This week sees more new film and TV releases on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the ones we’re more interested in this week are The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Ponyo, The Neverending Story, the Syfy miniseries Alice , Kurt Russell in Elvis, and the original Clash of the Titans (with Sir Laurence Olivier, pictured above).

Check out all the new releases below.

Film

Bitch Slap (Unrated) ~ Debbie Lee Carrington, Michael Hurst, Kevin Sorbo (DVD)

Clash of the Titans ~ Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Maggie Smith (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cold Souls ~ Paul Giamatti, Boris Leskin (Blu-ray and DVD)

Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey ~ Curious George (DVD)

Gentlemen Broncos ~ Jermaine Clement, Sam Rockwell (Blu-ray and DVD)

Continue Reading →

I have a real appreciation for natural disaster flicks. Volcano, Dante’s Peak, 2012, I love them all and it doesn’t matter how absurd they may be.  One personal favorite is Twister. This film came with a whole bunch of destruction with a baked in love story between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.  Because nothing says I love you better then sharing the moment of running scared from a category five tornado.

Even with the success of his show Big Love, Paxton wants another Twister film.  Some may scoff at the idea but I’d love to see a sequel. Paxton said the inspiration for the the film came to him while retracing the path of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado. This massive tornado left a path of destruction 219 miles wide and killed 700 people. Paxton said:

“There’s actually footage that I found in Murphysboro at their historical society. They had footage from a biplane that the government sent down, just to do aerial footage of all of the destruction and the damage. So we just did that to kind of get some ideas, and from that I kind of extrapolated an idea for a sequel. And I kind of put that together into a format, and now we’re kind of waiting to see if that’s going to move forward.”

One thing to consider about doing a film like this is how it would be accepted by audiences. Until 2012, the disaster film genre kind of disappeared (Cloverfield doesn’t count, it was a monster after all). In that time the real world has suffered some major disasters of its own (e.g. Hurricane Katrina). This is not to say we didn’t have major disasters when Twister was originally released, but I feel there’s a higher social awareness surrounding the tragedy of the events rather than the sensational nature of them.

Continue Reading →

It’s going to be a very green (as in $) for Roland Emmerich. For a long time Michael Bay seemed to be the go-to mega director in Hollywood. Well, it seems Emmerich, director of the recent disaster movie 2012, is set to change all that. At least in the sense of enormous paydays that is.

2012, which has gone onto make nearly $700 million worldwide (much of that coming from international audiences) since its November release is reported to pay out $100 million to Emmerich alone:

“According to several executives who saw the deal as it was being shopped and signed last year, Emmerich got a traditional $20 million advance against 20 percent of the first-dollar gross profits.

Based on where the box office stands today and the first-dollar gross deal, Emmerich will take home $100 million, all the executives agreed.”

While the dollar figure seems enormous it should be noted that Emmerich is well known for micro-producing his own projects. By the time he brings something to a studio everything is set to go (e.g. budget, storyboards, etc.). Add to this the fact he owned the script, produced and directed 2012 and it becomes pretty clear the man deserved his share, regardless of how grossly inflated it may seem.

Regardless, way to go Emmerich!  I’m sure you’ll put some of that money toward the ID4 sequels you talked about.  Fingers crossed.

This week we will be looking at the weekend box office as well as the 5-day holiday, which includes totals for Wednesday through Sunday. There were some interesting developments regarding the international box office scene as well, so this will be a jumbo sized report. New releases barely made a blip, it was the holdovers that led this weekend to the highest grossing Thanksgiving weekend ever.

The Twilight Saga:  New Moon continued to dominate on the domestic and international side. Playing on over 4,000 screens, it grossed $42.5 Million domestically. Over the five day stretch, it grossed $66 Million. No matter your thoughts on the movie, you have to admit we are witnessing a cultural phenomenon unfold in real-time.  Its domestic cumulative take for 10 days now stands at $230.7 Million.

Nipping at the heels of New Moon was The Blind Side. The movie grossed $40.1 Million for the weekend, and $57.5 Million for the five day, with that weekend total being higher than its opening weekend total of $34 Million. Wide releases rarely see an increase in ticket sales from one weekend to the next so this is unusual. This movie is getting exceptionally positive word of mouth, which is bringing more people into the theaters — a topic we discussed on the most recent edition of The Flickcast podcast.

The Blind Side drove over the $100 Million mark as well. Not too shabby for a family friendly film made for around $30 Million. I’m also starting to hear the “O” word casually mentioned regarding this film, as in Oscar. Sandra Bullock seems to be edging her way into consideration for best actress.

Continue Reading →

Last week I mentally predicted that New Moon would come in around the $80 Million mark. Obviously, there is a reason that I am not in the business of box office predictions. New Moon grossed over $140 Million during its opening weekend, and broke a few records along the way. Fangirls (and a few fanboys) showed that they are an emerging force to be reckoned with, as New Moon ($72.7 Million) broke the opening day record previously held by The Dark Knight ($67.2 Million.)

According to Entertainment Weekly, over 80% of the ticket sales were from women, a truly rare occurrence. Although the film was critically drummed, (currently 29% on Rotten Tomatoes) audiences gave it an A- cinemascore, indicating that they were very happy with the film. The film opened on a massive 4,000+ screens, and averaged over $34,900 per screen. There was a drop off from Friday to Saturday of about 40%.

Also of note: New Moon now has the 3rd biggest opening weekend ever behind The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3. Its midnight screening averages on Friday morning garnered over $26M, setting a new record for that. The world box office take was over $258 Million. Director Chris Weitz must feel vindicated after the disastrous box office performance of The Golden Compass, his last directorial effort.

Early estimates show that The Blind Side had an opening weekend gross of $34.5 Million, which is nothing to sneeze at. This marks the best opening ever for Sandra Bullock, just behind last summer’s The Proposal. The film also got a remarkable A+ cinemascore, which means it will start getting some seriously good word of mouth. Expect it to remain in the top ten for a long time.

Continue Reading →

Roland Emmerich’s epic disaster flick 2012 easily destroyed the competition this weekend. Since there were no other wide new releases, 2012 handily made over $65 Million, which isn’t really all that impressive, but factor in the international box office take ($160 Million) and you get an opening weekend gross of $225 Million. Looks like the film will make back its budget (upwards of $200 Million) and then some. Playing on over 3,400 screens, the per-screen was just over $19,000.

Crowds are beginning to warm up to Disney’s A Christmas Carol, which took in $22.3 Million, and only dropped off  25% from opening weekend. This is a very good sign for the movie, indicating it will stick around a bit, particularly with Christmas coming up.

The Men Who Stared At Goats dropped an even 50%, for $6.2 Million and third place. Precious continues to be a big story. A small expansion put it in 174 theaters, for $6 Million. What’s astonishing is that the per-screen average was $35,000. Compare that to The Men Who Stare at Goats, which only had a per-screen average of $2,500. Precious will roll out a wider opening next weekend.

Continue Reading →

In honor of Roland Emmerich’s release of disaster film  2012 this week I decided to watch sci-fi action classic Independence Day (aka ID4). I can’t tell you on how many levels I love this film. Sure it’s campy at times but the actors seem to believe so ferociously the fictitious alien invasion is real it just works. Moreover, it paved the way for some of the best scenes of destruction ever in film history.

Fans like me have been waiting nearly fourteen years for a sequel and we may get our wish. While promoting 2012 Emmerich spoke to MTV about the possibility of not one, but two ID4 sequels:

“What we want to do in the next – it’s actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc,” he explained. “‘Independence Day’ was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that.”

As exciting as the prospect of two more ID4 films could be allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. One reason I like the first film so much is that it’s a closed box. That is, it simply ends. No twists, no hints at a sequel, simply an ending. With so many films vying for franchise potential these days it’s refreshing to have movies like ID4 that simply wanted to tell a story-once.

Continue Reading →

There are several things that director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) doesn’t seem too concerned about in the bloated, CGI-laden disaster movie 2012. These include, but are not limited to:  plot, character development, plausibility, restraint, and subtlety. I kind of understand why he chooses to ignore these elements. If you get bogged down with all these pesky details, how are you supposed to focus on THE SPECTACLE?

THE SPECTACLE is the star of this film, and clearly every resource available was used to ensure that this movie looks good, everything else be damned. 2012 is a full 2 1/2 hour visual assault of CGI, destruction, chase scenes, and every natural disaster a geophysicist could possibly imagine. It’s chalk full of action movie clichés, right down to the brooding and estranged ex-husband who happens to be near his old family when disaster strikes, and must lead them to safety. Not only is the movie wholly unoriginal, but it actually feels like Emmerich just cherry-picked his favorite scenes from action movies he likes, and found a way to throw them all into a threadbare story.

This is director indulgence gone too far. The movie is an hour too long, and a few key scenes would have had far more impact if there were not an action scene thrown in every 3-4 minutes. It’s as though Emmerich is saying to the audience: “You are going to sit there in your seat, and you are going to watch the crap out of this movie.”

Continue Reading →

Let me start by saying I never saw The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Simply put, I just didn’t believe it could be good. Based on the reviews and what friends have told me, I was right.

Since news started to come out about the premise of the last X-Files film I knew they were taking the characters down the wrong path. The pseudo monster-of-the-week episodes the series was known for worked well enough on TV, but you want something pretty big for a feature film. Really big.

The first movie got it right in my opinion. Conspiracy. Aliens. Giant UFOs. That’s movie caliber material. Mulder and Scully waxing poetic about a psychic priest in the sequel? Not so much.

It pains me a little to call out the second film like that because I’m a huge X-Files fan. That comes with sincerity as I have Mulder and Scully action figures within arms reach and the first film’s movie poster adorning my wall. Fortunately, it sounds like plans for a new X-Files film may return to the conspiracy-laden content us fans loved so much.

In a recent interview, David Duchovny gave some indication that should a third X-Files film happen it would get back to its roots:

“As far as the X-Files movie I’d like to do next, if we get a chance to do it, would be a return to the heart and soul of the mythology, which is the alien-oriented conspiracy. I think it’s natural for The X-Files to have another movie in 2012, so we’ll see if we get to do it.”

Continue Reading →

We have been a bit hard around here on 2012, the new Roland Emmerich film about the end of the world, but given the director’s track record and the fact that the trailer doesn’t look like anything we haven’t seen dozens of times before on the big screen, we think we probably have just cause.

It looks like we aren’t the only people making fun of it, as a new fan film has popped up online using the first five minutes of the film. The edit proves that this film can become two things without it’s overblown special effects: quite pointless and outrageously funny.

For those interested in the film itself, it stars a cornucopia of celebrities from John Cusack to Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet and is about a prophecy where the world comes to an end in December of 2012. Roland Emmerich is also the director that brought us gems like 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow.

Check out the fan film after the jump. Catch 2012 in theaters everywhere this November.

Continue Reading →