Tuesday tracking
Among this weekend’s openers, The Other Boleyn Girl (being all-media screened tonight) is at 49, 33 and 7…but first-choice is in the teens with women so business could be decent. Penelope is at 52, 25 and 5….fair. Will Ferrell‘s Semi-Pro is polling at 67,35 and 8…modest
The biggest hit of the March 7th weekend will unquestionably be 10,000 BC….73, 29 and 13…pretty good, very male. Roger Donaldson‘s The Bank Job is running at 28, 26 and 1. College Road Trip is now .76, 25 and 4. On March 14th comes Doomsday, currently 30, 17 and 0, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who at 62, 32 and 4 and Never Back Down at 26, 29 and 1.
Speaking of College Road Trip, isn’t it time to update the Oscar Balloon?
Semi-Pro is obviously going for Blades of Glory business but New Line has sort of bungled the marketing… it’s barely visible. I doubt it will open to $33 million.
I can’t believe Penelope is finally coming out. I saw the first trailer for that in early 2007.
Semi-Pro‘s R-rating is gonna hurt, at least when you compare its business to Blades or Talladega.
I am very pleased to see Semi Pro get an R rating; that’s the motivating factor for me to see it in the theater
I don’t believe Boleyn is tracking with ANYONE…the trailers are terrible and really…does anyone in America really care about this story?
What the fuck is Penelope? I live in LA and have seen NOTHING on this film…
10,000 BC smells like a one-weekend wonder at the BO…
I bet The Bank Job is a solid genre entry that does zero business…I’ll be seeing it though. Great trailers, great posters…I’m sold.
College Roadtrip, Never Back Down, and Doomsday all look pretty terrible in their own specific ways.
Horton Hears A Who might be cute…if I was 7 years old…but still, with Jim and Steve doing the voices I might catch it on dvd later this year.
WHERE ARE THE GOOD MOVIES? I know it’s the begining of the year but c’mon…
“does anyone in America really care about this story?”
Well, the book was a bestseller, so yeah.
Surprisingly they’ve been advertising Penelope on nickelodeon lately, as a fairy tale type of thing, which I find a little odd. Also the poster for the bank job is terrific. I’ll plunk down my 12 bucks to see it based on the poster alone.
Yeah, THE BANK JOB has one of the coolest posters I’ve seen in awhile. Very 70′s.
“WHERE ARE THE GOOD MOVIES? I know it’s the begining of the year but c’mon…”
I think it actually looks like a promising Spring, if you venture where tracking numbers don’t bother to tread. We’ve got Paranoid Park, Snow Angels, City of Men, Funny Games (US), and Mister Lonely (none of which I’ve seen, so if they suck it’s news to me) to look forward to between now and May.
Where are the ’08 films? I haven’t gotten caught up with the worthwhile ’07 films!
COLLEGE ROAD TRIP has Donny Osmond in it.
When is someone going to do THE SWEENEY?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UmUOee7fRRQ
does anyone remember that other ABA comedy? NEW JERSEY TURNPIKES? good stuff…
The weird thing about SEMI-PRO is that the R is strictly for language: There’s no real sex or nudity and even the gross-out jokes are reasonably restrained. With a lot of looping, they could have snagged a PG-13, which certainly would not have hurt business, especially since it’s much better than BLADES OF GLORY. Although THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is being pitched to women, considering that either Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman is in nearly every scene, I can’t imagine too many men complaining about having to see it. It’s not exactly Oscar bait, but it’s entertaining as a kind of 16th-century version of INDECENT PROPOSAL. I was shocked to see PENELOPE on the release schedule: It screened at the 2006 Toronto festival and got pretty weak word of mouth from the people I know who saw it; I was sure it must have gone straight to DVDville.
Off-topic: looks like Jeff is making his first a movie!
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_554266.html
I would have been less offensive if they would have just posted “horror movie looking for your ugly freak children.” All the dancing around, trying to make the casting call sound less offensive, made it sound much worse.
“…considering that either Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman is in nearly every scene, I can’t imagine too many men complaining about having to see it.”
Um, is it NC-17 for “unbelievably lewd, erotic sexual situations between the two female leads?” No? Then consider my complaining hand raised.
“Well, the book was a bestseller, so yeah.”
That’s all well and good, but I am not talking about the book…I am talking about the fact that a heavily costumed historical drama with Eric Bana, Scarlett, and Portman that has gotten mixed/negative reviews will flop at the domestic box office.
Gabriel: City of Men does look excellent; the original Funny Games was enough for me I think.
Actionman wrote:
What the fuck is Penelope? I live in LA and have seen NOTHING on this film…
From the reviews and a still photo I saw, it’s a comedy with Christina Ricci as a young woman with a nose that resembles the nose of a pig and James McAvoy as the man who loves her anyway.
I can’t wait for Doomsday. It looks like Road Warrior and Escape From New York, with a bit of 28 Days Later. And from the man who brought us The Descent! Even if it’s a mess, it will be an entertaining mess.
Oh, and I second the “not gonna see bolyn movie unless it’s NC-17″ argument.
“From the reviews and a still photo I saw, it’s a comedy with Christina Ricci as a young woman with a nose that resembles the nose of a pig and James McAvoy as the man who loves her anyway.”
Sounds like a box office smash!
Ads have been running for PENELOPE in LA nonstop since last week during the Regis/The View-type shows so that seems like the audience they’re going for. It looks terrible. The 60s PENELOPE with Natalie Wood and Dick Shawn is pretty bad too, but I bet it’s better.
Semi-Pro will do well… the super bowl commercial went viral via YouTube and caught a lot of extra eyeballs. There’s no doubt it will open at least 20% larger than Blades of Glory.
Jeff: Obama says his favorite movies are the first two Godfathers and Lawrence of Arabia.
http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080226/120404628000.html
Ok, off-topic, but I just saw a listing for a new David Mamet movie. Starring Tim Allen. Listed under the category “martial arts.”
I’m dying for some more information.
Josh: http://movies.aol.com/movie/redbelt/30128/video/trailer-no-1/2069634
‘redbelt’ has a pretty impressive cast (with tim allen seeming the only anomaly)…..wow, mamet writing for tim allen…i have, indeed, lived too long…..
I can’t believe I want to see a martial arts movie. I also can’t believe I want to see a movie with Tim Allen in it. The fact that these two events are happening at the same time makes my head want to explode.
If it’s Mamet, I’m in the theater, regardless of the subject matter.
I love Spartan; extremely underrated thriller. Great writing, performances, direction, and cinematography.
Mamet’s also working on plum role for Jessica Alba.
Jay T: Are you crazy? Blades opened to what, $33 million? So you’re saying Semi-Pro will open to $40 million+? It’s an R-rated comedy about 1970′s-era basketball.
I heard if SEMI-PRO opens to $40 million, Sony is going to put out the NC-17 version of THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL as competition. So look out, Josh and Winchester!
Fingers crossed.
There’s hope after all…
Winchester, Doomsday SUCKS. If The Descent was a Ridley Scott “Alien” to Neil Marshall’s earlier Predator (Dog Soldiers), “Doomsday” made me wish I was watching Uwe Boll instead.
Doomsday doesn’t merely “remind” audiences of 80′s B-action, it blatantly skips around doing sloppy-seconds riffs on each flick like a masturbating schizoid, changing tone every 20 minutes, while never actually delivering its own satisfying story, determined instead to keep nudging you in the ribs, “get this reference? get it?”
Doomsday is the worst theatrical release since Don Murphy’s Shoot Em Up — yes, worse than AVP2.
Shoot’em Up sucks? I thought it was an hilarious, self-consciously over the top action rollercoaster ride, much in the vein of Smokin’ Aces. Both are movies so acutely aware of what they are that become too sophisticated for the majority of their own audiences, I fear.
As for Doomsday from the trailer and the website, it looks like fun. At the very least, it nails how a new Escape from New York should look. Raw, a bit cheap and not sanitized. Should they decide to go ahead with the remake, they should take a hint from Marshall. Oh, and they should get Rhona Mitra as Snake Plyssken.
actionman have you checked out IN BRUGES yet? Certainly the highlight of my Spring so far. And yeah, SPARTAN is fuckin’ excellent. Then you are truly blessed.
Loved IN BRUGES; Farrell was great and the movie was a blast. Very funny I thought in a happily inappropirate way.
Nice to see some love for SPARTAN; I love the dialogue in that film. “You need to set your motherfucker to ‘receive’”.
I am a big Mamet fan in general, also love HEIST and SPANISH PRISONER. HOUSE OF GAMES is pretty sweet too.