27-dresses | SpoutBlog

Step Brothers’s “Surprise” Box Office, or The Economy of Sleepers

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Everyone’s talking today about how, while no one was looking, Step Brothers has somehow made almost $100 million. All this, in spite of middling reviews and an almost complete lack of buzz. And granted, this might have been a real surprise in a different year, but if you take a look at 2008’s overall box office numbers, you see a lot of films that were written off after disappointing first weekends and/or otherwise for some reason have not been touted as “hits”, but which have nonetheless very quietly grossed either just under or just over a million dollars.

The most notable example of this is probably What Happens in Vegas, which has made $80 million in just over three months. Its release never went wider than 3,000 screens, and it never hit number 1, but if you factor in international box office, it’s grossed $200 million––or, about six times its reported production budget. Why is no one is talking about this film, or what it means for the careers of Cameron Diaz or Ashton Kutcher, while 27 Dresses’ $76 million domestic gross, on a very similar budget, is pretty widely considered confirmation that Katherine Heigl has risen to the very selective stratosphere of actresses who can open a movie?

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Hollywood

Trade Roughage 02/18/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Do adults actually take President’s Day off? The studios, assuming *someone* isn’t going to work or school today, opened their movies on Thursday night and are going to keep tabulating grosses through the end of today. This means Jumper will easily cross $40 million in its first frame, all but guaranteeing its franchise potential. Also, I was barely aware that it had even opened, but 27 Dresses is currently grossing about three times as much per weekend as Cloverfield, and it may even gross $100 million before it fades from theaters.
Yawn. Variety launches their latest anti-internet screed, as Brian Lowry uses a post-strike think piece as the venue to rail against the “sometimes ugly, insular and semi-delusional worlds the Net can perpetuate.”
Will Arnett and Woody Harrelson are joining Will Ferrell on the Funny or Die comedy tour, to promote their upcoming Semi-Pro. Too bad for you, it’s been sold out for ages.

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Hollywood

Trade Roughage 1/18/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Certainly the biggest news of the past 24 hours is the DGA’s three-year deal with the AMPTP, which could hopefully lead to a similar deal for the WGA, thereby ending the writer’s strike. It wasn’t that surprising, though, considering directors are used to walking in and not only finishing up but also taking the most credit for something begun by writers. I’m not actually sure if any of the DGA’s deal was based on outlines first made by the WGA, but a lot of times in Hollywood the writer’s original work is unrecognizable in the end product. Anne Thompson has the WGA’s statement regarding the DGA agreement here.
Meanwhile the writer’s strike is affecting the UK. Look for the British to retaliate by ensuring Atonement wins every one of the BAFTA awards (including Best Animated Film). Imagine how hard-hit Hollywood will be without the ability to market their films with “BAFTA Winner” plastered on posters and in TV ads.
Meanwhile the writer’s strike is also affecting Australia, which is being blamed more heavily than the writer’s strike for Warner Bros.’ decision to pull the plug on the Justice League movie. Look for Oz to retaliate by ensuring that Baz Luhrman’s Australia wins every one of the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards, which would probably happen anyway.
Apparently it’s a big deal that Cloverfield and 27 Dresses are going head to head at the box office this weekend. It seems the trades want this to be about the boys’ movie versus the girls’ movie, but all the girls I know are going to see the monster movie. Maybe I don’t know the right kind of girls?

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Hollywood

Trade Roughage 12/31/07

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Perhaps the most depressing quote I’ve read in Variety all year: this weekend, Alvin and the Chipmunks “grossed an estimated $30 million from 3,484 runs for a cume of $142.4 million, outpacing all expectations and positioning the family title to be among the top 10 grossing films of the year.” The less soul-sickening box office news is buried at the bottom of the writeup: There Will Be Blood scored the highest per screen average of the year with a six day gross of $185,525 from just 2 screens, and Charlie Wilson’s War and Juno both saw significant increases.
Joe Leydon predicts the future of film academia: “Decades from now, film scholars writing about early 21st-century chick flicks likely will cite 27 Dresses as an illustrative example…a romantic comedy in which nothing the least bit surprising occurs, no disagreement or estrangement seems sufficiently serious to persist, and no one behaves in a manner that cannot be predicted by anyone who has seen more than two or three other romantic comedies. And yet, despite all that, or maybe even because of it, pic is surprisingly enjoyable as slickly produced, undemanding fluff.”
Jay Leno is having trouble booking A-list stars for planned, writer-less installments of The Tonight Show. In a pinch like this, where can one expect to find a desperate media whore with no qualms about defying a union? Oh, right––the presidential campaign.