Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, there's been an interesting game of cat-and-mouse going on between Jeff Wells and Warner Brothers around Wells' early review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A couple days ago, Wells posted a "somewhat negative" review, which is not, in and of itself, a shocking development. A rep from Warner Brothers delivered a smackdown from on high to Wells, slapping him with the dreaded "your invitation to the screening clearly stated NO REVIEWS before opening day blah blah blah take it down or you'll never see another WB press screening until you're too old and decrepit to write negative crap about films."
Factoring in late-night screenings last Monday, "Transformers" had amassed $153 million by Sunday night, one of the best starts for a non-sequel property in recent memory. You know what that means, don't you? No, not sequels, although there'll assuredly be a "Transformers 2: Mission to Darfur" (if only). It means every toy you ever entertained squishy feelings of nostalgia for has now been green-lighted for production as of Monday morning. "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots"? It's doubtless on its way, with The Rock and Tony Jaa getting first look at the script. "Operation"? It'll be a torture-porn horror movie a la "Hostel". "Bratz"? Oh, wait, that one's opening in August.
This also means that Michael Bay has newfound respect in Hollywood, and I say that with the heaviest of hearts.
"Transformers" played on 7,600 screens in 4,011 theaters, and the doubling-up accounted for the film's high $16K per-theater-average. "Ratatouille" was in almost as many theaters but not on as many screens, so it's PTA was a comparatively lower $7,000. The rat-tale held up fairly well its second weekend out, with $29 million bringing the total gross over the $100 million mark, but it's looking to be less of a box-office monster than other Pixar movies. (Who cares? It's still great.)
"License to Wed"? $10 mill, about average for a bad Robin Williams comedy these days. "RV" made $16 million when it opened last year, but in a lot more theaters.
Two smaller entries to keep an eye on: "Rescue Dawn" (Werner Herzog directing Christian Bale) made a very strong $17K per theater at six houses, and creepy-kid chiller "Joshua," a Sundance hit, had an $8,000 PTA in the same number of venues. Both open in the Boston area this week ("Rescue" is terrific, and a lot of people like "Joshua," too, even if I'm not one of them.)
At first I wasn’t exactly sure why it took four screenwriters to nail down the inspiring story of Jim Ellis, who started an inner city swimming program in the early 1970’s. Based on a true story, a sports theme, and in general, a formula picture. After some checking, sure enough, one of major criticisms of this film is that, well, quoted from Ellis himself, “Some of the liberties is the way that they portrayed it (the swimming program’s start)”. In other words, the main conflicts and/or story points in the film never took place. Now that explains a lot. Let me explain this, however: so what? (more…)
Just a quick check up on the latest estimates for the US Box Office over the weekend. If you take a peek over to our sidebar on the left, you’ll see the figures.
Knocking Ratatouille down a significant notch is Michael Bay’s Transformers taking in a spectacular $67.6 million over the weekend. That makes a total of $152.5 million in its 6 days of opening. Not bad for a regurgitation of an old 80s cartoon based on a toy. With such inordinate amounts of money going Paramount way, this could easily kick off a studio flurry of snatching up retro favourites, a-lá Bryan Singer’s renewal of the comic book movie with X-Men. He-Man and Thundercats have already been snapped up by Warner Bros, further proof of this possible trend. Of course, like the comic book movies, its more than likely Hollywood will go over the fucking top and start making live-action versions of The Shoe People or The Care Bears.
On the subject of animation, still raking in a respectable amount is Ratatouille, bringing in a further $29 million for Pixar over the weekend. Overall, that brings it to a grand total of $109 million; an enormous figure, but not Pixar’s best.
Die Hard 4.0 remains in third place with a grand total of $84 million collected so far and we haven’t seen Licence to Wed or Evan Almighty, but they look like utter crud, so it would only depress one to comment on how much money they’re making.
Every now and then, a black-dominated city erupts into chaos, with a mob psychology whipping certain people up into a frenzy of looting and mayhem. We last saw this in New Orleans a couple of years ago, and before that there was Cincinnatti and LA in the ‘90s. We also see less spectacular variants in […]
As part of the NYT’s pathetic attempt to stay culturally ‘relevant’ and ‘hip’ (by hiring writers betters suited for Spin) their #1 most popular story today is about a supposed new trend: hip, Gen-X, alt-indie-flavored librarians! (“A Hipper Crowd of Shushers”). Read: When a Manhattanite working for the Times knows a handful of people who […]
This Is London reports aspects of what has already been known by rabid, rightwing, xenophobes: radical Muslims have infiltrated British police forces (link via LGF):
Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda.
Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan. […]
**UPDATE** The site is almost definitely a fake as there is a link to a forum at the bottom claiming to be a sponsor. A clear by-product of exploiting the buzz generating Cloverfield.
Thanks to Sheila (working for Paramount?) for pointing us to this new site www.parasitemovie.com, linking to the previous two Cloverfield sites and displaying simply the title ‘The Parasite’ with a timer counting down to 24 days from now. Not sure if it’s official ye, though.
‘The Parasite’ could be the official title for the movie and it’s likely that the timer is counting down to the release of a new trailer.
Or The Parasite could be the name of the monster and it will be revealed in 24 days.
Whatever it is, ‘The Parasite’ sounds a damn sight cooler than Cloverfield and we know where we’re going to be in 24 days, 6 hours and 48 minutes from now.
Whether this one is real or not, hats off to Abrams and co. for this ingenius viral marketing and one of the coolest trailers we’ve ever seen.
Thanks to the top secret trailer and recent viral marketing of JJ Abrams’ new monster movie, it has entered into the top 50 current searches in google and is pulling in a whopping 10.0 on our buzzometer.
So here’s a recap of everything that has been confirmed about this ‘top secret’ project.
JJ Abrams will produce
Directed by Matt Reeves, who worked with Abrams on Felicity and has directed… (ahem)… the Pallbearer
Written by Drew Godard, who has worked on Lost and Alias as well as Buffy and Angel
The cast consists of unknowns
An Abrams source has confirmed that the entire film will be shot in the handy-cam method seen in the trailer and that scenes from the trailer appear in the film. Read the quotes here.
Shooting has already begun
The film will be in cinemas on 18th January 2008
If you’re unemployed or bored, check out www.ethanhaaswasright.com, a viral marketing site with some fiendish riddles that if solved will reveal some videos. Videos that, if you couldn’t be arsed doing all that, you can see here.
Another official site, www.1-18-08.com, is posting pictures from the surprise party that appears in the trailer.
So that’s all that’s been confirmed, but that hasn’t put a cap on the wild speculation that are rife with nerdy salivation. A lot of people think it will turn out to be a Voltron film, based on the idea that about a minute and twenty seconds into the trailer someone yells what sounds like ‘It’s a lion!’
Of course, he actually says ‘Aaagh, it’s alive!’ Plus, if my city was being terrorised by a giant fucking monster, I’d be more likely to scream ‘Oh shit, let’s get the fuck out of here’, rather than ‘oh look, it’s a lion!” Unless of course he happened to be ignoring the carnage around him and was looking at pictures from his trip to the zoo.
The most ridiculous ‘it’s a lion’ theory I’ve read so far was someone’s comment on YouTube that this is actually a teaser for the new Thundercats movie. Yes, I can see it now: ‘Thundercats Take Manhattan.’ Don’t think so.
Stay tuned to the ATTIC for more Cloverfield news as it comes out.
If you are really lucky and care enough, you may find, in the void known only as the Wal-Mart Discount DVD Bin, one famous Chuck Norris film from 1980 called The Octagon. It is noteworthy not because he late Lee Van Cleef is in and is the best actor in the entire film, not because the film was the last Norris film under indie guerilla style studio Americian Cinema (which has a nice featurette on the DVD about the rise and fall of the studio), which could make an entertaining film all of itself, but rather, this is the only known film where Norris goes up against a terrorist camp run by ninjas. (more…)
Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, there's been an interesting game of cat-and-mouse going on between Jeff Wells and Warner Brothers around Wells' early review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A couple days ago, Wells posted a "somewhat negative" review, which is not, in and of itself, a shocking development. A rep from Warner Brothers delivered a smackdown from on high to Wells, slapping him with the dreaded "your invitation to the screening clearly stated NO REVIEWS before opening day blah blah blah take it down or you'll never see another WB press screening until you're too old and decrepit to write negative crap about films."
At first I wasn’t exactly sure why it took four screenwriters to nail down the inspiring story of Jim Ellis, who started an inner city swimming program in the early 1970’s. Based on a true story, a sports theme, and in general, a formula picture. After some checking, sure enough, one of major criticisms of this film is that, well, quoted from Ellis 
Just a quick check up on the latest estimates for the US Box Office over the weekend. If you take a peek over to our sidebar on the left, you’ll see the figures.
Thanks to the top secret trailer and recent viral marketing of JJ Abrams’ new monster movie, it has entered into the top 50 current searches in google and is pulling in a whopping 10.0 on our buzzometer.
If you are really lucky and care enough, you may find, in the void known only as the Wal-Mart Discount DVD Bin, one famous Chuck Norris film from 1980 called The Octagon. It is noteworthy not because he late Lee Van Cleef is in and is the best actor in the entire film, not because the film was the last Norris film under indie guerilla style studio Americian Cinema (which has a nice featurette on the DVD about the rise and fall of the studio), which could make an entertaining film all of itself, but rather, this is the only known film where Norris goes up against a terrorist camp run by ninjas. 
