As expected, Eagle Eye came in at #1 at the box office over the weekend with $29.2 million, and as speculated, adult moviegoing was down Friday because of the presidential debate. The real box office news, though, is the success of the Christian-themed Fireproof, which came in at #4 with $6.5 mil. despite playing on fewer than 1,000 screens. Especially interesting because another seemingly red-state-geared (though definitely more blue-state-friendly) limited release, The Lucky Ones, opened to a tiny fraction of that amount ($209,000) on only half as many screens.
In one of the best ideas from Hollywood ever, Kenneth Branagh has been offered the gig to direct Thor for Marvel Studios. An appropriate move given that Stan Lee originally wrote the character as speaking in a Shakespearean manner.
Still on the subject of comics, Hollywood continues its feeding frenzy on the work of Mark Miller (Wanted; the upcoming Kick-Ass), whose super-soldier tale War Heroes (created with Tony Harris) will be made into a film by Columbia Pictures.
A majority of the major studios has apparently finally agreed on a suitable virtual print fee. In the next two weeks, Universal, Paramount, Disney and Fox will announce the long-overdue, billion-dollar-financed plan to put 15,000 digital projectors in theaters owned by Regal, Cinemark and AMC. Interestingly enough, as the deal will allow more screens to be 3-D-equippable, Warner Bros. is not reportedly involved, despite the fact that it could have done better with its Journey to the Center of the Earth had there been more 3-D screens. Also, it has the fourth installment of Final Destination, which has been shot for 3-D, out next year.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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