Box Office A Superbad Mistress: Trade Roughage, 08/20/07

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

In what Variety makes out to be the great underdog story of the year, Superbad overcame its R rating to make about $31 million in its first weekend. With its name-brand comedy pedigree, summer-long media blitz, and total lack of demographic competition, it really did have it rough.
In a brief blurb of a piece from the same trade’s weekly print edition, Pamela McClintock implies that with several strikes looming, it’s actually in the studios’ best interest to downplay their successes. If they stick to pumping the stat that six out of ten films lose money, they might be able to get away with the bargaining stance that they “can’t afford to make many concessions.”
Somewhat lost in the last week’s shuffle over IFC downsizing their distribution business (wisely? desperately?) was the news that they’ve acquired Catherine Breillat’s Une vieille maîtresse (the title has been alternately translated The Last Mistress and An Old Mistress) for day-and-date release. The film, which stars Asia Argento and which I’ve heard is the most mainstream thing Breillat has done in a while, will play the New York Film Festival next month.