July 4th weekend is typically reserved for huge blockbuster releases, particularly those starring Will Smith and/or showcasing America as a force not to be messed with (against aliens or the British). Very, very rarely does an independent release even bother trying to go up against the studios during the big holiday. For example, the only option for an American indie we have this weekend is IFC’s wrong-holidayed I Hate Valentine’s Day, which is uneventfully the second Nia Vardalos movie in a month. And this year we don’t even have the usual sort of event movie debuting on July 4th weekend. There’s just Public Enemies and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Boring.
Isn’t it ironic that independent films can’t open on Independence Day? It would make sense for there to be a number of good U.S.-produced indies opening this week, going up against the big guys with their American spirit (including their disregard for broad, worldwide marketability) and evidence of the American Dream come true. Wondering if there have ever been great independents released at this time of year, we took at look at the last 30 years of cinema and found only a few significant titles.
See what little (American) films bucked the 4th of July weekend release system after the jump: …Read more
Hancockis expected to make around $100 million this weekend, simply because Will Smith + July 4th = boatloads of money, regardless of negative buzz.
SAG still doesn’t have a contract, but nobody seems to be particularly concerned. According to Variety, “There’s a ubiquitous sense among studio and network execs, talent reps and multihyphenates that SAG does not have the bedrock of support among its members to call for a work stoppage.” Meanwhile, Tom Hanks is supporting a ratification of the AFTRA deal, which would almost certainly nix any possibility of a SAG strike, whilst Jack Nicholson wants his compatriots to hold out for a better deal.
Sacha Baron Cohen will play Sherlock Holmes opposite Will Ferrell’s Watson in an as-yet untitled comedy based on the detective stories. But they’ll have stiff competition from a competing Sherlock film being developed by the week’s most famous male maybe-divorcee, Guy Ritchie…right? [crickets]
You might have heard something about this over the Fourth and wondered if maybe all those hot dogs had caused you to, like, slip into a nightmare fugue state, but it’s actually true: HBO and New Line have convinced all four original cast members to return for a Sex and the City feature film. Series exec producer Michael Patrick King will direct his own script. Send your best “Get it? They’re OLD!” jokes to karina AT spout.com.
MGM will debut the feature A Dog’s Breakfast, starring Stargate SG-1’s David Hewlett, on iTunes and Amazon’s Unbox. The film was apparently set for a straight-to-DVD release, before an outpouring of fan support for a YouTube trailer convinced the studio to give the online release a try.
At a press conference in Italy, Spike Lee spits out two not-particularly-incendiary sentences about the lack of representation of black soldiers in Hollywood war films; Variety runs the write-up with the headline, “Spike Lee Attacks Hollywood Films.” A clever attempt to enrage the “Hollywood has been trashing American values since the death of John Wayne” crowd right in time for Independence Day, but it looks like Libertas didn’t bite.
Your intrepid SpoutBlogger will be back tomorrow. In the meantime, celebrate America’s independence by watching Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks, embedded above.
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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Hancock is expected to make around $100 million this weekend, simply because Will Smith + July 4th = boatloads of money, regardless of negative buzz.
