Friday Estimates by Klady – Oh Those Mayans

The Day After Tomorrow numbers for Emmerich. Not shocking. Not even interesting. living testament to marketing and people’s willingness to rush out to see the world destroyed by CG.
A Christmas Carol‘s hold is, like many Fri-to-Fri numbers, a little exaggerated, this time for the better. The film played a lot stronger on Saturday that on hysteria Friday (the day the film was tagged, unfairly, as a disappointment forever), so a 37% hold, which is great these days, really won’t be clear until Saturday’s drop is known… late tonight. the film will likely pass the second weekend number on The Santa Clause 2, which went on to to $140m domestic. #4 Christmas-themed movie of all-time is well within range.
Precious is heading to a $35k per number on 174 screens. Still very impressive. The film seems to be using a variation of No Country… a little faster… a little hotter…

Really?

Seriously.
This is part of the plan for The HuffPo to be taken seriously as a journalistic institution?
OMFG.

DP/30: District 9, Pt 1

I had a chance to sit down with the director/co-writer and star of District 9 the other night. We got cut off a bit early, but here is our discussion. And next week, look for an extended chat with Neill, Shartlo, plus the other writer of the film (Terri Tatchell) as well as the man who brought the alien to life from inside the suit (Jason Cope). It’s a fun group,

DP/30: Penelope Cruz – Broken Embraces

The Return Of The Day-N-Date Dummies

It’s a very sad reality of the film industry that shiny objects often distract and amaze grown men in business suits.
Such is the still foolish notion of day-n-date releasing for wide release movies. As I write about in the entry on the MPAA and SOC last week, technology and bad financial times have once again emboldened some to reconsider the worst idea in the history of the movie business… a total collapse of the windows system in the form of all-platform say-n-date release.
Kim Masters gets into the issue with Bill Mechanic (as he did in our DP/30 State of The Union months ago) as he argues against the latest silly push towards day-n-date in some studio quarters.
And yes, Rich Ross and Comcast are the two leaders most likely to fuck it up for everyone.
But no, Sony’s Cloudy stunt has nothing to do with shutting down windows… it’s about trying to sell Blu-ray players, specifically the now $300 PS3, which Sony is losing about $200 on each time they sell one, but which they need to be in the consumer sphere for the long-term health of Bliu-ray as a format.
The math is not very complicated. DVDs didn’t become unpopular. The format matured and the price point became the issue. Even for just $15, a consumer spends at least 3x the cost of a rental to buy a DVD. How many times will they watch anything they buy?
Day-n-Date would not only eviscerate what is left of DVD sell-thru, but it would cannibalize theatrical, where studios generate about $5 for every man, woman, and child who sees a movie in a theater. With 3D, that number jumps to $7.50. No other form of delivery can come close to that spend per person. And given that the pricing on home ent is going the other way, it never will.
The scary thing is that The Industry, faced with a similar choice when DVD sell-thru took off, chose to forfeit what I estimate to be an average of about $10 million in theatrical on a studio release by front-loading and rushing to the DVD revenues. That always seemed a bit crazy. But the cash from DVDs was so overwhelming that there was a certainly unarguable logic to it. That’s changed.
But all-platform day-n-date would surely make a giant splash with the right studio movie… big numbers, right now. And someone is out there saying that the math works so that throwing away $20 million… $30 million on theatrical is worth the cost savings on the release (especially on marketing) and the benefit of sped up cash flow. The long-view problem is that when you start killing off platforms, you lose opportunity. And when the gimmick – like DVD sell-thru – matures, you start moving backwards again, looking for the next gimmick.
In my long held paraphrase of The Incredibles, when movies are turned into television, there are no movies.
Break down theatrical and there is no difference between any kind of filmed/video content. Great for the cinephile. Great for the long tail. Brutal for anyone trying to make a living by creating new content.
Theatrical matters. And not because of tradition and movie theater love, but because of business.
And ironically, no studio has more to lose than Disney, with Pixar films routinely doing $450m – $650m worldwide and still having a might post-theatrical life. If any studio should understand how many windows can be milked effectively, it is Disney.
Sigh…

Weekend Looks

I don’t have a lot to say about the movies opening this weekend, so I won’t, but…
Pirate Radio is one of those movies that should have been an easy home run, but ends up being safe at first base on an error. Cast is amazing, including turns by Emma Thompson and January Jones, who allows herself to play the sexy girl here, which is usually something she shies away from outside of magazines. Hoffman is not the star, but he is very good. You can see what appealed to him about the role. Bill Nighy, who I profoundly adore on screen, is not great… because his role is really just the same joke told 17 times. He does that well, but he is completely wasted.
The two big problems are Richard Curtis. First, the screenplay is not really focused. It may be The Truth, but it’s bad drama. There is a range of events from banal to almost unbelievable, but the screenplay seems to lurch forward, stall out, get rolling, stall, lurch, etc, etc, etc. And Curtis is still a not very good director. He’s obviously greatly talented… and he’s gotten good performances… but he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing with that camera. And here, where we are on a boat for most of the movie, it shows more than ever.
A good DVD rental or cable/satellite watch… but a really disappointing movie, even during the movie, where it feels like it’s about to get great and then isn’t… and that happens a few times.
(Note: I saw the movie on Virgin Atlantic, not in a theater.)
The Fantastic Mr Fox is a good movie. If you like Wes Anderson, you will like it. forget about “the animation looks weird.” That’s silly. The animation is beautiful and unique and completely watchable. The real issue is the storytelling and it works. It’s a fable about a manfox who is confronted with challenges to who he thinks he is. Great side characters. Funny moments. Very Wes. For me, it was better than anything since Tenenbaums.
Would I walk seven miles in the snow without shows to see it? Unlikely. But if you are going to spend a couple of hours with your family and they are game to think and be silly, you would do well to spend the time with Mr Fox and his family, friends, and human enemies.

Must View: No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

Next Tuesday on PBS, Independent Lens will present a documentary that is an absolute must for movie lovers. Watch it, DVR it, whatever… but make sure to check it out. (And please note: when the film plays on your PBS station may vary… check your listings.)
The film, by James Chressanthis, is not a masterpiece of doc filmmaking. But he does a wonderful job of capturing the movie history and personal history of two of the industry’s most legendary cinematographers. Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, Paper Moon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind are just the start of their credits.
And what you get here that is so hard to get from most looks at the industry is the humanity of these men and the men and women they worked with over these decades. Sometimes they are craftsmen, sometime fine artists, but long a part of memories that stick to the hearts and minds of movie lovers everywhere.
Like I say… I can’t call this a defining movie or a breakthrough in doc filmmaking… it’s just a really good film on a really wonderful subject. And it has stayed with me, joining my thoughts about so many of these great films quite often since I first saw it a few weeks ago.

20 Weeks To Oscar – Underdogs

18 Weeks To Go
The Golden Undies
This year

DP/30 Sneak Peek – Penelope Cruz on Nine

in a conversation about her new Almodovar film, Broken Embraces, Ms Cruz offered a little insight in her work in Nine.
The full interview will run soon.

What's A Thriller?

The remarkable success of Paranormal Activity is good reason for Paramount and the company that found the movie, DreamWorks, to crow… but is the claim sold to their resident flack/blogger that it is now the highest grossing R-rated thriller of the last decade fair to other films?
Inglourious Basterds $119,973,810
District 9 $115,646,235
Watchmen $107,509,799
Paranormal Activity $100,000,000
Wanted $134,508,551
300 $210,614,939
American Gangster $130,164,645
The Departed $132,384,315
The Matrix Reloaded $281,576,461
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines $150,371,112
The Matrix Revolutions $139,313,948
Bad Boys II $138,608,444
Road to Perdition $104,454,762
Hannibal $165,092,268
Black Hawk Down $108,638,745
Traffic $124,115,725
It is, however, the clear top grosser amongst the R-rate horror films…

Press Release – Focus Features Reminds Us That It Makes Money

FOCUS FEATURES ANNOUNCES 2010 RELEASE SLATE,
PASSES $1 BILLION MARK IN DOMESTIC BOXOFFICE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK, November 12th, 2009 – Focus Features CEO James Schamus today announced the company’s domestic theatrical release slate for calendar year 2010, with six confirmed movies to date.
Mr. Schamus said, “Next year’s Focus slate follows one of the company’s best years ever – our eighth profitable year in a row since our inception, and the year in which we passed the $1 billion mark in cumulative domestic box office alone.
“Our 2010 lineup is as audacious as any in our history, ranging from American indies like Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story to big international productions like Anton Corbijn’s The American.”

Read the full article »

DP/30 – James Toback, dir, Tyson

The New Standard For Gay

First, it was Judy Judy Judy… then La Streisand… then La Cage… and Rent…Clay Aiken and Lance Bass… but while A Single Man stylishly aspires to becoming the next gen of gay identity drama, this duet just set a new standard for the gaydar meter… Steve & Eddie meets The Y Chromosome.

DP?30 – Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans

MGM: No Thanks, All Giving

Good reporting of the facts of the discussions around MGM by Ron Grover.
The most interesting thing in there, really – since none of this is really a surprise at this point – is that Stephen Cooper is rumored to have said that all he could get for MGM was $1.5 billion. That about one-third of what it was valued at when it was last sold.
The idea that the Bond franchise worth anything close to that is idiotic on its face. It would take 20 years or more to generate profits close to that with the franchise. However, all the company’s ongoing franchise assets may be worth $750 million in real money. And the idea that the massive library is now being valued by potential buyers at less than a billion is a wake-up call for everyone in the industry.
That’s less than the DreamWorks library of under 59 films was financed at just 4 years ago… for a 4000 film library.
So much for the long tail.
At these prices… even at $2 billion or $2.5 billion… MGM is actually a bargain, but a company will have to have deep enough pockets to ride through all the distribution changes to come in the next decade.