There’s so much going on in movie news right now that instead of covering it in a dozen separate articles, I wanted to give some summaries all in one spot. While the second half of this article contains several stories and (at least partially substantiated) rumors, we’ll first start with the money…
Box Office Top 10:
1. Cowboys & Aliens ( $36.4)
2. Smurfs ( $35.6)
3. Captain America: The First Avenger ( $25.5 M)
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ( $21.97)
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love ( $19.1)
6. Friends with Benefits ( $9.27)
7. Horrible Bosses ( $7.18)
8. Transformers 3 ( $6)
9. Zookeeper ( $4.3)
10. Cars 2 ( $2.3)
Bad Teacher, which pulled in the 9th most money at the box office last week, dropped enough to be surpassed by both Midnight In Paris and Bridesmaids. The movie studio execs likely don’t care so much about the slip, as the film has made nearly $100M this summer in its 6 weeks at the box office, and its budget was only $20 M.
Kung Fu Panda 2 increased its theater presence by nearly 30% and more than doubled its box office earnings, going from just over $300K from last weekend to $662K in the past few days. The film which cost $150M to create has earned back $161M. The Hangover Part II also used a similar tactic, also in its 10th weekend at the box office, but its increase in returns only went up 33% compared to the 108% that KFP2 saw.
X-Men: First Class? Not so lucky. The movie cost $160M to make. In its 9th weekend, it continues to decline, with its total having yet to reach $145M.
After its first weekend at the Box Office, HARRY POTTER 7 Part II dropped 72% in earnings. With the poor reviews I’ve heard for SMURFS and COWBOYS & ALIENS, I would expect them to earn quite a bit less next weekend, however, there’s no expected blockbusters showing up to supplant them. Time will tell what effect RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and THE CHANGE-UP will have on them.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com
Non-Financial News
After viewing The Expendables, it’s obvious that not all members of the cast were as expendable as others. Stallone and Statham appeared to be the main characters, and most of the other members of the cast could be considered ancillary. Recently Collider reported that (studio CEO) David Varod named Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and John Travolta as members of the EXPENDABLES 2 cast.
Adding more westerns to his resume following this summer’s COWBOYS & ALIENS, BadAss Digest is reporting that Harrison Ford will be portraying Wyatt Earp in an upcoming film.
According to SpinOff, the G.I. Joe sequel, which was tentatively sub-titled”COBRA STRIKES” , will now be called “G.I. JOE: RETALIATION”.
Though some fans felt like the show jumped the shark a season or two ago, there were plenty of people mourning the loss of ENTOURAGE… and now they might get a slight reprieve, as BadAss Digest reports that the show is being considered for the big screen treatment. We’d report how a “tv-show-turned-movie” adaptation worked for SEX AND THE CITY… but because you couldn’t force me to see either of those movies, all I can say is that they were successful enough to have 2 films made, so that could be a likely scenario for ENTOURAGE, which was often described as the guy’s version of S&TC.
