"The Forbidden Kingdom," from Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co., traveled to the top of the domestic boxoffice during the weekend, bowing with an estimated $20.9 million.
Universal's R-rated comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" grabbed the frame's silver medal with a memorable $17.3 million in opening grosses. Sony Screen Gems' horror film "Prom Night" saw a 56% drop over its sophomore session but still finished third with $9.1 million, good for a $32.6 million cume.
Sony's Al Pacino thriller "88 Minutes" debuted in fourth place with $6.8 million. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a Ben Stein-narrated documentary about critics of the intelligent-design theory of creation, bowed in ninth place with $3.2 million from 1,052 playdates.
Among other holdovers, the cop drama "Street Kings" from Fox Searchlight and Regency fell 68% from its opening grosses to ring up $4 million in sixth place and produce a $19.9 million cume. The Miramax drama "Smart People" tumbled from the top 10 on a 61% decline in its second weekend to $1.6 million, with a $6.8 million cume.
Industrywide, the weekend's $92 million in collective grosses marked a 4% increase from the same frame a year go, according to Nielsen EDI data. That represents only the second year-over-year weekend uptick in the past 10 sessions. Year-to-date, 2008 trails the same portion of last year by 3%, at $2.43 billion, Nielsen said.
In a limited bow for the weekend, the Weinstein Co.'s documentary "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?" grossed $143,299 from 102 theaters, or $1,405 per venue.
IFC Films' thriller "Anamorph" unspooled in a single venue and grossed $3,024.
Elsewhere in the specialty market, the Overture drama "The Visitor" visited an additional 14 locations for a total of 18 to gross $163,000, or a solid $9,056 per site, with a cume of $280,437.
Sony Pictures Classics' Holocaust drama "The Counterfeiters" mounted a 23-screen expansion over the Passover session for a total of 170 engagements, grossing $250,070, or $1,471 per venue, with a $3.8 million cume.
The Weinstein Co.'s Spanish-language drama "Under the Same Moon" added four theaters for a total of 454 and grossed $554,667, or $1,222 per venue, with an $11.2 million cume.
Directed by Rob Minkoff ("Stuart Little"), "Kingdom" drew audiences skewing 58% male, with 54% of patrons under age 25.
"We achieved our purposes," Lionsgate distribution president Steve Rothenberg said. "We got the older, martial arts crowd who have been following Jet Li and Jackie Chan for years, and the PG-13 rating helped us also get the teenaged crowd."
"If you get Jackie and Jet in the same movie, you have boxoffice gold," Weinstein Co. co-topper Harvey Weinstein said.
Produced on a shared budget estimated at $55 million, "Kingdom" represented a first film financing through the Weinstein Co.'s recently unveiled $285 million Asian fund.
"Marshall," whose producers included comedy dynamo Judd Apatow, was written by topliner Jason Segel and co-stars Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars"). Nick Stoller, previously a screenwriter on films including "Fun With Dick and Jane," copped a first-time directing credit.
"It certainly opened to the high end of our expectations," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said.
The solid opening for the modestly budgeted film was particularly gratifying considering its restricted rating and the recently slack marketplace, Rocco added.
Late pre-release tracking had been a little light. But Apatow films do tend to be tough to forecast, and a debut of at least in the low- to mid-teen millions had been expected.
"Marshall" skewed 53% female, with 56% of patrons under age 30. That was fairly typical for an Apatow comedy, though it seemed to play just a bit younger than the producer's previous films like "Knocked Up."
Sony didn't survey "88" audiences for demographic data. Distribution president Rory Bruer said the studio expected to "come out fine" on the Jon Avnet-directed film, which Sony picked up for $5 million.
"The performance was kind of in line with our expectations," Bruer said.
"Expelled" was heavily marketed to church groups and was expected to play best in the Bible Belt and other heartland states. But demo breakdowns of its opening audiences were unavailable.
The "Expelled" bow was the best ever for an April documentary, outpacing a $2.1 million debut by New Line's "The Real Cancun" in 2003, Nielsen said.
Looking ahead, Friday will see Universal unspool "Baby Mama," a PG-13 comedy likely to skew more heavily female than "Marshall." Also, Warner Bros. is set to bow the stoner comedy "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," and Fox will debut the broadly targeted crime thriller "Deception."
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Gods and Generals
Many sequels suffer from repeating and rehashing the majority of the material from the original. Some suffer from not being enough like the original. Some are lucky and...
Sometimes movies are bad because they are simply moving at a slow pace with little to no interest or substance. Sometimes sequels just have too much to live up to.
This is an example of just about every bad quality I've mentioned. It doesn't outright stink and suck, nor does it leave you cross-eyed with perplextion or indifference, either. But it doesn't really inspire any paticular feelings for you at all, really. Positive or negative.
"Gods and Generals" is a movie that might be perfect for recovering war veterans in trauma wards. A movie that moves on a quiet, comatose pace. "Gods and Generals," a prequel to the famed and magnificent "Gettysburg" has little or no energy. Everyone just appears to be back to set things up for "Gettysburg."
This whole movie is a 2 1/2 hour set-up for a punchline we've already seen---with nothing happening or really going on here.
Oh, I'm not saying it's horribly made. It's put together with skill---the whole look and sound of the civil war. It might be the kind of movie that would be shown in a history class.
It's complete with big-name actors like Jeff Daniels and Robert Duvall in full civil war garb and giving famous and poetic quotes as if they're striking a pose. They appear to be posing throughout the entire movie. It's a civil war re-enactment.
But they're just goofin' like any other group of men doing a civil war re-enactment.
There is one real battle sequence where everybody lines up and charges to die and to kill. The body count begins to pile up---like ANY war movie worth it's salt should.... but it doesn't capture the true stink and ugliness of war in a "Saving Private Ryan" or "Braveheart" sort of way, or even the original "Gettysburg."
Perhaps because all those were R-rated movies and this movie doesn't want to lose it's PG-13 movie, it's more about poetic stories and makes the civil war a backdrop for all this.
At least in my opinion, the actual problem with the fact this movie runs at the pace of a comatose snail. Still waters run deep? Not here.
The movie moves so slowly at times that these people seem to have started the civil war simply out of sheer boredom and so they could say thing that would become historic. This is part I to a III-part series ("Gettysburg" was part II). I look foreword to the next in the series.
"Gods and Generals" all felt like set-up where "Gettysburg" delivered the actual punchline. I hope the final in the series (these are all adapted from books) doesn't just tie up loose ends.
Let's all hope, shall we?
On the film scale--every scale--"GODS AND GENERALS" rates as two stars out of four, 3.5 out of 10, a dozing viewer in his seat (that's the rating system from the Chicago Examiner"). Eh...
SPECIAL NOTE HERE: Matt Letscher, a really good actor ("Gettysburg," TV's "Good Morning, Miami" and "The Mask of Zorro") at least is given more to do than his nameless and bit character in the original movie--but it's still just not a good movie, I'm afraid.
Credit: dane youssef
Sometimes movies are bad because they are simply moving at a slow pace with little to no interest or substance. Sometimes sequels just have too much to live up to.
This is an example of just about every bad quality I've mentioned. It doesn't outright stink and suck, nor does it leave you cross-eyed with perplextion or indifference, either. But it doesn't really inspire any paticular feelings for you at all, really. Positive or negative.
"Gods and Generals" is a movie that might be perfect for recovering war veterans in trauma wards. A movie that moves on a quiet, comatose pace. "Gods and Generals," a prequel to the famed and magnificent "Gettysburg" has little or no energy. Everyone just appears to be back to set things up for "Gettysburg."
This whole movie is a 2 1/2 hour set-up for a punchline we've already seen---with nothing happening or really going on here.
Oh, I'm not saying it's horribly made. It's put together with skill---the whole look and sound of the civil war. It might be the kind of movie that would be shown in a history class.
It's complete with big-name actors like Jeff Daniels and Robert Duvall in full civil war garb and giving famous and poetic quotes as if they're striking a pose. They appear to be posing throughout the entire movie. It's a civil war re-enactment.
But they're just goofin' like any other group of men doing a civil war re-enactment.
There is one real battle sequence where everybody lines up and charges to die and to kill. The body count begins to pile up---like ANY war movie worth it's salt should.... but it doesn't capture the true stink and ugliness of war in a "Saving Private Ryan" or "Braveheart" sort of way, or even the original "Gettysburg."
Perhaps because all those were R-rated movies and this movie doesn't want to lose it's PG-13 movie, it's more about poetic stories and makes the civil war a backdrop for all this.
At least in my opinion, the actual problem with the fact this movie runs at the pace of a comatose snail. Still waters run deep? Not here.
The movie moves so slowly at times that these people seem to have started the civil war simply out of sheer boredom and so they could say thing that would become historic. This is part I to a III-part series ("Gettysburg" was part II). I look foreword to the next in the series.
"Gods and Generals" all felt like set-up where "Gettysburg" delivered the actual punchline. I hope the final in the series (these are all adapted from books) doesn't just tie up loose ends.
Let's all hope, shall we?
On the film scale--every scale--"GODS AND GENERALS" rates as two stars out of four, 3.5 out of 10, a dozing viewer in his seat (that's the rating system from the Chicago Examiner"). Eh...
SPECIAL NOTE HERE: Matt Letscher, a really good actor ("Gettysburg," TV's "Good Morning, Miami" and "The Mask of Zorro") at least is given more to do than his nameless and bit character in the original movie--but it's still just not a good movie, I'm afraid.
Credit: dane youssef
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