The Bullseye for the August 6 weekend shows a wide, scattered collection of new August films, with just a few big guns looking strong as of Thursday.
Warner Bros. has Rob Reiner's teen romance "Flipped" hitting theaters, while Disney's threequel "Step Up 3D" competes with it for younger viewers. But Columbia's action comedy "The Other Guys" looms large as the weekend's biggest new offering.
Warner Bros.' "Inception" remains the subject of major fascination for Flixster users, and last week's comedy champ, Paramount's "Dinner for Schmucks," may cut in to the new releases' prospects since it's the only one sitting on the actual bullseye.
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Paramount Vantage also sends out "Middle Men," which, given its subject matter, it has shrewdly been advertising on porn sites all over the web. This weekend, the indie world will also field the Hannover House release of Joel Schumacher's Sundance festival thriller "Twelve," the Tribeca fest thriller "The Disappearance of Alice Creed," IFC Films' romantic drama "Cairo Time" and Sony Pictures Classics' war drama "Lebanon," which will play in New York theaters before a wider platform rollout the following weekend.
With his newest comedy “The Other Guys” about to open, Will Ferrell has committed to star in his next project, the Spanish-language comedy “Casa de mi padre.”
Ferrell and his Gary Sanchez Prods. colleagues Adam McKay, Kevin Messick and Jessica Elbaum will produce the laugher -- “House of My Father” in English -- along with Emilio Diez Barroso and Darlene Caamano Loquet of NALA Films, which is fully financing the picture. The project begins shooting in September in California.
In an amusing statement, the principals indicate that Ferrell’s participation is the result of “a closed-door settlement” of a pending lawsuit with the fictional Sanchez.
“NALA can’t comment regarding the circumstances surrounding why Will is attached to the project,” said Loquet. “We are just thrilled he is on board and are moving full steam ahead since we have one month to teach him Spanish.”
Sanchez himself merely remarked: “What comes around, goes around, Will Ferrell.”
Neither party would otherwise comment on the feud.
Film Movement has nabbed U.S. and Canadian rights to filmmaker Joseph Infantolino’s debut feature, “Helena From the Wedding.” The indie distributor plans a theatrical release Nov. 12 followed by a VOD launch in December.
Gillian Jacobs (“Choke”), Melanie Lynskey (“Up in the Air”) and Dominic Fumusa (“Nurse Jackie”) star in the story of newlyweds who host a New Year’s Eve party at their remote mountain cabin that goes awry when the gorgeous Helena shows up. The indie drama had its world premiere in the narrative competition at the SXSW Film Festival in March.
“ ‘Helena from the Wedding’ was one of the films to really stand out this year at SXSW,” said Adley Gartenstein, Film Movement’s president. “A mature, adult drama with a top notch ensemble cast, intelligent dialog and impeccable direction by Mr. Infantolino.”
So my predictions from last week worked out pretty well.
A few months into this Bullseye project, I've begun to attach more hard boxoffice numbers to the Flixster data. And this week, I got the hierarchy of films right, and even nailed some of the hard numbers, but overestimated receipts for the holdovers, "Inception" and "Salt."
Last week's Bullseye data indicated that "Inception" maintained a strong hold on potential audiences, so calling its win was pretty easy. I did think it would pull in more -- in the $35 million range -- but it actually drew $27.5m.
I was over by about the same amount on "Dinner for Schmucks," which ultimately drew $23.3m, but I was off by just $1-2 million on "Salt," which pulled $19.3m. As for the other new releases -- "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" and "Charlie St. Cloud" -- I hit them dead on. "C&D" barked up $12.5m after I said that it would just get over the opening grosses of "Marmaduke," at $11.6m. And I put Zac Efron's movie between $12-14 million; it landed at $12.1m.
So moving into this coming weekend's data, I'll need to take a closer look at holdovers to figure out how I can tighten those calls. I'll post the Aug. 6 Bullseye in a few days and take the last-minute temperature of Columbia's "The Other Guys" and Disney's "Step Up 3D."
Get ready for a feeding frenzy this afternoon as the industry ravenously descends on the movie rights to Nicholas Sparks' latest novel, "Safe Haven."
After lunch, Sparks' camp is expected to issue the studios a list of terms for "Haven," which is being described as the first real foray into thriller territory for Sparks, the mega-successful author behind such romance novels as "The Notebook," "Dear John" and "A Walk to Remember."
Sparks (pictured) isn't foreswearing romance altogether, though. The thriller carries a tagline that reads, "in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven."
The property is being distributed through production companies with studio deals around town: Offspring, run by Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot, is taking the book into Disney and Fox; Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey's Temple Hill is taking it to Sony; and Di Novi Pictures, headed by Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan, is handling Warner Bros. and others.
The adaptations of Sparks' novels don't always result in the biggest boxoffice hits around, but they still attract considerable interest because they work financially. The budgets tend to be in the $25 million-and-under range and deliver solid results. This year alone has seen "Dear John," with a budget of $25 million, slowly make just over $80 million, and Miley Cyrus vehicle "The Last Song," made for $20 million, sing its way to almost $63 million.
Warners is already developing "The Lucky One" which has Zac Efron circling.
The Motion Picture Association of America just handed an R rating to the Holocaust documentary "A Film Unfinished," and distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories is not happy.
The company's founder, Adam Yauch, minced no words by calling the MPAA's ruling -- for “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities including graphic nudity" -- "bullshit."
"This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms," argued Yauch in a statement released today. "While there’s no doubt that Holocaust atrocities are displayed, if teachers feel their students are ready to understand what happened, it’s essential that young people are given the opportunity to see this film. Why deny them the chance to learn about this critical part of our human history? I understand that the MPAA wants to protect children’s eyes from things that are too overwhelming, but they’ve really gone too far this time. It's bullshit."
This was my favorite film at this past year's Sundance Film Festival. Wildly surprising, unexpectedly moving and totally riveting.
Relativity Media and Rogue Pictures picked up the doc from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman after the fest, and they've finally put out a new trailer. It leans heavily on the film's suspense in the last third, which is a little misleading. Not in the suspense itself, which the film has in buckets. But in the nature of it. What you're in for with this film is not "Paranormal Activity" or "The Blair Witch Project," but something much more unusual and startling.
The Toronto International Film Festival has a trailer for the Millennium/Nu Image Films thriller "Trust," the sophomore directing effort from David Schwimmer ("Run, Fatboy, Run").
At first glance, it looks like a fairly standard ordinary guy-wants-revenge nail-biter, in the tradition of "Breakdown," "Ransom" and "Reservation Road." But with stars Clive Owen and Catherine Keener running point, it promises to have some more idiosyncratic touches. (At least, I hope it does.)
The film will have its world premiere at the Toronto fest next month. Check it out.
The latest films from Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire," "28 Days Later") and Darren Aronofsky ("The Wrestler," "Requiem for a Dream") have received Oscar-consideration-friendly release dates.
"127 Hours," Boyle's survival drama in the vein of "Touching the Void" and "Into the Wild," launches November 5. The film stars James Franco as an injured mountain climber trapped in an isolated Utah canyon.
Aronofsky's "Black Swan" is described as a "psychological thriller" and stars Natalie Portman as a New York City ballerina competing with pal Mila Kunis for the lead role in "Swan Lake." The film opens December 1, and will kick off the Venice Film Festival in September as well.
Fox Searchlight is rolling out both pictures as platform expansions.
Early this morning, RadarOnline.com posted an article quoting an unnamed source "close to" Leonardo DiCaprio as saying that the "Inception" star would not be making the untitled Viking film he had planned to do with director Mel Gibson.
No kidding. Really?
While I don't want to trivialize the news value in RadarOnline's latest scoop outlining the miserable melee that is Gibson's life, this is a bit like saying that while DiCaprio has 20 gorgeous international models clamoring for a date he has chosen not to sleep with the tall, beautiful Nordic one with blond braids and syphilis.
The July 30 weekend will provide a little something for everyone. Including a more colorful Bullseye!
Universal floats its Zac Efron weepie "Charlie St. Cloud," Paramount sets the table for its broad comedy "Dinner for Schumcks" and Warner Bros. unleashes its 3D family flick "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore." Unfortunately for the studios, none is fielding a tremendous amount of excitement, though "Schmucks" is at least positioned right at the four-quadrant center.
Meanwhile, both WB's "Inception" and Sony's "Salt" will still be packing theaters with audiences looking for adult-oriented thrills and action. According to the July 30 Bullseye, they should clobber all comers.
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This weekend, the indie world has lined up its own frothy hodgepodge with limited releases for Sony Pictures Classics "Get Low," Magnolia's "The Extra Man," The Weinstein Co.'s "The Concert" and Freestyle Releasing's "The Dry Land." Plenty of quirk on display there.
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With his newest comedy “The Other Guys” about to open, Will Ferrell has committed to star in his next project, the Spanish-language comedy “Casa de mi padre.”
Here are this weekend's 
The Motion Picture Association of America just handed an R rating to the Holocaust documentary "A Film Unfinished," and distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories is not happy.
Early this morning, RadarOnline.com 
