19 Weeks To Oscar

It’s like is waiting for something exciting, something expected, something that shocks and surprises and makes it all fun. And not getting quite what we expected. What we get isn’t bad. It may even be incredibly valuable and worthwhile. But it’s just not exciting.

It now seems that the excitement of the season comes down the to small handful of films that are not yet in play. They may or may not be better than the films already out there, but there is something pulsing beneath the surface.

The rest of the column, plus new charts

Exit Through The Gift Shop, producer Jaimie D’ Cruz, editor Chris King

Digital Sell-Thru Is…

I’ve been struggling with this piece for a full day now. The impetus was a Ben Fritz story in the LAT, followed a remarkably snarky and confused piece by Patrick Goldstein.

The issue is Digital Sell-Thru… which is to say, Not Digital Rental.

And i guess what it comes down to for me is that some executives out there are fantasizing about getting a significantly higher price (at least 3x) the Digital Rental price for Digital Sell-Thru and dreaming that sell-thru will become the future standard, not rental.

And what ties my brain up in knots, in trying to be clear enough to write this piece, is that these are not, at their core, different products. The only functional difference between the two is the price point. Want to watch it once? $3 or $4. Want to watch it over and over again? $14.

And though I think Disney and others will junk this model almost completely for a subscription-based model that will be more profitable, there will be some buyers of Digital Sell-Thru, especially for Disney product, where kids watch the same movies dozens and dozens of times.

But the industry has already destroyed any hope for Digital Sell-Thru to be the dominant transaction, long before digital delivery was realistic. (And really, it is still in it’s infancy.)

DVD price wars, combined with a passive position taken with Netflix and other subscription based businesses, killed Digital Sell-Thru before it could ever happen. It wasn’t, as Patrick screams, the industry failing to be aggressive or visionary, as the newspaper business (save NYT, WSJ, and a few others) was. This is where the argument starts folding in on itself. People want to argue that we need to speed up the digital future, but at the same time write about the complexity of digital delivery to the most conventional viewing place, the TV in your living room.

And while many have enjoyed the early days of digital delivery, even we early adopters must admit that the tech has grown in leaps and bounds over the last year or two, even from the leading edge companies. For instance, Netflix just this month worked things out so you could stream them through your PS3 without a special disc. While it’s true that Netflix and their discs were on the PS3 platform before all the other streamers, now that I have multiple platforms and their software on the PS3, accessible more quickly, really, than a game or Blu-ray (which I still have to put in the slot), the consumer experience is massively different. Sony has been pushing. Netflix has been pushing. But it happened this month. So now to convince dad or grandma to buy that PS3 (or X-Box, whose pleasures I don’t know) because it is their new set-top box, delivering as much or more than their cable/satellite box, just as easily, if not as familiarly. Just the start of the journey.

It was one of the silly games of people trying to kill the January Oscar date, suggesting that screeners would be on computers only if digitally delivered. There will be a dozen legitimate options for streaming movies to your TV and maybe elsewhere as well, with security, by this time next year. And even if the January date is now dead (until the ratings drop 15% this year), I expect digital screeners to be dominant next season.

But I digress…

The problem the industry now faces is that as the DVD business matured, leading to less units being sold, which led to more price competition and a plummeting anticipated price point for consumers, the entire Home Entertainment business matured… whether they meant it to or not. And with that, the DVD pricing and the power valuation of ownership that changed so dramatically for DVD also attached to Blu-ray and even more so, to digital delivery sell-thru.

In other words… only a tiny slice of the market cares how it gets there… they only care that it gets there and that it looks good. When the pricing on DVD dropped to about $15 on average, the industry created a ceiling for itself that it will never crack when it comes to the idea of buying a movie. And since most adults are not inclined to multiple viewings of all but a few favorite films… and also have cable/satellite and DVRs, which bring them this content in the context of a subscription package within a year of theatrical release, spending the $15 is unlikely for their personal use. They have been down that road with DVD and are not going there again with a “digital lockbox.”

The idea of Digital Sell-Thru is a step backwards, not forward. It is asking people to do what they did… what they did from albums to tape to CDs to mp3… what they did from VHS to DVD to (for some) Blu-ray. It is a desperate notion of One More Bubble!

The exceptions to this rule are very simple. Teens and kids watch things over and over. So a kid renting the same movie 4 times and wanting more will make a parent want to kill their children. Under 25s are where the “must-see on opening weekend” resides, so they are the target for theatrical too.

So under 25s are the primary market for Digital Sell-Thru. And the people who pay the credit card bills for this group will be susceptible to Disney, a Transformers movie, a Pirates movie, etc… movies they know will be watched over and over and thus be a value proposition. (There is a smaller, but valuable, group of hard-core travelers who may also be game, though rental works for most of them.)

But then you hit the other wall… a flooded content market and subscription providers.

At $10 a month, Hulu-Plus is a great bargain for TV lovers and works on your TV (via PS3 or other boxes) as well as your portables. So why would anyone keep spending $2 an episode so they can watch 30 Rock on their treadmills on Friday when for $10, they get every episode of the series and so much more for every other day of the week?

Netflix is another $10 a month for access to thousands of titles streaming to you. So do you need to see Studio Movie X the day it comes out on DVD? Surveys have consistently said that the answer to this for adults is, “No<" outside of special events. I LOVE digital delivery. But i have to say, when people write about it like its something other than a new platform, with many of the same business issues of the old platform, they are getting caught up in the hype. Right now, things are such a mess that no one can really expect the average consumer to sort it out. Movies are in theaters, then in some cases, on DVD and Download and/or VOD less than 4 months later, then a month after that on Netflix and Redbox, then a few months after that, pay-TV and or Netflix streaming. How many bites of the apple does the industry think it can have... and at what price for each one? That is the big question weighing on everyone's mind. And you know, if they were so very sure about "fight pricing," then you can only wonder why Harry Potter and Tangled, movies right in the line of possibility-of-success with the idea, aren’t going there next month. The answer: they don’t know. The Catch-22: Besides having to convince powerful partners to play along… besides igniting a war with exhibitors… franchises that have the best potential to work for day-n-date are also the franchises still having the most success with windows, starting with a solid theatrical window. And… if it “failed” with a Harry Potter or a Pixar film – meaning the final bottom line isn’t increased over the current platforming system – it would be hard to get anyone to play again for a long time, especially when 90% of the product being released doesn’t come with a fraction of the built-in audience that these big events do.

Staying at Disney for a moment, since they have the most strongly committed audience for any studio brand, Disney also has to figure out the math of the subscription model vs current windows vs broken windows. With over 100 million babies born in the world each year, how many Disney homes are there? 15 million subscribers at $10 a month for access to everything anywhere is a $1.8 billion revenue stream. (And aren’t there more, especially in Europe and Asia?) And that is without theatrical or DVD or Digital Rental/Sell-Thru or STARZ/Netflix or cable/satellite Disney Channel viewers who don’t subscribe to the monthly service (which would be reduced significantly, but still be a good chunk of revenue). That’s just the all-access proposition that would be primarily with people with kids in the 6-16 age range. So I expect them to go there before 2015.

This article is a bit of a mess… all over the place… which is why it’s been a struggle… but also representative of the subject. Rights are spread out all over the place. Technology is just settling in. Netflix is overpaying by too much to disregard so that engines can be revved for another couple of years instead of advantage being taken. Every rights holder seems to be trying to get into the package streaming business, even if they don’t specifically have the right to do so… or have not been precluded from doing so. Studios have very different content values in this evolution. Disney, as noted, is a singular kids play. But Viacom’s Nickolodeon may also be a powerhouse… and may or may not benefit from being connected to Paramount. Is HBO of enough value to stand alone, without getting sucked into Wanrer Bros’ plans? Should pre-1970 catalogs, like the Warner Archives, be offered separately from the big studio library? What about mixing or separating film and TV?

There is a lot of experimentation to do. And the problem is, history tells us that one or two missteps can set groundwork for an unhappy future.

The dream is that as many people as bought DVDs in the heyday, and more, will pay DVD prices for “ownership” of a digital version of films and TV shows. I think most studios know that the price is never going up. But i would still argue that it’s a fantasy to think that digital delivery will just become the new DVD, even if you can watch something on multiple platforms. There will be a small bubble. But DVD felt revolutionary. Digital delivery, after the shock of the new, is evolutionary. And people only have so much money to spend on Home Entertainment… which is when the next war starts… when people start subscribing to 20 things and are spending $200 a month and the next recession hits and they start paring it back… even to $150 a month. That’s when even more consolidation starts and the shrinking of the industry really settles in to a future reality.

Anyway… sorry it’s rambling… but I think there is a lot to chew on… interested in your opinions…

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Jam Session

Rabbit Hole, director John Cameron Mitchell

BYOB Tuesday, 10/19/10

5 Is The Stupidest Number

So is this the new Anne Thompson signature? 5 Reasons You’re A Fuck Up? I hope not, especially since Anne isn’t going to make it by playing Queen Bitch and whether it is her writing it or Anthony D’Alessandro, these two back-to-back pieces are abject failures.

“What went wrong” with Wall Street 2 is not a column… it’s barely a sentence. “A sequel that virtually no one wanted made by people who made it for the wrong reasons with an idea that was not fully hatched.”

It’s not the first. Won’t be the last. Has nothing to do with the future of studio dramas.

And if you are going do make over-the-top connections, you have to do the math. W didn’t do anything close to the box office that Wall Street 2 did. This doesn’t make Wall Street 2 a good choice, but you can’t be taken seriously when you write, “Stone was far more frugal with his George W. Bush biopic W., which cost $25 million and grossed about the same,” when the domestic numbers are $26m for one and $48m for the other domestically and $84m to $30m worldwide. Those are not “the same.”

Also the idea of comparing the process of getting The Town made and The Social Network made and Wall Street 2 just makes the author sound like the just got in from Southern Iowa. These things are not connected. Not remotely. And obviously, the box office is not connected to the box office gross of any of these films. In the long run, Sony will spend much more on P&A on TSN than Fox spent on WS2… irrelevant to this conversation.

Shia LeBouff fans not showing up is not a mistake… it’s just what happened. Wall Street 2 could easily have done $100 million domestic without “the millennials.”

A lengthy 133-minute running time didn’t help. Huh? Are we really arguing that 13 minutes between The Social Network (whose domestic gross, btw, will not likely be that much greater than WS2’s) and WS2 made a difference? Did the fact that The Blind Side, a drama which grossed $255m domestic ran 7 minutes shorter than Wall Street 2 make you think twice about this idiotic theory? Or did you just need 5 mistakes to for the movie into this idea of a feature.

Adults are tough critics. WHAT?!?! You mean like Eat Pray Love, which had a 37% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but did $80m domestic?

I was going to just not mention this column. I considered just doing a Twitter entry. But I feel a bad trend starting and better to try to help nip it in the bud now, before anyone self-destructs.

Trying to turn any story into a “5 Things” format is almost always a bad idea. But in this case, only 2 of the 5 arguments offered come close to being accurate. The idea of the film doing better in April… when a grand total of ZERO dramas grossed over $6 million this year and two dramas made more than $2 million in 2009 – State of Play with $37m domestic and The Soloist with $32m domestic – is based on nothing but “nyah, nyah, you shoulda done something else” and no reporting at all.

Stop the madness!

The Magic Of Burton’s Batman, In Retrospect

I don’t want to make too much of this, but…

Last night, on the local PBS station (for now… turning into a commerical station… horrors… different conversation) was running Tim Burton’s Batman. I own the Blu-ray of Batman and Batman Returns, as well as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I have a great deal of nostalgia for the Burtons and a modern appreciation of the Nolans. So I am already a little in love.

But what hit me last night was how Batman, which I loved, but which had many of the limitations of being shot on stages in a time before CG, was now looking quite beautiful because of the limitations of shooting on stages and being without CG. It’s was like watching a relatively recent time capsule of truly elegant and crafty and intimately beautiful studio production. It wasn’t as REAL. It certainly was nowhere close to being as visually dense. But it is almost impossible to imagine a major studio action film in 2010 that would get so much out of shadows and things happening in the back of frames and simple sets.

I think the depth of connection to Ledger’s Joker was that he was a throwback to this period and the decades before it… he was the special effect… just as Jack Palance was the special effect… Keaton’s eyebrow was a special effect… Basinger’s skin and hair… the nearly fetishistic interest in the toys… the sound…

It was really fresh and new then, but Burton, being Burton, was also making an homage to the great German expressionists and to film noir. And without probably knowing it, he was documenting the end of a kind of big-budget filmmaking… one that Mr. Schumacher may have killed off with Batman & Robin… one that Bryan Singer seemed to be trying to get back to with Superman Returns… something we feel, I think, in the Bourne movies, though we don’t think of those as the same kind of spectacle. Perhaps it was what The Wachowskis were after with all of the beaten-up wool and the overly moist sex in the Matrix films.

Anyway… it really struck me… it was like looking at a different form of the action film art… not necessarily better or worse, but so much something we just don’t see anymore.

Hereafter, writer Peter Morgan

I really like Peter Morgan. I like his work, but I also find that I really like the guy. This DP/30, which goes about 40 minutes, including a dissertation by me on the state of the internet (because he asked), makes it pretty clear why. No bullshit. He talks about the film and its rough edges. He talks about the process of writing it and then how it ends up with Eastwood, who wouldn’t let him rewrite, creating a bit of panic. And he talks about the good, bad, and odd about what he does for a living. Straight.

Let The Premature Awardulation Begin!!!

A 20 Weeks Special

Ah, as the temperatures finally drop from the 80s in Los Angeles, it’s time to start giving out year end awards months before the year has ended.

Now, there are two classes of premature awardulation. There is the sincere and well-intended. That would be your Gotham Awards.

Desperately trying to compete for attention and position ahead of the Independent Spirit Awards, from the IFP-jumping FIND of Los Angeles (independent film AND an iPhone app that shows you where the liquor stores are!), IFP pushed The Gothams to the very start of the season a few years ago. Thing is, as breathtakingly stupid as a year-end awards show being set in October, with no really clear rules for what is indie, the punchline is that they have a really fun party that the indie universe, housed mostly in New York, really seems to enjoy. And bully for them. It has no sway over Oscar or any other awards, but anhonor is an honor and God bless multiple nominees Winter’s Bone, The Kids Are All Right, Tiny Furniture, and everyone else. Have a good time.

On the other hand, you have the cynical, ugly, somewhat desperate awards known as The Hollywood Movie Awards aka Carlos de Abreu Lines His Pockets With Hollywood’s Money Because They All Want A Foothold On The Season & They Will Take An Award In A Butcher Shop In October If It Might Get Them One.

I don’t really understand how studios continue to pony up to what is basically a con by de Abreu. He has “an advisory board,” which I was once on. Our meetings consisted of a couple of lunches a year, seeking insight into who might be Oscar nominated, which actor had a better chance than the other one, etc. Basically it was like he was trying to do a Gurus o’ Gold chart over the summer, since he was handing out awards in October. Carlos works with the studios to see who they can deliver, how many tables they will buy in the same Bev Hilton ballroom that will hold The Golden Globes in January, and makes up awards to match the talent he can land. If you don’t think the award fits, Carlos is more than happy to adjust it… just as long as the talent will show up.

Carlos is not a dumb guy. He is a very clever con. How else could he get Sean Penn, a very serious guy, to show up? He’s this year’s “Hollywood Humanitarian.” And getting Penn probably made it easier to get Robert Duvall to show up to get his “Hollywood Actor Award.” And that makes it seem less desperate for Annette Bening to show up to “win” her “Hollywood Actress Award.” And Helena Bonham Carter and Sam Rockwell, and so on.

Carlos also smartly honors more below-the-line talent than any show other than the Oscars. Honor Zimmer and Pfister and you likely get Nolan & DiCaprio to show up.

And why doesn’t the media burn this thing to the ground… even as much as they try to tear down the more legit Golden Globes/HFPA, which is still only 80something dubious journalists with a TV show, but is still not just one guy handing out statues and selling tables to studios for personal profit? Well, who wants to say that Wally Pfister doesn’t deserve awards? I don’t. He deserves the love. And I am happy that Duvall is out on the awards circuit. He deserves recognition for Get Low. Etc. Who wants to be the prick to say to them, “What the HELL are you doing accepting a clown award at a small town rodeo?” And who wants to embarrass the publicists, consultants, and studio execs who talked the talent into going to the show?

No one.

Not even me.

But every once in a while, someone needs to say it out loud… because everyone says it privately. Well, everyone who even knows what you are talking about when you bring the show up.

Taking home multiple “Carloses” will be The Social Network (4), Inception (3, given that the fix is in for Leo to win the Audience Poll at Yahoo!), and The King’s Speech (2). With only Duvall representing, Sony Classics might not even buy a table – the exception that proves the rule – with Duvall sitting with Penn (sure Carlos is working Summit to buy a table, even though he’s not officially there for Fair Game. Searchlight and Disney are each accepting 2 awards, so each might buy one table. Focus got a biggie, so they are probably in for a table. And whose table does Zach Galifianakis sit at, Focus or Warners… Annette or Leo?

The sad thing about this one-man awards show is that none of these people need the show, the award, or the smell of crap on their shoes. There is not a weak player on this list. Great actors. Great talent behind the camera. They are all in the game, as Carlos knows, and this silly event will not move the big bar a single inch.

The Globes, absurd as it is, became “important” because it has millions of eyeballs right in the flow of the Oscar season. It has become a place to be seen and to reassert your Oscar goals. Getting a Hollywood Movie Award is a little like having sex with the slut at college. Neither of you much remember what happened. No one else much cares, since they all know how low the bar for entry was. And all you have left to show from the encounter is a odd little “award” that you notice every once in a while and hope isn’t herpes.

The one good thing about this moment is that we now have about six weeks before we have to hear from the ridiculous National Board Of Reviewing Their Ability To Get Talent To Jump For No Real Reason and then, the onslaught.

Hearing From The Yes Men, I Think

This e-mail about the media being duped by a stunt that mocks/imitates the Chevron “We Agree” campaign is subtle… but seems to be from the pranksters themselves… and this style is Yes Men all the way.

The working link, by the way, to the stunt is Chevron-weagree.com, which brings up…

… which leads to more Chevron smacking and even an e-mail and phone number ((415) 763-8916) to reach “Giles Vechny,” whose phone is answered electronically and asks for your name. The message, “You have reached Giles Vechny, Chevron Corporation press officer… We agree… please leave a message… thank you.”

Somewhere, Joe Berlinger is smiling.

The Fighter’s 2 Minute TV Spot

After being underwhelmed by the trailer, this spot shows why Paramount is so high on this movie. Looks like The Wrestler meet Rocky meets Raging Bull meets On The Waterfront, synthesized and turned into its own thing by David O. Russell, Wahlberg, and the screenwriting team. Let’s just hope…

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Kind of a dream weekend for the big new movies. Jackass 3D may come up, as Klady estimates, just under $50 million, but that’s 2/3rds of the way to the best gross of the series. This is when 3D works well for a movie… it fits the material, seeming like a cool addition, and has a strong built-in, committed base. This is no more an argument for all cheap movies using 3D than the failure of Step-Up 3D to meet expectations means 3D is dead.

Another example of this is Resident Evil: Afterlife, in 3D, which domestically has had a modest 17% jump from the 2nd highest in the series.. not quite the 3D bump. But internationally, the series exploded to more than double any of the previous films in the series. How much of that was 3D? I don’t know. A significant percentage is likely not in 3D internationally. But something lit a fire and RE:A is closing in on $270 million worldwide.

3D is neither a panacea nor a nightmare. It is a tool. WB seems to be backing off of 3D faster than anyone, dumping the gimmick from both the next Potter and Sucker Punch. And if you really think these were aesthetic calls, you are a sucker, punch. I would suggest that it is more like deciding whether to put the film into the Oscar hopper. Sometimes there are economic benefits… sometimes not. Sometimes it just fits and everyone is on board, sometimes it distracts badly from the one real job… selling a movie.

As for Red, as you can hear in the first moments of the DP/30 with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, this opening is pretty much their dream number. Of course, as things were looking better for the film, dreams of even higher numbers danced in the heads of some, but good for Summit, good for the film – whose detractors I cannot and will not fight off… only arguing that it’s great fun for a lot of people and if you are turned off by it, shit happens, like a comedy version of Crash, I can see your argument – and good for some older actors who can always use a boost of commercial enthusiasm. And I am looking forward to the series of stories on the film in the NY Times and other media… especially is the film has a 30% hold next weekend.

Meanwhile, another excellent hold by The Social Network. And a better hold by Secretariat. Not quite enough for Big Red to overtake TSN on the Top 5 list, but pretty impressive. Also in a seeming parade of under 40% holds are Life As We Know It, Legend of the Guardians, The Town, Easy A, and It’s Kind of A Funny Story. What gives? Well, it’s October. We haven’t seen a $27m opening since mid-August or a $50m opening since mid-July. And look at the titles… nothing approaching 4-quadrant. I would argue that these films are servicing their niches – of various sizes – effectively and thus, the solid holds.

Hereafter and Carlos had solid limited weekends, heading in different directions. WB is trying to build audience word-of-mouth for the Eastwood, while IFC will be encouraged to widen Carlos a little more than previously planned, but still, they are looking for their money elsewhere. The Conviction opening is okay… lots of work to be done for Searchlight to make this film – which is not an awards movie, sorry – work commercially… and it could. This is one of those cases where the sell got distracted by the awards potential of a 2-time Oscar winner and The Great Sam Rockwell that they forgot to just sell the Southern Chick Flick. Meanwhile, Never Let Me Go, sadly, is on the wrong side of the expansion hump. Pretty much done. Tragic, really. When the story of 2010 at the cinema is written a decade from now, it will be one of the best remembered films. Don’t feel too bad for Searchlight. Black Swan is going to be a hit and most likely, an Oscar nominee, and 127 Hours is going to be a smash hit and likely Oscar nominee.

Tips: How Not To Do Box Office Analysis

Yeah… everyone is an expert on everything now. That seems, most sadly, to include veteran reporters who actually do know about some things… and almost nothing of any value about others.

So, when I read “What Went Wrong With Tamara Drewe?,” I spit up a little coffee and thought how best to approach the silliness of it… especially in light of being friends for many years with its author. So, a list! Everyone loves a list!

1. Never ever write, “Here’s why.”

You don’t actually know the answer to, “why.” You have some theories. Maybe you have some good theories. In this case, not so much. But either way, you don’t know why and saying you do makes you look a little silly.

I have been accused by many of thinking I had all the answers. I don’t, especially on something as complex as the production and distribution of a film. I have theories. And while people often feel I write with an authoritative tone – guilty – I do try to make the fact that there could be other answers clear.

2. Never ever write, “Director made a huge error not casting…”

There are movies whose commercial intent demands a certain kind of casting… in which case, the director rarely actually decides on the key cast on his or her own. But throwing this at a UK pick-up by Stephen Fucking Frears… are you kidding? Do you need a list of his casting errors? First leads without big name support from Tim Roth, Daniel Day Lewis, and Alfred Molina (who co-starred with Gary Oldman, who was cast before Sid & Nancy hit). And then, when every film of his was getting attention, such key breakthrough casting choices as Annette Bening, Jack Black, Uma Thurman, Sophie Okonedo, and Penelope Cruz’s first real role in an English-language film. But aside from that, the old goat doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he’s doing.

And while I hate to use Phillip Seymour Hoffman as an example, which sure bet gross are you looking at, Jack Goes Boating or Pirate Radio?

3. Never ever write “Director is out of his zone.”

Frears is one of the worst directors to write this about, but really, any director, aside from Woody Allen, is likely to make you look stupid writing that phrase. ” Smart-house crowds know what they want from the director: smart, sophisticated dramas.” You mean, like Mary Reilly? Or The Hi-Lo Country? And you’re trying to include High Fidelity as a drama? And forgetting Mrs. Henderson Presents?

My rage seethes just reading someone with the audacity to suggest putting one of our finest, most ecclectic filmmakers in a box. But beyond that, the idea is just stupid. Are filmmakers meant to make the same movie over and over, chasing box office? Because this tends to fail utterly. Would $2.7 million domestic for Tamara Drewe still be a “failure” or was Cheri a different kind of failure?

4. Never ever write “I can’t help but wonder if the character doesn’t make audiences a tad uncomfortable.”

You’re doing box office analysis, not a personal review. No one knows what her sexual behavior is before they go into a theater, especially on opening weekend, so you can’t blame the details of the movie for box office. Factual error.

5. Never ever claim that a film failed or succeeded based one weekend on 4 screens.

‘Nuff said. it’s stupid and lazy.

If this story is cover for SPC killing expnasion plans, which I pray it is not, be a journalist and do the story and don’t let the studio hide behind this silliness.

If it isn’t… well… just bad, underfed analysis.

Did it occur to you, for instance, that the film – light and fluffy – opened against The Social Network, especially strong in NY and LA with adults, as well as SPC’s own Inside Job, Stone, Nowhere Boy, and the expansion of the Woody Allen? Terrible weekend to open a romp without big names and no “must go” idea… because, have you considered, that Tamara Drewe: The Graphic Novel has a lot of cache in England and none in the US?

But instead of these obvious problems, we get that the director made the wrong film with the wrong cast and the wrong position on sex (which came from the source)… and oh yeah, Tony Scott and freelancer Bob Abele killed it.

And by the way… the movie is already over $6 million in other countries. So someone figured out how to overcome these terrible choices by Stephen Frears.

Friday Estimates by Klady Ass OR Episode 3794 of How Tracking Fails

So, it looks like Jackass 3D will do a minimum of $40m to start and Red will do more than $20m. So much for seeing it coming. (Yes, I know some of you did in the BO Hell entry comments.)

For Jackass 3D, this represents a 73% jump from #2’s opening Friday – and others have the Friday number estimated higher – which is more than a 3D bump. Without turning this into Stephen Hawking’s blog, I would rough out that if the opening day audience for Jackass #1 grew 10% for #2 and the rest was the increase in ticker prices from 2002 to 2006, you might be looking at the audience growing another 20% here… plus ticket prices and the 3D bump. Neither of the first films did 3x opening day.

The Social Network had another excellent drop. And Secretariat‘s was even better, by Klady’s estimates. I’m looking forward to all of the stories in the media about the phenomenon of Secretariat and how brilliantly MT Carney is marketing it. Of course, that will never happen. And to be fair, the Secretariat number is much smaller. More fair would the comparison to The Town, which in its first 15 days – yesterday was TSN’s 15th – had higher grosses than TSN on all but 4, dropped in a similar way, and was about $2m ahead of TSN after 15 days. And i would assume that a much higher percentage of bank robbers have checked it out than the approximately 1% of Facebook users that have seen The Social Network, which is much likely less, as I would bet a significant percentage of TSN ticket buyers are not even on Facebook.

Look… I hate to be Mr Gray Lining to Social Network’s silver cloud. I really, really like the movie a lot. Right now, it’s Top 10 material for me, maybe Top 5 (I haven’t really thought that hard about the year.) But the media agenda of raising The Selected Film to the peak of the highest mountain to be given sainthood using allegedly empirical data that they conveniently forget is very similar for less beloved titles drives me to distraction.

I say, great, make the arguments about why you LOVE these films and that America and the world would be a better place if every man, woman, and child saw them. And I’m not kidding. Making the argument is the prerogative of every editorialist. But pretending it’s an objective argument drives me out of my f-ing mind!!! The creeping fear that voices of authority have lost that authority, so we have to pretend that there is a factual basis for our personal preferences, most often without really making a factual case, is the core of the horrible, disfigured idea of journalism that is currently dominating the conversation, whether at FoxNews or on movie blogs.

One last point on the weekend’s top grosser (in every way)… all those kids that newspaper editors think are interested in The Social Network… the ones who spend all their time texting, and tweeting, and Facebooking, and harassing online, and watching people wipe out on YouTube… they went to go see Jackass 3D on opening night and will be there a second time soon. They are interested in doing, not discussing. To really appreciate The Social Network, you need to have perspective on the kids in the film, not be an average freshman in college, still trying to figure the proportion of grain alcohol to nudity.

And now back to Red… which is not the greatest film ever made… but is, I think for most people, a solid entertainment. The actors in the film, all but Willis (and to some degree Morgan Freeman), playing against type, are fun and charming. Helen Mirren with an automatic weapon is actually better in context than out of context. Malkovich is a pleasure to watch. Karl Urban as the balance to the group is quite un-Bones-like. And Willis, in his relationship with Mary Louise Parker, gets to charm in unexpected ways too. Are there some messes left in Aisle Four? Sure. But a $20m-plus opening is exactly what a film like this needs to create a place at the table. It’s a solid sample and word-of-mouth will take over from there. I don’t see $100 million in its future, but $80 million would not be a big shock. And $80 million is the borderline to be Summit’s biggest non-Twilight film ever, The next film that’s directly in this film’s way is Unstoppable on Nov 12. That’s plenty of time for the takes-a-couple-of-weeks-to-go over-50 audience to find this film.

Hereafter and Conviction were leaked into theaters with Eastwood doing nearly double the gross on nearly half the screens. Both studios feel they have word-of-mouth audience movies – aka, not so good for critics – and hope to get some chatter going. I will actually write reviews of both films soon, but I will say here that Hereafter is a much richer meal than Conviction and while it will have more people who dislike it on principle, it will also have more people who love it and want to talk about it for hours and hours afterward. (A great DP/30 with Peter Morgan will land next week… in which he discusses the rough hewn nature of his script with remarkable candor.)

Carlos is this year’s Red Riding/che’ epic experience that you should have, though I gather the theatrical is not the whole 5.5 hours. It’s more worth the time than any 6 hours of TV you will watch this year.

(Edit: 3p – For really dumb error regarding the two Oscar-chasing exclusive releases.)