The Hot Blog Archive for August, 2010

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 10!

We were wondering how large graphics could be in this new blog design, so I decided to run a test. And who better to be the test rabbit than the co-star of tomorrow’s release, The American, Violante Placido?

There were more graphic images… and not inappropriate to this film… but this one, I thought, captured what she brings to the film without being… well, you know, it’s just a human body… we all have body parts… uh… God works in mysterious ways.

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BYOB: Feeling A Little More At Home?

So… bigger fonts, Recent Comments, a direct link to Hot Blog from anywhere on the site…

Day by day…

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Idiotic Trend Story #277 (this year)

Steven Zeitchik, the LA Times’ movie reporter least likely to get a fact straight, came up with a laughable story, “With ‘Avatar’ struggling, is the bloom off the rerelease rose?

Uh, Stevie… what re-release rose?

Grease Sing-Along… this year’s only studio re-release before Avatar… just over $300,000.

Even the Toy Storys, 15 and 11 years old, in digital and 3D for the first time, in anticipation of TS3… just over $30m domestic last fall.

Are we still living with the excitement of Star Wars being re-released 13 years ago, when there had been almost no availability for the title over the 20 years since it was released? That was the same year they re-released The Godfather and it did $1.3 million.

Is it The Exorcist, about 10 years ago, being re-released after 30 years with new footage? That was the same year they re-released Blood Simple and Rear Window and did $1.5m and $1.7m each.

It’s a remarkable reach to turn a positive into a negative, writing that Avatar, “grossed only about $4 million despite playing on more than 800 screens.” Didn’t seem to think it was worth mentioning that it was the 3rd biggest per-screen, with or without the 3D bump, behind only the two brand new hits.

Of course, the piece is mostly onanism. Stevie doesn’t forget about The Godfather. “When “The Godfather” came out in 1997 after being away from theaters for 25 years, it felt like an event; no matter how well we remembered the movie or how many times we watched it on basic cable, seeing it on the big screen brought memories for those lucky enough to catch it there the first time and created that experience for those who weren’t.”

So you get it now? If Steven likes the movie, $1.3 million is An Event… even if the studio saw it as massively disappointing in the reflection of Star Wars’ $128 million. But if Stevie doesn’t like the movie, a $4 million first weekend is a “struggle.”

Who is editing this guy? Glenn Beck?

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Blu-n Away

In the last week, I got a bunch of Blu-ray announcements… and it felt like a feast…

And then there was this dump… which was also kinda cool… like a Geek wish list, headed by three new releases…

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Into The Breach

Morning…

There are all kinds of kinks being handled this morning, from font sizes to graphic tweaks you’ll see in the weeks to come to making it easy for people who don’t have Word Press accounts to get them, so they can comment. (Add: There will even be line spacing in The Hot Blog!!!)

The toys I am most excited about are the MCN Newslinks, which give you all the headlines most of you could ask for, split by topic, the Movie Pages, which are still developing, but will offer all kinds of content for each film as we move into the future, and the “MCN Tweets” Twitter feed should be fun. It will remain conversational. We have other tools to promote content. We’d like this to be, along with blogs, headlines, and feature articles. another layer of the conversation… and immediate one.

Okay… I’m diving back into the test drive… again, welcome… and thanks for your patience.

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Welcome To The New Home Of The Hot Blog

There will be a tour… soon.

For now, just a welcome. Come in, have a seat, and take a look around. It’s new for all of us.

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BYOB – The Transition

The new site, including THB, is online…but not everywhere… including in my home.
So… in the meanwhile…

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DP/30 – 100% of Emmy Nominees DP/30ed Win The Emmy

Of course, we only shot one…congrats Aaron…
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mp3 of the conversation

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DP/Sneak – Emma Stone Stalks Keri Russell

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The Last Weekend Estimates by Klady (on this version of the blog)

The trajectory of The Last Exorcism is pretty classic, opening stronger than the rest of the weekend would be. On the other hand, the trajectory of Takers, going up on Saturday, is a little bit of a surprise. According to Len’s numbers, they’ll be battling into “actuals” for first place. Both companies will see $20m openings for this product as a win.

The Expendables will become Lionsgate’s #2 all-time domestic grosser by this time next week, behind only F9/11.

The Other Guys becomes Will Ferrell’s 4th $100m comedy in the last 5 years and #5 overall in his career, crossing the line tomorrow or Tuesday. Three of the last four were at Columbia. Perhaps Paramount will let Sony make Anchorman 2, since they don’t seem to want to do so.

Inception continues to chug along, overseas in particular. It’s closing in on $650m worldwide this weekend. So profits, while all coming out of post-theatrical revenues, will be significant, pushing past The Twilight Saga: Eclipse to be the #3 film of the summer and #1 for the year without 3D.

Sometime this week, Despicable Me will pass Shrek 4 to be the #2 animated film of the summer. Toy Story 3 won’t pass Shrek 2 to be the biggest domestic animated film of all time – at least, not without a serious re-release, which is likely precluded the DVD release -and it seems highly unlikely to pass Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for biggest international animated film of all time. But by being so strong in both domestic and foreign… and having a 3D bump… it is/will be the biggest worldwide animated film by 14% – $17%

Speaking of 3D and re-releases, very solid numbers of the Avatar re-release.

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Some Things Old, Some Things New…

This, I expect, is the last Hot Blog entry that will look like this.
As MCN changes, so changes The Hot Blog. And for the better, I hope. Sometime Sunday night or Monday morning, the new MCN site will launch… sure to have its quirks and corrections to come… with some of our past and future still in the process of being settled in, whether because of complex coding or a deep well of material from the past. But here we go…
I think the new URL for this blog will be http://www.moviecitynews.com/category/mcn-blogs/the-hot-blog, but until we’re live, I won’t even be 100% sure of that.
What I do know is that content has been and will be king at Movie City News. And while we will continue to do everything we currently do – DP/30 will be streaming, after all these years – there will be a lot of new ways to get more information from pretty much everyone who covers the movies. And we’re still doing it all without turning OPC (Other People’s Content) into our own.
Anyway… I hope that you all enjoy what’s new and what’s old. I’m sure we’ll hear from you about it, one way or the other.
This site will be here until the switch. So feel free to hang around if you like. I know you’ll all miss the heck out of Movable Type, but what can ya do? If you can’t find the blog, it will be easily found on www.moviecitynews.com
See you on the other side.
And with that, here is a look at the visual history of THB… and a small glimpse at what’s next…
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AND NOW…
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How "They" See "Us" Is Endlessly Fascinating



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Friday Estimates by Klady

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The Last Exorcism should end up in the low 20s, which still will make it only the 17th $20m opener in Lionsgate history. It’s starting out just a little behind the company’s The Haunting in Connecticut, which creepy-advertised its way to a $23m start in March of last year. Ironically, they are using Eli Roth’s name to open this film to more than any Eli Roth movie has ever opened.
Of the current 16 LGF $20m domestic openers, 7 are Tyler Perry (which is why For Colored Girls… is a lock to end up in this year’s Oscar race come December), 4 Saws, then Bloody 3D, Forbidden Kingdom, Haunting in CT, F9/11, and The Expandables. Perhaps this parade of success with cheap is why Mr. Icahn doesn’t want the company expanding into more expensive product. The most expensive Liosngate film to gross oevr $50m domestic was 3:10 to Yuma… and that was, basically, an output deal with Relativity. This year’s most expensive pick-ups – From Paris with Love, Kick-Ass and Killers – didn’t crack $50m.
So, excellent job with Exorcism… congratulations to Sarah Greenberg for having baby Sarah Jr exorcised from her womb… and settle this war by knowing what LGF does best and most profitably, not just trying to tell Icahn Daddy that he’s wrong and you’re right.
Takers is classic Screen Gems. Pretty cheap, not to pretty, opened to over $20m. That’s teh way they roll over there. It is possible that this one will end up just short of $20m… but not in the estimates tomorrow morning.
Screen Gems’ highest grossing film is the $80m domestic for Dear John, which doesn’t seem to fit the profile. Normally, it would be Got Johnned, The Exorcism Of John, Underjohn or Resident Death March. But Mr Culpepper is clearly stretching out a bit. And next month, the company has a real chance of breaking its record with another unexpected Screen Gems title… though still at a price. Interesting times.
The third “new” picture in the marketplace is Avatar: The Re-Release, which even taking the 3D bump in consideration (all screens are 3D or IMAX 3D this time) will likely be the #3 per screen wide release of the weekend, with nearly $5000 per or $3500 per if you take 30% off for 3D pricing. That’s still more than a quarter million people leaving their homes to see a film recently released on DVD at premium prices in the weakest box office part of the year. Not bad.
I should say here that I am a little sick to death of the endless whining about 3D and the overstated screeds about 3D slowing going down the toilet. These pieces use the false logic of the Fake Box Office Slump of 2005, in which the survey was so dramatically skewed by The Passion of The Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 the year before (not to mention Shrek 2‘s outlying success… oops, mentioned it) that comparisons the next year were terribly misleading. Now it’s that 3D grosses are down… versus Avatar and then Alice In Wonderland, 2 of the 7 billion dollar grossers of all time.
Wow… Step Up 3D didn’t do Avatar numbers. Shocking. But trying to pin it all on 3D is about as stupid as claiming that a mosque being built near WTC will not upset people… or that it is not in the spirit of this nation to allow it regardless because this nation aspires to being bigger than our differences or our fears. (Yeah… we fail… a lot. So goes the nation.)
It is equally true that relatively big numbers for Resident Evil 3D, Saw 3D and Jackass 3D will not make 3D “happening” again. These may be fun, but basically, they are Star Wars Christmas Specials… stunts with familiar, strong-base franchises.
The real show that 3D as oversized phenomenon is over is the decision not make Sucker Punch a 3D film. I suspect it may have had more to do with ruining the film, which is already a giant visual stunt, so doing a cheap 3D layover would probably diminish the quality significantly. But, still…
I would not be shocked to see Pirates 4 downplay the 3D aspect. Sell the movie. Then let people know, by the way, the film can be seen in 3D. And watch the billion dollar mark fall for the second time in the franchise history. But by then, in spite of Harry Potter, there will be some dead 3D bodies piled up on Hollywood Road… movies that spent the $5m and didn’t get a real return on that money.
Speaking of which… Piranha 3D will be right on the cusp of “was it worth it?”
This is the last Friday box office piece on what will shortly be “the old site.” (Of course, everything is being moved over, including your comments) Weird feeling…

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Do Twitter Trends Matter?

Here is the top of Simon Dumenco’s The Most Tweeted Brands of the Week Chart:
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#2 and #4 happened to be the #9 and #10 films of this last weekend.
Twitter trends tell you.. what is trending on Twitter.
It’s nice to be talked about. Both films had $5m+ weekends. But both would prefer to have the $12m+ of Vampires Suck or The Expendables than to e trending so well on Twitter. Ya?

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Reaction to Netflix on the iPhone

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I love Netflix on my iPad and on my TV… but as you can see, this cartoon that RJ Matson did for us in 2008 still captures the fundamental truth about movies on phones.
Then again, the immediacy and fragile lifespan of a live sporting event…

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The Hot Blog

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon