The Hot Blog Archive for May, 2009
Friday Estimates by Klady – Demons
Those who compared Angels & Demons to Narnia: Prince Caspian are, on the box office face of it, pretty close… A&D will actually launch a little smaller… and interestingly, the first day vs first day drop for Narnia is not nearly as severe. Day One of DaVinci was a reported $28.6m… Narnia 1, 23m vs Narnia 2’s $19.4m. In other math, A&D is 42% off… N2 was off 16%.
Still, if the entire run of A&D ends up being off 42% worldwide, they still have a $450 million grosser… which looks like it would be the high grosser of the first three mega-movies of this summer.
That may not happen. But it might.
The irony for all of those who have puffed up the false notions that critics drove Star Trek‘s better-than-originally-expected opening is that DaVinci was slaughtered by the critics and the reviews for A&D have been much gentler, even when negative, but generally speaking, not terrible. It seems to be a better movie.
Speaking of Star Trek, the 61% drop isn’t terrible or unexpected, though the question of what the drop is vs the real Friday numbers, as opposed to the Thursday night/Friday numbers remains a bit of a blur. Either way, it will even out, putting the drop in the low-to-mid 50s by weekend’s end, putting the movie just under $140 million. That would be “The Star Trek Effect.”
This is a reminder, yet again, of how important marketing is to the box office, even up against word of mouth. Trek does, in my experience, have Iron Man-like word-of-mouth, though perhaps with less specific enthusiasm (as in “Downey is God”… I don’t really hear a single focused repeated notion of why Trek works… just that people really have a good time and so often, that they were not Trek fans.) But it is really really really hard to change a made up mind when it comes to selling a movie ticket… especially in summer, where The Next One is coming every single weekend. Trek is certainly getting some good w-o-m money in this weekend, but by next weekend, T4 will be all the buzz… and if someone who had no intention of buying Trek tix gets to next weekend thinking, “I hear good things about Trek… maybe I WILL go,” you are then up against, “But T4 is hot… all those friends who rushed to see Trek on opening weekend are going to T4 this weekend… if I want a big action movie, why go back to Trek when I like the Terminator franchise more… etc.”
The extra weekend that Paramount marketers had last summer for IM to strengthen its legs before Indiana Jones, combined with the singular kind of focus on Downey, was worth, it seems to me, at least $50 million.
Trek probably has around $85 million in it after this weekend… could be $10 million higher or lower. That’s a win vs expectations, if not profits, for Paramount. The only problem with the Batman Begins theory, however, is that Nolan’s second movie stunk of being much bigger and better than the relaunch. Can Trek be any bigger than this one under the director of JJ Abrams?
The Brothers Bloom is pretty much dead, given that on 4 screens, it is opening to the same per-screen as Summer Hours on 2… even with a marketing budget about 10 times bigger. (Still not massive… but much, much bigger.)
DP/30 – Sasha Grey, The Girlfriend Experience
Here is a pull from the interview…
And the ful interview is after the jump…
Soderbergh On TGE & More
Steven Soderbergh does not want to be on the cover of People Magazine.
Actually, on the occasion of my second DP/30 video interview with Steven that was canceled less than 24 hours before it was scheduled, I asked him what the problem was. The first problem seems to be that he doesn’t get asked about the shoot far enough ahead of time to cancel sooner. But more importantly, he doesn’t want to be a famous face. He explained that the last few times he did press for movies in which his face was photographed and shown all over the place, he went months without anonymity… which didn’t serve him well.
As you read about how he shot The Girlfriend Experience on the streets of NY, you completely get that. As a guy in a ballcap, glasses, and an amazing camera that he doesn’t need to light for much, he can run and gun all over town. As a celebrity director on the streets of the city, he would be endlessly pestered. Makes sense.
As for that camera, the Red, you can feel his excitement as he talks about it and its future iterations. Soderbergh’s alter ego, Peter Andrews, has become one of the world’s leading edge cinematographers. “It’s almost as if they designed the camera for me,” he says of the Red. And he expects the freedom and high quality imagery that this camera gives to only improve and improve and improve. Forget about film stock… they aren’t even shooting tape anymore. It’s digital cards all the way… stacked up as the work progresses.
Another thing Soderbergh says he has chosen not to do for years now… read reviews. He speaks of the Erin Brockovich/Traffic year and that it could “only go down from there.” He acknowledges that he still has a sense of how things are running and what some of the key reviewers are saying, given that he is quite hands on in dealing with distribution. For instance, he said that had Todd McCarthy not declared jihad on Che’ at Cannes last year, the sale would have been done during the festival and probably with more money involved.
That said, he appreciates the effort IFC made in the release… though he is still frustrated by having to speed up the roll-out, after a very, very successful road show playing the entire film in one 4.5 hour block with intermission, not because IFC or he wanted to, but because there was a contractual obligation to do so in one of the funding contracts. In fact, the greatest success for the picture, which will make good money for IFC, was the roadshow version… the whole thing. That was, as he puts it, “the clutter breaker.” But the requirement that they jump to 25 markets in January, he feels (and I agree, though before this chat I wasn’t sure how exactly how and why this fall off had happened) killed their momentum.
It seems that at 46, Steven Soderbergh knows exactly where he wants to be
Anvil Rocks The NuArt LIVE!!!
Who else could bring out Steve-O and Charlize Tehron to the same event on a weekday at Midnight in Los Angeles?
Anvil: The Story of Anvil did it on Wednesday night and the group was kind enough to let me videotape their live performance after the screening. (The DP/30 with the director and producer is here.)
The MGM Scam
Why do people keep pretending that MGM is a studio with a library instead of a library using the appearance of being a studio to increase the value of its library?
Kirk Kerkorian and Chris McGurk brilliantly danced in and out of the studio, spending just enough on production (the lipstick) to sell the studio/library (the pig). They got out just in time.
The Sony deal was absurd, not working terribly well for Sony or for the MGM Dentists. But it got Kerkorian out.
This left Harry Sloan with a library of diminishing value and an ego the size of the great outdoors. The first scam was becoming a distribution arm for indies, using the Showtime deal as bait. And that worked for as long as the Showtime deal lasted… well, it worked for MGM, since every single company they worked with as a distributor suffered under the deal… and all but one or two have basically gone out of business.
In the post-Showtime era, out came the old McGurk strategy (and mixing a Disney and an old MGM metaphor)… click your heels together 3 times and say,”We are a real studio… We are a real studio.” And they might have gotten the company sold by now were it not for the burst bubble of the economy.
Mary Parent is great. So are a lot of the other people the studio hired to look legit. But it’s been a facade on a burning building since Kerkorian was bought out… and even before then, it was a slow burning ember for decades.
MGM/UA is not a studio. It is an asset. And right now, like Lionsgate, it is an asset that no one can afford to buy. No matter how many times however many people spin it… it is what it is.
The Morning In Tetro
So Coppola’s new movie played this morning in the Cannes death slot… first film to go before the firing squad.
I have to run and don’t have time to compile reviews right now, but it is interesting that they rejected the film from the competition then stuck it in the worst possible slot, opening Director’s Fortnight. At Sundance, everything looks better over the first weekend. At Cannes, everything looks better after the first weekend… and the first film in the water – UP really doesn’t count – is lamost always shark food.
I look forward to seeing the film myself… and am likely to pretty much reject every review out of Cannes, though there are a few that will, as the best critics do, inform me in a valuable away, though no necessarily in a conclusive way.
The Nine Trailer
The trailer for Rob Marshall’s Nine hit the web yesterday.
Mixed feelings. Some beautiful images. It looks like all the musical numbers are on a stage, more telling than showing. But undeniably pretty.
Hopeful.
Cannes Gossipy
Who made Variety pull their Tetro review this afternoon?
The review went up at about 12:45p pdt. The movie, however, doesn’t screen until tomorrow morning in Cannes… at 1am pdt.
Todd McCarthy, privileged with a look, slammed the new Coppola film in his embargo breaker, as in: “The angst-ridden treatment of Oedipal issues makes the picture play out like a passably talented imitation of O’Neill, Williams, Miller and Inge, and thus it feels like the pale product of an over-tilled field.”
Of course, Todd being wrong about a movie at Cannes is nothing new. He couldn’t have been much more wrong about Che’ last year. On the other hand, the film wasn’t invited into competition. So… who knows?
Watch for his slam and a parade of others late tonight in L.A.
Some Good Advice From Dow Jones
Online Activities
The use of social and business networking sites by reporters and editors of the Journal, Newswires and MarketWatch is becoming more commonplace. These ground rules should guide all news employees’ actions online, whether on Dow Jones sites or in social-networking, e-mail, personal blogs, or other sites outside Dow Jones.
* Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you’re acting on behalf of your Dow Jones publication or service. When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a reporter for the Journal, Newswires or MarketWatch and be tonally neutral in your questions.
* Base all comments posted in your role as a Dow Jones employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.
* Don’t recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work.
* Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.
* Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
* Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.
* Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage.
* Don’t engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.
* Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual on Dow Jones sites. Phrases such as “Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y…” are acceptable while counseling a reader “You should choose X…” is not. Giving generalized advice is the best approach.
* All postings on Dow Jones sites that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting.
* Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.
Hypocrite Of The Day
CLARIFICATION, Thurs, 3:30p – It has now been made clear by Shana Mokler that her issue with Miss California was NOT gay marriage, but that she felt “like she got basically rewarded for lying.”
Read of her depth on the subject here.
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It is one of the stupidest “news” stories of the year… but it is hard to escape. Miss California and her breeze-freed nipples are everywhere you look.
Today, after the young idiot in question was allowed to keep her crown of horndogs, Shana Moakler resigned her gig as co-executive director of the Miss California USA pageant.
“I cannot with a clear conscious move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it, or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth. I want to be a role model for young women with high hopes of pageantry, but now feel it more important to be a role model for my children. I am sorry and hope I have not let any young supporters down but wish them the best of luck in fulfilling their dreams.”
Apparently, she is objecting to the pageant winner’s stance on gay marriage, not on the acceptance of her nude images, since…
Ms. Moakler, who in her days of being Miss USA, was one of the most stunning natural beauties I have ever seen, took that fame and went on to a parade of relationships with celebrities, from an on-set fling with Billy Idol to the father of some of her kids, Oscar de la Hoya (that one ended in a restraining order and an order to remove her from his home), to her last husband, as seen on cable TV, Travis Barker.
She is a role model… for guys who want to sleep with hot girls who aspire to fame.
She’s not dumb. Not close. But she’s a classic case of Hollywood inspiring women with brains to leave them at the door.
Moving on…
