The Hot Blog Archive for March, 2009
Who's Not Watching The….
Have we ever had a movie that has inspired such a load of whining from the fillmakers?
First, it was the completely disingenuous, absurd public letters from two of the producers. Then there was the “it didn’t do as much as expected, but it’s because it’s R rated and it’s long and yadda yadda yadda… blame the box office guessers” whine. Now, a public letter from David Hayter begging geeks to show up for weekend two. I mean…
I have kept my powder dry since Sunday, not wanting to throw reality on an open bonfire. Even on the G4 appearance, I felt no need to slice or dice. But wah wah wah wah wah… if they are going to keep whining publicly, I feel compelled to put them to be without supper.
You want to know how Watchmen is going to do next weekend?
As of day 6, Watchmen is $25 million behind 300. 300 dropped 54% in Weekend Two. If a similar drop occurs, Watchmen will be just $32 million behind 300 after Weekend Two. Of course, at this point, if Watchmen did $180 million domestic, WB would be thrilled.
Here are the weekdays. Watchmen has done better weekdays than any movie yet this year, so it seems terribly unfair to compare the weekdays to summer comic book movies. But here is 300 vs Watchmen, heads up.
You tell me.
BYOB Thursday 3-12=-09
Sunshine Cleaning cleans up… my house.
Another $ign That Disney Gets It
As the internet creates all kinds of user-generated communities around the product output of major corporations, the smart play, it always seems to me, is for the corporations to step up and to create homes for those communities on their own turf, using the insider opportunity as bait.
Of course, these communities need to feel “free” and the management needs to continue to deliver what the communities that might otherwise be on their own want. The first silenced voice is the first person who works tirelessly to tear down what has been built and the entire effort boomerangs.
But with studios now offering little by way of identity that allows movie lovers to really differentiate and with even television networks becoming so interchangeable and DVRable that the meaning of a network is being undermined month by month by month, building community is a very smart play.
Shouldn’t WB and MGM be doing the same with the fanbase that lives for their respective massive libraries? (MGM is doing a pretty good job with their MGM HD channel.) Shouldn’t Viacom be making a major push to brand their studio as the one that takes you from Nickelodeon to MTV to Paramount to Showtime to VH-1 to Nick At Night?
It may seem like the world is jaded sometimes, but people still want to be welcomed into the family
A Very Clever New Webpage
Reid Rosefelt, film guy, has come up with a very clever site called SpeedCine based around the idea of being a one-stop shop for legal online downloading.
For instance, say you want to watch Fatal Attraction RIGHT NOW. You can pull up a page that looks like this…
Everything is linked for your immediate convenience.
It will be interesting to see how the community reacts to this source of completionist information. Will Amazon VOD enjoy competing with free services? Will Hulu feel the need to disallow imdB from posting embeds of their free product?
In other words, does this very clever idea lead to more competition… or less?
I will be really intrigued to see how it plays out with Hollywood.
Are there already sites out there that, say, link to the entire weekly TV schedule so you can pick and choose which free re-runs from the networks you want to watch like you were going through a TV Guide with links?
Mash Ups
Quite a few people have pointed out that they think JJ Abram is trying to steal Star Wars for the new Star Trek…
And this… old… but it’s the first time I’ve seen it and I think it’s pretty danged clever…
DP/30: SXSW '09 – True Adolescents
The three central actors in the film, Mark Duplass, Bret Loehr, Carr Thompson sat down for a chat at the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles on March 6, at 2pm pst.
(Notes: Melissa Leo also co-stars… she was out of town shooting another indie when we shot. AND here is a link to the Humpday interview with Duplass and the entire cast.)
The video interview, in QT, is after the jump…
And you can download this interview and many other DP/30s via iTunes podcast here, offering both the large QuickTime versions and a portable download size in most cases. (We’re working towards ALL cases… and thank you for your patience.)
Sundance Bob Feted By America's Oldest Fest
One has to wonder… Geoff Gilmore leaves Sundance for Tribeca… a few weeks later, notoriously attention-shy Robert Redford is announced as the big honoree at the center of the San Francisco International Film Fest… a festival that while senior and easily superior to Tribeca, has suffered in competing with Tribeca’s fiscal generosity to filmmakers after Tribeca was slammed right on top of SFIFF’s long established dates… hmmmm… sometimes a shiv is just a shiv…
… Through The Eye Of A Recession
When you’re driving along Beverly Blvd and Poinsetta on a weekday afternoon, you don’t really expect to see…
A camel.
Or more so, three camels!
When it comes to partying like it’s 300 BC, we Jews win the prize… even in a recession, no donkey shows for us.
Bruno Goes To Austin
Following the lead of Fox’s huge success with Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, which went to ComicCon and Toronto before release, Universal is hitting their first festival with Bruno this weekend at SXSW in Austin, Tx. (Note: ComicCon ’09 is a few weeks after Bruno hits theaters, so while I expect stunts to follow at Cannes, Tribeca, and maybe even Seattle, this is the first and last Geek-A-Thon available for Universal to exploit.)
And they seem to be aiming for a Bruno-astic riot.
They are having a ticket-free screening of about 22 minutes of footage at the Alamo Draft House this Sunday night, just before one of the festival’s midnight movies. How big a crowd do you think will gather, hoping to get in and if not, hoping to see Bruno do a press stunt before the show?
To quote the studio: “SXSW/Fantastic Festers: First-ever look at BR
DP/30 – The Cake Eaters
Mary Stuart Masterson’s film comes off the fest circuit and into theaters this Friday. The director and her stars, Kristin Stewart and Aaron Stanford sat down for a chat at the Sofitel in Los Angeles on March 5, at 11a.
The video interview, in QT, is after the jump…
And you can download this interview and many other DP/30s via iTunes podcast here, offering both the large QuickTime versions and a portable download size in most cases. (We’re working towards ALL cases… and thank you for your patience.)
SXSW Preview Clip
Josh Brolin channels a certain Dark Knight tryiing to pick up Marley Shelton on a plane…
