Behind the great visual effects in 'Flight'

Flight, which opened last week and started out by reeling in a hefty $25 million and great word-of-mouth, has yet another two things going for it. Not only is it a character-driven drama, it has great special effects. The harrowing plane crash scene is visceral and frightening and suspenseful. There is no way this movie will ever end up being shown as in-flight entertainment. While I was watching , I didn't pay too much attention to what was vCGI and what wasn't: It just looked so real, I wasn't even distracted by any hokey gaps in the visual effects.

This behind-the-scenes video has some great insight into how they simulated flying and a plane crash in Flight. It involved slicing up parts of a real plane and mechanically turning them upside down for the purpose of the shoot. I hope the extras playing passengers were well-compensated for having to sit in what's essentially an amusement park ride for hours, with luggage flying at them.

 

 

Another technique that the video highlights is the use of matte painting to make the weather outside look stormy. Changing the weather in the back of a shot is so commonplace, even low-budget pictures like Take Shelter can do that, though admittedly illustrating an impending storm was a necessity for that movie and was likely a priority even with limited funds. And remember the realistic "other Earth" in Another Earth? That, too, came from painting the sky differently.  When I think of visual effects, I think of things like rear projection, or its updated green screens, which help provide the views outside the plane windows in Flight. But we rarely think of weather. In the craft of filmmaking, sometimes techniques with mattes can provide shortcuts, but they also expand the power of the crew. These techniques are something of a perfectionist's dream, allowing directors to subtly re-time events and lighting, snow, and rainfall. So kudos to Flight for combining visual effects with mechanical ingenuity.

 

Check out the creepy trailer for 'Side Effects,' Steven Soderbergh's latest

Steven Soderbergh has directed six feature films in four years. He's also credited with a documentary during that time, served as a second unit director for The Hunger Games, and has a smattering of producer, executive producer, and "Very Special Thanks" credits on his IMDB list. No wonder the man has announced that he plans to retire. He still has at least one project that hasn't been released, Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum, Soderbergh's new muse. Tatum appeared in this year's  Magic Mike and Haywire. The trailer for Side Effects just hit YouTube, and man does it look creepy...and cryptic.

 

Mara plays a woman whose anxiety and fraught relationship with Tatum are helped by a new drug. Then someone gets murdered, and it's implied that she may have done the deed while under the influence of the drug, unbeknownst to her. Jude Law plays a shady drug executive, and Catherine Zeta-Jones appears to be a more skeptical peer of Law. Limitless recently explored the good (and bad) side effects of a drug, and was something of a surprise success. Side Effects certainly taps into a cultural anxiety about being altered by medication. Any number of drugs taken by millions of Americans could loosely describe the one taken by Mara, so I think Soderbergh has chosen an apt subject. But will people turn out?

The performance of Soderbergh's movies at the box office boggles me. It's easy to see why his Ocean's Eleven series was such a success, for example, but I was surprised by the performance of this year's Haywire and Magic Mike. Haywire was one of the best action movies I've seen in a long time, with interesting, realistic combat sequences and a cool female heroine. But then Magic Mike turned out to be the bigger success, pulled along by females in the Heartland--although they may have been more gaga for Dear John and The Vow star Channing Tatum than Soderbergh's auteur status as a director. At least if you're Soderbergh, a lukewarm success can be chased by a hit just months later, instead of dealing with years-long lags before your next big work.

Side Effects will open on February 8, 2013, through Open Road Films.

'Skyfall' opens this Friday in the U.S., but it's already a smashing success abroad

James Bond is, of course, a British import, though the long-running character is on a last-name basis with most of America. The James Bond movies historically debut first in the U.K., but the latest, Skyfall, has already been open for two weeks around the world in almost every major market. That doesn't include the U.S., which won't show the movie until November 9, three weeks
after its October 24 release elsewhere. Is this going to be the new order? Will the U.S. now regularly follow other countries in releases?

The answer is both yes and no. One reason Skyfall opened in so many markets--over twenty--is because of national holidays. Many countries get All Saint's Day (Nov. 1) off, and studios like to time big releases to holidays where everyone is in search of entertainment. In Bond's homeland, the U.K., the movie has already earned $85 million and is on track to beat The Dark Knight Rises to become the highest-grossing movie of the year. That's a third of the foreign total. However, the Bond series has always been about international jaunts. Two countries that feature heavily into the plotline--China and Turkey--have yet to release the movie. China will be a big one. I personally was impressed with the aerial shots of Shanghai in Skyfall. I wouldn't be surprised if it makes many viewers add the country to their tourism wish list.

Hollywood is used to the U.S. market dictating the success of a release. When a movie performs much better abroad than domestically, it's seen as an outlier, an "overperformer." Sometimes, the movies that do best go for the lowest common denominator, making people resent the globalization of the box office. The Bond brand may, oddly enough, have a greater resemblance to Mamma Mia! or The Adventures of Tintin. All three are based on figures who are more popular abroad than in the U.S. If any movie is going to open big abroad before a U.S. release, it should be one like these three. When U.S. audiences check out Bond this weekend, they're unlikely to be resentful that people across the pond got to see the movie before them. They're more likely happy to know the movie is already a hit and their $12 movie ticket is not being wasted, but instead paying for what many are calling the best Bond movie since those in the 1960s.

‘Wreck-it Ralph’ smashes through Disney Animation records

Superstorm Sandy did have an impact at the box office, but
as hoped, it turned out to mostly be a good one. Wreck-It Ralph did
especially well on the East Coast on Friday, as cooped-up families gladly
embraced the distraction. The animated feature earned $49.1 million over the weekend,
Disney Animation’s biggest
non-holiday weekend opening. Viewers, who skewed young and slightly male,
gave the video game-themed movie an “A” rating. With two more competition-free
weekends before Rise of the Guardians
begins its pre-Thanksgiving run, Wreck-It
Ralph will be able to grab the lion’s share of the family audience.

The Denzel Washington-led Flight took off with $25 million, while only releasing on
1,900 screens. The story of a pilot who is also an alcoholic is something of a
departure from Washington’s
usual casting in lighter action-thrillers, but
audiences responded, giving the movie an “A” CinemaScore rating and Washington
his fifth-highest opening ever.

Argo had yet another strong weekend, dipping just 15% to $10.2 million. That’s the fourth
weekend in a row that drama finished above $10 million, which is especially
noteworthy given that it opened at just under $20 million. The word-of-mouth hit
will likely play strongly through Thanksgiving.

In fourth place, The Man with the Iron Fists opened
to $8.2 million, in line with
expectations. The predominantly male, under-30 audience did not like the
over-the-top martial arts movie, giving it just a “C+” rating. This is one that
will likely die pretty fast, though luckily the feature only cost around $15
million.

A Late Quartet debuted on nine screens with an $8,400 per-screen average. The
Manhattan-set story of a string quartet likely suffered because theatres in
Lower Manhattan were closed for part of the weekend. The found-footage epidemic
movieThe
Bay flopped, averaging just $930
per screen in 23 location. The Details also disappointed. The
black comedy earned only $1,400 per screen in fourteen locations.

In contrast, the third week of The Sessions did better
than any of the new specialty releases. The John Hawkes/Helen Hunt movie went
up 110% as it added 49 locations for a total of 69. With a per-screen average of $6,600, it racked up nearly a half-million dollars. Searching
for Sugar Man continued to enjoy an uptick after the documentary was
featured on “60 Minutes.” The fifteen-week-old movie rose 18% to add another
$163,000 to its $2.4 million total.

This Friday, James Bond returns in Skyfall, which has already proved a smashing success overseas. Also
in the mix is Lincoln, the Steven
Spielberg-directed biopic that will begin its run in a handful of theatres.

'Wreck-It Ralph' picks up the pieces post-Sandy

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, there is some concern that the
weekend box office will be impacted. With its high ticket prices and
dense population, New York City theatres often post the highest returns
of any locationin the U.S., and are critical launching points for indie releases. In the New York metro area, twenty AMC theatres and seven Regal theatres remain out of commission,
along with other independent theatres. Number crunchers predict the
East Coast storm won't have too large of an effect on the overall box
office. In areas that were once closed and now have reopened, there may
be robust demand for the comfort of a movie.

Appealing to nostalgia-seeking adults and their video game-loving children, Wreck-It Ralph
(3,752 theatres) could open to over $40 million this weekend, making it Disney Animation's highest non-holiday opening. 2,911 of the locations will show the animated feature in 3D.  The "homage to classic
videogame culture wrapped in an adventurous road movie" should "sweep the family-friendly demo in the first few weeks of
the month before any significant challengers emerge," predicts THR's Justin Lowe. The story of a video game villain who decides he's sick of being the bad guy "bears a distinct Pixar DNA
signature," Lowe notes, a sign that post-acquisition of Pixar, Disney's team is either collaborating or picking up the animation studio's tricks.

Denzel Washington plays a drug-addled pilot who miraculously saves a malfunctioning plane in Flight (1,900 theatres). Washington just led Safe House to a $124 million total this February,
but Flight is more challenging fare, offering a complicated and well-acted portrait of an addict. That may dissuade Washington's
fans who prefer him in more breezy action diversions. Paramount hopes
it will pick up other viewers drawn in by the pedigree of director
Robert Zemeckis, who has directed emotionally stirring crowd pleasers like Forrest Gump and Cast Away. FJI critic Doris Toumarkine dubs the release "one of the strongest adult dramas to come out of Hollywood in a long time," praising Zemeckis' move from "motion capture to emotion capture," referencing the director's previous focus on works like Polar Express.

"Hardcore action fans" will probably get the biggest rise out of The Man with the Iron Fists (1,868 theatres), predicts THR's
Todd McCarthy. "This is the sort of film where the main characters are
defined first and foremost by what type of weaponry they favor," he
says, and
"very few minutes go by without some sort of combat." The
stylized martial-arts mash-up can have a "concocted, secondhand feel."
There's a certain type of audience that loves these kinds of films, but unlike, say, the work of Quentin Tarantino, it will be unlikely to expand to a broader audience, so a debut in the $7-10 million range is expected.

The black comedy The Details (12 theatres), which centers on a couple's unraveling in the wake of a household pest, will lead the specialty pack this weekend, with the support of stars Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks. Sean Penn plays an aging rocker in This Must Be the Place (2 theatres). It earned critic David Noh's endorsement. He praises the "compellingly unpredictable
entertainment, laced with wry humor and that essential,
all-too-rare element these days, surprise." Finally, the epidemic thriller The Bay (23 theatres) will scare you, assures critic Maitland McDonagh. With a don't-mess-with-nature message, it "pulls off the harder-than-it-looks feat of tucking food for thought inside a very scary wrapper."

On Monday, we'll see if Wreck-It Ralph held up to the aftereffects of Superstorm Sandy, and if Flight and The Man with the Iron Fists attracted the demographics they need to drive a strong debut.

Gauging the box-office impact of Superstorm Sandy

At the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan this afternoon, crowds of families stood in line at the reopened theatre for a matinee screening of Hotel Transylvania. An employee taking tickets reported a long, arduous, and nonsensical commute by bus, but he was still

able to report for work. The neighborhood as a whole was virtually untouched by the Superstorm Sandy that so devastated other parts of New York City and left millions in the region without power. Schools have been cancelled for the entire week, so the screening was likely a much-needed relief for haggard parents coping with having kids unexpectedly at home.

Confusion, though, still ruled the day. "Is this theatre open?" a woman asked an attendant in the lobby of the theatre. As face-palming as that question was, she more likely was inquiring if the theatre was back to normal and running on a regular schedule. That's what the box office may be looking at this weekend. The potential upside for East Coast theatres will be the ability to entertain stir-crazy customers who may be without power, or at least without their regular routine, at home. When else can theatres truly offer refuge through escapist entertainment? The downside is that many people may not even know if their local theatre is open, especially with spotty cell service and limited battery power for surfing the Internet or calling around. Or they may not even have the gas to go to a theatre. Or, maybe their house is under water and they have other, more serious concerns.

Variety offers one figure, courtesy of Disney, that attempts to hone in on the storm's potential financial impact. The distributor reported that "roughly 24% of its most recent openings came from 10 major markets hit by the storm, including New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto and Washington, D.C. That means those regions would, under normal circumstances, contribute $9.6 million of a $40 million opening for Wreck-It Ralph." If the box office in those regions is down 10-20%, that's $1-2 million. 50% could subtract $5 million from the total. After seeing the crowd turned out for Hotel Transylvania, I think if any picture could weather the aftereffects of Superstorm Sandy, it's a family film. Parents may be grateful for the opportunity to distract their kids for a while, or simply offer them a sense of normalcy.

'Argo' leads in soft weekend for new releases

Argo may not have opened at number one, but in its third weekend, it finally rose to the top. Despite four new wide releases, it was the Ben Affleck-directed and led thriller that grabbed the first-place position with a $12.3 million finish. Although Argo's 25% drop was larger than last week's 15% dip, that's still an extremely strong hold. By next week, the movie should be tracking ahead of Affleck's previous picture, The Town, which opened higher but had larger week-to-week

falls.

Cloud Atlas led the group of new releases, finishing with $9.4 million, right below Hotel Transylvania's $9.5 million. The literary adaptation reportedly cost over $100 million, so that part doesn't bode well for the career trajectory of the Wachowski siblings, who directed the picture along with Tom Tykwer. It's possible the actual total could be even lower, since many NYC theatres shut down in early evening, when public transit in the city also ground to a halt in preparation for the storm. This appeared to be a film choice for an older, arthouse-leaning crowd. 77% of ticket-buyers were over the age of 25. 12% of the totals came from IMAX screens, indicating this was an "event" film for certain fans.

The horror sequel Silent Hill: Revelation 3D opened to $8 million. The original opened to $20 million in 2006, indicating that this adaptation of a video game franchise has lost almost all momentum. Any plans for a Silent Hill 3 are likely dead and buried.

The teen comedy Fun Size failed to ignite, and barely squeaked into the top ten with just $4
million. Teen girls, likely fans of "iCarly" star Victoria Justice, did show up: 67% of attendees were female and 73% under the age of 25. But not enough of them showed up, so the opening ended up below even other Nickelodeon-produced flops like Hey Arnold! The Movie, which had a similarly lackluster opening of $5.7 million back in 2002.

Chasing Mavericks had an extremely disappointing debut of just $2.2 million, giving it a thirteenth-place finish. Why release a surfing movie in the fall? Spring or summer would be a better choice for the release, just the time of year when people are anticipating or enjoying beach vacations. It's also the second bomb for a Fox/Walden Media release. Won't Back Down recently debuted to a figure almost as low, $2.6 million.

The specialty front was also quiet. The Loneliest Planet opened to a $10,000 per screen average at two locations. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics liked it, giving it a 76% positive rating. Rotten Tomatoes users were less happy, with only 46% coming out in favor of the tale of a couple's relationship, which is tested while traveling in the remote Caucasus mountains. That indicates the feature may not do as well in coming weeks. Compare that to The Sessions. In its second week, the heartwarming romance-drama went from four to twenty screens and reaped the rewards. The $11,000 per-screen average was the highest of any release this weekend, and gave the John Hawkes-led picture a total of $231,000. The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes show the difference: the 96% positive critics ratings are matched by an 86% positive audience rating.

This Friday, the CG-animated Wreck-It Ralph will likely steal the thunder from kid-friendly competitor Hotel Transylvania. The well-reviewed Flight will also open in theatres along with The Man with the Iron Fists.