Month: November 2010

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News

Weekend Box Office: November 12 – 14

#1 Megamind from Paramount/Dreamworks holds at #1 with a weekend gross of $29.1 million (-36.7%) in 3949 theaters (+5). Total gross to date is $88.8 million. Budget was $130 million.

#2 Unstoppable from Fox debuts at #2 with an opening weekend gross of $22.6 million in 3207 theaters. Budget was $100 million.

#3 Due Date from Warner Brothers drops from #2 to #3 with a weekend gross of $15.4 million (-52.8%) in 3365 theaters (+10). Total gross to date is $58.8 million. Budget was $65 million.

#4 Skyline from Universal debuts at #4 with an opening weekend gross of $11.6 million in 2880 theaters. Budget was $10 million.

#5 Morning Glory from Paramount debuts at #5 with an opening weekend gross of $9.2 million in 2518 theaters. Budget was $40 million.

#6 For Colored Girls from Lionsgate drops from #3 to #6 with a weekend gross of $6.5 million (-66.6%) in 2127 theaters (no change). Total gross to date is $30.6 million. Budget was $21 million.

Rounding out the top 12 are:

#7 RED drops from #4 to #7 with a weekend gross of $4.9 million (-42.5%) in 2878 theaters (-351). Total gross to date is $79.6 million. Budget was $58 million.

#8 Paranormal Activity 2 drops from #6 to #8 with a weekend gross of $2.9 million (-58.0%) in 2403 theaters (-765). Total gross to date is $81.9 million. Budget was $3 million.

#9 Saw 3-D drops from #5 to #9 with a weekend gross of $2.8 million (-63.0%) in 1976 theaters (-832). Total gross to date is $43.5 million. Budget was $20 million.

#10 Jackass 3-D drops from #7 to #10 with a weekend gross of $2.2 million (-54.9%) in 1607 theaters (-558). Total gross to date is $114.6 million. Budget was $20 million.

#11 Secretariat drops from #8 to #11 with a weekend gross of $2.2 million (-45.8%) in 2019 theaters (-595). Total gross to date is $54.7 million. Budget was $35 million.

#12 The Social Network drops from #10 to #12 with a weekend gross of $1.7 million (-48.3%) in 1088 theaters (-772). Total gross to date is $87.8 million. Budget was $50 million.

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $111.6 million (-21.8%).

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

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Back Seat Producers Season 05 Shows Special Guests

BSP Episode 136: The Princess and The Frog

Your Producers:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Den
  • David

The Subject:  Animation, Disney, The Princess and The Frog

This Episode was recorded 4/14/2010.

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Text Reviews Theatrical Review

Theatrical Review: Skyline

Jarrod and Terry are lifelong friends. Terry’s made a name for himself in some sort of aspect of the entertainment business (it’s really not specified) and is living large in Los Angeles within his penthouse apartment complete with shrew girlfriend and devoted mistress/executive assistant. Jared, hasn’t quite had the same success, he’s struggling as an artist, and has a pregnant girlfriend who’s just a touch on the shrewish side. Anyway, it’s Terry’s birthday and he’s invited Jared to come out to L.A. where he has big things in store for him… though getting caught up in a big-ass flat-out aliens-from-outer-space-invasion wasn’t one of them.

And that’s just what does happen, the aliens land and they ain’t nice. So goes the premise of Skyline, the new movie from The Brothers Strause, special effects guys who previously helmed Aliens Vs. Predators: Requeim. What I describe above are more specifics of the story here, in the bigger picture what this seeks to do is to take ideas from all sorts of bigger alien invasion movies before and tell a smaller side story, though that story does have it’s own unique twist for one of it’s characters. In a way, it kind of puts me in the mind of what you might get if you took a classic Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko monster/alien comic story from the days of Marvel Comics before they became Marvel Comics, and flashed it all up with today’s technology.

The only thing is, you just don’t give a damn.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some cool things here. The special effects are brilliant, especially when it comes to giant monster aliens walking the earth. Being a side story for this sort of thing, I thought it was pretty cool that most of the action is confined to a limited location. And it’s final five minutes goes in a direction that I just didn’t see this going in and at least for me saved this, putting it in the lower end of the B-movie scale. This is not a ringing endorsement though to run right out and see this in the theatre.

Where this fails is that you just don’t give a damn about any of the characters. Oh, I suppose if I was a young twenty-something living in Los Angeles who’s successful or semi-successful in the entertainment industry (or who has aspirations for such), I might find these guys as my role models. But no, I’m an older guy who lives in a flyover state, who’s just seen as being too whitebread to have any sort of idea of the bigger world around him.

Now while this is mostly a failing (for me) on the writing side, it doesn’t help that your lead actors don’t have a whole lot of charisma to them. Eric Balfour plays Jarrod and Donald Faison plays Terry. Now I’ve seen. Eric Balfour in a lot of stuff in the past, and tend to think he’s fine in support and character type of work, he just doesn’t give me anything here that makes me want to like him a whole lot. Donald Faison hits me a little better, but not by much, as the more proactive guy. The best of the cast is David Zayas, who plays the manager of the apartment building that Terry lives in. Zayas knows he’s in a B-movie, and certainly plays that to the hilt.

I’ve seen comments on IMDB that calls this the “worst movie ever” and to those that are saying that I just have to say you haven’t seen enough movies. There are far worse out there there than this, and usually they come from bigger budgets with bigger names who get a little too full of themselves and just should know better. Skyline is a B-movie and I don’t think it has aspirations for anything higher, though the pretentious title of “Skyline” doesn’t really help it a lot. It has some good moments, and an even greater over-the-top one at the end, but it’s all hampered by poor characters who I just couldn’t care about whatsoever, and for something like this, you need to care, even just a little bit.

I would recommend seeing this to B-movie fans, but you don’t need to run right out and do it, wait until cable or Netflix Instant Play and give it a go then. Your mileage will still probably vary, but at least you won’t be out the big money cash it takes to go to the theatre to find out.

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #8

Is Tony lighter then a duck? Why would we even ask such a question?

We then look back at last weekend’s results and commemorate the show reaching a major milestone as one host gains the 0% achievement.

After discussing abducting aliens, a runaway train, Cindy Crawford and a grumpy old man we get down to making our picks.

Tony thinks Megamind has the staying power for a second week and gives Skyline more credit then the rest of us:

  1. Megamind
  2. Unstoppable
  3. Morning Glory
  4. Due Date
  5. Skyline

Andrew hops on the Megamind bandwagon after getting it wrong last week and shocks his co-hosts with his fifth pick:

  1. Megamind
  2. Unstoppable
  3. Due Date
  4. Morning Glory
  5. Fair Game

Jonathan tries out his new strategy of working smarter, not harder:

  1. Unstoppable
  2. Megamind
  3. Due Dates
  4. Morning Glory
  5. For Colored Girls

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News

Weekend Box Office: November 5-7

#1 Megamind from Paramount/Dreamworks debuts at #1 with an opening weekend gross of $46.0 million in 3944 theaters. Budget was $130 million.

#2 Due Date from Warner Brothers debuts at #2 with an opening weekend gross of $32.6 million in 3355 theaters. Budget was $65 million.

#3 For Colored Girls from Lionsgate debuts at #3 with an opening weekend gross of $19.4 million in 2127 theaters. Budget was $21 million.

#4 RED from Summit drops from #3 to #4 with a weekend gross of $8.6 million (-19.4%) in 3229 theaters (-120). Total gross to date is $71.6 million. Budget was $58 million.

#5 Saw 3-D from Lionsgate drops from #1 to #5 with a weekend gross of $7.7 million (-65.7%) in 2808 theaters (no change). Total gross to date is $38.3 million. Budget was $20 million.

#6 Paranormal Activity 2 from Paramount drops from #2 to #6 with a weekend gross of $7.0 million (-57.0%) in 3168 theaters (-71). Total gross to date is $76.9 million. Budget was $3 million.

Rounding out the top 12 are:

#7 Jackass 3-D drops from #4 to #7 with a weekend gross of $4.9 million (-41.8%) in 2165 theaters (-974). Total gross to date is $110.6 million. Budget was $20 million.

#8 Secretariat drops from #6 to #8 with a weekend gross of $4.0 million (-18.7%) in 2614 theaters (-494). Total gross to date is $51.0 million. Budget was $35 million.

#9 Hereafter drops from #5 to #9 with a weekend gross of $4.0 million (-37.5%) in 2365 theaters (-59). Total gross to date is $28.7 million. Budget was $50 million.

#10 The Social Network drops from #7 to #10 with a weekend gross of $3.4 million (-24.1%) in 1860 theaters (-907). Total gross to date is $84.8 million. Budget was $50 million.

#11 Life as We Know It drops from #8 to #11 with a weekend gross of $3.0 million (-24.4%) in 1950 theaters (-910). Total gross to date is $48.5 million. Budget was $38 million.

#12 Conviction drops from #10 to #12 with a weekend gross of $1.6 million (-11.0%) in 672 theaters (+107). Total gross to date is $4.7 million. Budget was $12.5 million.

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $142.8 million (+68.2%).

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #7

Jonathan is riding high as we review last weekend’s results while Andrew and Tony are less enthused. For the record Jonathan correctly predicted 60% while his co-hosts are sharing the basement with 20%.

Sausage Fest 2010, Virtual or otherwise, is over and raised $580 for breast cancer research.

We then look forward to this weekend’s conundrum of 3 very different new releases. After comparing the relative merits of Tyler Perry, family friendly super villians and ‘that bearded guy’ we end up with three very different lists.

Jonathan believes in the draw of Iron Man and ‘that bearded guy’:

  1. Due Date
  2. For Colored Girls
  3. Megamind
  4. Paranormal Activity 2
  5. Red

Andrew banks on Oprah’s fame while trusting in numbers to round out his list:

  1. For Colored Girls
  2. Due Date
  3. Megamind
  4. Saw 3-D
  5. Paranormal Activity 2

Tony feels that family comes first this week:

  1. Megamind
  2. Due Date
  3. For Colored Girls
  4. Saw 3-D
  5. Red

We finish up the show singing the praises of The Way of the Game.

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Categories
News

Weekend Box Office: October 29-31

#1 Saw 3-D from Lionsgate debuts at #1 with an opening weekend gross of $22.5 million in 2808 theaters. Budget was $20 million.

#2 Paranormal Activity 2 from Paramount drops from #1 to #2 with a weekend gross of $16.5 million (-59.4%) in 3239 theaters (+23). Total gross to date is $65.6 million. Budget was $3 million.

#3 RED from Summit holds at #3 with a weekend gross of $10.7 million (-28.6%) in 3349 theaters (+76). Total gross to date is $58.8 million. Budget was $58 million.

#4 Jackass 3-D from Paramount drops from #2 to #4 with a weekend gross of $8.5 million (-60.1%) in 3139 theaters (+28). Total gross to date is $101.6 million. Budget was $20 million.

#5 Hereafter from Warner Brothers drops from #4 to #5 with a weekend gross of $6.4 million (-46.6%) in 2424 theaters (+243). Total gross to date is $22.2 million. Budget was $50 million.

#6 Secretariat from Buena Vista holds at #6 with a weekend gross of $5.0 million (-28.5%) in 3108 theaters (no change). Total gross to date is $44.7 million. Budget was $35 million.

Rounding out the top 12 are:

#7 The Social Network drops from #5 to #7 with a weekend gross of $4.5 million (-38.0%) in 2767 theaters (-154). Total gross to date is $79.5 million. Budget was $50 million.

#8 Life as We Know It drops from #7 to #8 with a weekend gross of $4.0 million (-33.9%) in 2860 theaters (-159). Total gross to date is $43.5 million. Budget was $38 million.

#9 The Town holds at #9 with a weekend gross of $1.9 million (-28.1%) in 1608 theaters (-310). Total gross to date is $87.6 million. Budget was $37 million.

#10 Conviction jumps from #25 to #10 with a weekend gross of $1.8 million (+504.1%) in 565 theaters (+510). Total gross to date is $2.3 million. Budget was $12.5 million.

#11 Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole drops from #8 to #11 with a weekend gross of $1.7 million (-45.9%) in 2010 theaters (-226). Total gross to date is $52.6 million. Budget was $80 million.

#12 Easy A drops from #10 to #12 with a weekend gross of $1.0 million (-39.0%) in 1262 theaters (-370). Total gross to date is $56.3 million. Budget was $8 million.

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $84.9 million (-29.0%).

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo