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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Mamma Mia! Talk about a spicy meatball: now that’s one fair weather 3-D toon! By comparison, all the big Hollywood stars of the moment flopped in their 2-D films despite allowances for middling releases. Although you wouldn’t know that by the spin every studio has given me this morning. Do they think I just fell off the turnip truck? So let’s get down to the numbers.
1. The beloved children’s book turned Sony Pictures Animation’s movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs scored an easy No. 1 by attracting not just kids but also tweens, teens, and twentysomethings as well as parents to North American screenings at a record 1,828 3-D sites (which did $18 million), including 127 Imax locations (which did $2.45 million). That’s why four-quadrant family films like this are such a favorite of Hollywood. All day and night, Sony kept upping its box office predictions as the money just kept rolling in. By Sunday, the studio was looking at a total $30.1M opening for the weekend – $8.1 million for Friday’s in 3,119 theaters, and $13M Saturday. The Saturday matinee family bump really kicked in (+65%)! Cloudy scored a CinemaScore of “A-”, and “A” for the under-24 set. Plus, the marketing campaign for it was sassy (not stupid like too many other family films). Overseas, where Meatball opened in just a few territories, it debuted #1 in all the markets, including the UK, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador.
2. Warner Bros’ R-rated caper comedy The Informant! featuring Matt Damon in a tour de force performance playing against type (bumbling vs Bourne), and directed by Steven Soderbergh (who can’t, or more likely doesn’t care to, direct a cash cow anymore) was a distant No. 2. But with a CinemaScore of only “C-”, it opened to $3.6M Friday and $4.5M Saturday in 2,505 runs for a paltry $10.5M weekend. The lack of box office will hurt any Oscar chances. Good thing the pic was cheap to make: the budget was only $22M in a 25/25 split with two partners, Groundswell and Participant. Problem is no film these days is cheap to market.
3. Tyler Perry’s holdover I Can Do Bad By Myself for Lionsgate placed 4th with a $3.1M Friday (-65% from a week ago) and $4.6M Saturday for a $10M (a -57% drop from its No. 1 position last Sunday) and new cume of $38M.
4. Relativity’s and Universal’s 50/50 mawkish romance Love Happens (even the execs expressed embarrassment by the lame storyline) showcasing Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart placed 3rd with a weak debut of $3M Friday and $3.2M Saturday in 1,898 venues. With a CinemaScore of “B”, it opened to just a $8.5M weekend. In her last 3 wide release films, Aniston has helped open pics to $26M, $36M, and $39M. But Universal points out those were comedies, not dramas dealing with loss. And all were more costly. Half this production is covered by Universal partner Relativity Media. Even with audiences staying away, because of this pic’s financial structure, “anything over $7.5M puts Universal in a position to make a tidy return on its investment,” an exec spins. “This is because the studio has limited exposure on this film. The negative cost was covered via foreign pre-sales. Not a financial flop by any means.”
5. And not even Megan Fox’s body could tempt moviegoers into Twentieth’s R-rated feminist horror flick Jennifer’s Body, DOA with $2.8M Friday and $2.6M Saturday from 2,707 dates and a CinemaScore of “C-”. It did a pathetic $6.8M weekend for No. 5. As a 20th exec emailed me, “Jennifer’s Body only cost $16M and is the last of the Fox Atomic films.” Thank gawd. Worse, it shows that screenwriter Diablo Cody may be filmdom’s one-hit wonder.
The rest of the Top 10 this weekend were holdovers.
6. 9 (Focus) Week 2 [2,060] Wkd $5.5M, Cume $22.7M
7. Inglourious Basterds (Wein/Uni) Wkd $3.6M, Cume $109.9M
8. All About Steve (Fox) Week 3 [2,159] Wkd $3.4M, Cume $26.6M
9. Sorority Row (Summit) Week 2 [2,591] Wkd $2.4M, Cume $8.8M
10. The Final Destination (Warner) Week 3 [1,805] Wkd $2.3M, Cume $62.3M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Anniston’s done. Not giving Brad the baby he wanted was the biggest mistake she ever made. Now she’s over 40 and looks, well, kinda pathetic.
Though I’m no fan of Diablo Cody’s (what is her real name anyway?), is it really fair to blame a screenwriter for a movie’s failure? Since when do people go to see a movie because of the writer (unless they’re also the director)??
Go back to PerezHilton.com, loser.
For one who’s angered by dumb people, it’s kind of ironic that you never actually countered any of my assertions nor did you answer any of my questions…
well said. I think anonymous is on the wrong site for statements like this. what does Aniston having or not having a baby have to do with the box office of her latest movie?
RE: (From a previous post in this thread…)
is it really fair to blame a screenwriter for a movie’s failure? Since when do people go to see a movie because of the writer (unless they’re also the director)??
XXX
My answer is this: you’d be on solid ground to raise this question, but when you are 1) Diablo Cody, who got most of the success for Juno as its writer and 2) you are touted in movie posters for Jennifer’s Body as the creative wunderkind above the other “talent”, then, HELL YES, you can be blamed for a movie’s failure, especially when the faults in this recent mess is clearly a writer/structural/genre problem. I once heard a screenwriter say that the paramount issue for a writer is to have solid STRUCTURE. I think, Diablo Cody is a wonderful dialogue writer and stylist, but she does not have the command of structure that other, more seasoned writers have. But I have to admit that her dialogue is something fierce. She’s perfect…..to write a blog.
And when does the screenwriter get props or draw a crowd. Um, can you say Charlie Kaufman or Nora Epron or Orci and Kurtzman, the dynamic duo behind every BIG SCREEN summer tentpole as of late. Yes, a name can, and does, matter.
Oh, good Lord. A woman, over 40, who doesn’t have a baby or a husband, and therefore no reason to live. She should just kill herself!
Seek therapy, anonymous. It’s you who needs it, not Aniston (one N, by the way).
Jennifer’s Body flopping might throw a monkey wrench into Diablo Cody’s plans to segue into directing. The failure of the film also proves that people will tolerate Megan Fox only when she’s being overshadowed by enormous CGI robots or posing for a mens’ magazine. She’s not an “above the marquee” talent, something that will be further cemented when her future attempts to headline films are met with the same audience apathy and financial ruin. Her comparison to Angelina is malapropos because she doesn’t have that level of acting talent or the provability under her belt to lure in female moviegoers.
i like to hate on people as much as anyone, but in diablo cody’s defense, the script of jennifer’s body (at least the version i read) was much better than the movie it became. i remember the script as fun and funny, but the movie is about as fun as a punch in the nose.
I don’t know what script you read, but the script sucked. It was legitimately flawed and Diablo rewrote on set so much of the blame can fall in her lap. Oh wait, can’t say it because then you’re labeled a “hater.” Not a hater but the script was not good.
Apparently, predictions that Megan Fox was the next Angelina Jolie were overrated. Men (and teenage boys) might like to ogle her body, but apparently not enough to pay money to see her in anything other than a Michael Bay action flick.
This was her chance to shine and despite a HUGE marketing push… it flopped.
Once she stops making “Transformers” movies (which may be sooner than later thanks to her outspoken diss on Bay), I predict a quick fall. Remember when Denise Richards was the hot new thing?
As for Diablo Cody… she’s been a master of hype since the beginning. (Supposedly, she hired a publicist before even getting an agent!!) Her exaggerated stripper claims got her in the door, but I think she’s got a bigger future with her Entertainment Weekly blog. After all, JUNO was little more than a Lifetime movie with snappier dialogue.
I remember another young female writer with a colorful backstory… anyone else remember Riley Weston?
I wouldn’t worry about Diablo Cody’s directing aspirations being de-railed. She’s in the door and part of the machine. She has Uncle Stevie in her corner just like Shia does (and Drew did). Once you have his mensch-like tentacle around you, you get what you want in Hollywood.
She’ll pretty much get to do what she wants to do and survive this flop which they are already blaming on Megan Fox.
Yes, string Soderbergh up. How dare he try to make a movie that isn’t paint-by-numbers. Would you rather see more movies made like Wolverine or Transformers that are calculated to bring in movie but suck? You’re definitely part of the problem and not the solution, Nikki Finke.
Everyone knew Jennifer’s Body was a stinker. The script read like syrup. Same as Juno. Diablo is a one hit wonder. United States of Tara was only greenlit because Alexa Junge agreed to be the showrunner. Alas, her very quiet departure from the series last spring, just after they announced its renewal, will show the world how horrible a writer Diablo really is. I know Showtime isn’t happy right now.
Did the industry actually think society would fall for this new manufactured voice of a female filmmaker like they so blindly did back in 1997 with Ben and Matt “writing” Good Will Hunting?
Sorry, but no. Just like Ben & Matt, if they can really write something like that, why don’t they do it again??? Maybe Alvin Sargent and William Goldman will crank out something for them and Diablo to put their names on.
Another conspiracy nut. Why would Damon and Affleck write something again ? Affleck is coming in movies and focusing on directing…. and family.
Damon is a huge star and getting great offers.
Matt and Ben wrote Good will hunting because they thought it would help them break into the big time, it did. They have no reason to write another movie.
Well done. You cracked it, kid.
Not the Ben and Matt stuff – the stuff about “Tara”
“Cloudy…” is a laugh riot. Honestly, the joke to minute ratio is off the charts. Congrats to Phil Lord and Chris Miller for one of the funniest movies in recent years.
And the opening credit, “A film by… A lot of people,” very very nice.
you are insane – there were maybe two laughs – the movie is pathetic
Anonymous couldn’t have seen Cloudy. Anyone who has seen Cloudy knows better.
Only two? Really? What were they?
I’m shocked that you’re shocked that Diablo Cody is a one-hit wonder.
The Informant! did just fine. I don’t think anyone will be crying about that. To the poster above, I both read the script to Jennifer’s Body and saw the film. The film is a very good representation of the script, and I thought both were really fun. 16 million is exactly what it cost, by the way. As for Love Happens, it’s a miracle it made what it did based on the subject matter and the reviews. Aniston should get credit for that, not jeers.
I think one lesson that (I hope) Hollywood will take from this is that it’s THE STORY that counts in this day and age. Make a film about something that seems amusing or interesting (or is based on something else that is amusing/interesting), and people may give it a chance.
Make what seems like a silly/dull film with lots of “name” people (actors or writers) and the audience isn’t going to go for it.
Megan Fox hasn’t shown that she can carry a movie. Jennifer’s Body sounded too challenging for Diablo’s still-growing skill set (trying to do a comedic horror film with satirical elements is a bit much for a second film).
Love Happens sounds like dreck. When will studio execs realize that just because someone is a tabloid queen doesn’t mean people will show up to see them in the theater? (HJNTIY and Marley and Me weren’t successes because of ANY of the cast members but because the BOOKS were bestsellers).
And I don’t care how much you like the Bourne films, if Matt Damon isn’t doing Bourne, then there’s no guarantee the audience will show up. The Informant! sounds like a fun rental but not worth the ticket price for the theater.
I have no problem with Diablo Cody’s doing interviews; I didn’t see a ton of them. Megan Fox, on the other hand, was grating on my last nerve by Friday. She tries WAY TOO HARD to be shocking.
Just my (long-winded) 2 cents.
Nikki I thought your site was a spin free zone, Has the Huvane brothers got to you too on behalf of Anniston?
The last release she had without a big male lead was Management which did not even make $1m. The dog movie was promoted on the back of the cute dogs and never had Anniston on the poster or most of the TV promo.
At least $30m was spent promoting this movie, so how exactly do they make their money back with a $7.8m opening weekend?
Anniston cannot open a movie and the sooner she goes back to TV the better for her.
I agree 100%. I too want to know why Nikki gives Jennifer Aniston a pass while dogging on Damon and Soderbergh. At least they’re risk takers who try to make intelligent films. Aniston’s PR team earns its paycheck because no other Hollywood actor has been given A-list status without actually earning it. Aniston shared a screen with Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck, and Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly and SHE is the one who gets the credit for the movie’s success. I’m still scratching my head over that one. Then comes Marley & Me, another best seller where the marketing team makes the calculated and admittedly smart decision to keep all humans off print adds and billboards. Just present a really cute puppy with a red bow around his neck and hope people forget Aniston and Wilson are in the movie. Again Aniston is given credit for that one. As time goes on I’m more and more convinced that people treat Aniston like a slow witted child who gets a gold star for remembering to wipe her butt. The bar has been set that low.
[i]The last release she had without a big male lead was Management which did not even make $1m. [/i]
This wasn’t a wide release. It was limited and NO promotion from trailers, etc. Most people didn’t even know Jennifer had a new movie coming out that’s why ‘Management’ doesn’t get mentioned here or in most articles regarding ‘Love happens’. ‘Love happens is being compared to her previous wide releases, Marley, HNTIY and The break-up. However those had the advantage of being rom-coms wherease ‘Love Happens’ was a drama with no known director, no hype over the film, no famous book, which is tough to sell. It basically relies on the likability of the co-stars. Looking at the numbers on Friday ‘Love happens’ had the second biggest per screen average so the movie didn’t do bad at all considering September usually has very poor box office.
‘Cloudy with a chance of meatballs’ did really well but the high numbers can also be atributed to the 3D showings which are more expensive. Had this movie opened on a summer it would have been looking at a 50-60M opening.
What are you talking about I saw trailers and ads for Management. I also seem to recall Aniston promoting it on talk shows. Isn’t that the one where Steve Zahn asks to touch her butt and later parachutes into her pool? That was all over the place. What was the point of that promotion?
I think people are right about the spin. Universal is spin central. “Limited exposure” in its financing means limited profits for the studio. Do you really think the financial backers don’t get a proportional return on their investment?
Love Happens had tons of marketing and promotion so I think you have to easily double the $18 million figure – and as we all know there are other costs apart from production and marketing that normally come out of the BO. Unfortunately the days of counting on dvd sales to reap a windfall are over. Those numbers have been dropping steadily.
Maybe the real news is that they couldn’t open Management wide at all and it should have gone straight to DVD. But I’m sure that preventing that kind of embarrassment was part of Aniston’s contract. You also have to ask yourself why they couldn’t get Love Happens into more theaters. Those are the telling points for any talent.
Glad to see Nikki is out of the hospital and back at work.
I agree, all of Annistons movies are heavily promoted, she’s just not movie material. She can’t compete with Julia & Sandra in romantic comedies, and as far as dramatic, forget it. I just saw Derailed on cable, she was AWFUL. If she’s good at sitcoms why not do them?
I don’t know why the studios waste the money on her…..was that part of the divorce settlement? a few movies guaranteed.
and now she’s going to sing in her next movie!
To Maria, Jimmy, Oscar, Guy, Jake, Pete, Dan et al – same poster, am I right?
Thought so. Not sure Nikki is the ‘hysterical’ one here.
Meanness, sorry I’m just me. Not posting under different names. So, no, you’re not right.
Cloudy with a chance asshole, enjoy your life defending crap movies and being lazy/dumb. BTW, this is not actually Dan — it’s your mom.
People are taking the Soderbergh comments a little too personally. The article is analyzing the box office, not the quality of the films. The Cinemascores have nothing to do with critics, it’s from audiences who are polled after the movie. I loved The Informant!, but clearly a lot of the audience was expecting something a bit more mad cap, and they got a slow burn.
If The Informant had been released by Searchlight or Focus — we’d all consider this a reasonable success. Instead, it doesn’t feel like a Studio flick so it somehow becomes a failure despite (according to most sources) for having been made at a speciality style budget — and that may be right, because if they spent Studio level p+a on the film, they’ll now get cold feet overseas and all in all, lose money. Now, that would be a shame.
Love Happens IS awful, JUST AWFUL. Releasing a tropical bird into the Pacific Northwest to die? Pretending to be deaf is funny? Touching your hair pulling it over your frozen in place facial nonexpression in every scene like in every movie she has done is supposed to be acting? This film like her last film Management will not make any money no matter how PR is spun. Jen Aniston is not funny, is not believable, cannot act, and she and Aaron have no chemistry. She needs to go back to tv sitcoms where she belongs, and Aaron needs to take more care in choosing his films.
Don’t mess with Michael Bay. He’ll bring the beat down on you Megan!!! Too bad this industry is run by a bunch of MBA’s and lawyers. For all their focus groups and mathematical formulas to determine which star who would bring in the most foreign pre-sales, they have left out the most important element, Filmmakers! Not A-List directors or stars. Not high concept scripts or franchise films with endless sequels. No. The studios need to back Filmmakers who have total command of their script, casting, and physical production. Filmmakers who love this country and want to tell stories about what is great in our world. But I guess they rather continue losing money with overrated directors, telling uninspired stories, in the most saccharine way. Where are the William Wellman’s!
All due respect, Tai, but first of all, if you go to the very top of the Hollywood food chain, you’ll find very few people who have MBA’s or JD’s. Most of the old guard who are at the highest levels are hustlers who maybe had some college education. I think of my time spent at a couple of agencies and the people at the very top usually only had high school diplomas. It’s mostly middle management who are the more educated (and since when did earning an MBA or a JD become a bad thing??)
And as for who should be running the show, I think it’s got to be a combination of both the artists and the businesspeople. Artists tend to not have the most business sense and businesspeople tend to not be creative enough and too risk-averse.
Im so glad Jennifer’s Body was tanked. Both Megan and Daioblo seemed to hit the lucky train. Megan, hit the jackpot with Transformers–highlighting her body and hiding her lack of talent–while Juno was also a lucky draw. Megan portraying a cheap copy of Angelina JOlie to the media in interviewa was pretty sad. Get your own personality Megan and stop being a bitch to the man that made you famous. No one likes their boss but we don’t bitch about it publicly. Especially if you’re making millions. You are unique–you’re not Angelina–there are millions of girls waiting in the wings waiting to see you fall. Just waiting to take your place.
“Jennifer’s Body sounded too challenging for Diablo’s still-growing skill set (trying to do a comedic horror film with satirical elements is a bit much for a second film).”
Okay so exactly what would be okay to do for a 2nd film exactly? The subject matter is not exactly Godfather material. It’s not really something that has never been attempted before.
/
Doing something that is just comedy (so you can focus on making the film funny), or doing something that is straight horror (so you can focus on making it scary) would be more straightforward.
Trying to balance the two is more complicated. And satire, of course, is difficult in its own right.
That’s how Jennifer’s Body ended up being not all that funny, not at all scary, and the satire is kind of lost in the mix.
kusama may be the one hit in all this… Since Girl Fight, Aeon Flux??? Ugghhh….
It is so clear that Aniston cannot open a film on her own. All her hits are films with the more popular leading men like JIm Carrey, Ben Stiller and the Dog.
All her movies with lesser known leading men like Mark Ruffalo, Clive Owens, Steve Zahn, and Aaron E, flopped.
If she is that bankable, her movies which are all ligt comedy or light drama and never R rated, should do very well, and they are normally heavy promoted. And yet its proven once again, without support of other more popular stars, Aniston is nothing!
I agree with you. Plus, and I believe Nikki has said this before, but Aniston is not a film star. She’s a TV actress who happens to be cast in films (why is beyond me).
However, if Hollywood wants to waste their money by putting her in films, then I wish them luck. It’s not my money so I don’t care.
I wonder how long it will be, though, before Hollywood requests a federal bail-out because of all the flops that Aniston has been in.
What has been a disappoint and deception on the part of Wilcox Cinemas is they put up the posters of Inglorious Bastards,Jennifer’s Body and they don’t open in these small markets like backward Vicksburg Ms. This has been done in the past when Regal UA Cinemas and now non-existant Village Entertainment did it. Well the Meatballs movie did open and Gamer as well. But to advertise posters trailers is bad business. Why? it only makes the audience anticpate the movie coming that opening weekend. But Wilcox has been facing stiff competition from the Madison and Clinton Cinemas. They still have thier hold on the Vicksburg marketplace. Becouse the teen market is going to there over Vicksburg. Why? Wilcox has made another mistake of holdover of Halloween 2 which isn’t doing so well. I suspect too when Vicksburg lost it’s only cinema eighteen months ago distrubtors too immediately overlooked this market. And this cause startup cinemas to play catch up with thier competition.
Yeah, how ’bout that siege of Vicksburg by General Grant. Man, that sucked, huh???
the bourne audience had a built in audience because the author. like john grisham. it didn’t matter that matt damon was the star.
Damon’s performance in The Informant! is amazing. Really exciting work from a great actor.
Jennifer’s Body failed because of a very simple reason – it’s rated R.
Megan Fox appeals mostly to junior high school guys.