Breaking up

Been a while since we've seen any action here.

What's your thought on The Break-up? Initially, I had said it'd make $150M...now with the apparent bad reviews that are coming, I'm think $100M is more likely. I'm still more optimistic about this one (box office-wise) than I am about Click, but if its not that good...I don't think it can go very far. I think if it pulls in more than a $25M opening, its producers should be happy.

Other than Cars, what do you think will be the comedy of the summer?

The Power of History

This is one of the best things I've read in defense of the Iraq War. It's clear, concise, and reveals that although Bush's attackers like to pull select pre-war quotes from Bush, they don't want you to remember what they said pre-war.

This guy doesn't argue that everything's gone perfectly...I think only an idiot would try to argue that. But what Wehner does make a strong case for is that Bush's opponents are pointedly taking advantage of people's short-term memory.

In his novel 1984, Orwell describes one of Big Brother's most prominent and potent tactics as re-writing history to suit it's own political desires; if this isn't a clear case of the leadership of the American Left's tendency to be like Big Brother, I don't know what it.

According to Moses, the biggest danger the Israelites faced when leaving Egypt wasn't starvation in the desert or being killed by an enemy army, it was forgetting their history. I'm not asking anyone to agree with my political point of view...I'm simply asking people to remember their history as it happened and not follow the lead of the Israelites who, a couple weeks after the Red Sea event, were convinced by Aaron that the parting of the waters had occurred because of the power of a golden calf. People have always been predisposed to believing alternative histories...we should guard against falling into that trap.

Revisionist History: Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked. BY PETER WEHNER
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008415

Some excerpts...read the whole story for quotes from Pelosi, Kennedy, Dean, Clinton, and Kerry.

Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them...

Thanks to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission, which investigated the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the war, we now know that the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief "were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE" (my emphasis). We also know that the intelligence in the PDB was not "markedly different" from that given to Congress.

...the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. Among the findings: "The committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so."...

Upon his return from Iraq, weapons inspector David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told the Senate: "I actually think this may be one of those cases where [Iraq under Saddam Hussein] was even more dangerous than we thought."...

President Bush argued for democracy taking root in Iraq before the war began. To take just one example, he said in a speech on Feb. 26, 2003: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interests in security, and America's belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region."

The following day the New York Times editorialized: "President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. . . . The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time."

BTW, saying that Bush is like Big Brother too, doesn't justify or negate the Left's immoral actions as accounted above.

Poland's X3 Review

Ok, I know what you're going to say, Tim: "He has to say that, because everyone hates Ratner."

But I'm going to counter by pointing out that your faith in Ratner's abilities would cloud your judgment so much that even if this movie sucks...which apparently it doesn't...you would still defend it, claiming you alone understood it's inner beauty...but I think your defense would also be in large part due to your refusal to believe that the anti-Ratner bandwagon may be on to something.

http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2006/05/xmen_3_the_last.html

X-Men: The Last Stand is a real Brett Ratner movie.

And by that, I mean that it is endlessly flawed, ham-fisted in many ways, but still has enough flourishes to get away with it. Not every Brett Ratner film is as successful a film as this one. There were moments when I considered whether this is his best film. It may be. But it is really too flawed to allow the word “best” to be used in reference to it. Yet, it doesn’t suck.

The best thing in the film is crystal clear. And that is Famke Janssen’s Phoenix character. She is the only element of the film that succeeds on both a physical/effects and emotional level. Ironically, she has almost no dialogue. In that arena, the show stealer, as was inevitable, is Sir Leigh Teabag (aka Sir Ian McKellen), as the leader of the loyal opposition....

The script and directing also fails to put together even a Super Friends TV cartoon level of the mutant team working together. It may have been terrible animation, but whatever Superman did led to what Aquaman did to what Batman did to what Wonder Woman did. And when those Wonder Twins turned into stuff, it was always helpful stuff. Every mutant gag here seemed to be a standalone. And perhaps the greatest opportunity for a superhero screenwriter ever, a kid who is “one of them,’ a mutant, but one whose power is to short circuit the power of whoever he is near and only for as long as he is close. This is the magic conceit every screenwriter dreams of… except for these two, apparently.

Still, I can’t say that I was ever in pain or that I disliked the experience. I would be very interested in seeing the Phoenix scenes again.

Wow! What a weekend.

So Da Vinci had a pretty rough weekend for a $75M+ opener.
Here are the estimates:
Fri: $29M
Sat: $27.5M
Sun: $20.5M
Total: $77M (only $3 off HSX's prediction)

Normally, all three days are roughly the same number; fact that it had successive drop offs doesn't bode well for this film's future performance.

Conversely, Over the Hedge managed to have Saturday numbers 44% higher than Friday's and Sunday's higher than Friday's as well (this is the typical pattern for a kids' movie). It, however, only managed $37M for the weekend...a number the studio can't be happy with (HSX predicted $50M). It'll be interesting to see if it can manage $130M total...almost certainly won't make Madagascar's $175M. This certainly sets the table nicely for Cars which opens June 9, since this was it's only real family-friendly competitor.

Before Cars, however, we got X3, which received thumbs up from Ebert and Roper, who both compared it favorably to the first two. The Hollywood Reporter, however, gives the review that I expected: "that potent X-factor is considerably diminished in Singer's absence." Either way, at only 104 mins, HSX's $100M opening (based on four-day weekend), is almost a certainty. And with little competition from movies that were released before it, and no other action tentpoles to be released until Superman, X3 could really clean up this summer.

So, what do you think? Will DVC break $150M? Could X3 be the biggest hit of the summer? Is Cars destined for the big spot? How about Superman or Pirates? Now that a couple big players have been released and have largely fallen, how do you think this summer will shape up?

It's Lost and hopeless!

The hatch is open, Walt's gone, the numbers are evil, and iTunes has a 200+MB episode with the answers that I can only obtain via my dial-up! All I need now is a 14-hour period when I can tie up our phone line to download this one episode...and that's if the connection doesn't drop!

"You did this to me, Netflix...you did this and yet you leave me here,offering no help until Oct3 when Season 2 is released on DVD! Aghhhh! I was perfectly happy in my Lost-free life. Damn you, Netflix!" *shakes fist in the air*

It's hopeless.

:-D

He did write Batman Forever

...and after this Goldsman's asking price will be dropping back down to his post-Batman levels

Even so I really thought Ron Howard would be able to make a good movie out of Dan Brown's book...Howard is such a talented filmmaker.

Current metacritic score: 51 with heavyweights like Ebert still outstanding.

Given the little I've read, I'll be surprised if Ebert gives it more than two stars. He gave National Treasure two stars...but if Howard's tone in DVC is that of an epic, Ebert's going to rail it for trying to be something greater than its Scooby Doo clues allow. David Poland gives it a Zero!

But then again the DaVinci Code novel is such a bad book it's not hard to believe that it makes for a bad movie. In the book they just sit around and talk...and then race to some other place to talk...not exactly something that makes for good scripts. Plus, it's a check your brain at the door narrative which works when you're making National Treasure which isn't meant to be taken seriously...from the little I've read, Howard takes himself seriously. I guess Goldsman really needs good source material to come up with a decent script (Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man).

Oh well. I'll probably get around to seeing it...and, of course, it will make money for Sony Pix...but certainly not the $300M it could have made if it was a good film...rather it will probably do business a little better than Hulk, Day After Tomorrow, and Fantastic Four. It will open big and have a little better legs than these three...but nothing like it could have been.

Ann's M:i:iii post

The Good (JJ Abrams), The Bad (the franchise sequels), and The Ugly (Abrams making M:i:iii)

I agree with Tim one a few points. PSH was very good. Probably the best person in the movie. Foreshadowing the end at the beginning was a very creative idea I thought. Not knowing what the rabbit's foot was was- also pretty creative. Although by the end of the movie, I have to admit, I had figured it was some terrible biohazard because that was the image that was in my head. I kept forgetting that we didn't know what the rabbit's foot was. In the end I didn't really care either.

I agree with Erin that Abrams is a good writer/director. Watching LOST has convinced me of JJ Abrams abilities. I think the philosophical questions the show brings up and the character development are really well done. I really did not think M:i:iii was a good fit for Abrams. I agree with Eric that realistic character development was not a good approach to an over-the-top action movie. Also, I have to say that I thought the romance is this movie was extremely cliché and pretty much ridiculous. I liked the first MI movie the best. We watched it recently watched it again and what I really liked was that the it had a great style for an unbelievable action movie. The music, the shots (i.e. an aquarium restaurant being blown to smithereens, the train top scene), the dialog- I thought the story was framed well so that my suspension of disbelief was not as much of a problem for me as it was in MI-2 and M:i:iii.

Early reviews

Da Vinci Code reviews are coming out negative-mixed

Cars early reviews are (not surprisingly) overwhelmingly positive

Should we swap those two around in summer box office predictions?

Also, Over the Hedge is getting solid reviews.

$100M Opening?

HSX has put a $100M strike price on X3. I know it will open big, especially since it's Memorial Day weekend; but is it really possible for it to make $100M Fri-Sun?

It should break $100M with Monday's (Memorial Day) tickets added to the tally. I seriously doubt whether it can break $85M...but I guess I should see how DVC does on Friday.

Movies that did not make $100M opening weekend

• Harry Potters 1-3
  
• Spider-Man 2
• Matrix 2 or 3
• X2
• Passion

Do you think X3 can beat all these?

Is Hanks really that dumb?

http://www.imdb.com/rg/rss/news/news/wenn/2006-05-15/celeb/2

Tom Hanks has admonished critics of his new movie The Da Vinci Code of making "a very big mistake." The actor hit out at the Catholic backlash the film has received ahead of its worldwide release next week, insisting it is much more than a religious rant. He told London's Evening Standard newspaper, "We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown. But the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense. If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake. It's a damn good story and a lot of fun... all it is is dialogue. That never hurts."

Hanks is either being naive or purposefully deceptive when he brushes off criticism of the DVC story. Ultimately, he's right...it's just a story. But he can't honestly think that any popular portrayal of history will not shape the public's view of the events it portrays. Stone's JFK helped make people more skeptical of conventional assassination interpretations even though many scholars dismissed Stone's portrayal.

Blockbuster Budgets

Wall Street Journal posted the following this weekend.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06132/689655-254.stm

Among highlights are

• Spider-Man 3 - $250-$300M
• Superman Returns - $261M
• King Kong - $250M
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - approaching $225M
• X-Men: The Last Stand - $210M

Since they never really say how they got these numbers and what these numbers actually include, I guess this information is really nothing more than something to spark rumors and wild speculation...but let the speculation begin!

My first observation is that none of these five movies had an A-list start that could demand first dollar back-end deals...though I'm sure Hugh Jackman tried and perhaps Toby Maguire was able to get it because he's got the title role. Tell me that Indy 4 is going to cost $300M and I wouldn't be surprised since your have three majors demanding first dollar backend deals...but Superman?! Come on...is CGI really that expensive? PJ made Fellowship of the Ring cheaply (under $100M)!

Tips for IMF

When John Woo wanted to introduce Ethan Hunt's romantic interest in M:i2 he contrived this ridiculous scene where the two lovers locked lusty eyes while their sport cars were spinning out of control at 50 mph on the edge of a cliff. As I think any person would agree, to call this ridiculous is offensive to people who believe that NASA faked the moon landing...it's beyond ridiculous.

The Message: Unless you've had a relationship start in this manner, you shouldn't expect anything else in this movie to be any more realistic than what you'd see in a Star Trek movie...heck, not only do the laws of relationships not apply, the laws of physics don't even apply to this world where you can accurately spin on the front wheel of a motorcycle.

Conversely, JJ Abrams decided to introduce Ethan Hunt's romantic interest in M:i:III by framing a scene in a kitchen. Ethan's fiancé isn't a superspy...heck she's as normal of a white collar gal as they come. In fact, everything about that scene was normal, except for Ethan's amazing ability to read lips.

The Message: Ethan Hunt lives in your world with real people who do real things. If you thought Ethan was some guy who lived in a world where the normal laws of relationships and physics do apply, you thought wrong. This is a man with whom you can identify.

That is where Abrams went wrong. I didn't realize it until I saw M:i:III, but there's a reason why you don't see a character study on James Bond; it's because once you make your superspy more realistic you lose your ability to transition to the hyper-nonrealistic world of action adventure that drives your film. Abrams tried to do a character study on James Bond, and in so doing he raised the bar for required believability high pretty high. He then ignored it when he did action sequences and had scene which, although more believable than M:i2's, are still pretty far from reasonable.

So, in that vein, with some help from Ann, I've come up with some suggestions for Abram's IMF team:

• Don't bother flying low. If your enemy is smart enough to be a threat to you, he's probably smart enough to fly above the threatening windmill blades and shoot at you from above. Fortunately, your enemy in this case wasn't any smarter than you were.
• Don't jeopardize my life to save your wife's. If your team is talented enough to extract a supervillan from the Vatican, they're smart enough to extract the team leader's wife from the hands of the same supervillan without actually handing the deadly virus over to a crazed maniac.
• Don't make things more complex than they are. When you need to replicate spilled wine, here's a tip: spill some wine. Don't bother with red spray paint. The launching baseballs is a perfect example of how everything doesn't need to be high-tech in order for it to be the best solution.
• Don't be a slut. You're a beautiful woman trying to spy on someone at an everyone-wears-black reception in the holy Vatican; here's a tip: don't wear a slutty red dress. That alluring outfit will guarantee that every non-gay man at the party (priest or otherwise) will be staring at you all night...and since it's red, you'll be easy to spot. But then again, when you're a superspy, I guess you gotta do stuff like that or it's just too easy.
• Drop your cell carrier. You're in the middle of a metropolitan area of over 10 million people...there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to pick up a signal.
• Don't miss an episode of Lost. When you're husband is lying dead it's always best to proceed exactly as a successful hero on tv did...in this case Julia channeled Jack's resuscitation of Charlie from a season 1 episode of Lost. Had I not seen Lost, I would have never thought to have pounded on the guys chest with careless abandon after four cycles of CPR...but luckily Jules had seen that episode too.
• You don't have time. When you've just been told that you have less than two hours to develop, collect resources for, and carry out a complex plan, you don't have time for long dramatic pauses before you answer questions...especially questions you didn't have to think about before answering!
• Voices are easier to fake then actual people. If your villian is able to fake you out with a mask, having the villian put the person on the phone for you shouldn't give you any more assurance of their well-being than what you have without that phone call...they just torchered sensive information out of you; do you think they can't get information out of a non-spy?
  

I concede that a similar list for M:i2 would be four times as long...but John Woo didn't pretend that his movie took place in the real world.

My Two Word M:i:III Review

"Humpty Dumpty"

My longer, four word review?
"I agree with Ebert"

Poseidon and DVC

Hollywood Stock Exchange (www.hsx.com) has set it's strike price at $45M for Poseidon and $80M for DaVinci.

Traders have snatched up Poseidon Put stock to the tune of $6/share, so it'd have to make less than $39M to make money off it. The Call stock is trading at less than a $1/share, so people are thinking there's no way it's gonna hit $45M.

What about $80M for DaVinci? That would put it in the top ten of non-holiday openings of all time...and would join Spider-Man, Harry Potter 1, and Passion as the only movies with $80M+ opening that weren't part of a pre-existing franchise.

I'm sure Tim's going to say that $80M is low. I'm thinking it's high, but that the movie will have legs to make it outdraw everything else this summer.

Time to be entertained

In David Poland's Monday column, he attempted to argue against the prevailing thought that the studios are struggling because people are choosing to do other things. Although people are clearly being entertained by the Internet and game consoles more now then they were in the past, Poland notes that we are still going to movies quite a bit.

Here's some of his more interesting excerpts:

http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2006_thb/060508_mon.html

In any case, the mantra became that people, especially teen boys, were busy making other choices. And the endless hum is that people will, or are, making other choices now. But the fact is that how we consume has changed and has changed forever. It's not about where we consume. It's not about what we consume. The future is about how much we can consume...

For instance, watching TV shows on iPods and the idea of monetizing reruns on an individual viewing basis is very interesting. Yet the same people who are touting this as The Future are also complaining that the theater experience is getting worse and worse and slowly becoming equal to or inferior to home viewing. Why "yet?" Because there is no debating that the iPod viewing experience is the worst possible viewing experience for anything that might otherwise play on a regular size TV.

The conceit of the video iPod is not quality… it's time shifting and ease of access...

The choice of staying home and watching a rented or purchased DVD for a couple in their 40s after they put the two kids to bed is not the same kind of choice as "steak or chicken?" To make the choice to leave the house to go see a movie - which will, coincidentally, cost at least 10 times what the home rental cost, even with modest choices at the concession stand - also means planning, boundaries on the evening (God forbid the 8:30 is sold out and you have 15-year-old Lisa babysitting, who absolutely has to be home by midnight… waiting for that that 10p show is not an option), the stress of leaving the kids if they are not used to being left behind on weekend nights, and of course, the cost of the babysitter, parking, etc. The evening at the movies we had when we were in college - yeah… let's see two films back to back - leaving home at 6 and coming back at 2am after a late snack at the burger joint are not the way it is now. It is not just choice. It is not just quality. It is hard damned work to leave the house for any adventure in that situation. And something you pay more per ticket for - live theater or sporting events - or a dinner party with its own politics is more likely to get you out of the house than any movie, good, bad or indifferent.

It's basic math. If you are a single person in your early 20s and you sleep 8 hours a day and work 8 hours a day, you have 8 more hours to entertain yourself. If you are an adult with adult demands in your life, you have to fight to get any shred of those 8 hours as free time. And the less of it you have, the more you value it.

Now…

How do you fill your eight/seven/six/five/four/three/two/one hour(s)?

But it's an even bigger question than that now because you are now assaulted by entertainment options during those eight working hours as well. Fifteen years ago, you could read a newspaper at your desk or even in the bathroom, but there was no web. Maybe you were playing solitaire at you desk. But you weren't getting, at minimum, continually updated news, information flying in via e-mail, endless e-mail correspondence and indeed, a wide variety of filmed entertainment...

Perhaps by no coincidence, that is also the internet. In addition to creating a niche universe, the internet and other technological advances have given us so many choices that we now make affirmative decisions and, with a few exceptions, not passive ones about how we spend our entertainment time.

I think Poland's onto something here. Entertainment is becoming less of an event "I'm going to read a book, or go to the theater, or watch tv" and more of a way of life. During our non-sleeping hours the norm is that we are being entertained, so much so, that when we're not being entertained we get restless and pull out our iPods to watch Lost.

Much like Huxley predicted in A Brave New World, entertainment is shaping us so much that the entertainment industry's product is on the verge of becoming a necessity because our minds can't live without it. Studios no longer have to convince us to consume their products, they simply have to convince us that the flavor of the day is more worthy of our time than some other brand, and then make their flavor accessible

10 Reasons Why MI:3 Was Awesome

1. Tom Cruise- Best action hero ever!
2. Phillip Seymore Hoffman- Best villian since Bill The Butcher
3. Opening sequence was one of the most intense I've ever seen.
4. The shot where Tom gets thrown into the car was even better when you know what's going on.
5. You get to see them make a face mask and it looks SO REAL!
6. Everyone is after the "Rabbit's Foot" and you don't even find out what it is.
7. 3 is the perfect mixture between MI:1 and MI:2
8. Some real nail bitters when there is a race against time.
9. Watching the trailer makes me want to see the whole thing over again.
10. Speaking of trailers, it had the best trailers I've ever seen before a movie. Poisidon, Pirates, X3, Nacho Libre, and another cool one that I can't remember.

Nicole's Top 10 List

1. Cars
2.Over The Hedge
3.MI 3
4.Da Vinci Code
5.You Me And Dupree
6.The Break Up
7.Pirates II
8.Superman Returns
9.Super Ex
10.X-Men 3

Ann's Summer Top 10

Ann's Summer Top 10 Predictions

1. Superman
2. DaVinci Code
3. Pirates 2
4. X-men 3
5. M:i:iii
6. Cars
7. You and Me Dupree
8. Over the Hedge
9.The Break Up
10.Click

I'm really hesitant to put Superman first, mainly because I don't
really have much interest in it personally even though I really like
the supehero/comic book genre. I think Christopher Reeve was a little
hokey as Superman and I don't expect much more from Brandon Routh. I
guess it's the tights. Anyway, my personal feelings aside I think EW
may actually be on to something saying that it will do well because
it has potential to appeal to such a broad age range.

For me I could see the top 3 of my guessing all having an equal shot
at the number one spot and I have a strong feeling about my top 6
probably all being in the top 6 for the summer. After that I really
have no idea.