This week:
The box office Twi-Hards With A Vengeance as New Moon breaks records; Dustin Hoffman may not be in the next Fockers movie after all; Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan are just A Couple of Cops; Robert Pattinson will romance some older ladies (control yourselves) in Bel Ami and Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender say Eyre we go again to another Bronte adaptation.
Summit Entertainment and Stephanie Meyer must have been popping champagne corks all weekend with the truly outstanding grosses for their Twilight sequel New Moon.
After grossing a scorching $26.27 million from midnight screenings on Friday the film went on to take $72.7 million for a record opening day – beating The Dark Knight’s $67 million. To put things in context the first film in the Twilight saga scored $36 million on it’s first day and banked $69 million for the weekend.
The Robert Pattinson/Kirsten Stewart film should have a final weekend take of $140 million+ giving the vampire/ werewolf film the third highest opening weekend behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3. The film has also taken an additional $118 million worldwide for a massive $258 million debut in all markets.
It’s times like this that make me feel old. I just don’t get Twilight – although to be fair I haven’t seen the first film or read the book, but I don’t have a burning desire to do either. Having said that I’m hardly the target demographic of teen girls and middle-aged women. While fans may be fighting over Team Edward or Team Jacob it looks like the real winners are the money-men!
Away from Twilight, Sandra Bullock had the biggest opening of her career (didn’t I write this when The Promotion opened?) The Blind Side did just that and beat all expectations and banked an impressive $35 million. If it performs like a lot of sports films it has a shot at hitting $100 million.
2012 dropped to number three –which isn’t that bad considering the competition and the terrible reviews that the film has received. A weekend gross of $27 million would give the Roland Emmerich disaster epic $108 million in the US and well over $300 million worldwide.
Animated film Planet 51 took up just $12.5 million over the weekend. It further shows that Pixar really knows how to catch lightening in a bottle.
Disney’s Jim Carrey starrer A Christmas Carol made another $12 millon over the weekend for a total gross of just under $80 million. Over $100 is a certainty at this stage and Christmas films like this are the gifts that keep giving year in and year out wit re-releases and DVD sales.
Precious moved into 629 screens for another impressive weekend gross of $11 million. It now stands with a $22 million total.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, Couples Retreat, The Fourth Kind and Paranormal Activity rounded out the top ten in what was a mightily impressive weekend at the box office – but nobody seemingly cares about them this week.
Movie News
1. It was presumed to be a sure thing that Dustin Hoffman would be returning to the role of Bernie Focker in Little Fockers, but it now looks like the Oscar-winning legend may not return because of salary and scheduling issues.
Onscreen wife Barbra Streisand is set to return for the film but Hoffman is believed to be unhappy with the size of his role and his salary.
It’s a shame – because Hoffman and Streisand were the best things in the Meet The Fockers, so not to have Hoffman will be a major blow to the film that is set to star Ben Stiller, Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, Owen Wilson and Jessica Alba.
Maybe Universal will come to its senses and pay Hoffman what he’s worth and expand his role so that it is worth his time.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
2. A scooper for Ain’t It Cool news who managed to catch an early preview screening of Kevin Smith’s forthcoming detective comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan states that the title of the film has been changed from the obvious publicity-seeking yet laugh worthy A Couple of Dicks to the bland A Couple of Cops.
Source: Ain’t It Cool
3. Robert Pattinson must be partying like it’s 1999 this weekend after the amazing grosses of New Moon, however that doesn’t mean that he’s resting on his acting laurels. The star is set to star opposite Uma Thurman in Bel Ami.
According to The Hollywood Reporter:
“Ami tells of George Duroy (Pattinson), a young journalist who rose from poverty to become one of the most successful men in Paris via the ruthless and calculating bedding of the city’s most glamorous and influential women. Thurman plays the wife of Duroy’s friend, a woman who is extremely involved and connected in the goings-on of Parisian society. She helps Duroy in his ascent, later becoming his wife.”
Declan Donnellan will direct the film which is set to start shooting in Paris next year.
It sounds like the fantasy of lot of older Twi-Hards as a group of older women get to romance Pattinson!
I wonder how Pattinson’s Twilight fans will react to this news, and more importantly will it make the same type of ban that New Moon did this weekend? I doubt it! Kristin Scott Thomas costars.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
4. Have you been waiting on yet another screen adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre?
Neither have I, but one is en route anyway.
Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender will star in Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Bronte’s classic novel.
Variety states that:
“The Project is a period piece but will play up the gothic elements of the story about Jane (Wasikowska), a demure governess who discovers her surly employer Rochester (Fassbender) is harboring a dark secret.”
Mia Wasikowska will next be seen as Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland opposite Johnny Depp.
Fassbender is a rising star having given fantastic performances in Hunger and Inglourious Basterds. He’ll next be seen in Dog Soldiers director Neil Marshall’s Centurion and in Jonah Hex alongside Josh Brolin and Megan Fox.
With Fassbender involved, this film has gone from “not another Jane Eyre” to “I’m quite interested” on my film radar.
Source: Variety
That’s it for now. See you at the movies.
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