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Foxy Box Office. Trade Roughage 10/20/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Fox was the bread in a Chihuahua sandwich this weekend, as estimates place the studio’s two new releases at #1 and #3 on the box office chart. 20th Century Fox’s Max Payne made $18 million while Fox Searchlight’s The Secret Life of Bees earned just over $11 million, which was very, very close to Beverly Hills Chihuahua’s second-placing $11.2 million. Coming in fourth place, which in terms of the sandwich metaphor makes it a pickle, was Oliver Stone’s W. with a close $10.6 million. The discarded turkey, meanwhile, was Sex Drive, which placed ninth with only $3.6 million.
Not enough of a turkey, however, that the Sex Drive writing-directing team of John Morris and Sean Anders couldn’t make a deal for their next project, a college comedy about an accidental father.
Citing creative differences, Hugh Grant has exited the movie biz-set romantic comedy Lost for Words, which would have seen him play opposite Ziyi Zhang as an actor who falls for his director despite a language barrier. Now hopes of a life-imitates-art romance between Grant and Danish director Susanne Bier have been shattered.
Killer Films is producing a movie involving the 1944 meeting of Beat poets Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Keroac. Too bad David Cross, who hilariously portrayed Ginsberg in Killer’s I’m Not There is probably too old to reprise the role.
I’m still waiting for the day a remake of Troop Beverly Hills is announced, but for now the similar-sounding Tough Cookies will just have to suffice. The family film will be about a deadbeat dad who leads an unconventional group of girl scouts, who compete against snobbish rivals at the National Scout Rally.

High School Musical 3 for Best Picture? Trade Roughage 10/13/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Is it a sign of the end of the world, or simply an effect of the economic crisis and the presidential election? Beverly Hills Chihuahua has won the hearts of an America that apparently doesn’t want anymore serious content to think about. The talking dog movie came out on top for the second weekend in a row with $17.5 million (for a total of more than $50 mil.), easily defeating Leo, Russell and Ridley, and especially Bill Murray, whose City of Ember barely beat out the Christian hit Fireproof to make it into the top 10. An announcement about Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 is expected by the end of the week.
At least specialty division films are doing well enough, with The Duchess expansion bringing the period piece into the top 10 and both RocknRolla and Happy-Go-Lucky debuting in limited markets with per screen averages around $20,000. Rachel Getting Married is also still seeing success with its old-fashioned slow rollout, now grossing about $17,000 on each of its 27 screens. And Religulous continues its path towards surpassing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed as the top grossing doc of 2008.
Ridley Scott will finally direct the epic sci-fi adaptation The Forever War, which he describes as “a bit of The Odyssey by way of Blade Runner” and which he’s been attempting to make for 25 years. Is it terribly cynical of me to think that it will be a major disappointment? Certainly the expectations are going to be extremely high since Scott’s other efforts in the genre are two of the most influential sci-fi films of all time.
Back to signs of the end of the world: Variety posted this ludicrous sentence, which fits with audiences favoring dumb, happy fare during hard times, late last Friday: “So if Oscar voters rebel against the pervasive darkness, does this mean “Mamma Mia!” and “High School Musical 3″ could become front-runners?”

Rudin Exits Reader. Trade Roughage 10/10/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Scott Rudin is taking his name off Stephen Daldry’s The Reader after losing his heavyweight battle with Harvey Weinstein regarding the film’s release schedule. Now that Rudin has left the project, though, can we expect the producer to push his Revolutionary Road even harder for the Oscar? And will Kate Winslet be treated like a poor child of divorce who’s made to pick one parent over the other?
Confirming little more than what the movie blogs have been rumoring all week, Variety reports that super hot right now Josh Brolin is in talks to play the DC Comics gunslinger Jonah Hex. Perhaps with everyone respecting comic book characters so much these days this role will be the one that Brolin finally gets an Oscar nomination for.
I guess when your film stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, you can get just any old actress to play the lead female part. But picking the most boring Lost character ever (well, the actress who plays her, anyway) to costar in Grant Heslov’s Men Who Stare at Goats seems a bit counterproductive.
Continuing the trend of making uncomfortable topics funny, Seth Rogen is producing and will co-star in a comedy about cancer from an autobiographical script by HBO producer Will Reiser.
Despite another bunch of box office contenders entering the multiplexes this weekend, including the heavily starred yet topically cursed Body of Lies, the bets are that Beverly Hills Chihuahua will stay on top for a second round.

Chihuahua’s Wow Bow. Trade Roughage 10/06/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

The weekend box office went just as expected with Beverly Hills Chihuahua unfortunately coming out on top with $29 million and Rachel Getting Married earning the best per-screen average ($33,667) with an impressive $303,000 gross from only 9 locations. Also, with so many new films debuting, Flash of Genius, Blindness and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People couldn’t even open in the top ten — the latter placed as low as #19 — and An American Carol and Religilous only placed ninth and tenth, respectively. Still, for a documentary, Religilous‘ $3.5 million debut and $6,972 per-screen average are both honorable achievements. The film had the highest non-fiction debut of 2008, and it’s sure to be the highest-grossing non-concert doc of the year.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist also debuted relatively well this past weekend, which made it a perfect time for Mandate Pictures to annouce that the film’s screenwriter, Lorene Scafaria, will make her directorial debut with the romantic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
For awhile now I’ve noticed the headlines about Mamma Mia!’s incredible overseas business, but I’ve so far ignored them. Well, here’s the latest off-balanced tally: compared to its already hit-qualifying $143 million domestic gross, the musical has taken in close to $400 million extra from international markets. That’s nearly three-fourths of its total take, for those who like fractions.
200 projects developed by DreamWorks while living under Paramount’s roof will be divided up rather fairly between the two studios now that they’re separating. About one-fifth of those will remain joint efforts, of which one-half will be primarily developed by DreamWorks with Paramount having an option to co-finance and co-distribute. While some of these special-circumstance projects are rumored to be Spielberg’s directing and producing gigs, there’s still no news on what’s going on with the Tintin trilogy.