The Hot Blog Archive for January, 2009
Weekend Estimates by Klady
11:55a corrected chart for cut off figures
Not too much to add.
The Ben Button Friday cume was off, so that’s why that number doesn’t match the Friday chart that was posted yesterday.
It looks like this year’s December films will match 2001 and 2003’s record for 4 films released that month cracking $100 million before Oscar nods. On the other hand, it will be the first year since 1999 that there will not be a single $200 million+ film coming out of December.
Sundance First Look – The Winning Season
Friday Estimates by Klady
Gran Torino = Commercial Movie. Is anyone actually surprised?
I still think they should have opened wide earlier. They would have eaten into Button a little over the holidays, but I feel their final gross domestically would have been at least $20 million higher.
Bride Wars may be a little dissapointing becuase of the Anne Hathaway advantage, but it will land right about where 27 Dresses did for Fox last year.
The Unborn is a decent horror/thriller opening, likely to switch spots with the brides by the end of the weekend.
The holdover drops were to be expected coming off the holiday.
BYOB – Back to Work
Sorry… runing back to work.
We have a screening of Doubt tonight and we’re shooting a DP/30 with Viola Davis… which thrills me, as I am a get admirer of her work.
Have at it. Be kind to one another and fight the arguments and not the people, PLEASE.
DP/30 – Darren Aronofsky & Mickey Rourke (in order of appearance)
This was the first interview they did after the North American premiere of The Wrestler in Toronto in September.
Back in Black
Sorry I have been M.I.A… been on the run for the last 26 hours or so…
While running, the news came in that Ella Taylor had been fired from LA Weekly.
The analogy is, on some level, absurd, but please try to stick with me…
This is all a bit like living in NY in the 80s as the AIDS epidemic came through.
Every day, it seems you “lose” another friend or a colleague or a friend of a friend.
But what really struck me as analogous is the randomness of it all. It’s not random in the organizations. Scott Foundas was senior to Ella at LA Weekly and has taken on a massive amount of responsibility in that job for overseeing more and more of the site’s film space, as well as special events like the critics’ poll, as well as his own work as a a critic and as a feature writer. Between the two, they picked the workhorse, which is not meant to be a judgment of standards for either person as a writer or critic.
Of course, film critics are not dying of AIDS. So please, don
Sometimes A Great Letter
There are moments, a few times a year, that clear more up than expected.
The EXCLUSIVE letter from Lloyd Levin, one producer of Watchmen, written at the behest of Drew for the new HitFix, is one of these moments.
(Note, 3:45p – I want to be completely clear. The typo that made Lloyd Levin a producer of HitFix, as opposed to Watchmen, was 100% an error of my fingers and I apologize that it was out there, even for 5 minutes.)
Let me state from the top
DP/30 – Peter Morgan – Writer of Frost/Nixon
The video, after the jump…
DGA Nods… As Expected
Milk
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire
Soderbergh screwed.
(Correction for dumb error uncaught: 3:15p)
DGA Website Note…
… For Those Who Think Oscar Doesn’t Matter To Other Awards Givers
Great Moments In Marketing!
Has anyone else noticed how the billboards for Underworld 3 do a really, really good job of not letting anyone know that Rhona Mitra is stepping in for Kate Beckinsale?
And have you seen the Defiance ads that are, essentially, “James Bond takes on the Nazis!!!” It’s a campaign stolen right away from Valkyrie. Practically a sequel. And how about that “one man” thing, when in fact, it’s a film about four brothers and particularly heavy on two of them. And forget about the Jewish thing.
I guess they couldn’t have Daniel Craig say, “Bond, Jew Bond.”
The Watchmen Thing… Again
So now it’s on, according to Variety, to a “federal judge decid(ing) the case” on Inauguration Day.
I assume this means a different federal judge than the one who has already decided in Fox’s favor, right?
But more unclear, for me, is Variety’s ongoing mishandling of the actual assertions in the case.
Warner Bros has NOT “denied Fox’s assertions.” They have disagreed with Fox’s conclusions based on their assertions. And in that is the entire case.
As I wrote before, according to the Judge’s last finding, WB agrees that all of these agreements were in place and that they were aware of all of them. It is WB’s position that the turnaround agreement between Fox and Larry Gordon/Largo for Watchmen was superfluous – even though it is the most current document – because they decided that the quitclaim agreement between Fox and Largo had already released the project from any entanglements with Fox.
I kinda wonder how many of Gordon
DP/30 – Rosemarie DeWitt – Rachel Getting Married
The interview… after the jump…
DP/30 in Toronto
Have you ever found a box in your home with a bunch of photos that you adored, but had almost forgot existed… you know, that rush of recognition and excitement that comes with both the experience of looking at them and the pleasure of re-discovery.
That is the experience that I am having today with a series of interviews that we did in Toronto, at the festival in September. The production company I was working with has been sitting on these, anticipating the nominations to come. But the balance of patience and internet NOW pressure has moved in the internet’s direction, so I will be unleashing them on the world this week. I hope you enjoy them… and have some free hours to spend watching (not in contractual order):
Rosemarie DeWitt
Jon Demme & Amy Lumet
Mickey Rourke & Darren Aronofsky
Charlie Kaufman
Fernando Meirelles
Mike Leigh & Sally Hawkins
A couple of other interviews turned out to be for films opening later this year. So I’ll keep biding my time on those, but here is a little peek…
