“Karate Kid” Remake Starts Shooting
I am late to the party on this one, but The Karate Kid remake starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith has started shooting.
Ummmm.... what? Jackie Chan is a goofball, Jaden Smith is 11, they are calling it Kung Fu Kid for some stupid reason (at least according to the article linked to above), and the director is responsible for crap like One Night at McCool's. This doesn't add up. At last check, The Karate Kid was a commercial successful ($90,815,558), Oscar nominated (Pat Morita, Best Supporting Actor, 1984) classic that spawned a 4 film franchise. Doesn't it deserve a little more respect than a name change and a shitty director?
I am not thrilled.
Bruno Takes Number One
The Box Office Numbers:
- Bruno $30.4M
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $28.5M
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $24.2M
- Public Enemies $14.1M
- The Proposal $10.5M
- The Hangover $9.9M
- I Love You, Beth Cooper $5.0M
- Up $4.6M
- My Sister's Keeper $4.1M
- The Taking of Pelham 123 $1.6M
Not really a surprise considering how wildly popular Borat was, however it's reign at the top will be short due to Harry Potter coming out this week. Speaking of which...
Out This Week:
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- (500) Days of Summer (limited)
- Homecoming (limited)
- A Woman in Berlin (limited)
Smart move on the part of all studios not called Warner Bros. refraining from releasing anything this week. Personally, despite the fact I know it's going to be terrible and that an endorsement of it pretty much means I can be ridiculed for having terrible taste, I am interested in seeing Homecoming more than anything else this week, although A Woman in Berlin is probably the honest-to-goodness best release of the week. But all that aside, Harry Potter 6 will probably make $150 million over the weekend.
I Was Wrong
Ice Age 3D was good enough to tie Transformers 3 with a $42,500,000 weekend and a $67,506,000 five day take. Nothing spectacular, however it was a ridiculous drop for Transformers 3, demolishing any chances it may have had to be this summer's Dark Knight. My big surprise for the weekend box office was Public Enemies pulling $26,172,000 over the weekend and $41,044,000 over 5 days. I don't expect to see those numbers continue because word-of-mouth is saying "okay, but boring and too long."
Box Office Report for July 4th Weekend:
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $42.5M
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $42.5M
- Public Enemies $26.1M
- The Proposal $12.7M
- The Hangover $10.4M
- Up $6.5M
- My Sister's Keeper $5.2M
- The Taking of Pelham 123 $2.5M
- Year One $2.1M
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian $2.1M
Out this weekend:
- Bruno
- I Love You, Beth Cooper
- Blood: The Last Vampire (limited)
- Humpday (limited)
- Soul Power (limited)
If I had to make a pick of the week, I'd say the mockumentary Humpday looks semi-promising, as it's hard not to make a good comedy about porno. As for top of the Box Office, I'll roll with Bruno.
First Episode of “The Cleveland Show” Leaked
A quick look at the usual places reveals that the pilot of The Cleveland Show, the upcoming spinoff of Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, has leaked and is available for download. Fox has a really good preview of the show on Youtube:
This actually looks funny, thank god. As big of a fan of Family Guy as I am you cannot call me a Seth MacFarlane fanboy at all, because American Dad and the Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy are mildly funny at best.
Good LORD That’s a Lot of Money!
So now that Transformers 2 has made $201,246,000, where is all of the "will it beat Titanic" talk? What about the "does it deserve a best picture nomination" bullshit? Hell, I haven't even seen it get props for spanking X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation's totals in it's first five days.
Oh that's right, Megatron didn't off himself.
For the record (just in case all of that record breaking madness starts up when it makes another $100 million this week,) it's not going to touch Titantic. The new Harry Potter is coming July 15th and crashing that party.
Out this week:
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
- Public Enemies
- The Girl From Monaco (limited)
- I Hate Valentine's Day (limited)
- Lion's Den (limited)
- Local Color (limited)
I don't think Ice Age has the muscle to dethrone Transformers, but it'll definitely rake in some dough. Public Enemies is the one I want to see more than anything. Lion's Den looks to be the best of the bunch for the limited releases.
Oscars to Have 10 Choices in Best Pic Category
From the announcement on Oscars.org:
"The 82nd Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 7, 2010, will have 10 feature films vying in the Best Picture category, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis announced today (June 24) at a press conference in Beverly Hills.
'After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,' said Ganis. 'The final outcome, of course, will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.'"
I don't like it.
This is going to crush any chance of films like Crash or Slumdog Millionaire have of winning the award for a long time. The problem is exposure. Check this out:
1. Last Five Best Pics and Their Worldwide Box Office Numbers:
- Slumdog Millionaire - $359,247,749
- No Country for Old Men - $162,113,329
- The Departed - $289,847,354
- Crash - $98,410,061
- Million Dollar Baby - $216,763,646
Total: $1,126,382,139
2. Highest Grossing Movies for the Last Five Years (numbers are for the Worldwide take)
- The Dark Knight - $1,001,921,825
- Spider-Man 3 - $890,871,626
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $1,066,179,725
- Star Wars Ep. III - $848,754,768
- Shrek 2 - $919,838,758
Total: $4,727,566,702 (numbers from boxofficemojo.com)
The highest grossing movies for the last 5 years have made 4 times as much as the Best Picture winners. Hell, Pirates alone was just shy of the total mark of all 5 movies. This is an obvious attempt to include more popular films a part of the marquee category, and then in turn get a boost in the ratings. But take 2007's Crash as an example. You add five more films to the pool that year, it doesn't get enough votes to pull the upset over Brokeback Mountain.
I'm just saying, you start putting bullshit comic book movies in a category that pretty much guarantees a film immortality, it fucks the whole thing up. I saw Frost/Nixon because it was nominated for Best Picture. Add five more nominees, I probably overlook it.
It also takes away my ability to bitch about snubs (American Gangster, Wall-E.) THAT is what I am really pissed about.

