John Morris | SpoutBlog

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.