BYOB Tuesday, Christmas Eve Eve Eve

Why Avatar Doesn

I get it. I really do.
I have a pretty low tolerance for this particular movie phenomenon. I think Ed Zwick shows brilliance in parts of all of his work, but this specific issue has ruined most of his movies for me in the third act, whether it be a non-ethnic choice like Brad Pitt being the wrong guy to be deified in Legends of the Fall, or ethically galling, like Tom Cruise becoming The Last Samurai, or even the brave black men of Glory finally charging up that hill inspired by the death of their white leader. It bugs me.
I even find a movie like Precious, which is not racist in and of itself, problematic. To my eye, it brings out a pity response in many white viewers that I find inappropriately paternalistic.
That said, while I could see the arc of Avatar going towards the young white man as The One, saving a colored (blue) culture, I did not have the gag reflex I often have in those situations. So I had to wonder why.
I understand how others could go there. It seems, on some level, an issue of personal taste and degree. After all, you could put this label on The Matrix, for example. The Wachowskis made their conscious humans pretty brown, overall. But the hero, the heroine, and the uber-villain are all white. Not many people seem to go there. But you could. (I wouldn

Blue Monday

Well, the snow seems to have melted on Monday. In fact, many businesses, including municipal offices, were closed on Monday as towns dug out. And the Avatar number was outrageous.
$16.4 million.
I can now tell you that Fox was guessing at about 2/3rds of that going into last evening. So this number is a bit overwhelming to them as well.
Perspective – This is the #11 Monday gross of all-time. It is the #3 non-holiday Monday of all time, surpassed only by Pirates 2 and The Dark Knight, both of which were mid-summer movies…. both of which has had opening 3-days of over $135 million. This is the #1 Monday gross in history that didn’t occur in May or June.
Now… I do think that the weekend slog boosted this number. I don’t expect the rest of the weekdays to be quite this enormous.
Tuesday is a day that is a bit more of a Christmas season strong suit, with six of the top twelve Tuesday of all-time coming in December. Four of those are on Christmas Day or the day after. But the December high is $13.6m for National Treasure 2. The biggest single Tuesday is Transformers‘ opening day, with $27.9 million, followed by TDK’s fifth day with $20.9 million.
Wednesday is another thing again, thick with opening days. But The Dark Knight‘s Day 6 is top non-opening Wed with $18.4 million, followed by Twilight: New Moon‘s $14.2m.
And on we go….

Review- It

Lifestyles of The Rich, Richer & Even Richer.
The film is, for me, a female fraternal twin to Spanglish.
That was a movie about an inexplicably rich guy in Bel Air who wanted what he wanted and the movie asked us to support that decision because his wife had gone from trophy to psycho.
This is a movie about an unexplainedly rich women in Santa Barbara who wants what she wants and the movies asks us to support her decisions because her ex-husband and his new wife did it to her first.
In that film, the man was castrated. In this one, the filmmaker thinks the man deserves to be castrated.
Self-indulgence in a movie character is certainly not an automatic disaster. But it

Super Extra Ordinary

I have seen the outdoor for Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, and was surprised how amateurish it looked.
But now, I have seen the TV ads, on CBS, and wow… it walks, talks, and quacks like a TV movie… with Harrison Ford.
This is the first release for CBS Films, the absurd spin off of Viacom’s TV half, which is now making movies. Stupid.
But worse, it really does look like a bad TV movie. It’s lit like that. The frames in the commercial looks like they were shot for TV… and not even try-hard TV like CSI. And the dialogue sounds like it came out of Avatar lines left on the writing room floor… not a complement.
Brutal. Or is it just me?

Avatar "Actual" Up To $77 million

It’s still $200,000 short of the December record.
As noted yesterday, the estimates yesterday were less reliable than normal because of east coast weather conditions. And indeed, Fox was about $4 million low on its estimates yesterday.
Does it much matter? No.
Would it have kept Brooks “I Know Nothing, Except Avatar Must Die” Barnes from referencing unnameable “analysts” who “expected Avatar to sail past previous December behemoths?” Probably not. He’s finally coughed up the real number (which I have confirmed elsewhere) of $310 million on production, which he says will be reduced to $280 million with tax credits.
Counting all costs and all revenues, that puts the breakeven of worldwide theatrical at between $500m and $600m. The film is almost halfway there in its first 3 days. So apparently, the NYT thinks a 2.5x multiple requires a “supernatural hold on audiences.” I suppose I Am Legend had a superdupernatural hold, as it did more than 3x opening.
Regardless, it seems that Avatar will be past $600m worldwide before the holidays are over and the only “financial calamity for Fox and its financing partners, Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners” will be each partner trying to make sure they are paid all of their profits.
Super. Natural.

NYT + Brooks Barnes = Embarrassment

You can lead a reporter to executives, but you can

Avatar Worldwide

So the first 3 days, $159.2m.
$100 million of that is in the top 7 markets…
Russia – $21m
France – $19m
U.K. – $14.2m
Germany – $13.2m
Australia – $11.3m
Spain – $11m
South Korea – $10.8m
The number for the 3-day is Just behind 2012, is at about $575m international and is still adding $s.
Do we think that Avatar has stronger legs than 2012?
Interestingly, the 3D issue in the rest of the world may slow the film less than in the US, where there is a harder push for a higher percentage of playdates to be in 3D.
Cameron is now in Japan to promote their opening on Wednesday. $100 million grosses in Japan alone are viable… $200 million has been done by non-Japanese films only twice.
(btw, Public Enemies is now within 6 million of being Michael Mann’s highest grossing film, worldwide, in history.)

Brittany Murphy, RIP

I don’t really want to be going down this road.
She was loved by many. There was something about her energy when positive.
She was trouble for many. There was something about her energy when negative.
32 is a terrible age at which to die. But in the life of an actress who was very hot for a moment and would have gone over 5 years between on-camera appearances in a major release, it must have been a very scary age to be.
After playing the chubby sidekick and becoming a second-level star doing it in Clueless, she lost some weight and got a ton of attention for Girl, Interrupted, then reset the whole thing as a Hollywood hottie – a crazy one – in Don’t Say A Word. In 8 Mile, just a year later, she was an outright sex object for Eminem and a male audience.
This started the height of Murphy’s movie career. She had a hit that really solidified both Shawn Levy and Ashton Kutcher’s movie careers, even though it was a horrible film, Just Married. But Uptown Girls, a very modest success, was when Murphy started to get a reputation in the media for being a pain, as PMK forced press to sign “will not ask/will not repurpose” agreements in order to do the junket, which occurred on the heels of some personal issues that were catnip for the tabloids. Then Little Black Book not only bombed, but became a media punching bag. And it was over.
Murphy vamped it up for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller in an ensemble in Sin City. But the look of the film was the story and the only real boost was for Mickey Rourke. Murphy did Oscar-caliber work in the title role of the no-budget indie The Dead Girl for director Karen Moncrieff. She gave voice to the female lead in George Miller’s animated Happy Feet. But she was not being hired to be on set for studio movies. Period.
She’s done indies. She’s done voice work, including a long-standing lead on King of the Hill. Her first on-screen wide release in over five years was scheduled to be Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, due from Lionsgate late next summer. But with Stallone, Statham, Jet Li. Dolph Lundgren, and Steve Austin, plus cameos by Schwarzenegger and Willis, it couldn’t be too much of a role.
I don’t know where she was in her life. She seemed very happy being engaged, soon to be married, when I last spent a little off-the-record time with her. But there was no mistaking that she was still a fragile person.
We have had scary moments with fragile actresses, from Winona Ryder to Lindsay Lohan, in recent years. When Rachel McAdams’ career got very hot very fast, she took off almost two years and came back with what seems like a new attitude and some perspective on how to manage Hollywood.
This is about as scary as it gets, whatever the cause of death.

Weekend Estimates by Klady – Avatar Hit (A Little) By Mother Nature

First thing… don’t trust the estimates this week, No one knows. Fri/Sat probably took a hit of a few million. From the NFL coverage this morning, things look better in the east. But will people be running to the grocery store or to shop for Christmas or the movies. I don’t know and no one else does either. This is one of those weekends when treating projected estimates like news – and it’s always an iffy choice when you are looking at records and such that are close – is an epic fail for the media.
It seems that Fox’s position is $73m for the #2 all-time December opening. Klady is being a bit more conservative. Either could be right. Either could be wrong, low or high.
In any case, Avatar is in the range of expectations, neither breaking significantly bigger than expected or lower. And now, the real future of this film will start to shape up, day by day, over the next few weeks.
Disney’s decision to hold The Princess & The Frog has not paid off. The film, which has been well received, is well behind Bolt after its tenth day in wide release. They made some more space for A Christmas Carol. I guess, but they got the worst of both worlds, plucking the bloom off the rose by opening on just 2 screens for 10 days, triggering all the media attention when no one could see the film, then pushing the film wide in one of the weakest possible weeks in the 2-month holiday season followed by Avatar’s opening weekend.
I assume this was not a Rich Ross strategy, because it kinda sucked. And it would be tragic if the failure of distribution strategy here became a finger-pointing at 2D animation exercise.
The Blind Side is a true phenom. You have to go back to 2007 to find a holiday season movie that was at this kind of number in Weekend 5 of wide release. That was Alvin & The Chipmunks… and that film did its fifth weekend in the not-so-competitive mid-January period. In fact, the only November releases in history that I can find with as good or better a fifth weekend are How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Aladdin. Not the Potter or Twilight or Bond franchises.
This is the part where Alcon would like me to tell you that The Blind Side is wholly owned by Alcon and WB is just distributing and marketing the film, much as Iron Man is owned by Marvel and “just” distributed by Paramount and the second round of Star Wars films are owned by George Lucas and “only” distributed by Fox.
Sony is grousing about the snow regarding the Morgans opening. Fair enough… for a million or so. Still not a thriller.
Paramount seems to have been trying an accelerated Slumdog Millionaire release for Up In The Air so far. Slumdog rolled up on December on under 80 screens for 4 weekends before going to 169 screens for $2.2 million and a $12,873 per screen. Up In just went 175 in its third weekend after 2 weekends under 80 screens and did an estimated $3.1 million and a $17,714 per screen.
On Wednesday, the expansion to 1800 screens, which Slumdog didn’t try until nominations. This next week, Paramount is pushing up against Sherlock Holmes and Avatar and Nine and It’s Complicated. So what is Up In The Air‘s niche here? 40-50 year old heterosexual couples with dominant females? There might be $20 million out there for the film in the fives day weekend, assuming Nine pretty much flops. But is that where they want to be? And can they count on Juno-like holds, given that this is not a teen-driven event movie? We’ll see.
Precious‘ box office run is over… at least for now. The number is on the low end of the Tyler Perry scale. And getting to this number was an achievement. I’m sure it’s a bit disappointing for some involved and the failure to reach and exceed the overhyped expectations – which is the standard by which I think Oscar disconnect becomes an issue, not the actual gross – likely leaves the film nominated, but only a high-possibility winner with Mo’Nique.
And unbeknown to me, The Hurt Locker has apparently gone back into some form of release… 129 screens… interesting… too late to be meaningful. In fact, trying and failing to generate some more box office – presumably because Summit has realized that they may well have blown their chance to win Best Picture – may be the last nail in that coffin. Again, perception. The failure to release one of the very best action films of the year as though someone outside an arthouse might want to see it was a mistake that Summit should own up to. “The movie didn’t do $50 million because we may a conservative strategic mistake in a tight market and under-released the film. Sigh…” Then it isn’t on the movie. A failed re-release is like affirming everything that makes Academy members shy about voting for commercial weak sisters for Best Picture.

DP/30 Sneak Peek – Joe Letteri, Avatar Effects Supervisor

DP/30 Sneak: Jim Cameron

Fo those of you who want a shorter bite than 30 minutes…

Spoke Too Soon… 2009's First Awards Smear Campaign

Leave it to the film critics… you know, the ones who don’t really care about celebrity or the ego around it… to be the ones to launch the first serous smear campaign of the season.
Or maybe we should just put this one at the feet of Oscar-ass-hologist, Tom O’Neill and whatever member of NYFCC started taking swipes, under a cowardly veil of anonymity, at Mo’Nique for not choosing to attend the NYFCC dinner next month.
Why did NYFCC decide to do a dinner in NY, four days before BFCA, LAFCA, and HFPA in consecutive nights in LA? I don’t know. Why did they move the dinner from Sunday nights to work week Monday nights last year? I don’t know.
And I don’t know whether Mo’Nique’s (boy, am I about done indulging that spelling flourish!) excuses are true or lies. What do I know about why she makes the decision she makes? But the answer to this question is utterly irrelevant.
You don’t give a present with the expectation of getting something back… not if you are a sincere gift giver.
Truth is, if Monique skipped out on The Golden Globes, it would cause real talk amongst the Oscar voters, who would then be considering their final vote. But NYFCC is a private event and the only way it could hurt Monique’s Oscar chances would be if some smug jerk made a big deal of it and it got picked up by others as a serious issue.
One more thing. NYFCC and NBR give their awards on consecutive nights. Amazingly, this year, there is just one crossover winner between the two… George Clooney… who is the co-winner at NBR with Morgan Freeman. So the trips to NY will be less a matter of efficiency than they often are.
The 30 or so people being awarded by one of the two groups will all have to be on the west coast three days after these two awards dinner in order to get more awards. So they are either being highly inconvenienced by Monday and Tuesday events preceding and Friday event… or they are simply clearing their calendars for more than a full week to run the awards gamut. (This is why BFCA is always close to The Golden Globes and LAFCA somewhere close to those events.)
If Monique is actually taping her show that week, I don’t find it in any way offensive that she isn’t going out of her way to change her shooting dates… especially if she is on a short week, having to leave Atlanta by noon or so in order to get to LA for BFCA.
She is not “one of us.” She is Black. She lives in Atlanta. She is a comic. What kind of arrogance demands that she acts like “us” and makes coming to graciously bow at the feet of NYFCC (or any group awarding her performance) her top priority?
Heck, she could skip BFCA and LAFCA too and not really have a problem. But skipping The Globea would have impact. And skipping more than one “major” event would become a trend story (what O’Neill is trying to do, prematurely… trend of one) and only then would it become a real problem for her Oscar chances.

Friday Estimates by Klady (A1)

It’s the fifth best day ever in December. The only better days were opening day and the first Saturday of LOTR: Return of The King and the opening and Saturday of I Am Legend.
This suggests that Avatar may “only” do $68 million this weekend. Horrors. And will the snow that is shutting down theaters on the east coast be an issue? A marginal one… but a few million in ticket sales in this situation can make a difference in perception.
The next key is today, as Legend went down a tick on Saturday, but Narnia and Rings have a history of going up on Saturday. What will Avatar do? We’ll know when we know.
The Princess & The Frog was clearly hurt by the Avatar opening.
Did You Hear About The Morgans? was a bust waiting to happen. Sony bailed on the premise of the movie about a week ago, pushing from the “War of The Roses softened by being forced together” campaign to a classic rom-com about two fish out of water. Unfortunately, neither star is really an opener on their own. They are both strong names and faces in the right vehicle with the right partner.
Twilight still has some juice and though it won’t catch The Hangover this weekend to become #4 for the year, it probably will be next weekend.
On the awards front, Invictus is in a bit of danger of looking like a weak box office sister in the Oscar race. The issue of box office success, which has also come up around pictures like The Hurt Locker. The difference is that Invictus is a wide release and Hurt never got past 535 screens. The opening of Nine on 4 screens, given the massive push by Weinstein, is fine, but not significant. Expect them to string things out on as few screens as possible to avoid box office danger alarms after taking a scalding in the press this week. As you can see, awards groups are still vulnerable to the craft of the film and the mighty team of actors. Too bad the movie doesn’t come together.
And though neither is considered much of a threat for Best Picture, but legit candidates for acting, Crazy Heart and The Young Victoria came out of the gate soft. Ironically, the box office for Heart is probably going to be found in non-awards areas, like the South, where Searchlight can find the country audience, if they don’t get too wrapped up chasing Jeff Bridges’ Oscar.

Photgraphic Evidence

Real-D’s cool glasses promo with Coke Zero… limited edition, 3000 pairs… but what if you end up in Dolby Digital 3D or IMAX 3D without realizing?

The IMAX 3D Glasses

A Quickly Turned Out Male-Response Sequel to Rebecca Miller’s movie?

What EXACTLY Is WB Selling Here?