Image Credit: Francois Duhamel
007 has a new reason to put on a tux.
Skyfall is the James Bond franchise’s strongest-ever shot at an Oscar for best picture, but whether the movie gets a nod or not, the 23-film spy series will be the subject of a special tribute at this year’s ceremony.
The producers of the Academy Awards announced today that the Feb. 24 telecast will take time for a look back at the legacy of the shaken-not-stirred superspy.
Image Credit: Francois Duhamel
It’s official — we have reached the era of the billion dollar Bond!
Sony announced today that Skyfall has surpassed the $1 billion mark at the global box office, becoming just the 14th film in history to reach the coveted milestone.
The 23rd entry in the James Bond series has shattered every record in the franchise’s 50-year history. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Claudette Barius
It’s time for the year end accolades. Check out EW’s awards for the best in movies below!
Scariest Pregnancy Since Rosemary’s Baby
Noomi Rapace in Prometheus
It was a fairly slow weekend at the box office.
Despite a record-breaking opening, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey experienced a significant 57% drop off in its second week, bringing in an estimated $36.7 million, with an $8,952 per screen average. This brings The Hobbit’s ten-day gross to $149.9 million, tracking about 8% behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’s ten-day gross.
Paramount’s Jack Reacher (Cinema Score: A-) opened this past weekend in second place with a modest $15.6 million. Based on the popular Lee Child-created character, the Tom Cruise action flick has been somewhat of a box office wild card and will have to struggle to maintain momentum to make up the costs for the $60 million production. The weekend prior to the Christmas holiday isn’t usually the strongest at the box office, but last year Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol opened wide on December 21 at $29.6 million. As many have already mentioned, Jack Reacher fans are perhaps put off by the casting, since the character is supposed to be physically imposing at 6’5″.
Judd Apatow’s comedy This is 40 (Cinema Score: B-) also opened this weekend at $12 million to take third place. Though not abysmal, it doesn’t hold a candle to the $22.7 million, number one opening for Funny People, Apatow’s last directorial effort. But of course, Funny People starred Adam Sandler, which likely contributed to the strong opening. A sort of-sequel to Knocked Up (which opened at $30.7 million), This is 40 stars Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, and Albert Brooks, and boasts an impressively large cast including John Lithgow, Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox, Michael Ian Black, and Lena Dunham. But the 134-minute run time and Paul Rudd’s relatively low box office draw may have contributed to the low first weekend earnings.
Things did not fare as well for other weekend openings, including the Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogen road trip comedy The Guilt Trip (Cinema Score: B-) and Monsters, Inc. 3D, both of which failed to break the top five, bringing in $5.4 million and $5 million, respectively.
As expected, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, crushed the competition at the box office in its debut weekend, setting a new December record in the process.
The Middle-earth-set film grossed $84.8 million over its first three days, handily surpassing I Am Legend‘s $77.2 million bow, which has held the record for best December debut since 2007. The Hobbit earned that $84.8 million from 4,045 theaters, giving it a powerful $20,958 per theater average. Included in that theater count were 326 IMAX locations, which accounted for $10.1 million of the weekend gross, as well as 461 locations that showed the film in the controversial 48 frames per second rate — those screenings, thankfully, had no surcharge. About 49 percent of The Hobbit‘s weekend take came from 3-D showings.
All told, The Hobbit‘s debut weekend was obviously strong, but it must be said that it finished at the low end of pre-release expectations, most of which had the film earning more than $100 million in its debut frame. The Hobbit, the first in a trilogy produced by New Line and MGM (with Warner Bros. distributing) for a reported $600 million, earned $37.5 million on Friday, yet it only managed an internal multiplier (that’s weekend gross divided by Friday gross) of 2.25 — a very low number that signifies front-loaded performance. Judging by The Hobbit‘s 25 percent plummet on Saturday, it appears that the Tolkien faithful rushed out for the film early in the weekend. READ FULL STORY »
We already knew that The Hobbit earned a whopping $13.0 million during midnight showings, but over the course of its first full day in theaters the film took in an estimated $37.5 million, the highest gross ever for a December opening day.
The next best December bow was also of the Middle-earth variety – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King grossed $34.5 million on its opening day, a Wednesday, in 2003. Notably, The Hobbit sold fewer tickets on its opening day than Return of the King, but its gross was higher because of ticket price inflation and 3-D/IMAX surcharges. Still, huge is huge — and The Hobbit is headed for a mammoth debut. READ FULL STORY »
Les Miserables
Les Mis was pushed over the top by a stunt nomination, however, which otherwise would have left it with only three total nominations.
The other best ensemble nominees were Argo and — somewhat surprisingly — The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which left Zero Dark Thirty and The Master out of the guild’s equivalent for best picture.
Other surprises: Javier Bardem scored a supporting actor nomination for Silva, his villain from the James Bond thriller Skyfall. He had been buzzed about as a possible Oscar contender for a while, and EW’s own Lanford Beard championed him for awards consideration from the get-go.
But 007 movies rarely score anything about technical mentions at the Academy Awards. With the acting guild choosing to nominate him, it’s a good indicator that the voters in the Academy’s performer branch are poised to do the same.
Here’s the full list:
There are 75 original songs that qualify for the Oscar this year, but really everyone has been waiting to hear about one.
Adele’s title theme to Skyfall surged to #1 on iTunes just days after debuting in October, but some feared the number by her and Paul Epworth would be ruled ineligible for the Oscar because it incorporates elements of the classic 007 theme, which of course is not original.
But the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided it was not a significant enough problem to boot it from the potential nominees, and included it without comment in its list of songs that could collect an Oscar on Feb. 24.
Image Credit: Francois Duhamel
Over the past weekend, Skyfall returned to the top of the box office and became the biggest hit in Sony Pictures’ history in the process. After five weekends, the Sam Mendes-directed action film had earned a franchise-high $261.8 million domestically. (For reference, the previous high-point was 2008′s Quantum of Solace, which grossed $168.4 million.)
It’s not often that a franchise this deep into its existence — 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the British spy’s first appearance on the silver screen — peaks at the box office. And in all reality, it’s only half accurate to call Skyfall the “peak.” Its record-setting gross does not account for inflation. (The series’ all-time high point was actually 1965′s Thunderball, which, according to BoxOfficeMojo, grossed a staggering $593.9 million when adjusted for inflation.)
Still, even accounting for inflation, Skyfall is already the fourth-highest-grossing Bond film ever, and its excellent performance both domestically and around the world reveals that the franchise is experiencing a major upswing. With a running worldwide total of $918 million — by far the highest total ever for a Bond film (Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale both topped out at $594 million) — and an opening in China still slated for early 2013, prognosticators expect Skyfall to become the first-ever billion-dollar Bond film. James Bond may be getting older, but Skyfall makes it clear that he’s still a major force to be reckoned with at the box office.
Most franchises don’t enjoy such longevity. It’s much more common for film series to start with gargantuan grosses and then face diminishing returns with every subsequent release. And yet, the James Bond series suddenly seems to be hitting its stride right now. Why is that? Because since its inception in the 1960s, the Bond franchise has been primed for success in today’s modern market. It seems to have been almost preternaturally constructed to succeed in 2012. The box office just had to catch up with Bond’s ahead-of-the-curve sensibilities. Here’s what I mean: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Francois Duhamel
In the box-office lull before the arrival The Hobbit next weekend, Skyfall returned to the number-one spot at the box office, becoming the first film since How to Train Your Dragon to lead the chart in its fifth week. It also became the highest grossing Sony release of all time. Not too shabby, Mr. Bond.
Skyfall topped the domestic rankings with an estimated $11.0 million (down a slim 34 percent from last weekend), which brings its North American total to a stunning $261.1 million. It’s difficult to adequately express how incredible — and somewhat inexplicable — Skyfall‘s run has been. The former franchise high-point for the Bond series was Quantum of Solace, which grossed $168.4 million in 2008. Skyfall has obviously crushed that total, and it still has ample life left in its run. READ FULL STORY »
