Tilda Swinton doesn’t have a co-writing credit on Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control(which triumphed over dismissive reviews to top the speciality box office over the weekend), but maybe she should. According to an interview with the actress in Movieline, Jarmusch cribbed one of the film’s most memorable (and self-reflexive) monologues, in which Swinton muses that “Movies are like dreams you’re never really sure you’ve had; sometimes my favorite films are the ones where people sit there and don’t say anything,” from a State of Cinema speech Swinton gave at the San Francisco Film Festival in 2006. That speech, which was structured as a letter to Swinton’s young son, after he wondered “what people’s dreams were like before the cinema was invented”, is online at SF360.
Matteo Garrone’s Italian mob film Gomorrah found the highest per-theatre-average debut of 2009 this President’s Day weekend, according to four-day estimates provided this afternoon by Rentrak. On 5 screens, the IFC release grossed $102,702 for a $20,540 average. That even topped overall box office leader Friday The 13th’s $14,56- PTA. It also set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever at the IFC Center in New York City, grossing an estimated $32,000. Gomorrah played to sold-out houses all weekend-long, with hundreds of would-be movie patrons turned away. The strong numbers for Gomorrah helped lead the IFC Center complex to its highest grossing weekend of all-time with an estimated take of $53,870, beating the previous record weekend by nearly $10,000. The previous highest grossing weekend for the IFC Center was $43,337 from January 25-27, 2008 in conjunction with the opening of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” On Sunday, February 15th, the IFC Center broke the record for its biggest one-day gross, taking in more than $20,167 in a single day.
The indie box office boom in the face of otherwise total economi despair continues.. Via indieWIRE.
According to indieWIRE, the John Cusack satireWar, Incmade an impressive $45,714 on two screens in its opening weekend. Not exactly Iron Man numbers, but a much higher per-screen average than any other film in limited release. For the sake of perspective: Indiana Jones and I’m Vaguely Certain Shia La Beouf’s IMDb Profile Exaggerates His Height made less than a thousand dollars more per screen in its by all accounts sufficiently massive opening weekend; Cusack’s last film, the also war-themed Grace is Gone, made just $50,899 in its entire theatrical run.
So this a victory for indie film, right? Yay! Except, of course, that the movie’s abysmally bad.
According to indieWIRE’s specialty box office report, Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonelymade more money last weekend per-screen than any other film in limited release. The IFC release took in $16,769 in its single engagement at the IFC Center in New York, which is pretty astounding when you consider that a) he hasn’t released a movie in almost ten years, and b) Korine’s last film, julien donkey-boy, made just $85,400 in its entire run. Because today is Lazy Video Link Day, let’s celebrate Harmony’s big-money victory by watching the scene from julien in which Werner Herzog spends some quality time with a bottle of cough syrup. Oh, and we reviewed Mister Lonely and talked to Harmony about obscene Southern rap and his favorite YouTube videos, too.
Sunday night strike stories: According to Carl DiOrio at The Hollywood Reporter, “The WGA will respond to studio reps’ latest contract proposal on new-media pay by advancing its own new proposals.” Though DiOrio admits that “the simple fact is that nobody knows where this roller-coaster ride of collective bargaining will end,” his is still the glass half-full take compared to Variety’s take. Dave McNary says that while the WGA has been surprisingly lenient in the past few days about allowing writers to work on benefits and awards shows, “Optimism for a quick resolution as negotiations resume Tuesday has faded to nearly nonexistent.”
With Enchanted expectedly taking the number one spot at the overall box office for the second week in a row, the real story this weekend is in the specialty market. The Savages opened to the best per-screen average of the week, with $38,280 in each of its five locations; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly opened to $85,300 across three screens, making it Julian Schnabel’s most impressive opening to date; and I’m Not There dropped a respectable 33% whilst expanding to 138 screens. To their credit, this time Variety managed to report it without being totally condescending.
Deals: Ridley Scott will direct a Gucci family biopic for Fox 2000; Variety confirms fanboy whispers that Christian Bale is “closing in on the role of John Connor in Warner Bros.’ reboot of the Terminator franchise.”
A survey conducted by Variety found that, with a resolution to the writers strike still indeterminate, the WGA is so far winning the war of public opinion. “[M]ore than two-thirds of respondents agreed that the scribes are being ‘more honest and forthright’ than the majors in their discussion of the key issues,” Cynthia Littleton writes. Though 61% of all respondents agreed that the strike was “necessary,” the writers have wildly varying degrees of support among other Hollywood unions. 47% of IATSE members polled categorized the strike as “tactically a mistake”; only 15% of SAG felt the same. You can download a PDF of the full survey at the above link.
Meanwhile, talks are set to resume this morning. The Hollywood Reporterhas a primer on where the issues stand.
Box office: Enchanted made $50 million this weekend, This Christmas’ counter-programming gambit was good for $27 million on half as many screens, while August Rush and Love in the Time of Cholera disappointed.
More interesting: Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out in the Evening opened to double the per-screen average of Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There. Variety spun this news under the headline, “Are art films out of touch?” In the other box office story linked above, the same publication allowed Bob Weinstein to get away with characterizing The Mist’s 8th-place opening as “a base hit.” I’m not saying Variety’s bashing the rest of the market with broad generalizations in order to let The Weinstein Curse continue on unmarked upon, but…okay, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
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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Matteo Garrone’s Italian mob film Gomorrah found the highest per-theatre-average debut of 2009 this President’s Day weekend, according to four-day estimates provided this afternoon by Rentrak. On 5 screens, the IFC release grossed $102,702 for a $20,540 average. That even topped overall box office leader Friday The 13th’s $14,56- PTA. It also set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever at the IFC Center in New York City, grossing an estimated $32,000. Gomorrah played to sold-out houses all weekend-long, with hundreds of would-be movie patrons turned away. The strong numbers for Gomorrah helped lead the IFC Center complex to its highest grossing weekend of all-time with an estimated take of $53,870, beating the previous record weekend by nearly $10,000. The previous highest grossing weekend for the IFC Center was $43,337 from January 25-27, 2008 in conjunction with the opening of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” On Sunday, February 15th, the IFC Center broke the record for its biggest one-day gross, taking in more than $20,167 in a single day.
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