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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: This was a tough weekend at the box office for one new major studio tentpole opening on a long Martin Luther King weekend but not for another which met the lower end of expectations. The 4-day holiday overall is looking -25% down from last year’s:
1. The Green Hornet 3D (Sony Pictures) NEW [3,584 Theaters]
Friday $11.1M, Saturday $12.7M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $34M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $40.5M
Saturday’s take was up +15% from Friday’s, which relieved Sony fears tonight. 
It seemed a miracle that this much bad-buzzed big movie that’s a modern adaptation of the old radio series about the legendary action duo – Britt Reid (with the unorthodox casting of Seth Rogen) and his resourceful Kato (with Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou) not to mention their coolly equipped The Black Beauty – was tracking very well for weeks now. But then rival studios emailed me Friday that The Green Hornet was surprisingly underperforming. Sony execs disagreed. They said things could have been worse at the box office Friday but the West Coast was “pushing it way up” with late shows. And just as they predicted, Saturday’s number jumped. Friday’s post midnight screenings were light — $550K on 700 plays — because Sony didn’t push them. Meanwhile, The Green Hornet earned a “B+” CinemaScore overall but an ”A-” among audience members under age 25. The audience skewed male (61%) vs female (39%) and age was evenly split over and under 25 (50%).
The debut is the 2nd highest opening ever for a film ever released during the 4-day holiday weekend in January and the 3rd highest debut ever for a 3-day January bow. But given the higher 3D ticket prices and PG-13 rating and superhero genre, these grosses are still on the lower side of Hollywood’s $40M-$50M expectations. Then there’s the $120M-$150M production cost: blame reshoots and the release delay from December 22nd to January 14th so Sony could give the flick a 3D makeover. As for the marketing plan, “we really worked hard to create a summer film launch in January,” a Sony exec told me. Personally, I hated those cheezy Carls Jr promos but they helped create awareness. Pic had a strong presence with ads during key NFL and College Bowl games, plus the NBA. And a high impact outdoor campaign with a glow-in-the-dark logo effect plus “real” headlights on the image of The Black Beauty which toured in 20 markets and starred on Myth Busters and in U.S. auto shows. Rogen (who lost a lot of weight to play the role) and Chou each did an enormous amount of PR/appearances to support the film.
2. The Dilemma (Universal Pictures) NEW [2,941 Theaters] B
Friday $6.1M, Saturday $6.8M,
Estimated 3-day Weekend $17.4M, Estimated 4-day Holiday $20.6M
This is a shockingly soft opening for a Ron Howard-directed movie starring proven box office strongmen Vince Vaughn and Kevin James whose last four comedies were mega-openers (Four Christmases – $31M, Couples Retreat – $34M, Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $31M, and Grown-Ups – $40M). “Somehow putting them together gets you half that,” one rival studio exec snarked to me Friday night. I readily admit to being relieved to see Vince cool off at the box office because he’s such a pain-in-the-ass to almost everybody in the filmmaking process. On the other hand, The Dilemma was Universal Pictures chief Adam Fogelson’s first release of his new greenlit movie slate. But, seriously, what Big Studio mogul would not have okayed that talent combination in a PG-13 comedy? (Although I think Ron Howard should have deleted that gratuitous gay slur scene which was cut out of the trailer after protests that it was offensive.) The pic’s CinemaScore was a “B”. Given that this film’s production budget was $70 million, Dilemma has a long way to go but Universal believes it’s “performing at or slightly above tracking” which was forecasting only high teens because of poor tracking in recent weeks. That’s soft for the pic’s respective cost and a disaster for the reputations of Howard, Vaughn, and James. The disconnect, insiders tell me, was the storyline. “The subject of infidelity is a really challenging one,” one exec explained to me even though the studio’s own pre-release publicity points out that Vince has consistently proven to be a popular draw in comedies that take a look at the issues of relationships. ”At a tie when people are looking for wish fulfillment, this may be too painful.” Other insiders are complaining to me that “this pic was meant to be a comedy with some drama, and it turned out to be a drama with some comedy”. Universal is also distributing the film internationally and it opens day and date in Australia, New Zealand, and Romania. In April, Universal begins rolling it out to the rest of the world.
3. True Grit (Paramount) Week 4 [3,459 Theaters]
Friday $3.2M, Saturday $4.5M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $10.5M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $12.5M, Estimated Cume $127.7M
Wow, the Coen Brothers’ Western just keeps going and going as it rides to awards wins.
4. The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Co) Week 8 [1,543 Theaters]
Friday $2.4M, Saturday $3.8M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $9M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $10.7M, Estimated Cume $46.3M
This Oscar-touted film doubled its screen count this weekend.
5. Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Week 7 [2,328 Theaters]
Friday $2.4M, Saturday $3.2M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $8.1M, Estimated 4-day Holiday $9.9M, Estimated Cume $74.7M
This is a big expansion for this awards-praised pic, adding 750 locations.
6. Little Fockers (Universal) Week 4 [3,394 Theaters]
Friday $2M, Saturday $3M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $7.1M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $8.3M, Estimated Cume $135.4M
8. Tron: Legacy 3D (Disney) Week 5 [2,439 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $2.4M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $5.7M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $7.4M, Estimated Cume $158.6M
9. Yogi Bear 3D (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,702 Theaters]
Friday $1M, Saturday $2.4M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $5.2M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $7.3M, Estimated Cume $84.1M
7. The Fighter (Relativity/Paramount) Week 6 [2,414 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $2.1M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $5M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $6.1M, Estimated Cume $66.7M
10. Tangled 3D (Disney) Week 8 [2,408 Theaters]
Friday $840K, Saturday $1.7M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $3.9M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $5.7M, Estimated Cume $182.7M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Five misses in a row for Sony, are they the new Fox?
Ummm, let me check the devil’s filing cabinet…
…okay, no, their soul’s not in there.
ha, ha, ha. Funny.
Things I learned from Deadline:
1) Allan Loeb is a terrible writer, who cannot write a joke, and is also farming out his work to other people.
2) Seth Rogen is still not well liked, thin or fat.
3) Gay isn’t cool in The Dilemma, but paging Dr. Fagg*t is high art in a Todd Phillips movie. Also, the very first joke in Old School is the f-word. Todd Phillips (or Bunzi or whatever his real name is) is fine in this regard.
Good grief, it’s like Universal just can’t do ANYTHING right. The Dilemma was barely, and poorly, marketed.
As for Green Hornet, how is anyone surprised? Been saying it for awhile, PEOPLE ARE SICK OF REMAKES AND ADAPTATIONS! And if you’re just gonna blatantly ignore audience trends and make a film version of a classic action drama tv show, you don’t turn it into an action comedy and throw some “it boy” chunky comedian in the leading role. Two lessons here which should have been obvious already but perhaps FINALLY will be now:
1. People are tired of remakes and adaptations.
2. Seth Rogan is not a bankable leading man.
Thank you, and goodnight.
One movie does not a trend make.
Twilight? Harry Potter? Iron Man? Alice in Wonderland? Any of these films ring a bell?
6 of the top 10 US domestic releases of 2010 were remakes, adaptations or sequels – 11 of the top 20, 17 of the top 30, and 4 of the top 5.
No, people are not tired of remakes and adaptations.
Just don’t add THE A-TEAM to that list.
115 million dollar budget and over 100 to market.
total box office:
77 domestic
99 international
I finally saw it and know why now…mediocre at best…IMO…and I guess a lot of other people too. Even my roommates who are action junkies said….”meh”.
Uh…”one movie?”
“The A Team?” “Predators?” “Last Airbender?” “Nightmare on Elm Street?” Any of these films ring a bell?
Sure, a lot of the top grossing movies are sequels/remakes/adaptations, because that’s where the major studios are pouring all their money! The biggest stars they can afford, the biggest most expensive productions they can afford and then marketed to all holy hell. It’s inevitable a lot of this bloated crap cracks the top 20 in pure box office gross, that doesn’t mean audiences are liking what they see or that they’re peforming up to studio expectations.
Anyone paying attention can see that most of the films everyone’s talking about and audiences are responding to and are over-performing relative to their budgets are ORIGINAL MATERIAL. (“Inception,” “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “King’s Speech,” “Social Network,” etc…etc…).
And steve, as usual, is being an idiot.
Run the numbers.
119 films grossed over $20mil in the US in 2010 – 53 original screenplays, 40 adaptations, 17 sequels and 9 remakes. Just based on that information, if people really were “tired of remakes and sequels” you’d expect original screenplays to skew towards the higher end. They don’t.
The sequels made, on average, $60mil more than the original screenplays. The adaptations made, on average, $12.5mil more than the original screenplays. And the remakes made, on average, $1.7mil than the original screenplays.
Even if studios are overspending to capture that $1.7mil extra that the remakes are earning, that still doesn’t alter the fact that audiences are still attending these films more than they are attending original screenplays. I repeat, people are NOT sick of remakes and adaptations.
You’re not sick and tired but the rest of us are.
Yes, people are tired of retreads.
america loves remakes and adaptations. don’t be an idiot.
You’re naming book adaptations that were hugely successful and practically demanded a film version. I’m talking about taking every random tv show, video game, old movie, comic book, etc with niche audiences or outdated premises, and remaking/rebooting, re-everything-ing it. It’s absurdly out of control and the audience knows it and is sick of it. If you think they’re not you’re completely out of touch with the audience, which means you must work for one of the studios….
Ironically, Hollywood is still managing to convince some movie goers, but people like you and I, we know better. Great post
The Dilemma was not barely marketed. As a result of the gay slur scandal, most people knew about the film, they just chose to to pay good money to see it. It’s a hack premise, looks about as funny as cancer, and feels tired and old. You are right about one thing: Universal seems unable to do anything right.
There’s a new wave coming.
Green Hornet wasn’t real classic TV. The show was canned after one season. Only reason it’s remembered is the theme song and Bruce Lee being allowed to do 10 seconds of Kung Fu action each episode.
It’s not nearly as beloved as the Adam West version of Batman.
When was the last time anyone thought the Green Hornet was that great of a character?
I won’t speak for everyone, but I am sick of remakes. Most are on the bad side in my book. There are only a few I would call equal or better, but in most cases that still doesn’t qualify as great on it’s own. I really wish Hollywood would stop it.
I’m not quite as sick of adaptations. There has been some good comic adaptations. Some of the contemporary comic adaptation like Scott Pilgrim and kick ass have been been some of the only remotely original material that Hollywood has put out as of late.
Novel adaptations are a different beast. Books and movie stories are told in such different ways, it just doesn’t always translate. FYI the novel adaptations I have enjoyed most are the ones I haven’t actually read the book. The ones I have are always a harder sell.
As for the Green Hornet movie, it was obviously written specifically for Seth, so he could just do his usual schtick. Rather than be true to the character or expect Seth to act. I’ll wait for it to come to video to watch that one.
The film was a hit. By your measure all films are failures. Maybe 10 will make more this year. You should wait for ROgan to lose money before you dismiss him. Your just jealous since you’ll never have a film open for 40 million IN JUST THE OPENING WEEKEND in your whole life. Frankly, I’m not impressed. I’ll stick with Seth.
And that 40 mil you speak of is hardly going to pay the light bill. You know squat about numbers, 40 mil is close but not really. The numbers should be higher and they’ll continue to let you see how much they’re making because that’s the only thing impressive about these films anymore but we’re not impressed by numbers, just actual cinematic ability. CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I walked out of Hornet after 15 minutes. I’ve seen some bad movies in the last 12 months, but this was a whole ‘nother animal. Thought about getting a refund, but saw True Grit had just started across the hall, so I went and watched that a third time.
All in all, I left happy.
I never even made it into the theater for Green Hornet. When I went to buy a ticket and was told that it was $5 extra to see it because it was in 3D I turned around and left. I WILL NOT be gouged by theaters and studios like that.
You should be ashamed of yourself for actually getting dressed and spending gas money to get there. Ten Lashes With a Wet Noodle!
Right on, brother! That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what we ALL need to do.
The posts are really unfair to Seth Rogen, and are mostly personal attacks. I don’t understand the hatred for the guy, after all, he is a comedian, and should not be taken so seriously as a “leading man” which everyone seems to be blaming him for playing in the Green Hornet. I mean, is Rogen a real ass in person and treats the crew like crap?
Can somebody tell me how Owen Wilson is getting $15Mil a picture?
by “loving” Brian Grazer’s “idea”. Everyone should have his agent.
Glad to hear someone got a return on their money.
I’m in my 40′s and I barely remember the original GREEN HORNET!! How did SONY expect success without a branded Asian Kung Fu artist/ actor like Chan or Jet Li??
It does appear that Hollywood should probably give up on the “Golden Age” heroes — The Lone Ranger (1980), The Rocketeer, The Phantom, The Shadow, the Spirit…all bombs
No one should be surprised by the low performance of Green Hornet. Rogen is not a leading man. The hero is someone the audience should want to emulate – who wants to be a pudgy, unshaven slacker? Yes, there have been heroic slackers before (Bill Murray, John Belushi, etc.) but they retained a charm or cleverness that is missing in Rogen’s performances. He is a supporting actor.
The Dilemma? The problem there is that there isn’t a dilemma. Watch the trailer. Should you tell your best friend his wife is cheating on him? There’s a question over this? Seriously? Of course you should. The pitch stinks. Bad pitch = bad opening.
Answer is not as cut-and-dried as you might think. I told and my friend got pissed at ME.
Exactly.
Seth Rogen as a superhero…the idea alone deserves Five Squating Dogs on my rating system. Everything about this project has looked horrible. Watching Seth Rogen promote it (if he is) must be like watching a painfully-accurate sketch from SCTV.
Someone “should have deleted that offensive gay slur” in The Dilemma??? Saying a car is “gay” is offensive? To whom: the UAW? If anything, that non-existent trailer controversy from a few months back helped contribute to people skipping this opening (there was a lot of disgusted discussion about it on talk radio; people remember). What happened to ballsy film execs capitalizing on controversy, instead of running away from it like pussies? People are more than tired with this knee-jerk P.C. bullshit.
Yes, using “gay” as a pejorative is offensive.
Whether the line should be in the movie, because “that’s how people talk”, is another issue, but the underlying statement is offensive.
I thought “gay” meant “happy and carefree.”
How did you get an internet connection and computer in the 1940′s?
But Kevin — doesn’t being one of the ones yielding to the encroaching tide of Political Correctness bother you even a little bit?
And please bear in mind before you answer that all the usual, faux-outraged replies like “It’s not about being Politically Correct, asshole, it’s about not being INSENSITIVE.” (Applause!!!) and “Uh huh, and I suppose you’d love for Sambo, Spick and the N-work to still be acceptable too, huh?” (Applause!!!) etc. — contribute little to the conversation.
Thanks, Kev.
I think when you say something is offensive, you really have to qualify it, because we live in a diverse world.
The joke in the movie is offensive to a tiny band of angry, unpleasable whiners and funny (as Vaughn delivers it) to everyone else.
Just to clarify.
In the context it was used it was a gay slur and offensive. Welcome to the 21st century…..a little late to the game, Kevin.
Okay, let’s start calling diarrhea ‘Donnarhea’ instead. Then maybe you’ll understand. If you can’t figure out how it’s offensive to equate ‘gay’ with ‘bad’, you must LOVE the movies Hollywood is offering lately.
Here we go with the PC talk. This is pure BS and pure political correctness to the core. You didn’t see the movie if you think it was gay bashing. So stop commenting on something you never even seen. The movie clearly states that electric cars are gay. Even in the movie they say they don’t mean anything against gays. Of course the gay mafia only thinks gay has one meaning so they are blinded right there.
Grow up, get a sense of humor, and stop trying to pass your PC talk on someone else.
Donna chose to be honest and tell things like they are, and for that you felt obligated to liken her to a pile of runny bodily waste?
If were forced to think Jay’s Way or the Highway…I’m hitting the road.
“‘Donnarhea’” See, now that’s funny. I don’t have a problem with you making that joke, because I learned that ridiculously old cliche about “sticks and stones” a long time ago — something pressure groups and faux-offended pantywaists abhore because they like to manufacture fake outrage to get over on other people. Everybody is hip to that scam today; it doesn’t work anymore. Free speech — all speech — for everyone; no double standards.
So lighten up, Mary.
I’m a bit baffled that someone who knows how to use a computer is still unclear on this point in the 21st century, but I’ll try to explain: using “gay” to mean “bad” is offensive to gay people because it implies– see if you can follow this– that being gay is bad. If you’ll explain to me where you’re getting lost, I’ll try to break it down further.
As a thought experiment, I’d urge you to mentally replace the word “gay” with “Jewish” and see if the objection still strikes you as silly. If Hollywood started releasing movies where protagonists referred to things they didn’t like by saying, “Man, that’s so Jewish,” would you still be scratching your head, wondering why people were offended?
Are you being willfully obtuse?
I just have a queer sense of humor.
And it’s Rose for the win.
Somehow it always comes back to anti-Semitism. Gotta love the media.
Here’s a point that Rose won’t have the guts to rebutt because it exposes a fatal flaw in her (cough, cough) “logic”.
This is what she posted earlier today: “As a thought experiment, I’d urge you to mentally replace the word ‘gay’ with ‘Jewish’ and see if the objection still strikes you as silly.
Fair enough, but I ask you to try a little “thought experiment” as well. You ready?
Try swapping out “white” for “black” in the title of Michael Moore’s famous “Stupid White Men” and see how it hits you viscerally.
Because I suspect that a title that was formerly kind of charming in a self-effacing, “white liberal guilt” kind of way is suddenly incredibly offensive now. And before you decide to lie and say, “No, it isn’t” please ask yourself if you can imagine ANY MAJOR PUBLISHER putting a book out with the title “Stupid Black Men.”
The answer is No, you can’t, when in reality, if one is acceptable, the other should be too. (And no, Maher-for-brains, this isn’t a “false equivalency”)
The fact is, in a society that truly values liberty — as opposed to PRETENDING BOTH should be acceptable.
jewish is a religion. gay is a lifestyle. not a parallel argument.
“Free speech” generally means that the government can’t censor a person. “Free speech for everyone” isn’t much of an argument in relation to people discussing whether it is a good idea for a studio to use a blandly offensive (and unfunny and cliche) ‘joke’ to market a big-budget wide-release ‘comedy.’
Oh, Donna Donna Donna. You HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. Gay kids have a hard enough time acclimating to life without having the word that means more to them than any other word in the world also being used as a synonym for ‘undesirable’. I realize that you, apparently, didn’t grow up gay. I’d understand your forcefulness about this topic if it weren’t for that usually common trait called empathy. Have you none?
I promise you — the new use of the word ‘gay’ is faggot-lite.
Yours –
Mary
(who happens to look like a linebacker)
Donna, so you’re not offended, fine. But free speech cuts both ways. You’re free to say it’s not offensive. Ron Howard is free to make a lame movie (currently a whopping 25% at rotten tomatoes) with a joke made at gay people’s expense. There are those of us who are free to be offended and not go to the movie. Freedom of speech means you don’t get thrown in jail for saying what you want when you want. It doesn’t mean others don’t have the freedom to object.
It’s weird, those airbrushed cartoon characters in the poster kinda look like Vince Vaughn and Kevin James.
omg ..I thought exactly the same thing!
I was driving down Lankershim when I saw the Dilemma billboard and thought, “Is that a picture or pure CGI?” If only they can CGI their way out of a bad movie, but Lucas has already proven you can’t.
Bye-bye Vince Vaughn and Kevin James!
If only that was true!!
By all accounts, Vince Vaughn is such a pain in the ass that this is probably a very good thing. Not that he’ll ever become humble from it (are you kidding?).
There are a few actors that look like they reek of old booze even from a billboard. VV is one of them.
Why would I pay fourteen dollars to watch a person I would pay fourteen dollars to avoid in real life?
Hollywood, the reboot, coming to you by 2012 (fingers crossed)
Pffft. Those guys aren’t going ANYWHERE.
“Bye-Bye Vince Vaughan and Kevin James”
Really?! That’s gotta be some sort of joke. Since the two became comic leading men (Vaughan after “Old School” and James after “Hitch”), how many flops between the two of them?
I think that they’re allowed one under-performer.
The Dilemma is just another case of screenwriter ALLAN LOEB and his lame storytelling skills striking again. After I saw his writing on display in Wall Street II and later in The Switch I swore up and down I would NEVER see another movie he had written.
When The Dilemma rolled around, though, I figured it can’t be that bad, right? After all, it is directed by Ron Howard and it stars Kevin James and Vince Vaughn. Should be a home run? Well, halfway through, the movie was imploding. The taffy-thin premise of the story was stretched and stretched until it snapped right before viewer eyes. I heard someone in the row in back of me say, and I quote, “this movie is a piece of dog (poo)” I wanted to get my money back but was on a date and didn’t want to seem cheap-o. THAT was my Dilemma, the only true one related to this flick.
Mr. Loeb, please oh please get out of the romantic comedy business because you aren’t good at writing these kind of movies and other than the movie 21 your writing is horrible. Sorry. But true.
As for the Green Hornet, it is laughable that Hollywood execs thought a lame movie would somehow glow because it was slapped together in 3D. Seth Rogan, the “star” — and that is being charitable — is the Allan Loeb of actors. He can do bomb after bomb (I’m still recovering from Observe and Report) and Hollywood inexplicably rewards him with bigger projects. The Green Hornet is the kind of movie that if someone pitched it at one of those Hollywood pitch festivals, the eyes of listeners would glaze over with ennui. Insomniacs would slip into slumber. That a studio would throw millions of dollars behind such a dusty, tired concept speaks volumes to the ineptitude in the executive ranks at Universal Pictures, the wise studio that brought the world Little Fockers.
Aye, Caramba!
1) Rogen, not Rogan. Learn to speel, your an idiot
2) 21 is considered the Golden Age of Allen Loeb?! lol
3) Observe and Report like everything Jody Hill does has a very specific cult following, unlike, say, 21
4) “Taffy-thin premise” = years well spent at metaphor school, clearly
5) Looking at the next few lackluster weekends, plus international (where Jay Chou and Michel Gondry both mean something, not to mention the genre), it is entirely conceivable that GH will more than make back its cost. So you probably should have waited, I dunno, at least a day to run your mouth.
Try to think through your points a little better next time.
I love how movie executives over think and analyze everything. I guess they wouldn’t have much of a job if they didn’t. The reason the Dilemma didn’t do well, despite its stars, is because it looks bad.
There’s no deeper reason. It’s not because of the “infidelity” theme. It’s just because it looks bad. I can’t say it any other way. Across the board, people think it’s just a shitty premise. Not to mention with a title that’s garbage. Maybe I’ll write a script and call it, “The Conflict.” Or maybe, “The Drama.” Or how bout, “The Moral Issue.” We in middle America are not that stupid, so please stop making movies that are.
Completely agree. This one was a dog and it was very obvious from the trailer. And I love watching VV and KJ in COMEDIES.
By the way, how the eff did they include Clint Howard yelling “those plants are poisonous!” in the trailer? That line sealed it that I was not seeing this movie.
Dear Seth,
The gravy train has come to a permanent stop. Please seek out supporting, supporting roles to keep us laughing.
Best,
Omniscient.
(“Once again, tracking overestimated this genre,” a rival studio exec messages me in a veiled reference to the lackluster performance of Kick-Ass. But that pic was R-rated and The Green Hornet is PG-13.)”
It’s still the same basic deal, though. Geek superhero fantasy, except this one’s a middle-aged fatty instead of a 20-something loser comic book fan. Anyway, this’ll probably be like The Mummy 3, where the Asian co-star who’s popular in Asia will help recoup the costs. Of course, Jackie Chan’s been popular longer than Jay, and even he couldn’t get audiences in that hemisphere to make Rush Hour a hit. But then China’s a bigger market than Hong Kong, anyway, so Hornet should hypothetically be alright there. As for why tracking failed, well, H’wood needs to stop sampling Comic Con’ers.
Feel sorry for Vaughn, though, but I’m not sure who the hell this flick was targeting. Plus, it might’ve worked better as a fall movie. Personally, I’m actually more curious about Hall Pass. Also, Queen Latifah being in a comedy is always a bad sign. She used to actually do quality non-paycheck crap ’til about Lilith Fair, and now she’s just sleep-walking through her parts.
I am totally with you DZ — what you said about Queen Latifah is so true. She must be hard up for cash because these recent roles are, in a word, underwhelming!
I recently saw the basketball/love interest movie she starred in called “Just Wright” and wondered how in the hell that movie got green-lit. When I heard the screenwriter got north of $800,000 for that script I wondered why the hell I even bothered to go to school to study cardiac surgery. Killing movies sure beats the risk of a heart patient dying on you!
As for other posts in this thread, I have to say it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or heart surgeon, for that matter) to see Hollywood is in a lethal rut of lame-itis.
The Dilemma? Lame.
Green Hornet? Lame.
The funny thing is both of those movies seemed DOA from the respective trailers. If the “engine” of a movie can’t be conveyed in a trailer that is always a sign that 1) the script/film is muddled 2) the direction/editing is all over the place OR 3) the premise is “off” thus leaving it to the trailer editor to come up with something that may or may not reflect (pardon the professional pun) the heart of the story.
Just my two cents. But what do I know? I’m just a cardio-vascular surgeon in one of those ‘fly-over’ red states.
Still unclear, do you work in the medical field?
He’s a script surgeon.
dude. you realize hong kong is part of china. and has been for about 20 years. even though technically (geographically) it always has been.
I foresee the same thing happening to the LONE RANGER as happened to GREEN HORNET. What fans still exist for these characters take them seriously as heroes. When Hollywood turns them into comedies and turns these old heroes into the butt of jokes, the fans themselves feel made fun of. Why would they pay to be insulted, or have their hero insulted? I don’t care about either of these characters and barely remember them. But, if I were a fan, I would be burning mad at films that made fun of them. I bet you anything that Tonto will make all kinds of jokes at the Lone Ranger’s expense.
Remakes like this rely on a modern deconstruction of these old heroes to highlight the humor in old tropes. Audiences now, however, do not want their heroes deconstructed. Not even lame heroes from bygone eras. The public feels under assault right now, economically and politically. The deconstruction or tearing down of old heroes just feels like another avenue of assault. In better, more confident times, the public might see the humor in it, but not now.
with Depp attached to the Lone Ranger it will make money. Green Hornet should have been done as a period piece and with an decent cast.or is asking for actors too much ? Did someone really cast Rogan ?
Depp was also in The Tourist…………..which hasn’t yet made any money after weeks in release.
He’s not a slam-dunk guarantee.
Depp as eccentric characters = box office. (Cap’n jack Sparrow, Mad hatter, Edward Scissorhand etc.)
Depp as a “regular” guy = no box office. (The Tourist, The Ninth Gate, Nick of Time etc.)
The Lone Ranger will work if they make it a true cowboy Western like True Grit or Dances With Wolves – if they jazz it up with cgi explosions then it becomes Wild, Wild, West or Jonah Hex.
or maybe the movie just sucks.
True movie stars can open a movie that sucks. Stop being an idiot.
name a true movie star and ill name a bomb they were in. don’t be an idiot.
I hate repeating things I said clearly the first time, but I said movie stars CAN open movies that suck. Not that no movie star has never ever ever been in a movie that bombed.
I know doing something besides attacking straw men and keeping track of small differences between words like “always” and “can” probably gives you a headache, but maybe be less of an idiot and just try to keep up?
gay slur” in The Dilemma??? Saying a car is “gay” is offensive? To whom
To gay people. The word “gay” is not a synonym for “bad” or “undesirable.”
Safe to say, the character didn’t mean it as a compliment.
unfortunately -to many it is!
Am I missing something? Since when is a $30-million weekend a “bomb”? A disappointment considering the cost, sure, but this was never going to be THE DARK KNIGHT, and given all the bad buzz I thought it was going to do quite a bit worse. One positive that might come out of this is that studios may think again, again about 3-D retrofitting.
Agreed with the above poster that THE DILEMMA could have worked better as a fall release…and if they had stuck with what seems to have been the original inspiration, a WAR OF THE ROSES-style caustic satire about relationships. Instead, it plays like they lost their nerve somewhere along the way and threw in a bunch of buddy-comedy shtick, and the result doesn’t really work as either.
Great to see TRUE GRIT, KING’S SPEECH and BLACK SWAN hangin’ in there. Could SPEECH and SWAN make it to $100 million each once the Oscar noms come out? It’ll be interesting to watch. Meanwhile, TRON: LEGACY continues to collapse and will barely make back its production cost in U.S. release. Sure, it may just break even when foreign (which has also been disappointing) and home-video are factored in, but you can bet Disney was hoping for a lot more than that when they committed so much money to the project.
Indeed on Green Hornet.
I may be wrong, but would a $38 million opening (if it holds that way) not make ‘The Green Hornet’ the second biggest January opening ever? It certainly wouldn’t be the biggest January weekend take, but in terms of films opening in that month it would be just second to ‘Cloverfield’s’ $40 million.
Considering it will probably drop off sharply, mind and has a large budget hanging over it, it may not make any more money than Tron: Legacy will.
But I’d have thought that was a surprisingly decent opening given the history of the film.
People feel they can look down on Seth because he is a comedian or because he smokes grass or because he is usually heavy (although not in this film) They rain hate on fat people but then are offended by gay slurs.
NEWSFLASH: This film is the second biggest opening of any film in January ever and the
BIGGEST JULY COMEDY RELEASE OF ALL TIME!
People leaving the film gave it a B+ which means it will have legs and good word of mouth. If this is a failure then there are no hits and we are all doomed. Most of the folks on this site have never even worked on a film or written anything (faxing at Disney corporate doesn’t count as film making either).
Kudos to Seth Rogan who makes you all so jealous that it is frankly embarrassing. If the useless studio executives didn’t interfere and force 3D, then this would be even a bigger hit.
Comedians don’r need big budgets. Simple minded studio executives do, because they need to steal money off the top so they inflate the budgets and blame over performers like Rogan for failure to “break even” with all the fuzzy math.
You should all thank your stars that Rogan is out there making films that people actually want to see because frankly you kids are dropping the ball.
Up until this weekend, I doubted that Black Swan would crack $100 million. But now that they’ve added so many theaters, I can easily imagine their team managing to parlay any Oscar buzz they get to add $20-$30 milion more to the total. Will Black Swan manage to surpass the domestic haul of Narnia or even The Social Network? It might happen.
I doubt if The King’s Speech will be quite as successful. But considering the current filmgoing environment, I think that they’re handling that movie really, really well. So there’s certainly the possibility of a sizable Oscar rally for it.
On the flip side, the budget on The King’s Speech was only $15 million, so it should also make a decent return even if it doesn’t go quite as high as Black Swan.
Which I now also think has a realistic chance at $100 million. Not yet guaranteed, but certainly more possible than ever before.
Please god no “Black Swan” sequel. The kind of fever that rushes in when a movie blasts past its production and marketing costs…
Aw, c’mon, Shaun… Wouldn’t you like to see “Revenge of the Black Swan”, “Still the Black Swan”, or “Meet the Little Black Cygnets.”? And the inevitable muppet version…?
The green hornet’s performance was actually better than my sub 30 million prediction over 4 days. It wasnt the 40 million to 50 million some say but that was unreasonable given the poor early buzz of the movie. No matter the changes Sony made, this was always a challenge to market.The Dillema, however, was only half of my 40 million prediction. If Vinc e vaugn and Kevin James opened to 30 million plus individually with their last movie, why only half of that over 3 days when both are together. The marketing was pretty descriptive of the plot. While the movie was dark, it was promoted as a fun comedy which should have drawn people in. Someone reply to me if you can notice a marketing problem or if nothing is wrong with the marketing and its just an indicator that movie cinema could go extinct?
Using “gay” as a pejorative certainly hasn’t hurt South Park.
And for the record, “gay” IS a synonym for “bad” or “undesirable”. Except maybe in California. Yay free speech!
From now on when something is really stupid I’m going to call it “Laughing Eagle.”
There are many gays working for South Park and all add more gay jokes. Comedians make fun of everything, including themselves, even gay ones.
It’s only a dilemma if Kevin James is Vaughn’s best friend AND Wynona Ryder is Vaughn’s sister. I haven’t seen it, but did I just fix this film’s shaky premise?
Yup!
Yes, yes, you did.
You sure did! You should be working for Imagine Ent.
Nicely done!
So Jackie Chan being from Hong Kong (part of China) means that he cannot bring in Chinese audiences but Jay Chou being from Taiwan (not part of China) means that he’s got a bigger pull? Right…
I was about to write the same. That D.Z. guy above clearly doesnt know what he is speaking.
The script for The Dilemma attracted Ron Howard, Vince Vaughn and kevin James, how? There’s no drama, nothing intersting in the premise when it is completely predicated on a soap opera device of not telling someone something that might hurt their feelings.
That’s thin. Real thin. This never came up in a meeting at Howard’s company? At the studio? The audience could see it in the VERY lame trailer (look Vince falls into poisonous plants! Let the guffaws ensue.) Maybe all this would have worked if the this were set in high school. But now it just feels like old people making a movie about old people doing really juvenile things.
I know there are great scripts in Hollywood. I’ve read them. There’s no reason to make the ones that are OBVIOUSLY lame. Bad movies will happen but when you start with a dopey-ass script, no matter how much 20 million dollar talent you throw at it, it’s going to be a shitty movie. Time to stop upchucking public toilet projects because the some wonk in a room with no windows tells you that each of the 20 million dollar pieces brought in 100+ million on their last projects and therefore this is surefire, as if filmmaking is calculus. And it’s time to stop pretending to be hip. If you have any skill at all in Hollywood, you’re a geek. Embrace your movie-loving geekdom and strive for quality in your work, not an S-class in your driveway.
Well said, Seriously. Why did Ron, Kevin and Vince decide to put their considerable talents into this piece of crud. I think because the screenwriter was a name and was hot. The worst thing about Hollywod (among many really shitty things) is that who you are and who you know matter so much more than what you can do. Am glad these guys got their nose bloodied on this one. Find better scripts, even f they’re not by well-known writers. Have the confidence to make your own judgements rather than going with who’s hot at the moment.
“…who you are and who you know matter so much more than what you can do.”
Ugh. Unfortunately, so true…
It was Brian’s pitch! Ron tells the story on Stern. These guys TOFTT.
To the poster named Seriously… I have read “The Dilemma” by Allan Loeb. It was a struggle. It was not funny on paper. Or clever. It was, well, problematically contrived and seemed forced. I read it because Allan Loeb is the, um, “hot scribe” in Hollywood these days and I figured I could glean a lesson or two. I didn’t, but I realize given Loeb’s prolific writing that he’s the most lucky guy in Hollywood because he can write scripts that don’t blow your socks off, that make millions of dollars doing so and that he survives when said film tanks at the Box Office. If this is called falling up, then where do I (or any of us, for goodness sake) sign up?
This guy is living a most charmed Hollywood life. As “The Dilemma” craters, Loeb’s skipping, smile on face, all the way to the bank!
I should add that maybe Hollywood executives need to undergo a “LOEBotomy” and rid themselves of the penchant to rush underdeveloped, poorly written scripts by Allan Loeb into development.
I think Allan Loeb has talent BUT I think the guy needs to get notes or something (hell, even the best writers do) because even his better films — “Things We Lost in the Fire” or “21″ — have flaws that you just don’t expect to see in someone as in-demand and well-compensated as Loeb is.
I did a Rotten Tomatoes on all of his movies and most of them suck. Even the best directors cannot turn crap into gold if the script is congenitally deficient.
Yes, a LOEBotomy is just what the doctor ordered!
Loeb-botomy, indeed. Perfect word, Bobby the Saint. And funny as hell. Love the phrase and the sentiment. Allan Loeb IS a peril to screenwriting. The guy personifies the Peter Principle. Half-baked talent keeps rising. But in my agency they still think he is hot stuff, writing-wise. Sigh.
Only in Hollywood!
Jealous much?
Once the studios will no longer purchase his material (i.e., two solid passes on his specs from EVERY studio), he will no longer be. What will trigger that? Time will only tell, but suffice to say, time does have a way of weeding out underachievers.
A crappy remake originally written by someone else (THINGS) and a genuinely crappy (by consensus) Jim Sturgess movie (21). Wow. Gotta love revisionism. Everything is better when it’s old, I guess?
I think Howard came up with the story himself. Much to his shame.
Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, and Seth Rogan are where sex appeal went to die. Why would I want to watch any of these guys?
the studio wants to appeal to weight watchers
Welcome to the Gates of Hell known as January!!!!
The Green Hornet sucked as bad as it’s awful 3D
conversion, I mean, who really wants to see Seth Rogen
in the third dimension? I love that all the Oscar front runners
are slaying it. Last but not least, poor Nic Cage, him and
Jennifer Blandniston should be banned from cameras. Season of the Witch indeed.
I’d agree with you on Cage were it not for Kick Ass. He’s hilarious in that.
But,yeah,he needs to fire his agent.
People are broke and still recovering from the holidays. Plus the Green Lantern is an obscure superhero that few people know or care about. The Dilemma is soft because everyone already saw Dumb and Dumber.
It’s the Green Hornet, brah.
what are you all whining about? green and dilemma are coming in exactly as expected. what’s the surprise? problem?
Agreed, D-man. Such b.s. on these boards… and such hand-wringing over numbers that aren’t bad for January.
and re Seriously?!: please provide actual examples of the scripts you cited above… Because the blacklist was a weak crop this year and I’d love to know about other good projects should you care to actually give somebody props instead of pissing on a moderately successful rom-com.
As for all the experts raining on the parade above, whining is for children. If you’re a better director than Ron Howard or Michel Gondry, show me. Drop a link to your recent work, I’d love to see how much better it is than these two films. From a story standpoint, acting standpoint, production standpoint, pretty pictures standpoint, show me something.
F*ckin complaining on these boards is a weird modern Saturday tradition. If you didn’t buy a ticket (like the reasoned opinion above), you’ve got nothing to complain about.
Here here!
Given that January 2011 revenues are trailing the precedeing 4 years by at least 20%, these openings are bad for January.
Also, it seems Sony keeps changing its statement to fall in line with this film’s actual numbers. If things were going well, that would not be necessary…