In Contention

Tag: The Book of Eli

  • SUNDAY CENTS: Dear James, Suck it! Signed, ‘Dear John’

    Dear John*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    After spending only seven weeks at the top of the box office, “Avatar” was humiliatingly defeated by “Dear John” and doomed to obscurity forever by dropping to second place.

    The new weekend victor earned a phenomenal $32.4 million to end James Cameron’s epic reign and finally give 2010 something new to talk about. The result is better than the $28.3 million start of “He’s Just Not That Into You” on this same weekend last year and boosts the star power of Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried.

    Seyfried has had an interesting career filled with hits (“Mamma Mia!”) and misses (“Jennifer’s Body”), but avoiding the glory or the blame that comes with both. This victory clearly belongs to her, though, and who would have thought watching “Mean Girls” that in five years, she would have a career and Lohan would not?

    “Avatar” dipped 25% to $23.6 million in its first post-Oscar nominations weekend. The running total is now $630.1 million and $700 million should be a piece of cake, particularly if a Best Picture win comes in early March. If so, Cameron would have the only two films to hit that mark in the last 26 years, but he shouldn’t get too comfortable with that stat since I just heard Taylor Lautner is going to be in the “Stretch Armstrong” movie.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Fairy’ bust

    Legion*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Blah blah blah blah “Avatar” blah blah number one blah blah blah $36 million. Second biggest sixth weekend ever, behind “Titanic.” $550 million+ in the bank, passing “The Dark Knight” and entering the top 10 highest grossing films of the modern era (1980 onward). The drop was only 16% from last weekend, which was a Holiday remember, and James Cameron’s fart will go on and on and on.

    “Legion” took the runner up spot with $18.2 million, and as I said on Friday, anything over $16 million would be a huge win. Sony just can’t lose with this kind of product and it will join “Vantage Point,” “21” and “Lakeview Terrace” as successful films that nobody will remember in two years. But anything that keeps Paul Bettany employed can’t be all bad.

    “The Book of Eli” drops 48% to third place and $17 million, which is pretty solid. With last Sunday’s figures inflated by the holiday and word-of-mouth not expected to be great, things could have been a lot worse for Denzel and the Hughes Brothers.

    “Tooth Fairy” failed to get off the ground, taking fourth place with $14.5 million and represents the second straight seemingly can’t-miss family film to drop the ball. I’d say that maybe kids and parents are raising their standards but “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” passed the $200 million mark on Saturday so…

    Just to recap: Denzel Washington films to make $200 million = zero. Singing chipmunk films to make $200 million = two.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Book’ report

    The Book of Eli*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    First off, I should apologize for neglecting to write a Friday Forecast column this week. Fridays are my day off from work so while I have plenty of time to cook up an article, it’s also the one day where the box office is farthest from my mind, so I beg your pardon. I’m pretty sure the world went on spinning without it and rest assured, I would have predicted all these numbers to the cent.

    So, our number one film this week is “Avatar.” That’s five weeks in a row and it’s the first film to accomplish that feat since “The Sixth Sense” a decade ago. Yes, the entire naughties nearly went by without a single film setting up residence at the top for more than four weeks.  The fact that “Avatar” has done it and dropped only 18% in the process is flat out jaw-dropping.

    The film grossed $41.3 million for the weekend, which is only 47% off from the film’s debut weekend almost a month ago. In other words, this would have been a perfectly respectable second weekend total, but as a fifth weekend, it trails only the $47 million of “Titanic.” So, Cameron’s latest has finally dipped below the weekly performance of his last, although “Titanic” only had $371 million at this point, while “Avatar” has $491.8 million.

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  • Hollywood focused on the end of the world as we know it

    Denzel Washington in The Book of EliI’ve been meaning to write this piece for a while now, but I never got around to it.  Paul Harris at The Guardian beat me to the punch, so I’ll run his thoughts instead.

    The recent wave of post-apocalyptic films flooding and being prepared for the marketplace is intriguing indeed.  Fads always pop up in Hollywood output, whether it’s the one-two punch of “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak” in 1997, “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” a year later, “The Truman Show” and “EdTV,” etc., studios know when something is hot and when to strike.  But it’s usually two or three projects and then on to the next thing.

    But this year and next, we have Alex Proyas’s “Knowing,” the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road,” Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” Shane Acker’s “9,” Ruben Fleischer’s “Zombieland,” The Hughes brothers’ “The Book of Eli,” television’s “The Colony” and a new “Terminator” installment, all productions either depicting a post-apocalyptic environment or the end of days in some manner or another.  It all perhaps started with the Will Smith vehicle “I Am Legend” in 2007.  The trend even extends to animated films, as our commenters shrewdly note “WALL-E” as an example.

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