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October 31, 1997
WEEKEND PREVIEW
BOO-gie Nights is here! (Happy Halloween, kids!) Go now, before you get distracted by Starship Troopers and The Little Mermaid, 'cause it's gonna happen. I wish that I could say that Paul Thomas Anderson's feel-good, feel-all epic will take Number One with $20 million, but $10 - $11 million seems a lot more likely. (We'll have to wait for Tarantino's Jackie Brown to get a $20 million weekend out of a '70s flick).
The rest of the line-up should be pretty familiar by now, despite two other wide openings. IKWYDLS (I'm tired of all those words!), the summer slasher, should pass the $40 million mark with another $8.75 million this weekend. Al & Keanu look to scare up another $7.66 million in The Devil's Advocate. Last week, there was a $5 million gap between Devil's second place showing and Kiss The Girls's third place finish. This week, it should be about $4.3 million, with Morgan Freeman kissing $3.34 million for fifth, leaving a gaping hole for Paramount's grossly undersold Switchback to take fourth place with around $5 million.
All the talk about China may hurt Seven Years in Tibet by way of saturation, but look for a sixth place finish with a 30 percent drop-off to about $3.3 million. Richard Gere should be back-to-back with Brad with Red Corner, which is good for copy and bad for business. It's an oppressive seventh place open with about $3 million. Gattaca stays flat-aca with a 35 percent drop to about $2.8 million for eighth. Fairy Tale tails off 30 percent to $2.5 million for ninth . And In & Out is in one last time with $2.1 million, pushing the $60 million mark overall.
Send me something scary via email.
Posted by poland at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 1997
COUNTDOWN TO BOOGIE NIGHTS: BOOGIE MINUS 1
Boogie Nights is ready to bring porn to a cable network near you. New Line is shopping a late-night series that would bring the antics of Dirk, Amber, Rollergirl and Buck into your house every week. HBO was the first cable net to produce original sitcoms with "Dream On," the show that had almost every gorgeous up-and-coming actress in Hollywood sleeping with a short, average-looking book editor within 10 minutes of meeting him. In Boogie Nights: The Slut-Com, it won't take 10 minutes. Watch Dirk as he measures his new apartment in the nude! Will Amber ever get her hair really clean? See Rollergirl face off against Suzanne Somers in a Thighmaster competition! Watch Buck read and use multi-syllabic words! (Someone has to be politically correct!)
Boogie Nights burnt up the box office charts in limited release last weekend, but from every second week, a pattern emerges. In Los Angeles, the film was dropping quickly in the big multi-plexes, while still growing in the smaller venues. Of course, even while dropping, the numbers were pretty damned good. In New York, there wasn't much change on the Westside and downtown, but there was a drop on the Eastside. This is the first indication that Boogie Nights may have a hard time with the mainstream in the long run. But in the short run, it still looks solid as a... well, just solid.
Boogie Nights doesn't have the exclusive on bare bodies. The Full Monty passed Four Weddings and a Funeral this weekend as the most popular British film ever in the U.K. It took Monty just eight weeks to pass the $45 million that Weddings took 22 weeks to acquire. The Pantless Ones have taken just over $25 million here in the US. But England's dance with flesh is far from over. The Spice Girls movie, Spice World, is due on U.K. screens before the end of the year. It's enough to make you drink warm beer.
Tomorrow, Boogie Nights leads the weekend preview . Meanwhile, check out the disco dancing on Rough Cut weekly.
Email is fun. And this week I tell you why I love L.A. Let me count the ways on The Whole Pictures in one!
Posted by poland at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 1997
COUNTDOWN TO BOOGIE NIGHTS - DAY 2
Boogie Nights makes porn stars look far too pathetic according to '70s artistes du penetration Bobby Astyr and Candida Royalle, as quoted in the New York Daily News. However, they say, the slick producers, bad dialogue and poor production values are right on target. So, the 19-year-old from Iowa who's getting paid $1,000 by a guy with leather pants and a gold chain to have sex with three men while saying "Oh baby!" six or seven hundred times in front of cheap wood paneling isn't pathetic. The lighting of the scene is what's pathetic. OK. Warning: Objectification may appear closer in real life than in the rear-view mirror.
Boogie Nights star Mark Wahlberg's price is going up. Way up. Sources say Wahlberg will pull down almost $2 million to team up with Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat (star of The Killer and the upcoming The Replacement Killers) in The Corrupter, for Boogie studio New Line Cinema. In the thriller, Walberg plays the good-guy partner to Chow's rogue cop. Then the two have sex on screen with a family of ... Oops. Wrong movie.
Boogie Nights' home studio, New Line, also has the next Mike Figgis movie, One Night Stand, coming to screens soon. At the recent junket for the film, Stand star Wesley Snipes edged around some inside info without giving too much away. First, he made funny noises while talking about his upcoming Blade, which he produced and stars in, which those of us in the room assumed were sounds of excitement. Little did we know that the night before, Snipes had suffered through a disastrous screening of the film, as related by a screening attendee who wrote into the Ain't It Cool Web site. Then, he said that the film he'd really like to do is the Miles Davis story. Two days later, producer Marvin Worth (Malcolm X, Lenny) announces that he's acquired the rights to make Davis' life story for Sony. I wonder who'll be playing Miles. Hmmm.
Tomorrow, Boogie Nights TV. Talk about your prime time!
Connect with email, read The Whole Picture, or carve a pumpkin. It's up to you!
Posted by poland at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 1997
COUNTDOWN TO BOOGIE NIGHTS - DAY 3
Boogie fever is catching on other film sets. At least according to Netizens. While the mainstream media may sit back and wait for a final print of John McNaughton's new movie, Wild Things, the twin terrors of the URLs, Matt Drudge and Harry Knowles are already all over it. The news? Kevin Bacon shows his penis! Drudge ran a story, giving his column inches exclusively to Bacon's column inches, quoting a Variety source making the industry connection to Boogie Nights and saying "Does (Bacon) really want to draw comparisons between his and Dirk Diggler's ? ..."
Knowles and one of his test screening sneakers offer a fuller view of Wild Things, which got a thumbs down. "First off, let me put to rest the question which most of you male types will be dying to know: NEVE IS NOT NAKED IN THIS FILM." Pretty much my priority in every film. My new book, "Who's NOT Naked!" will soon be available in bookstores everywhere. Knowles' mole continues, "Words fail me for what we see next. Through the steam, we see a naked body from behind. Yes folks, that's right, it's Bacon doing his token, Hollywood, 'bare-ass' shot. But does it end there? No, I'm sorry to say, not when you are Kevin Bacon, executive producer of Wild Things. Kevin has seen Boogie Nights and he knows how to create a 'buzz' about his film. He turns toward the camera a la Dirk Diggler revealing, to a shocked audience, his manhood. Unlike Dirk, this shot was all Kevin. The horror, the horror..."
This is not why the studios test screen movies. But according to Boogie Nights director, Paul Thomas Anderson, they shouldn't be testing at all. "Test screenings are the most asinine, ridiculous thing that ever happened to movies. That's a grand, sweeping comment, but it's true. It's fucking ridiculous. On Boogie Nights, I went, but I didn't get anything out of it. Test screenings are a fucking waste of time and massive amounts of money. They cost a lot of money. And it's not a test because it doesn't hold up to any scientific standards. People don't get to see movies for free. They pay $7.50 to see a movie. People know what they are going to see when they go see a movie, so the process of recruiting is totally biased from the get go. People will easily walk out if they don't pay $7.50 for something. If people think they are coming to see a sort of raucous exposé of the porn industry, they are probably gong to be disappointed. If they don't know that it's two hours and 37 minutes long, they are going to fucking be bored. They are going to say, 'I have dinner plans.'"
Tommorrow, Is It Real? Or Is It Boogie Nights?
Connect with the hot button button, read The Whole Picture or check out Hasbro's new Hot Button Dave doll. Ten percent of every doll sold goes to the U.N.
Posted by poland at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 1997
Weekend, 25 October 1997
A neck snapper at this weekend's box office. After what seemed like some impressive marketing gains by Sony, audiences answered Gattaca with "What-aca?!" while continuing to reward simple, straight-forward genre fare with mondo box office.
Both I Know What You Did Last Summer (first with $13.1 million) and The Devil's Advocate (second with $10.3 million) dropped less that 18% in their second weeks, just as killer thriller Kiss The Girls (third with $5.2 million) did in it's second outing two weeks ago. Very, very impressive. All three films are heading over the $50 million mark, though Sony will probably continue to be it's own worst enemy, with the November 7th opening of Starship Troopers looking to be the main roadblock on IKWYDLS's highway of cash.
Seven Years In Tibet continues a forgettable journey, adding $4.8 million for fourth. The aforementioned Gattaca could arrange only $4.4 million for fifth. Guess Uma isn't as perfect as we thought. Fairytale: A Weak Opening took in $3.4 million for sixth, though this film may be 1997's A Little Princess - much loved/little seen. In & Out stays in the money with $2.86 million for seventh and Soul Food adds to it's hidden fortune with another $2.2 million for eighth.
My personal horror show, I Know You Had A Hit Last Summer, featuring actors who can't quite step up to the hype, features A Life Less Ordinary this week, which despite Obi-Wan McGregor, My Best Mask's Cameron Diaz and the makers of Heroinspotting couldn't muster more than $2.1 million for ninth. L.A. Confidential stays on the QT with a hush-hush $2 million. Quietly lurking over next weekend's box office chart is Boogie Nights, which expanded out to 124 screens for $1.9 million and a truly exploitive per screen average of over $15,000. Next week, the film goes wide in an otherwise soft weekend and should take the top spot.
The Hot Button gets you ready to Boogie every day this week. Push the E-mail button.
Posted by poland at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 1997
WEEKEND PREVIEW
Can you hear the distant thunder of the big fall movies? They're getting closer. But in the meantime, Sony's giving us Gattaca and I Know What You Did Last Summer instead of Starship Troopers. Fox is giving us A Life Less Ordinary instead of Alien Resurrection. And Disney is staying out of the fray altogether until it's ready to smash the animated classic/Robin Williams 2X4 over the head of Fox's Anastasia.
Gattaca should open on top of the box office crowd with around $12 million. Sony is marketing as fast as they can, but the weird title and soft reviews are keeping the buzz from exploding. Seems like Sony sated a chunk of Gattaca's audience last weekend with its other genre movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which should take the standard 35 percent drop to $10.3 million for second place. The Devil's Advocate should retain its "Number One Devil As Lawyer Movie In America" title with a 30 perecent drop to $8.5 million. Then, there's a huge holdover drop, down to a likely third week showdown between Kiss the Girls and Seven Years In Tibet for fifth and sixth at around $4.2 million. Sneaking into that gap, A Life Less Ordinary should fall in love with fourth spot with around $6 million.
Fairy Tale: A True Story is a hard sell in a weak kids market, seamlessly opening in the now-gone Rocketman's seventh slot with $3 million. In & Out is heading toward the latter with about $2.6 million for eighth place. Over the lips and through the gums, look out cable, here comes Soul Food -- ninth with $2 million. And rounding out the top 10, one must acknowledge Bean, the Rowan Atkinson comedy that's already broken the $100 million mark in foreign release and domestically has only opened in Canada -- yes, Canada is part of the domestic box office -- to the tune of more than $2 million.
Finally, Boogie Nights expands to 50 screens and should pull in a little over $1.25 million before opening wide on Halloween. That's quite a costume, Marky Mark!
What are you planning to wear for Halloween? Actually, I don't care, but if you have something to say, email me.
Posted by poland at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 1997
Thursday, 23 October 1997
Sondra Locke's finally settled her lawsuit against Warner Bros. that claimed the studio bilked her out of a three-picture deal because of former beau, Clint Eastwood's influence rather than because of the uniquely worthless Ratboy, the first film in the deal. So what does she do? A nasty tell-all book! Oooooh! Just check out these amazing morsels! Eastwood didn't know who Barbara Walters was! Oooh! Aaah! Clint liked the much-younger Locke to call him Daddy! Oooh! Aaah! Eastwood started whispering after noticing that it worked for Marilyn Monroe! Who the hell is she kidding?! O.J. spent two years on trial for murder, Chrisitian Slater's biting the women that Marv Albert is missing, Robert Downey Jr. is waking up in Baby Bear's bed and the President of The United States is releasing information about his penis in press conferences! If Clint didn't have sex with Burt Reynolds and that stupid orangutan while holding up a 7-11 with a bazooka, who's going to notice?!
Starship Troopers' star-on-the-rise, Casper Van Dien, is about to go native as Tarzan for Warner Bros. Tarzan Jungle Warrior. Van Dien follows superstars Christopher Lambert and Miles O'Keefe in the role. Did I say superstars? I meant guys who clean bars.
Jon Peters, who has produced a grand total of zero hits since Batman and he and his partner Peter Guber teamed up to lose billions for Sony, has decided repetition is the most likely formula for hitmaking. First, he set up the feature version of The Wild Wild West starring Will Smith. Then there's Superman Reborn, except with a wild-eyed lunatic (Nicolas Cage) as the Man Of Steel. Now he's ready to move on from old TV shows and comic books to classic films with The Trail, a remake of the 1956 John Ford classic, The Searchers, except it's set in space! What's next? A remake of Peters' Bonfire of the Vanities with funny jokes and a comprehensible plot?
Do you have any bad ideas for worse remakes? Email me.
Posted by poland at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 1997
Wednesday, 22 October 1997
You've been arrested for sleeping in your neighbor's bed because you were so high you returned home to the wrong house. You've been arrested, high and drunk, with a loaded weapon in your glove compartment and cocaine and heroin in your pocket. You got special dispensation to take a week-long holiday from your rehab program to host Saturday Night Live, where you used to work high every week. Despite some difficulties with completion insurance and the fact that you've yet to prove that you can draw a dime of box office, your movie career is stronger than ever. What would you do? What would you do? If you were Robert Downey Jr., you'd do some more illegal narcotics. And if you were Judge Lawrence Mira of Malibu, you would revoke Downey's probation -- well, eventually -- and let the poor boy finish his movie first. It's good to be a star.
Mercury Effect is the latest spec script purchase for Warner Bros. The story, in which the FBI investigates some really smart animals who are eventually connected to the monkey sent into space in the Mercury 6 program 35 years ago, was pitched as Jumanji meets Men in Black (sounds more like a Planet of The Apes sequel). Was it coincidental that the executive who agreed to the $450,000 pricetag is exactly 35 years old and has hairy knuckles? You decide!
L.A. Confidential's resident hunk, Russell Crowe, will follow in the footsteps of mega-superstar Emilio Estevez by playing a hockey-playing sheriff of a small Alaskan town who leads the local hockey team against the NHL's New York Rangers in an untitled movie written by TV-kingpin and Michelle Pfieffer spouse David E. Kelley. Titles already passed on include The Mighty *ucks!, The Flighty Schmucks and Sports Underdog Movie Number 1273.
Have a better title? Email me.
Posted by poland at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 1997
Tuesday, 21 October 1997
Don't Call Me John Travolta! No, it's not a personal thing. It's the title of a new film out of Singapore about a guy who wants a motorcycle that he can't afford. Inevitably, he turns to polyester and floors with colored lights. Isn't that what you'd do? Well, in Ah Hocks case, he is after $6,500 from the local dance contest. It's kind of The Full Monty in Singapore instead of England: both countries are suffering financial troubles and both films have men looking for innovative financing. Will Ah Hock win the dance contest? Will he end up sad on the subway? Will Sylvester Stallone make him wear a headband in a sequel? Get out your Chinese-to-English dictionary and watch for the film sometime next year.
Mira Nair has had to cut her film, Kama Sutra, repeatedly in order to have it seen in her native India. The English-language version may or may not have finally opened in Bombay last Friday after six months of wrestling with censors over nudity. The Indian-language versions of the film (in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu) are still awaiting clearance. The problem? Nudity! Here's a clue. It's the Kama Sutra, guys! You wrote it! You sold it to the world! There's stuff in there that can't be accomplished by circus performers! Who has time to worry about nudity when they're trying to do a half-gainer while tying their tongue into a bow? Making Kama Sutra without nudity would be like making Gone With The Wind without fire, Little Women without crinoline or The Bible without sheep. Can't do it.
Sometimes, DeNiro isn't enough. Out On My Feet lived up to its name on Friday by shutting down despite big-name Bobby D. and Boogie Nights sensation Mark Wahlberg. The boxing project had been running on fumes for weeks with paychecks for everyone from painters and set dressers to office staff going unsigned for about a month already. The culprit? Apparently, first-time producer David B. Pritchard who was "privately financing" the $9 million movie. That is, until his primary financier fell out. Hmmm. Better not write anymore about this if I want to keep my fingers.
Don't hesitate to email for tips on the art of good lovin' (no, not really!) or anything else that touches your hot button (yes, really).
Posted by poland at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 1997
WEEKEND REVIEW
Not many surprises at the weekend box office. At least not for me. Despite the big names (Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves) and big publicity push, The Devil's Advocate came in just an OK second, conjuring up $12.2 million. The good news is, it may be another Pacino scenery-chewing camp classic. The easy winner of the weekend was teen horror romp I Know What You Did Last Summer with a ripping $16.1 million. Despite a last-minute agreement by Sony not to abuse the "from the makers of Scream" tag, their marketing department grabbed teen attention with big ad buys and clever gimmick promos, like a two-minute "special preview" hosted by Sarah Michelle Gellar during last week's episode of her WB series, "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer." The only other wide release, Playing God, caught me once again overestimating the drawing power of non-movie star celebrities. Last week, it was Tupac. This week it's Mr. Duchovny's Doofus, which I predicted would reach fifth, but came in tenth with a weak $2 million.
The strength of the new product damaged the returning hits a little more than expected. Kiss The Girls ($7 million) and Seven Years in Tibet ($6.5 million) both dropped a little over 35 percent from last weekend. In & Out passed the $50 million mark in its fifth week, pulling in $3.9 million to become one of only two returnees in the Top 10 to drop less than 30 percent. Soul Food is now leftovers, dropping over 35 percent to $3.5 million for sixth place. Rocketman went according to plan, dropping to earth with $3 million on its way out of the Top 10. The Peacemaker is suffering nuclear fallout, dropping a substantial 44 percent to take eighth with $2.8 million. And in ninth, L.A. Confidential quietly dropped 27 percent, adding another $2.7 million to its haul.
In other box office news, the magnificent Boogie Nights, now in a 30-screen limited release in 13 cities, pulled in a throbbing $27,016 per screen over the weekend, compared to averages around $6000 a screen for this weekend's top two hits. Boogie Nights won't be in a theater near you, unless you are very lucky, until October 31. Hopefully, this won't lead to flaccid box office the way it did for the also-excellent L.A. Confidential.
So, have you listened to my ringing endorsements? Have you seen L.A. Confidential yet? Email me and let me know what you think.
Posted by poland at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 1997
Weekend, 18 October 1997
Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend-manager Ray Manzella are squirming more than a buck naked blonde in a Playmate of The Year video these days. (Oh yeah, that was Jenny.) Now that Jenny's sitcom is breaking the wrong kind of ratings records, they are setting their sights on feature films, which has set off my Hot Button. Running out of media tricks (two weeks ago it was Manzella fighting for Jenny's equal opportunity to pass wind on network TV. Last week it was Jenny on every magazine cover proclaiming her new sophisticated self. Make up your mind, Ray!), they've dragged poor Dick Zanuck into their circus. "We are crazy about Jenny," Zanuck was quoted as shouting to Variety. "She's smart, funny, unaffected -- and, needless to say, good-looking!" The only problem with this move is that Dick's nose for talent is broken, as evidenced by a string of six straight flops, from Rush to Chain Reaction, since his Miss Daisy drove him to the Oscars in 1989. In actuality, I do think that Jenny has the star stuff, but she has to take a year or two off, find a boyfriend who doesn't take a percentage of anything but her body, and then come back calmly. Calmly.
In other crossover news, "The Drew Carey Show" is going The Full Monty with male cast members stripping to "Free Ride" for an upcoming episode. With this homage and take-offs of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert under its belt (so to speak), plus a new dance number seemingly every fourth episode, Carey's show is becoming the biggest purveyor of gag gimmicks since Ellen DeGeneres faked that whole lesbian thing. Oh? That was real? Ah. Then it's just her new breasts.
Elisabeth Shue is in talks to play Molly, an autistic girl who becomes a genius after receiving radical medical treatment, much to the surprise of her caretaking brother. Sounds like Rain Man with breasts and a happy ending. (This is becoming a theme column!) In real life, of course, Shue is a radical who's surprised people don't think she's a genius, taking care to let us know that medical treatment won't help her acting-autistic brother, Andrew.
If anything hits your Hot Button, Email me and let me know.
Posted by poland at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 1997
WEEKEND PREVIEW
Hollywood makes bizarre bedfellows. As Miramax was busy suing Sony over their use of "from the creator of Scream" to sell I Know What You Did Last Summer, they were bidding to win the rights to make the tri-quel to The Terminator following T-2, one of Sony's biggest hits ever. Speaking of hits, I expect the aforementioned next spoke on the Kevin Williamson Scream-cicle (really cycle, but it doesn't sound as cool), to win the weekend, stealing The Devil's Advocates soul. Both films could cross the $12 million barrier, though Last Summer could be the first really big opening of the fall and toy with the $20 million mark.
The only other wide opening is Fox Mulder in Playing God, which I see as the number five finisher with about $5 million. Outside of that, it should be a pretty standard weekend of slowly-dropping fortunes. In third place, look for Seven Years In Tibet to drop about 25 percent to $7.5 million after word gets out that Brad's hair bleach is more consistent than his Germanic accent. Kiss The Girls should take its first deep cut (20 percent off for $7.2 million) opposite genre openings Devil and Summer
The Second Five should be headed up by In & Out, retaking a lead on Soul Food and passing the $50 million mark with a 30 percent drop to $3.8 million. Soul Food may be getting a little stale, taking sixth with a 35 percent drop to $3.65 million. Also taking the 35 percent hit, Dreamworks first effort, The Peacemaker is about ready to drop it's load on Europe, shooting for seventh spot and another $3.4 million. Disney's implosion-on-the-launch-pad, Rocketman, will do well to drop just 30 percent and take ninth with $3.1 million in just it's second (and kid competition-free, I might add) weekend. In the 10 Spot, L.A. Confidential, making it's likely last stand in the Top 10 with a 20 percent drop to $2.9 million. It's been fun trying to get people to see you, boys. It's hush, hush for now.
Last week, my predictions were challenged. Come on, I can take it! Email me!
Posted by poland at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 1997
INTERNATIONAL B.O.
It's not a joke about the French! The foreign (to America) box office has become equal to or greater in importance to the overall bottom line of the movie business. So, take a gander.
L.A. Confidential finally debuted in France and disappointed, managing no better than third place. The reason? The distributor waited too long to take full advantage of the great Cannes buzz. If you read The Hot Button regularly, you'll know that it's just another case of a foreign nation following in the footsteps of America. In poli-sci terms, it's Mutual Assured Destruction of a very good film.
While we're talking American bombs, Speed 2: Cruise Control looks like a $100 million-plus overseas hit, already grabbing $99.1 million. It's especially popular in Thailand where actors with big square heads and no emotional range apparently draw a crowd.
It's no surprise that Air Force One is taking off in Europe. But it might surprise you to know that, like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney's 1996 animated disappointment at the domestic box office, 1997's soft-grossing Hercules is now expected to generate more than $200 million thoughout the rest of the world. Something to keep in mind if Fox's European-tinged Anastasia doesn't light up the U.S. box office like a Christmas tree.
Finally, some numbers to gag on. Men in Black just passed $250 million overseas, pushing its worldwide figure to almost $500 million. The film is currently setting box office records in Croatia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic where men in black are more dangerous than Tommy Lee and Will could ever be.
Any Europeans out there? Email me!
Posted by poland at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 1997
SECRET AGENT WEDNESDAY
The stories that Sony was in pursuit of the Bond franchise started last February. After a week or two of evasion, newly seated Sony Chief John Calley finally spoke to me about the situation and categorically denied that Sony was pursuing the Bond franchise. From all the tap dancing, it seemed that Calley had indeed been trying to leverage his relationship with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli (daughter of Cubby), with whom he had restarted the Bond engine at MGM/UA, the company he exited that is the long standing Bond rights holder. But the connection between Bond and UA was apparently too strong, legally or otherwise, to break. Story over.
But Calley was as smooth as Bond, stirred but not shaken, pursuing the back door entrance into Bondland, with producer Kevin McClory as the source of rights. McClory claims rights to the character based on his involvement in 1965's Thunderball, which he produced and co-storied. In 1983, he delivered Bond to Warner Bros. with Never Say Never Again, which remade the Thunderball story and was the start (along with Time Bandits) of Sean Connery's career resurrection. Guess who was head of production at WB when that happened. Calley!
The brewing legal bloodbath, centered around McClory's rights claim to the James Bond character, as opposed to his previous remaking of the one Bond property he had a hand in, should make December's Bond release, Tommorrow Never Dies, look G-rated in comparison. MGM/UA is, as it has been for years, in serious financial straits and Bond is the one plum in their pudding. In the meantime, call Calley Little Jack Horner, sitting in his corner with Men In Black winning last summer's box office race, Godzilla likely to win the summer of 1998 and an Astin Martin warming up in the garage.
And in the category of "more evasive, less important," Disney-based Interscope Communications will bankroll twin brothers Josh and Jonas Pate's third film, Earl Watt, to the tune of $50 million-plus. What's it about? The secret agent brothers won't say. Coyness from the twins whose first film was the direct-to-cable The Grave, described by TNT's very own Joe Bob Briggs as "Eleven dead bodies. No breasts. Bloody rabbit's foot. Pill poppin'. Embalming-table surgery. Aardvarking. Up-chucking. Baseball bat to the head. The old chained-to-the-floor-of-the-swamp-at-low-tide torture. Massive marijuana use. Multiple gravedigging. One brawl, with pitchfork. Finger rolls. Gratuitous Eric Roberts. Electric-chair fu." I'll tell you what, guys. Match the Coen brothers' first film (Blood Simple) or The Wachowski brothers' cherry-breaking Bound and you can be as mysterious as you want. In the meantime, you're just pissing me off.
If I have the same effect on you, email me. And you were all right. I am 67 percent possessed.
Posted by poland at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 1997
Tuesday, 14 October 1997
Are you a man-hater or a misogynist? You have your choice with these two hot, hot, hot spec script purchases! You say it's too good to be true? Well, bite into Dog Eat Dog, a romantic comedy about a woman who hires a trainer for her dog and (get this!) her boyfriend. Wacky! And it cost Disney only $250,000 against $500,000. (Do you know what they call a great development exec? A Golden Retriever! Wacka-wacka!) But what about the misogyny, you ask? It's Sony, paying big bucks to Ben Ramsey and Michael McCant for their script, Waiting For That Bitch To Leave. I wonder why they changed the title to Natural Men. Must be the oppression of political correctness. Couldn't be that the guys who wrote it would be seen as flaming a-holes just for plastering that title on the front page of a script, could it?
Looks like Tom and Nicole are finally set to make I Married A Witch at Sony. My personal experience, albeit limited, with the big, red Nicole, tells me that this shouldn't be seen as a "rhymes with" title. But on titles alone, Tom's second movie as producer, partnered with Paula Wagner, may fuel rumors that their marriage is a Mission: Impossible. Meow.
Renny Harlin is almost set for Deep Blue Sea, which Warner Bros has coined "Jurassic-shark." Bio-medical engineers manipulate genetics to create a faster, smarter, more vicious shark so dumb rich guys can hunt them. And of course, it goes wrong. So wrong! (Look for the scene where the shark grows legs and walks past a video store with posters for Cutthroat Island in the window!) The film is racing with Disney's Megalodon about prehistoric sharks. Is prehistory anything before 1977? That's when Jaws came out. The more things change ...
Email me. Talk to Uncle Dave and tell him how you feel.
Posted by poland at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 1997
WEEKEND REVIEW
Kiss The Girls was the surprise of the weekend, holding onto the top spot with $11.1 million. Dropping just 16 percent is an extraordinary accomplishment for any wide release, much less a thriller. Then again, it's clearly Adult Time at the box office, with Seven Years In Tibet (second place: $10 million), Soul Food (third: $5.4 million) and In & Out (fourth: $5.3 million) topping the chart. The only true kids' film out there, Rocket Man, opened weakly, in sixth place with just $4.4 million.
Seven Years (Do you think it was Eight Years before Pitt got involved?) had a per-screen average of just $4,755, which doesn't bode well for the future of Time Magazine's Sexiest Film Alive. I've been touting Soul Food as a possible ethnic crossover film for weeks, but Fox has now decided to go the other way, launching a "You go, girl!" campaign, assuring that Soul Food will be a happy cable surprise to the bulk of white audiences. And In & Out will have to wait until next weekend to pass the magic (for the fall season, at least) $50 million mark.
Rounding out the Top 10 were: The Peacemaker in fifth with $5.2 million; L.A. Confidential dropping to seventh with $3.7; The Edge in eighth with $3.3; Most Wanted -- my one dead-on estimate -- grossing $3 for ninth spot; and Gang Related, proving to be the made-for-cable movie it was meant to be (and should have stayed, out of respect to Tupac), taking 10 with just $2.5 million.
Strong competition on the top of the charts this Friday, with The Devil's Advocate and I Know What You Did Last Summer hitting tons of screens. More about that on Friday.
Reader RJW2000 emailed to challenge my box office predictions. His Top 5: Most Wanted ($10m), Soul Food ($6m), Kiss The Girls ($5m), L.A. Confidential ($3.5m) and Seven Years In Tibet ($2m), He added, "I bet a million dollars Seven Years does not come in first, let alone take in double digits!" You owe Morgan Freeman big time, since he saved you a million bucks. Keenen!
Don't forget to email me when something hits your hot button.
Posted by poland at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 1997
WEEKEND PREVIEW
It looks like an ugly weekend at the box office. Four new films hit theaters nationwide, but they all look like short-term players. Brad Pitt's Seven Years In Tibet should lead the charge grossing more than $10 million. If Tibet passes the $13 million mark, it will be a shock. If it somehow dips below $8 million, "I told you so!" will ring out in hallways all over town.
Kiss The Girls and Soul Food should be the strongest holdovers on the charts. The girls can kiss off a modest 25 percent for about $10 million and second place and Soul Food should lose about 15 percent off the top for about $7.1 million and fourth spot. Sneaking somewhere in between should be Disney's kid comedy Rocket Man, the only family film to be released in what seems like eons.
In & Out should equivocate its way to fifth with a 20 percent drop to $6.1 million, becoming the first film released since Air Force One (July 25) to pass the $50 million mark domestically. Gang Related should ride to $5 million and sixth place on Tupac's name and a decent ad campaign, though reports are that the movie is a bomb (non-ebonic). The Peacemaker should continue its precipitous drop, with a 40 percent dip to about $4.9 million for seventh place, and looks like it will max out with less than $40 million domestic. Do you know anyone who's still anxious to see it? Me neither.
In its second week of wide release, L.A. Confidential's expected 20 percent fall-off to $3.77 million and the eighth spot has prompted rumors that Warner Bros. is already planning a major re-release in early January.
Keenen shows us why he's now hosting a talk show! Most Wanted takes a dive with about $3 million for ninth place on its way to the 99 cent racks at the video store. And The Edge is on the edge of the Top 10, dropping an unbearable 45 percent to $2.8 million and pushing The Full Monty off the charts. Monty will probably return next week, when The Edge, Most Wanted and Gang Related join U-Turn, The Game, Wishmaster and The Matchmaker as former Top 10 hits.
Don't forget to email me when something hits your hot button.
Posted by poland at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 1997
Thursday, 09 October 1997
Roman Catholics in Chile are organizing a boycott against film festival screenings of Abel Ferrara's Black Out because of its explicit lesbian sex scenes featuring German Ÿber-model Claudia Schiffer. Jewish-American groups are also upset that the film helps us imagine the nausea-provoking, reality (I guess) of the sexual relationship between Schiffer and David Copperfield (nee' Kotkin). Oy!
"Shall Ve Kill? (dum-dum-dum) Shall ve blow them to bits-kies? Shall ve bomb? (dum-dum-dum) Ve can haff lots of fun, ya, if ve only had a gun-ya. Shall ve kill? Shall ve kill? Shall ve kill?" For those of you whose parents never took you to dinner theater, that's "Shall We Dance" from the musical The King & I, as performed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Huh?," you say? The rumor around Broadway is that the Austrian Alp is going to be hitting the boards in a Broadway revival of the show that made Yul Brenner's head famous. Another hit: "Getting to Broadway, trying to sing songs in English. Getting no retakes, working almost for free. Getting to Broadway, playing a lost King, It's nat'ral, Cause I am actual', A Kennedy."
Dan Haggerty is back in Grizzly Mountain, which hits theaters on Oct. 17. Well, part of him. In a story more grizzly than his most famous character's name, or his beard after three bowls of vegetable soup, Dan explains where he's been. "Three and one-half years ago, I'm on my motorcycle and I'm 1,000 feet from pulling into the driveway when in front of me a van makes a u-turn. Next thing I knew, I'm wedged underneath the van, and it tore both of my legs off, and broke my hips." Ouch! Haggerty credits his recovery to 50,000 pieces of fan mail, including a note from the Pope. In the great Hollywood tradition, divorce is the ultimate punchline. "I'd rather this pain then the pain I went through married to my first wife." Ba-dum-dum! Take my legs, please!
Don't forget to email me when something hits your hot button.
Posted by poland at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 1997
IT'S IFFY IDEAS WEDNESDAY!
First up is Frosty, Warner Bros' slowly melting live action/special effects project continues to send talent running for their rubbers. George Clooney passed on the opportunity to don the carrot and top hat. Next, John Travolta decided against becoming a three-balled hero. Then, Warner decided Independence Day star Bill Pullman wasn't a big enough star to carry a $53 million movie. Now, director Sam Raimi has left. Anyone getting the hint?
From the "Not A Spec Of Sense" department is Metalheads, United Artists' latest purchase for $600,000 against $1 million. UA is planning on making this a summer event film even though The Hollywood Reporter says the comedy's about "two misfit robots from outer space... sent to Earth to battle a sinister virus designed to wipe out mankind." Apparently, the studio wants to build on the last huge robot comedy, Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peter's movie career swan song, Heartbeeps.
Paul Schrader meets James Ellroy in 8mm, the next film from writer Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven) and Batwrecker, Joel Schumacher. The film, about a detective who snoops a little too far into the snuff film business for his own good, follows in the "who can be meaner" streak of films currently represented by Kiss the Girls. Schumacher, whose work with the subject of sex consists of rubber Bat-nipples, Jason Patric's hair and Jim Carrey in a leotard, may be looking for scripts in all the wrong places. Pass.
Don't forget to email me when something hits your hot button.
Posted by poland at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 1997
Tuesday, 07 October 1997
Woody Allen gave a very rare interview to the New York Daily News this week. Guess he wanted to make sure not to lose any ground to the returning Roman Polanski as America's Favorite Cradle Robber.
Apparently, the U-Turn press junket was a lot more interesting than the movie. First, there was Stone vs. Stone, with director Oliver unhappy with actress Sharon who was told by Oliver, according to him, that the film was relatively low-budget and that there would be no movie star salaries only to have her agent call later with a "request for a huge fee." Oliver gave the role to Latina-star-on-the-rise Jennifer Lopez, who filled more than the acting requirements in Stone's eyes. "Jennifer's full-bodied. She's got a full butt. I think she'll make women with big butts feel good." Well, no wonder Sharon didn't get the job. Oliver was looking for the wrong body part.
The other one to make heads do a u-turn at the junket was Nick Nolte. He told some reporters that he didn't use fake teeth to play the John Huston-like Jake McKenna. He did. Then there was the one about his first wife doing a circus high wire act. She didn't. But the topper was his story about receiving a testicle tuck (I'll give the male readers a moment to uncross their legs). This one started when he was being pressed by Bryant Gumbel about the possibility of having a face lift. Nolte effectively shut Gumbel up by offering that the only plastic surgery he'd had was a testicle tuck. And the legend lived. Until the U-Turn junket, where Nolte finally fessed up. These junkets have everything from tooth to nuts.
Acting By Phone was reader Joe Duffy's suggestion as a possible title for the now-in-development Romancing The Stone sequel. Just goes to prove -- I read my email. Send some. It's your moral duty.
Posted by poland at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 1997
Weekend, 04 October 1997
Director Roman Polanski, who has been in exile in France for 20 years to avoid jail time for his sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl in Jack Nicholson's backyard, is rumored to have cut a deal to return to Hollywood. Another great acheivement for Los Angeles D.A. Gil Garcetti. Polanski is probably anxious to return to Hollywood before Natalie Portman turns 18.
Another million dollar deal for a classic idea. Former "Mad TV" writer, Stuart Blumberg, sold Columbia Pictures Keeping the Faith, a "romantic drama" about a long-term friendship between a rabbi and a Catholic priest that becomes strained when both men fall in love with the same woman. Drama? All that description makes me think of a joke starting, "A rabbi and a priest walk into a..." Email us your best priest/rabbi jokes and maybe they'll end up in The Hot Button.
Traditionally, the success of big-budget movies on American soil has led the way to foreign box office gold. But 20th Century Fox has held its breath long enough on Titanic, the long-delayed Jim Cameron epic. Scheduled to premiere in the U.S. on December 19 under the Paramount banner (they split rights), Fox has decided to launch Titanic at the Tokyo International Film Festival on November 1. Japan has been a solid audience for Cameron, so if they don't like it, expect to find Fox execs looking for a spot under Godzilla's foot (or hanging from George Lucas' shirttails).
As Janeane Garofalo left the theater during her star turn in The Matchmaker, she said, "I saw my pie face up there and the crow's feet. Have you ever seen your face blown up 10 feet tall? I can't take it." If she can't take that, she should stay off the Web. Inspired by Chris Brandon's Site-ing of last Wednesday, I took a trip to GarofaloLand. My favorite sight was this letter on a Janeanne-loving site. James Ricardo (no relation to Ricky) from Torrance, CA, wrote: "I love Janeane. She is way prettier than Uma Thurman or Lisa or Mira in Romy and Michele. Though my guess is she isn't that good in bed. She seems very much a missionary style-type chick. Long Live Janeane! Bow down to her cute, fat, hairy little legs!!" How could I ever top that?
Come back Monday for a box office round up.
Posted by poland at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 1997
WEEKEND PREVIEW
Movie theaters load up on product this weekend, with four new releases and the expansion (finally!) of L.A. Confidential. As a result, the bottom of the top 10 should be significantly more impressive -- last week's number 10 was G.I. Jane with $1.3 million, this week's number 10 should do about $3 million. On the downside, none of the new openers look like major successes. Last week's top three all climbed over $11 million. I don't expect any films to hit the $11 million mark this weekend.
Look for Morgan Freeman's return to chasing psycho killers, Kiss the Girls, to lead the pack with around $10 million. Last week's surprise hit, Soul Food, may well be the most solid returnee, with incredibly positive exit-poll numbers, dropping just 20 percent to take second spot with $9 million. Last week's number one and number two spots should take the average 30 percent dips, leaving The Peacemaker at number three with $8.7 million and In & Out in fourth place with $7.9 million. U-Turn, the latest kink from Oliver Stone, should open in fifth, with a soft $6 to $7 million.
In the bottom half of the order, L.A. Confidential and its crew of Oscar nominees-to-be expands its screen count, actually increasing its gross, but not enough to rise above $5.5 million and a sixth-place finish. The second weekend for The Edge should find Sir Anthony falling over the side, dropping 40 percent for a $4.6 million, eighth place finish. Janeane Garofalo, the studio proclaimed "Funniest Woman In America," couldn't stand watching her face on a 15-foot screen and walked out of the New York premiere of her first starring vehicle, The Matchmaker (more on that in The Hot Button weekender). Four million bucks and eighth place feels about right for the name-pronunciation-challenged comedienne. Michael Douglas stays in The Game for one more week, dropping another 40 percent to $3 million to take the ninth spot. The naked Brits of The Full Monty may be in their final full-frontal assault on the top 10, round out the deci-leaders with $2.5 million or so.
Top 10 drop-outs look to be (in descending order): The Wishmaster, A Thousand Acres and G.I. Jane.
Have a good weekend at the movies and come back Monday to check out the results. You can even mock me via e-mail.
Posted by poland at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 1997
Thursday, 02 October 1997
Geena Davis is in talks to be first on board Disney's live-action version of the Japanese TV anime, Sailor Moon. The show is about teenage girls with super powers and enormous eyes, leaving Davis to the role of evil Queen Beryl, who is trying to destroy the earth. The Hot Button suggests a cast of actresses who can still pretend to be teens and who have eyes so large that they appear to be human incarnations of velvet paintings of unhappy clowns and orphans: Winona Ryder, Heather Graham, Elizabeth Shue during her The Saint period, and the late, great Marty Feldman, resurrected and in drag for this important cinematic acheivement.
O.J. Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden got married last week to Rysher Entertainment exec Marcia Carter. Within hours of the nuptials, Darden was claiming that the failure of such Rysher films as A Smile Like Yours, The Evening Star, White Man's Burden, Dear God and Turbulance (this is the short list, folks!) was the responsibility of O.J. Simpson. When reminded that Simpson was in court while these films were developed, Darden blamed Judge Ito. He then claimed that releasing studio Paramount was playing the Dud Card, when they released the films in theaters instead of prisons. It's OK, Chris. It's over man! You can stop making excuses.
First Joe Eszterhas' poison pen letter to Hollywood, Alan Smithee: Burn Hollywood Burn, had its very own director, Arthur Hiller, yank his name off the film, replaced by the traditional "I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Associated- With-This-Crap" psuedonym, Alan Smithee. Now, it's been pushed by distributor Disney all the way until next March, and even then, is scheduled for just a 20-city test release. Irony rears its ugly head, as the film about getting screwed in Hollywood gets screwed for the most traditional reason in Hollywood; the film stinks and no one wants to see it.
E-Mail Dave with the issues that get your button hot!
Posted by poland at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 1997
Wednesday, 01 October 1997
Bart makes as much as $10,000 a day for his movie work, before residuals. He's had major parts in over 20 movies to date, yet has never had to learn a line of dialogue. And he contributes a part of his earning to charity every year, but never signs a check. Sounds like a guy who you'd want your daughter or sister to date, huh? I forgot to mention that he weighs 1,800 pounds and eats his sushi with the skin on. Bart is the bear who hunts Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in The Edge. Good thing he can't fit in a Beemer or he'd be tooling around Rodeo Drive, cruising for fur coats. But, he can get you Sir Anthony Hopkins' home phone number.
Stone is back and it ain't Sharon! Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Romancing the Stone series back, probably as a Michael Douglas vehicle. Given the fact that Douglas is now old enough to be the stone, let's try some new titles: "Romancing Alone," "My Hair Has Stopped Grow'n," "Romancing Old Crones," "I'd Like To Be Prone," "Romancing The Clone" or "Romance Without Bone." Please feel free to email your new titles.
The proliferation of meteor films -- Armageddon and Deep Impact -- is no longer concentrated on U.S. shores. Continuing a diverse acting repertoire, Mike Myers has agreed to star with Brenda Fricker and Boogie Nights star Alfred Molina in Meteor, a drama written and directed by Irish playwright Joe O'Byrne. Variety says it's a dark coming-of-age story about three children in a Dublin slum whose lives are changed when a huge meteor crashes into their backyard. Shooting starts November 10, when Myers completes his work as disco denizen Steve Rubell in 54, and before he stars in MGM's remake of The Court Jester.
The Whole Picture delves into the dark side of entertainment journalism this week.
E-Mail Dave with the issues that get your button hot!
Posted by poland at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)