'Quantum of Solace' finds plenty of viewers

By Sarah Sluis

Exceeding all previous Bond openings, Quantum of Solace vaulted to $70.4 million at the weekend box office.  Overseas, it earned over $50 million in its third weekend, bringing the worldwide cumulative to
$322 million. 

At least in the United States, Quantum's success has much to do with its spy-like maneuvering to secure near-perfect, competition-free placement.  Rescheduling drama early this fall led to some aligned stars for Sony and MGM: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince moved to next summer, and Twilight rushed into the vacated spot, prompting kid picture Bolt to shift its release date. Quantum of Solace then moved up its release date to that of Australia , which jumped ship and moved its release date two weeks later (although now, with talks of production delays and changed endings, they were probably only too happy to give up their spot).  While the British audience usually sees their native-born spy before American audiences, the United States switches gave the European market an unusually long two-week lead in the release, and briefly left the Australian market to release duo blockbusters Quantum of Solace and Australia on the same weekend, before the Bond film conceded and moved forward its Australian release to this weekend.  Quite the chess game.

While critical reception was not as strong for the film, this had little influence on the box office.  I also think audiences have warmed up to Daniel Craig as James Bond.  Seeing another actor taking on the Pierce Brosnan role (the one I grew up with, although I've seen my share of Connery) was a bit of a transition, and I remember viewing Casino Royale with a skeptical eye, uncertain how Craig would inhabit the Bond character.  With two films under his belt, Craig has proven himself as a Bond with a remarkable and believable physicality, a man who, according to FJI critic Daniel Eagan, "looks like he could break the nearest neck without a second thought."

Below Bond, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ($36.1 million) and Role Models ($11.7 million) held up the number two and three spots respectably, each dropping less than 50%.  Second-weeker Soul Men ($2.4 million) did not fare as well, dropping 55%, the soul train chugging into the seventh spot.  HSM3: Senior Year finished between Role Models and Soul Men, its $5.8 million bringing the film's cumulative total to $84.3 million.  Zack and Miri has held on, its $3.2 million pushing the film's total above boxofficemojo's reported production cost of $24 million (a figure that does not include marketing costs).  Hopefully, the Weinstein Company can sleep a little easier.

At number eight, The Secret Life of Bees ($2.4 million) n its fifth week of release, is the oldest film in the top ten.  Specialty picture Changeling ($4.2 million), which finished fifth in its fourth week of release, will likely follow a similar trajectory.

Horror pictures Saw V ($1.7 million) and The Haunting of Molly Hartley ($1.6 million) continue to hang on in the bottom five spots, each shifting down two spots to finish at number nine and ten.

Full weekend results available here.

'Quantum of Solace' will shake, not stir, the weekend box office

By Sarah Sluis

Quantum of Solace (3,451 screens) releases today to a wide-open market.  Without any competition, the film will likely exceed all previous Bond openings (2002's Die Another Day opened to $47 million). 
Forecasters have the film tracking in the $50-$60 million range, slightly below Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa's performance last week. 

Released two weeks ago in Europe, Quantum of Solace has already earned $160 million overseas, but critical reception has been mixed.  The film adjusts the proportions of action, glamour, sex, gadgets, and wit.  While the Bond package remains intact, those who look to the movie for the latter four elements might come out disappointed, as the lean film focuses primarily on the action.  Without the twists and ribald humor and narcissistic concern for the cleanliness of his evening wear, Bond looks more like Bourne, an opinion shared by numerous critics and the FJI staff.

Of note, two American CIA agents aid and do business with the story's main villain.  Bond films usually choose generic but safe villains--they used Russia as the Cold War villain even after the idea of Russia as an enemy was a bit stale (explained, in part, because they kept drawing on Ian Fleming's dated source material).  As far as I can tell, this marks the first time that a Bond film portrays a United States government official as a villain.  A product of the political leanings of screenwriter Paul Haggis, as well as the negative impression overseas of a Bush-led United States, the rather mild depiction of Americans-as-villains did not offend me, but serves as a warning of the world's casual distrust of America.

Holdovers Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Role Models, HSM3: Senior Year and Changeling will continue to rack up numbers at the box office, and, with so few debuting films, will probably drop less than 50% from last week.

The indie market is crowded this week, but the standout is Slumdog Millionaire (10 screens), which released Wednesday (related blog post here) and has already earned $3,000 per screen, a hefty figure for a mid-week release.

FJI publishes reviews of even the smallest indie releases, so, if the thought of Bond makes you run from the multiplex, click here for a round-up of all recent specialty releases.

Monopoly, Meta-mockery, Michael Moore, Iowa library kittens, and Paris Hilton: Coming soon!

By Sarah Sluis

A movie based on a theme park ride seemed like a terrible idea, but Pirates of the Caribbean IV is already in development.  So it should come as no surprise that the board game Monopoly will serve as the
narrative anchor for a screenplay to be written by Pamela Pettler.  Those expecting a top hat and monocle, do not pass go:  Ridley Scott will direct the project, and plans to add some Blade Runner touches to the idea to update the Depression-era board game.  Maybe they live in a futuristic society where everyone gets one "Get out of Jail Free" card, and drawing from the "Chance" deck is mandatory?  "Monopoly" joins Battleship, Ouija Board,"and G.I. Joe as other games receiving the feature treatment under a Universal-Hasbro development deal.

The series of Not Another Teen/Disaster/Scary Movies inspires groans among critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes frequently tallies a 0% rating for these movies, a sort of accomplishment in itself given that the movies keep on getting green-lighted.  Finally, an answer to the success of "Not Another Movies": Not Another Not Another Movie.  The tertiary critique stars Chevy Chase and chronicles a struggling production studio that attempts to make a spoof of spoof movies--which actually makes the film fourth-removed from what it is actually mocking.  The "indie comedy," in all probability a synonym for "low-budget, direct-to-video," sounds so terrible that it might just inspire a rental among those burned out of films with a high production value.

Michael Moore plans to make his sequel to Farenheit 9/11 less
about foreign policy and more about the current American outrage over
the economy.  Sensing that a change in regime could weaken demand for a government critique, The Weinstein Company passed on the project months ago, but Paramount Vantage and Overture have high hopes for the film, which is currently shooting.  Certainly, with the volatility of the markets, there's a strong chance that Moore can draw an obsolete conclusion.  After all, didn't McCain get into huge trouble for stating "The fundamentals of the economy are strong" on the eve of the collapse of major financial institutions?

Perhaps receiving an extra push due to the recent success of doggie picture Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Meryl Streep signed on to the project Dewey the Library Cat, an adaptation of a pet memoir about an
orphaned cat who takes refuge in a library, influencing the lives of the residents of a small Iowa town.  The project follows an unusual wave of pet pictures--yesterday at the movie theatre I saw two side by side posters for December's Marley and Me, also based on a pet memoir, and kid picture Hotel for Dogs ("No stray gets turned away").  Woof.

Paris Hilton will appear in Todd Solondz's sequel to Happiness.  The pairing of the two seems unusual, but just might work.  If anything, the casting reminds me of Tara Reid's brief cameo as Bunny in the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski.  The widely lauded role gave a glimpse to how Reid could have worked her clueless party girl image to her advantage, but, unreplicated, it's the one bright spot in a career otherwise noted for Reid's botched plastic surgery and a decade-old role in American Pie.  Hilton recently starred in horror camp film Repo! The Genetic Opera, which, though I've yet to see it, seems to play Paris as kitsch, instead of straight--anticipating the mockery and eye-rolling that frequently accompany her presence.  Whoever is in charge of her career is doing an excellent job.

Who wants to see a 'Slumdog Millionaire'?

By Sarah Sluis

Slumdog Millionaire releases today in NYC/LA, and Fox Searchlight has done an incredible job activating the
blogosphere with the well-deserved buzz over this film.  "Breathless" seems to be Slumdog's collective adjective, used variably to describe the editing, the story and pacing, and the cinematography.

The premise has a cheesy feel to it that requires reassurance of its quality: a boy on the Indian version of the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," suspected of cheating, must tell police investigators stories of his life experiences.  Each story, which cues a flashback, explains why he knew the answer to a particular question.  In the hands of Boyle, each story poses as many questions as it answers, surprising the viewer with the frenetic and poignant turns in the boy's life, as well as the stunning and grotesque images of a developing India.

As a director, Danny Boyle has assembled an impressive oeuvre of "genre" films that mix in conventions from other genres.  He made 28 Days Later, his "horror" film, entirely in digital, while still managing to make the film look better than the average horror film.  Nor was he afraid to give his characters dynamic relationships.  He even changed the film's enemy halfway through the story, making the story not so much about escaping the zombies as escaping the militaristic "refuge" established in the wake of the world's zombie infestation.

Slumdog Millionaire, generically a "coming-of-age drama," adds crime, romance, Bollywood, and comedy to the mix to make it sparkle.  Like many of his other films (Millions, The Beach, Trainspotting), Boyle plays with the idea of money, including a character's disavowal of money even as he constantly highlights its importance.  India, with its extreme poverty, juxtapositions of wealth, and dynamic growth, could not be a better backdrop to explore this subject.  In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal (Dev Patel) cares little for money, going on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" only to find his lost love.  His older brother, however, understands the importance of money and propels the duo through an impressive array of hustling professions, each set in a hypnotizing intersection of rich and poor: the economy of foreign tourists visiting the Taj Mahal; an adult-led farm of child beggars; teens squatting in an abandoned luxury high-rise; a helicopter touching down in a cardboard slum.

The film should be noted for its use of music.  One long "hustling" montage (on a train) is accompanied by M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes."  Not only is M.I.A., born in former British colony Sri Lanka, a poster child for the political and economic implications of colonialism, the lyrics of the song include references to hustling, trains, and Third World democracy.  Rarely does a song fit so snugly into the narrative, mood, and thematic concern of a film.  If only American audiences hadn't heard the song first in the Pineapple Express trailer.  Besides "Paper Planes," M.I.A. collaborated with the film's composer, A.R. Rahman, on another one of the film's songs, and NYMag reports Fox Searchlight will push the soundtrack for an Oscar.

FJI profiled director Danny Boyle, and you can read Executive Editor Kevin Lally's review of the film here.

Weinstein preps film of 'August: Osage County'

By Sarah Sluis

August: Osage Country, the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning Broadway play, will be a 2011 film produced and
distributed by The Weinstein Company. The prestigious drama already has actors' agents calling, smelling
Oscar material.  A sort of "family reunion" story, Letts' play centers on an
Oklahoma family that finds itself under one roof after the
family patriarch goes missing.  Featuring a pill-popping mother and her
three secretive daughters (you can rest assured these secrets are revealed), the play uses liberal doses of acid humor to
make its commentary on life in the Midwest. Harvey Weinstein, already an investor in the play, acquired the worldwide film rights and will oversee the project in a producer role.  Of the four current theatrical producers, Jean Doumanian and Steve Traxler will produce, and Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel will executive produce.  Author Letts, forewarned of a possible deal, has already been working on the screenplay and plans to finish in a few months.  Weinstein's currently filming another stage adaptation, Nine, a musical based on Fellini's 8 1/2 about a film director's struggles with his (nine?) relationships, including his wife, mistress, muse, agent, mother... 

Jaden Smith next 'Karate Kid'

By Sarah Sluis

The Karate Kid, the film that spawned a thousand martial arts studios in strip malls across America, is up for a remake.  Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith, who made his feature film debut in last December's The
Pursuit of Happyness, is attached to the film.  The film will not be a strict remake, but borrow elements from the original plot.  For those not raised on The Karate Kid, the film centered on a bullied youth who learns karate from a mentor.  In between training montages, the mentor teaches him the winning moves that will help him stave off bullies, land the Girl, and win gold at a karate competition.  Jaden Smith, 10, already practices martial arts, giving the production a head start--maybe he will have time to change the color of his belt before filming begins next year?  While the original film had the character moving from New Jersey to California, this film plans to shoot in Beijing, China, making me think that the rewrite will make the kid's move transcontinental.  Original producer Jerry Weintraub will reprise his role as a producer, along with China Film Group, which is co-producing the film.
  The original franchise consisted of four films--The Karate Kid, two sequels, and The Next Karate Kid, which started over and switched genders, launching the career of Hilary Swank and preparing her for her Oscar-winning role as a fighter in Million Dollar Baby.

'Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa' earns a roaring $63 million

By Sarah Sluis

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa opened to $63.5 million this weekend, slightly exceeding the first-week revenue of this year's animated competitor Wall-E,
which earned $63.08 million.  Because these numbers are box-office
estimates, it's possible that the figures have been rounded up to give Madagascar the reigning position among this year's CGI films.  Even matching Wall-E's take is impressive, given that fall's animated features have generally opened to $30 to $40 million.  2007's Bee Movie, for example, debuted with $38 million.  Overall, this fall has been strong for family-oriented films: Beverly Hills Chihuahua took
advantage of a lull in family fare and drove to a multiple-week #1 finish, and HSM3,
which opened two weeks ago, dropped less than 40% this week to earn
$9.2 million and the highest finish for an existing release (#3).  Of
course, the box office is only a starting point for HSM3's DVD, soundtrack, and merchandise sales.

In second place, Role Models earned $19.2 million, exceeding
expectations and flabbergasting those that expect all R-rated, heavily
marketed comedies to fare the same.  Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which finished at number five this week, earning $6.5 million, only opened to $10 million.

Changeling earned $6.2 million this weekend, dropping only
22%.  While the film has garnered mediocre reviews, with critics
perhaps holding their praise for Eastwood's winter release, Gran Torino,
the word-of-mouth spin on the movie is "it's nothing like the commercials
make it seem," commentary that could raise interest in the film among
those who wrote it off based on the reviews.  A serial child abductor
can do that to a movie.

In a disappointing debut, Soul Men earned $5.6 million.  Perhaps those looking for a career retrospective of Bernie Mac chose Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa instead?

Among the bottom five, Saw V and The Haunting of Molly Hartley both tapered off, earning $4.2 and $3.4 million each.  Despite similar performances this week, Saw V's stellar opening week accounts for a total box-office gross quintuple that of Molly Hartley.

At number nine, The Secret Life of Bees continues to buzz along, also dropping only 22% from last weekend.  Finally, Eagle Eye,
at number ten, is now less than $4 million from crossing the $100
million mark.  While it's already in its seventh week of release, a few
more weeks of crossing the $1 million mark would bring it to the
coveted seven-figure box-office total.

This week has one major release, the twenty-second installment of
the James Bond franchise, so most of these titles will stay in the top
ten for another week.

Complete studio estimates here.