Craig's MovieBlog

New Star Trek Trailer

What was I saying about not being inspired by anything at the movies these days?

Yes please.

Enjoy the new Star Trek trailer.

And from now on, please let JJ Abrams reboot all film franchises.  Except maybe Batman – Chris Nolan can keep that.  But take Superman away from Bryan Singer, and pry Indiana Jones away from Spielberg and Lucas. 

Thanks.

UPDATE:

I know this is ridiculously nerdy, but after watching this for the 40th time, I noticed something very subtle that gives just a slight hint to what the trailer was about.  Check out the license plate:

Yes, I am a nerd loser.

Playing Chicken

According to Box Office Mojo, Get Smart has a production budget of $80 million, while The Love Guru has a budget of $62 million.  Neither of those numbers include the massive costs sunk into marketing these two films.

Let’s just say, these are big investments.

So why… why oh why… why would the Warner Bros and Paramount plan on releasing these two films, both big budget comedies, both with big stars that came from television, both targeting the exact same audience, why would they release them on the same day?

There’s a good piece in the LA Times discussing that there are more films being released each year than ever before, and (I don’t know if you’ve noticed) the number of weeks in a year is remaining remarkably constant.

That’s a nice excuse, but are you telling me you couldn’t find a single weekend to do some appropriate counter-marketing?  You couldn’t release one of those films this weekend against The Incredible Hulk and The Happening?  What new film are women going to see this weekend?  Not those two, but maybe they would have seen that big action spy movie with that funny Anne Hathaway that they loved so much in The Devil Wears Prada (which, if you remember did a brilliant job of counter-marketing against Superman Returns, to the tune of a $27 million opening and a $125 million gross domestically.)

This smells of nothing but ego, pure and simple.  Someone picked a date, another person picked a date, and no one wanted to “show weakness” and move, even though it probably would have made them another $50 million.  Silly.

Studio Executives are Drunk or Stupid... or Both

Don't they understand that Steve Carell is funny?  Don't they understand that good writing is what makes people laugh, cry, or cheer?  Clearly not... because The New York Times and Jeff Wells are commenting today that the budget for Evan Almighty is now (good lord) $175 million, and they haven't even touched the marketing budget or distribution costs.

What could possibly be costing $175 million that would make that film funnier?  This is a sight-gag comedy!  It's not like Schwarzenegger is flying Stealth bombers and blowing up cities... All Universal is doing is repeatedly cutting into their profits!  When you see what happened to Superman Returns, a film that made lots of cash, but couldn't be profitable, why would anyone continue down this path?!?!

Of course, if they told me that the budget had a line-item for waxing Carell's chest hair, well, then... nevermind.  I completely understand.

Interesting Priorities - Alan Horn and Warner Bros.

It's no secret that Warner Bros. is having a bad year (Poseidon, The Ant Bully, Lady in the Water, and overall disappointment about Superman Returns), but they've done a decent job hedging their bets by getting partners to invest heavily in some of their leading losers (I'm talking about you Legendary Pictures and Virtual Studios - why are you doing this again?  Remind me.)

But what I love the most about this piece is the quote from Warner Bros. President Alan Horn:

"The price of failure is high," Horn said. "It's not just the financial cost. It's reading about it in the newspaper."

I love it.  It's not just that he's losing hundreds of millions of dollars (of other people's money), but also top of mind for him is that he has to read about it in the press.  Oh well, at least he knows the impact of having a good PR team.

Hollywoodland Trailer

I wonder if the folks at Focus and Miramax are nervous about the negative buzz surrounding Superman Returns... because here comes another Superman-related movie: Hollywoodland.

Admittedly, this isn't really about Superman, but the actor who played him and his apparent suicide.  The trailer has a real LA Confidential feel to it, but it feels a little heavy on the melodrama.  Plus, after watching the trailer, are there any surprises left?  Don't you feel like you just watched the whole film?

Plus, the lack of Ben Affleck in the trailer is hilarious...

Superman Returns Box Office

I don't know why I still feel the need to defend this movie, but I guess I'm just looking for some fairness in reporting more than anything else.

Only 6 movies have ever broken $50 million on July 4th weekend, and Superman Returns did it with $52.6 million (and it didn't even star Will Smith, like most of the others on this list), coming in 3rd place.  I'm not sure if people just wanted to see Warner Bros. lose due to the over $300 million they spent on making and marketing this thing, but it's definitely not the bomb that people are making it out to be.  Competition is about to get brutal, however, with Pirates 2 about to come out.

On the flipside, people are GUSHING about how amazing the box office performance was for The Devil Wears Prada, and yet it was only the 15th best of this year, beaten by such HUGE hits (not) as Big Momma's House 2 and Inside Man, neither of which ended up breaking $100 million.  In fact, Superman Returns' initial 5 day total ($84.7 million) almost outgrossed Inside Man's entire domestic take ($88.4 million).  Plus, Prada will have much tougher competition than Momma and Inside Man had, with Pirates 2 and My Super Ex-Girlfriend about to come out.

So, great counter-marketing on Fox's behalf, but please everyone... get a grip.

Superman Returns: Pixar Was Right

The amount of quibbling over Superman Returns is unbelievable.  The blogs and websites are all going nuts about whether he's gay, whether his cape should be that shade of red, whether the lack of Perry White saying "the American way" constitutes a reflection on today's geopolitical affairs, whether a 24 year old Lois Lane could have a young son and a Pulitzer Prize, why Supes didn't visit Ma Kent after recovering, in fact - why would Superman even go to a hospital anyway, is he violating Lois's rights by using his x-ray vision and super hearing, and on and on and on and on.

It's truly mind-boggling.  To me, it's beyond the simple comic book fan-boy mania, beyond the normal movie blog comments.  It's starting to border on inappropriate - and I haven't even seen the damn movie yet.

Now, remember The Incredibles?  They created a world where superheroes went into retirement based on lawsuits, bad press, politics, etc.  To me, that's exactly what's happening here.  Based on all this lunacy, I am convinced that is exactly what would happen if a real live Superman showed up tomorrow.  Nothing is good enough for anyone, and everyone's a critic.

"Sure, he saved Perry White from having the Daily Planet globe fall on him, but he placed it on that car!  Who's gonna pay for that?  Does Supes have insurance?  I can't believe he left for 5 years - what a creep!"

That's what all this noise sounds like to me.

I'm not here to say, "lighten up - it's a comic book film."  Obviously people feel very strongly about their iconic characters.  The point here, is that it's fine to criticize a film.  It's fine to have different opinions.  But in some cases, both the anonymity of the web and the allure of the global microphone called "the internet" has just sent many, many people completely off the deep end. 

Superman Returns Initial Box Office Report

$21.03 million on Wednesday for Superman Returns.

Look, the number isn't bad, but it's not amazing either.  This is the risk you take when you commit to the most expensive movie EVER ($260 million).  You just know people at Warner Bros. are absolutely freaking out right now...

According to Box Office Mojo, it's the:

• 29th best opening day ever...
• 107th best single day ever...
• and the 8th best opening Wednesday ever... behind War of the Worlds?  Really?  Wow.

David Poland at the Summer Halftime Report

Read it and learn something:

In the last five years, the "worst" performance by a top summer film domestically was Finding Nemo's $340 million. Neither of our current leaders, X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code, appears ready to come within $100 million of that number.

So now, it's up to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Superman Returns to lead the way. But don't get too dependent on those two titles alone. Films that open in the next two months, combined with holdover from the first two months, are still about $2 billion away from an average summer.

Spider-Man 3 Trailer

Here's the new Spider-Man 3 teaser trailer that hits with Superman Returns tonight.

Very nicely done...

The Value of a Good Publicist: Connie Chung and Britney Spears

Did we learn nothing from Tom Cruise's various meltdowns after firing his publicist?  Look, it's okay to be completely nuts, smell bad, sleep with sheep, act like an egomaniac, whatever... that's why you have managers and PR people to keep your image intact. That way, your project won't tank like Mission: Impossible 3 did. 

(...and yes, at just $130 million domestically, it did tank.  It cost $150 million just to make, not including marketing, didn't come close to the M:I2 total, and is already way behind Da Vinci, X-Men 3, Ice Age, with Cars, Pirates 2, Superman and others to pass it shortly.  Sure, it's over $300 worldwide, but it's still behind M:I2 , and what percentage of that do you think is going directly to Tom's manpurse?)

Well, Connie Chung and Britney Spears apparently decided to give "their people" some time off last week, because they dropped some stunners. 

Enjoy the video of Connie closing her latest failure on MSNBC, then read on to find out why Britney was such a mess during Matt Lauer.

From Page Six:

"Neither of her publicists, Leslie Sloane Zelnick or Nanci Ryder, showed up," said our source. Spears insisted on doing her own hair and makeup - a regrettable decision. Web sites derided her hair as a "rat's nest" and, when she started crying during the interview, one of her fake eyelashes fell off. "When [the NBC crew] got there, they thought they had the wrong day . . . During the interview, no one was there to rein things in," we're told... Reps tried to control the damage on Friday. "They asked NBC not to release footage to places like E!," said a source. Asked why Spears was on her own for the interview, Sloane Zelnick said, "Britney is a grown-up and makes her own decisions."

But on the Other Hand...

...David Poland has bad things to say about Superman Returns and Nacho Libre.

"Where to start on Superman Returns? It's terribly cast, poorly conceived, extremely light on action, features a romance that is not remotely romantic, doesn't feature a single memorable, "gosh, that was great" repeat-to-your-friends moment in a positive way (the blunder bits start early and often), will be crushed by Pirates of The Caribbean II and played out completely before August 1."

"On a much smaller scale of disappointment is Nacho Libre, which fulfills the promise of the commercials, trailers, and video confessionals for about one act… and then does nothing but vamp for another hour or so."

Good Buzz on Superman Returns

Good news is leaking out about upcoming Superman Returns.  Anne Thompson and Jeff Wells both have very nice things to say...

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's...

Wait a second... is that Kumar???

Or is it Harold?  I can never remember which is which...

Superman Returns Trailer

I've decided I like Kevin Spacey best as a bad guy (The Usual Suspects, Se7en), and he's easily the best part of the new Superman Returns trailer.

His little dance when threatening Kate Bosworth is classic... almost like Nicholson in the first Batman when seducing Kim Basinger.