Top Pics Work Overtime Labor Day Wkd; ‘Final Destination’ #1, ‘All About Steve’ #3

COMMENTS (56)

• The studio knew All About Steve was going to be a dud. That’s why they changed the release date to open after Hangover & Proposal. Once those films proved successful, there may have been some hope that audiences would then flock to see Cooper and Bullock in Steve, but nothing was going to change the fact that Bullock was playing a role that should have gone to a younger actress like Anna Faris or even Isla Fisher. Let’s be honest, who was going to buy a 45 year old (actress who at best can play 40) as a flighty airhead chasing a man around the country? As a producer she completely miscast herself as a co-lead.

  And when are producers going to finally accept that Gerard Butler is not a leading man?

  Comment by WawaLisa — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 10:49am PDT  Reply to this post

• Maybe people are sick of old Gerard Butler. Can’t stand the guy. Add that to Ludacris. Sum of that equation = no thanks.

  Reviews didn’t kill Gamer. All About Steve got venomous reviews. Go, Sandy! More female leads please …

  Comment by 18-39 — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 11:36am PDT  Reply to this post

• Wow. To all you bashing “Basterds”, week after week. What do you have to say this week? Glad to see a great movie doing great.

  Comment by Jack — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 2:18pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Amen to that, Jack. It’s strange, but I.B is the feel-good story of the summer: artistic, challenging film with bad buzz overcomes the odds and finds its audience.

    Comment by Ponce de Peon — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 6:45pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’ve seen the Extract trailer numerous times, and I still don’t have a clue as to what it is about…. Not inspiring me to pay $ to see it.

  Comment by Johnsamo — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 2:28pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Nikki, the more you rant and rave about horror movies, the more you get the reputation for being a miserly old fart. I know elitists go for that. Kind of like the asshole studio exec you quoted last week whining about how stupid Americans are for going to see horror movies even though he made them. What a fucking hypocrite. Anyway, I’m glad Final Destination is doing well because it, like The Hangover, is further proof that a movie doesn’t have to have some asshole $20 million a movie “star” to open it.

  Comment by Dorothy — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 5:43pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Aside from all the terribly unexciting movie talk this labor day
  weekend TF2 crossed the 400mil mark making it part of an elite group of movies that have accomplished this. Good to see that after
  all boo-hooing and “nay saying”, bitching, and complaining both
  from critics and viewers that the realest fans in movie nation
  havnt forgot what good old fashioned summer fun is all about. On
  another movie note the new trailer for Christopher Nolans INCEPTION
  has hit the web and i have to say for a teaser that wasnt dosent
  much at all., i found it to be extemely intriguing. I dont know
  about you guys but im pretty excited about this movie. Warner+
  Legendary+Nolan+ Star cast is a pretty good recipe. With a reported
  200 mil budget and being pumpmed as a sci-fi action movie this is
  looking to a big time player next year. Does anyone have anymore
  information on this movie as far as plot and synopsis?

  Comment by Adix — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 6:09pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Actually, Adix, it seems pretty telling that it took THIS long for Trannyfarmers 2 to crawl to the $400 million mark after such a huge debut. It certainly didn’t have the good word-of-mouth that The Dark Knight or even Shrek 2 had, and seems to me more like the results you got from the second Pirates movie in terms of people with free time but little discernible taste still seeing it based on residual good will they had from the first film. If Bay pulls off another turdfest like this one for TF3, expect to see the box office sink lower just like Pirates 3 or The third Matrix film. Oh, and as for “good old-fashioned summer fun” — that was on display in Star Trek, Up or even The Hangover for many viewers, and the results paid off smashingly for them. If you want to claim that for TF2, you’re entitled to do so – but you’re still delusional.

    Comment by Louis — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 11:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • “Transformers 2″ made enough money in the first two weeks to guarantee itself the $400 million gross it would limp to in its eighth weekend. A 61% drop in its second weekend is proof of that, and 40% drops every weekend after that.

    “Inception” looks a lot better than TF-2 — shame we have to wait for summer 2010 to get that.

    Comment by Matt C — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 6:53am PDT  Reply to this post

• District 9 is the greatest movie of the year by far–certainly the best reviewed and still insufficiently praised. A deeply profound filmmaking triumph that simultaneously succeeds as unqualified popcorn entertainment. Hope it continues to rack up box office dough. Couldn’t possibly be more deserved.

  Comment by Dustintime — Sunday September 6, 2009 @ 10:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Photoshop FAIL… Her calves are bigger than her thighs… What an awful poster.

  And yes horror films can be fun. The slasher subgenre is all about rooting for the final girl to stop the killer. Scream was fun. The Texas Chainsaw remake even had a better written female lead. Wrong Turn 2 was also fun to watch. Halloween? No.

  Laurie Strode was so annoying that you could care less if she lives or dies.

  And if that’s the case, why make a movie to begin with.

  Comment by Bruno — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 6:06am PDT  Reply to this post

• The site redesign looks OK on computers, but half the text is unreadable on smart phones because of the brown column on the right. Didn’t they test the new look on smart phones and BlackBerry devices?

  Comment by SmartPhoneUser — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 9:54am PDT  Reply to this post

• Tarantino is second again with a strong showing and you don’t mention it. You shouldn’t brag when your right and then be quiet when your wrong.

  Comment by T — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 2:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Here’s the problem with the biz. You take a movie like “All About Steve”. You give the actress a producer role and give her approval over the director. She and the studio pass on all the capable experienced directors who were brought to them to hire a first-time director whose only experience was directing a few decent short films. Studios feel that it is less “risky” to hire a first-timer who hasn’t had a misfire rather than hiring an experienced director who may have had a few films that didn’t perform. And it’s not only the studios making these terrible decisions. blame also rests on the talent agents who think they are protecting and properly advising their clients on what directors they should work with. These talent agents too would say “my client won’t work with that director” if the director has had some failures, and instead these agents would support their client working with a “hot” first-timer coming from commercials, short films, film festivals, etc… because it’s “less risky” to them too.
  the system needs to be fixed! the best films in the business were made in the 70′s and 80′s where studios worked with real filmmakers, storytellers, not just shooters. studios need to rethink the process.

  Comment by joemama — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 4:05pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @LOUIS,
  I hate to tell you this but 400mil bucks is 400mil bucks, i dont
  care how you want to cookie cut the cake so if there is delusional
  euphoria that prevails it belongs to you. As far DK goes you might
  as well have called Dark ledger because everyone knows that the
  death of Heath Ledger fueled this movie. If he hadnt died,R.I.P.,do
  you really think its making 533mil?…No way. DK was a major borefest that profited from a strange death to a rising star.

  @MATT C,
  I will tell you like i told your friend louis, you make all the
  money in your first week or you stretch it out over 20 weeks.,400mil bucks is well…..well its 400mil bucks.

  Comment by Adix — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 4:09pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Well, even though $400 million is a hefty chunk of change, the bad word-of-mouth essentially torpedoed TF-2′s chances of scoring $450 million domestic (or $500 million). The Dark Knight made that amount of money in less than a third of the time (18 days) and went on to gross another $100 million.

    Word-of-mouth does play a crucial role of a blockbuster’s staying power. Paramount may have won the summer (with TF-2 and Star Trek carrying away $657 million), but Warner Brothers had longevity with “Harry Potter” and “The Hangover” (both are still playing at the first-run theater I work at).

    Comment by Matt C — Tuesday September 8, 2009 @ 11:35am PDT  Reply to this post

    • Dude you cant use bad-word-of-mouth when a movie does 400mil
      domestic, 827mil worldwide. Besides polls were done right here on
      leesmovieinfo that showed 70% of movie viewers found TF2 to be
      awesome and 30% found it to be aweful so im not exactly sure how
      you are rationalizing “bad-word-of-mouth”.

      I can give you the Hangover, that movie has done an excellent job
      and it was very funny but Harry potter..not to sure bout that one.
      By all rights one could reason that it had as much anticipation
      and hype as did TF2 and after a record-breaking midnight showing
      one would expect it to be doing more and it simply has not. The
      same way you spoke of TF2 limpin its way to 400mil i can say the
      same for Harry potter limpin its way to 300mil.

      Comment by Adix — Tuesday September 8, 2009 @ 8:08pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I went to see this for the cast and as a fan of “Office Space”, but “Extract” is no quirky “Office Space”, not by a longshot, and I’m concerned that Mike Judge has only a sequel of “Beavis and Butthead” to redeem himself.

  Casting should have brought this one in, but the script and direction were conventional and lifeless. Standup supporting efforts by J.K. Simmons and Ben Affleck, and to a lesser extent Clifton Collins were apparent, but not enough to jumpstart this snooze fest.

  Bateman, Wiig, Kunis and Koechner left me flat for the most part, and as an aside, Kristen Wiig really needs to break out of her comedic typecasting; time to take some risks.

  Comment by tmay — Monday September 7, 2009 @ 8:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Now that the robot cartoon has passed 400 million, isn’t it time Hollywood did the right thing and replaced the writer’s names with the lead pyrotechnic guy’s in the opening credits?

  Comment by JP — Tuesday September 8, 2009 @ 7:11am PDT  Reply to this post