The Hot Blog Archive for July, 2011
Friday Estimates by Captain Klady
Captain America is doing… pretty much what second-tier Marvel movies do. It ran almost exactly with Thor on opening day. Studios are projecting the same opening as Thor… $65m. And Thor‘s $180m domestic is likely where it’s headed. The real question, on the balance sheet, will be foreign. Thor will do about $270m international. It is said that Captain America cost at least $40m less to make, so that’s a big impact item as well.
The consistency, for better or worse, is pretty remarkable. As noted before, take the numbers on The Incredible Hulk and add a 3D bump and you pretty much have the same domestic result as both of these films. Will the presence of Downey push The Avengers to the $650m range? Higher? And how will those number be affected in the summer of both Spider-Man and Batman, not to mention, Alien Redux, Star Trek, and Will Smith. They do have the advantage of being first and having an open 2nd weekend of summer.
Cap’s win this weekend is really more about the front-loading of Harry Potter. If you include the late-Thursday/Midnight numbers it’s a remarkable 83% drop… almost 84%. Funny thing is, it’s still the Potter series’ best Second Friday number not aided by Thanksgiving weekend. $1b stil seems likely, but not much more than that very impressive landmark.
The fifth R-rated comedy of the summer, Friends With Benefits, is one of the best reviewed and also the weakest launch of the group. Timberlake & Kunis are getting raves, but the reality is, so far, neither has ever opened a movie. Bridesmaids was a marketing-driven opening… people got really excited about what they were seeing. Horrible Bosses loaded up on strong known talent to open. Cameron Diaz. But as Twitter-friendly as Kunis & Timberlake are… just not driving a big number.
56 Comments »MSN’s FilmFan: Captain America & Friends With Benefits
Or go to the MSN FilmFan site here – http://on-msn.com/qG27lK
*This is a sponsored content article that is a part of the MSN FilmFan blogger program.
HBO-ing
For some reason, I am finding myself more and more drawn into HBO lately than ever. Yes, some of the great shows of the past remain the best of the network’s history. But there is some really excellent new work being done. Perhaps agism and narrow thinking in the film business is responsible, but so be it.
The July premieres on the network – True Blood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and now, Entourage – have been interesting from the review perspective. They sent out the 3-4-5 episodes of Curb, 3-4-5 of True Blood and the first 3 of the 8 show Entourage series-closing season.
Curb was the most interesting because with all the hype about NYC, Larry doesn’t get there until episode 5. That’s the episode that’s been reviewed a lot… the Bill Buckner episode. Which is pretty great. 3 (which airs this weekend) and 4 are in LA… and personally, I thought episodes 1 & 2 this season were a touch better than either.
What really stands out about his season of Curb, for me, is that Larry has really relaxed into his role as an actor. He still mugs at times, but those mug shots are what they sell the show with. Apparently, people love them. It’s like his Jack Benny signature.
But back to the comfort zone… If you ever told me 10 years ago that I would see Larry David doing a sex scene, grunting around under a sexy woman in a way that wasn’t meant to be ironic, I would have laughed in your face. He put his wealth out there on the opening episode. He’s still copping to racist undercurrents that few under 40 can really claim to have sublimated completely, no matter how fully we have embraced equality. Lots of self-hating Jew in this season. It;s like Seinfeld was the surface version and now we are really getting into the dark, weird places with Larry… not just the funny ones… even though the darker he goes, the funnier it is.
Meanwhile, I have the next 3 weeks off of having to watch True Blood on Sunday nights… and still, will probably watch all these episodes again on Sunday nights.
True Blood is having what feels almost like a reboot season. I guess Charlaine Harris readers knew what was coming and what is coming, but I didn’t and don’t. All the relationships, aside from the two committed relationships (Lafayette & Jesus and Arlene & Terry), are flipped in all kinds of ways. And they’re just getting started. Fiona Shaw is a great addition to the cast and is just getting rolling now. The baby doll. Male rape. Vampires in trouble. Weird romance that’s both carnal, intentionally unthinking, and going against the most powerful advice possible. More deaths of major characters from past seasons. It’s crazy.
The only frustrating thing is that I am going to have to go a month now without progressing any further in the story. I’m hungry for a little more V and I’m not going to have to wait.
My look at Entourage to come shortly…
4 Comments »Trailer: Haywire by Soderbergh
This trailer makes the film look like the movie that Tarantino and Rodriguez have been trying to make for years now… glorious grindhouse… but loaded with unfaded stars doing mostly secondary roles… and a Soderbergh non-actor slicing things up from the front to the back. Hee hee.
21 Comments »
Drake Doremus’ Next
GREAT 37 minute EXCLUSIVE @ Deadline this morning…
But being pro-Drake around here, I’m running the press release anyway.
Untitled Drake Doremus Project
Bullet Points
§ Guy Pearce (THE KING’S SPEECH), Felicity Jones (LIKE CRAZY), and Amy Ryan (Academy Award nominee, GONE BABY GONE) are attached to star. Jones, who will be reteaming with Doremus for their second project together, recently won the Special Jury Prize for Acting, Dramatic Competition, for her work in Doremus’s LIKE CRAZY at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
§ Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones wrote the screenplay. Their previous collaboration was LIKE CRAZY, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
§ Drake Doremus (LIKE CRAZY) will direct.
§ This is an original idea, and the story is under wraps. It will be a film about the nature of love and marriage. Production begins in August.
§ The producers are Jonathan Schwartz and Andrea Sperling from Super Crispy Entertainment and Steven Rales and Mark Roybal from Indian Paintbrush. Indian Paintbrush will also finance the film.
§ Indian Paintbrush co-acquired Doremus’ LIKE CRAZY with Paramount Pictures, who will be distributing the film this fall.
§ Project deals were negotiated by Indian Paintbrush’s Peter McPartlin, Doremus’ attorney Larry Kopeikin (Morris Yorn), and UTA’s Rich Klubeck and David Flynn.
§ Pearce is represented by CAA, and Jones is represented by CAA, Independent Talent in London, and Attorney Jodi Peikoff. Ryan is represented by The Gersh Agency and Attorney Dave Feldman (Bloom Hergott), and Doremus is represented by UTA.
Here are Drake, Felicity Jones, and Anton Yelchin talking about Like Crazy at Sundance this year…
And here are Drake and his writing partner, Ben York Jones, plus co-star Andrew Dickler, talking Douchebag…
Star Wars: Deleted Scenes
This was shown at ComicCon today and will be in the Blu-ray package that’s coming in September.
8 Comments »HOBBITSES!
(L-r) Jed Brophy as Nori, DEAN O’GORMAN as Fili, Mark Hadlow as Dori, JAMES NESBITT as Bofur, PETER HAMBLETON as Gloin, GRAHAM McTAVISH as Dwalin, RICHARD ARMITAGE as Thorin Oakenshield (center), KEN STOTT as Balin, JOHN CALLEN as Oin, STEPHEN HUNTER as Bombur, WILLIAM KIRCHER as Bifur, Adam Brown as Ori and AIDAN TURNER as Kili in New Line Cinema’s and MGM’s fantasy adventure THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo by James Fisher.
A Big Ass Image Of The Hobbits
Checking In On Potter
On Monday, only 2 films had ever grossed $200m domestic in their first 6 days of release.
Now, Potter 7b is the third.
$214.89m in 6 days. The Dark Knight did $222m. Trannies 2, $214.93m.
A big split is coming, as TDK did a record $75.2m in its second weekend, Tr2 did $42m. And Potter 7b? Who knows?
The final Potter is, currently, $100 million in domestic alone, ahead of the most popular prior Potter, the first, after 6 days.
The film passes $650m worldwide today.
DP/30: Salvation Blvd, director/co-writer George Ratliff
