Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: November 15, 2009

This week:

Disaster at the box office with 2012; Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro re-team for Fockers; Brad Pitt’s Moneyball may finally roll; Belgian actress de France plays French alongside Matt Damon in Eastwood’s Hereafter and Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey dance with Portman and Kunis in Black Swan.

Box Office

Say what you will about Roland Emmerich and his films, the director knows how to destroy the world on screen and make shed loads of money. His most recent disaster epic 2012 destroyed all competition and banked an impressive $65 million over the weekend to capture the number one position. The film has so far grossed an amazing $225million worldwide from a $200 million budget.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol is showing legs like a supermodel. The film dropped only 23% from last weekend for a $23 million take. It should play well in the run-up to Christmas and then have a decent life on DVD and with re-releases.

Precious was third with a highly impressive $6.2 million from just 174 locations. Never under-estimate the power of Oprah!

George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare At Goats was fourth with just a smidgen over $6 million.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It banked $5.1 million. The film has now made over $67 million in the US and huge $200 million worldwide. Not bad for a film that is essentially a DVD special feature.

Meanwhile Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox grossed a mighty $250, 000 from just four screens!

Movie News

1. Harvey Keitel has joined the ever growing cast of Little Fockers.

Keitel will play a contractor employed by Stiller’s character in the Paul Weitz directed comedy.

The film also stars Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner and Owen Wilson, Jessica Alba, Laura Dern and possibly Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.

I still can’t believe the amount of talent that this film is attracting. The first two are entertaining enough films and they made enough money to warrant a third return to the well, but the budget must be pretty high unless everyone is looking for a huge backend on the gross.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. It looks like Brad Pitt’s troubled Moneyball may be inching closer to making it on to the big screen.

Since Steven Soderbergh’s departure from the film no director has been attached but now it looks like two interesting candidates have emerged as the front-runners to tackle the Sony picture.

Capote director Bennett Miller and (500) Days of Summer helmer Marc Webb have set their sights on the baseball film.

With Pitt still attached, the film is obviously still a high priority for Sony and I’d imagine that they want to snag a director soon before his interest wanes. Both Miller and Webb are interesting candidates but they aren’t Soderbergh so my interest in the film (unlike Pitt’s) has died.

It’ll be interesting to see if this film makes it to the screens. We’ll keep you posted.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3. Belgian actress Cecile de France will join Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter.

De France will play French journalist who has a near-death experience in the supernatural drama.

According to Variety:

“Hereafter tells the story of three people who are touched by death in different ways.”

The film which started shooting last month will take in global locations including Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco.

Damon will next be seen alongside Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus which opens next month.

Hereafter opens on December 10, 2010.

Source: Variety

4. Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey have joined the cast of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The supernatural drama stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as warring ballerinas – one of whom may or may not exist.

SlashFilm has the character breakdowns for these new addiations to the cast:

“Ryder will play Beth, Nina’s (Portman) “sorta friend” who has been the school’s running lead in all the productions, but who is nearing the end of her career. All the dancers are aiming to take her place as Odette, the Swan Queen, in the next big ballet: Swan Lake. Cassel will be playing the ”handsome but sinister Yevna,” the director of the new stage production. And Hershey will play Nina’s mother.”

While the film doesn’t seem to fit into any sort of commercial box, I’m always interested in seeing what Aronofsky will do and I’m sure that at the very least, the film will have an interesting visual appeal.

Source: SlashFilm

That’s it for now. See you at the movies!

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