In the Wrap Up this Week:
The box office is UP; Robert Downey Jr might still saddle up for Cowboys and Aliens; Lucy beats Nicole Kidman to the Punch; Natalie Portman, Danny McBride and James Franco salute Your Highness; Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are A Couple of Dicks and Chevy Chase dips his toes in the Hot Tub Time Machine and he may return as Fletch.
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BOX OFFICE:
The summer season is now well and truly here. Pixar’s Up shows that family films and the Pixar brand are hugely profitable. The animated film banked a huge $68 million over the weekend. For a film that sells most of it’s tickets in half price matinees that’s a lot of attendance.
Last week’s champion Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian had to settle for the runner up spot with a weekend take of $25 million. With a total now over $100 million it looks like we might be in for a third installment.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man stop-gap, Drag Me To Hell, opened to a disappointing $16 million. It probably cost about $20 million to produce, so it’ll be profitable, but I’m sure Raimi wanted more.
Speaking of more – will we ever get to see any more Terminator films? With a weekend take of just $16 million for Terminator Salvation it looks like McG might not get to finish his proposed trilogy. Maybe international grosses will help. It looks like the franchise needed Schwarzenegger’s charisma and not just a grumpy looking Christian Bale.
Star Trek flew past the $200 million mark with a weekend gross of $12 million. Angels & Demons has crossed the $100 million milestone, but will the film be profitable to warrant a sequel? Doubtful.
Dance Flick made another $4 million giving the spoof a total gross of almost $20 million. Who pays money to see that?
X-Men Origins: Wolverine made just under $4 million this weekend bringing the Hugh Jackman starrer’s total to $170.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past hit $50 million and Beyonce Knowle’s Obsessed is closing in on $70 million.
MOVIE NEWS
1. Everyone wants Robert Downey Jr in their movie these days. It’s funny how times have changed. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have spoken about how they still hope to snag the Iron Man for their upcoming adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens.
Speaking to Sci-Fi Wire the duo said that they‘ve been speaking to Downey Jr about the film but that scheduling is the issue:
“We’ve been talking to him about that. He’s one of the busiest men on the face of the Earth. If the schedule can line up, we’d absolutely love it.”
The pair also said that they’re finishing up scripting duties on the film:
“We are just about to finish our draft of Cowboys and Aliens, which we are writing with Lost’s Damon Lindelof. For Cowboys and Aliens, we got an amazing first draft from Mark Fergus, who wrote Iron Man, and now we are continuing on with Damon. We are in the middle of the second draft.”
*Please note that Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman do speak separately.
They’re also incredibly in demand with Transformers 2 and Star Trek out this summer alone!
Source: Sci Fi Wire
2. Nicole Kidman has dropped out of Woody Allen’s forthcoming film. The Aussie star will be replaced by British actress Lucy Punch.
The plot and title for the film are unknown but sources believe:
“Punch will play a high-priced call girl similar to Ashley Dupre, who was at the center of the scandal that brought down New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.”
The cast for the film is pretty darn good – even for a Woody Allen film. Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts and Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto have roles in it.
Source: Variety
3. Natalie Portman will join Danny McBride and James Franco in Your Highness for Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green.
According to Variety:
“McBride, who wrote the script with Ben Best, plays an arrogant lazy prince who with his brother (Franco) must complete a quest to save the kingdom and his brother’s fiance. Portman will play a warrior princess that the lazy prince falls in love with.”
The Princess Bride with pot anyone?
Source: Variety
4. Seann William Scott and Adam Brody know A Couple of Dicks. The pair will join Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Kevin Smith’s forthcoming detective comedy.
“Scott plays a thief known as the Sh**t Bandit for the souvenirs he leaves at his robberies. Brody is an abrasive detective not happy to be working with Willis and Morgan.”
A Couple of Dicks starts shooting this Monday in New York.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
5. Chevy Chase seems to be on the comeback trail. Not only has the 80’s icon scored a role in John Cusack’s Hot Tub Time Machine but the Weinstein Company have apparently approached him with a script for a third Fletch movie.
With regards to Hot Tub Time Machine:
“Chase plays a mysterious repairman who dispenses pearls of wisdom and may or may not be behind the metaphysical road trip.”
Now, a Fletch film has been in the works for almost a decade. Kevin Smith originally wanted to make a Fletch film with Jason Lee, and then Scrub’s Zach Braff was attached to the project for a while, but nothing ever came of it. This new script is passing of the baton-type film where Chase’s Fletch advises his journalist nephew on his career.
With a bit of luck this will mean that we get to see more of the criminally underused Chase on the big screen.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
That’s it for now. See you at the movies.
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13 Comments
Was there any real suprise that “UP” would be number 1 at the box office?
I’m eager to see “Drage Me to Hell”, but I think I can wait til dvd to see it.
Regarding Pixar’s “Up” numbers, while it’s true that most of sales are on matinees, it doesn’t separate out how much of that is 3d ticket sales.
I want Pixar to make as much money as they can considering I think that what they make is simply more worthy of funding than about 60 percent of what the rest of Hollywood chooses to fund, but I wish they (the number crunchers) would be more honest in the calculations and measure the number of butts in seats instead of raw dollar amounts alone.
Up is going to continue to rack in the money simply because of the great quality and because of kids. When kids go to the movies parents are right there with them bringing in even more.
Terminator wasn’t as bad as everyone says and deserves to finish out the trilogy but without McG. He did a good job but not good enough to warrant bringing him back. I just saw it for a second time (because my sister wanted me to take her) and it could have been so much better with a few changes.
acording to box ofice mojo T4 made over 16 million
The drop off on T4 is pretty bad. It hasn’t even broke over 100 mil yet.
The budget + marketing had to be more than 250+mil.
Will Mcg pull it off? No he failed!!! I can’t wait to read the fallout on this disaster.
Congrats to “Up,,,”
I know DMTH has got a disapointing box-office result, but I don’t think Raimi is really doing this for the money, I think he’s doing this really to go back to his roots and get a break from Spiderman.
I’m sure the money wouldn’t hurt though…
I wouldnt say MCG failed when the movie goes wide next weekend internationally excluding mexico it will make alot of money. It made 13 million overseas this last weekend and it wasnt even out yet in 1/4 of the contries it is being released in. It isnt a failure untill we know what its going to make overseas. Remember T3 made 280 million overseas and T2 315. So if this movie makes in that range it will not be a failure.I see it making 250 million int. and 125 domestic. Total of about 375 million, Doesnt look like it will be a failure to me.
I realy hope they make another movie. I thought T1 n 2 were very good but not perfect, and i say thid movie is just as good as those 2 were.
sorry i ment to say. and i say this movie is just as good as those 2
Pretty surprising about T4. I thought for SURE it would be the number 2 movie this weekend. No surprise about UP, though. Pixar continues to make films that appeal to a large, family audience.
If the new Fletch movie comes out, I wonder if a new Vacation movie will be far behind?? Of the 4 vacation movies to come out, I thought the only really weak one was European Vacation. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest and Christmas can’t happen without watch Christmas Vacation.
790 points out a good fact, there was a HELL of a lot of marketing plus viral ads, and of course Bale’s rant to generate buzz, interest & then to not rake in when it should? Of course going against UP would fault it but it should have owned last week being a 4 day release!
Now I know that box office numbers do not equate quality, but unless McG is going to self finance another installment it is all in the Executive’s hands. Guess DVD sales and worldwide sales will help.
Here is a thought, it seems that everyone is raving about Schwarzenegger’s appearance, and why shouldn’t, he is the King! So maybe for marketing they should include Schwarzenegger’s name on the ads including Bale & Worthington.
@SK
But he’s not in the film, so I don’t think they can do that. Of course, they could have the CGI face of him on the poster but not his name.
@John, true say that the King is not in the film but he is “in” the film. He did agree to have his likeness so he is in the film technically. Arnold, like Stallone and Tom Cruise do have worldwide recognition, their names do hold weight like a Jet Li or Jackie Chan.
Adding his name for marketing purposes is not a bad idea.
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