In Contention

Tag: Taken

  • Bad things come to those who wait

    It’s so often these days that we see poorly cut trailers for otherwise high-pedigree films that we tend to brush them aside. “Well, it has to be better than that,” we say.

    Refreshingly, however, this trailer for Richard Eyre’s romantic thriller “The Other Man,” due for a late-September release after gathering dust since last year’s rocky Toronto debut, does a fine job of suggesting just how abysmal the film really is. (Not particularly accurately, mind you: it’s cute that in the wake of “Taken,” they’re trying to sell this as another “Neeson kicks ass” effort, but I can assure you that the chess match is about as physical as things get here.)

    You may recall that I gave the film a rather generous 1.5 stars last October (I figured the presence of Laura Linney alone merits an extra half-star, even if she has nothing to do), and went on to name it the year’s worst. But hey, at least it gave “The Reader” the chance to slap “Only the second-dreariest Bernhard Schlink adaptation of 2008!” on its DVD cover. Always a silver lining.

  • The professional

    Liam NeesonIt’s not as if we were short of reasons to admire Liam Neeson in the first place. The man is a remarkable actor, by all accounts an intelligent, decent human being, and even in the face of his wife’s untimely passing, has always managed to keep his private life laudably, well, private.

    But even by his own stand-up guy standards, Neeson went above and beyond the call by returning to the set of Atom Egoyan’s new thriller “Chloe” to complete his scenes, a mere week after Natasha Richardson’s death. A deeply impressed Egoyan says:

    “He was very committed to the film and finishing his role, and he didn’t need to come back that soon … But he really thought it would be best for the film, and it was just such an unspeakably generous thing for him to do. And he’s an extraordinary, extraordinary person.”

    As for the film itself, I must say I’m intrigued. Egoyan, Neeson (who co-stars with Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried) and ultra-left-field scripter Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) occupy very different artistic spheres in my mind — given the auteur’s patchy form of late, the combination could get messy. Still, together with Sundance winner “Five Minutes of Heaven” (in which he does sterling work), it indicates a move into the kind of gutsy arthouse territory Neeson hasn’t entered much in recent years.

    In any case, Neeson’s recent mini-comeback has been one of the more pleasantly surprising developments of the past year. “Taken,” for all its sleeper success, was a rote effort, while you may recall I was none too impressed with “The Other Man” — but it’s encouraging to see a 56 year-old thesp (and one who has always seemed more comfortable as an actor than a star) getting major leading-man roles. Meanwhile, “Lincoln” and “Clash of the Titans” await him. Score one for the good guys.

  • The reality of the ‘Wolverine’ leak and box office

    Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: WolverineYou may have already heard about a certain workprint for Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” leaking onto the Internet two weeks ago since the resulting firestorm and fallout has been covered and re-covered by bloggers, journalists and former journalists alike.  So there’s not much left to say on the issue. I do, however, want to go on record, as In Contention’s resident box office guy, as saying that this leak will have absolutely ZERO effect on the amount of money the film will pull in. Well, almost zero.

    First, let’s take a look at Fox’s logic. Potential customers see the movie on their computer before it comes out.  Customers then do not go see the movie in the theater. It does seem to make sense and this logic most likely comes from the devastating effect that illegal downloading has had on the record business.

    Now, here’s my logic. While the record business is definitely going down the tubes, the music business is doing fine. Concert business is relatively stagnant and vinyl sales are up significantly. Look at Flo Rida.  His album only sold 80,000 units its first week, which is disappointing, but his single “Right Round” has been downloaded over a million times on iTunes alone. In other words, CDs may be dying, and possibly even the album format, but the music industry will be fine.

    Look also at the top 30 Billboard debuts for artists like Animal Collective and Andrew Bird so far in 2009. Not only did both acts post career-high sales totals, but they both cater almost exclusively to the audience that is supposedly getting all their music illegally. Really, though, it’s silly to even compare the two industries, since buying a record was never a group activity or a night on the town to begin with.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Witch Mountain’ takes the crown, ‘Watchmen’ falls hard

    Race to Witch MountainEDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first installment in what will be a weekly column looking at box office here at In Contention.  Chad Hartigan and I attended film school together in another life.  But for the last three years he’s been a box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.  He’s also tried his hand at making a feature (last year’s “Luke and Brie are on a First Date,” which played the festival circuit) and you may have enjoyed a spat or two with him in our comments section.  Chad will be here every Sunday afternoon wrapping up the weekend and looking ahead to the next one.  We welcome him to the IC family and look forward to his weekly take on the dollars and cents of showbiz.

    Hello all.  Before I dive into the first installment of Sunday Cents, two things to note: Figures discussed here are estimates and actual figures released on Monday could change things slightly, but usually not significantly.

    Also, any figures I draw from the past will be adjusted for inflation. That’s just how I do things. You may argue that adjusting figures doesn’t portray an accurate comparison because of things like DVD and blah, blah, blah, but in the end, comparisons are all arbitrary anyway so it doesn’t matter.

    So, with that out of the way…what happened this weekend?

    Well, “Race to Witch Mountain” came out on top with a cool $25 million. That’s almost exactly the same as “The Game Plan,” which debuted at $24 million and represents the only other time Disney picked The Rock to headline one of their films. Family sci-fi is a tough sell (“The Last Mimzy,” anyone?), so on one hand it’s a good result. On the other, compared to the $41.5 million debut that “Wild Hogs” managed in March of 2007, it seems a little soft.  There’s no family competition for two weeks so “Mountain” will have a chance to stretch its legs and it’ll have to make as much as possible before “Monsters vs. Aliens” comes along and obliterates it.

    The second remake to open this weekend was Universal’s “The Last House on the Left.”  Debuting in third with $14.7 million is pretty standard issue for this kind of film, with “The Hills Have Eyes,” “House of Wax” and “The Fog” all opening in the same ballpark.  They can’t all be “Friday the 13th.”

    Way back in 10th is the final new release of the week, “Miss March.”  Is it too soon to start talking Razzies? Actually, to be honest, if I was forced to choose a film to see out of these three, “Miss March” gets my $10. It could use it, as the $2.4 million the film pulled couldn’t even match “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”‘s ninth week. The Kevin James comedy keeps on plugging and has amassed a ridiculous $138 million so far, by the way.

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