Archive: November 2008 (1-10 of 38)

Nov 29 2008 05:43 AM ET

'Four Christmases' dominates Thanksgiving box office

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Now that Thanksgiving has passed, a few films are feeling nice and fat (Four Christmases, Twilight) and a few…well, let’s just say that their box office coffers could still use some stuffing (Australia, Transporter 3). So what were the big winners and losers from the first half of this long holiday weekend? Below, I’ve ranked the major movies at the multiplex by how much money they brought in on Wednesday and Thursday combined. (Special props to Four Christmases, the runaway champ on Thanksgiving day proper, with $8.9 mil.) And don’t forget to check back here on Sunday for a complete weekend wrapup in the Box Office Report, you turkeys!

1. Four Christmases — $15 mil

2. Twilight — $13.2 mil

3. Bolt — $9.4 mil

4. Quantum of Solace — $8.6 mil

5. Transporter 3 — $6.1 mil

6. Australia — $5.2 mil

7. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa — $4.9 mil

SATURDAY QUICK UPDATE: Four Christmases easily won Friday, as well, with $13.2 mil, versus $11 mil for Twilight. Australia continued to trail way back in sixth place, with $5.7 mil.

More Box Office News:

Box Office Preview: Can Twilight hold off Four Christmases and Australia?

Twilight sinks its teeth into a blockbuster debut
Twilight grosses $35.7 mil on Friday
Quantum of Solace Stirs up a Win

Holiday Films to Receive Season’s Greetings, Beatings

Nov 28 2008 04:02 PM ET

The top 8 Best Picture contenders?

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Revolutionaryroad_l
For this week’s issue of EW (out today) I was asked to put together a status report on this year’s Best Picture race. Now that I’ve seen virtually every contender, I assembled a roughly ranked list of the eight films I thought had a shot of getting nominated on Jan. 22. Here they are:

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Frost/Nixon
4. Revolutionary Road
5. Doubt
6. Milk
7. The Dark Knight
8. Australia

The story closed this past Monday; now that I’ve seen the fantastic reviews for Milk and the horrible early box office for Australia, I might have amended things a bit. (And for what it’s worth, if I had had room for 10 films, I would have added The Reader and Gran Torino as well.) I know all of you out there will have opinions on my list. So let me have it. And have a great long weekend.

addCredit(“François Duhamel”)

Nov 27 2008 03:42 PM ET

'The Reader': The movie with no leads?

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Thereader_l
For Your Consideration ads have been coming fast and furious in the trade papers lately, and as I suspected would happen a few weeks ago, the Weinstein Co.’s advertisement for The Reader (which I’d call a definite top-10 Best Picture contender) lists Ralph Fiennes and David Kross in Best Supporting Actor, and Kate Winslet and Lena Olin in Best Supporting Actress, with no candidates for Best Actor or Best Actress at all. Now, other movies, like Crash and Babel, have tried this tactic before with some success. But those two were indisputably ensemble films, whereas The Reader, which spans five decades, clearly has two main characters: one shared by Kross and Fiennes and the other played entirely by Winslet. Obviously, the all-supporting decision is meant to keep Winslet from competing against herself (she’s up for Best Actress for Revolutionary Road), but now that I’ve seen in print, it does seem a little disingenuous. If the Weinstein Co. had placed Kross in the Best Actor category (he has much more screen time than Fiennes), there would have been at least one official lead to speak of. Still, if the Academy follows the campaign directives, it’ll turn out to be a smart move, since Winslet’s amazing performance in The Reader should be a sure thing for a supporting nomination.

addCredit(“Melinda Sue Gordon”)

Nov 26 2008 09:30 PM ET

Box Office Preview: Can 'Twilight' hold off 'Four Christmases' and 'Australia'?

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Fourchristmasesbop_l
The movies’ annual rite of gluttony, Thanksgiving weekend, is here, and three new wide releases — Four Christmases, Australia, and Transporter 3 — are stuffing multiplexes starting today. But can they wrest that bloody box office crown away from returning champ Twilight? We’ll see. Here are my picks for the films that will end the five-day frame triumphant…and who’ll be the turkeys. (And remember: The following predictions are for the full Wednesday-through-Sunday span.) Gobble, gobble!

1. Twilight — $43 million
Oh, please, like there was any doubt that it would be No. 1. Certainly, if this weren’t a holiday weekend, I’d argue that Twilight has some cause for concern. Why? Well, following its huge first-day gross of $36 mil, the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire-romance saga actually underperformed a tad over the rest of the weekend, banking a good but very mortal $12.4 mil on Sunday (ergo, its final premiere sum was $69.6 mil, down from the initial $70.6 mil estimate). So it’s fair to conclude that most folks weren’t necessarily going back to see the movie multiple times, and that, in turn, portends a more ordinary box office run from here on out. But, again, as I just wrote, it’s a holiday weekend, kids will be out of school, people will be bored and tired of eating leftovers, and I’d bet that by Sunday the movie will get some repeat viewers after all, if not several new ones. In many ways, Twilight‘s young-woman demographics match those of Enchanted, which played incredibly well through Thanksgiving last year.

2. Four Christmases — $29 million
Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon (pictured) star in 2008′s obligatory holiday domestic comedy, featuring five Academy Award winners (Witherspoon, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen, and Robert Duvall) — not to mention the great Dwight Yoakam. Vaughn’s box office prowess is a little up in the air following Fred Claus‘ mixed bag of a run a year ago (the film opened with a disappointing $18.5 mil, but then held on very well, ultimately banking $72 mil domestically). And Witherspoon, whose last big release, Rendition, tanked, is one of those actors whom I’ve always doubted as truly a major draw (for more on that, see “Kidman, Nicole,” a few paragraphs hence). But you know what? None of this matters! It’s simple: The word “Christmas” is in this movie’s title and few other things in filmdom are stronger catnip for cinemagoers.

3. Transporter 3 — $27 million
As my colleague who sits in the next office (and who shall remain nameless because a photograph of a shirtless Jason Statham covers the name plate on her door) can tell you, nothing says “Yummy!” on Thanksgiving like the English action star. I’ll take her word for it. No doubt, a lot of ticket buyers will, too.

4. Bolt — $26 million
That it opened just out of second place, with $26.2 mil, may not matter much for the Disney cartoon — not if it sports the long legs that animated family films at this time of year (e.g. Happy Feet, The Polar Express) tend to boast.

5. Quantum of Solace — $23 million
Daniel Craig’s second outing as James Bond dropped a steep but expected 60 percent last weekend against stiff competition and under the weight of middling reviews and weak word of mouth. Thanksgiving should help give it a small boost, but Quantum of Solace (gross to date: $111 mil) could have a hard time matching Casino Royale‘s $167.4 mil domestic take, the most ever for a 007 flick.

ALSO OPENING WIDE:

Australia — $22 million
As I hinted earlier, Nicole Kidman isn’t likely to help this epic romance from director Baz Luhrmann pull in viewers. She’s a big celebrity and a good actor, of course, but Kidman has failed time and again to prove that she’s very bankable. Truly, several of her recent endeavors have been high-profile flubs (The Stepford Wives, Bewitched, The Invasion, even the indies Fur and Birth), and her biggest success as a lead actress is probably 2001′s The Others, which cashed out at $96.5 mil nearly a decade ago. Meanwhile, her costar, Sexiest Man Alive Hugh Jackman, one of my favorite movie performers, may have been featured in the hit X-Men series, but he, too, hasn’t had much success on his own (The Fountain? Deception? Um, no). And it’s hard to imagine that Luhrmann’s name is enough to draw a crowd; this is just his fourth feature film, and first since 2001′s Oscar nominated-yet-polarizing Moulin Rouge. On a weekend with at least two other female-baiting flicks (and Jason Statham’s abs), Australia could struggle to be a major contender.

More Box Office News:
Twilight sinks its teeth into a blockbuster debut
Twilight grosses $35.7 mil on Friday
Quantum of Solace Stirs up a Win

Holiday Films to Receive Season’s Greetings, Beatings

Madagascar 2: Box Office No. 1

Nov 26 2008 09:00 PM ET

Adam Shankman talks 'Hairspray' sequel

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Poof up your pompadours and put on your dancing shoes: Last year’s musical hit Hairspray is one bop closer toward a sequel. “We just got an outline and some ideas from John Waters, and now we’re going out to writers,” director Adam Shankman tells EW exclusively. The story will follow Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) and her pals as they navigate the “next era of music,” the late ’60s. “That period was superpolitical,” Shankman adds, “it was a time of serious change.” No kidding: According to the filmmaker, heartthrob Link (Zac Efron) will channel his inner Austin Powers and become steeped in the British Invasion. “We’re trying to track, in a comedic way, the historical elements.”

Nov 26 2008 05:37 PM ET

Oscar Roundup: Nov. 26

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Milkpenn_l
Milk and Australia both hit theaters today with the hopes of impressing both critics and audiences. How might they fare with the Academy? Here are their best bets, possibles, and long-shot chances at earning Oscar nominations on Jan. 22.

MILK

Best Bets

Best Picture
It’s quite possibly the best reviewed live-action film of the year. Now it needs to play with audiences who don’t live in New York or California. But it’s already a top contender.

Best Director, Gus Van Sant
The often avant-garde filmmaker will continue to earn kudos for making his most accessible film since Good Will Hunting.

Best Actor, Sean Penn
An absolute lock, and rightly so.

Best Supporting Actor, Josh Brolin
Building on his strong performances in No Country for Old Men and W., the veteran actor is a fascinating and complex villain as Harvey Milk’s city council colleague Dan White.

Best Original Screenplay, Dustin Lance Black
Black’s equally meticulous and moving script could end up winning this category.

Possibles

Best Supporting Actor, James Franco
As Milk’s most steadfast love interest, Franco delivers a solid turn as well. Is there enough room in the race for him and Brolin?

Best Cinematography, Harris Savides
It’s not the showiest work of the year, but Savides effectively adds to the film’s intimate feel.

Best Art Direction, Bill Groom & Barbara Munch
The Academy goes for more elaborate design, but Milk‘s period sets seem effortless in their accuracy.

Best Original Score, Danny Elfman
The last time he teamed with Van Sant (for Good Will Hunting), he scored one of his first Oscar nominations. 

Long shot

Best Makeup
Again, not the most elaborate prosthetics around, but Penn’s physical transformation into Harvey Milk is quite extraordinary.

AUSTRALIA

Best Bets

Best Original Screenplay, Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Richard Flanagan
With most of the top Oscar films in the adapted category, Luhrmann & Co. could sneak in here.

Best Costume Design, Catherine Martin
Luhrmann’s wife and collaborator won this category for Moulin Rouge.

Best Art Direction, Catherine Martin
Ditto. And she almost outdoes herself this time.

Possibles

Best Picture
The mixed reviews hurt, but there’s still a significant segment of the Academy that goes for big-scale movies.

Best Director, Baz Luhrmann
Though Moulin Rouge scored a Best Picture nod, he was shut out of the director race. He faces tough competition this year as well. But there’s no denying the pure scope of his achievement.

Best Actor, Hugh Jackman
In a weaker year, his charismatic turn as a leading man would have a better shot. He may have to settle for Sexiest Man Alive.

Best Actress, Nicole Kidman
She very successfully does the old-Hollywood thing, and Luhrmann helped her earn her first career nomination for Moulin Rouge. But if voters hold this role up to her nakedly emotional, Oscar-winning work in The Hours, this will lose out in the comparison.

Best Supporting Actor, Brandon Walters
Oscar has a thing for tykes from Down Under (witness Anna Paquin or Keisha Castle-Hughes). And the impressive 13-year-old rookie is arguably the most memorable aspect of the film.

Best Cinematography, Mandy Walker
Walker’s shots of the Australian outback are more alluring than any travel advertisement could hope to be.

Long shot

Best Editing, Dody Dorn & Michael McCusker
Some critics will say the film could have used a bit more editing.

addCredit(“Daniel Nicoletta”)

Nov 25 2008 05:15 PM ET

'Gran Torino': Clint Eastwood's Best Actor quest

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Grantorino_l
If you’re like me, when you saw the trailer for Clint Eastwood’s new drama Gran Torino, you groaned and thought, Ugh, this looks just like Dirty Harry but older. But I had a chance to see the film last week and I’m happy to report that has much more depth. Like Eastwood’s last acting-and-directing job, Million Dollar Baby, it goes to some very surprising places. I’ll leave the actual criticism to my much more qualified colleagues Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman, but from an Academy perspective, though Gran Torino probably won’t end up a top-five Best Picture possibility (the competition is just too stiff), Eastwood’s performance seems to me like a good bet for a Best Actor nomination. At first, some viewers may be distracted by all his moaning and groaning (literally, he often moans and groans instead of actually speaking), but as the film goes on, a fantastic character arc emerges, and Eastwood gets to play gruff, then sensitive, and then heroic in the space of two hours. Though he’s got two Oscars for directing and two for producing, he’s never won in an acting category. Whether Eastwood can unseat top competitors like The Wrestler‘s Mickey Rourke or Milk‘s Sean Penn remains to be seen, but given that he has said he may not act anymore, a Best Actor nod seems like the best way for the Academy to acknowledge this very interesting film, and his storied acting career.

addCredit(“Anthony Michael Rivetti”)

Nov 24 2008 05:22 PM ET

D-day for 'Milk' and 'Australia'

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Milkaustraliaoscars_l
We’re only two days away from opening day for Milk and Australia, two highly-hyped films with big Oscar dreams, and I’m very curious to see how they both perform with the nation’s top critics. As is the case with most Baz Luhrmann productions, Australia should split reviewers down the middle, with some falling for its lavish direction, romance, and production, and others dismissing it as two hours and 45 minutes of schmaltz. I currently have it at No. 8 on my roughly ranked list of Best Picture contenders, which is probably a bit higher than other OscarWatchers would put it. But with its scope alone it should attract that segment of the Academy that looks for “big” movies.

addCredit(“Penn: Phil Bray; Kidman: James Fisher”)

Many of my Oscar-blogger colleagues, meanwhile, have Milk solidly in their top five as of now, while it’s my No. 6, still fighting for inclusion among the eventual nominees. I’ve seen the film twice and it’s wonderful, with certain nominations for Sean Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black. The reviews should also be almost uniformly positive, with praise for director Gus Van Sant for making an accessible screen biography of Harvey Milk without sacrificing any edge or grit. With some high profile critics awards, and strong flyover-state box office, it could certainly displace an early favorite like Revolutionary Road or Doubt and become a Best Picture nominee.

Nov 23 2008 06:38 PM ET

Box Office Report: 'Twilight' sinks its teeth into a blockbuster debut

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Twilightforbo2_l
Twilight, director Catherine Hardwicke’s adaptation of
Stephenie Meyer’s vampire-romance novel, easily won the weekend box office with
a $70.6 mil debut gross, according to Sunday’s estimates. Fellow freshman flick Bolt and hefty
holdover Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, trailed far behind.

That huge premiere number represents achievements on many
levels for Twilight. It’s the top debut ever for a film directed by one woman (Mimi
Leder’s Deep Impact banked $41.2 mil on its initial weekend 10 years ago). It’s the 29th best first-weekend bow of all
time (falling just shy of 300‘s $70.9 mil and coming in just ahead of
Transformers‘ $70.5 mil). It’s
by far the biggest opening yet for fledgling studio Summit, whose previous best bow was Never
Back Down‘s $8.6 mil back in March. It stands as the fourth biggest premiere of the year — better than Quantum of
Solace‘s $67.5 mil opening, better than WALL-E‘s $63.1 mil, better than
Hancock‘s $62.6 mil, to name a few. Last, but almost certainly not least, it’s nearly exactly
what I predicted (hooray, me!).

So it’s no surprise that the studio already announced a
sequel, New Moon. But the question for now, of course, is where Twilight, which
averaged a bloody good $20,636 in 3,419 theaters, goes from here? Not
surprisingly, girls and women comprised a whopping 75 percent of the film’s
audience, but will they continue to pack theaters as the weeks go on?
In the short term: yes. According to studio data, ticket buyers gave the movie
a nice A- grade, signaling the spread of positive word of mouth as we head into
Thanksgiving. Certainly, there will be some competition for this core crowd
from Australia and Four Christmases next week, but you can also assume that Twilight will be
able to build on its super-smashing start.

addCredit(“Deana Newcomb”)

Second place went to Quantum of Solace, which banked $27.4
mil (again, almost exactly as I predicted). That’s a big 59 percent drop from the
James Bond flick’s big bow last time around. On
the bright side, the Daniel Craig movie became the year’s 20th release to cross
the $100 mil mark domestically. It has a 10-day sum of $109.5 mil in the U.S. and Canada, and it has
brought in some $418 mil worldwide to date.

Next up: Bolt (No. 3), which underperformed perhaps ever so
slightly with $27 mil (way below my prognostication, alas). Nonetheless, that’s
a good number for a non-Pixar animated movie that could have gotten
swallowed up by stiff competition. And unlike Twilight, Bolt has no natural
rivals at the box office in the near future. Combine that fact with the
A- CinemaScore review it drew from a “four quadrant” crowd filled
with people of all ages and genders, and its financial future looks secure.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
(No. 4 with $16 mil) and Role Models (No. 5 with $7.2 mil) rounded out a
stellar top five. And for the third straight weekend, the multiplex housed a
$60 mil-plus grosser, the first time that’s ever happened outside of summer.

Thus, the overall box office got a nice 2 percent bump over the same
frame a year ago (when Enchanted and This Christmas led the way). All of which
portends nice things to come as the most wonderful time of the year gets
underway.

More ‘Twilight’ and Box Office News:

EW.com’s Twilight Central

Box Office Preview: Twilight to suck up buckets of blood…and big bucks

Twilight: The EW review

Quantum of Solace Stirs up a Win

READ FULL STORY »

Nov 22 2008 06:55 PM ET

'Twilight' grosses $35.7 mil on Friday

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Friday’s box office returns are in, and we can report that Twilight earned a huge $35.7 million on its opening day. That’s the 14th best first-day gross of all time. With Quantum of Solace and Bolt far behind, the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire-romance novel is guaranteed a big weekend win, in excess of $70 mil. Here’s Friday’s top five, and don’t forget to check back for the full weekend wrapup in tomorrow’s Box Office Report.

1. Twilight — $35.7 mil

2. Quantum of Solace — $8.8 mil

3. Bolt — $7.1 mil

4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa — $3.7 mil

5. Role Models — $2.4 mil

More ‘Twilight’ and Box Office News:

EW.com’s Twilight Central

Box Office Preview: Twilight to suck up buckets of blood…and big bucks

Twilight: Meet Robert Pattinson

Kristen Stewart talks Twilight
Twilight: The EW review

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