a poke.

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Posted in MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Friday Box Office Estimates

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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