10/15/09

Box Office Breakdown: With its bloated $70 million star-studded production budget, romantic comedy Couples Retreat brought in a stellar $35 million in its opening weekend, edging out last week’s cash cow, Zombieland, which took the No. 2 spot this week with $15 million in sales, upping it’s total draw to over twice it’s $23 million shooting budget. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs took No. 3, bringing its four-week total to just under $100 million, while the Toy Story 3D double feature and Paranormal Activity rounded at the Top 5. Paranormal, which was more or less shot on a camera phone and edited using a graphing calculator, is all set to be the fall season’s breakthrough hit, bringing in almost $8 million last weekend while only playing on 160 screens (about $44,000 per screen, incredible when compared to Couples $11,000 per average). Look for this Blair Witch inspired supernatural mockumentary/thriller to see even more attention - and dollars - as we get closer to Halloween. Not exactly cinematic eye candy, but certainly a film you won’t soon shake. Chris Rock’s Good Hair bombed (as expected) while the Coen Brothers’ said-to-be excellent new dark dramedy, A Serious Man, brought its two-week total up to just under $1 million while only playing on 21 screens. (Okay, Focus Features, we bite, time for a wide release!) An Education tested well, averaging $40,000 per screen in only four theaters nationwide. 

New This Week: Rejoice! Director Spike Jonze’s third feature film, Where the Wild Things Are, finally hits screens this week to much anticipation, equally from children, childish adults, cinephiles, casual moviegoers and stoners. Based on the classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak, the film adaptation of Wild Things has been in the works since the early 90s. After turning down a number of directors’ efforts to get the project going, Sendak contacted Jonze after seeing his Being John Malkovich. Jonze agreed to do the film adaptation, quickly going to work, releasing a teaser trailer as early as 2000. What has happened since Jonze signed on in 1999, you ask, that could fill the last 10 years? Well, lots. Enough for a trilogy of making-of documentary films, easy. A few highlights: Jonze and his team saw over 25,000 youths auditioned for the lead role of Max; after several failed drafts, Jonze and novelist David Eggers adapted the 25-sentence book into a 111-page screenplay; a huge amount of footage was shot and tested, then sent back to Jonze, eventually with a much larger budget; effects teams came and went; etc. And so finally, here it is, what is likely to be a new screen classic, armed with an excellent Karen O soundtrack and more promotion than I imagine Jonze ever expected one of this films to see. Oh, and F. Gary Gray’s new thriller about a man who takes justice into his own hands, titled Law Abiding Citizen and starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, hits screens this week. Whatevs. A number of other films will also see limited release, but hey, this week is all about the Wild Things. Look for this flick to make major dollars.

The Buzz: ScreenTime’s favorite time of the year is just around the corner. Late October through early January is historically when all the studios release their Oscar bait. ScreenTime tends to love Oscar bait. Without going into too much detail, here’s a list of 2009 films set to vie for “New Classic” status (some of which may end up hitting screens in 2010): Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox; Lars von Trier’s Antichrist; Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon; Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island; Almodovar’s Broken Embraces; John Hillcoat’s The Road; Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro; Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare At Goats; Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done; Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones; James Cameron’s Avatar; Tom Ford’s A Single Man; Todd Solondz’ Life During Wartime; Jason Reitman’s Up In the Air; Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes; Miguel Arteta’s Youth In Revolt; Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles; Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers; Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls; Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmas A Tire-Larigot; Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart; Neil Jordan’s Ondine; Rob Marshall’s Nine; Richard Kelly’s The Box; Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone; Don Roos’ Love & Other Impossible Pursuits; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful; Nicholas Jasenovec’s Paper Heart; Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass; Maria Nair’s Amelia; Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax; Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last and so, so much more. ScreenTime is most excited about the Jeunet, Linklater, Anderson, Inarritu and Kelly flicks, in that order. (Note: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, a long-labored familial epic starring Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, has once again been pushed back. Ugh.) Looks like this was the right year to up the Best Picture nominee count. Better go jump on IMDB.com and do some research, geeks!

New to DVD: All 122 episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Streets” (that’s 97.5 hours spread over 35 discs) will hit shelves this week. Repacked and said to be remastered, the set is a bit pricey at most outlets but, from what I’m told, is worth every penny. The latest Transformers film, which happens to be 2009’s highest grossing release, also hits shelves. It’ll sell big, no doubt. Cult classic Withnail & I will finally see a Blu-Ray release while the complete “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” will hit shelves with a hefty price tag. Also out: “The L Word: The Final Season”; a 10-disc Bob Ross painting instruction set; minor indie hits The Elephant King, On the Line, The Last Homecoming and Teenage Dirtbag; season five of “Numbers”; a few generic looking horror flicks; The Crew; and a handful of workout and wrestling flicks. Look for a whole lot of big name releases in November and early December.