Monday, 31 December 2012
Oscar Nominated Composer Richard Rodney Bennett Dies
LONDON – Composer Richard Rodney Bennett died at age 76 on Christmas Eve in New York City, sparking tributes on both sides of the Atlantic.
The British born composer, a three-time Oscar nominee, is perhaps best known for his film and TV scores, including Hugh Grant starrer Four Weddings and a Funeral, Murder on the Orient Express and Doctor Who. Bennett died peacefully in NYC where he had lived for more than 20 years.
PHOTOS: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2012
Bennett, always known by his three names, secured a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for his score to Murder on the Orient Express in 1974 which starred Albert Finney as detective Hercule Poirot.
He was three times nominated for an Oscar for Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971 and Far From The Madding Crowd in 1967 in addition to a tilt for Murder on the Orient Express in the same year he won the BAFTA.
David Arnold, the composer whose resume boasts the Quantum of Solace score, hailed him as "one of our greats" via social media.
"Sad news about Richard Rodney Bennett," he said on Twitter.
Sir Nicholas Kenyon, managing director of London's Barbican arts centre, described Bennett on the BBC News website as "one of the most rounded musicians of our time."
Jazz singer Ann Hampton Callaway wrote on Facebook: "Saddened by the loss of brilliant composer, arranger, pianist and friend, Richard Rodney Bennett.
"He was one of the first friends of the music world to welcome me to New York, teach me great songs, accompany and arrange for me and record with me. He had superb taste, great talent and a wicked sense of humor."
Bennett is often reported as saying he believed the best film music he composed was for Murder on the Orient Express, specifically the scene in which the train is first seen leaving the station at Istanbul.
His other film credits included Billy Liar, The Nanny, Equus, Yanks and Enchanted April.
He was knighted in 1998 for services to music.
Oscar-Winning Peter Jackson Collaborator Mike Hopkins Dies in Rafting Accident
Oscar-winning sound editor Mike Hopkins, a long-time collaborator of Peter Jackson's, has died after a rafting accident in New Zealand, newspaper The Australian reported Monday.
Hopkins, 53, was wearing a lifejacket and helmet, but drowned after the raft capsized, it quoted local police near the country's capital of Wellington a saying. His two rafting partners survived.
Another Jackson collaborator, visual effects producer Eileen Moran, also died in New Zealand earlier this month. She worked on The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was an executive producer at Jackson's Weta Digital and a longtime confidant of the director.
Hopkins won an Oscar with Ethan Van der Ryn in 2006 for their sound editing work on Jackson's King Kong. In 2003, the duo had won the same Oscar for the second installment of the Lord of the Rings franchise.
He also worked on other Jackson movies, such as Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. Hopkins also won three New Zealand Film and Television Awards.
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
Oscar-Winning Producer Irving Saraf Dies at 80
Irving Saraf, a producer, editor and director who won an Academy Award for producing the 1991 feature documentary In the Shadow of the Stars, has died. He was 80.
Born in Poland and raised and educated in Israel, Saraf died Dec. 26 at his home in San Francisco after a three-year battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
One of his sons is Peter Saraf, the Oscar-nominated producer whose résumé includes Adaptation (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Our Idiot Brother (2011).
Saraf, who came to the U.S. in 1952, founded the film unit of San Francisco public TV station KQED and was the former manager of Saul Zaentz’s production company Fantasy Films. Working with Zaentz, he produced a score of movies and served as postproduction supervisor of the 1976 best picture winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
With Allie Light, his producing partner since 1981 and second wife, Saraf co-directed, edited and produced In the Shadow of the Stars, which relegated the divas to the background to focus on the lives of the members of the chorus of the San Francisco Opera.
Saraf and Light also shared a News and Documentary Emmy for outstanding interview program in 1995 for PBS’ Dialogues With Madwomen.
His more than 150 credits also include the 1965 telefilm Poland, Communism’s New Look; 1966’s USA Poetry: Twelve Films About Modern Poets; and 2009’s Empress Hotel, about the downtrodden residents of the hotel located in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.
A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Saraf received a B.A. in motion pictures from UCLA and for many years taught film production at San Francisco State University.
In addition to Light, his wife of 38 years, and son Peter, Saraf is survived by other children Michal, Ilana, Alexis, Charles and Julia and eight grandchildren.
Producer J. Mark Travis Dies at 61
J. Mark Travis, a theater, film and television producer, and former chief of staff to pastor Dr. Gene Scott of University Cathedral, died Dec. 25 after a short illness at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where he had served on the Foundation Board. He was 61.
Travis, who began his career as a music agent representing such composers as Don Ellis and Jack Nitzsche, turned to film producing in 1975, teaming up with impresario Bill Sargent and film producer David Permut. Together they videotaped a one-man stage production, Give ‘em Hell Harry!, starring James Whitmore as President Harry Truman, in front of a live audience. When no studio would distribute it, they released the film themselves. Whitmore was nominated for an Academy Awasrd as best actor, and the film, produced for less than $100,000, grossed more than $11 million.
PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2012
In 1979, the trio produced the comedy concert in history, Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, which they also self-distributed the film as it went on to gross $32.5 million. Travis went on to stage and film other shows including Sammy Davis, Jr. in Stop The World, I Want To Get Off.
Travis and Permut formed a production company of their own, signing a deal with Columbia, where they set up the deal for Cheech & Chong to star in the films Nice Dreams, and Things Are Tough All Over. Travis and Permut later moved to Lorimar Productions, where they had a non-exclusive film and television deal. They also produced the feature film Fighting Back with Dino DeLaurentiis for Paramount Pictures.
Travis moved on to work as chief of staff for Scott, pastor of the University Cathedral, a Protestant congregation in downtown Los Angeles and one of the first television ministries. Scott was the subject of the Werner Herzog documentary God’s Angry Man. Largely responsible for radio acquisition and philanthropy, Travis oversaw the salvaging and restoration of the historic Los Angeles Downtown Library.
Permut developed a script about Travis’ journey from the film industry to the ministry as a feature film with Disney’s Touchstone, and in 2008, Travis rejoined Permut to develop a one-man play The Lifeguard, Ronald Reagan and his Story, which received a workshop at the Geffen Theatre in Westwood.
Travis is survived by his mother, Patricia Travis of Woodland Hills, Ca.; sister, Melinda Travis of Spokane, Wa. and La Quinta, Ca.; brother, Jon Travis of Calabasas, Ca.; sister, Melissa Travis Aardema; brother-in-law, Gary Aardema; nieces, Lauren and Jennifer Aardema; nephews, Michael Aardema of Calabasas, Michael Travis Remington of Bellingham, Wa. and Spokane, and John David Remington of Spokane; aunt, Peggy Eaton of Bradenton Fla.; and cousins Kathleen Downey of New York City and Kelly Downey Zayas, of Englewood, N.J. His father, Sid Travis, his father, preceded him in death.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Memorial services are pending.
Foreign Box Office: 'Hobbit' Remains No. 1 Overseas; Approaching Half-Billion Mark
The foreign theatrical circuit ended 2012 with a box office bang as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey commanded the No. 1 spot with a weekend gross of $106.5 million at some 16,600 screens in 62 markets, raising the film’s overseas gross total to $464 million.
Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic -- the first installment of the director’s $500 million trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel – took a relatively benign dip of 12 percent from its second round in holdover markets, and has perched No. 1 offshore for three consecutive stanzas.
An Australia debut generated an amazing $18.6 million from 560, and all but took over the market. The biggest holdover market is Germany where The Hobbit has registered a market total of $60 million.
New to the foreign circuit was Twentieth Century Fox’s release of Walden Media-Chernin Entertainment’s Parental Guidance, which opened in seven markets to a bracing $7 million at 1,491 locations. The comedy costarring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler premiered best in Australia ($2.8 million at 234 sites) and in the U.K. ($2.1 million at 440). This week will bring 17 new market openings.
STORY: Holiday Box Office: 'Hobbit' No. 1 With $32.9 Mil
Meanwhile, it appears certain that the major Hollywood studios – Fox, Disney, Universal, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. – have broken their recent string of consecutive yearly box office records set on the foreign theatrical circuit. Preliminary figures from each company put the studios’ collective 2012 taking at $13.485 billion, less than the $13.6 billion box office record set in 2011.
Fox, which leads the six companies, scored a 21 percent jump in yearly foreign box office with a total of $2.725 billion registered this year versus $2.160 billion in all of 2011. The top title by far was the computer-animation Ice Age Continental Drift, which scored an amazing $718.1 million on foreign box office. Following from a distance were Titanic 3D ($291.9 million) and Promethueus ($277.6 million).
Warner Bros. came in second with $2.670 billion for the year, down seven percent from last year and nine percent from the company’s foreign box office record of $2.930 billion set in 2010. The top two titles are The Dark Knight Rises, which grossed $634 million offshore, and The Hobbit.
This year, Sony set a foreign box office record for the company, coming in with a total of $2.660 billion overseas – a 45 percent increase over the company’s 2011 total of $1.830 billion. Sony’s previous best was 2009 when it took in 2.142 billion in overseas box office.
The latest James Bond sequel, Skyfall, was the big driver, grossing $622.8 million in Sony-handled offshore markets ($710.6 million overall including those markets handled by co-distributor MGM), the highest-grossing title ever released by Sony overseas. This year, the company also distributed The Amazing Spider-Man (grossing $491.9 million offshore) and Men In Black 3 ($445.7 million).
STORY: 'Skyfall' Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide
Having its ups and down in 2012 was Disney, which recorded $2.080 billion in foreign box office, down 6 percent from 2011. The highlight, of course, was Marvel’s The Avengers, which tallied a huge $892.4 million in overseas earnings. The flip side was John Carter, which pulled a disappointing offshore tally of $208.2 million.
Despite one or two high profile disappointments, Universal logged a record year overseas, taking in $1.788 billion in foreign box office -- 41 percent higher than 2011 and 4 percent bigger than the company’s previous record of $1.716 billion set in 2008. Universal had six titles grossing over $100 million offshore including Ted ($284.3 million) and Snow White and the Huntsman ($245.3 million).
With a contracted overseas release schedule, Paramount took a 51 percent tumble from 2011, grossing $1.562 billion offshore this year. It should be noted that last year set a foreign record for the company ($3.198 billion in offshore box office). The top earner this time was DreamWorks’ Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which collected $525.5 million offshore.
And the biggest indie by far was Lionsgate, which collected $1.243 billion in foreign box office – up 280 percent from 2011 – on the strength of Twilight Saga:Breaking Dawn Part 2 (which drew $520.2 million offshore) and The Hunger Games ($284.8 million).
Returning to weekend action, Fox’s Life of Pi continues strongly on the foreign circuit, drawing $39.2 million on the weekend from 8,394 spots in 56 territories, raising director Ang Lee’s film to a cume of $220 million, of which $90.8 million came from China.
A Germany opening was particularly strong, drawing $7.1 million from 704 sites, and a second U.K. round drew $6.6 million from 1,015 venues for a market cume of $17 million. Life of Pi opens in nine markets this week including Australia, Russia and South Korea.
Registering record market openings for a musical in South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia, Universal’s Les Miserables costarring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Ann Hathaway drew a weekend total of $38.3 million from a total of 1,698 venues in eight markets, lifting its early offshore cume to $48.7 million.
The No. 1 Korea tally was a muscular $20.1 million over six days at 599 sites. In Hong Kong, the opening gross was $1.6 million including previews at just 31 playdates. In Australia, where the musical update opened on Boxing Day (Dec. 26), the opening launch delivered $8.3 million including previews over five days at 241 locations. Les Mis’ International rollout continues Jan. 11 with a U.K. opening.
Opening in 25 markets including the U.K. and France, Paramount’s latest Tom Cruise action title, Jack Reacher, came up with $18.1 million from a total of 2,195 locations in 32 countries. Early overseas cume stands at $22.5 million.
The No. 3 bow in the U.K. generated $5.5 million at 445 locations over five days. In France, the No. 2 debut delivered $4.4 million at 480 spots. Reacher opens this week at 17 markets including Australia, Germany, Italy and Mexico.
DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians collected $11.6 million in its seventh round overseas from 5,151 locations in 59 markets. The Paramount release, a $145 million fantasy title featuring the voices of Alec Baldwin and Hugh Jackman, lifted its foreign gross to $165.2 million.
Sony/MGM’s Skyfall, the 23rd installment of the James Bond franchise, grossed $10.3 million from 3,225 sites in 60 markets handled by Sony and licensees of co-distributor MGM. In the U.K., where Skyfall has been gangbusters, the film became over the weekend the first movie ever to break the 100-pound sterling mark at the local box office. U.K. cume stands at $161.6 million.
Universal’s rom/com-musical Pitch Perfect grossed $6.2 million from 1,250 locations in 15 markets. The film’s early international gross total stands at $28.7 million.
Weekend box office action in France was generally heated. The top local language title remained Mars Distribution’s De L’autre Cote De Periph starring Omar Sy. The police caper about two mismatched cops assigned to a murder case drew $5.6 million from some 480 screens – up some 40 percent from its opening session last round -- sufficient for a No.2 market ranking. Market cume stands at $10 million. (The Weinstein Co. has domestic distribution rights.)
2012: A Year of Controversy for Italian Film Festivals
Venice's jury wanted to give 'The Master' even more awardsROME – From an award switcheroo involving Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master in Venice to shouts of “Shame! Shame!” over an award at Rome’s final ceremony and director Ken Loach’s high-profile snub of the Turin festival, 2012 will go down as a year of controversy at Italy’s most visible cinema events.
There was more: Marco Bellocchio, whose critically acclaimed euthanasia drama Bella Adormentata (Dormant Beauty) left Venice empty handed, accused the festival of under-evaluating domestic productions, and he vowed to never bring another film to the August festival. And Matteo Garone, a two-time Cannes jury prize winner, who was on the Venice jury this year, said after the controversy he would never serve on an Italian festival jury again.
In Rome, first-year artistic director Marco Mueller drew fire when he lobbied hard to move the seven-year-old event from October to November, encroaching on the spot on the calendar usually reserved for Turin. And later, he was criticized for the festival’s lack of star power - Sylvester Stallone and James Franco were the biggest names to make more than just a cameo at the event - and for its moribund ticket sales, down by at least 15 percent compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, in Turin, Alberto Barbera was criticized for his dual role as the director of Italy’s National Film Museum, the Turin festival’s parent organization, and as the artistic director in Venice, where he replaced Mueller. Turin also had its own issues with settling on an artistic director to replace Gianni Amelio, after odds-on favorite Gabriele Salvatores, the director behind 1992 Oscar winner Mediterraneo, withdrew his name from consideration. The festival eventually appointed comedic director Paolo Virzi to the position.
Add to that the near-death experience of Sicily’s 58-year-old Taormina Film Festival after serious budget issues (new artistic director Mario Sesti had just 45 days to pull together a scaled-down non-competitive version of the event), and the country-wide shuffle among festival directors (Venice’s Barbera, who was appointed almost exactly a year ago, is now the longest-serving artistic director among the country’s four most high-profile competitive festivals), and many in the industry will not be sad to see 2012 come to a close.
“I don’t remember a year when so much attention was paid to problems at the various film festivals,” said Il Messaggero journalist Gloria Satta, who has been writing about Italy’s film industry for 37 years. “But it’s a shame that by paying so much attention to the festivals people talked so little about the films.”
Well, they talked about at least some of the films: the fate of The Master is probably the biggest of the controversies. The Venice jury, headed by Michael Mann, wanted to give the film the Golden Lion award for best film. But since the film was already given the prizes for best director and two for best actor (split between co-protagonists Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman), festival rules prohibited honoring it with the Golden Lion award as well. That honor eventually went instead to Ki-duk Kim’s celebrated Pieta.
In Rome, the biggest controversy came from E la chiamano estate (And They Call it Summer), which earned the best director prize for Paolo Franchi and the best actress award for female lead Isabella Ferrari. The film, which was co-produced by Nicoletta Mantovani, the widow of opera icon Luciano Pavarotti, earned angry whistles and boos during at least one of its festival screenings. When Ferrari’s acting award was announced, it prompted loud shouts of “Vergogna! Vergogna!” (“Shame! Shame!”) from the crowd. There were also charges that the festival handed out prizes to films funded by entities that gave the festival financial support.
Loach’s snub of the Turin festival was also big news in Italy. Loach declined to attend the festival to receive the Gran Premio Torino lifetime achievement prize in protest of alleged abuse of workers at the National Film Museum.
The move sparked criticism from festival and museum organizers, Ettore Scola (the other Gran Premio Torino honoree), and even the city of Turin, which announced it was looking into suing Loach to recoup damages. But damages might be hard to prove: Turin was the only one among Italy’s largest festivals this year to report an increase in ticket sales.
'Skyfall' Becomes First Film to Cross £100 Million Mark at U.K. Box Office
LONDON – Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig as James Bond, has crossed the £100 million ($161.5 million) mark at the U.K. box office, the first film ever to do so.
Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment trumpeted the movie's success on Monday. The 23rd installment of the Bond franchise has now taken $162.76 million ( £100.46 million) at the U.K. box office.
The tally means the Bond film is now the most successful U.K. release in history, overtaking Avatar, which had a lifetime gross of $151.3 million (£94 million) over the course of its 11 months in release in U.K. cinemas.
Skyfall opened in 587 cinemas across the U.K. and Ireland on Oct. 26. The movie has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales worldwide.
In the movie, Craig returns for his third outing as Ian Fleming’s 007 to find his loyalty to M tested as her past comes back to haunt her.
The film is from Albert R. Broccoli’s EON Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Directed by Sam Mendes, Skyfall is written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan.
Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow Spill Secrets From Roommate Days (Video)
Before their films were making millions at the box office, Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow were roommates sharing a $900 per month apartment in the Valley. The old friends sat down with Anderson Cooper and CBS’ 60 Minutes Overtime to share memories from their early forays into comedy and why Sandler eventually moved out.
“Back then, life was just doing stand-up or writing jokes. You would sleep until noon every day and kind of stumble out,” Apatow said. “You would have to be at work at 8:30 at night. Work was sometimes 15 minutes.”
Sandler slept on a mattress with no sheets – and occasionally shared it with one of their friends.
THR COVER: The Angsty Existence of Judd Apatow
“Adam always had a rental car. He never bought a car for literally 12 years,” Apatow said. As Apatow recalls it, Sandler’s cars would be filled to the brim with trash and McDonalds bags.
But Sandler said they didn’t consider themselves broke.
“It wasn’t broke. We were doing as comedians good enough to get by,” Sandler said. “We could eat at Red Lobster once every month. That was a big night out.”
“That was like, ‘We’re fancy now,’” Apatow added.
But living together wasn't without its drama. They got into tiffs over who was better looking, (Sandler, to Apatow’s dismay, had a reputation for being more handsome) and there were issues with Apatow using Sandler's bathroom.
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When Sandler moved to New York to join Saturday Night Live, he continued to pay rent, because he thought he was going to “get fired” every week and might have to move back to Los Angeles.
“He just left, like he was going to come back, but he just didn’t come back,” Apatow said.
Apatow’s latest film, This is 40 is currently in theaters. Sandler’s Grown Ups 2 is scheduled for a summer 2013 release.
Email: aaron.couch@thr.com
Twitter: @AaronCouch
Jack Klugman's Widow Turns Planned Holiday Party Into Memorial
Surrounded by friends and family, Peggy Klugman -- the widow of late actor Jack Klugman (who died Dec. 24 at age 90 most likely of natural causes) -- held an informal celebration of his life at the couple's house in Woodlands Hills, Calif, on Saturday, Dec. 29. One guest, entertainment journalist Jeanne Wolf (jeannewolfshollywood.com) talks about how his friends remembered him last night and her longtime friendship with the actor:
Jack Klugman was at his memorial party held this Saturday night, just not the guest anyone expected. His presence was felt by all. The Klugman’s annual holiday party, "Mingle and Jingle," at their spacious Woodland Hills home had been planned for some time. When Jack unexpectedly died a few days before the event, his wife Peggy made the right decision, "We're going to celebrate Jack! So the party is still on."
PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2012
In a room full of large posters of Klugman's films and some amusing mementos, Peggy showed friends that an urn with Jack's ashes had arrived in the middle of the day. "He decided to show up after all," she smiled. "He came early." One pal piped up, "Hey, at least some of those ashes belong at the race track." You know that Klugman would have delivered that line perfectly. You also know that he would have laughed.
Loved ones were gathered and there were tears, of course, but even more stories and laughter as tapes of Klugman's TV shows played around the house. Guests enjoyed Jack's favorite chili and favorite candies. There were many toasts and memories.
Jack starred on stage and TV for the world. For me, personally, he was a star in my life. We first met when he came to Burt Reynold's theater in Florida to act in one of his pal's plays.
I can't count the times we had dinner, or I went to see him perform. In the mid-eighties when throat cancer began to really affect him, the tabloids blasted rumors that he was dying. Entertainment Tonight called him and he insisted, "I'll only tell this story to Jeanne Wolf." What a responsibility! As he sought medical help to improve his voice, I wrote for TV Guide about his battle to regain his speech.
STORY: 'Odd Couple,' 'Quincy' Star Jack Klugman Dies at 90
I’ll never forget Jack telling me, "I wasn't afraid that I’d die. I was just terrified that I wouldn't be able to act again."
No wonder I always thought of him as the grouchy optimist. One of the highlights of our friendship was attending his wedding to Peggy in 2008. He was eighty five years old and just beaming. Friends like Garry Marshall and John Stamos came to tease him and to toast him.
He went back to TV and to the stage with his great friend Tony Randall. Troubles with his voice continued but the audiences applauded so he kept doing his comic thing.
At one point in vocal therapy he told me, "Now I have the voice of a sixteen year old. I’m looking for a doctor who could give me the body of a sixteen year old."
Broadway dimmed its lights in a tribute to Klugman. I'm sad he's gone but seeing just a few minutes of him on screen and I was laughing out loud again. And his memory lingers in his house blazing with holiday lights which weren't dimmed but maybe burned a little brighter this weekend.
'Cloud Atlas' Star Promotes Film in South Korea Via Mobile App
SEOUL – Actress Bae Doo-na talked about Cloud Atlas in her home country through a mobile Internet application, perhaps the smartest way to spread the word about the sci-fi film given that 60 percent – or 30 out of 50 million – of mobile phones used in South Korea are smartphones.Movie promotions in the country have quickly evolved with the proliferation of digital technology, and it’s not uncommon for press conferences to be streamed live online, as it was when Hugh Jackman and Cameron Mackintosh visited for Les Miserables, or when local fans had a real-time international video conference with Daniel Craig about Skyfall earlier this year.PHOTOS: Todd McCarthy's 10 Best Movies of 2012Smartphones are also fast becoming the major tool for accessing the Internet in the most wired country on the planet. In 2012, the number of mobile Internet users in Korea rose 17 percent to exceed 23.8 million, whereas those connecting to the Web through a personal computer increased by just four percent.
Bae chatted Friday evening about the movie with five fans, chosen through a drawing prior to the event, on the mobile messenger service My People. The chat, which was intended to last 30 minutes, was extended an extra half-hour as the conversation continued, according to organizers.The event created buzz online, as the conversation was revealed live through the local portal site Daum. Cloud Atlas shot up to fourth place among the most researched items in real-time in the country (according to ranking by Korea’s largest portal, Naver).PHOTOS: 'Cloud Atlas' Premiere: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Keanu Reeves Hit Red CarpetBae emphasized that the film is “a piece of work that marks a milestone in cinema history.” She said she was “excited to hear the names of her co-stars,” Hollywood A-listers such as Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, when she was cast. The 33-year-old expressed much affection for the film’s “amazing” special makeup effects team, which enabled her to play three different characters. She said she felt the most fondness for Sonmi-451, a role she assumed during about 95 percent of her time with the film’s production.“Thinking about the connection between the different characters a given actor plays will add to the fun of watching the movie,” Bae told fans during the chat. “You’ll be able to piece the puzzle together if you allow yourself to get immersed in the story.”Cloud Atlas opens in Korean theaters via NEW on Jan. 9.Adam Lambert Slams 'Les Miserables' in Twitter Review
Many thousands of moviegoers and musical theater enthusiasts lined up to see the big screen version of Les Miserables over the holiday break. Among those in the audience: American Idol alum and stage veteran Adam Lambert, who took issue with the film's vocal performances and let his opinion be known via Twitter.
"Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances. But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers," the season eight runner-up tweeted. "It's an opera. Hollywood's movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority."
PHOTOS: VH1 Divas 2012: Inside the Star-Studded Show
Although Lambert stopped short of calling out which actors, in his opinion, sunk the film with "distracting" vocals, he was quick to point out that Anne Hathaway's portrayal as Fantine, particularly her solo on "I Dreamed a Dream," earned his respect.
"DO go see it for Anne Hathaways performance. It's was breathtaking," he said.
Lambert also praised Helena Bonham Carter and Sasha Baron Cohen (who play the Thenardiers), Aaron Tveit (Enjolras) and Samantha Barks (Eponine) for their vocals and performances.
PHOTOS: 'Les Miserables': Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman Pose for THR
The singer, fresh off hosting VH1 Divas 2012 on Dec. 16, apologized for his negative tone, but explained that he grew up with the musical and had high expecations for the film.
"I do think it was cool they were singing live - but with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals," he continued. "The industry will say 'these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live' but why not cast actors who could actually sound good?"
Actress Evan Rachel Wood later chimed in on the debate, tweeting: “We sang live in 'across the universe' #justsaying.” To that, replied Lambert (who also noted that Dreamgirls was an exception to the rule): "And that sounded Good!!! Ok yes, that’s another movie musical exception. That movie was on point. And U were stunning in it.”
What do you think, Worshippers? Did you see the movie this week? Do you agree with Adam? Leave your reviews in the comments below.
Twitter: @MicheleAmabile
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Holiday Box Office: 'Hobbit' No. 1 With $32.9 Mil; 'Django' Easily Beats 'Les Mis' for No. 2
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey stayed at No. 1 in its third weekend with $32.9 million, while Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained easily pulled ahead of Les Miserables to take the No. 2 spot at the domestic box office.
The trio of films have dominated the Christmas season. Hobbit, which opened Dec. 14, has grossed $222.7 million in North America and north of $600 million globally.
Django, from The Weinstein Co., took in $30.7 million during the weekend for a six-day total of $64 million. Universal's Les Mis, directed by Tom Hooper, posted weekend earnings of $28 million for a six-day domestic total of $67.4 million and a worldwide haul of $116.2 million.
PHOTOS: Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' NYC Premiere
Both films have outpaced expectations since debuting Christmas Day and, along with other movies, should see a nice boost on Monday and Tuesday (New Year's Day).
Starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio, Django is playing better to women than expected, with females making up 44 percent of the audience. African-Americans also are flocking to the movie about a slave who is freed by a bounty hunter, making up an estimated 30 percent of the audience. Django cost north of $87 million to make.
The film adaptation of the hit stage musical, Les Mis features an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried. Les Mis, costing $60 million to make, has outperformed expectations at the North American box office, scoring the top opening day for a musical and the second-best Christmas Day opening of all time.
Moviegoing surged on the final weekend of the year, capping a record-breaking year for ticket sales in North America. Revenue will hit $10.8 billion on Monday, eclipsing the $10.6 billion earned in 2009 and up 5.8 percent over last year's $10.2 billion.
Attendance also made something of a recovery, with an estimated 1.36 billion people going to the movies in 2012, up 6 percent over last year's 16-year low of 1.28 billion.
But the Christmas season brought mixed results for Hollywood. Unusually crowded, there were eight nationwide releases between Dec. 19 and Dec. 25, leaving little room for error.
Family comedy Parental Guidance -- starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei -- has held steady at No. 4 since debuting Christmas Day, exceeding expectations. From 20th Century Fox, the $25 million movie took in $14.8 million for the weekend for a six-day total of $29.6 million.
Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher has done solid but unspectacular business since rolling out Dec. 21. The Paramount pic grossed $14 million in its second weekend for a domestic total of $44.7 million. Reacher, holding at No. 5, cost $60 million to produce.
Universal's This Is 40, from Judd Apatow and likewise opening Dec. 21, grossed $13.2 million over the weekend for a total take so far of $37.1 million. The R-rated pic cost north of $35 million to make.
Barbra Streisand-Seth Rogen comedy The Guilt Trip and Disney's rerelease of Pixar's Monsters, Inc., both opening Dec. 19, are considered DOA.
The $40 million Guilt Trip grossed $6.7 million for the weekend for a domestic total of $21.1 million. Monsters, Inc. took in $6.3 million for a total of $18.5 million. Andrew Adamson's Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Apart, playing in a modest 840 theaters, also has failed to find its footing, grossing $7.4 million so far for distributor Paramount.
The specialty box office also had its holiday winners and losers.
The Matt Damon-John Krasinski drama Promised Land, opening Dec. 28 in 25 locations, posted weekend earnings of $190,150 million for a disappointing location average of $7,606. The Focus Features movie reunites Damon with his Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant.
Focus is hoping the film's performance improves once the crowded holiday frame is over. On Jan. 4, Promised Land will be playing nationwide in 1,500 locations.
Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty continued to impress in its New York City and Los Angeles runs. The Sony movie earned $315,000 from five theaters for an impressive location average of $63,000 and a stellar cume of $1.4 million. The movie expands nationwide Jan. 11.
Sony Pictures Classics' Amour performed nicely in its second weekend, grossing $60,016 million from three theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $20,005 -- the second-best of the weekend after Zero Dark Thirty -- and cume of $217,791.
Documentary West of Memphis, likewise from Sony Classics, didn't fare as well. The film, opening Christmas Day, grossed $13,856 for the weekend from five locations for an average of $2,771.
David Chase's Not Fade Away also is faltering, grossing $56,000 in its second weekend from 19 theaters for a location average of $2,947 and cume of $97,000.
Here are the full results for the weekend of Dec. 28-20 at domestic box office:
Title, Weeks in release/Theater count, Studio, Three-day weekend total, Cume
1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 3/4,100, New Line/MGM, $32.9 million, $222.7 million.
2. Django Unchained, 1/3010, The Weinstein Co., $30.7 million, $64 million.
3. Les Miserables, 1/2,814, Universal, $28 million, $67.4 million.
4. Parental Guidance, 1/3,367, 20th Century Fox, $14.8 million, $29.6 million.
5. Jack Reacher, 2/3,352, Paramount, $14 million, $44.7 million.
6. This Is 40, 2/2,914, Universal, $13.2 million, $37.1 million.
7. Lincoln, 8/1,996, DreamWorks/Disney, $7.5 million, $132.3 million.
8. The Guilt Trip, 2/2,431, Paramount, $6.7 million, $21.1 million.
9. Monsters, Inc., 2/2,618, Disney/Pixar, $6.3 million, $18.5 million.
10. Rise of the Guardians, Paramount/DreamWorks Animation, $4.9 million, $90.2 million.
Antoine Fuqua Defends Quentin Tarantino Against Spike Lee's 'Django' Criticisms
CAPRI, Italy – Spike Lee should have called Quentin Tarantino personally rather than criticize him in public with charges of racism, the director of 2001 Oscar winner Training Day said Sunday.
Lee, the director behind Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992) and the thriller Inside Man (2006), made headlines before Christmas when he said he would boycott Tarantino’s Django Unchained because it was "disrespectful" to black people.
"American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western," Lee wrote on Twitter. "It was a holocaust."
Later, in an interview, Lee declined to elaborate, except to say he had no intention of seeing the film: "I can’t speak on it ‘cause I’m not going to see it," he said.
STORY: Spike Lee: 'Django Unchained' Is Disrespectful
It is not the first time Lee criticized Tarantino for racial insensitivity: after the release of Tarantino’s 1997 blacksploitation tribute Jackie Brown, Lee blasted Tarantino for what he said was an overuse of "the n-word," saying, "I think there is something wrong with him."
But Antoine Fuqua, the director behind Training Day who says he knows both Tarantino and Lee but is not close friends with either one, said Lee aired his concerns in wrong way.
"That’s just not the way you do things," said Fuqua, speaking on the sidelines of the 17th Capri, Hollywood Film Festival. "If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don’t do it publically."
Fuqua -- at the Capri festival as part of a big Hollywood contingent that also includes Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis, 300 star Gerard Butler, Iceman director Ariel Vromen and Franco Nero, the star of the original Django film that inspired Tarantino's latest -- also defended Tarantino.
"I don’t think Quentin Tarantino has a racist bone in his body," he said. "Besides, I’m good friends with [Django Unchained star] Jamie Foxx and he wouldn’t have anything to do with a film that had anything racist to it."
Fuqua continued: "I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t speak about it specifically, but we’re supposed to find some truth in films and if you set a film in the 1850s, you’re going to hear the word 'nigger,' because that’s the way they spoke then, and you’re going to discuss slavery because that was part of the reality," he said.
"I want my kids to hear those kinds of words in the right context, so that they’ll know that language is not OK," Fuqua said.
The Capri, Hollywood fest, which takes place on the picturesque island off the coast of Naples, got underway Dec. 26 and will conclude Jan. 2.
Sunday's program at the festival included a screening of Fuqua's Training Day -- which earned Denzel Washington an Oscar for Best Actor. The day's centerpiece screening is the Italian premiere of David O. Russell's dramedy Silver Linings Playbook.
Box Office Milestone: Daniel Craig's 'Skyfall' Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide
Sony and MGM have plenty to toast about as Skyfall rings out 2012 by crossing the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales.
Directed by Sam Mendes and marking Daniel Craig's third turn as 007, the movie reached the milestone Sunday when its worldwide tally hit $200.2 million, by far the best showing of any Bond pic, not accounting for inflation. Skyfall has grossed $289.6 million domestically and $701.6 million internationally.
Skyfall continued to break records in the U.K. during the weekend, grossing $1.4 million for a total take of $161.6 million and becoming the first movie to ever cross the 100 million pound mark.
STORY: 'Hobbit' No. 1 With $32.9 Mill at Holiday Box Office
The film, from Eon Productions, is the 23rd installment in the iconic British spy franchise. Skyfall also stars Javier Bardem, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes.
Skyfall is the third movie of 2012 to cross $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales after Disney and Marvel's The Avengers ($1.51 billion) and Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08 billion).
"It is truly thrilling to reach this incredible milestone," said MGM chairman-CEO Gary Barber.
Added Sony vice chairman Jeff Blake: “To see a film connect with audiences is always gratifying, but the success of this film is nothing short of extraordinary. After 50 years of entertaining audiences all over the world, Skyfall is the most successful James Bond film of all time."
Bollywood Mourns Gang-Rape Victim's Death
NEW DELHI - “Wake up India. She is Dead”. The headline in India's leading newspaper The Hindustan Times summed up India's mood Sunday morning as the 23-year-old woman, who was brutally gang-raped on Dec. 16, was cremated in a private ceremony in Delhi hours after her body was flown back from Singapore late Saturday night.
Following the crime, which shook the country, the woman was battling for life in a Delhi hospital and was flown to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital Friday for further treatment, but her condition detoriated, and she died Saturday.
Bollywood joined others in mourning her death.
“Her body has passed away, but her soul shall shall forever stir our hearts!” tweeted iconic actor Amitabh Bachchan. His son and actor Abhishek Bachchan also posted a series of tweets. “This is not the country I grew up in as a child, this is not the country I want my daughter to know whilst she grows up!" he said. "I have always been a very proud Indian. Today, we should ALL be ashamed. Will it always take an innocent's death for a nation to awake?”
While six people accused of attacking the victim and gang-raping the woman on a moving bus in Delhi have been arrested, the incident has led to a national debate and violent protests in the city against the government, with people demanding instant justice and an overhaul of public safety for women.
News of her death dominated news networks with live coverage of mostly peaceful protests held in various cities. Leading Bollywood celebrities joined in a Mumbai candle light protest which saw veteran actress and a member of India's Parliament, Jaya Bachchan break down as she said, “There are many girls in my family. I feel scared when I think of what the 23-year-old had to go through. Whatever we did was very late. We should collectively apologise to the family and to all women who have gone through such an ordeal. Please don't tarnish the reputation of our country.”
“This ghastly incident has again highlighted the fact women are not safe in the country anymore. We need firm steps to ensure safety of our women and other citizens,” added veteran actress Shabana Azmi who was also joined by other film personalities including actors Om Puri, Satish Kaushik and Ranveer Singh, among others.
Following the violent protests last Sunday in Delhi at the India Gate war memorial and the adjoining President's estate, the area has been under a police clampdown with major metro stations shut down. “This is NOT the time to shut down metros, India Gate or India. This is the time to apologise. Say SORRY for letting people down,” veteran actor Anupam Kher said in a series of tweets echoing the public's outrage against the government, adding, “This is Death of Human Dignity, Death of Being an Indian, Death of Innocence and this is also Death of A System. India is Heart Broken. RIP.”
While its still not clear how the protests have affected cinema attendance over the weekend, expectedly, the security measures have put a dampener on new year festivities planned at various night clubs and hotels. “A celebration at this time does not make sense,” a manager at Delhi venue Blues Cafe and Bar, told a newspaper, adding, “As a tribute to the brave girl, we have canceled events at our outlet. While we will be open for dinner, for the first time we will not have any New Year's Eve party.”
Leading hotel The Lalit was hosting a New Year party featuring a guest appearance by American porn-star-turned-Bollywood-actress Sunny Leone (who made her Hindi film debut this summer with the erotic thriller Jism 2). While Leone's appearance has not been canceled, a hotel spokesperson told a city paper that “unlike every year, this time we will start our event at 6pm and wrap up early. The safety of our guests is our foremost concern.”
“On the stroke of the midnight hour, on 31st December, I will stand in silence in her (the victim's) memory. Will you, or will you party on?” tweeted director Shekhar Kapur.
Actor Nick Stahl Arrested on Suspicion of Lewd Conduct in Adult Movie Store
Terminator 3 actor Nick Stahl was arrested Thursday on suspicion of lewd conduct at an adult film store, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Stahl, 33, was taken into custody after he was found by detectives during a routine check. The actor was released several hours later.
A spokesman for L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said that prosecutors were expecting to receive the official LAPD report by Monday, where they will then decide to file misdemeanor charges against Stahl or not.
This comes months after Stahl disappeared earlier this year, prompting a search in L.A.'s Skid Row area and worrying his wife, who made public pleas for his safe return. It was then reported that Stahl had checked into rehab for treatment.
Earlier this year, actor Fred Willard was caught committing lewd conduct in the adult cinema, Tiki Theater, and was promptly let go by PBS' reality competition series Market Warriors,. He entered a diversion program to avoid prosecution.
Kevin Smith Addresses 'Clerks III,' Pot Legalization and His Dogs' Bowels (Video)
Merry Christmas from Kevin Smith.
The writer-director-podcaster appeared during a long, laid-back segment on the Dec. 25 edition of Good Day LA, where he riffed on his dogs' digestive issues and his career future.
Right off the bat, Smith explained how his longtime friend and collaborator Jason Mewes gave his dogs treats for Christmas -- which ended up being less than a generous gift.
STORY: Kevin Smith's Prayer for 'Star Wars'
"Didn't sit right with the dogs at all," he said. "Lilly, one of our dogs, the brown Lab, lived up to her brown title. We call her Pooey, today -- totally pooey. The bathroom floor is white marble, just looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, man. ... It's coming out of both ends of the dogs. ... I had to trek through the bathroom -- it looks like Calcutta."
On staying young, Smith offered: "I wake and bake." And on the legalization of marijuana: "The moment Colorado passed that vote, we scheduled a potcast."
As for the important business, Smith reiterated that his planned hockey movie, Hit Somebody, instead will be a six-part miniseries. As such, he's hoping to make Clerks III his last film, to be released in 2014 to mark the 20th anniversary of his first, Clerks. And he'd be happy to make it for the same $28,000 as he made that first black-and-white, convenience store-set film, if he could persuade his co-stars to work for free in exchange for a cut of the back end.
(Via /Film)
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'Silver Linings' Oscar Contender Bradley Cooper Says He's Living His Dream (Video)
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the actor Bradley Cooper for an extensive interview about his life, career and acclaimed performance opposite Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver in David O. Russell's dramedy Silver Linings Playbook. You can watch highlights of our conversation at the top of this post.
PHOTOS: THR's Cover Shoot With Bradley Cooper
It's hard to think of many people in Hollywood whose stock has risen more this awards season than Cooper's. For his performance as a guy suffering from bipolar disease, who is trying to put his life back together after being institutionalized for a violent outburst that broke up his marriage, Cooper has been voted the year's best actor by the National Board of Review and has been nominated for that same Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, Indie Spirit, and Satellite Award. He is widely expected to receive a best actor Oscar nomination, as well, when the Academy announces its picks on Jan. 10.
Cooper first acted in grade school and loved it, but didn't act again until he was an undergraduate at Georgetown, where his girlfriend signed him up to audition for a play, which led to him winning that role and a few others. Having caught the bug again, and ultimately decided to audition for a spot in the Actors Studio MFA program at the New School in New York City. With the blessing of dean James Lipton, he was accepted, and recalls his experience as a graduate student as life-changing. Indeed, he still reviews every script that he takes on with one of his Actors Studio instructors.
THR COVER: Bradley Cooper: The Serious Evolution of a Leading Man
Cooper never struggled to find work. Before he even finished at the Actors Studio, he had booked a pilot, albeit one that wasn't ultimately picked up. His first part in a project that did come to fruition was Jake, "the downtown smoker," opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in a 1999 episode of Sex and the City. And the part that first put on a lot of people's radar came just two years after that, when he began a three-year run as Will Tippin, a friend of Jennifer Garner's character on ABC's Alias. For that series, he relocated from New York to Los Angeles, which he says also afforded him the opportunity to audition for many other interesting projects.
Coming out of acting school, Cooper assumed he would work mostly as a dramatic actor. "For some reason I didn't think I would ever be able to make people laugh," he tells me. But when he worked on his first film, Wet Hot American Summer (2001), he realized that he had the same sort of sense of humor as his comedically-gifted costars, which "was a huge, sort of, confidence builder." In the coming years, he would apply his comedic talent in two veritable modern-day classics, David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers (2005), in which he played the heavy, and Todd Phillips' The Hangover (2009), in which he played one of three hapless buddies. The latter film became an international blockbuster, spawned two sequels (the second of which Cooper is now shooting) and left many surprised that Cooper was ever anything but a comedic specialistic.
VIDEO: Behind the Scenes of THR's Bradley Cooper Cover Shoot
Though many may have come to see him as the goofy guy from The Hangover films and the hunk featured in People's Sexiest Man Alive issues and a few throw-away movies like All About Steve (2009) and Valentine's Day (2010), Cooper's own focus has steadfastly remained on the craft of acting.
In March 2006, he challenged himself to "a do or die moment" and took on a part opposite Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd in the Broadway production Three Days of Rain, the preparation for which he describes as "the hardest thing I've ever been through, by far." He tells me, "I remember thinking, 'If this doesn't work, maybe I'm not right for this business.'"
Then, in 2011, he was offered the chance to break out of his big screen cast-typing and play a dramatic lead in Neil Burger's criminally-underrated film Limitless. After he became attached to the project, he heard that one of his childhood heroes, Robert De Niro, was a fan of the script, and actively pursued him, even endorsing the idea of combining two key supporting parts into one meatier one so that it would be more appealing for De Niro. Cooper was granted a meeting with De Niro, who is 31 years his senior; pitched him on the project ("I spoke without stopping for about 30 minutes," he recalls); and eventually convinced him to sign up.
The two quickly hit it off, so much so that Cooper recently said that he now regards De Niro as "family," and De Niro recently described their dynamic to me as something like father-son or even older brother-younger brother. And, just a year after they first met, it was De Niro who recruited Cooper for a film project. The older actor was attached to play a key supporting role in David O. Russell's first film after The Fighter (2010), and the actor who had originally been attached to play his son, the lead character, dropped out. De Niro strongly advocated for Cooper to replace him, and Russell was wise to heed his advice, which Cooper says "means nothing short of everything" to him, adding, "The reason I became an actor was the hope of one day working with people like David O. Russell."
PHOTOS: Bradley Cooper: A Day in the Life in Pictures
Last winter, the three men, along with the firecracker Lawrence and understated Weaver, went off to Cooper's hometown of Philadelphia to shoot a film that most of them realized was something special even as they were making it. Cooper and Lawrence had never met before, but were immediately thrust into dance rehearsals for the film, immediately clicked and, despite a 15-year age gap, display electric on-screen chemistry. (The two have since shot another film together, Oscar winner Susanne Bier's Serena, and Cooper cracks, "I did two movies already with her because I'm not stupid.")
Additionally, Russell's unconventional directing style -- which involves keeping the camera rolling and in the middle of the action and shouting fresh directions at actors in the middle of a scene to encourage spontaneity -- might have freaked out lesser actors, but seems to have brought out the best in these ones. "I almost forgot there was a camera," he says. "You kind of forget it's there because it's so incorporated into the reality you're playing." He adds, "You just get into the frame in the morning, and you're in it, and you let loose, and then you come out of it at the end of the day."
For Cooper, the future looks as bright as ever. Silver Linings Playbook, which won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to earn rave reviews from critics, couldn't be going over much better. He's got a busy awards season ahead of him. And, next year, he will appear in a highly-anticipated comedy (the aforementioned The Hangover Part III) and drama (Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, which I saw at Toronto back in September and thought was outstanding). "This is the dream, of course, to be able to make movies with people like this," Cooper says to me as we get ready to part. "And, in terms of the recognition, it's a wonderful feeling."
Holiday Box Office: 'Django' Narrowly Beats 'Les Mis' on Friday; 'Hobbit' Still No. 1
In a surprise twist, The Weinstein Co.'s Django Unchained narrowly passed up Universal's Les Miserables at the Friday box office to claim the No. 2 spot behind The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
The R-rated Django, from director Quentin Tarantino, grossed $9.7 million for a four-day domestic total of $43 million, while Tom Hooper's Les Mis took in $9.4 million to place No. 3, and pushing its domestic total to $48.9 million. It's the first time that Django,has beat Les Mis (both films opened Christmas Day).
PHOTOS: Todd McCarthy's Best Films of 2012
Hobbit grossed an estimated $10.7 million on Friday to jump the $200 million mark at the North American box office. The movie, with a domestic cume of $200.5 million, is expected to stay at No. 1 for the weekend with a projected $33 million haul. Hobbit hit $600 million in worldwide ticket sales on Friday as its international total reached $400 million.
In North America, Django and Les Mis will remain in a close race for the No. 2 spot. Box office observers have the two films grossing in the $27 million to $28 million range for the weekend.
Hollywood is hoping that the final weekend of 2012 is prosperous at the box office considering the holiday is still in full force, with New Year's Day falling on a Tuesday this year.
Django, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio, marks another win for Tarantino following box office hit Inglourious Basterds.
The film adaptation of the hit stage musical, Les Mis features an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried. Les Mis has outperformed expectations at the North American box office, scoring the top opening day for a musical and the second-best Christmas Day opening of all time.
Les Mis has rolled out in its first eight markets overseas, grossing $4.4 million on Friday for a foreign total of $36.6 million and a worldwide total of $85.9 million. The pic will cross $100 million sometime on Friday.
Family comedy Parental Guidance held at No. 4 on Friday with an estimated $5.1 million, putting its four-day domestic total at $19.8 million. From 20th Century Fox, the movie -- starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei -- continues to exceed expectations.
Paramount's Tom Cruise action-thriller Jack Reacher grossed $4.1 million on its second Friday to come in No. 5. The pic has now taken in $28.1 million.
Barbra Streisand-Seth Rogen comedy The Guilt Trip and Disney's rerelease of Pixar's Monsters, Inc. continued to struggle, grossing $2.3 million and $2.2 milllion, respectively. Guilt Trip's domestic cume is $16.6 million, while Monsters, Inc. has only earned $14.4 million.
The specialty box office saw the debut of Matt Damon-John Krasinski drama Promised Land, which reunites Damon with Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant. From Focus Features, the movie debuted to a soft $53,000 from 25 locations on Friday, putting its location average at a sobering $2,120.
Beating Promised Land was Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, which continues to impress in its New York City and Los Angeles runs. The Sony movie earned $94,081 on Friday from five theaters for a location average of $18,816. Zero Dark Thirty expands nationwide on Jan. 11.
Elijah Wood is a Homicidal 'Maniac' in New Horror Preview (Video)
In the spirit of the season's top box office hit, let's call this the story of what would have happened had Frodo held on to the Ring.
Elijah Wood, the Lord of the Rings star who reprised his hairy-footed hero character for a cameo in this month's prequel The Hobbit, plays the title character in Franck Khalfoun's remake of the 1980 horror-slasher film Maniac. His forever-young face, often an asset in projecting innocence, is here a sign of a man-child emotionally interrupted, as he stalks down women and removes their scalps in a rampage that begins shortly after the death of his mother.
The first six minutes of the film has been released by Warner Bros., and features a lot of heavy breathing and the pursuit of a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The film also stars America Olivo and Nora Arnezeder.
Ewan McGregor, Kate Bush on Queen Elizabeth II's Latest Honors List
LONDON -- Actor Ewan McGregor, singer Kate Bush and fashion designer Stella McCartney are among the high-profile names from the world of entertainment to feature on Queen Elizabeth II's New Year Honors list, published Saturday.
The list contains many athletes who won medals at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. But one name missing from the list is director Danny Boyle, whose artistic vision brought the world the Olympics opening ceremony. Boyle is believed to have turned down his honor.
When asked in a recent BBC radio interview if he would like to become a "sir," Boyle said: "I'm very proud to be an equal citizen, and I think that's what the opening ceremony was actually about."
McGregor, who stars in awards' season hopeful The Impossible, and McCartney received two of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) honors on the list.
Bush, who scored a chart hit with her album 50 Words For Snow, was awarded the title of a Commander of the British Empire, or CBE. The same honor was bestowed on former Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips for her services to dance and to charity.
Also honored is illustrator Quentin Blake, known for his drawings for Roald Dahl's work. Blake picked up a knighthood, one of the highest male accolades, for his work.
Comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd, 82, who co-wrote such TV shows as the BBC's Are You Being Served. is among the other OBEs.
But this year's honors list is dominated by British medal winners from the London 2012 Summer OIympics with a a special list drawn up to recognize 78 athletes from both the Olympics and the Paralympics.
Cyclist Bradley Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and an Olympic gold, was awarded knighthood. Wiggins told the BBC he "never ever imagined" that he "would ever become a knight so it's an incredible honor. But there's a slight element of disbelief and it will take a while to sink in."
Rower Katherine Grainger, cyclist Victoria Pendleton, trach-and-field star Jessica Ennis and distance runner Mo Farah become CBEs, while tennis star Andy Murray, who won Olympic Gold and the U.S. Open tennis championshipis, is made an OBE.
Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey becomes a dame after winning four golds, while the most decorated sailor in Olympic history, Ben Ainslie, will be knighted.
Sebastian Coe, the former long-distance runner who helped organize the Olympics, becomes a Companion of Honor, a special honor given for service of "conspicuous national importance."
The U.K. government cabinet office said an unprecedented number of athletes had received honors, with 123 awards compared to 44 in the last list. Of these, 78 were related to the Olympics or Paralympics.
'Dead Man Down' Trailer: Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace Out For Blood (Video)
By this point, Noomi Rapace and director Niels Arden Oplev must have revenge down to a science.
Rapace and her director from the Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy are teaming up for Oplev’s English language debut, Dead Man Down, a film telling intertwining tales of revenge.
PHOTOS: 20 Top Grossing Movies of 2012
Collin Ferril stars as Victor, a New York crime lord’s right-hand-man, who is seeking vengeance on his boss, whom is responsible for the death of his family. Meanwhile Beatrice (Rapace), a victim of Victor’s boss, is seeking revenge and enlists Victor’s help.
“Revenge. I’ve never thought about it before. But when I saw you, I knew I had my answer,” Beatrice says in the trailer. It seems she has videotaped Victor committing a murder, and uses this leverage -- as well as her powers of seduction -- to force him to help her.
PHOTOS: Todd McCarthy's 10 Best Movies of 2012
From FilmDistrict, Dead Man Down also stars Dominic Cooper and Terrence Howard. The film is being produced by Neal Moritz (The Fast and the Furious franchise) and was written by Joel Wyman (Fringe).
It’s slated for a March 8, 2013 release.
Comedian Katt Williams Arrested For Child Endangerment
Comedian Katt Williams was arrested Friday for allegedly endangering his children.
Police say multiple weapons were found at the home of the 41-year-old entertainer, whose birth name is Micah Sierra Williams. He was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and possession of a stolen firearm, the Los Angeles Times reported.
STORY: Hollywood's 10 Most Gripping Legal Dramas of 2012
Williams was released on $100,000 bail Friday, and later asked TMZ rhetorically "How do you keep kids safe without guns?"
The arrest came after the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services completed a welfare check of his home and discovered the weapons, one of which police say had been reported stolen. The agency did not specify how many children were living there or whether they had been removed, though TMZ reports indicate four of his children were placed in protective custody Friday.
The incident was the latest in a series of recent legal troubles for the comedian. Earlier this month, Williams was arrested in northern California on a previous warrant related to reckless driving and evading officers. In November, a former personal assistant sued him for more than $5 million for allegedly striking her.
PHOTOS: Top 10 Legal Disclaimers in Hollywood
In October, he and Live Nation were hit with a lawsuit claiming a show he performed in Oakland lasted just ten minutes and devolved into the comedian stripping off his clothes and attempting to fight with audience members.
Williams regularly appears on BET on shows including Comic View, Rip the Runway and The BET Awards. He will appear in Scary Movie 5 next year.
A request for comment from Williams' rep has not been answered.
'Project X' Most Pirated Film of 2012
The year saw several blockbusters hit the multiplexes, but the most downloaded film of 2012 was one that slipped under the radar: Project X.
A found-footage comedy directed by Nima Nourizadeh and produced by Todd Phillips, Project X topped the likes of The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers and Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol for the title of most pirated, TorrentFreak reports. According to the website, Project X was downloaded 8.72 million times and made the least money among the top 10 movies on the list with its $101 million global take.
How did Project X top the box-office heavyweights? One theory is that the film, reportedly inspired by a rager thrown by a Melbourne teen, might have appealed to Australia natives.
Close behind at No. 2 is Tom Cruise's fourth Mission Impossible film, with 8.5 million downloads. The Dark Knight Rises (8.23 million), the year's top grosser The Avengers (8.11 million) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (7.85 million) round out the top five.
Interestingly, as the report notes, such popular films as The Hunger Games and the newest James Bond pic Skyfall did not crack the top 10.
TorrentFreak noted that it is "unclear" whether illegal downloads of films seriously hurt box-office revenue, noting that researchers found "no evidence" linking piracy to smaller U.S. grosses. However, there is a link between piracy and international revenue.
On the TV side, HBO's Game of Thrones epic topped the list of most pirated television shows of the year, with nearly 4.3 million illegal downloads.
The top 10 most-downloaded films of 2012:
1. Project X
2. Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. The Avengers
5. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
6. 21 Jump Street
7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
8. The Dictator
9. Ice Age: Continental Drift
10. Twilight: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1
E-mail: Philiana.Ng@thr.com
Twitter: @insidethetube
Western Character Actor Harry Carey Jr. Dies
Harry Carey Jr., who was a member of John Ford's stock company of actors and played in a number of the director's classic Westerns, has died of natural causes in Santa Barbara, the Associated Press reported Friday. He was 91.
His daughter Melinda said he died Thursday of natural causes surrounded by family at a hospice facility.
The son of silent superstar Harry Carey and actress Olive Carey, he was one of moviedom's most familiar faces. In all, he performed in roughly 100 movies and on numerous TV shows. With his large frame and rough-hewn look, Carey was one of Hollywood's most prolific character actors from the 1950s through the '80s.
Carey played in many of Ford's greatest Westerns that starred John Wayne, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950) and The Searchers (1956). He also appeared for the director in Wagon Master (1950), The Long Gray Line (1955) as Dwight Eisenhower, Two Rode Together (1961) with James Stewart and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). In all, Carey appeared in 11 Ford films and about 50 Westerns.
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Carey's first film with Ford was the Wayne-starring 3 Godfathers (1948), which Ford dedicated to Harry Carey, the director's first patron and star. Along with such players as Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen, Jane Darwell and Arthur Shields, Carey was one of the players utilized gain and again by the four-time Oscar winner, a group that was informally known as the John Ford Stock Company.
He wrote a 1996 book about his experiences: Company of Heroes, My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company.
He appeared with Wayne in a number of other movies, including Red River (1948), Island in the Sky (1953), Rio Bravo (1959), The Undefeated (1969), Big Jake (1971) and Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973). He played opposite James Arness in Gun the Man Down (1956) and in Escort West (1958) with Victor Mature, two films produced by Wayne.
In addition, he appeared with his father in Red River and with his mother in The Searchers and Two Rode Together.
On TV, he co-starred with fellow Rio Grande star Ben Johnson in Wild Times, a miniseries about a Wild West show.
In later years, Carey played the leader of a group of bikers in Mask (1985). During that period, he also appeared in Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980) as well as in Endangered Species (1982). Other films include the Marilyn Monroe starring Monkey Business (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Mr. Roberts (1955), The Way West (1967), Nickelodeon (1976) and The Whales of August (1987).
Harry Carey Jr. was born May 16, 1921, on a ranch in Saugus, Calif., which his father owned to distance the family from Hollywood. The youngster wanted to be a singer and studied voice. Dreams of a musical career didn't materialize, and he entered the Navy and served for six years.
He planned on entering the cattle business but was cast by producer as a cowboy in a 1946 Western titled Rolling Home. He won a part the next year in Raoul Walsh's Pursued, and Wayne suggested him to Howard Hawks for a role in Red River. Wayne also recommended him to Ford.
After Westerns went out of fashion, Carey turned to TV. He guest-starred on such series as Have Gun -- Will Travel and Climax.
On TV, he played ranch counselor Bill Burnett in The Adventures of Spin and Marty, aired as part of The Mickey Mouse Club. He continued his association with Disney TV, appearing in Texas John Slaughter for Walt Disney Presents.
More recently in film, he appeared in Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Tombstone (1993), Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone (1994) and The Sunchaser (1996).
He was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 2003.
In 1987, Carey was awarded a Golden Boot by the Motion Pictures & Television Fund Foundation. In 2003, he won a Silver Spur Award from Reel Cowboys.
He married Marilyn Fix, a daughter of Western star Paul Fix, in 1944. In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, another daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Matthew McConaughey Reveals Name of Newborn
World, say hello to Livingston Alves McConaughey.
Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila (née Alve) have chosen a name for their third child, a son born Friday in Austin, Texas.
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“Camila (@iamcamilaalves) gave birth to our third child yesterday morning,” the couple wrote on the actor’s WhoSay page. “Our son, Livingston Alves McConaughey was born at 7:43am on 12.28.12. He greeted the world at 9lbs. and 21 inches. Bless up and thank you for your well wishes. Happy New year, and just keep livin, Camila and Matthew McConaughey.”
Mrs. McConaughey, a Brazilian-American model, announced she was pregnant in July, one month after the couple’s wedding in Austin.
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The parents’ growing brood also includes Vida (three next month) and Levi (four).
McConaughey recently dropped 40 pounds for his roll as a man with HIV in The Dallas Buyers Club, which is slated for release next year.
Guillermo Del Toro Plugs 'Claustrophobic' 'Mama' Short (Video)
Guillermo Del Toro has recorded an introduction to the short film Mama, which attracted him to the project and helped director and co-writer Andres Muschietti’s film get made into a feature.
“The short was essentially one of the scariest little scenes I’ve ever seen,” said Del Toro, executive producer of the feature version. “It was also incredibly well-made. … Very claustrophobic. Really atmospheric. Really, really scary. You’re going to see the craftsmanship, ingenuity and the horror that really made me want to come in and produce the feature version of Mama.”
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The feature-length version stars Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones), Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse. The story centers on two little girls who survived in the wild for five years after their parents died. When the girls are found and taken into the home of their uncle and his wife, it becomes apparent a spirit who may or may not be their mother is still watching over them.
The film from Universal Pictures is slated for a Jan. 18, 2013 release.
Watch the video, as well as the second trailer for the feature-length version below.
'Avengers': Secrets Behind the Big New York City Battle Sequence (Video)
One of the highlights of The Avengers was the battle in New York City toward the end of the movie that saw Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Captain America and others assembling to fend off the shape-shifting Chitauri.
While the battle looked as realistic as they come, Industrial Light & Magic has pulled back the curtain on how the sequence was created, revealing the process by which it assembled the footage to form one long supercut.
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For one thing, the shot was created out of "four different virtual New York locations that we had to tie in together as Iron Man's flying between them," reveals ILM CG supervisor David Meny. And a lot of the characters in the sequence were done in CG, like Iron Man, The Hulk and the aliens they were fighting -- as well as the New York backdrop. It took 1,200 shots of the city, stitched together, to build out a panoramic image of that location.
One of the biggest challenges in creating the scene was Captain America, as his movements did not match what ended up being used in that specific Avengers scene. So what ended up happening? Bye-bye, bluescreen cap. Hello, digital rendering.
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Perhaps the most mind-boggling thing was that one team was assigned to assemble the multiple sections into one cohesive sequence. Massive undertaking is an understatement.
It probably was a good thing Avengers shot on blue- and greenscreen stages and went the digital route for this particular portion of the film. If the New York City destruction depicted in Avengers actually had happened, it would have cost an estimated $160 billion, according to a disaster expert.
E-mail: Philiana.Ng@thr.com
Twitter: @insidethetube
'The Tower' Rises Up at South Korean Box Office Over Christmas
The Tower is drawing South Korean moviegoers at a towering speed, bringing in over half-a-million viewers in just two days during Christmas break.
According to the Korean Film Council, the homegrown fire disaster movie topped the box office as it swept a quarter of ticket sales on Christmas Day alone, hauling 431,759 admissions across 597 theaters. The film has sold 688,132 tickets as of Thursday.
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The Tower’s distributor, CJ Entertainment, emphasized that the movie's opening score of over 120,000 breaks the year’s record among midnight premieres, including that for The Avengers (78,327 admissions).
“The box officec figure is particularly significant considering how The Avengers had a late-night opening across 653 theaters, which is almost twice as many as the 322 theaters that showed The Tower,” said CJ Entertainment. “We expect high ticket sales for The Tower to continue throughout the year-end and the New Year.”
Directed by Kim Ji-hoon, The Tower shows how a romantic Christmas Eve party at a glossy high-rise building turns into a nightmare when fire breaks out. The film is due to hit U.S. theaters on Jan. 11.
Meanwhile, Les Miserables also fared well at the holiday box office, coming in second. The musical brought in two million viewers in just a week in Korean theaters. Observers say this is not surprising in a country where musicals are a major form of entertainment and where Hugh Jackman is such a big star he was chosen as honorary ambassador for Seoul City.The local romance Love 911 came in third, hitting one million admissions in a week since its premiere. In fourth was the latest installment of the homespun gangster comedy series Return of Mafia and in fifth, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.Bollywood Wraps up Strong 2012 With Ninth Blockbuster
Talk about ending the year with a bang. Bollywood's latest blockbuster, Dabangg 2, has already hit the coveted $20 million (rupees 1 billion) mark in just six days following its Dec. 21 release. It is estimated to be the ninth film to hit the blockbuster mark this year, and the second for top star Salman Khan who also delivered summer hit Ek Tha Tiger.
Overall, 2012 has been a strong year at the Indian box office. While the year's overall take is anyone's guess - thanks to a lack of credible independent box office data - the string of hits is still a good indicator that the industry is on a roll. Other films to join the billion rupee club were late iconic director Yash Chopra's last film, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, India's Oscar entry Barfi! and action movies Agneepath and Rowdy Rathore, among others. And observers estimate that the number of films hitting the billion rupee mark is about twice the 2011 figure.
According to an annual report by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and consultants KPMG India, the film industry reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion (Rs 93 billion) in 2011, up 11.5 percent over 2010. This is projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1 percent to $3 billion (Rs 150 billion) in 2016. The FICCI and KPMG data shows an all-time record in 2008.
While Hollywood and international films continue to command a small market share – an estimated eight percent of the total box office pie – there were many success stories that indicate potential for future growth.
The highest opening weekend ever by a Hollywood film in India was recorded by this summer's The Amazing Spiderman, which grossed about $6 million (rupees 340 million). The superhero film eventually collected an estimated $14.5 million here.
Skyfall set the second highest opening weekend gross for a Hollywood release in India, collecting about $ 5.1 million (rupees 275 million).
One of the year's standout hits was Ang Lee's Life of Pi starring a mix of Indian talent - from newcomer Suraj Sharma to well-known stars Irrfan Khan and Tabu. Partly shot in India, the film crossed the $10 million mark here within its first two weeks of release, making it a breakout hit for its India distributor Fox Star Studios.
What 2012 also showed was that Indian audiences were increasingly opening up to offbeat and smaller films without marquee Bollywood stars. The best example of that was comedy Vicky Donor, which introduced a new talent in actor Ayushman Khurana who played a Delhi-based youngster who ends up becoming a sperm donor to earn some extra cash. Budgeted at an estimated $1 million, the film grossed more than $8 million.
A familiar face in international cinema, Irrfan Khan delivered one of the year's most notable performances in the biopic Paan Singh Tomar about an athlete-turned-gangster. Produced by UTV-Disney, the film grossed an estimated $5 million, a respectable performance for a small-to-medium film budgeted at under $2 million.
The year got off to a good start with the mystery thriller Kahaani starring actress Vidya Balan, proving that a female-centric film can also deliver in India. Produced by Viacom18 Motion Pictures, the film grossed an estimated $12 million.
Beyond such hits, 2012 will go down as the year when a new breed of Indian filmmakers received international attention. Cannes saw an Indian summer with four titles in the programming lineup - Anurag Kashyap's two-part gangland epic Gangs of Wasseypur, Vasan Bala's drug drama Peddlers and Ashim Ahluwalia's take on Bollywood's C-grade underbelly Miss Lovely. Similarly, Toronto showcased first-time director Anand Gandhi's Ship of Theseus which, along with Miss Lovely, was picked up for international distribution by Fortissimo Films.
Indian talent is also getting wider exposure. One of India's most acclaimed actors, Anupam Kher, featured in Silver Linings Playbook co-starring with Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro. Life of Pi further enhanced Irrfan Khan's international credits, which also included The Amazing Spiderman. And top Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra ventured into international pop music after being signed to Universal Music/Interscope and CAA. Chopra debuted her first English single “In My City” - featuring will.i.am – on the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football.
There is more to come in 2013 as the trailers of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby already show. The film sees the Hollywood debut of Indian star Amitabh Bachchan, who co-stars with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio.
China's Record-Breaking 'Lost in Thailand' Prepares to Sink 'Titanic'
HONG KONG – For the past few months, many a captain of the Chinese film industry has been praying for a local production to gallop in and save what they see as a business in distress, as Hollywood blockbusters – led by the chart-topping trio of Titanic 3D, The Avengers and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – came and conquered, taking home more than 55 percent of the total box office takings this year.
While the success of Painted Skin: Resurrection provided some respite – the 3D film became the highest-grossing domestic production in Chinese history with earnings of 702 million yuan (US$112.5 million) during its month-long run in July – the year seemed headed for a depressing finale as even the most commercially bankable filmmaker in China today, Feng Xiaogang, found his historical epic Back to 1942 unable to dislodge Ang Lee’s Life of Pi from pole position in the weekly box office standings.
And out of nowhere, the savior came in the form of Lost in Thailand. The film had already taken 677 million yuan (US$108.5 million) by Dec. 23, according to figures released on the official China Film News portal. But on Dec. 27, quoting a much-visited Chinese box office message board on weibo -- China's equivalent to Twitter -- the Southern Metropolis Daily reported the film has now secured 762 million yuan (US$122.2 million) after Dec. 25 -- thus breaking Resurrection’s record after being in cinemas for less than a fortnight. (Resurrection's record was attained over 39 days in July and August.)
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The film, directorial debut of comedian Xu Zheng, has emerged victorious from a very busy week, with the Chinese box office recording a historical high in attendance and ticket sales (20 million viewers paying 710 million yuan/US$113.7 million from Dec. 17-Dec. 23). Jackie Chan’s Chinese Zodiac, which opened Dec. 20, has given Xu a fair running with earnings of 225 million yuan (US$36 million), with the film's production company reporting a post-Christmas total of over 300 million yuan (US$48.1 million).
The two other newly released challengers – The Guillotines and The Last Tycoon – squeezed out of the frame with takings of 27 million yuan (US$4.3 million) and 23 million yuan (US$3.7 million) respectively. (Life of Pi, which is still on release, has now clocked up 570 million yuan/US$91.3 million, with Back to 1942 on 364 million yuan/US$58.3 million.)
Commentators are now talking up the possibility of Lost in Thailand surging past the magical 1 billion yuan barrier – a stunning performance which would lead to a triumph of the film (and the domestic film industry it is seen to represent) over James Cameron’s stereoscopic 3D re-release of Titanic, which took 977 million yuan (US$156.5 million) in the country in the spring. In any case, the film has already made records aplenty, including the highest revenue in a single day (160 million yuan/US$25.6 million on Dec. 15) and in a first week (310 million yuan/US$49.7 million) – an amazing achievement no less, given the absence of 3D or Imax mark-ups.
And it achieved with a fraction of money spent, too. The comedy, which revolves around the travails of two rival entrepreneurs and a wacky pancake-making bumpkin on a journey across Thailand, was reportedly made on a budget of just 30 million yuan (US$4.8 million); while expected to perform much better than Lost on Journey, the Xu-led comedy which cost 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) and earned 45 million (US$7.2 million) in 2010, Lost in Thailand was not viewed as a major record-breaker or game-changer – so much so that A-lister Fan Bingbing, who was last rumored to have been cast in Iron Man 3, agreed to do an unpaid cameo in the film so as to "help" her first-time filmmaker friend Xu. (How she must have regretted this now.)
While the absence of a major U.S. competitor might have contributed to the success of Lost in Thailand – both Skyfall and The Hobbit were put back for release in 2013 – the popularity of the film among mainland Chinese audiences is very telling about what the future beckons in a market which is slated to become, according to a recent Ernst & Young report, the biggest in the world by 2020.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter before the release of Lost in Thailand, Le Vision Pictures CEO Zhang Zhao – who finances and distributes both Chinese films and also international productions like The Expendables 2 – predicts that U.S. blockbusters will meet a growing challenge in China from local productions which would connect better with local audiences. Hollywood imports would land in China like "an elephant attacked by 50 monkeys," he said.
The sentiment is illustrated by the praise the film received online. "Some people have described Lost in Thailand as the Chinese version of The Hangover, and you can't say it's completely wrong, despite being obviously very different films," wrote blogger Happy Moyi on the mtime movie portal. "What the two films have in common are how they could connect to things on the ground."
This view mirrors the authorities’ official line, as shown in an article posted on the state newspaper China Daily’s website on Tuesday. "The comedy won rave reviews by giving Chinese audiences what they want: popular stars, funny dialogue, good timing and a prompt for self-reflection," said the unsigned opinion piece from the official Xinhua News Agency. "Moreover, religious and political fanatics are absent from the movie, making it a breeze to sit through."
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