Friday Estimates by Rango Klady

So… decent, but not spectacular opening for Rango. A “Matt Damon actually can consistently open in the teens” launch for The Adjustment Bureau. Another stumble for CBS Films with Beastly, which seems to have escaped more than been released, powerfully overshadowed by Red Riding Hood marketing. And Relativity was taken home by almost no one, as their homage to the 80s will barely top the opening of their The Warrior’s Way.

Of more interest to me this morning is the landing of Sharon “The Slump She Made Up” Waxman trying to jump on Nikki Finke’s Friday night premature estimation slot. Now we have two box office ignoramuses parroting sources that are only feeding them to get the spin going their way. So this morning, we have a heavy spin against Rango by Sharon and (unneeded) excuses made by Nikki, who is also selling Paramount’s “we don’t care if DWA leaves or not” spin, laughably suggesting that ILM will take DWA’s “slots” for the studio. It’s stupid spin. DWA is not really a growth business. It makes two films a year and the only “growth” is when it hits on a new franchise, which it has in Panda and Dragon, though not at Shrek levels. So the market doesn’t love DWA. Yawn. As a piece of business for any studio distributing for DWA, it is, essentially, $80 million in distribution fees that can relied on annually. In four years of Par distribution, DWA has generated almost $5 billion in worldwide grosses with 9 titles. Would it be more profitable to have your own animation business that generates more than $500m per title? Sure. But with all due respect, some great talent at Disney (non-Pixar) and Sony and even Fox have been unable to deliver with that consistency.

Back to the tale of Rango… the number isn’t breathtaking. My guess is that families are still trying to determine whether it’s safe for the younger kids. And it is for some. And it’s not for others. I expect we will see some marketing pushing to grown-ups in the weeks to come. That’s the secret constituency of Rango. And I suspect, it will lead to the box office being at least double the domestic internationally, not quite getting it to Ice Age 3 levels, but making $350m – $450m worldwide a possibility.

Meanwhile, both of The Lemming Sisters seem to be protecting the dismal launch of Beastly. Hmmmm…

CBS Films waited on I Am Number Four to make Alex Pettyfer into an overnight sensation. The film opened to almost $20 million, Pettyfer got a quick reputation as an egomaniacal ass, and now you have a Beast with an opening about 40% off of Charlie St Cloud, a $40m domestic grosser still seeming to be a million years away for Charlie Sheen’s former employers. #notwinning.

The Adjustment Bureau is a tough film to place in terms of success. It’s not a big opener for Matt Damon, but then again, his big openers are Bourne and ensemble films. So high teens/just over $20m is a strong opening for him with the lovely, talented, and not very box office Ms Blunt by his side. My guess is – though only time will tell – that this film is playing female, like a romance film, in spite of the campaign and the shock that critics seemed to feel when they realized love was in the plot. It feels like a Sony $80, domestic romance. It’s even harder to nail down Damon’s value overseas, as he’s has non-Bourne success, but attached to Eastwood or action films only.

And it looks like The King’s Speech shot its wad pre-Oscar. A nice hold this weekend will take it past $120 million. But $135m is looking like the domestic max while TWC was thinking $150m was in sight. Still, a remarkable run.

The New Thor Posters

The Last Lions, directors Dereck Joubert, Beverly Joubert

Not Really A Review Of The Adjustment Bureau

I don’t understand.

I read review after review of The Adjustment Bureau and I see very similar issues with the film that I have.

And then, somehow, it twists into being pretty positive about the same misjudgments that derail the movie or in some psychotic break, outright raves.

This is not a movie that is so ambitious that it somehow gets an Auto-Pass by critics desperate for anything that isn’t the same old cookie cutter. This movie could not be more The Same Old Cookie Cutter™.

Have we somehow set the bar so low that walking through a door into another location is reason to cheer? Do hackneyed “we work for Him” cliches that are almost as old as the late 50’s suits being worn some how cheer us up now while we float on clouds of dreaming about fucking Don Draper or alternatively, one of his many conquests? Could the great Terrence Stamp seem any more like a head in a jar?

There is one thing to LOVE in The Adjustment Bureau. Emily Blunt gives a performance that, for the first time in her career (as far as I’ve seen it) is Emily being Emily… charming, goofy, off-rhythm, can’t miss IT girl. But like I say… that’s pretty much her. Matt Damon, who is good here, is acting and does fine.

But 24 minutes of The Adjustment Bureau is enough. Rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat to get to a movie length running time.

Rod Serling could have showed up after the first round, as they run into the next round and said, “Love is a powerful thing. Some say, it is their deity. Some deities object. But the battle goes on and on… in The Twilight Zone” and I would have been happy to go home.

And as I noted in a Twitter fight, after all the incessant whining about The King’s Speech not being worthy, how does this just-okay entertainment – even at it’s best, it’s Dick doing Nicholas Sparks as a Matrix spin-off series for FX – get a pass?

George Nolfi may be a good director some day. But this premise and the accouterments seemed to be doing all the directing him this time out.

There is not a single original idea in the movie. And it isn’t within a million miles of being as smart about using those cliches as Rango. Yet, it seems like many of those who keep braying about originality in the movies are somehow under its influence. This is exactly the kind of movie that discerning film lovers shouldn’t want the studios to make… mid-range everything, except the two leads. Derivative. Unchallenged. A Lost episode that is pregnant and doesn’t know if the father is a Law & Order episode or a Private Practices episode. Oy.

ADD, 12:56p – I just read a Cinematical review of the film that, perhaps, explains why critics are excusing the mess. So confused by the marketing was this gentleman, that he disregarded the sci-fi, confused mess and just focused on the part he didn’t see coming… the love story. And like everyone else, Damon and Blunt are such attractive romantic partners (on screen and in personal fantasies) that combined with this being unexpected, all was forgiven. I guess that’s what leads to a craxy turn of phrase like, “a movie so defiant of the Hollywood norms we’re used to,” while the movie really couldn’t be more predictably Hollywood.

A New Twitter E-Mail Scam

I’ve gotten three of these so far today… all with “twitter” linking back to difference non-twitter addresses… beware.

EW & TMZ Team Up For An EXCLUSIVE

Charlie Sheen, last minute addition to Captain America film?

Rango (Spoiler-Free Review)

An animated film that you really need to see a few times is a rare commodity.

Pixar has been on the cutting edge of making animated films that speak to young and old(er) alike. And they have proven that you never quite can see it coming if it’s really great. Even the three-quel of Toy Story was a serious turn in that series of films, speaking to deeper, more complex emotions about change and loss than the first two successful and charming films.

Gore Verbinski, with LucasFilm as his animation company, just made a film the goes right to the top of that Pixar tree. In fact, I would say, right now, that the only animated film that could beat Rango for the Oscar next year (for Animated Feature) is Tintin, presuming that Spielberg’s film is run as an animated film. Both films will be released by Paramount. Neither film is from DreamWorks Animation. And both films will be animated in an heretofore untraditional way, Spielberg using much of the WETA-developed technology that Cameron used for Avatar to make his motion capture animated film. (Ironically, it was DreamWorks that gave Verbinsku his big feature film break, with Mouse Hunt and then The Mexican.)

It’s thrilling, really. Sometimes we forget that studio releases can be cutting edge and weighty in film history they way we often think of “indie” films.

Rango is a movie about movies.

It’s a western homage, first and foremost, ranging from High Noon to Star Wars with plenty of Boetticher in the mix. But Verbinski, who gets a shared story credit with the screenplay credit going to John Logan (another likely nominee next year), freely steals from every corner of film and culture.

At times, you feel like he is doing his personally preferred version of films he already made, especially the opening “Dead Cap’n Jack” sequence at the top of Pirates 3. There’s a bit that seems like a variation of Knick Knack, the great Pixar feature that was the first widely seen public face of CG Animation. There is the greek chorus, here embodied by Mariachi owls.

But mostly, this is about the spirit of the west and The Spirit of the West. (That won’t make sense until you see the film… and don’t let anyone spoil the pleasure of joy The Spirit adds to the party.) Rango is the everyman who dreams of being a hero, gets the chance to play the role, fails, stops believing in himself, and then finds the spirit to rise again. It’s a pretty basic movie tale. But it’s the beauty of the journey that makes this a great movie experience.

The magic trick, I think, is that Verbinski is artist enough to adhere to or to disregard “the rules” as he sees fit. The town of Dirt, for instance, is made up of junk and garbage. The bar, for instance, is housed in an old 5-gallon gas can. But he doesn’t sell that as a gag. It’s in the edges of the frame, visible, but not emphasized. It’s never (well, rarely), “Look at how clever we are.” It’s just clever.

The Mayor of Dirt is in a wheelchair. I didn’t fully realize he was a turtle until he is out of his chair in one scene. And in that moment, it was both a surprise and obvious. That is how I felt about the film, over and over and over again.

It’s in the writing too. There are a lot of dead ends in Rango… every one of which works. It’s a hard kind of humor to do. But Verbinski & Co make it work.

And there is great unexpected beauty. Pill bugs. Weathered water-hungry trees. The odd appearance of human beings, who feel, even more than the rest of the film, like they were caricatured by the great Drew Friedman or Jason Seiler, including a head-spinning reference to Johnny Depp… but not.

This movie is so not the movie that Paramount has been selling. I guess “Johnny Depp is Rango” is an easier pitch. The movie is profoundly odd, in the most beautiful way. And Depp is both brilliant… and gently part of a great ensemble of voice actors. He is not doing as much as he often does with his characters. The choices he’s made are very specific and very strong, but not very showy. He is the fulcrum of the piece, not the flavor. (This is the danger in Pirates 4. In the prior films, Depp was the showstopper, but the lovers were the fulcrum, allowing Depp to dominated but to still be “the character actor.” We’ll see how that works in the new film.)

Rango is a movie lover’s movie. See it with your 50-year-old neighbor who has bookshelves filled with DVDs. He will love it more than the 8-year-old sitting next to him. But that 8-year-old? He or She will treasure Rango for a lifetime, the way we have all held The Wizard of Oz or Bullwinkle (animated version, thanks) or the stories of the Brothers Grimm or Bambi or Pinocchio or Up or The Little Mermaid, etc, etc. The film will challenge the little ones. They won’t get all the jokes and the subtext. But as they grow, they will grow into more and more of the film. And when they see Rango again while smoking a joint in their first dorm room in the first week of college in 2021, they will laugh as hard and as long as the first time they saw it and they mostly laughed at all the funny insects and reptiles doing physical schtick.

I wanted to headline this review “Pirates of the Amphibians,” until I realized that there were only one or two amphibious creatures in the film. But the moniker fits in spirit, if not in specific. And giving it one more thought, that might make it the perfect way to describe this film. No box fits. Thank the movie gods!

Weinsteins Sued, Reads Like Bad Script

I’m going to get into this later today.

Frankly, my head is spinning from reading what is probably the most conversational complaint I have ever seen. It feels a bit like a draft of a blog entry that I keep adding ideas to and then realize has gotten beyond comprehension. The timeline is all over the place. And for as much detailed information as is included, some basic facts seem to be missing. We know, for instance, that Harvey Weinstein allegedly ate M&Ms off the floor during a meeting… but it’s unclear whether TWC actually laid out $19 million in cash while this animated film was still being endlessly rewritten, and if so, why. It’s unclear why, if they were within their contractual rights to say, “no,” the writer/director and producers kept acquiescing to TWC requests/demands. It’s unclear whether, after what seems to be a $19m outlay on an intended $35 budget, switching production studios – as the plaintiffs in this case wanted – was actually possible, in regards to moving the already created foundation for production.

Etc, etc, etc.

I’m going to do another couple of laps around this bizarrely personal legal document before I offer a real opinion. This includes my opinion of the claim that $500,000 was paid in “hush money” to not sue until after the Oscars, which sure seems like it was a contractually required payment that was surely attached to a passionate request/demand that the plaintiffs keep their mouths shut until after Oscar.

It’s sentences like, “The truth of the allegations in this Complaint are perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that TWC paid Plaintiffs $500,000 merely so that Plaintiffs would delay filing this action and instead agree to TWC’s request for a private mediation that would take place after the Academy Awards,” that make me wonder what’s really going on. After all, they filed this 3 days after the Oscars were over. If TWC paid half a million for a privately mediated settlement, they just got defrauded. Or the request was extra-legal… which makes one wonder why nothing was filed before the Oscars.

More later…

iPad 2

The magnetized cover is almost reason alone to buy this thing.

But with HD video from cameras, front and back, and the higher-level processor, this is now a realistic replacement for the iPhone for those of us who carry both the iPhone and the Blackberry. Besides Facetime, Skype – available via 3G – is now a legit phone alternative for the iPad.

Truth is, there is still a big difference – especially for guys – between being able to throw the iPhone in your pocket and carrying the iPad around. But for $360 a year for , it seems a bit self-indulgent to be using three of these machines at any given time. If you really need a primary phone, your iPad won’t really replace it at this point.

I’ll be curious to know if the “it’s a toy” people still see it that way.

BYOB 3211

Just Wondering…

To be clear, I don’t personally think of this as a copyright violation.

But does MMC’s legal team consider a column like this, driven primarily by Piers Morgan’s show on CNN – not linked – and mentioning a 20/20 interview as well – not linked – to be content theft the way they consider The Wrap to be content theft?

After all, the only “reporting” here was viewing someone else’s content creation and making it into content for MMC’s benefit… and there isn’t even a link to any of the original sources.

I know we have forgotten about the Cease & Desist in light of the Charlie & Derailment, but this seems like a pretty benign piece and another piece of the overall puzzle of what we consider fair use online. There is no news analysis in this piece. It just regurgitates what’s been reported elsewhere. So where’s the line? Would a link make it okay? Is it already okay? Are the rules different for MMC than they are for others?

Question du Jour: Who Should Replace Charlie Sheen?

An Awards Soldier Brings Back His War Trophy (to emeryville)

Copyright Conversation

Don Murphy started a discussion in another post about whether I was infringing on my own professed beliefs about copyright by posting YouTube embeds of Jane Russell.

I explained that Jane Russell’s films are all in the libraries of studios that have hired people to scour the internet for infringement and when they choose to allow clips to remain up, it is, as best as I can tell, a choice. But other infringements, that are not too unusual, are more problematic.

So… going down the John Galliano road today, I found a pretty clear example.

A site in France that acts a a YouTube with the additional role of attempting to be a home for citizen and even professional journalism, Citizenside, first found the video of Galliano making odd comments on The final Solution on their site. They sold that video to The Sun tabloid in the UK. The Sun ran it, without embed being available, and with the Citizenside logo still on it. So there are three financially interested parties at that point; Whoever Shot The Video, Citizenside, and The Sun.

I found the video on The Hollywood Reporter site after they tweeted that they had the video. It is embeded in a Hollywood Reporter streaming box, still with burnt in ownership of The Sun and Citizenside on it. But, effectively, stolen from The Sun site, which will not benefit from the page view that anyone wanting to see the video they paid for would have made had they not seen it on THR.com. Likewise, it appears on The Hufflington Post in what seems to be a steal of The Sun’s video without putting in a HuffPo skin. (And if you are wondering, The Wrap hasn’t linked to or repurposed the video… but they do have the Frank rich story on their front page 4 times today… must be really important.)

Regardless of the value of this story or the kind of work The Sun generally does, they paid for a piece of footage and while the appropriated video still has their logo on it, they are not getting more views for the 6 ads on their own page.

There is a difference between wanting to “own the news” and owning a specific piece of content that has a certain short-term value. Shouldn’t the way that piece of footage you own gets shared by up to its owner and not the whim of the web?

Interesting, in the litigious moment between Nikki & Sharon, there are no “EXCLUSIVES” on Sharon’s site and just one on Nikki’s… a WB deal that’s been press released by now, 4 hours later.

BYOB For A New Awards-Free Week