Monthly Archives: July 2013

Jul 15 2013

Pacific Rim washes up third as sequels dominate

per the UK Daily Guardian

 

Guillermo del Toro’s apocalyptic adventure can’t beat the combined might of Despicable Me and Adam Sandler sequels

Posted by

Monday 15 July 2013 07.23 EDTguardian.co.uk

 

Warner Bros‘ robots v monsters mash-up Pacific Rim arrived in third place at the North American box office this week on an estimated $38.3m. By most standards this would be a decent opening haul for the latest Guillermo del Toro movie. However in these days of engorged budgets and the close attention of a frantic US trade press desperate for headlines on a Sunday, it is simply not good enough.

  1. Pacific Rim
  2. Production year: 2013
  3. Country: USA
  4. Cert (UK): 12A
  5. Runtime: 131 mins
  6. Directors: Guillermo del Toro
  7. Cast: Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Ron Perlman
  8. More on this film

Pacific Rim reportedly cost around $190m and that is a lot of lolly to recoup, especially when you add as much as $100m in global marketing spend on top of that. This was a big weekend at the box office and the potency of Del Toro’s film will have been neutered somewhat byDespicable Me 2 and the No 2 title Grown Ups 2 starring Adam Sandler.

Both the No 1 and No 2 movies are sequels boasting household names. Pacific Rim is neither: it’s hard to launch a new property with little brand awareness and a lack of A-list talent. Despite the opinion of some who say the effects are the real stars these days, you can never underestimate the allure of a celebrity.

Pacific Rim lacks one, with all respect to Charlie Hunnam, who will be familiar to US TV viewers through Sons of Anarchy, and the mesmerisingIdris Elba, a renowned TV actor on both sides of the Atlantic who you get the sense could be on the cusp of movie stardom. Maybe his lead role in the upcoming Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, will unlock the vault.Harvey Weinstein has the movie in the US and if he believes Elba has a crack at an Oscar, the British actor could not wish for a more influential advocate.

Still, the numbers are the only story the studios care about. On that note, it’s worth considering the movie’s international performance. Pacific Rim ventured into its first territories outside North America and the results were highly encouraging. Del Toro’s tentpole came within a hair’s breadth of kicking Despicable Me 2 off its perch, grossing an estimated $53m from a relatively light footprint of 38 markets, compared to the second weekend heroics of Despicable Me 2 on $55.5m.

Top brass at Warner Bros and their outgoing financing and production partner Legendary Entertainment will take heart from this. Legendary financed most of the movie so we’re not talking about a hit to the studio that will be anything like as severe as the one Disney is preparing itself for with The Lone Ranger. It’s possible Pacific Rim will become an international hit.

The 72% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes could bode well for North America too if word of mouth gets out and the movie sticks around for a few weeks.

The aforementioned Harvey Weinstein released the acclaimed dramaFruitvale Station in seven US theatres at the weekend and it grossed an excellent $377,000. Weinstein snapped up the movie following its world premiere at Sundance last January and by eerie coincidence its themes echo those of the Trayvon Martin case that has gripped the US in recent weeks and concluded on Saturday. That could not have been Weinstein’s plan when he plotted the release date months ago, but the zeitgeist could fuel further admissions. This quietly devastating movie will play a part in awards season.

North American Top 10, 12-14 July

1. Despicable Me 2, $44.8m. Total: $229.2m

2. Grown Ups 2, $42.5m

3. Pacific Rim, $38.3m

4. The Heat, $14m. Total: $112.4m

5. The Lone Ranger, $11.1m. Total: $71.1m

6. Monsters University, $10.6m. Total: $237.8m

7. World War Z, $9.4m. Total: $177.1m

8. White House Down, $6.2m. Total: $62.9m

9. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, $5m. Total: $26.4m

10. Man Of Steel, $4.8m. Total: $280.9m

 

Jul 14 2013

One of the Ballsiest Moves in Science Fiction Movies

uss-enterprise-ncc-1701

 

 

Captain James T. Kirk with the help of Scotty, Chekov and Sulu steal the Enterprise. Four men, with the help of Uhura, steal a 1200 foot long ship! The wildest action in any movie I’ve ever scene. Here’s the scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k9Ukm9LaWg

Jul 14 2013

10 best sci-fi films of all time, chosen by Tim Robey

From the UK Daily Telegraph:

From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Solaris, Telegraph film critic Tim Robey lists his 10 sci-fi films of all time.

 

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 
From man’s origins to his rebirth, Kubrick concentrates on technology – the primitive weapon of a femur bone becomes a space station in cinema’s most famous match-cut, and AI reaches a point where HAL 9000 is more human than the humans.

Planet of the Apes (1968) 
A topsy-turvy political allegory about the misuse of civilisation, with Charlton Heston as the stranded astronaut being thrust to the bottom of an even baser society than his own. Amazingly, Fox just thought they were making a monkey movie.

Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison in The Planet of the Apes.

Blade Runner (1982) 
An extraordinary feat of cyberpunk design, wrapped around an equally extraordinary premise about replicants raging against the dying of the light. Harrison Ford’s Deckard could easily be one of them – witness his unicorn dream in the Director’s Cut.

 

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 
It could have been little more than a movie about an extremely weird dog from space, but Spielberg’s subtle bead on childhood made it so much more. Simple yet profound visual ideas – the glowing finger, the flying bike – give it unbelievable lift-off.

Read a review of E.T The Extra-Terrestrial

 

The Thing (1982) 
The same summer as Scott and Spielberg’s masterpieces, John Carpenter made his: a squirmy, what-the-hell-is-that experience which suggests some close encounters are best avoided. In the freezing Antarctic, look carefully at your neighbour.

 

Back to the Future (1985) 
The best kind of gee-whizz blockbuster, and so beautifully low-tech about its devices – the gull-winged DeLorean as a time machine is a stroke of design genius. The mad-science aspects of the story delight constantly, as do the stars.

 

Brazil (1985) 
Originally titled 1984½, Terry Gilliam’s crazily ambitious riff on Orwell is a dystopian comedy about a world stuffed to bursting point: one clerical error and it threatens to burst. A nightmare of retro-futuristic oppression, outfitted with mad bravura.

 

Aliens (1986) 
On all fronts a spectacular expansion of Alien, especially in the ways it pits machinery against biology, and follows the creature’s whole life-cycle back to its source: what’s laying the eggs? Ripley’s confrontation with the Queen is truly inspired.

 

The Fly (1986) 
Teleporting Jeff Goldblum gets an unwanted housefly trapped in his DNA, and becomes a missing link we weren’t missing. Cronenberg updates the 1958 original with hideous imaginative flair but also great sympathy – file it under Best Remakes, too.

 

 

Solaris (2002) 
And another great remake, even beating Tarkovsky, because of its crystalline beauty as a thought-piece about the tyranny of memory. A huge flop for Soderbergh and Clooney, but scene for scene it’s their riskiest, most philosophical movie.

Jul 14 2013

Ender’s Game faces backlash over author Orson Scott Card’s anti-gay views

In the essence of transparency, I’m neither for or against homosexuals. Sometimes I think people on both sides are being far too militant over the entire thing. So, the purpose of the post is to point out the controversy swirling and why authors are best keeping their views to themselves sometimes.

 Science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card is leading opponent of same-sex marriage

per the Independent

SUNDAY 14 JULY 2013

Jul 14 2013

Perhaps You Should Boycott Ender’s Game

This is from Forbes magazine. I don’t agree with the article, but I’ll let you decide. Boycotting a movie that the author hasn’t been involved with for years is rather stupid. Boycotting his books would be far more effective. Avoiding the movie just hurts the film company because Card’s already gotten his money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/14/perhaps-you-should-boycott-enders-game/

Jul 14 2013

Box Office: ‘Despicable’ Repeats and Sandler Soars, but No ‘Pacific Rim’ Surge

Things are not looking good.

The Wrap

By Todd Cunningham | The Wrap – 10 hours ago

 

'Pacific Rim' Third as 'Despicable Me 2' Edges 'Grown Ups 2' at Box Office

 

“Despicable Me 2” edged the Adam Sandler comedy “Grown Ups 2” at the domestic box office this weekend, while the surge some predicted for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” never quite materialized — making it the latest big-budget beast to come crashing down this summer.

A big Saturday turnout lifted the animated kids film from Universal and Illumination Entertainment to an estimated $44.7 million in its second week. It passed the $200 million mark Saturday at the domestic box office, just the fourth animated film to do it in that timeframe, and its global haul is now nearly $475 million.

“Grown Ups 2” had led the pack after a terrific $16.5 million opening day Friday, but the family crowd began turning the tide for the minions of “Despicable Me 2” on Saturday — and Sony’s PG-13-rated comedy wound up at $42.5 million. That’s better than the 2010 debut’s $40 million open, and that film went on to take in $270 million worldwide, best-ever for a Sandler movie.

Also read: Bombs Away: Hollywood Braces for Historic 4 Straight Weeks of Megaflops

Del Toro’s giant robots-vs.-monsters 3D epic was running second after Friday but lost some steam and finished the weekend with an estimated $38.3 million. That just under where the analysts had the $180 million tentpole movie landing, after weeks of soft pre-release tracking.

Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. had hoped the film’s “A-” CinemaScore and strong reviews — it was at 72 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes — would drive word-of-mouth so that it could play beyond its core audience of young boys and Del Toro fans. But Saturday’s haul was about 13 percent down from Friday’s, which were swelled by $3.6 million.

The fanboys turned out in force, particularly for 3D showings and at Imax, which accounted for a whopping 19 percent of the grosses. The crowd was predictably young (67 percent under 35) and male 61 percent).

“Three weeks ago we were looking at $25 million-$30 million, so we’ve come a long way and this gives us something to build on,” said Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman. “We have great reviews, a strong CinemaScore and strong word of mouth. Our job now is to take that and expand it beyond that fanboy base over the next weeks.”

Warner Bros is counting on a big international performance from “Pacific Rim,” which should get a boost from Del Toro’s significant international following. It’s off to a decent start with $53 million in 38 markets this weekend.

 “Pacific Rim” is the third box-office misfire for a big-budget tentpole in as many weeks, coming on the heels of last weekend’s disappointing debut of Disney’s $225 million “Lone Ranger” and Sony’s “White House Down” the week before that.

A big part of that is the intense competition this summer, which is filled with $100 million-plus would-be blockbusters. The overall box office remains healthy — summer is running about 13 percent ahead of 2012 — and the weekend’s numbers continued that trend. Overall business was up nearly 30 percent over last year’s comparable weekend, when “Ice Age: Continental Drift” opened to $46 million.

Critics loathed “Grown Ups 2” – it has a 7 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes – but

 

moviegoers gave it a “B” CinemaScore and the solid debut underscored the disconnect between reviewers and Sandler fans.

The audiences were young, with 54% under 25, and surprisingly female at 53 percent, suggesting it was drawing families.

The strong showing — particularly since it was competing with the R-rated Melissa McCarthy-Sandra Bullock comedy “The Heat” — signals a box-office turnaround for Sandler.

He voiced Dracula in Sony’s surprising animated hit “Hotel Transylvania,” but his last two live-action efforts – “Jack and Jill” and “That’s My Boy” – have disappointed. The latter film was R-rated and a bid by Sandler to broaden his youthful base, but it came up short. Reteamed with Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade, the PG-13-rated sequel — made for $80 million — was right in his wheelhouse.

                                          Weekend         Total
1. Despicable Me 2              $44,754,000    $229,237,000
2. Grown Ups 2                    $42,500,000    $42,500,000
3. Pacific Rim                      $38,300,000    $38,300,000
4. The Heat                          $14,000,000    $112,363,000
5. The Lone Ranger              $11,140,000    $71,101,000
6. Monsters University           $10,621,000    $237,760,000
7. World War Z                     $9,430,000    $177,087,000
8. White House Down            $6,150,000    $62,963,000
9. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain $5,000,000    $26,378,000
10.Man of Steel                     $4,825,000    $280,995,000