Having to wait eight months longer than expected to see Harry Potter's next movie certainly got the teen wizard's fans pumped for the first showings, Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princeraked in $22.2 million from the late-late (or is that early-early) screenings, blowing away the $18.5 million record set last year by The Dark Knight, according to BoxOfficeGuru.com.
Making the booty haul even more impressive: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince didn't have many IMAX showings with higher ticket prices that would boost the total. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is booked into most IMAX theaters until later this month when Harry will takeover. That was one hitch in Warner Bros.' decision to move the Potter debut to now, rather than last November when it was originally planned.
After spending Monday on Potter watch, it's nice to return to reality in movies. At least as real as romantic comedies can be.
Don't you wish you could fall in love like Hollywood says people do? Movies tell us that the more couples bicker/banter for all but the last five minutes, do extraordinarily dumb things to impress/fool each other, and make it through the obligatory, messy last-reel crisis are bound for lifelong happiness.
There was a newspaper article a few years ago that I'd pull out when teaching college classes on the rom-com genre, relating how a lovestruck California guy was arrested for his latest stunt to impress the woman he had a crush upon. Turned out that disguising himself as cable TV serviceman to be closer to her was a wee bit too close to stalking for comfort.
Previously he had attempted a ruse to get her on a plane flight to the Caribbean, frame her new boyfriend to get him out of the picture and serenade her at work. He swore he didn't know how the new beau's house had caught fire.
When the police asked why he did all this, the man replied that those kinds of things always work in the movies.
(500) Days of Summer aims to change that impression, managing the feat with such charming precision that I've seen it twice and loved it both times. It's a movie telling viewers right off the bat that it's a boy-meets-girl story "but you should know up front that this isn't a love story." Then it proceeds to bat around every romantic comedy convention: the "meet cute," the characters so perfect in mind and body that it's a sham to believe they can't find dates, and ultimately the resolution making everything work at the finale.
(500) Days of Summer sometimes operates like a fantasy -- an impromptu dance routine in a park is one of my favorite scenes this year -- yet always keeps it real. It's a movie unafraid of admitting its influences especially Woody Allen, with a brief Bergmanesque portrait of despair, and a scene when the screen splits between the hero's expectations of what will happen when he visits the woman, and the reality. The Graduate inspires an early one-liner, a couple of camera angles, then uses Benjamin and Elaine's own fadeout to underscore the uncertainty of what this couple is doing.
Brilliant stuff.
I love this movie (opening locally on July 31), so getting the chance to chat today with its director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber is something to anticipate. It's for a story I'm planning on romantic comedy conventions, and their crafty detours around them. But I could use a hand.
What are the rom-com cliches that get on your nerves, or perhaps worm their way into your heart? The wacky sidekicks? The grandmotherly adviser who has seen it all? Casting beautiful celebrities who can't/won't lose by the fadeout? The soundtrack of classic love songs heard too often? The "Love Boat" construction of first-quarter introductions, second-quarter romance, third-quarter crises and fourth-quarter kissing and making up?
Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno tops the weekend box office grosses, according to BoxOfficeGuru.com.The lewd, crude comedy sold an estimated $30.4 million in tickets, better than Cohen's Borat,but there's a catch before he begins celebrating.
Borat opened to $26.4 million in 2006, on nearly one-third fewer screens (and with slightly lower ticket prices). Cohen's breakout hit had legs, though, expanding to more theaters and winding up with $128.5 million in domestic revenues.
Bruno has already opened as wide as it will. Given the usual weekly dropoff in ticket prices -- 35 percent lower is still considered a successful encore -- it'll be tough for Bruno to match its predecessor's total.
Bruno didn't exactly dominate the weekend race. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs placed second with $28.5 million. Beating a second-week movie by less than $2 million in the summertime takes a bit of glitter off Bruno's victory. And with the Harry Potter flick opening Wednesday, it won't become a winning streak like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Starting Friday, Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry offers the U.S. premiere of Extra-Large Shorts, a six-pack of short films coinciding with a new exhibit on the animation process.
Coinciding doesn't necessarily mean complementing, though. While the animation exhibit is squarely aimed at children -- Cartoon Network helped develop it -- Extra-Large Shorts is sophisticated stuff likelier to make kids doubt their creativity rather than inspire it.
One of the six minimovies isn't even animated; Norway's Where the Trains Used to Go is live action along a countryside railway, filmed with time-lapse photography. Another, titled Primiti Too Taa, is a simple idea -- nonsensical words rhythmically typed and read -- that is expanded to incomprehension by the museum's massive, curved IMAX screen.
More successful in the format are Pandorama, a hectic mixed media exercise; Falling in Love Again with its silly free-fall romance while Marlene Dietrich sings; and Mark Osborne'sMore, a tale of lost bliss from Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne.
Each film runs six minutes or less except the gorgeous finale, Alexander Petrov's 1999 Academy Award winner The Old Man and the Sea. Hand-painted with oils on glass, Petrov nails the macho essence of Ernest Hemingway's classic story of an aging Cuban fisherman and the big one that gets away because nature has other plans.
At 22 minutes, The Old Man and the Sea comprises more than half of Extra-Large Shorts' running time. Considering the hit-and-miss nature of the other five works, that isn't a bad thing.
The shorts collection and animation exhibit continue through Sept. 7. IMAX-only tickets are available ($7.95 for adults, $6.95 for seniors and $5.95 for children).
I also got a phone message today announcing the late addition of Moon to this weekend's lineup, only at AMC Veterans 24 in Tampa. Moon orbited the festival circuit in the spring -- including Sarasota's showcase -- earning mixed reactions from audiences and critics.
Sam Rockwell stars as an astronaut ending a solitary tour of duty, mining resources on the moon with only a Hal-like computer (voice of Kevin Spacey) for company. There's a secret to be uncovered, a darker side of the moon than Pink Floyd dreamed. It'll be revealed on home video soon enough, if you can't make the trip to Veterans 24.
As expected, the tie at the top of the Fourth of July weekend box office was broken when studio accountants sharpened their pencils.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen won the weekend when real ticket sales were counted, according to Variety.com. Well, not exactly real but whatever was reported or sorted by studio number crunchers. Kind of like a blind auction bid. Enough people are expecting a headline Monday morning that Sunday estimates count most in a news cycle, and enough people liked the tie situation T-minus-2 and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs created.
But it didn't hold up. The Transformers flick reported $42.3 million grossed domestically to hold the No. 1 spot. The Ice Age flick ponied up $41.7 when its Sunday bluff was called. Both films are officially below the $42.5 million total estimated Sunday, so both studios were fibbing.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs each reported $42.5 in ticket sales for the traditional Friday-to-Sunday frame.
Dawn of the Dinosaurs opened on Wednesday and earned $67.5 million since then. The Transformers sequel dropped 61 percent from last weekend's haul but that could be expected. Michael Bay's movie has grossed $293.5 million in 12 days, placing it No. 30 among all-time ticket draws.
You can bet on one movie squeezing out a slim victory when studio accountants finish crunching numbers Monday morning. Look for the runner-up to cry foul, claiming bogus addition that nobody can prove anyway. Like everything in the movie biz, it'll come down to which studi has the best media connections to get out their side of the story.
Manny the mammoth seems like a peaceful kind of guy but he and his Ice Age menagerie stomped Optimus Prime and the 'bot-boys when Wednesday's opening day box office numbers were released by Variety.
Dawn of the Dinosaurs grossed an estimated $14 million on Wednesday, bolstered by hundreds of theaters showing it in 3D. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has hundreds of IMAX screens on its side, earning another $10 million Wednesday for a domestic gross approaching $240 million in eight days of release.
Hampered a bit by its R rating, Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp collected an estimated $8 on opening day.
For the smartest predictions of Fourth of July weekend box office results -- or any weekend, for that matter -- check out Gitesh Pandya's column on BoxOfficeGuru.com
TBT* honcho Jay Cridlin passed along this connection between one of my favorite films of the summer, Away We Go, and the upcoming GaYbor Days festival in Ybor City:
Singer/impressionist Judy B. Goode, whose Thursday night shows at the Ybor City Social Club always draw a crowd, is the proud grandmother of two actors in Sam Mendes' movie, now playing around Tampa Bay.
Brendan and Jaden Spitz, 2-year-old twins, take turns playing "Baby Neptune," who's shown above being lugged around by Maggie Gyllenhaal in a cradle sling. Don't ask me if that Brendan or Jaden in the photo above (with Gyllenhaal and Mendes). Don't ask Judy, either. She says she hasn't seen the kids since they were about three months old, and couldn't tell then.
"They're what are called 'mirror image twins,'" Goode said during a phone chat. "One is left handed, the other is right handed and both look exactly alike."
The boys' mother, Candi, is married to former Anthrax guitarist Danny Spitz, residing in New York City.
At least, if you count the 5-day record, which is different from the 3, 4 or whatever day record that studios concoct to make an opening look better. Kind of like ads proclaiming a movie is the No. 1 comedy when there aren't any fresh ones out there competing.
According to BoxOfficeGuru.com,, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen pulled a 5-day haul of $201.2 million domestically (with $89.2 earned before the traditional Friday-to-Sunday span that's typically reported). That's second only to The Dark Knight that grossed $203.8 million last year. The Friday-to-Sunday total ranks seventh all-time.
Michael Bay's sequel will soon become 2009's top-grossing movie. Up sits atop the list with $250.2 million, and stalling after a good month in theaters.
Rolling into theaters Wednesday like Optimus Prime on greased wheels, Transformers: Rise of the Fallen sold $60.6 million in tickets to moviegoers ignoring every critic -- including me -- who said don't waste the money. It's a recession, you know.
That opening day total is second only to last year's debut of The Dark Knight ($67.2 million).
The haul included $16 million from screenings that unspooled at 12:01 a.m., and Michael Bay's movie was certainly loud enough to keep them awake. At this rate, the live-action version of a 1980s cartoon favorite will challenge the Wednesday-to-Sunday debut record of $152.4 million set by Spider-Man 2 in 2004, according to the number crunchers at BoxOfficeGuru.com.
If you're wondering, here's a list of the 10 best opening days, in millions of dollars, from boxofficeguru.com:
1 The Dark Knight 67.2 2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 60.6 3 Spider-Man 3 59.8 4 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 55.8 5 Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 50.0 6 X-Men: The Last Stand 45.1 7 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 44.2 8 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End 42.9 9 The Matrix Reloaded 42.5 10 Spider-Man 2 40.4
Steve Persall is the movie critic for the St. Petersburg Times. He was conceived behind a drive-in movie theater his father operated and raised in projection booths and concession stands. He doesn't care how you did it up north.
Steve Persall is the movie critic for the St. Petersburg Times. He was conceived behind a drive-in movie theater his father operated and raised in projection booths and concession stands. He doesn't care how you did it up north.
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