Category: News (Page 103 of 401)

“Valentine’s Day” takes big V-Day/President’s Day weekend

February 14, 2010 /

Jennifer Garner smashes expectations in Somewhat exceeding the optimistic predictions I noted on Friday, Garry Marshall’s critically disliked all-star ensemble romantic comedy, “Valentine’s Day,” has earned an estimated $52.41 million for the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. According to Nikki Finke, it is also earning a very nice (and very estimated) $60 million for the WB studios over the not-yet-complete four day holiday period. According to THR/Reuters, the weekend as a whole came in ahead of last year’s President Day with $193 million, compared to $188 million in 2009. Not surprisingly consider, women were the driving force in the success of the Garry Marshall comedy.

Coming in completely on target, we have a photo-finish between the two genre-films duking it out for the #2 spot. The lengthily titled adaptation of a series of young-adult fantasy novels, “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” from Fox and director Chris Columbus, came in slightly ahead with an estimated $31.1 million. Meanwhile, Universal’s trouble-plagued, R-rated stab at reviving it’s grimly furry monster/horror franchise, “The Wolfman,” earned roughly $30.6 million according to estimates.

Benecio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins realize it's a dog-eat-man world

As for the #4 spot, yes, it’s one more strong performance for Fox’s “Avatar.” The film dropped a minuscule 3.7% percent from last week to earn a very solid $22 million in its 9th week. Conversely, Sony’s sentimental wartime love story, “Dear John,” dropped like a relative stone, 49.8% to be exact, and came in with a less exciting $15.3 million to take fifth place in its second week. Still, with a budget of only $25 million and not $120 gazillion or whatever it was that “Avatar” cost, it’s not a terrible performance.

The #1 this week in terms of per-screen averages was “My Name is Khan,” a topical Bollywood drama being released by Fox Searchlight. It scored $15,500 per screen for an estimated $1.8 million. Another win for the growing U.S. popularity of Indian pop-cinema.

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Hearts and flowers to lead double-holiday weekend?

February 12, 2010 /

He’s been wrong very recently, but that’s what jolly Carl DiOrio confidently predicts over at The Hollywood Reporter.  A fiscally very big weekend at the movies is expected overall because we have three new high profile, high-concept films debuting in over 3,000 theaters each according to Box Office Mojo. Moreover, it’s all happening over a President’s Day weekend which also includes Valentine’s Day on Sunday.

Julia Roberts and some guy in

Everyone’s going to either try to get closer to their special someone, forget that they don’t have a special someone, or perhaps try to forget that they have to pretend like they’re want to get closer to that special someone when they really would rather be in a far away foreign land of fantasy. Movies aren’t a bad prescription in any of those cases.

Garry Marshall’s multi-stor, all-star rom-com, “Valentine’s Day,” is the worst reviewed of the three critically unloved films coming out this weekend, but since when does something like a seriously lacking 14% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes stop filmgoers bent on lightly sentimental entertainment? With Julia Roberts on board and Garry Marshall’s brand of uber-schmaltz on offer, a lot of mostly female folks will be interested and their partners better be alongside them. DiOrio is expecting as much as $45 million for Warner Brothers for this one. “Avatar” shchmavatar, I guess.

Director Chris Columbus is, if anything, even less of a critical darling than Garry Marshall. (He’s absolutely no darling of this critic, I can tell you that.) Still, the latest entry in the “Precious: Based on the Noel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” ungainly title sweepstakes is Columbus and Fox’s version of “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” It may look like a teen-Harry Potter knock-off to the uninterested observer, but critics are being a bit less harsh on this entry, allowing it a mixed 48% “Fresh” rating, It’s worth noting that that the Greek mythological background might make things a bit easier for English teachers the world over. DiOrio is expecting something over $30 million. Sure, I guess.

Expected to come in at the #3 spot or thereabouts is the monstrous semi-remake of “The Wolfman,” with Benecio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins stepping in for Lon Chaney, Jr. and Claude Reins in a much bloodier and more elaborate period tale. Del Toro may be the best actor to play the part so far. Still, many critics, including our own Will Harris, are only about 31% impressed with either his acting this time around or the movie as a whole.

http://www.bullz-eye.com/mguide/review_images/2010/the_wolfman/the_wolfman_5.jpgKind words mostly seem to be mostly reserved for the striking atmospherics from director Joe Johnston’s effects team including make-up genius Rick Baker, which have been getting us fanboys so riled about this long-delayed production for low these many moons. Horror and monster lovers (in a platonic way, I mean) haven’t hard much to work with lately, so that sounds about right to me. I guess.

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RIP Congressman Charlie Wilson

February 12, 2010 /

Circumstances have once again forced me to delay the already-delayed box office preview until sometime tonight (tomorrow morning for those of you in the east).

In the meantime, I just heard that the real-life Texas Democrat behind “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the entertaining film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Tom Hanks in the title role, has passed on.

The movie was fun, but if anyone out there is curious about how things were really done both in congress and the CIA during the seventies and eighties, the late George Crile’s nonfiction book, Charlie Wilson’s War, is a must. The film is only a reflection.

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Emmerich says “Independence Day” sequel still alive, “2012: The Series” not so much

February 12, 2010 /

Bullz-Eye’s David Medsker chatted with “2012” director Roland Emmerich yesterday about the film’s impending release on DVD, but while the final product won’t hit the site ’til close to the DVD’s street date (March 2), Emmerich offered up two pieces of information during the course of the interview that we figured were worth reporting sooner than later.

During the course of the conversation, Medsker brought up our 2009 interview with Bill Pullman and mentioned the actor’s surprise that a sequel to “Independence Day” never got off the ground.

“It’s just one of those things,” said Emmerich. “Everybody wants to do it, but it’s really difficult. People had to wait for ‘Indy 4’ for a decade, and the reason is because of the people involved. If you want to assemble the same people, then you have a big problem. But everyone wants to do it, and it will happen one day, I’m pretty sure.”

If you’re not exactly overwhelmed by his confidence, perhaps this will help: after many years of uncertainty about what the premise of the sequel would be, it can at least be said that Emmerich and his “ID4” co-conspirator, Dean Devlin, do actually have an idea in place.

“Dean and I always said that we’d only do it when we had a really good story that excites us both, and we have the story written,” revealed Emmerich. “We’ve had it for a year and a half, two years. So we’ve been ready! Maybe it takes another two years [to get everyone together]. We’ll see.”

For better or worse, it appears that the rumored “2012” TV series won’t be getting in the way of “Independence Day 2.” When Medsker asked about the status of the series, Emmerich confirmed that it’s as dead as Danny Glover’s character. (RIP, President Wilson.)

“It’s not happening,” he said. “When the TV [network] realized what we wanted to do, they thought this was not possible for TV. It’s just too big. And I didn’t want to do it in a lesser form, so it went away.”

Damn.

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The un-terminatable “Terminator”

February 11, 2010 /

TermPistool2

Time constraints are forcing a short post today — and are also dictating that my movie preview will be delayed to (relatively) early tomorrow. Nevertheless, I will point out that Mike Fleming of Deadline|Hollywood is really on fire today with several noteworthy items.

I however, only have time for one. It’s that the self-described Terminator fanboy has seen a treatment for some new Terminator scripts by screenwriter William Wisher, whose been involved in the franchise since it’s inception. Fleming is quite high on it. What’s interesting here is that it’s not a reboot but seems to continue the ongoing saga and even has roles for such original “Terminator” actors as Linda Hamilton and a certain annoying governor of a very large state where I live. (How Wisher plans to explain how a robot can look several decades older should be interesting to see.)

I’m pro-Terminator but not a huge fanboy for the franchise, myself.  I liked the first two films quite a bit but never got around to seeing the last two. I also have limited patience with time travel stories that never seem completely logical to me. (I expected Eddie Furlong to disappear after the climax of “T-2.” Don’t ask me why now!) Still, you gotta admire the ambition, and I’d love to hear what any really big T-fans have to say about this.

Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

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