There’s the infamous Watergate scandal; sports followers still get a kick out of Crygate; and Antennagate briefly plagued Apple’s release of the iPhone 4. Well, here’s a new one for you: Trailergate. It’s completely made-up and involves no impeachable offenses or villainous superstar athletes, so bear with me while I set this up.
It’s not often that you get to sit down with Tim Burton’s art director, the storyboard artist who worked on the Jurassic Park series, or meet the man who helped Gore Verbinski sell Pirates of the Caribbean to executives. But that’s exactly what happen on the last Saturday of Comic-Con when I was invited to sit down with storyboard artists Dave Lowery (Oz the Great and Powerful), Derek Gogol (Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), Trevor Goring (Real Steel), and art directors Suzuki Ingerslev (True Blood), Rick Heinrichs (Dark Shadows), and Dominic Watkins (Snow White and the Huntsman). Movies being an inherently visual medium, it was great to hear the stories from these creators on how they take a script and turn it into a visual spectacle. It was also interesting to hear from them about the business of their jobs, from projects that didn’t work out to how they use images or sets they built ultimately help to sell the film to executives. There are some real gems and exclusive scoops about upcoming movies in these interviews so check them out! Read more on Comic-Con Interview: Storyboard Artists and Art Directors of Film and TV…
For the third week in a row, Marvel’s The Avengers will claim the title of Box Office champion, as the film brought in another $55 million or so. This weekend brought the domestic total for the film to over $457 million, making it the fastest movie ever to reach the $450 million mark (in just 17 days!!). The previous record was held by The Dark Knight, which took a full ten days longer to reach such an astronomic tally. Not only is it on pace to be the highest grossing film of all time, but The Avengers is now Disney’s highest grossing film ever, both domestically and worldwide. It has settled into fourth place all-time, behind Avatar, Titanic, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
It took only 19 days for Disney/Marvel’sThe Avengersto pass the $1 billion pinnacle worldwide. The film also became the first ever to pass the $100 million mark (domestically) in its second week. Its earnings of $103.2 million shatters the previous second week record held by Avatar ($75.6 mil). The Avengers domestic box office now stands at $372.3 million, and the film is certain to pass the current 2012 box office champ (The Hunger Games; $386.9 million) sometime this week.
Read the rest of the box office report after the jump…
1,125 episodes aired of the daytime serial “Dark Shadows” from 1966 to 1971 and as a teenager, there may have been no bigger fan that Tim Burton. For years, Burton has wanted to bring the story of Barnabas Collins to the big screen and his cinematic partner for life, Johnny Depp, echoed that same desire. As Burton and Depp collaborate for their 8th film together, Dark Shadows is a film arriving with a great deal of promise that Burton and Depp’s excitement could translate to something quite unique and special.
Sadly, Dark Shadows is an unsettled stew of gothic vampire story, an Addams Family-style witty and self-aware comedy, and a dark, foreboding, revenge tale. Perhaps Tim Burton was blinded by his desire to bring a life’s ambition to the big screen, but with Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay, Dark Shadows is a rambling and meandering film that never decides what it wants to be, who it wants to appeal to, with a screenplay that feels ripped up, taped back together again, and likely not at all what was originally intended.
So last week, I made what I thought was a rather bold prediction that The Avengers might actually beat Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’s opening weekend record with just over $170 million! Gosh, could it really happen? Well, yes…and then some. So with that, let’s get some obvious things out of the way. The film will make $1 billion in its theatrical run. Period. This will also put it in prime position for the top ten highest-grossing films of all time. That’s not a leap of faith. Finally, I’m not going out on a limb in predicting that The Avengers will be the first movie in history to rake in $100 million during its second weekend in theaters. What will be the unfortunate victim of this juggernaut’s second go-round?
Luckily, it’s arguably the most tired actor/director collaboration of modern times returning again to trot out tired macabre “kookiness” as the most banal form of recognizable cinematic branding. Their last work together, Alice in Wonderland, was the absolute worst film I saw in 2010. Of course, it also happened to be a smash hit. Dark Shadows – loosely, loosely, loosely based on the cult gothic fantasy soap opera – stars Depp as Barnabas Collins, a wealthy aristocrat who breaks the heart of a vengeful witch is cursed as a vampire and buried alive. Finally freed in 1972, he sets out to restore honor to the family name. Very little of this is based on the original story beyond a few characters, but hey, a vampire comedy might be refreshing in this age of sparkly vampires in theaters and oft-screwing creatures of the night on HBO. Then again, maybe not, since critics are characterizing the film as a tonally and narratively scattershot mess. I can’t imagine a lot of die-hard fans of the show itching to see this film and families won’t be as eager to see this the way they suffered through flocked to Alice in Wonderland. It’ll be making $25-30 million under the shadow of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Read more on Weekend Openings (May 11-13)…
Cast: Winona Ryder, Christopher Lee, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Atticus Shaffer, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Robert Capron, Tom Kenny, James Hiroyuki Liao
Synopsis: Tim Burton’s 1984 Short Film, Frankenweenie, is being brought back to life on the big screen.
Via Sasha Stone at Awards Daily, Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” got a poster showcasing Oscar Nominee Carey Mulligan displayed prominently in the forefront. I believe in her potential for Oscar but not convinced on a category placement. My gut says they’ll push her Lead. Also after the jump is character posters for Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. If you listened to last week’s Power Hour, the staff and I remain skeptical about its prospects. Check it out. Read more on New Posters Hit including The Great Gatsby!…
This week Editor-in-Chief Clayton Davis is joined by Joey Magidson, Michael Ward, and Anna Belickis speaking about everything entertainment. Here’s the profile of what is discussed:
March blues?
Any contenders so far? “The Grey” “The Lorax” “The Hunger Games”
Box Office Numbers (The Artist crossing 40 million)
Big weekend for 21 Jump Street – Golden Globe?
News & Trailers (Dark Shadows, Promethus, World War Z pushed back)
Oscar Night is February 24 (Nominations on 1/15)
TV Talk (American Idol, DWTS, Emmy and Critics Choice Television Awards)
Awards Profiles: Contenders (Gravity, Brave)
Veterans looking for some due in 2013! (Frank Langella, Billy Crystal, Julianne Moore, Laura Linney, Tom Cruise, Ian McKellen, Gena Rowlands, Kristin Scott Thomas)
NEW! Editor Movie Pick of the Week – Junebug (2005)
I really don’t expect much these days from Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaborations. Honestly, aside from ‘Ed Wood’ and ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, I’ve never been big on their work together. So you can see why I wasn’t exactly anticipating the big screen adaptation of the vampire soap opera ‘Dark Shadows’. Well, the Trailer has hit, and go figure…it’s not bad at all, and far more of a comedy than I was expecting. Behold! Read more on Trailer for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows!…
It begins. 2011 film year is behind us and we saw Octavia Spencer crowned Best Supporting Actress for her work in “The Help.” As we embark on the 2012 film year together, I will be breaking down each category individually throughout the month of March. I will also unveil the Awards Circuit Staff Predictions one at a time for all of you to enjoy. Trust me, we all have different takes on what the 2012 season will bring.
We break down the Supporting Actress category first. Any supporting category is difficult to analyze because you never know who will hit it out of the park with a mere eight minute screen time or what borderline Lead performance will be pushed in another category. The rankings of the Supporting Actress are ordered #1 through #25 as you see them on the predictions page but there are outside contenders that could just as easily make the lineup given a strong showing with critics and audiences.
Looking into a crystal ball, Amy Adams will be starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and with three prior nominations (“Junebug,” “Doubt,” and “The Fighter”), Adams could finally score an Oscar. She also has a role in the long-awaited “On the Road” directed by Walter Salles which could catch on. Co-star Kristen Stewart can return to what we loved about her in “Into the Wild.” The question seems to be, is Oscar aching to reward Adams or does she need to be accepted as a leading lady? Have the “Twilight” franchise ruined Stewart forever? Perhaps.
