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Stories By Steve Mason
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The final studio estimates are in, and, as I first wrote Friday night, Jim Carrey’s Yes Man (Warner Bros) is the weekend winner, although the performance of the film was softer-than-expected. When the movie started with a soft $6.7M on Friday, it was hard to tell if it was because snowstorms in several regions of…
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Bad weather with several major storms, including one in the Northeast, are making this a challenging weekend to project. I have revised my the 3-day estimates I released last night to allow for films to enjoy slightly stronger Saturdays, but the general story is the same. Jim Carrey and Yes Man (Warner Bros) at #1,…
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The weekend box office battle boils down to Jim Carrey vs. Will Smith. This is a match-up between the former “World’s Biggest Box Office Star” and the reigning champ, and I am giving a slight advantage to the challenger. Either Yes Man (Warner Bros) or Seven Pounds (Sony) could score the weekend-before-Christmas win, but I…
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The Day the Earth Stood Still has failed to stop Fox’s 2008 losing streak managing just $31M in its opening 3 days according to studio estimates. As I wrote Friday night, this has been a disastrous year for Fox, and now, it will be virtually impossible for the studio to reach $1 billion in domestic…
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Despite being shut out in all of major categories in this week’s Golden Globe Awards nominations, Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros) has opened with very strong numbers at 6 locations this weekend. The HFPA snubbed Clint for his performance as Walt Kowalski, the gruff, bigoted Korean War veteran, and they ignored him in the…
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The world is not “standing still” for Fox’s remake of the 1951 Robert Wise-directed sci-fi classic opening in theaters this weekend. The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring Keanu Reeves, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Jon Hamm (Mad Men), has gotten off to a decent start, but it is hardly the blockbuster…
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With Fox still smarting from the underwhelming start for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (just over $32M so far), they unleash The Day the Earth Stood Still on Friday. This is a big budget remake of the 1951 classic from 4-time Oscar winner Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, West Side Story). Michael Rennie played the virtually…
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The general consensus is that, although Four Christmases (Warner Bros) is a flawed movie (I’m being kind), but it is going to open. It is very well cast with Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon pulling Females Under 25, Vince Vaughn pumping up appeal with Males Under 25 and Oscar winners like Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and…
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Twilight (Summit), based on the wildly popular Stephenie Meyer series of novels, has blown past even the most optimistic industry expectations with an estimated $70.55M opening weekend. The movie, which had teen girls lined up Thursday at midnight and generated an estimated $7.5M by sunrise on Friday, finished its first day with about $35.7M. But…
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Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, the leading characters in the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, may be models for abstinence and chastity, but the movie’s hardcore fans are not abstaining from the box office and their fervor for the Summit release is anything but chaste. After a reported $7.5M for Thursday midnight screenings, throngs…
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A housewife in suburban Phoenix is responsible for the movie that will dominate America's multiplexes this weekend. Twilight (Summit) is a phenomenon in industry tracking and advance sales, and two separate competing studio sources are telling me that they expect the film adaptation of Bella and Edward's forbidden romance to top $60 million in its…
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The audacious reboot of the James Bond franchise paid off big with 2006's Casino Royale, and now Quantum of Solace (Sony) has hit the box office jackpot. Whereas Daniel Craig's 007 debut opened with $40.8M, the new Bond, which picks up where Royale left off, has opened almost $30M higher with $70.4M in the US.…
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Craig…Daniel Craig. The actor is now responsible for the biggest James Bond opening as Quantum of Solace (Sony) has followed spectacular overseas openings with a monstrous $27M opening day in the US. That is about 30% better than the previous best single day for a Bond film. ALL-TIME BEST SINGLE DAY GROSSES FOR THE 007…
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Reboot: to start film franchise over again, ignoring everything that has happened in previous films; often includes a distinct change in tone. Back in 2003, when Warner Bros began discussing a new version of Batman, the concept of rebooting a film franchise didn’t really exist. As director Christopher Nolan tried to decided who would assume…
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[flv:http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/trailers/benbuttontv2.flv 470 208] The first reviews of David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have begun to hit the Internet. It's hard to make an assessment at this time as one concludes with a good by disappointed/mixed reaction (which seems close to my reaction having seen 20 minutes of the film), while the other…
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When Paramount/Dreamworks unleashed back-to-back-to-back $200M-grossing titles starting with Iron Man in May, they seemed like an "iron-clad" lock to win the big studio market share battle for 2008. Then along came Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which has rocked the nation to the tune of almost $530M domestic. TDK has helped Warner Bros secure its…
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Last November, Dreamworks scored a solid hit with Bee Movie, which opened with $38M and finished with $126.6M domestic. This year’s autumnal offering from Jeffrey Katzenberg’s animation house is much, much bigger. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a true blockbuster with a $17M opening day and a likely $57.8M opening weekend. Reviews are solid (59%…
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After “trick or treating” blotted out last Friday at the box office, the movie industry recovered with a strong Saturday and Sunday, and now Hollywood is gearing up for a spectacular start to the holiday movie season. Industry tracking suggests that Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) will enjoy a huge opening. Execs from 3 separate…
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High School Musical: Senior Year (Disney) has confound the so-called "experts" again. HSM3 may be up as exponentially Saturday, from its soft Friday, and the Kenny Ortega-directed musical may reach $15M for the weekend. All of my numbers for the weekend that I published on Friday (and everybody's weekend projections) were too low. Halloween lands…
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The 22nd installment of the James Bond franchise, Quantum of Solace (Sony), has grabbed a record-shattering £4.94M on its opening day in the UK, which is about $8M in US dollars. That is approximately 42% higher than the first day of Casino Royale, the first 007 adventure to feature Daniel Craig as Bond, and it…
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The Wildcats will likely win a 2nd consecutive weekend at the box office, but the songs that the kids from East High are singing aren’t nearly as catchy as we thought they would be. High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) only added about $1.9M on Friday (4th for the day), and that may mean…
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High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) is likely to win a second consecutive weekend, but there is a great deal of mystery about how this Kenny Ortega-directed sensation will play out. There were lots of questions going into opening weekend. The thinking was that teens would show up in big numbers Friday night and…
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High School Musical 3 (Disney) has been a very tough movie to predict and project. My original prediction for the movie on October 22 was $35M-$38M. Everyone told me I was way too low. I went online with my Friday number on Friday night at 9:30 p.m., and it was almost dead-right (I announced $16.5M…
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“Go Wildcats!” That’s the cheer at Disney as the High School Musical franchise has effortlessly leapt to the big screen, like a perfectly choreographed Kenny Ortega dance move, with a spectacular $16.5M Friday. High School Musical 3 (Disney) is headed for a $55M 3-day weekend. Some had this picture sailing a bit higher, but, make…
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The very first Oscar precursor every year is the announcement of the Gotham Independent Film Awards. It’s not a strong precursor, but sometimes the oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers have some influence with Golden Globe and Oscar voters. Back in 2004, Gotham voters got behind Maria Full of Grace in a big way…
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The parents of American tweens will not be the least surprised about the certain blockbuster status of High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney). The original High School Musical debuted on the Disney Channel in 2006 with 7.7M viewers, and its soundtrack became the #1 selling US album of 2006. Then came its even bigger…
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Max Payne (Fox) has successfully made the, often-times treacherous jump, from video game to the big screen grabbing an estimated $6.75M on its opening day. That will mean a likely $18.5M opening weekend, which is decent news for Mark Wahlberg and Fox. I received advance word from a couple of reputable critics that Max Payne…