MCN Weekend Archive for July, 2014

The Weekend Report

By Leonard Klady - Sunday, July 27th, 2014

Lucy had the brains and the brawn to lead weekend box office with an estimated debut of $44 million. That left that other new muscleman Hercules in the bridesmaid slot with $29 million. The third national release—Rob Reiner’s senior rom-com And So It Goes—took $4.4 million.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 26th, 2014

The power of Scarlett Johansson’s brain on drugs outdoes The Rock’s muscles. And FreeStyle Entertainment takes out a Michael Douglas/Diane Keaton without telling anybody, while Woody #45 opens modestly.

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The DVD Report

By Gary Dretzka - Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014

If any actors should have been able to interest audiences in the concept of artificial intelligence forwarded in Transcendence, it was Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman.

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The Weekend Report

By Leonard Klady - Sunday, July 20th, 2014

Simple simian says Dawn of the Planet of the Apes rules again with an estimated $35.8 million. However, a trio of new wide releases lined up right behind it. Best of the bunch was the shocker sequel The Purge: Anarchy that bowed to $28.3 million. Both the animated sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue and romcom Sex Tape entered below expectations with respective grosses of $17.9 million and $14.9 million.

On the alternative side Begin Again added 363 screens and plateaued. The question now is just how far can Boyhood penetrate into the marketplace. Its weekend gross of $1.2 million from 34 screens in exclusive engagements in top urban markets is truly impressive. Nonetheless it will need sustained TLC and vigorous promotion to assure its embrace in second and third tier centers in order to reach a broad audience and secure its position as an early awards contender.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 19th, 2014

The Purge: Anarchy leads on Friday, but it’s down about 23% from opening day of the first high-concept, low-budget thriller. If it continues on this trajectory, it will gross about $26m for the weekend and still be very profitable. But don’t look elsewhere or you may think that ending the weekend as the #2 film is some sort of tragedy. Also opening, Sex Tape, which looks like Cameron Diaz’s weakest comedy opening since 2005/2006. The film is, literally, in the mid-summer Friends With Benefits slot… a film that also underperformed in spite of some hot talent. And Planes 2 opens softer than Planes, which was basically an up-converted direct-to-DVD spin-off of Cars. Of course, given that this is a film for young kids, it could still end up with a $20m weekend and a gross not too dissimilar to the first release, given the paucity of kids’ films in the market.

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The DVD Wrapup

By Gary Dretzka - Wednesday, July 16th, 2014

Like Father Like Son, Face of Love, Vinyl, TV Westerns, sxtape, Southern Comfort, WWI, D-Day and more.

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The Weekend Report

By Leonard Klady - Sunday, July 13th, 2014

The Apes rise, the Transformers drop but are far from extinction, Begin Again expands nicely, and Boyhood does awards-season opening numbers in July with an estimated $74,000 on 5 screens.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

By Leonard Klady - Saturday, July 12th, 2014

The Apes come out swinging, though on the second tier of summer hit openings. Transformers, which is still the biggest opening day of 2014, will become the quickest film to $200 million today, although Cap 2 was holding better in its third weekend. And Boyhoodopens very strong on just 5 screens, projecting to over $50k per, which would make it the biggest exclusive opening of the year after The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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The DVD Wrapup

By Gary Dretzka - Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

Jodorowsky’s Dune, Le Week-End, Cannabis Kid, Rigor Mortis, Pretty One, Watermark, POWs, Vicious, Endeavor and more.

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The Weekend Report

By Leonard Klady - Sunday, July 6th, 2014

There was a lot to celebrate during the Independence holiday span … but it wasn’t at the multiplex. Weekend business hit its lowest point for the period in the past decade. Leading the pack for its second weekend was Transformers: Age of Extinction with an estimated $36.2 million during the three-day skirmish. Raucous comedy Tammy was second and best of a trio of newcomers with $21.2 million. The other freshmen were exorcism chiller Deliver Us from Evil, which grossed $9.5 million and family-targeted Earth to Echo all that E.T.-ish at $8.2 million.

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The DVD Wrapup

By Gary Dretzka - Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

The Unknown Known, Lunchbox, Cannibal Holocaust, Final Terror, Operation Petticoat, Helix and more.

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MCN Weekend

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Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

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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