Box Office: "Into the Woods" Worth More Than Five Beans

Whenever I hear myself complaining loudly about the December glut I know I will have a comeuppance when I see the box office chart and notice once again that everything makes a ton of money during the Christmas and New Years. 

Everything that opens wide that is. It's still an awfully tough time to open an indie on a few screens or a foreign film (though distributors always try) as evidence by A Most Violent Year, Two Days One Night and Leviathan which need far more publicity than they can reasonably manage when everyone is talking about the behemoths like all-star musical and Angelina Jolie's epic and so on. Those films are at $300,000, $109,000 and $79,000 respectively.

TOP SIXTEEN
01 HOBBIT 3 $21.9 NEW (cum. $220.7) Five Beautiful Armies
02 INTO THE WOODS $19 (cum. $91.2)  Interview, Review
03 UNBROKEN $18.3 (cum. $87.8)  Interview
04 WOMAN IN BLACK 2 NEW $15.1  
05 NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 3  $14.4 (cum. $89.7)
06 ANNIE  $11.4 (cum. $72.6)
07 IMITATION GAME $8.1 (cum. $30.8)  Review, second take
08 HUNGER GAMES 3 $7.7 (cum. $323.8) Review
09 THE GAMBLER $6.3 (cum. $27.5) Review
10 BIG HERO 6 $4.8 (cum. $211.2)  Review / second take

11 WILD $4.5 (cum. $25.8) Review, interview, podcast
12 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS $3.7 (cum. $61.2) Review
13 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR $2.8 (cum. $78) Review
14 BIG EYES $2.6 (cum. $9.9)  Brief note
15 INTERSTELLAR $2.4 (cum. $182.7) Review, Podcast
16 TOP FIVE $2.1 (cum. $23.7) Thoughts
17 THEORY OF EVERYTHING  $1.1 (cum. $24.7) Review, podcast
18 THE INTERVIEW $1.1 (cum. $4.9)
19 HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 $0.9 (cum. $53)
20 FOXCATCHER $.09 (cum. $7.9)  Review, second Take, podcast

It's worth noting that Into the Woods is already the 7th most successful musical of the 21st century and seems likely to vault over most of its competitors. Whether it can surplant Chicago (also by Rob Marshall) as #1 is the question.

Of the top 20 the Imitation Game had the most crowded theaters followed by Into the Woods. Meanwhile in platform release the big story is still two mainstream movies which go wide very soon. Selma and American Sniper are both already at $2 million and go wide next week and the week after respectively. Expect huge numbers for American Sniper which continues to pack houses whether or not it wins Oscar nominations the day before its release. Incidentally Still Alice opens the day after the nominations, finally showing its face to regular citizens.

Jennifer Aniston's Oscar strategy (campaign a movie that doesn't exist) is so inspired & smear-proof I can't believe no one's done it before

— Sam (@danceremix) January 3, 2015

Meanwhile everyone still thinks Cake doesn't exist. What did you see this weekend?

Best Actress Battles: Juli vs. Jen?

A recent headline, suggesting 'ways in which Jennifer Aniston could win the Oscar' (I shan't quote it directly but it's here if you must look upon it) didn't raise my eyebrow. Didn't even cause a twitch! If you've followed the Oscar game your whole life and especially if you've followed it in the past ten years when the internet has amplified all of the minutea you'll know that journalists are always looking for fresh angles or, with or without those, highly fantastical angles sold as plausible to use for click bait. So though the articles (I'm sure they are plural though I haven't actually read them) didn't worry me at first -- I believe that Julianne Moore will win gold -- but the immediate enthusiastic social media response to the idea that Jennifer Aniston might have an Oscar coming in February is what finally shoved my unwilling eyebrow up.

"Consider..." that here are two movies (Still Alice and Cake) that virtually no one outside of the press & industry has seen since both opted for one week qualifying releases. Yet they're the two that the fans are getting emotionally invested in in terms of "should/will win" arguments. It serves as a useful reminder that around Christmas-time each year the narratives truly begin to take over, media "battles" are created, and the actual films and performances are left far far behind...

Click to read more ...

SAG Noms: Surprises, Snubs, Sexism, Stunts

The nominations were announced live here (by Eva Longoria and Ansel Elgort) and on TBS & TNT. My wrong predictions were back here.

Though I have many pet peeves about the way the actors guild decides and divvies up its honor, here's one that's wildly underdiscussed online and I don't think it's at all insignificant or petty. Each year they refuse to alphabetize correctly, always listing Male Actor categories BEFORE Female Actor categories. That might make sense at the Oscars since "Actor" does comes before "Actress" in the alphabet if not in our hearts, but "Female" does not  come AFTER "Male" when you alphabetize and yet SAG always lists the men first. Highly sexist if you ask me though they are obviously super self-righteous about not calling women "Actresses". Go figure. 

If you don't think this is sexist consider this subliminal perhaps subconscious related value judgement: Drama is always listed before Comedy in their press releases though that's also not alphabetically justified. 

So The Film Experience always course-corrects for SAG by listing female actors first. Of course we do that with the Oscars too which is alphabetically incorrect since we use "Actress" but in our case it isn't a subliminal but a purposeful value judgement. Duh! Women are better than men. 

NOMINATIONS & COMMENTARY (ALL CATEGORIES) ARE AFTER THE JUMP

MOVIES

Click to read more ...

Monty the Cat Pundit Smells a Jennifer Aniston Surprise!

Monty is getting on in years and has all but retired from Oscar punditry. When I show him my swag in the hopes that he'll reveal some innate feline wisdom about awards season these days he looks away with disdain, grumpier than ever. He's even ignored all the boxes which must be like an alcoholic strolling past an open bar without stopping.

But FINALLY engagement. This week he lept with glee into a box containing various Into the Woods substances (I wasn't quick enough with the camera but he obviously approves. Does this mean that Into the Woods can muscle into the Best Picture race after all (it's kind of a toss-up right?) or is it just a reminder that Monty has a thing for musicals? His first Oscar call ever was Best Original Song for Björk in Dancer in the Dark (2000) when he was just a 2 year-old. He would race to the CD player (remember those?) whenever it came on and plant himself there.

And tonight, the most curiousity yet this season as he began circling one of three new packages He would barely let me touch it. What's it for?

Click to read more ...

That Movie You Thought Wasn't Coming Out, Is!

December cometh. Cue ominous music.

That special month when US distributors panic and attempts to fulfill all star contract Oscar-eligibility demands by releasing EVERYTHING, often sloppily, for at least a week when another more traditional rollout would probably win the film more attention... especially from audiences who are trying to squeeze in all the holiday biggies and rarely think, "gee, I'd like to see that movie about Jennifer Aniston being depressed and eating pastries at that one screen before it leaves!" (I don't mean to be snarky. I'm not allowed to talk about Cake yet but I liked it.)

There seem to be seven-day eligibility runs planned for Cake, Black and White, The Humbling, Still Alice, and Mommy... among others though details are purposefully scarce in some of these cases. These qualifiers or last second films are usually quiet since they aren't intended to be true openings of the film and aren't concerned with box office... UNTIL Oscar nominations hit.

The film that seems to have become the most confused over the past several months about when and where it will open and for how long it will play -- hell whether it exists at all --  is Maps to the Stars. Last we heard they were planning a Golden Globes qualifying run but not an Oscar qualifying run which was surely an internet misunderstanding - a digital game of telephone if you will - since why would you bother with the former if you didn't have eyes on the latter? The current plan is to open properly on February 27th nine months after it spurred a lot of press and won Julianne her first Best Actress prize of 2014. The current Maps release date suggests that they're just waiting to capitalize on God's presumed Oscar win on February 22nd for Still Alice.

Here's what I think of that:

FOUL-MOUTHED RANT

This one week business - part of the great 'hide your movie' phenomenon - is, as I'm often ranting this time of year, very anti-audience. I wonder when distributors will catch up to modern pop culture which likes to share beloved things. And very quickly, too. I think this is one of the lesser discussed reasons why people have turned to television for so much for their cinematic fix; it's instant. They can tweet and tumblr away immediately and everyone can be a part of the conversation if they choose to be.  It doesn't make any sense to premiere a film with big stars or name auteurs, both easy marketing hooks, at a festivals and then wait a year for release and have to promote it all over again. You lose all that revenue opportunity from all the people who wanted to be part of the conversation to begin with, to see what all the fuss was about. A year later when you need media voices to help promote your film by writing about it they've already exhausted the conversation and everyone cares less even the people who haven't seen it. They sometimes feel like they already have because of the months of conversation last year.

In happier less-ranty news I had all but forgotten that the hit play Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks was being screenified and now it's also declared itself a December baby. It will come into the world on December 12th and here's the poster.

Your guess is as good as mine why they modeled the poster after a photoshopped 1990s DVD cover, but the cast is delightful: Gena Rowlands, Cheyenne Jackson, Julian Sands, Jacki Weaver... RITA MORENO.