I can’t believe that it’s now the end of August! Soon the winter blockbusters will be knocking at our door and the next thing you know it’ll be Oscar time again. Where does time go? Is it playing like a re-run somewhere, can you just flick to another dimension to a time where you are still awaiting a fourth Indiana Jones movie? Who knows, but I do know that it’s another Weekend Movie News Wrap up featuring a new aspect: a weekend box office update.
This week:
After our box office round-up we see what George Clooney and Jason Reitman are doing Up in the Air, we find out what former superhero is joining the Toy Story franchise, we look at who might be helming the Poltergeist movie and the Voltron film and what is new on the Inglorious Bastards casting front.
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Weekend Box Office
It looks like Tropic Thunder will retain its box office crown and gross another $14-16 million over the Labor day weekend. Fox’s tinkering with Babylon A.D. didn’t do any good as the film will only bank $11-13 million this weekend. Ouch - what a summer Fox has had!
Don Cheadle’s Traitor did a modest $2.2 million on Friday and it should bank $10 million when all is said and done over the weekend. Meanwhile Disaster Movie was a disaster coining only $2 million on Friday - look for an $8 million weekend.
Death Race crashed an burned on its second weekend dropping a mighty 63% grossing just $1.7 million on Friday. Look for a little over $8 million by the end of Labor Day weekend.
Art house hit The Dark Knight will have crossed the $500 million barrier and the Caped Crusader epic should bank about another $11.5 million. Holy legs, Batman!
Movie News
1. Speaking of Batman, former Dark Knight George Clooney has signed on to Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. The comedy film follows a business man who is addicted to collecting air miles. Sounds strange and quirky so it should be up Clooney’s street. I imagine it’ll fly high in awards season!
Source: Variety
2. Another former Batman, Michael Keaton has signed on to Toy Story 3. Keaton will play Ken (of Ken and Barbie fame). His other half will be voiced by Jodi Benson. Benson was also the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I didn’t know that already. Seriously.
Source: IESB
3. It looks like the Poltergeist remake has snagged itself a director. Vadim Perelman director of House of Sand and Fog is in talks to direct the horror film. Nothing is set in stone yet, so this could change. Heck, they could even give Brett Ratner a call.
Source: Bloody Disgusting
4. More Bastards have landed (that’s a Peter Jackson reference for you). Christoph Waltz has joined Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards as the main evil-doer of the film, Colonel Hans Landa. Meanwhile National Treasure star Diane Kruger has also come on-board the film, in the role first intended for the much older Nastassja Kinski.
Source: CHUD
5. The Voltron movie has nabbed a director in the form of Max Makowski. The film is a Transformers-esque giant robot movie. Makowski has in the past brought us One Last Dance (a film that I have sitting on DVD but have never watched), as well as episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
No, seriously, he did. I have nothing to say about this. Nothing at all.
I will say that there’s probably a joke in there somewhere.
Source: Latino Review
That’s it for another week. See you at the movies!
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30 Comments
Abrams is playing it safe because he’s not an original guy.
There’s plenty of new exciting stories set after Voyager.
There’s a whole Fleet of ships and crews.
To say that Kirk and Spock are the only hope of Trek is selling the franchise short.
“It will only be good if they dump the Latino Review script. From what I’ve seen, it resembles a Voltron story even less than the Bayformers movie resembled an actual Transformers story”
Don’t tell me you’re a Voltron purist too… Based on the Latino Review synopsis, I liked how the characters are brought together and it made for an interesting story. Are you mad that they didn’t mention the mice or the witch? Go Voltron!
“Don’t tell me you’re a Voltron purist too… Based on the Latino Review synopsis, I liked how the characters are brought together and it made for an interesting story. Are you mad that they didn’t mention the mice or the witch? Go Voltron!”
I’m no more a Voltron purist than I am a G1 Transformers purist. Anyone who accuses me of either of those clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I don’t mind if the mice are missing, or any of the other minor characters. In fact I’m grateful for that. I don’t mind moving it to a more Earth-centric story instead sending them to Arus. I don’t mind them updating the origins of the lions. I don’t mind if they keep Zarkon, Hazar, Throk, or Lotor out of the first movie.
No, I just want a good script that actually resembles Voltron. The characters are off, the script rips-off at least half a dozen other SF movies, usually not good ones, and all in all it doesn’t feel like Voltron.
I just want them to get the characters right and keep the feel of the franchise. This script doesn’t feel like a Voltron story.
Is it ‘playing it safe’ though? Alot of people were worried and scared about the idea of bring Trek back to the academy…people were up in arms about other, younger people trying to portray the most iconic trek characters ever. I’m not too sure that’s a safe route.
2-3 years ago, could you imagine someone else playing Kirk…me, never.
I really hope this movie is incredible, I have such high expections in JJ, so its a big make or break experience for him. The fact that Paramount put the trust in him to re-kindle the Trek world and go ahead with this idea, I think shows some great hope.
I guess we’ll just have to see
(If I ran Paramount)
Muhaa haaaaahaahhh !!!
Fire Tom Cruise!!!
Oh they allready did that.
I would have done a stand alone tv series set after “Voyager”.
Without Berman/Braga.
If that did well, a stand alone TNG film would have been next. It would have been a film that would feature all the crews and ships from the Next Gen timeline.
I have a strong feeling that the new film will be more or less meh,,,
Hey 790,
Would your proposed idea appeal to mainsteam audiences have and would it be big hit at the box office? I don’t think it can. We can almost say for sure, it can’t. No matter what commercials and other advertising you do for that, it wouldn’t click with the mainstream.
Remember, the idea is to show that the Star Trek franchise can be successful and can hit the main audiences. When that first teaser hit during Cloverfield previews, the entire audience was in talks about it…and that trailer showed barely anything, but it had awesome sound clips of real-world events, heh.
The idea of TNG films and those characters don’t sell. You have to think about the general audiences.
I understand why you may not like the idea personally, but I don’t understand how you can say there’s something better that would be more successful at the box office, and can save the Trek Franchise. There is no future in the TNG, DS9 or Voyager crews. And as for the original crew, several have sadly passed, and others have passed within the Trek timeline.
790,
I think that Clooney is an amazing actor and filmmaker who strives for quality in his films.
He’s one of the few actors out there making thoughtful films for grown-ups.
Niall
Well that’s why I would have done a tv series first before a new film.
The Cloverfield ad was very clever, but I don’t see the relivance.
You say that there’s no future after TNG timeline, I disagree.
The DS9 novels out sell anything right now in the Star Trek world.
There’s plenty to do with that timeline.
Its Paramount that claims that timeline is dead. Not the fans.
Mainstream aside,,, its the hardcore fans that see the film over and over.
IMO, JJ is overestimating his fanbase…
^^
^^
That’s cool Niall,
I just find his acting overated. The Ocean films really soured me on him.
I think a TNG era movie could definitely be done, but that crew is probably over-exposed. I thought the rumor before Nemesis was there would be a TNG movie with DS9 characters. All of those characters have fallen off the globe, even Janeway had a cameo in Nemesis.
BTW, I really enjoyed Nemesis, even if it had a Wrath of Khan feel to the ending.
It’s the opposite I think 790.
How many people buy Trek books? In all of what you said about the movie, TV shows and now the books, you seem to only focus on the trek fans. That’s the problem, there are barely any of those.
JJ isn’t overestimating the fanbase, he’s trying to create one because there isn’t one anymore.
The hardcore trek fans are the only ones who saw the last few TNG films, look how well that turned out? Star Trek is dead at the moment, this movie’s goal is to bring the current mainstream movie audience and geek culture into it. Not sell to a dozen people who will see it 5 times each, lol.
The relevence of the ad, is his style and approach. He’s bringing HUGE meaning to things we didn’t really focus on or pay attention to about trek. Things us Trek fans take for granted now, and things literally no one else cared about. He made Trek cool…when its not and hasn’t been for a long time. Let’s see what the next trailer brings. I think its completely relevent, personally.
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