• “Up in the Air” gets a December release date to avoid Clooney vs. Clooney at the November box office. [Variety]
• Karen O channels Daniel Johnston for “Wild Things” soundtrack. [The Playlist]
• Steve Pond on the forthcoming Oscar short deadline. [The Wrap]
America lined up for seconds as “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” topped the box office for the second weekend in a row, dropping only 19% to $24.6 million. That’s a fantastic hold for the only family film out in the market and makes $100 million a very real possibility, if not a formality.
It was an otherwise slow and disappointing frame at the multiplex as audiences found some other way to entertain themselves. Did football season just start?
Second place went to Disney’s “Surrogates,” which grossed $15 million. While that might sound a little soft, it’s actually better than Willis’s average for this type of film in recent years as “Perfect Stranger,” “Lucky Number Slevin,” “16 Blocks” and “Hostage” all did less than $13 million. The trailer was great but the posters featuring robot models were pretty weak and I think Disney missed an easy chance to take the top spot.
MGM released its first film since “Valkyrie” amidst reports of possible bankruptcy and the $10 million pulled in by “Fame” is probably not going to help matters much. When dance films like “Stomp the Yard” and “Step Up” can pull in $22 million each, a remake of a well-known classic shouldn’t pull in less than half of that. Of course, I use the term “classic” as loosely as they use the term “remake.”
• Pete Hammond suggests Steven Spielberg as Oscarcast producer. [Notes on a Season]
• Steve Pond likes the idea, tries to turn over some news as to who might have been tapped, comes up with nothing. [The Odds]
• Kyle Buchanan chats with “Coco Before Chanel” star Audrey Tautou. [Movieline]
Toronto Film Festival
“I have two lives, mate,” Clive Owen says with clear-eyed certainty. “My work, and when I am done, my home life. There is no question to me which is more important. My wife and children are everything to me.”
Owen is as intense in person as he is in some of the roles he played on screen the last few years. Best known as a tough guy type in films such as “Sin City” and “Shoot ‘Em Up,” he is also brilliant without the edge, as evident in “Bent” and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Closer.” He sits close to me, his eyes never leave mine, and when I glance down to make a note he is still staring at me. But when he smiles his eyes smile as well. As Scott Hicks says, “Clive loves his life, he loves his family, his girls, his work, and his success…he loves his life.”
I wondered how much that love for family and life allowed Owen to tap into the mind of the character he portrays so very well in “The Boys are Back,” the new film from Aussie director Hicks, who first made an impact here back in 1996 with “Shine.” Owen has emerged as one of the great British actors in recent years, his scalding performance in “Closer” an extraordinary poiece of acting that seemed to blow everyone else in the film off the screen, no mean feat considering the quality of the acting in the movie. Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman gave career best work in the film, many of their scenes coming opposite the actor in front of me.
Owen’s road to this place began in television, with his first memorable film performance coming in the powerful drama “Bent,” based on the play by Martin Sherman about Hitler’s massacre of homosexuals during the Holocaust. It was “Gosford Park” that next earned him strong notices, followed by a role in “The Bourne Identity” with Matt Damon.
After the box office failure of “King Arthur,” Owen was back in theaters with “Closer,” which changed the course of his career. Brilliant work in “Children of Men,” “Inside Man” and, more recently, the under-appreciated “Duplicity,” have made him one of the top stars working in film today, and among the busiest. At one time he was among the leading contenders for the role of James Bond, a role that eventually went to Daniel Craig. He possesses a Bogart tough guy persona, but with a soft side buried within. There is certainly an edge to his work, but there is a heart there as well.