(Photo by 20th Century Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Collection)
Where there’s a Willis, there’s a way. A way to make it from TV sitcom star to eternal everyman action movie hero (Die Hard). A way to make a talking baby movie work (Look Who’s Talking) to the tune of $300 million at the box office in the ’80s. And a way to throw it all away with misfires like Bonfire of the Vanities and Hudson Hawk. And a way to get it all back again by kickstarting the ’90s indie boom with Pulp Fiction.
Since then, Bruce has continued to have a wild career, with the occasional crucial movie released at the exact right time to freshen up his image, whether in epic blockbusters (Armageddon), muted horror (The Sixth Sense), twee comedy (Moonrise Kingdom), or sci-fi cult classics (Looper). Recent highlights include Glass, the surprise finale to M. Night Shyamalan’s trilogy that started with Unbreakable and Glass, and Edward Norton passion project Motherless Brooklyn. And now we’re ranking all Bruce Willis movies by Tomatometer!
The holidays are behind us, 2015 is a memory, and a brand new year lies ahead — and for a lot of us, that means drawing up a list of resolutions that we all know we’ll probably end up breaking before St. Patrick’s Day. In the spirit of the New Year, we’ve decided to round up a list of movies that correspond with some of the most popular resolutions. Whether you’re trying to quit smoking, change your diet, or get your finances in order — of even if you feel like your life is in pretty good shape as it is — here’s a cinematic smorgasbord to help you ring in 2016. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, it’s Total Recall!
For most of us, unwittingly gulping down a roofie is the biggest danger we face when accepting drinks from a stranger in a strange place. But for recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), his decision to fall off the wagon in The Shining means striking up a deadly bargain with the malevolent spirits that really run the spooky old hotel he’s been tasked with looking after over a bitter Colorado winter. Next thing you know, ol’ Jack’s chasing after Shelley Duvall with an axe and wandering through the world’s freakiest topiary — food for thought the next time you think about ordering that extra drink. And as for The Shining? It is, as Emma Dibdin wrote for Digital Spy, “One of the most viscerally disturbing films ever made.”
A blistering non-fiction takedown of empty calories and corporate agriculture might not be the first place most people would look when hunting for books to adapt for the big screen, but Richard Linklater isn’t like most directors. Sadly, many critics felt Linklater’s ensemble-driven take on Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation failed to turn the book’s passionate argument against mass-produced meals into a compelling movie — although for an equal number of scribes, the powerful performances delivered by the impressive cast (which included Bruce Willis, Luis Guzman, and Patricia Arquette) made up for any narrative gaps. “For slicing through the euphemisms and getting to the heart of the matter,” argued Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Fast Food Nation is the most important American film of the year.”
Rodney Dangerfield’s schlubby humor and salt-of-the-earth persona made him the perfect fit for Back to School, starring the respect-deficient comedian as a self-made millionaire who, needing a distraction from his latest philandering trophy wife, decides to head back to college as a way of bettering himself while reconnecting with his uptight son (Keith Gordon). While it presents roughly the same cartoonishly unrealistic picture of campus life as any other 1980s college comedy, School has a sweet core lacking from most of the decade’s T&A-fueled romps, and it benefits greatly from charismatic performances by Dangerfield and a young Robert Downey, Jr. “It’s a good character for Dangerfield,” nodded the Chicago Reader’s Dave Kehr, “one that veers him away from the ‘I don’t get no respect’ pathos that comes too easily to him, and enough attention is paid to the minimal plot to integrate Dangerfield’s classically constructed one-liners.”
No matter how many degrees you have, moving up the corporate ladder often comes down to who you know. Even then, as naive college grad Brantley Foster (Michael J. Fox) discovers early in The Secret of My Success, your family connections might not be good for much more than a gig in the mailroom — unless you opt for the non-traditional approach and invent a new employee who rocks the boardroom in spite of the fact that he doesn’t technically exist. A major box-office hit in 1987, Success received lukewarm praise from critics, although its frantic screwball pace and slapstick comedy took full advantage of Fox’s comedic gifts, and its corporate setting helped make it what James Sanford of the Kalamazoo Gazette referred to as a “Quintessential 1980s comedy.”
Atkins, Paleo, South Beach… there’s a diet for every week of the year, but for sheer effectiveness, none of them can hope to match the pound-shedding power of a gypsy curse. At least, that’s what we learn in Thinner, director Tom Holland’s rather misguided adaptation of the gripping Stephen King story about a slovenly lawyer (Robert John Burke) who picks the wrong old lady to run over and ends up losing weight at an alarming rate. While none of the story’s essential themes translated particularly well to the screen, Thinner still managed to raise a few critics’ neck hairs, including Clint Morris of Moviehole, who decreed it “Stephen King’s freakiest film in eons.”
“But wait,” you might be saying. “What does Season of the Witch have to do with getting out of debt?” And while it’s true that in narrative terms, this 2011 fantasy action-adventure about a Crusader traveling to a remote monastery with a woman accused of witchcraft might not offer much in the way of lessons about managing one’s money, behind the scenes, it was all about getting back into the financial black. At least it was for star Nicolas Cage, who signed on for the project after learning he’d incurred a crushing $13 million tax liability with the IRS. Roundly panned by critics far and wide, Witch is just one of many debt-motivated movies Cage has starred in over the last few years — not that his motivations mattered to writers like ReelViews’ James Berardinelli, who opined, “Cage is effective as a falling down drunk in Las Vegas or a treasure hunter navigating goofy road trips but not as a disillusioned champion of the Church going one-on-one with a demon. Steven Seagal would have been more believable.”
With the possible exception of Lewis Black on a good night, it’s hard to like anybody when they’re angry. Bruce Banner, however, takes this maxim to ridiculous green extremes — and while neither of his solo big-screen outings have come close to maximizing the potential of his counterpart on the printed page, Banner’s rampaging alter ego came tantalizingly close to cinematic glory in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton as the hunted scientist who morphs into an indestructible beast whenever he gets a little too ticked off. Packed with action and ripe with subtext, the 2008 Hulk tried to split the difference between portraying a man desperately trying to manage his anger and allowing audiences the simple joy of watching him give in to it all and break stuff. It doesn’t always work, but for David Cornelius of eFilmCritic.com, it all added up to “One of the great monster movies, exciting and scary and sad all at once.”
This classic 1947 noir isn’t really about quitting smoking — in fact, ex-P.I. Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) has a cigarette in hand just about every time he’s on the screen — but it makes puffing tobacco look like such a stone cold cool habit that a viewer can pretty much inhale the vice’s visceral pleasures just by watching Out of the Past. In fact, no less an authority than Roger Ebert deemed it one of the all-time greatest smoking movies; as he put it, “There is a lot of smoking in all noirs, even the modern ones, because it goes with the territory. Good health, for noir characters, starts with not getting killed. But few movies use smoking as well as this one; in their scenes together, it would be fair to say that Mitchum and [Kirk] Douglas smoke at each other, in a sublimated form of fencing.”
It’s hard to imagine any studio other than Pixar having success with a family film this idiosyncratic — a movie about a lonely trash-compacting robot with a mostly dialogue-free first act doesn’t exactly scream “summer blockbuster” — but audiences trusted the Pixar brand enough to show up in droves for WALL-E, and they were rewarded with not only one of the best-reviewed animated releases of 2008, but what was, in the words of the Boston Globe’s Jay Carr, “the best American film of the year to date.” The movie’s eco-friendly storyline came with a surprising bit of controversy, drawing fire from conservative pundits who were annoyed with what they interpreted as a left-wing, anti-business message, but its 96 percent Tomatometer and massive $534 million gross drowned out the chatter. As with just about everything Pixar has done, it works whether you’re looking to be edified or simply entertained; as the New York Times’ A.O. Scott noted, “it is, undoubtedly, an earnest (though far from simplistic) ecological parable, but it is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity.”
Nothing’s more important than family, but sometimes it’s hard for us to see that until it’s almost too late. For example, take Max Dugan (Jason Robards), whose decades of estrangement with his daughter (Marsha Mason) come to a sudden end when he shows up on her doorstep to right old wrongs and start a relationship with his grandson (Matthew Broderick) — and share the bitter news of his impending death. Boasting a screenplay by Neil Simon and typically light-fingered direction from Herbert Ross, Max Dugan Returns entranced critics like Janet Maslin, who wrote for the New York Times, “There are certainly some questionable ingredients to the story, but you’re not likely to notice them while the film is under way. You’re likely to be laughing.”
Vacations are always fun in theory, but it’s very rare that every member of the family is equally on board with whatever the person planning the trip has in store — especially if said planner is an arrogant-yet-well-meaning dunderhead like Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), who miscalculates basically every possible preparation for the family trip to Wally World in National Lampoon’s Vacation. From getting saddled with a lemon of a car to refusing to ask for directions, Clark makes plenty of mistakes — and when he isn’t messing things up on his own, he’s beset with annoying family members (like Randy Quaid’s legendary Cousin Eddie) who do it for him. The final act descends into lunacy, but underneath it all is a frantic desperation for an unattainable ideal that lies at the dark, splintered heart of any vacation gone wrong. “The Griswolds,” decreed Fred Topel for Crave, “are a national treasure.”
Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks) doesn’t exactly start donating his time for the most altruistic reasons — he’s trying to dodge a gambling debt by fleeing the country — but once he ends up on a plane full of Peace Corps volunteers bound for Thailand, he’s in for the experience of his life, in terms of manual labor as well as the many misadventures he gets into alongside fellow volunteer Tom Tuttle (John Candy). And while Volunteers may not have drummed up the sort of box office totals the studio was hoping for from reunited Splash vets Candy and Hanks, it tickled Walter Goodman of the New York Times, who wrote, “Take a healthy helping of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a dollop of The Bridge on the River Kwai, a dash of any Tarzan movie, a soupcon of Casablanca, a whiff of The Wizard of Oz and a stunt or two from a favorite Saturday serial, stir frenetically, and if you’re lucky enough to have snappy dialogue by Ken Levine and David Isaacs, you may end up with as funny a movie as Volunteers.”
In Fast Food Nation Richard Linklater, cult director of Dazed and Confused wields his counter-culture values to side swipe the meat processing industry’s use of contaminated products, coupled with its exploitation of under-waged, Mexican immigrants. Based on Eric Schlosser’s international bestseller, rather than producing a documentary, Linklater cranked up controversy by fictionalizing the book into a character-driven feature film, starring Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, and singer Avril Lavigne. Rotten Tomatoes UK met with the vegetarian Texan to find out what his beef is with slaughterhouse blues…
RT-UK: How did this project get off the ground?
Richard Linklater: It started with a conversation with Eric (Schlosser); I was a fan of the book and he mentioned making it fiction – you know, character based. I’d tried and failed to get films made about industrial low-paid workers before, so this was an opportunity.
I cared about the issues in the book, and thought it would be an interesting life experience. Eric introduced me to cattle ranchers and fast food workers and it just opened up my eyes; you think you know about something, but you don’t and there’s nothing like making a movie to really learn what it’s all about.
RT-UK: And you’ve used Fast Food Nation to make an important statement about America?
RL: Well I think by concentrating just on the characters we told the story through them. But it would be naïve to think that the implications of their stories wouldn’t be bigger on the socio-political platform. So you can’t help but look at this movie when it makes connections and see the bigger ramifications of a cheap, dispensable, quickly-consumed product purchase. I aim for hearts and for stomachs!
RT-UK: Do you feel Fast Food Nation has a direct link with Morgan Spurlock’s shock documentary Super Size Me?
RL: I think Fast Food Nation goes out of its way to concentrate on what’s behind the industry; Morgan Spurlock did a good job of what’s in front of it – the burger. But we were really trying to concentrate on the workers, the conditions, and to acknowledge all that.
But I had to think about like, ‘Well, are we just preaching to the choir? What do you hope to gain from the movie?’ Some of the people in our feature are some of the most demonised in our culture right now – a cut above terrorists. But the movie actually cares about them and humanises them. So I think films can do that well, and books and documentaries can more specifically change the world.
But just the fact that this film got financed and exists, that we’re even here, says there must be something in the air! People are really concerned about the contamination of food – we all have that in common. We care about the health of our food, but the bigger thing to care about is everything behind that: the workers, the environment and everything else.
RT-UK: So what would you say to people who believe that the low-waged eat fast food because it’s cheaper and more convenient?
RL: Yeah, it’s interesting; adverts are targeted at working class, lower income people. I think there’s a big segment of the world population that’s been convinced it’s all they can afford to eat, and that they don’t have time for anything else. I disagree with both because if you breakdown the economics of it you can feed a family for the same amount and they’d be much more healthy.
And the convenience thing – we’re encouraged to think we can watch four or five hours of TV every night but we’re also encouraged to think we don’t have time to prepare a meal! So it’s a huge brain-washing thing, but it’s just called marketing. That industry spends 10 billion dollars a year selling a mindset, a lifestyle, and people are waking up to the fact that there are healthy alternatives.
Rich people are generally pretty healthy – they eat fast food as a kind-of treat every now and then – an indulgence. Unfortunately it’s a real class issue very much targeting and marketing to the lower-income. If you look at cigarette marketing now, a generation later, it’s kinda going the same way.
RT-UK: What do you feel about fast food McSponsoring?
RL: Well them sponsoring hospitals is frankly apropos! My own paranoia says the ideal citizen doesn’t think about anything, eats a bunch of fast food – so they hit you there, and then they hand you over to the medical industrial complex to treat your symptoms for the rest of your life! I mean there’s a huge obesity epidemic going on in all countries, here too. These are big issues; not only are teenagers’ arteries that of a 40-year-old who smokes, but their outlook and self-image are damaged. But if you’re in the pharmaceutical industry, a light goes on and it’s like, ‘Oh good, here’s someone who’ll be a lifetime buyer of anti-depressants!’
So I think you have to be really paranoid about food, and money, and the forces behind everything. You know, we’re encouraged to be paranoid about a lot of things that aren’t that real to us – ‘there are people out there who wanna kill us’. But there are people who want to kill you…and they’re in your schools already!
RT-UK: No prizes for guessing getting Fast Food Nation green lit was a struggle then?
RL: The film was tricky to get made; we didn’t use the name Fast Food Nation, we had to rely on a technique a friend of mine used many years ago… you have to lie and cheat and steal to get your film made, and so I wasn’t always proud of some of the manipulation that we did. Gaining access to meat processing facilities we knew would always be tricky on this production, but we got access to some plants by just emphasising the story – they liked the story of the immigrants and their plight – it’s a traditional immigration story.
RT-UK: Is it true you used the working title of Coyote to cover your tracks during the shoot?
RL: Yeah, but we got outed of course! It worked for us for a while but then everyone knew we were Fast Food Nation so we lost some locations.
In what was a very close race for box office supremacy, the dancing penguin cartoon Happy Feet narrowly edged out a strong debut for the new James Bond actioner Casino Royale for the number one spot in North America this weekend.
Final numbers will be released on Monday after all Sunday ticket sales are counted up, but the animated adventure is still expected to lead by a slim margin. If estimates hold, the frame will mark only the second time in box office history that two films have opened with over $40M each on the same weekend. The potent pair also helped to push the top ten to its highest level in four months.
The mighty penguins of Happy Feet flexed their muscles and took over the number one spot this weekend opening to an estimated $42.3M. Warner Bros. launched the computer-animated film in an ultrawide 3,804 locations and averaged a stellar $11,125 per theater. The PG-rated pic finds a young penguin named Mumble trying to find his place in the world and features the voices of Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, and Hugh Jackman. The studio is estimating a optimistically slim Saturday-to-Sunday decline of only 14%.
Happy Feet was backed by a massive marketing campaign and beat out the openings of other recent computer-animated kids movies like DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge ($38.5M), Disney’s Chicken Little ($40M), and Fox’s Robots ($36M). However, it did not reach the Pixar territory of Cars ($60.1M) and The Incredibles ($70.5M). But with competing kids movies The Santa Clause 3 and Flushed Away still in the top five, Happy Feet performed as well as expected given the choices that the target audience has. With the Thanksgiving school holidays approaching, the $100M penguin pic should enjoy a robust sophomore frame.
After a four-year hiatus, Sony and MGM restarted the James Bond franchise with Casino Royale and generated an impressive $40.6M over the weekend, according to estimates, settling in for a close second place finish. The Daniel Craig starrer generated the best per-theater average among all wide releases with a potent $11,823 from 3,434 sites. It was the second biggest opening ever for the franchise trailing the $47.1M bow of the last installment, 2002’s Die Another Day. Casino was never expected to reach the heights of Die since it had a new and mostly unknown star in the lead and no famous co-star like Halle Berry to add more ammunition. Casino did attract rave reviews from critics which helped to sell the idea of a non-Pierce Brosnan Bond film to an American audience that was unfamiliar with Craig.
Brosnan’s first Bond film Goldeneye, which opened on the same weekend in 1995 and was also directed by Martin Campbell, bowed to $26.2M from 2,667 theaters for a $9,826 average. At today’s ticket prices, that would translate to an opening weekend average of roughly $13,000. Brosnan’s future Agent 007 flicks would each post larger openings so Craig, who is contracted for at least two more films, could follow suit and see even bigger grosses in the years ahead as audiences become more comfortable with him. The next adventure is already slated for a November 7, 2008 launch.
Sony’s research showed that Casino Royale’s audience was 55% male and 57% 25 and older. Around the world, Bond dominated the box office with even greater results opening at number one in 27 markets with an estimated $42.2M overseas. The U.K. led the field with a spectacular $25.6M bow.
Following its two-week reign over the U. S. and A., Borat dropped to third place collecting an estimated $14.4M in its third weekend of release. Down 49% from last weekend, the Fox comedy has lifted its cume to a stellar $90.5M in 17 days and could cross the century mark by Thanksgiving Day. Budgeted at only $18M (plus the cost of litigating its many current lawsuits), Borat looks to finish in the neighborhood of $125M domestically.
The two new films topping the charts helped to give most holdover films some hefty declines. Disney’s The Santa Clause 3 dropped 52% to an estimated $8.2M in its third weekend for a cume to date of $51.6M. After two weeks in third place, the animated pic Flushed Away got hit hard by the dancing penguins and dropped to fifth with an estimated $6.8M. Down a steep 59%, the Paramount/DreamWorks venture raised its sum to $48.8M.
The Will Ferrell comedy Stranger Than Fiction had a tough sophomore frame grossing an estimated $6.6M, off 51%, to give Sony a ten-day total of $22.9M. Budgeted at under $30M, the Marc Forster-directed pic should find its way to $35-40M. The cross-continent drama Babel fell 48% in its second weekend of wide release and captured an estimated $2.9M putting the total at $12M for Paramount Vantage. After scorching results in limited release, the Brad Pitt–Cate Blanchett film is having a hard time competing on a nationwide scale.
The horror sequel Saw III followed with an estimated $2.8M, tumbling 60%, putting Lionsgate’s cume at $74.9M. Warner Bros. grossed an estimated $2.6M for The Departed which declined by 50% in its seventh mission giving Martin Scorsese‘s top-grossing film $113.9M to date.
Creeping into tenth place was the experimental film festival called After Dark’s Horror Fest – 8 Films to Die For with an estimated weekend gross of $2.5M. The distributor offered eight different low-budget fright flicks throughout the weekend in 488 locations averaging a solid $5,086. With so many titles, many fans were encouraged to buy more than one ticket throughout the frame. Freestyle Releasing handled distribution.
Debuting poorly outside of the top ten was the jailhouse comedy Let’s Go To Prison which locked up an estimated $2.1M in ticket sales from 1,495 locations for a dismal $1,410 average. According to its distributor Universal, the R-rated revenge comedy played mostly to young men with studio research showing that 67% of the audience was under the age of 25 and 59% was male.
Three high profile films premiered in limited release with varying results. MGM platformed The Weinstein Co. political drama Bobby in only two theaters and grossed an estimated $67,000 for a potent $33,500 average. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, the star-studded film about the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated boasts a cast featuring Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Ashton Kutcher, and Martin Sheen. The R-rated film expands nationwide on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.
Also opening to strong results was Warner Independent’s film industry comedy For Your Consideration which debuted in 23 theaters with an estimated $394,000 for a solid $17,130 average. The Christopher Guest-directed film launched in a dozen cities and will widen to over 600 runs nationwide on Wednesday. The filmmaker’s last picture A Mighty Wind had wider distribution and opened to $2.1M from 133 theaters for a $15,881 average in April of 2003 on its way to a $17.8M overall take.
Arthouse moviegoers did not have an appetite for Fox Searchlight’s junk food industry pic Fast Food Nation which debuted in 321 theaters with an estimated $390,000 for a poor $1,215 average. Starring Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama, Ethan Hawke, and Patricia Arquette, the R-rated film attracted mixed reviews from critics.
Three films dropped out of the top ten this weekend. The magician pic The Prestige took in an estimated $2M in its fifth frame, down 58%, boosting the cume to $49.4M. Look for a final tally of around $54M for the Buena Vista hit.
A pair of star-driven flops that opened last week crumbled in their sophomore frames losing more than half of their audience. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s suspense thriller The Return grossed an estimated $1.7M, down 62%, for a measly total of $6.9M after ten days. Russell Crowe‘s stab at a romantic comedy, Fox’s A Good Year, fell 56% to an estimated $1.6M putting its total at $6.4M. An embarrassing final total of about $9M should result for each pic.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $129.7M which was down a hefty 23% from last year when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opened at number one with a jaw-dropping $102.3M; and down 7% from 2004 when National Treasure debuted in the top spot with $35.1M.
Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com
It’s a box office battle royale at the multiplexes this weekend as two guys in penguin suits fight over the number one spot with their new releases.
Warner Bros. offers the animated kids movie "Happy Feet" while Sony counters with the latest James Bond adventure "Casino Royale." Each has a legitimate shot at reaching number one and will play to different audiences. Meanwhile, two-time chart-topper "Borat" plans to stick around and cause trouble (and collect more lawsuits) despite the arrival of two new heavy hitters.
Yet another computer-animated film featuring talking animals hits the big screen this weekend in the form of "Happy Feet" which tells the story of Mumble, a young penguin who can’t sing like all his other classmates can, but can dance up a storm with his toe-tapping skills. The PG-rated film features the voices of Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, and Brittany Murphy and is directed by George Miller ("Babe"). Warner Bros. will offer dozens of Imax runs simultaneously with the standard launch of the film which will give the grosses a nice little boost.
The penguins return in animated form in "Happy Feet."
The weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday frame has always been a potent one for films that play to kids. Although "Happy Feet" has a story that wanders from one genre to the next, its dazzling digital animation should please audiences. Plus, Williams is in top form voicing two different characters who together provide about 95% of the film’s comedy. Last year, the Oscar-winning actor lent his pipes to Fox’s "Robots" which opened with $36M thanks to the star wattage he brings to a big toon vehicle. "Feet" should be able to debut above that mark.
The marketing push behind "Happy" has been colossal as the studio is hoping for big things from its little penguin. Kids and moms have been bombarded with promotion everywhere they go and awareness with that key demo is sky high. But crossover potential to teens and young adults in questionable. This is not like "The Incredibles" or "Shrek" where every teenager is pumped up and ready to buy tickets. There is also solid competition for the family audience in the current marketplace as "The Santa Clause 3" and "Flushed Away" are set to collect $20M or more worth of ticket sales from the exact same crowd this weekend. But penguin power could edge out Bond’s guns as "Happy Feet" will have around 400 more theaters, a shorter running time, and more starpower. Opening in 3,804 theaters, the animated film might take in about $40M this weekend.
Sony and MGM try to restart one of the most successful film franchises in history with "Casino Royale," the latest James Bond action-adventure tale. Daniel Craig replaces the wildly popular Pierce Brosnan in the role of Agent 007 in the first new installment in the series in four years. Martin Campbell, who directed the former Remington Steele in his first Bond pic "Goldeneye," gets another chance to break in a rookie into one of the industry’s most iconic roles. In the U.S., Craig is practically an unknown actor and with no famous co-stars, "Casino Royale" cannot rely upon starpower to drive in audiences. Instead, it will look to the marquee value of the franchise as well as to reviews from critics which so far have been glowing and even better than what the studio could have hoped for. Many find Craig to be the best Bond ever.
New Bond, same wardrobe in "Casino Royale."
Each of Brosnan’s first three Bond films had the secret agent’s famous digits branded into its opening weekend gross figure. "Goldeneye" opened to $26,205,007 on this same weekend in 1995, "Tomorrow Never Dies" premiered to $25,143,007 in December 1997 when it faced the launch of "Titanic," and "The World is Not Enough" launched with $35,519,007 when the franchise returned to the weekend before Thanksgiving in 1999. No telling if Sony will follow suit with "Casino" and insert Bond’s trademark number into the final opening weekend tally. 2002’s "Die Another Day," the last film in the series, raised the bar even higher debuting to $47.1M on its way to a $160.9M domestic take and $415M worldwide haul.
"Casino Royale" is not likely to reach that bar in its first weekend. With Brosnan gone and many fans not sure yet if they want to try out this new blondie, the debut frame could suffer a bit. Action fans had a routine of going to see a Brosnan Bond film every couple of winters, plus the addition of Halle Berry, who was red hot from her Oscar win that year, boosted the film’s star quotient. "Royale" could have greatly benefited by casting at least one big star to help keep its hold on its fan base. Nevertheless, with no other action movies in the marketplace, "Casino" has almost no direct competition. And its Texas Hold ‘Em storyline could appeal to young men addicted to poker.
But the box office world has changed much since "Die Another Day." Nowadays, action movies that rely on stunts instead of special effects often struggle to attract audiences. Competing globe-trotting spy flick "Mission: Impossible III," which appeals to much the same audience, bowed to an underwhelming $47.7M last May while playing in over 4,000 theaters against no competition. Sure, the Tom Cruise backlash may have contributed. But today’s audiences get plenty of high-quality action for free on network television and want a lot more bang for the buck if they’re expected to pay top dollar at the multiplexes. Also impacting "Casino’s" potential is its long running time which clocks in at nearly two and a half hours. That’s a good 45 minutes longer than "Happy Feet" meaning each screen can accommodate one extra penguin showing per day.
Sony has backed its latest blockbuster with a sizable marketing push. Strong word-of-mouth could allow it to hang on in the long term. But early skepticism may lead many adult moviegoers to a wait-and-see approach as they figure out whether this Bond is worth it. Diving into 3,434 theaters, "Casino Royale" might gross about $38M for the weekend. With recent Bond flicks making 60-70% of their loot from outside of North America, international prospects look sensational over the coming weeks.
Universal quietly tosses the R-rated comedy "Let’s Go To Prison" into the marketplace on Friday hoping to tap into young men in search of bold humor. Directed by Bob Odenkirk, the jailhouse laugher boasts a cast fit for a straight-to-DVD release – Dax Shephard, Will Arnett, and Chi McBride. In this revenge comedy, a felon makes life hell for the son of the judge who sentenced him to the slammer. The marketing push has not been very strong and with "Borat" stealing away the same audience, it will be an uphill battle to find paying customers. Opening in 1,495 cells, "Let’s Go To Prison" might lock down only $5M over the weekend.
"Let’s Go to Prison" for some reason was not screened for the press.
Confusing audiences in nearly 500 theaters across the country this weekend will be "After Dark Horrorfest – 8 Films to Die For." For one weekend only, this collection of B-grade fright flicks will play in theaters with moviegoers having the choice of which films they want to see. These include such titles as "The Gravedancers," Takashi Shimizu‘s "Reincarnation," and "Wicked Little Things" plus a special Sunday night presentation of "Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror" as the ninth creepy tale. To generate interest, After Dark is promoting this as a special event for horror fans featuring films that they were not supposed to see. To fill the dead space on screen between Sunday and Wednesday when many new Thanksgiving weekend films open, theaters will get to run "encore presentations of audience favorites."
In limited release, more potential candidates for awards season make their way into theaters. Fox Searchlight unleashes Richard Linklater‘s newest creation "Fast Food Nation" in 321 theaters across the major markets. The R-rated ensemble pic stars Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama, Ethan Hawke, and Patricia Arquette in an expose of the American junk food biz.
The stars of "Fast Food Nation."
MGM and The Weinstein Co. go back to June 5, 1968 with the political drama "Bobby" examining the lives of those inside the Ambassador Hotel on the day Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Another large cast takes to the screen including Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Ashton Kutcher, Martin Sheen, and son Emilio Estevez who also serves as writer/director. "Bobby" platforms in solo engagements in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and expands nationally next Wednesday.
Emilio Estevez directs and stars in "Bobby."
Packing films with stars seems to be the way to go as showcased again by the film industry comedy "For Your Consideration" from writer/director Christopher Guest ("Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind"). Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Ricky Gervais, and Fred Willard team up for a story about the wackiness that results when a small indie film attracts Oscar buzz for its cast members. Warner Independent Pictures will debut "Consideration" on Friday in ten U.S. markets plus three Canadian cities before expanding next Wednesday into major cities across North America.
More Christopher Guest satire in "For Your Consideration."
After stumbling into the number one spot two weeks ago, "Borat" will have to settle for being bumped a couple of spots this time thanks to the frame’s two new heavyweights. "Casino Royale" will provide some competition but "Happy Feet" should have no effect on the raunchy comedy’s war of terror on the nation’s multiplexes. Midweek business is still very strong so a 35% drop to about $18M could occur. That would give "Borat" a hefty $94M in 17 days and could possibly allow it to crack the $100M mark by Turkey Day.
Disney’s "The Santa Clause 3" and Paramount’s "Flushed Away" have been chart buddies for two weeks now, but the pair of kidpics might have a chance to swap positions this weekend. Both will take direct hits thanks to the arrival of the new penguin pic, but "Flushed" seems to be holding up a bit better. This weekend, we may see it drop 35% to $11M raising its total to $53M. "Santa," meanwhile, may fall 40% to around $10M for a $53M cume as well.
Will Ferrell saw a respectable showing for his new comedy "Stranger Than Fiction," but most of that crowd will be opting for Sony’s other offering this weekend – James Bond. A 45% drop might occur giving the flick $7.5M over the sophomore session and a ten-day tally of $24M.
LAST YEAR: Warner Bros. destroyed the competition with the latest installment of its enduring franchise – "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." The fourth wizard flick bowed to a jaw-dropping $102.3M making it the fourth-biggest opening weekend in history, at the time. "Goblet" was a big winner grossing $290M domestically and a towering $892M worldwide making it the second highest grossing "Potter" pic. Debuting far back in second place, but with solid results of its own, was Fox’s Johnny Cash drama "Walk the Line" with $22.3M. The Joaquin Phoenix–Reese Witherspoon film went on to capture $119.5M plus an Oscar for Reese. Rounding out the top five were Disney’s "Chicken Little" with $14.7M, The Weinstein Company’s "Derailed" with $6.5M, and Sony’s "Zathura" with $5.1M.
Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com
This week at the movies prompts several questions. Will the latest Bond movie ("Casino Royale," starring Daniel Craig) leave pundits shaken and stirred? Can penguins learn to dance ("Happy Feet," featuring voice work by Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, and Robin Williams)? And can prison be fun ("Let’s Go to Prison," starring Dax Shepard)? Find out what the critics have to say!
"Batman Begins" heartily displayed the virtues of taking a moribund series back to basics by ditching the camp and placing its titular superhero in a more plausible, real-world context. With "Casino Royale," the Bond series has taken a similar no-nonsense approach, and critics say the result is a triumph. "Casino Royale" delves into the 007 creation myth; the early days of the suave secret agent find him a lot more haunted — and casually cruel — in ways only vaguely suggested in the previous 20 Bond pictures. But scribes also note the film is hardly morose, with enough exciting action and in-jokes to please the diehards. Some even go so far as to say that Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Sean Connery. At 95 percent on the Tomatometer, "Casino Royale" has the Midas touch; it’s not only Certified Fresh, it’s also the best reviewed wide release of the year (although it’s still a cut below "Dr. No" at 100 percent).
Soon to appear on ESPN2…
For those of you whose cinematic appetite for flightless fowl was left unsatiated by "March of the Penguins," we’ve got good news. Featuring motion-capture dancing by Savion Glover and an eco-friendly message, "Happy Feet" is winning praise from critics for its sharp animation and rousing soundtrack. The film tells the story of a young penguin named Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) who’s gotta dance when all the others Emperors gotta sing. At 80 percent on the Tomatometer, "Happy Feet" is the best reviewed animated feature of the year.
Sometimes you have to settle things the hard way: with a dance-off.
"Let’s Go to Prison" was not screened for critics, which means it’s unlikely to join the list of timeless jailhouse classics that includes "Cool Hand Luke," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom." So kids, it’s time to call up your parole officer to get some help Guessing that Tomatometer.
"There really is no life after "Arrested Development."
Also opening this week in limited release: "Who the $#%& is Jackson Pollock?, a documentary about the battle to verify what could be a painting by the famed abstract expressionist, is at 100 percent on the Tomatometer; "Flannel Pajamas," an indie about the deterioration of a longstanding relationship, is at 80 percent; the Argentine thriller "The Aura" is at 80 percent; the zero-budget teen indie "Dance Party, USA" is at 80 percent; the drug addiction drama "Candy," starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, is at 65 percent; "Fast Food Nation," Richard Linklater‘s fictional multi-plotline treatment of the muckraking bestseller, is at 60 percent (read RT’s interview with cast and crew members here); Emilio Estevez‘s "Bobby," an Altman-esque tale of the night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination starring half the population of California, is at 56 percent; the Hollywood-skewering "For Your Consideration," Christopher Guest‘s latest ensemble comedy, is at 56 percent; and the Quay Brothers’ twisted fairytale "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes" is at 50 percent.
"Fast Food Nation": She deserves a break today.
And finally, props to dreday, who came the closest to guessing "The Return"’s Tomatometer of 13 percent. Everybody’s celebratin.’
Recent James Bond Movies:
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59% — Die Another Day (2002)
53% — The World is Not Enough (1999)
53% — Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
83% — Goldeneye (1995)
65% — License to Kill (1989)
Recent CG Animated Films:
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78% — Flushed Away (2006)
40% — Everyone’s Hero (2006)
65% — The Ant Bully (2006)
70% — Monster House (2006)
76% — Cars (2006)
