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SUNDAY AM: Here are Friday, Saturday, weekend, and cume estimates:
1. Pixar/Disney’s Toy Story 3 is the 3D monster everybody thought it would be with $41 million Friday and $37 million Saturday and an estimated $31M Sunday on 4,028 locations, including 2,463 3D screens (of which 180 are IMAX which did $8.4M at 180 theaters or 8% of TS3 overall weekend domestic gross for the biggest IMAX animated film ever and the 5th highest IMAX domestic opener ever). The 3D ticket price advantage made this Pixar’s biggest, swamping previous Pixar 2D opening weekends, including 2003 Finding Nemo‘s $70.2M and 2004 The Incredibles‘ $70.4M. Toy Story 3 will debut to $111M this weekend (with that fat +46% admission price which adds about $18M to every $100M of box office gross). But TS3 was still 2nd to Shrek 3‘s opening. “The Toy Story films are the heart and soul of Pixar,” said Darla K. Anderson, producer of Toy Story 3. Which is why it drew 40% of its non-family audience from young adults ages 17-24 who grew up with the Toy Story characters and Disney targeted them with college screening programs. Also going for it were brilliant reviews with a Cinema Score of “A” and a Rotten Tomatoes tally of “99%” positive reviews. Plus, Fathers Day is a huge moviegoing opportunity for families — “if you have the right movie,” a studio exec reminds me. Which this is, of course. This threequel gives Pixar/Disney their 11th No. 1 debut, the highest June weekend opening in industry history, and only the 3rd animated film in history with an opening 3-day weekend of over $100M.
Day and date overseas, Toy Story 3 made $44.8M, representing 25% of the market, with strong showings in Latin America driven by Mexico, Brazil & Argentina which together earned $20M. China realized $9.5M, the biggest weekend in history for an animated title in this market. That puts the pic’s worldwide cume at $153.8M.
2. Sony Pictures’ holdover Karate Kid, which has been doing surprisingly strong midweek numbers since school let out, made $8.8M Friday and $11.2 Saturday and an estimated $8.9M Sunday from 3,663 runs for $28.5M (and a week’s drop of only -48%). By the end of the weekend, its cume is already $106.2M.
3. Fox’s The A-Team drops -46% from its poor opening a week ago for a $4.2M Friday and $5.2M Saturday from 3,544 theaters and a $13.7M weekend with cume of $49.7M.
4. Get Him To The Greek (Universal) Week 3 [2,592 Theaters]
Friday $2M, Saturday $2.3M, Weekend $6.1M, Estimated Cume $47.9M
5. Shrek Forever After 3D (DWAnimation/Par) Week 5 [3,207]
Friday $1.6M, Saturday $2.0M, Weekend $5.5M, Cume $222.9M
6. Prince of Persia (Disney) Week 4 [2,605 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2.1M, Weekend $5.3M, Cume $80.5M
International Cume $213.1M, Worldwide Cume $293.6M
7. By contrast, newcomer Warner Bros’ Jonah Hex already is such a flop that it’s not even meeting the studio’s low opening weekend expectation of $10M from 2,825 venues after it wasn’t tracking. My sources say it opened to only $1.9M Friday and $1.7M Saturday so it’s hard-pressed to get to even $5M this weekend. As one Warner Bros exec said about the lesson learned; “You don’t take a handsome actor and disgfigure him.” The studio is so embarrassed that it took great pains to points out that the pic was greenlighted before Diane Nelson took over as DC Entertainment prez. About the cowboy with the disfigured face and legend that he can’t be killed, a minor character in the DC Comics galaxy of stars, Jonah Hex was attempted on the cheap. The studio claims the final budget was $35M. UPDATE: But I hear Warner Bros cut the original budget of $80M to $40M right before production with no script changes. Then the studio did 70 pages of reshoots about 6 months ago. That may have added another $25M for a new budget of $65M. Ouch! As one insider tells me, ”the studio looked at the movie a long time ago and wrote it off”.
8. Killers (Lionsgate) Week 3 [2,619 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $5.1M, Cume $39.3M
9. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) Week 7 [1,612 Theaters]
Friday $711K, Saturday $1.0M, Weekend $2.6M, Cume $304M
10. Marmaduke (Fox) Week 3 [2,495 Theaters]
Friday $675K, Saturday $1.2M, Weekend $2.6M, Cume $27.8M
In the specialty business, Fox Searchlight platformed Cyrus, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, in 4 theaters — 2 in LA, 2 in NYC — Friday for $51K with a strong per screen average of $13K per theater. This is the biggest Friday opening of a limited release this year and bodes well for a strong weekend. Saturday’s take was $70K, with a per screen average over $17K, or +30%. Weekend opening was $180K with a strong average of $45,072 per theater. That average makes it the second biggest limited opening of the year. Studio plans to expand it June 25th in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC, Austin, and Toronto. More runs will be added in LA and NY, bringing the total number of theaters to 17. It reaches national break in the 5th week of release starting July 16th. Written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, and produced by Fox Searchlight in conjunction with Scott Free (Tony & Ridley Scott), Cyrus was made for a very modest budget of less than $7 million and employed improvisational techniques for a cast including John C Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, and Catherine Keener.
Overall, it looks like a big $200M moviegoing weekend, way up +33% from last year.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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JONAH HEX (like many other adaptations of obscure comics) was probably never going to be a hit. But the REAL problem is that, once again, Warners tried to take a cult item and force it into their formulaic blockbuster mold. Look, I know some guys in the industry turn their noses up at “little films”-but I think we can all agree that a low-budget film that does a good job of appealing to a limited audience (and thus will have “legs”) is better than spending too much money and gutting the film of all the elements that generated fan interest in the first place. Bottom line: JONAH HEX is a gothic western in the “spaghetti” style with a hero too badass to be toned down. You either do it straight up, with the right people and an appropriate budget, or you don’t do it at all.Because musical-chair directors and reshoots is just an admission that you don’t have a clue.
The Jonah Hex comics – particularly the classic 70s ones – are very good, and the character is an interesting one. A solid movie could have been made from this source material. Admittedly, it’s niche stuff as westerns themselves are pretty niche these days, but developing Jonah Hex as a smaller, more faithful and serious adaptation may have been the better way to go. Instead, they tried to blockbuster it up and appeal to a mass audience – the end result of which ends up appealing to almost no one. I guess the lesson here is know what property it is you’re adapting and don’t let blockbuster ambition override things. Not every comic book or comic book character is the same, and the same approach won’t work for all of them.
Listen, no matter how bad JONAH HEX might be creatively, it can’t possibly be worse than TRANSFORMERS 2.
Nobody wants to see Flash movie. That’s one of the cheapest characters ever. They might as well make an Aquaman flick. That would be a bigger draw.
@MINIMOGUL: Yeah…it couldn’t possibly be worse than the 410mil domestic, 830mil worldwide that TRANSFORMERS 2 did. Yeah guy you make lots of since here. The little miserable, pathetic 6 mil bucks JONAH HEX will gross this weekend couldn’t possibly be worse than a billion dollar franchise that is TRANSFORMERS. Ummm humm…so intelligent you are of the business. I’m sure your post will hurt Mike bay deeply to his heart…not. Do you think he cares at all what you and the hollywood morons think of his work? He’s laughing his way to the bank and people just keep on watching. It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that we are still talking about TRANSFORMERS 2 and we are in the summer of 2010. Get off of it man Mike bay’s movies are cash cows and there’s you and your immature comments can do to stop it. You will be the first on line to see TRANSFORMERS 3 so why don’t you go have a coke and smile and shut the hell up.
“mike” bay as you call him is in a class of one. he has his own stratosphere where he has opened a part of the market that enjoys the eye raping experience of literally touching shiploads of money he has spent to entertain your pleasure centers. i don’t think he is a director or a producer, he is beyond bruckheimer in this field, the the latter created the former.
perhaps p t barnum on his first crack hit with 300 million to spend in 80 days to entertain the world would maybe sort of scratch the surface.
Well, that was certainly an overreaction. Not that you’re wrong, mind you, just that the tone seemed unnecessary.
He didn’t say “Transformers: ROTF(L)” wasn’t successful. He said it sucked.
And who can disagree with that?
I have heard…or shall i say saw worst post written on this forum so i don’t think I’m overreacting. My words are child’s play compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen on here, not to mention some of the racial comments that make there way to a movie forum. That’s another topic, another board, another day. The point that I’m that making is that here we are in 2010 and we are still arguing over TRANSFORMERS 2. Why?? That’s the real question that begs to be answered. Another thing is just because a movie doesn’t make “530mil(DARK KNIGHT)” or “700mil+(AVATAR)”, it isn’t a success and that’s simply not true because lets be real here not every movie can make that type of money. I’m just saying let it go already guys. Of course I’m going to defend the movie but what’s so annoying is that it keeps getting brought up and there’s reason to do so. We are in a different year, with different movies, and different results so lets act like instead of bringing up the past all the time.
“Do you think he cares at all what you and the hollywood morons think of his work?”
He obviously does if he tried to blame the WGA strike for his shitty lack of taste.
“Get off of it man Mike bay’s movies are cash cows”
Not always. See The Island. They also had to keep Pearl Harbor in theaters for six months before it made its money back.
ADIX, dude, you’re jumping up and down for the $800mil T2 made, but the point people are trying to make is the better the story, the better the box office. Proven by the 1.1BILLION the Dark Knight made… or the gajillion Avatar made.
Yeah, it was eye popping but there was no way in hell I was going to see it at all cause it’s all just noise. Now imagine if they took a little more time to make a good story. I would have gone. I WANTED to go. I grew up on Transformers. But no, I had better things to do with my time, like watch paint dry.
So read the actual posts dude. Absorb them. And Chillax. It’s not that serious.
Where you get the the Warners insider from? More like corporate spinmeister. The budget on Jonah Hex was close to 70 mil when they filmed the first version last summer. Then they did the 25 mil in reshoots in january and february. If they were writing it off, why did they spend another 25 mil less than 5 months ago?
Not only that but every bad decision had the Warners development team’s fingerprints all over it, The decision to go for a PG-13 rating after Watchmen tanked. The choice of the director from Horton Hears Who. The casting of a guy who isn’t a star and several actors that are straight up BO poison. (Megan Fox, Will Arnett) The original decision to film a comic book no one gives a damn about outside of the the Comic Con crowd.
Film cost close to 110 mil when everything was said and done and it will lose close to 100 mil.A complete disaster.
Wrong on this. The budget was in the 35-40 million range and until the first cut was seen, was touted by the studio as a new model of economical filmmaking. So much so that ‘the Jonah Hex model’ was a box that the studio was trying to force other budgets int
Rob’s right–Brolin and Fox are no more responsible for JONAH HEX’s failure than Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson were for THE ISLAND tanking. (In fact, Brolin is one of the few good things JH has because he makes more out of the character than the writing/directing does.) The problem with both was the script–and the writers’ inability to really run with the material’s potential.
Um, yes they were. Ewan’s stiff as hell, and hasn’t made any money outside of the prequels, while the only reason Johanssen is still relevant today is because Woody Allen saved her career.
Had thought I was the only one who held those opinions on the aforementioned ‘stars’.
“You don’t take a handsome actor and disgfigure him.”
THAT’S the lesson they learned? Good thing that none of them were involved with “The Dark Knight.”
Oh wait…
The movie is called Jonah HEX — enough said.
it was hilariously stupid to expect Jonah Hex I mean Wild Wild West II to do shit at the box office
honestly are all the decision makers just doing line after line of coke and hoping for the best? cuz that’s what this looks like
The lesson learned is that you “don’t take a handsome actor and disfigure him”? Really?? That’s the lesson here? How about “don’t make garbage no one would ever want to see.”
I like Josh Brolin
I don’t hate Megan Fox
I like westerns
I like sci-fi
I like the occasional fun popcorn picture
I have zero interest in this movie. Not a flicker.
I would love to see the research numbers (and they do a lot of this) that said that this property would have ANY segment appeal. I am right in their wheelhouse and I will catch it on cable sometime. Or maybe on a plane.
The only way this had boxoffice legs at that budget is if you were giving it to a noted B-movie guy such as Besson’s crew, Roderiguez or Raimi. Even Paul WS Anderson if you were desperate. People who know how to make this stuff work as cheap thrills.
Bad idea from beginning to end.
/will check out the comic book now though
Exactly. Exactly!!! I tick off the same boxes, but my first natural instinct upon seeing the trailer was “stay away.”
Sometimes you see a stupid trailer and think, hey, it’s just a marketing misfire, and you still want to see the movie. Not here.
Perhaps it was because they sold no story… just popcorn moments? Maybe it’s true that they wrote off the movie and this is the trailer you get in that case, but with a better trailer, they could have tricked me into that movie.
Yeah when I read that I facepalmed. Execs are so. freaking. clueless.
Dear WB, THIS is why it failed. Listen. Learn.
1. It was based on a little known comic.
2. It was starring an unmarketable cast. You may have a hard-on for Josh Brolin, and he’s a great actor, but the average Joe & Jane DON’T CARE ABOUT HIM. And Megan Fox should show all of you that being a good pinup does not a successful draw make.
3. The script was a joke.
4. The directing stunk.
5. The film was mismanaged from beginning to end.
6. It was a western. People haven’t cared about westerns in DECADES.
Uh, 3:10 To Yuma would like to have a word with you.
3:10 to Yuma made $53 million domestic and another $16 million world-wide. So, no, Westerns are not that profitable.
And there is a reason. Westerns appeal to … White folks. Who view it as the founding myth of the nation. Tough, honorable, rough men and women settling a violent West against despicable sorts of all kinds, backed up only by a six-gun and a rifle.
When America was mostly White, and crucially not ashamed of itself, Westerns were all the rage. You could not shake a stick at the Movie Screen or TV screen and not see a Western.
Now America is far less White, and pretty much ashamed of itself, its founding, and its people. It is not the 1950′s, or even the 1960′s. Bonanza and the Rifleman are not on TV. Hollywood can’t even make a movie celebrating much of anything about America, not even Superman can stand for the “American Way.” It’s elided to “all that.”
For Westerns to work, you need belief in the past, faith in the future, and pretty much a mono-ethnic society in the present celebrating the past as a gateway to future triumphs. With America of today and the future, Mike Judge was right. The future Oscar Winners will not be SWPL fare like Benjamin Button or Ghandi, but “Ass” (from IDIOCRACY).
Yes the Western is dead. Demography and SWPL-ism killed it. Its not ever coming back.
color me gobsmacked — this is the most lucid, non-racist post you’ve ever put on this website, Mr. Whiskey. That sound you hear is the deafening roar of one-handed applause.
Um. “Unforgiven” – Best Picture. Huge hit. “3:10 to Yuma” – big hit.
“Deadwood” – huge hit on television.
America was NEVER “mono-ethnic”, you white supremacist lunatic. Most action movies made today are simply retreads of the “Western”, anyway – same themes, same characters, same everything. The America you’re talking about NEVER EXISTED. America has ALWAYS been a society of immigrants and different races. Good God, I feel like I’m talking to a babbling child…Are you actually PINING for the days when black people were lynched? SERIOUSLY? SERIOUSLY?!? And America is not “ashamed” of itself – YOU may be – because you appear to be SAD that we don’t have SLAVES anymore.
Good lord.
Perfect comment. And absolutely right.
I think you mean the directing “stank.”
In using “stank,” LL proves to be a victim of the “Disnefication” of America. It started when Disney named its movie, “Honey I Shunk the Kids.”
Let’s get real here for a second. Pixar hasn’t made a good movie since The Incredibles. They used to make great movies (the first TWO Toy Story’s, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles).
Last year’s Up was a downer…Wall-E was out-of-this-world bad…Ratatouille was about a rat pulling a guy’s hair so that he can cook – How moronic can you get with such a storyline…Cars was a remake of Doc Hollywood, only with talking cars…
…And now, I’m sad to say, Toy Story 3 is just downright depressing! Not only does it continue the string of disappointing Pixar films, but it also continues the crappy year of movies in 2010.
Maybe I put too much pressure on Toy Story 3 to deliver. After all, I loved the first two Toy Storys. And I knew this was the one movie that would not fail me this year…
Maybe it was the “waste-of-my-and-everyone-else’s-time short film” that they had at the beginning of Toy Story 3. Take my word for it. Wait about 10 minutes before you walk into the theater. That little short Pixar film “night and day” is plain annoying and might just put you off for the rest of the viewing experience.
Maybe it’s the “movie with a heart of gold” that makes Pixar movies so bad lately. The Pixar films had their heartfelt moments before…But I think maybe it’s just been forced with the last few movies.
Anyway…I know I won’t see the next Pixar movie…CARS 2! Oh the horror! Unlike the first Cars being a remake of Doc Hollywood, I heard that this second Cars is a remake of Doc Holliday and the shootout at the O.K. Corral…
Oh, by the way…The new Disney movie “Tangled” looks like it’s a tangled mess of a movie…I’m just soooo depressed with the bad movies from this year! From Iron Man 2, to Clash Of The Titans, to The A-Team, to Shutter Island, to Toy Story 3…One disappointing movie after another…
Inception is the one I’m hoping can really deliver now…Maybe even The Last Airbender? I don’t know…Maybe I should just wait until all these movies come out on DVD.
Please tell me there is someone else out there that is just pissed off at what Hollywood has offered so far this year. I know most of you are going to tell me I’m an idiot, but I just don’t get what people have seen in the last 5 Pixar movies.
What was so bad about Wall-E? You’re right in that Up was a bit of a downer after the first 15 minutes, but you make it seem like all these Pixar films are on the level of Catwoman. Cinematic masterpieces? Debatable. Watchable films? Sure.
“Wall-E was out-of-this-world bad.”
Now that’s funny. I guess its 96% score on the tomato meter doesn’t mean anything, its half a billion dollar worldwide box office was an accident, as well as its Oscar, because *you* didn’t like it. I guess there always has to be that one person who finds fault with something that is overall loved and respected.
Toy Story 3 was great. It was full of fun visuals, clever payoffs, a smart story, humor, and yes, some heart. Its core audience is kids and families, but I think they did a good job of walking that fine balance of having something to offer for everyone. I agree that hollywood has given us all crap movies this summer, but Toy Story 3 is not one of them.
Exactly! That’s what I don’t get! Wall-E has a 96% Fresh rating on Rottentomatoes. Up and Ratatouille both also have around the mid 90′s fresh rating. And all three of the movies are not good.
Wall-E had the biggest drop from opening weekend to second weekend out of all Pixar movies, so that shows that interest from the audience fell quickly. Wall-E had the fourth biggest Pixar opening weekend, but ended up being the 7th top grossing Pixar film by the end of its theater run (domestically). It made $20 million less than the movie that many consider the worst Pixar movie, Cars. And that’s after Wall-E opened slightly higher than Cars.
I’m just having less and less faith in critics. Every year, right from the first Toy Story, I believed the critics when they said these Pixar movies are great. So I went to see them, and realized they were GREAT!
Now the critics are still telling me these Pixar movies are great…But the truth is that they are not. That’s all I’m saying. Pixar hasn’t made a GREAT movie since The Incredibles. And with the exception of Up, the box office of the rest of the movies since The Incredibles shows that the public don’t like the Pixar movies as much as they used to either.
Now, I know Toy Story 3 will probably be the top grossing Pixar movie of all time…But that still doesn’t mean that I have to like it. It may be the best Pixar movie since The Incredibles, but the competition is pathetic. It is clearly not in the same field as the first two Toy Story movies…Those are the classics!
To each his own. I personally didn’t like The Incredibles as much as everyone else…
But Wall-E was an instant classic, and UP was one of, if not the best movie last year.
@ Black Chick
I think it is safe to translate Charl’s comments as:
“Uh-duh, Wall-E was a terrible movie because it made my brain think, and Up was so bad that it actually made water come from my eyes.”
I’m another one who doesn’t quite get the appeal of The Incredibles. My favorite Pixar film now, and probably always, is Ratatouille. Unfortunately it didn’t get much love because people say, ‘Rats in the kitchen? Yuck!’
Charl – I can tell you the most likely reason they are making Cars 2: Cars merchandise is a worldwide top seller.
You’re an idiot, Charl. Clearly, films with heart and amazing storytelling aren’t your cup of tea.
Ok then…Tell me the “amazing storytelling” of Ratatouille…You do realize it’s about a rat that controls a human by pulling his hair…By pulling this human’s hair, he makes the human cook food…Please explain the logic to me.
What is the great storytelling with Cars? It is a blatant rip-off of Doc Hollywood. There is not an ounce of originality in that movie.
Up may be an original idea, but it’s about a man that floats his house to South America with balloons…With FRICKIN’ BALLOONS! Hahaha
Are you understanding my reasoning here? Just think about it. Really think about the stories.
Now, Wall-E had kind of an original idea, but it fell flat once we got to meet the fat people in space. Wall-E was cute to begin with, but then it just got “weighed down” by the fat human element.
And now with Toy Story 3, there are no real memorable scenes that stand out. I’m not going to go into detail, because I don’t want to ruin it for those that haven’t seen it yet…Well, that, and because I don’t really remember that much from the movie because it was boring. Yes, the Mr. Potato thing was funny and the scene with Buzz Lightyear close to the end was good, but other than that, the movie is forgettable.
The original Pixar movies had heart and amazing stories as I mentioned before. There is no comparing Up, Wall-E, Cars, Toy Story 3 and Ratatouille to the original hits (Toy Story 1 and 2, Finding Nemo, Monster’s Inc. and The Incredibles). I actually didn’t like A Bug’s Life because that was a rip-off of The Three Amigos (A town getting the help of actors to fight off the evil invaders).
Maybe my problem is that I didn’t get too attached to my toys when I was a kid. Oh, wait, that can’t be it. I liked the first two Toy Story movies.
Just look at the box office of Cars, Ratatouille and Wall-E. You will notice that they all fell behing the pace set by the first Pixar movies, especially if you take inflation into account.
Yes, Up did well, although it was helped by 3D prices. And Toy Story 3 should blow all previous Pixar movies away with its box office.
All I can say is that I am rooting for Toy Story 3 to do well, because I don’t want Twilight 3 to be the top movie of the summer! hahaha
Um…Wall-E and Ratatouille were both fantastic, huge hits, and are loved worldwide. If you didn’t like them, hey, to each his own.
I agree with you about Cars, though.
Rotten Tomatoes (RT) is looking more and more like hacks.
THINK PAY-O-LA.
They pick and choose what reviews will get a good or rotten tomato. If the RT suits like a film they will seek out only the good reviews and disregard the bad ones just to keep the high percent rate. Sometimes a review by a prominent critic is mostly bad but RT chooses a sentence within the review to give it a good tomato.
Look for yourself…
To each his/her own, but I think Pixar’s only gotten better and better–WALL-E, Up and Ratatouille are absolutely wonderful films, and so is TS3.
Inception does look awesome, though.
“Wall-E was out-of-this-world bad.”
The first half – the silent half – of Wall-E was nothing short of cinematic genius. It was as good as anything Buster Keaton ever did, and I think Buster Keaton is a god. I’ve heard studio executives who I had thought had no soul moved to tears by UP – reviving the very feelings of what made them get into the movie business in the first place. Read the reviews of Toy Story 3 by the top critics out there. Sorry Pixar isn’t living up to your expectations but it’s safe to say you’re pretty much alone.
Yup, the first half of Wall-E was amazing.
I am a movie guy, not a film guy (I see movies as a form of entertainment not art). WALL-E is one of the few examples that made me grasp why the film folk are as passionate as they are about making it as art.
You have a cube, an ovoid, and a coach roach that say 4 words for the first 40 minutes of a film. They manage to pull you in for that amount of time, so much so that when the overstuffed couch people enter the film it is nearly an annoyance. Watched it again last night with my 9 YO niece and still picking up little things that PIXAR did with his movement that are astounding for attention to detail.
Not certain what the above complainer wants to see from Pixar, but PIXAR is cranking out amazing work.
Let me clarify:
Charl sucks at watching a good movie.
I’m glad to see everyone else professing their love for the Pixar movies. Pixar is one of the only studios getting it right anymore.
One good thing about Megan Fox’s descent into oblivion: Within the next few years she’ll be one of those actresses that is forced to do nudity in a movie to seem relevant and to make some money (recent examples: Meg Ryan and Neve Campbell)…And no matter how much people hate her right now, I know there are some of you out there that would still like to see her take it all off for the camera…Hahaha
Have you seen Megan lately? Lends credence to the idea that Bay didn’t let her go due to personal beef, so much as she’s wasting away, while at the same time tweaking her face into something not even recognizable. look at the recent premiere pics, and compare those with the megan from even a year ago. sad.
Best film of the year so far. Isn’t it amazing what you can get when you hire writers and come up with a story everyone wants to see . Hollywood needs to go back to the drawing board ,stop the rehashes of old crap that nobody wanted to see and be ORIGINAL again. This will be one of the best film Oscar nominees – wonderful , and very deserved
there is a fantastic article in the current issue of ‘Creative Screenwriting’ magazine about the writing and story formation process Pixar went through, starting from hunting down Michael Arndt (the Oscar-winning scribe of “Little Miss Sunshine”) to take a stab at TS3. In the article, Arndt says the way Pixar assisted with hashing out the the Toy Story 3 story was one of THE BEST experiences he has ever had as a writer.
Note to Hollywood: Films live and die on good STORY and SCREENWRITING. Without either of those elements, not even the best producer, or director or, in the case of non-animated films, actor/actress can do a damn thing to elevate the material.
It really IS that simple, folks.
If you want to blame anyone for JONAH HEX, blame screenwriters Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.
They couldn’t write a coherent script to save their lives.
They can’t direct either, which is why HEX is as “good” as it is in the hands of the HORTON HEARS A WHO guy.
CRANK 1 and 2, and GAMER. Atrocious films. Seriously, What was WB thinking going to these guys? GHOST RIDER 2 is sunk for sure.
Crank was pretty bad. I rented it, thinking “hey it has Statham, he was tolerable in that other action film, how bad can it be?”
BAD. I watched it, stupidly, to the end. Possibly one of the worst written movies I’ve seen in my life. It literally had no point. Just action scenes with no emotion put all over the place. I literally cared about no character whatever.
Films this bad have an impact. They burn customers and make them think — pretty much everyone in Hollywood outside Pixar is a talentless hack who can’t make a decent film. There’s probably some halfway decent films that just did not get sampled enough because of stuff like this.
Important Note- Jonah Hex exec was GREG SILVERMAN, the guy who is now getting so “tough” at Warners.
Hey Nikki – where is your story about this runaway production and the “exec who lost control of it”? $65m+ budget, $25m in reshoots, multiple writers, a toxic cast and director, and it won’t make $6m?
Maybe it should go in premium, because I’d pay to read that article.
I wonder what the mood of thinking is on the Cowboys vs Aliens set?
I’m betting that movie does more than great. I wouldn’t worry about it.
COWBOYS VS ALIENS is in big, big trouble. It’s been decades since the public liked westerns and they never liked westerns mixed with sci-fi. (see WILD WILD WEST, and JONAH HEX)
COWBOYS VS ALIENS will bomb so hard. DW is realizing it, but there is no way to fix it now. The film is flawed at its very conception level.
Toy Story 3 is one of the best films ever made. It is a shoe in for an Oscar nomination this year
and may be a live dog.
bfagoa,
Brad Bird is directing the next Mission: Impossible, his first non-animated (though, this will probably have a lot of CGI)
Everyone keeps saying Megan Fox’s 15 minutes of fame are up because of this movie. If you saw the film, you’d see she was barely in it for 15 minutes. I’d like to believe the thing that killed the film was the marketing, which was probably bad because how the hell were they supposed to market this?
Damnit WB….you’ve learned NOTHING from Jonah Hex. Its not the fact that you “disfigured” a handsome actor….after all,that worked out pretty well with Heath Ledger. Its the fact that you treated your own property like it was garbage-the Jonah Hex comics are great…but you made a Jonah Hex movie with no money and no talent. I love the comics…but I wont even watch this piece of crap when it hits cable. I will be first in line to buy the DVD featuring the Jonah Hex cartoon and starring Thomas Jane though……
I think the problem with the disfigurement was that it was on the lead character who has a love interest with a beautiful woman. I know that I as a woman was repulsed when they showed Brolin kissing Fox. No woman in the audience would think that was sexy. You can have “sexy” scars on a character. This scar was repulsive. And Heath in Dark Knight didn’t have a love interest. He was a supporting character. And all of this hate for Fox is just because she’s a beautiful woman who stood up to a sexist pig director. I’m sorry she’s reduced to kissing a guy with such as nasty scar.
Great, Peg- shun the disfigured. Why not kick a kid in a wheelchair while you’re at it?
Don’t forget, outcast troglodites need love too.
I don’t think the scar was even repulsive enough. Make up didn’t do anything a damn thing about the enlarged left eye that’s supposed to be nearly hanging out of his socket.
~
Coat
Oh, and another reason why Hex didn’t work for me was that he was a Confederate soldier. Hollywood always makes Confederate soldiers the heroes in westerns. For many Americans that’s akin to making Nazi soldiers the heroes in WWII movies. For some reason, Hollywood is sympathetic to Confederate soldiers. I’m not.
why is everyone blaming poor megan fox for this? she’s just an actress.
meanwhile, the fox execs who handed the fantastic four reboot to akiva goldsman (worst batman, the losers and now jonah hex!) to produce might want to rethink….
Megan Fox is now box office poison.
Will not be seeing hex, but would pick that up !
I hope this doesn’t kill Warner’s on doing more DC comics properties. I think the execution and marketing were really bad on this movie. Not one mention of the story or what the movie’s about in any of the trailers. The trailers focused on Jonah’s face and that’s probably the one thing you didn’t want to focus. They might have been better off marketing it as a straight up western instead of some kind of vague summer action movie.