Break it down however you want, but its simple economics. The last month has been absolutely saturated with product, so few of it appealing to mainstream America. These movies aren’t bad. And, in most cases, the marketing isn’t all that faulty. It’s pure numbers. The market can’t withstand this over...
Read More »It has been about two years since James Cameron's "Avatar" destroyed the box office, got nerds drooling and had everyone in Hollywood deciding that everything had to be in 3D (with the director himself leading the chorus). With over $2.7 billion in ticket sales (good lord guys, the movie is not that good), 20th Century Fox and Cameron, who gets a nice slice of the pie, have continued to rake it in with DVD and BluRay sales (no doubt helped by their environmentally friendly double-dip of releases within months of each other) and the expansive merchandising, which has seen the movie whored out to anybody with a printer and UPC code (have you pi...
Read More »Right now, some jerk at Disney is finding a way to use the term “circle of life” to define how they can release “The Lion King” anytime, and it will always make money. A 3D re-issue of the film became the number one weekend attraction by a very wide margin with $29 million, a huge middle finger to t...
Read More »Matthew Vaughn Expected To Return For Another 'X-Men: First Class Sequel'While making the rounds to promote the home video release of the surprisingly fun "X-Men: First Class" (tomorrow is "First Friday" or something, 20th Century Fox is making a huge over-done fuss out of this release in hopes to drum up some more revenue, sheesh), producer Lauren Shuler Donner -- who we're sure is a nice lady but on the special features portion of the Blu-ray disc looks like some kind of horrifying wax sculpture brought to life by dark magic to inflict deadly harm on the land of the living -- let loose some details about other projects set within the "X-Men...
Read More »By now, you should know the formula: Steven Spielberg generally (with a few exceptions) follows his Oscar bait, dramatic pictures with blockbuster popcorn stuff. Hell, this year alone (in a span of a few months) we'll get dazzling, animated, comic adaptation "The Adventures of Tintin" followed by th...
Read More »As the summer winds die down with a flat and uninspired whimper, the realization sets in: the summer of 2011 was for the birds. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was the last major tent-pole to open, followed by sleeper hits like "The Help" and the not-so-successful R-rated action comedy, "30 Minutes or Less." Many had forecast that the overstuffed summer would prove disastrous, with Jon Favreau predicting that, "There’s not a weekend where there won’t be teeth on the floor," but ironically it's Favreau's film that proved to be one of the biggest box-office disappointments. Financially, films did very well with three billion-dollar blockbuster...
Read More »Usually, studios will look for any possible reason to blame the weather for a film’s poor box office showing. Heat waves only mean audiences will seek the air conditioning of a theater, at least when something exciting is playing. And people will withstand non-apocalyptic snowstorms simply to get away from the cold while enjoying the blockbuster of their choice. But there aren’t a whole lot of options when almost half of a movie’s proposed locations are under siege by a vicious hurricane. Many large chains didn’t even bother to stay open during Irene’s reign, meaning that these quiet end-of-August releases could find no traction heading into ...
Read More »Credit a canny expansion strategy that nabbed “The Help” the number one spot at the box office in its second weekend of release. Disney wisely banked on the film having more buzz than the slate of underwhelming new releases (not all of it positive), and after two weekends, it’s easily one of the season’s big success stories, as the picture has crested $70 million after only twelve days of release. The establishment has been encouraged - stories of the struggles of minorities highlighted by the heroism of a plucky white person of higher social strata are surefire earners, particularly if you market to families. Institutionalized racism at its ...
Read More »All is forgiven between the public and the “Planet Of The Apes” franchise. This relationship seemed on the outs as soon as Tim Burton gave us Apebraham Lincoln a decade ago, but “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” has healed all wounds. While not keeping pace with that last Apeventure, 'Rise' has still...
Read More »EXCLUSIVE: Earlier this year, during an interview with David Gordon Green, we asked about his Rough House Pictures production shingle, the company he formed with filmmaking pals Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Matt Reilly. He told us it's a place where the "strange ideas and concepts" they cook up or come across have a home to grow and develop. And it looks like those plans are starting to bear some fruit, particularly on television. Last spring, MTV picked up the animated series "Good Vibes" and this summer Rough House signed a one-year development deal with 20th Century Fox. Well, they certainly haven't wasted any time in getting things rollin...
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