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Specialty B.O. Preview: ‘Before Midnight’, … 
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SUNDAY AM: I sound like a broken record because it’s another disappointing domestic box office with numbers coming in -20% to even -30% lower than projected. And this weekend qualified as 2011′s lowest total movie grosses — only $76M. It’s also down a whopping 17% from last year. Is this North American slump going to continue through Christmas and affect Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows, which is currently tracking like the holiday’s biggest hit. Stay tuned!
Warner Bros expected this date movie would be a no-brainer box office hit in more ways than once. An exec characterized the publicity as a “massive assault” in the competitive December window with an unprecedented 11 magazine covers and no less than 27 appearances on national TV shows. So no surprise in the Top 10 that Warner Bros’ New Year’s Eve unseated Summit’s Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 which spent three straight weeks at No. 1. But what is alarming is that the latest in this holiday-themed franchise came in at $13.7M, way less than the $20M which the studio predicted. The Garry Marshall-directed New Year’s Eve hit a brick wall on the West Coast late shows both Friday and Saturday nights. ”Not much champagne for that opening,” one rival exec snarked to me. Especially disturbing with all those name actors and actresses cast in the season’s only romantic comedy, though Sarah Jessica Parker and Hilary Swank and Ashton Kutcher are box office poison these days. Now it’s not only young males but also young females abandoning indiscriminate moviegoing. Showing yet again that in 2011 stars and derivative storytelling don’t mean a thing. Audiences gave it a ‘B+’ CinemaScore.
Fox’s The Sitter came in second. But it’s worse than even the lowered expectations going into this North American weekend. Audiences gave it only a ‘C+’ CinemaScore. Good thing this R-rated Jonah Hill pic cost next to nothing – low $20sM according to Fox sources. Directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), this “world’s worst babysitter” has been done to death. Fox did have a hugely successful voicemail outdoor campaign: it put up posters urging people to leave voicemails for Jonah, which were then recorded and posted on the movie’s Facebook page. Nearly 400K people called the line. And Hill babysat Fox Sunday night animation characters Stewie, Maggie Simpson, etc on December 4th.
Deadline Hollywood is still holding its movie awards season ‘The Contenders’ event Sunday after a hugely successful Saturday:
1. New Years Eve (Warner Bros) NEW [3,505 Theaters]
Friday $5M, Saturday $5.3M, Weekend $13.7M
2. The Sitter (Fox) NEW [2,750 Theaters]
Friday $3.7M, Saturday $3.9M, Weekend $10M
3. Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Summit) Week 4 [3,605 Theaters]
Friday $2.4M, Saturday $3.4M, Weekend $7.9M, Cume $259.4M
4. The Muppets (Disney) Week 3 [3,328 Theaters]
Friday $1.6M, Saturday $3.3M, Weekend $7M, Cume $65.8M
5. Arthur Christmas 3D (Sony) Week 3 [3,272 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $3.2M, Weekend $6.6M, Cume $33.4M
6. Hugo 3D (Paramount) Week 3 [2,608 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2.8M, Weekend $6.1M, Cume $33.4M
7. The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) Week 4 [876 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $2.1M, Weekend $4.3M, Cume $23.9M
8. Happy Feet Two 3D (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,840 Theaters]
Friday $840K, Saturday $1.7M, Estimated Weekend $3.7M, Cume $56.8M
8. Jack and Jill (Sony) Week 5 [2,787 Theaters]
Friday $870K, Saturday $1.4M, Weekend $3.2M, Cume $68.6M
10. Immortals 3D (Relativity) Week 5 [2,299 Theaters]
Friday $730K, Saturday $1M, Weekend $2.4M, Cume $79.8m
Specialty Openings: After a solid $22.6M European opening, Focus Features’ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy began its North American run in 4 theaters (2 in NYC, 2 in LA) with an impressive per screen average of $75+K. Every location again experienced sell out or close to sell out conditions from late matinee through the 9PM shows. The weekend results make Tinker Tailor the #3 largest opening average of all specialty films in 2011, behind #1 Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris and #2 Terence Malick’s Tree Of Life and #3rd film opening on 4 screens on record. Paramount’s Young Adult platformed in 8 theaters with $40K per screen averages. Paramount points out that it out-grossed the expansions of both The Artist and Shame on half the screens. Paramount has The Adventures Of Tintin for domestic, and Sony for overseas. The Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson collaboration is having a great start in North America’s Quebec after a very successful European run. (Tintin Passes $200M International; Will U.S. Audiences Board The Bandwagon?) Tintin grossed an estimated $8.1M on 6,000 screens in 51 markets over the weekend, bringing the cume to $233.7M now. Company breakdown is as follows: Sony – $170.5M cume, Paramount – $52.7M cume, others $10.5M cume.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Focus Features) NEW [4 Theaters]
Weekend $300K, Per Screen Average $75,184
Young Adult (Paramount) NEW [8 Theaters]
Weekend $320K, Per Screen $40,000
The Adventures Of Tintin (Paramount) NEW [70 Theaters]
Weekend $1.3M, Per Screen $19,113, Cume $1.4M
Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl (Yash Raj Films) NEW [80 Theaters]
Weekend $211K, Per Screen $2,640
I Melt With You (Magnolia) NEW [2 Theaters]
Weekend $3K, Per Screen $1,293
Panjaa (India) NEW [31 Theaters]
Weekend $194K, Per Screen $6,274, Cume $194K
Osthe (India) NEW [16 Theaters]
Weekend $60K, Per Screen $3,800, Cume $60K
Penny Pinchers (CJE) NEW (1 Theater)
Weekend $5K, Per Screen $5,878, Cume $5K
Eye Of The Storm (EONE) NEW [3 Theaters]
Weekend $5K, Per Screen $1,874, Cume $5K
Magic To Win (China) NEW [5 Theaters]
Weekend $5K, Per Screen $1,049, Cume $5K
Shame (Fox Searchlight) Week 2 [21 Theaters]
Weekend $276K, Per Screen $13,146, Cume $774K
My Week With Marilyn (Weinstein Co) Week 3 [244 Theaters]
Weekend $784K, Per Screen $3,213, Cume $5.1M
The Artist (The Weinstein Co) Week 3 [16 Theaters]
Weekend $292K, Per Screen $18,258, Cume $885K
A Dangerous Method (Sony Classics) Week 3 [4 Theaters)
Weekend $80K, Per Screen $20,031, Cume $539K
Melancholia (Magnolia) Week 5 [135 Theaters]
Weekend $222K, Per Screen $1,644, Cume $1.9M
Like Crazy (Paramount Vantage) Week 7 [162 Theaters]
Weekend $170K, Per Screen $1,049, Cume $3.1M
Margin Call (Roadside Attractions) Week 8 [146 Theaters]
Weekend $184K, Per Screen $1,265, Cume $5M
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight) Week 8 [64 Theaters]
Weekend $48K, Per Screen $751, Cume $2.8M
The Skin I Live In (Sony Classics) Week 9 [109 Theaters]
Weekend $111K, Per Screen $1,029, Cume $2.8M
Take Shelter (Sony Classics) Week 11 [63 Theaters]
Weekend $47K, Per Screen $747, Cume $1.5M,
Midnight In Paris (Sony Classics) Week 30 [195 Theaters]
Weekend $128K, Per Screen $657, Cume $56.1M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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For the exception of The Sitter, all those figures confuse the hell out of me. Hugo in particular. That movie should be the biggest thing out right now…
Like Where the Wild Things Are, Rango, and Fantastic Mr. Fox? But yeah, Jonah Hill seems to be another victim of the Hollywood hype machine, like most of his Superbad co-stars.
There’s going to be a lot of sniping at THE SITTER and David Gordon Green. But the script was god awful. Everyone wants original movies, but the original movies are just toilet humor by hack writers.
Original Movies? This wasn’t original.. it was Adventures in Babysitting replace Elizabeth Shue with Jonah Hill and throw in lots of racist jokes. Original?
I am a liberal. A proud one. It is hard to take Hollywood seriously when people like Gatewood and Tanaka and writing seriously racist jokes, and no one calls them out on it.
Hey Tanaka. I bet people call you all sorts of Asian names growing up? How does that feel. Even the reviews are calling you out for painting blacks with a broad, disgusting brush. I understand you probably have a lot of self-hate, but try not to make a buck ripping on people’s ethnicity, when a lot of people in this country don’t even see you as an American.
And everyone who signs off on these caricatures of Blacks, Indians, Asians? You’re disgusting. You push gay marriage, which I wholly support, but you hang minorities out to dry.
One of the “caricatures” not mentioned in your post was that of the geeky, awkward, not-hip white guy who says “black” things or does something “black” in front of, or with, black characters, and suddenly gets respect, laughs, and street-cred from the black characters. That caricature has been worn out by Hollywood for decades now. It is tiresome.
I was surprised to see the film only lasts 1 hour and 21 minutes (and that includes credits). Why would the studio expect people to pay over $10 dollars a head to go see something that lasts so little? I want my money’s worth. They’d have to put this film on at least a double-bill with something else before I’d pay to see it, and I’m still more likely to rent Adventures In Babysitting than go see The Shitter; at least ‘Adventures’ has Elisabeth Shue.
it’s a comedy. Comedies should be no holds barred… So tell me, how many scripts have you failed to sell that makes you make such ridiculous crybaby posts?
Brilliant – You’re absolutely right. I am not angry with anyone but myself, I’ve never done anything like this before. I need to take a look in the mirror and do some soul-searching, because not only should comedy be no holds-barred, but more importantly……… I’m more angry at myself than I am with the writers. And you know what? I’m *not* a writer; I’m a failure. I’m mad at myself, not anyone else. I’m so sorry/mortified at my own behavior.
Are you saying that the only original movies they pick up are toilet-humor hackjobs? Because it reads like you think that toilet-humor hackjobs are the standard when it comes to original movies.
At first I read it like the latter, and my head nearly exploded.
I could hardly wait to see HUGO when it was released. So I looked in the paper and and online for movie times. My friend and i went to 4 movie chains in PHOENix,az that claimed to be showing the film and IT WAS NOT THERE! This was on Thanksgiving day. I had to go outside of the city of Phoenix to see it! I don’t understand? I would have thought it would be in people area places. There was only 10 people including us in the movie at the 7:00pm show.
thats because it sucked and the Harkins/AMC that are in town decided to combine theaters where it was shown, dropping some and telling people who went to see it at one location that it was at another –out in the boonies where there’s not much to see anyways. If there were 10 people to see the 7pm show? That was a GOOD day.
um what did they say c- and b+ realy i think they should give thows singers or whatever a+es or a-es thats all they should do cause what the hell else would they do if they didnt give them singers or whatever like i said a+es or a-es wat the fuck would they do
Valentine’s Day had a $56.3 million opening, so New Year’s Eve’s opening is pretty low considering how well its predecessor did and the fact that there are so many stars in the movie.
But some of those “stars” are annoying as hell, and alienating to large segments of the potential audience.
AND Valentine’s Day was awful
New Year’s Eve might have had a better opening if it was, I dunno, released closer to New Year’s Eve? Though let’s be honest here. No one really thinks of the holiday as a time to hook-up like they do w/ V-Day. Plus, even if you do get some action, your beer googles keep you from realizing you could be going out with a real dog, male or female.
I think you’re right. Its a combination of the mentality/reality of “we’re not shelling out our money to the hollywood stars so they can then tell us MORONS what’s wrong with us” combined with the barf movies they keep making which are also have either a social theme or just plain stupid. There needs to be a change: they do the movie, farm it out to dvd as fast as possible/immediately for $30 a pop if the persona wants to own it – along with a download fee of $6 if they just want to watch it one time. Going to movie theaters is passe. Too loud, too many crying babies, too many feet in the back of the chair knocking you, too many texting idiots, and too many judgmental busybodies who don’t want you to laugh while they’re feeling intense – they go get the usher who comes and tells you to shut up. Or loud idiots who won’t shut up and you can’t hear the movie. Its because civility is gone. Do it in the home. Direct to DVD to own it, then a limited period where you can stream it before you’re out of luck and have to pay the higher cost of owning the dvd.
I want to believe that Kutcher and Swank killed this movie, but is was probably early lauch that made it tank.
I agree. With people like Kutcher, Swank and Efron, they had more celebs rather than movie stars.
Not to mention Miss Horse Face hersef, Sarah Jeessica Parker.
Being an absolutely shitty movie doesn’t exactly help either. New Line should be happy they’ve got a piece of the Hobbit. Shame on whomever was responsible for this abomination.
Those are celebrities, not movie stars…. big difference.
I agree….watching the trailer was punishing enough, sitting through an entire film with these megalomaniacs is torture in my book.
it didn’t help that Kutchner cheated on Demi. Just sayin’. Most movie decisions are made by women – they’re not going to support the guy no matter how good looking he is – knowing he’s a done the dirty.
If you want an ensemble comedy, just watch It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. This is just a remake of Valentine’s Day!
New Years Eve keeps dropping. Now its down to only 13.8 million. A total flop.
finally, Muppets legs are starting to show. 2.7 mil last Friday, 2 mil this Friday. Good news! Hugo actually dropped with the expansion. Think the movie is overrated, so I don’t mind seeing that.
I haven’t seen Hugo, so I can’t defend it’s quality. I can say it wasn’t a big expansion, so to expect it to have a larger weekend is unreasonable. To see a movie with such a small audience for it hold so well is still impressive.
Yeah I take it mostly back. It’s holding fine, but i dont think its a ‘such a small audience’ movie. Hugo had 1,840 playdates last weekend, and will now add 768 additional runs on Friday putting it into 2,608 theaters.
the muppets is shockingly good — actually making my top 10 list — which i never would have imagined, plus a 97 percent rotten tomatoes — why is this movie not doing even better? thanksgiving was not a good time to open this movie.
The Muppets received great reviews. I saw it an liked it, but the public apparently finds the Muppets passe. The humor of the Muppets centers on people interacting with puppets who are abrasive oddballs. I was watching the Country Music Awards Christmas show. The host of the show was talking to Miss Piggy the Muppet. Miss Piggy is always the oblivious egomaniac while the human always plays it straight. The jokes were falling flat. Too much of the Muppet humor centers on how the Muppet is different from anyone else. But a lot of children’s humor now is how people and creatures that look very different are actually the same under the surface.
its pretty much the expected result for new years, valentines day was bolstered by being released on its titular holiday which just so happened to take place on a long weekend which was made all the more evident by how frontloaded it was.
however new years should hold well through the eve in question, at the very least much better than valentine all but guaranteeing a total in the same ballpark
Controversy sunk “Muppets.” “Sitter” not impressive. DL forgot to note how “Ides of March,” went back into theaters last week and died a quick death…
Be fun seeing all you “political film” parrots talk around how things are going “so well” in Hollywood right now and no one should be sweating their jobs… Activism over Entertainment, what a concept!!!!
Controversy that Frank Oz didn’t like a draft of the script?
I can’t even believe Frank Oz is still being allowed to make movies.
Brando would call Oz Miss Piggy on the “The Score” shoot.
Wait, what are you talking about? Muppets had a average drop off for a Familly movie this time of year. The Fox news thing was ridiculous. The message about the rich guy was don’t be greedy. The oil thing was just a reason for why the guy would want to take the studio down. There wasn’t any anti-capitalist or anti-oil message. At least not on purpose. Rich guys are in the same category as Nazis as defaul Hollywood movie villan. Is Hollywood liberal? Yes. But the Muppets isn’t paticularly liberal in any way.
There’s no controversy over the Muppets. If those loons at Fox really wanted to sink it with those ridiculous accusations, they did it too late. They did it over a week after the movie opened and most of the audience they thought they scare off by that had already seen it and even they had no idea what they were talking about.
Tex Richman was a bad guy because he was a jerk who told the Muppets he wanted to buy their theater and turn it into a museum but was really planning to tear it down and drill for oil there. The Muppets wanted to stop him because they wanted to save their theater. That’s all it was. Nothing about oil or capitalism was ever discussed in the movie whatsoever.
Frankly, anyone who chooses to avoid the Muppets because of what Fox says is a twit. There’s nothing in it to be offended by.
As a conservative, I am embarrassed that Fox news made a controversy where there wasn’t one. I went to see The Muppets the day it came out and loved it, well, except Tex Richman’s ‘rap.’ Please believe me, not all conservatives are dittoheads who blindly follow Fox News.
As far as The Muppets goes, I hope it makes a ton of money and we’re able to see another muppets film in the theaters every 4-5 years.
New year’s eve might be a bit dissapointing, but WB should have no problem with spin control. It’ll have better legs the Valentine’s day.
Better legs than Valentines Day? Valentines Day made more on its opening weekend than New Years Eve will make on its entire run. Valentines Day opened with 56.3 Million and this one will open with less than 16 million. The better legs is a silly comment.
“New Year’s Eve” was one of the sharpest, most sophisticated comedies I have seen in years. Like Adam Sandler’s finest work it is very subtle and nuanced and works on so many different levels, meaning that it is bound to go right over the head of all but the most discerning of viewers. Before seeing this I would have agreed with the critics who felt that “Dude Where’s My Car” was the zenith of Kutcher’s career, and one of the greatest comedic performances in the history of cinema, however with “New Year’s Eve” he has somehow set the bar even higher, as we have now witnessed the apotheosis of Ashton Kutcher.
You sir, should be writing the Hollywood Comedies, rather than whoever is currently doing it.
Agree. That comment is A+…
brilliant
Wow…
you seriously couldn’t detect the thinly veiled sarcasm in that post? You think it was a plant lmao
I think you might need to read your own post again.
Uh, Earth to Cash, I’m not so sure you understood the sarcasm since you were all “Man, the plants aren’t even trying to hide themselves anymore, are they?” like you didn’t know it was sarcasm.
Looks like Cash is doing his work as the anti-plant plant
LOL – were you born with that Sense of Humor Bypass?
Truly made my day.
Dude, I was about to rip you a new one after reading that first sentence. Then I read the stuff about Adam Sandler and Ashton Kutcher and nearly cried laughing!
Jonah Hill = Not a star
Jonah Hill = Angry angry man
Jonah Hill = fantastic in Moneyball
Jonah Hill = Allen Gregory = dead to me forever.
@Lane. If you think Hugo is over rated you do not know movies. That is one of the best movies of the last 10 years. Its a flat out masterpiece, and I am not saying that is a Scorsese lover. I am saying it as a die hard fan of cinema. I will never understand why it is not doing that well. My best guess would be because it does not have any big stars to draw attraction to it, and by looking at the other movie numbers, I would say because people are not going to the movies as often. For instance, a movie like The Sitter in a good movie year would have opened to about 19-27 million. But its only taking in 10 mil. People are not spending money like they used to on movies.
@nelson
“I am saying it as a die hard fan of cinema. I will never understand why it is not doing that well” There is the reason, you said it yourself. It is a movie ONLY aimed at cinephiles. It is slow, pandering, beautiful, filled with cinema-history etc. Only a very very small portion of the audience appreciates that. So why be surprised it isn’t doint very well?
As for people not spending money like they used to: On the contrary. Of the last 40 years, 2009 was the year most money (adjusted for inflation of course) was spent on movie visits. 2010 was number 2. You have to go back to 1956 to find a year where people spent more relative money on movies. Of course per capita it keeps going down though
The opposite of other figures showing fewer audience visits but paying higher ticket prices.
no the same as other figures.
The drop is only from 1414 in 2009 (on of the higher of all time) to 1339 in 2010 and to around 1300 this year. That is a 2 year drop. For comparison, the average number of visits in the 90s was 1262, in the 80s 1106. So yes a noticable decline from the lofty highs of the 2000s but still far above most historical years, and when accounting for the relative higher prices, total sales is completely fine
No way man. I’ve seen all the released Oscar contenders and I think people are getting swept up in a certain portion of Hugo. The vast majority of critics and Hugo cheerleaders are only talking about its aesthetics and love of the earliest form of cinema. I agree: it’s the best use of 3D and seeing Melies and the films he made brought back to life was genuinely magical. But I just didn’t feel the needed warmth or sincerity from the child actors (the protagonists) nor the writing. Cohen and Kingsley are great. Surprisingly, the movie’s main arch left me cold. And this is coming from a big Scorsese fan. And the Invention of Hugo Cabaret is a good book.
Your comments about how people don’t spend as much money on movies is reflected in Hugo’s context, and that’s worth a separate thread about the current state of the industry and what movies like Hugo and The Artist have to say about it. As a die hard fan of cinema, I’m sure you’d agree.
Despite the oddly polarized views and quirky opinions regarding “HUGO”…the film is climbing in the numbers. Inch by inch. It will certainly outlast all the films that came out this weekend as well as pass “MUPPETS” eventually.
It is a great, if not wonderful motion picture. However, many more important films to look forward to. That is, of course, just my opinion.
Tintin is opening in Quebec today, so we should get good numbers for it has Tintin is very well known in French Canadian culture. That is why it is opening here early. Those numbers count as North American box office.
Do they really? I’ve not heard that before. Are there different prints for French-Canada than regular Canada?
Same print I am pretty sure, but there are a lot of French dubbing version. English version are mostly for Montreal area, Eastern townshiop and Gatineau region. Everywhere is is almost 100% dubbed versions.
It will probably be the #1 movie in the province this weekend.
I really can’t see the Muppets as “hanging on.” It was disappointing and so is everything else opening this week.
Can someone please enlighten me? Why don’t your top agencies who refuse all unsolicited scripts, even ideas… why can’t they hire say, ten smart young readers at a-hundred-grand a pop who do nothing but read queries and scripts?
The way it’s set up, you’re eliminating ninety-five percent of the talent pool outright. Is this so it can remain a special club? I know a kid who went to summer camp with a current star, and this kid had a script optioned and hasn’t written anything since. He’s not even a writer! There are so many talented folks who will write until they die regardless of whether they’re ever paid, who would saw their limbs off for that kind of look. And they can’t even get their IDEA read.
If you’re a top agency, show that you have a knack for spotting talent and find someone BEFORE another person tells you how great they are. Your system is broken, you’re a bunch of privileged honky assholes whose biggest accomplishment is ushering in the pseudo-blockbuster – a movie can do a JAWS number during its theatrical run, then be forgotten less than six months later.
Studios and agencies already have readers. Sure they’re mostly unpaid interns, but who needs a good story and original characters when you can spend that money on CGI explosions and good-looking, talent-less actors instead?
The truth is that good writers who are legitimately talented will find a way to get their script into the right hands. The only problem is that by the time all of the executives, who were only hired because of their connections, have a chance to give notes on that script, nothing remains of what made it so great in the first place.
All this perspective from a college student? Holy god, there is hope for the world.
Studios don’t use unpaid interns to read their scripts. The three major studios where I’ve worked don’t use unpaid interns for anything. Studio coverage is done by union readers. I can’t speak about agencies, but I know HR doesn’t allow unpaid interns where I have been.
Yeah, regarding scripts – there’s “pitched level” which is where – IF – it gets liked by the suits, it gets read. I was going to say “unpaid interns read scripts’???? and then they make a decision. Like, give me a break. Now I know that studios don’t use paid interns they use UNION readers as Paul stated and these union readers are democrats/liberals (can we be honest please for once?) and this is why more BS scripts – more tear jerk, social agenda, romance w/a gay guy as best friend movie are being made. We’re not seeing Bruce Willis in his movies of Die Hard, Sylvester Stallone in Rocky or the other types of heavy guy movies that were prevalent in the 1980s or 1990s that brought in the cash. Hollywood needs to go back to the drawing board. Look to the future – Space and Science Fiction but not Lucas films or Spielberg either. Both are has beens. That horrible conglomeration of Cowboys and Aliens – and now there’s a sequel? OMG. They’re scrapping the bottom of the 1880s barrel of whiskey and seeing flying saucers. Do Science Fiction right. Option the old books and rewrite them for current. Reboot Bladerunner and Aliens and get the sequel to Star Trek going. What are they waiting for? These would be hits. They’re optimistic, hopeful and you go out – look at the sky – and you start thinking…..obviously hollywood has lost the ability to be hopeful without a social message to bludgeon you with, has lost the artform of having you think of the future with hope and wonder and awe. Too bad. Bollywood is coming. At least they’re colorful.
You ask good questions and make perfectly legitimate suggestions. And then you write “you’re a bunch of privileged honky assholes.” Way to undermine yourself there.
I actually wish I left the honky assholes part out. But when you think that Hollywood likely carries a disproportionate percentage of honky assholes as compared to other fields, I’m more disappointed in how I put it than I am with the overall sentiment.
For the record, I’m a white boy.
Because the truth is very few people have the talent necessary to invent a great story concept and then build it into a well executed screenplay.
Agencies and producers are bombarded with loglines and screenplays. And they will tell you once they sort through them that 99% of them are seriously flawed.
And this has been true for decades. Rod Serling talked about being bombarded by amateur writing samples and came to the same conclusion in the 1960s.
Dramatic writing talent is apparently quite rare.
An attorney for Sony once told me they return scripts from the general public, unread. I always assumed the reason was legal. Say you pay for a script and develop a movie, only to find out later the scriptwriter substantially stole his idea from someone else, and now you have a lawsuit. A lawsuit that not only could make you lose money, but also force you to open the books a little. It’s much better, legally, to have someone you designate write a script so legal issues have a much smaller chance of cropping up. At least, that’s what I’ve always assumed, being someone outside the industry.
There are a number of young managers out there who have no choice but to read all the incoming scripts and ideas. That is their job. They sift through the pile and find the undiscovered gems.
The studios and agencies want that material culled for them–and rightfully so. Studios and agencies want to be insulated for legal reasons, and for time management reasons.
If someone is truly talented, their work will be discovered by the young hungry managers who are trying to make a name for themselves.
Also, look at the audience–TRANSFORMERS makes a billion worldwide. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY makes a pittance. The masses watch ENTOURAGE and the Kardashians, not THE WIRE. There is quality out there, it just doesn’t get the headlines. If you want to make a difference, encourage everyone you know to see SHAME and THE DESCENDANTS and everything that Focus and Searchlight release.
You’re kidding, right? Focus would know a good script is smacked them in the face and took their head off. More than any company around their films are sunk by bad scripts. The only film they’ve had this year that had a good script was Beginners and that is because they didn’t develop it.
Hollywood is in trouble because they are using bad, poorly written scripts. But it isn’t the writers fault. It is the development people. They’re clueless. That’s where the housecleaning needs to begin.
Great replies, thanks everyone.
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Go to scriptshadows website and read the amateur friday reviews. This is why agencies do not waste time with random queries. All the gate keepers do the best they can to get the best material in the right hands. Sometimes things are missed–but then again this is one of the most competitive industries in the world.
Are you kidding? The scripts on Scriptshadow Monday through Friday are scripts that sell/get made, and those he hates as well. The quality of writing is terrible even on the pro level. It’s about who you know, and yes, people don’t know what a good script is, either. THE SOCIAL NETWORK would have been rejected by a lot of people if it didn’t have Sorkin’s name on it, because it was all dialogue. It wouldn’t have come 2nd on the BL, no matter how great the dialogue was.
Us script readers barely make minimum wage. And yes we are all smart. I read for an A list production company and you would be surprised at the crap that is circulating that agencies call good scripts. I have only read one decent script in the last three years and it was for a very small production company.
Since I wrote my invective-laced post I got my first agent to request a script I wrote. Weird. It’s for an agency in Toronto… nothing huge, but the agent seems great and like someone above said, you gotta go through the young, hungry types.
I was very frustrated last week getting shot down, before the query stage, by numerous places, which explains (maybe doesn’t excuse) why I generalized people in Hollywood as honky assholes. But I went smaller and what do you know.
You seem to have high standards. I’d love to see my current one matches up… have a link?
Can someone explain to me how Twilight 10 has held on for so long? We all know it’s target audience wen’t to see it opening weekend. Are there that many repeat viewers to give it the constant gross it’s been getting?
Yes, these are repeat viewings. Those horny housewives.
It’s a weird thing. I know two or three people who liked Harry Potter and saw all those movies. Fair enough. But I don’t know EVEN ONE PERSON who went to see ANY of the Twilight movies. So Twilight is doing all this wonderful business with some monster huge demographic that some of us can’t even see. I’d be a terrible executive because I would have passed on Twilight and I’d be like that guy who didn’t sign the Beatles.
Also depends on location. In big cities, this movie is no big deal after teens left theaters. But in small towns and rural areas this movie is the most daring thing people are going to see the whole year.
Don’t be ridiculous. Small towns and rural areas don’t think Twilght is daring. When was the last time you were in a small town? 1953?
Oh please! I live in one of the largest North American cities and there were tons of people I know who went to see Breaking Dawn. Its mainly women in their 20s and 30s. And stop with the sexist comments about “horny housewives”.
Are you a big fan of professional wrestling? How about Justin Bieber? Do you have a season ticket to the opera?, People keep saying they can’t understand how audiences either like or don’t like certain movies. What is so hard to understand? Different people like different things. I saw Hugo and liked it, but have no problem understanding why the general audience has not accepted it. And it is not because the public is made up of fools.
The demographic is called women. Cinemascore shows that most people who went to see Breaking Dawn are women in their 20s and 30s.
Maybe it opened slightly lower than New Moon, yet the exact same people are going to see it. Meaning it will have a slightly better hold, and end up with the same overall gross.
You are missing the whole point. It’s the snarking males who have given up on going to the movies. They prefer to download them now. The ladies still love the movies. And really, Twilight is far better entertainment than most Box office number one hits this year.
How funny is it that they are trying to market “the Sitter” with Jonah’s tubbolard face and now he is an unfunny deflated ghoul? How many of his movies need to bomb before Studios realize that he is not a draw for anyone with eyes? Is this his last fatso film? It will be interesting to see how his “serious” roles go now that he is on longer a (funny) sight gag.
Considering there are serious Oscar talks for him in “Moneyball” I think he is doing alright.
I absolutely love this comment
Muppets continues to under-perform. Bet Disney wishes it hadn’t bought those talking mittens now.
Saw “Tinker, Tailor…” this afternoon. I found it very unsatisfying. Great performances and individual scenes, but it does’t add up to much. The story jumps around a lot making the movie hard to follow.
Watch it again…. it will make more sense, I promise you.
If it has to be seen at least twice to make sense, I’ll skip the theater and buy a used Blu-ray for 9 bucks.
I just watched the 7 part BBC mini-series “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” from 1979.
It was absolutely fantastic.
For everyone talking about how Hollywood needs to make movies based on good scripts, put your money where your mouth is. See “Hugo,” see “The Artist” when you can, see “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” when you can…there are *so* many good movies coming out right now and their box office won’t make any producer try to make a movie like them.
Maybe if the lead actor in The Artist did a dance with Felix the Cat or a simmilar cartoon character in that period, that would pull in the Gen X audience.
I think that “Hugo” will end up doing okay at the American box office. They seem to be promoting for an extended release, and a lot of families will be going to movies together once the holidays really settle it. It would have been nice if it hadn’t cost so much money to make, though.
But I wonder how the film would be doing if they’d called it “The Invention” instead of “Hugo”. After all, isn’t the title of the book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”. If they wanted a name that would suggest a sense of mystery and adventure, I don’t think the name “Hugo” works to well for that. And “The Invention” would have been an very appropriate title for this movie on a couple of levels. I’m sure they had their reasons, but still….
SMP, if you read the book, you’ll see that the “invention” in the title is a literary allusion with no cinematic equivalent.
How’s this for a crazy predix: Next week Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows breaks I Am Legend’s December Record with an opening of around $80 million.
Heh, wouldn’t call that a crasy prediction at all – quite reasonable if you ask me. Boxoffice.com (who usually err on the low side) has it at 71M. It is very likely to break Legend’s record
Well at least Lea can say she’s in a number 1 movie.
If New Year’s Eve isn’t going to even make 20 million for an opening weekend, that is a serious bomb. All these “stars” and none of them can open a movie. Man this business is really at an all-time low. Ensemble flicks with interlocking stories with zero real payoff. No wonder people don’t want to see this shit.
Since when was starpower an advantage? Did they not learn from other 2011 disapointments such as Cowboys and Aliens, that casting big stars doesn’t guarantee big bucks?
What big stars? Glee girl? Disney Channel musical boy? 40year old over-hyped manchild? WHAT BIG STARS???
I meant the casting of Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Phifer, Katherine Heigl etc. Basically all the would be romcom queens. Just because these “stars” are acociatted predominantly with rom coms, doesn’t mean they’re automatically bankable in that genre.
Plus the only real A-List star in NYE is Robert Deniro and even he’s getting on a bit.
I was referring to the casting of Robert DeNiro, Katherin Heigl, Jessica Biel, Sarah Jesica Parker, Halle Berry etc
love this comment
Re: New Year’s Eve
star power doesn’t make a movie -if it doesn’t have a well written, well developed script, its just whip cream and cherries on a pile of sh*t. The execs responsible should try another line of work. Something that requires them to be a bit less clever.
TBH, waiting for next weeks releases…. This is like a calm before the storm….