DP/30 – Fantastic Mr Fox director Wes Anderson

mp3 of the interview
Earlier – Junket with Wes & Bill Murray
Junket Interview with Jason Schwatrzman

DP/30 Sundance 2010 – The Freebie

We have nearly an hour with Katie Aselton, aka The Mumblequeen, who is taking her first directorial effort, The Freebie, to Sundance this week… and her co-star in the film, Dax Shepard. The basic premise of the film is that a very, very hip, smart couple decides they could spice up their sex lives with a little side action… a freebie, if you will.
They are a fun duo, on screen and off… or explaining how you can tell the difference.
Part 1
Part 2
mp3, part 1
mp3, part 2

BYOB Humpday 12010

DP/30 – Police, Adjective dir. Corneliu Porumboiu

mp3 of the conversation

MCN's Sundance Team

3 of the 5 creatures pictured will be working Sundance for us this year… Team Former AFI… Rose Kuo, John Wildman, and the never-employed-by-AFI Larry Gross, screenwriter, MCN and Film Comment contributor, and former Waldo Salt screenplay award winner at Sundance.
Oprah, eat your heart out.
Rose & Larry will be at the Marriott SIdewinder from Jan 21 – 26. And messages for John can be left there too. If you are a publicist and let me know, I will get you the direct contact info.

The Rise Of Marc Webb

Indeed, the idea that Webb has locked in 3 Spidey movies is untrue, though Sony is likely to hold options for two more pictures.
I like (500) Days Of Summer, but what Amy Pascal seems to see – enough to risk her career on it – I don’t yet see. I also don’t see anything indicating that Webb cannot deliver. So I am a bit non-plussed. Sam Raimi was not a real surprise choice. This is. (That is, aside from the pun.) But what do you think?

I've Moved To Pandora

Avatarze yourself… here

DP/30 – Crazy Heart's T-Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham

In an unusual turn, this DP/30 includes a live performance of “The Weary Kind” by Mr Bingham, followed by a chat with Ryan & T-Bone.

mp3 of the song & interview

Globes Catch-Up

My take on The Golden Globes this year was a little unexpected.
I thought Ricky Gervais did a solid job that was perfect for The Globes and will never be appropriate for The Oscars. Good call on both teams.
There were a few goofy choices… and that’s fine. The only award of any significance was Sandra Bullock in a category that has some great work in it, but is by no means an intensely competitive group of “must votes.” The Bullock win (and the co-win at BFCA) will get Academy members who hadn’t put the DVD in the player to do just that. The urge to offer a loving hand to a well-liked and high-grossing member of the community may do the rest.
The most significant element of The Globes is always the impression that winners make at these shows with their speeches, Was Mo’Nique’s speech genius or a melodramatic bore? Did Jim Cameron come off as a good-natured winner or will Academy members really want to see Kathryn Bigelow speak and make history? That kind of thing.
I went to the parties afterward and was reminded that, indeed, we are all part of a big high school. I am not a studio exec or an actor or director… but I am some kind of member of the family and as such, an evening out at the penultimate high school reunion creates its own perspective. There are so many levels of communication going on at once… so many people whose lives touch, but work on so many different layers of intimacy (or lack thereof).
A night of thousands of indifferent people becomes a lovely thing with a few moments with people you are genuinely happy to see. This is a note to myself for when I get angry about the absurdity of it all. I will always get sucked into rage over hypocrisy. But there is never a real question about why I still work in this world. I love it. And I am lucky to have my passion indulged.

4 Day Estimates By Klady – A5

(my analysis after 1p)
8.5 hours after 1p – A 15% drop isn’t all that impressive. After all, Titanic was up actually up on MLK weekend… 4.5% on the 3-day. Of course, Titanic’s domestic gross was at $275m after that 4-day. Fact is, there are a parade of late December openers that held better on this weekend, even before MLK Day was made into a national holiday.
That said, Top MLK Grosser is kind of the least significant milestone for the film this weekend. The previous record for 5th weekend 3-day gross was Titanic‘s $30 million. So let’s do the adjusted gross thing… that takes Titanic to about $45m. And a 25% 3D bump makes that $56.25. So forget what I just wrote. A $43 million 3-day SUCKS! It’s nothing. Forget it. No one will ever see this movie. Even the Chinese government hates the story.
Ahem.
Everytime I think it’s time to put Avatar on a more traditional trajectory, it blows right past expectations.
Of course, the question of whether it is a cultural phenomenon is more than gross dollars. I agree. But this speaks to my sense that neither The Dark Knight or Shrek 2 nor Pirates 2 were true social phenomena. A month out. there is more discussion of Avatar than of any of those three recent record-breakers. But have any of these films really had a major cultural impact? Not so much. Popularity no longer signals that kind of weight. Certainly, the media has limited interest in perpetuating what is popular and prefers “off brands,” like Twilight, which was the #6 film of last year and #36 all-time worldwide… and for those of you who love an argument, probably the #5 film in profit last year… but plays as a surprise.
Anyway…
Avatar also may be creating opportunity for some other films. As much as it ate the box office this weekend, this is also the first time in history that six films have been over $10m for the 4-day MLK weekend (or on the same weekend before the holiday existed). The only times there have been as many as five eight-figure movies over this weekend was 2002 and 2003. To put that in perspective, the top three grossers on that four-day in 2002 totaled $73m… this weekend, $113m. The Book of Eli would have been the #3 grosser over the MLK weekend were it not for Avatar, so that opening is quite impressive as well.
I can’t see anything else on the estimates chart that hasn’t been discussed in the last week,

Golden Globes BYOB

Have at it if you like… not much for live blogging…

SNL Gets The Last Word On ConanGate

I have to say, i was shocked when both of these pieces about LenO’Brien were balanced and didn’t really bash either Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien more than the other. NBC got smacked, but no surprise there. Remember, Lorne Michaels exec produced and owned a piece of the Conan show at 12:35a… he gave Conan the job. And Conan wrote at SNL before that.
What SNL got in the faux Larry King piece was that they are all locked into their images and somewhat unaware of how their behaviors play… and that failure was behind these choices, not some moral issue. And if you want to pretend that the humorless Conan is a positive portrayal or that calling Leno at 10 a “colossal failure” sticks, but Conan being called a “colossal failure” at 11:35p doesn’t… well…
And Seth Meyers, who took his shot at NBC, also got his shots in at Leno and Conan, who walks away with more money than Seth Meyers will make if he were to do SNL for three decades. The “two wives” comparison is pretty apt. The part than Leno bashers want to pretend is not there is how good “the first wife” looked and looks.
(Note: The NBC embeds -now after the jump – don’t seem to be working… trying to get them going…)

Read the full article »

BYO Box Office

Klady is going to do a 4-day tomorrow.
Nothing really surprising since yesterday from my perspective.
The Lovely Bones, by studio estimate, had a nice 10% bump on Saturday… which probably means that a younger audience is finding the film, as was the marketing intent.
One thing that has caught my eye is that Brothers has quietly grossed over $28 million, which puts Oscar chasers An Education, Nine, A Serious Man, and The Messenger in the financial rear view. I am pretty well convinced that had Lionsgate treated this movie as an equal to Precious instead of as an afterthought (I finally got a screener… 4 days ago… and not from Lionsgate, but from Relativity Media), it would have outgrossed Precious and would have had a real shot at a nomination… and Tobey Maguire would have been a lock for a Best Actor nod.

Friday Estimates by Klady – Eli vs The Na'vi

Another strong start for a Joel Silver production after a bit of a rough run. This start is running a bit hotter than Denzel’s previous #2 opener, Inside Man, though while this reminds us that Denzel is a true movie star (meaning, he can open movies on his own), it is a concept piece that has the strongest action appeal since Avatar and then Sherlock Holmes opened last month.
it seems like that we’ll see a Cloverfield-like trajectory on the film… maybe a little less harsh. Look for a 3-day of just under $30 million… a 4-day of $33m – $35m.
Avatar will lose a day for the third time in its run (opening days for Sherlock and Chippys 2 were the other two), but like the last two times, it looks like a one day long event. Saturday rises have been erratic, in part because of the film playing through the holidays. Last weekend, it went up a crazy 60%, Fri-Sat. Let’s say it ends up off 25% for the 3-day… $37.5m for the 3-day… $43m for the 4-day, crossing the $500m domestic threshold on Monday, in 32 days, passing TDK’s 45 days to becomes the fastest film to ever hit $500m.
I am personally stunned to say, it now looks like Avatar will pass The Dark Knight‘s domestic #2 position by the end of next weekend. The film is already over $1 billion overseas. With over $1.5 billion by the end of this weekend, Avatar will be the #2 box office grosser of all time with or without the “3D bump.” Sorry haters… another scoreboard to suffer.
Paramount’s marketing reboot of The Lovely Bones will show itself more today, as teen girls are the target. Will the movie go up to $7m or $8m today, ending up with a $20m+ 4-day or will it roll with a more traditional trajectory and end up with $17m or so? We shall see.
The Spy Next Door felt a bit dumped… which won’t look so good when Sony’s The Karate Kid becomes a significant hit this summer. This is one of those cases when the studio should have just waited for another movie to rebrand their star. Jackie Chan and kids will be a real draw after “jacket on… jacket off.”
Who would have expected The Blind Side to outgross both Sherlock Holmes and The Squeakquel domestically? It looks like Sherlock will come up just short of $200m and Chippys 2 will just pass the mark.
Up In The Air is a bit confounding. $70m domestic is quite good for a dramedy with a message. But it’s, somehow, not exciting. Odd.