Archive: March 2010 (21-30 of 78)

Mar 21 2010 12:56 PM ET

Box office report: 'Alice' wins the weekend; 'Wimpy' outperforms 'Bounty Hunter'

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Categories: Box Office, Industry News, Movie Biz

wimpy-kidImage Credit: Rob McEwanDisney’s 3-D juggernaut Alice in Wonderland continues to surpass expectations with a top spot at the box office its third weekend in theaters. With only a 45% fall, the CG spectacle starring Johnny Depp grossed an additional $34.5 million to put its total take at $266 million. That’s not good news for DreamWorks Animation, which is hoping to steal the majority of the 2500 3-D screens available for its family film How to Train Your Dragon, which bows next weekend. The Jeffrey Katzenberg-led studio is going to have to do quite a sales job to wrest those theaters away from Alice.

The execs at Twentieth Century Fox must be pleased this morning. Their live-action kid flick based on the best-selling book Diary of a Wimpy Kid (pictured) did well its opening weekend, grossing an estimated $22 million. With spring break staggered over the next few weeks, this film should hold in theaters; its biggest threat also comes from Dragon. But hopefully audiences, who gave it an A- in the Cinemascore exit polling, will show up in strong enough numbers that the studio decides to greenlight a sequel to the beloved series. Wimpy was also stronger than The Bounty Hunter, which had been the favored winner of this weekend’s new releases. Starring Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, this PG-13-rated romantic action comedy grossed an estimated $21 million for a third-place finish. It only scored a B- with audiences in its Cinemascore poll, so it is likely to take a steep fall next weekend. Unfortunately, Universal didn’t have as much luck with its new release Repo Men. The R-rated sci-fi flick starring Forest Whitaker and Jude Law opened to a paltry $6.1 million. The film wasn’t too expensive, but expectations for the release were originally in the low double-digits. Paramount is claiming the fifth spot for its R-rated comedy She’s Out of My League. With a strong 38% hold, the low-budget comedy added another $6 million to its cume.

Universal Pictures took the sixth slot with its Matt Damon-starrer Green Zone. In its second weekend in release, the R-rated Iraq actioner fell a steep 58% to an estimated $5.9 million. Its two-week total now stands at almost $25 million. Shutter Island is still in the top ten. In its fifth week of release, the Martin Scorsese-directed thriller grossed close to $5 million for a total cume that now stands at $115.7 million. Avatar took spot eight with an additional $4 million in box office receipts. The film, in its 14th weekend in theaters, has now earned $737 million domestically. Fox Searchlight’s Our Family Wedding was in the ninth spot its sophomore session. The film, starring America Ferrera, grossed an estimated $3.8 million, a 50% fall from its opening weekend. Its total take now stands at close to $14 million. And spot ten went to the Robert Pattinson-starrer Remember Me. Falling a steep 59%, the low-budget drama earned an additional $3.3 million for an overall cume of close to $14 million.

In limited release, Apparition released the Kristen Stewart-starring rock biopic The Runaways on 244 screens. The film didn’t score all that well in its limited capacity, earning less than $1 million for a per-screen average of $3,294. Leaving the Twilight fold isn’t as easy as it seems! Check back next weekend as the 3-D battle for theaters gets heated.

More on Diary of a Wimpy Kid from EW:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Using pipsqueak bodies to tell grown-up truths

Mar 20 2010 02:39 PM ET

In 'Foxes' and 'Light of Day,' the real Cherie Currie and Joan Jett revealed more about themselves than 'The Runaways' does

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Categories: Dakota Fanning, Joan Jett, Kristen Stewart, The Runaways

currie-jettImage Credit: Everett CollectionA number of readers have ripped me for writing an entire review of The Runaways in which I somehow failed to include a single word about Dakota Fanning’s performance. You’re right, point taken, I should have. All right, here goes: She was perfectly okay. Actually, when I realized that I’d written the review that way, I just figured that I’d let my lack of comment on Fanning’s performance stand as an implicit statement that there wasn’t all that much to say about it. She’s quite the critics’ darling these days — always has been, really — but to me, Dakota Fanning, as she’s grown up, has turned into a slightly odd actress, luminous and emotionally delicate but also passive and a bit spaced. She’s gifted, but as a presence she’s not all there.

In The Runaways, she plays Cherie Currie as a put-upon nice girl who worships David Bowie (and gets pelted with wads of paper at school for it!), then learns how to snarl and cock her body on stage like a real punk she-devil. Yet somehow, through all the drugs and girl fights and bleary, sleepless tour dates and leering of the boys in the audience and abuse piled upon her by the group’s domineering packager-producer-manager-Svengali-tormenter, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), Cherie manages to retain the wispy essence of her wayward-ingenue innocence. Fanning has one good scene near the end where Cherie is blasted on drugs and tries, without any luck, to purchase a bottle of liquor; her slovenly, impotent fury at the sales people is startling. But up until then, Fanning’s competent, rather wan acting fits all too neatly into the film’s pious, slightly sanitized vision of Cherie Currie as a sweetly alienated, emotionally neglected Los Angeles girl who got put through a pop-culture meat grinder.

Yes, that’s kind of what happened, but if we really want to be progressive (and truthful) about it, let’s also give the members of the Runaways credit for being the young women they chose to be, even if they were just babe-in-the-urban-woods teenagers. From all the sources I’ve encountered (including the memoir on which the movie is based), the real Cherie Currie was, and still is, a pistol, a girl who got herself into heaps of trouble because she eagerly sought it out. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 20 2010 11:16 AM ET

Box office: Friday numbers put 'Alice' in first; 'Wimpy' outperforms with a likely second place finish

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Categories: Box Office, Industry News, Movie Biz

It’s no surprise that Alice in Wonderland grossed over $9 million on Friday to give it a first place finish this weekend for the third time in a row. What has taken box office prognosticators by surprise is the strength of the kid flick Diary of a Wimpy Kid. From Twentieth Century Fox, the movie — based on the massive New York Times best-seller by Jeff Kinney — grossed an estimated $7 million Friday. The weekend take could end up north of $25 million. (Most predictors, including me, put the film in the mid-teen range for the weekend.) If the numbers hold, Wimpy will also take the honor of best-performing new release, out-grossing the star power of the Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in the comedy-action film The Bounty Hunter and the R-rated sci-fi flick Repo Man.

Bounty Hunter earned an approximate $7.5 million on Friday, a higher number than Wimpy, but one that is not as likely to sustain itself throughout the weekend. It’s estimated to gross $22 million for the three-day period. Repo Men was in a distant fourth place compared to the other new releases. The Forest Whitaker-Jude Law film earned a paltry $2 million on Friday, for a weekend take that’s not expected to go higher than $6 million. Fifth place is going to be a bit of a race between last weekend’s two new releases. Both the R-rated gross-out comedy She’s Out of My League and the Matt Damon vehicle Green Zone are jockeying for the fifth slot; each earned a bit under $2 million on Friday. The two will both be fighting for $6 million this weekend, close on the heels of Repo Man. Check back tomorrow for the full report.

Mar 19 2010 05:44 PM ET

What recession? Warner Bros. brings out the big guns to tout their 2010 slate of movies

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Categories: Industry News, Movie Biz

If ShoWest presentations are any indication of which studio is most bullish of their upcoming year, it would be difficult not to point to Warner Bros. as the destined market leader for 2010. The studio wheeled out all their big stars for their presentation to the theater owners — and 2010 is chock full of them. From Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in what could be the surprise end-of-the-year hit Life as We Know It to Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. bringing their comedy bit to Las Vegas for their upcoming road trip laugher Due Date, WB brought the goods. Even Chris Nolan took to the stage to unveil some additional footage for his intriguing, big budget summer release Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

The studio was also able to wrangle three of the four Sex and the City girls to debut their trailer for this summer’s sure-to-be-hit. (Kim Cattrall was in a play in London.) Said Michael Patrick King: “It’s not in 3-D, not even Double D, but Sex and the City 2 will definitely be interactive.” The movie, which bows on May 27, takes the girls to Abu Dhabi and deals with marriage after the honeymoon. Cameos from Penélope Cruz, Liza Minnelli, and Carrie Bradshaw’s ex Aiden Shaw (John Corbett) were front and center for the ShoWest audience. And, of course, there was the obligatory nod to WB’s perennial cash cow, Harry Potter, but this year that film is likely to be even bigger considering the first part of the last installment will be exhibited in 3-D for the very first time.

All the footage seemed to play extremely well with added buzz surrounding both The Hangover director Todd Phillips’ Due Date and the Heigl, Duhamel sweet/sad romantic dramedy Life as We Know It from director Greg Berlanti. And audiences were all jazzed about April 2′s Clash of the Titans. The studio had star Sam Worthington and director Louis Leterrier on hand to introduce the 3-D footage of the movie, but WB head Alan Horn said, “Besides the title, it bears no resemblance to the early version.” Tracking on that film is already giant, so it looks like WB will be making good on their promise of a giant 2010 as early as April.

Mar 19 2010 04:22 PM ET

New Moon DVD: Chris Weitz speaks

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Categories: Industry News, Movie Biz, Twilight

We checked in with New Moon director Chris Weitz in advance of the DVD release, which — unless you are living under a rock — you know begins tonight at midnight. Weitz told us about his favorite extras in the DVD and talked about the future of the series. Below are some highlights:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What’s your favorite part of the DVD?
CHRIS WEITZ: The fun part for me was to talk through it with Peter Lambert, my editor, who is a very funny man. We were able to discuss quirky moments we had while putting the film together. We had lived in a cave for so long assembling the footage, so we finally had a chance to get our yayas out. We didn’t say anything scandalous or mean about anyone, but it was fun nonetheless.

When did you manage to find the time to do this?
We did it in a moment during the press tour when we were about to go to a hoity-toity premiere in New York. I was in NY and Peter was five hours later in the middle of the night on a satellite line watching it from London.

What can you tell us about the six-part documentary?
Making this film was a massive undertaking to do in the course of this one year. There were so many elements that were new to the franchise: The really intensive CGI elements, the Italian shoot. I think it will be kinda cool for fans to see how the whole thing came together. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 19 2010 01:35 PM ET

'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' speaks to the inner nerd in all of us, using pipsqueak bodies to tell grown-up truths

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Categories: Alice in Wonderland, Diary of a Wimpy Kid

wimpy-kidImage Credit: Rob McEwanI wish Jeff Kinney’s hilarious series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books had existed when I was in junior high school. The comfort of reading fictional Greg Heffley’s dispatches from the battlefields of middle school would have been a tremendous comfort to this kid who was the tallest girl in her class, wore braces, played the viola, and hung with fellow dorkettes in her suburban public-school cafeteria. But I’m happy that at least today’s current crop of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders know that, whatever they’re feeling, Jeff Kinney’s Greg Heffley has felt it too and has written it down, sometimes in ways that make readers laugh until milk comes out of their noses. And in my  professional capacity, I’m even happier to know that the Greg Heffley spirit has been so successfully translated to the screen. What can I say, this movie made me laugh, even if no milk was allowed in the screening room. (My particular junior-high scenery didn’t include a toxic slice of cheese rotting outside on the playground like the specimen at Greg’s school, but we did have a boy who made  girls look at a realistic glob of rubber vomit he placed in strategic locations, reliably eliciting girl-shrieks.)

My mature enjoyment of such a kid-oriented movie has got me thinking, once again, about the unique power of “kid’” movies to tell truths with a kind of freedom, honesty, and creativity that’s READ FULL STORY »

Mar 19 2010 06:31 AM ET

Box office preview: 'Alice' likely to hold off new releases for a third weekend

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Categories: Box Office

wonderlandImage Credit: DisneyLast weekend Matt Damon and Robert Pattinson couldn’t stand up to Alice in Wonderland. Three new releases will try again this frame and all are unlikely to topple Tim Burton’s most successful outing of his career. The 3-D fantasy adventure starring Johnny Depp has already grossed over $226 million and will likely add more than $30 million more to its cume at the end of this weekend. The new releases fighting for some box office coin this weekend include: Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in Bounty Hunter; Fox’s adaptation of the best-selling book Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the Jude Law-Forrest Whitaker drama Repo Men. Read on for my predictions.

1. Alice in Wonderland: $34 million

Wednesday marked the first day since Alice in Wonderland opened that the movie grossed less than $6 million during the middle of the week. That’s astounding for a film that’s been in theaters for close to three weeks. Its strong performance does not portend good things to come for next weekend’s How To Train Your Dragon which will be fighting to take 3-D screens from Disney’s Alice.

2. The Bounty Hunter: $22 million

Sony Pictures seems to be hiding this Gerard Butler-Jennifer Aniston actioner from critics. Those few who have seen it, including EW, aren’t fans, but that will mean little when it comes to this weekend. The star power of the duo will far outweigh the critical merit of the movie and this weekend, Bounty Hunter is likely to be the best-performing new release of the bunch.

3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: $15 million

Jeff Kinney’s best-selling novel is practically a bible with boys under-12. For the author’s depiction of middle school is not only accurate but deliciously funny. The movie from director Thor Freudenthal (Hotel for Dogs) seems to have captured the same essence as the book. Only so far the film is tracking well with only his core audience, young boys. Hopefully strong word-of-mouth over the weeks to come will keep it in theaters.

4. Repo Men: $10 million

This Jude Law-Forest Whitaker R-rated action-thriller is trying to lure in the grown-up male audience not interested in The Bounty Hunter. Unfortunately, the lack of star power is not doing much to bring them in. Universal didn’t score very well with Green Zone last weekend and this weekend won’t be much better in terms of grosses hauled in at the box office. Luckily for Universal, Repo Men is relatively inexpensive with a budget in the $30 million range.

5. Green Zone: $7 million

Hopefully, this Matt Damon-starrer will fall only 50 percent this weekend. But even then the film will have only earned $26 million in 10 days.

Also opening, the Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning-starring rock biopic The Runaways in 244 theaters while the Ben Stiller indie drama Greenberg will bow in three theaters.

Mar 18 2010 03:28 PM ET

Wesley Snipes: Battered and back, and (just maybe) better than ever

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Categories: Don Cheadle

When Mickey Rourke, a little over a year ago, enjoyed his big comeback, every story about him made a point of cataloguing his mythological mountain of trials and tribulations: the brutal battering he subjected himself to in the boxing ring, the drugs and booze and broken relationships, the botched plastic surgery, the “F–k yous!” to the movie industry and to his own fame, the lonely 3 a.m. convenience-store runs, the whole teary raging self-destructive fall from grace. brooklyns-finestImage Credit: Phillip V. CarusoIt all got talked about, of course, because it was such a great, juicy, sad, fascinating story. But it also seemed an essential story because, by the time Rourke starred in The Wrestler, his perils were written, literally, all over his face.

If you go to see the dark new police thriller Brooklyn’s Finest (and you should), you’ll see that something similar could be said about Wesley Snipes. Not that he ever fell nearly as far as Mickey Rourke. But Snipes, too, is an actor who had greatness within his grasp, enjoyed a period of unabashed success, and then, through a complicated series of bad circumstances (including those of his own devising), slipped between the cracks. In Brooklyn’s Finest, he plays a neighborhood drug kingpin who has recently gotten out of prison, and though the character is meant to be shrewd, hard, wary, and ruthless, Snipes gives him surprising touches of jumpiness and vulnerability. The actor, who was born in 1962, looks older here than he ever has before. It’s not just the creases in his face — it’s the haunted look of disappointment upon it, the beaten-down gaze of someone who has been through too much hardship to hide. Maybe that’s all acting, but even the finest actors draw art out of their experience, and in Brooklyn’s Finest, it feels as if Wesley Snipes is drawing on his. He takes what might have been a routine implacable-drug-lord role and gives it an undercurrent of sympathetic anxiety.

For make no mistake: Wesley Snipes, over the last five years, has been through the wringer. Charged, in 2006, with tax fraud (a charge he was acquitted of in 2008), he was then found guilty of willful failure to file federal income tax returns and sentenced to three years in prison. He has appealed that decision and currently remains free on bail. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 18 2010 10:31 AM ET

'Letters to Juliet': Vanessa Redgrave's touching performance

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Categories: Movies

Last June, just three months after Vanessa Redgrave lost her daughter, Natasha Richardson, in a freak skiing accident, the Academy Award-winning actress signed on to play Claire Wyman in the Summit Entertainment romance drama Letters to Juliet. The adaptation of Lise and Ceil Friedman’s book about the lovelorn women who write to star-crossed lover Juliet Capulet screened at Showest on Tuesday to resounding applause. While Amanda Seyfried is the star of the movie, playing the optimistic New Yorker fact checker who happens upon the group of Italian women who reply to the letters addressed to Juliet, it’s Redgrave’s understated performance that has stayed with me.

The 73-year-old actress plays a grandmother whose letter about a lost love written to Juliet 50 years earlier is found and replied to by Seyfried’s character. What ensues is a lengthy journey in search of the lost love, during which Seyfried and Redgrave form a bond. In one poignant scene, in part because of the actress’s recent loss, Redgrave finds Seyfried’s character in her hotel room, and in an attempt to comfort her, brushes Seyfried’s hair in a very maternal way. Seyfried bears a subtle resemblance to Richardson, and it’s hard to imagine how difficult it was for Redgrave to film the scene.

Letters to Juliet bows on May 14. Perhaps by then Redgrave will begin talking about playing this role, which hopefully provided some sort of catharsis for her. One thing’s for sure: It’s great to see the actress back to work.

Mar 18 2010 06:32 AM ET

'Karate Kid' remake screens at Showest with major studio fanfare

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Categories: Industry News, Movie Biz

This year’s Showest has been a fairly scaled-back affair. Fewer big parties, fewer movies, more business. That wasn’t the case for Sony’s presentation of The Karate Kid yesterday, however. In addition to the big lunch the studio threw for thousands of attendees, Sony was clearly in it to win it when it came to the movie’s pre-show. Some of it no doubt had to do with their very important producers, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, waiting in the wings, but even so, this elaborate introduction included drummer and cymbal players, men in masks doing acrobatics, scores of women dressed in Asian garb lining the aisles to the theater, not to mention 12 little karate kids doing their own routine. It concluded with a shower of confetti streaming from the ceiling, carefully missing the studio executives sitting in the lower level.  The act looked more like something you’d see at Comic-Con than what’s become the norm at this exhibition convention.

The film itself (which releases this June) is a worthy remake of the 1984 Ralph Macchio classic, and the delegates seemed to love it. Director Harald Zwart (Pink Panther 2, Agent Cody Banks) was able to conquer the majestic scope of China, and stars Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan form a sweet bond. Smith received what is sure to be the first of many awards for his acting when he was honored with Showest breakthrough star of the year. He took the stage in his white sneakers and said, “My dad prepared a speech for me with a bunch of funny stuff in it, but I’m 11 and I’m nervous.”

Karate Kid opens June 11 opposite The A-Team, so it’s no wonder Sony is setting the stage early with exhibition, hoping for the biggest theaters when it bows opposite the action remake of the popular ’80s TV show.

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