MCN Originals Archive for June, 2014

The Weekend Report

Mere quibbling! Transformers: Age of Extinction pretty much hit its target with an estimated $99.2 million that consumed roughly 55% of the marketplace and set the benchmark for 2014 openings. And to no great surprise its brethren majors opted not to set up a sacrifice title as counterprogramming. New titles in exclusive bows also registered some potent starts, including dystopian sci-fier Snowpiercer with a torrid $163,000 at eight railways and musical rom-com Begin Again tuning up $143,000 at five gigs. Biopic Yves Saint Laurent fashioned $23,700 from two screens and the fanciful historical re-write America summed up to $36,300 from four playdates.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

Transformers: Age of Extinction is the biggest opening day launch of 2014 so far, but not by a lot. Godzilla opened to $38.4 million on Friday and ended up with just $93.3 million for that weekend. The best opening of the year is still Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with $95 million. So while the assumption was be that Transformers would be the first $100m opener of the year, it is unclear at this time. High-profile openers Begin Again and Snowpiercer are only on 5 and 8 screens, respectively, and will have decent weekends as limited releases. Maleficent continues to be the best mainstream holder of the summer, driven by a lack of any other titles for girls.

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The DVD Wrapup

300 Empire, Winter’s Tale, I Spy, Masters of Sex, Redwood Highway, Two Lives, The Bridge, Cisco Kid.

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Gary Oldman’s Foot In Mouth Disease

The year was 2000. Rod Lurie had made his second film, he Contender, which had been picked up by DreamWorks SKG. It was the year after American Beauty, so DreamWorks SKG had an Oscar glow and though Gladiator was their big show pony, Lurie being ushered into that company was a very big deal. Joan Allen was an immediate big-time contender to win Best Actress. And there was strong buzz around Gary Oldman for Best Supporting Actor, playing an ultra-conservative, buttoned-up Senator.

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Wilmington on Movies: Jersey Boys

Frankie Valli of Belleville, New Jersey had a voice that could melt a klieg light, hypnotize a hummingbird in full flight or just send shivers down your spine. You heard it — that inimitable nasal fire-alarm falsetto with its Jersey tinges and its wailing shrieks of passion and pseudo-teen horniness — and your own throat almost started aching in sympathy.

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The Weekend Report

Taking a breather prior to Independence Day weekend box office took a sharp dip with the debut of the urban comedy Think Like a Man Too pushing to the top with an estimated $29.6 million.The session’s other debutante Jersey Boys settled into position four with $13.3 million.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

A strong opening for Think Like A Man 2, although a nearly identical opening to Think Like A Man, in spite of being a sequel and, according to the studio, seeing a doubling of fan engagement with social media from the first film. Another reminder that one of the hottest trends in marketing right now, social media, is still a lot more bark than bite. No awareness is bad… but engagement does not necessarily mean additional tickets sold. Also thrown into the gaping jaws of pre-Transformers summer, the long-gestating film adaptation of Jersey Boys, brought to the screen in living monotone by Clint Eastwood. Around this, a lot of nice holds in the Top Ten, particularly Maleficent, which if you look at the Top Ten, is the only real choice in the market for pre-teen girls, with Dragon 2 showing a rugged lean to pre-teen boys.

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Interview: Talking JOE And The South With David Gordon Green

The world of David Gordon Green’s Joe is all I ever knew and feared of my upbringing. Not my family, no, but some of my extended-extended family, cousins second- and third-removed, and certainly in the lanes and miles that radiated outward from this small blot on the countryside. I did not come from those people in Kentucky but they lived down the road only a piece.

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The DVD Wrapup

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The Weekend Report

The serpent got slain by the bad boys of 22 Jump Street, which debuted in the marketplace with an estimated $60.4 million. That still left considerable coin for the opening of How to Train Your Dragon 2, with $50.1 million. Among exclusive freshmen, most impressive was Australian futuristic revenge saga The Rover, that bowed at Cannes and entered the U.S. with $66,200 from five engagements.

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Friday Box Office Estimates

22 Jump Street gets the, uh, jump on How to Train Your Dragon 2… though the Saturday results will determine how the two openings ultimately compare.

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20 Weeks Of Summer: 6 Weeks In

How does the first third of this summer compare to the same period last summer? Pretty even. There is no Iron Man 3 this year. That is the only legit argument against this early summer. But aside from that, pretty even.

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The DVD Wrapup

Jack Ryan, Non-Stop, Capital, Adult World, Bible Quiz, Spike Lee, Bushido Man, Cosmos, Kill Zombie and a little bit more.

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The Weekend Report

It was supposed to be a horse race (notwithstanding Belmont) but at the finish line the singular teen romance The Fault in Our Stars left the competition in the dust with an estimated $48.1 million debut. Conversely, the frame’s other major release Edge of Tomorrow proved disappointing with a show position of $28.9 million.

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The DVD Wrapup

RoboCop, Lone Survivor, Alexander, Black Out, Big Joy, Branson, Ravenous, Graceland, Sugar Cookies and more.

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MCN Originals

Quote Unquotesee all »

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