weekly movie news

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Spider-Man Deluxe DVD Coming! Source: USA Today Monday, December 29, 2003

USA Today reported the following blurb the other day:

Who knows how many moviegoers played their Lord of the Rings DVDs before heading out to see the Return of the King, director Peter Jackson's triumphant finale? But when you look at the sales figures, it's safe to say that "Frodo lives!" in many homes.

So far, New Line has sold nearly 18 million of the various DVD versions of the Fellowship of the Ring— nearly as many as those for Finding Nemo— and is expected by year's end to sell more than 15.6 million DVDs of The Two Towers.

New Line's strategy to release first a bare-bones, then a meatier, then a collector's edition DVD is sure to be copied.

Columbia TriStar is preparing a Spider-Man deluxe edition for release before Spider-Man 2 lands July 2.

"The New Line strategy shows that consumers really will repeat a home video purchase of essentially the same product in a short time frame, provided there is sufficient differentiation between the releases," says Video Store magazine's Judith McCourt.

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Silver Surfer Movie Heating Up! Source: Wizard magazine Saturday, December 27, 2003

Marvel Studios Vice President Kevin Feige talked to Wizard magazine about the Silver Surfer movie.

"You're going to start hearing a lot about Silver Surfer," he promises. "It'll be our next big project with Fox after 'Fantastic Four.' We're excited about jumping into it for the same reasons every college kid in the '60s and '70s was reading it. It's a hard-core science fiction, philosophical, adventure movie. Silver Surfer's going to kick some *ss in the next two or three years."

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The Punisher Might Face a Big Competitor Source: ComingSoon.net Saturday, December 27, 2003

ComingSoon.net is reporting that Miramax may be moving Quentin Tarantino's sequel "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" from February 20 to April 16, putting it up against Lions Gate Films/Artisan's The Punisher. The film's star Uma Thurman even mentioned the new date on the talk show "The View".

If this release date move does indeed happen, we suspect that the studio will possibly look for a new date for The Punisher, considering the success of "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" this October. That first film pulled in a big $163.4 million worldwide.

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Hulk 2 in Trouble? Source: Dark Horizons Friday, December 26, 2003

Dark Horizons posted this bit about the possible Hulk sequel. It's from a scooper and we're not sure if it's reliable info or not. One thing the scooper loses major points on is that he/she mentions that "Indiana Jones 4" is at Universal, whereas it's actually at Paramount. Take the following with a grain of salt...

"Thought you might want some info on a big reshuffle and impasse over at Universal. There's a sequel to "Hulk" happening - it just mightn't be at Universal or with the same people. You might have already heard something about this but I'll shed further light.

Producer Gale Anne Hurd wants a sequel to "The Hulk". The studio doesn't. Eric Bana doesn't. [And you can count Jennifer Connelly out too. She signed a one-picture deal first time around]. And now, it looks like there's going to be problems with everyone involved in merchandising too [the Vivendi arm], because another studio might get it - and they have their own subs.

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"King" Rings in Xmas

by Bridget Byrne
Dec 28, 2003, 6:45 PM PT



It was a very Hobbit Christmas.

Despite the arrival of several new movies, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King continued to rule the box office, earning an estimated $51.2 million from Friday to Sunday.


The final episode of the fantastical saga also took in the best ever Christmas Day gross--$14.6 million--and was chiefly responsible for what is expected to be the best ever Christmas weekend at the nation's box offices when final figures are released Monday.

The Rings gang's movie averaged $13,833 at 3,703 sites, only falling off 29 percent from its opening weekend. Return of the King passed the $200 million mark in just 11 days, one day quicker than its predecessor, The Two Towers; now, after two weeks in theaters, Peter Jackson's epic finale has totaled $223.7 million in North America and is approaching $500 million worldwide.

Of the new films debuting Christmas Day, Cheaper by the Dozen delivered the best gift for its studio. The remake of the 1950s family comedy, this time with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as the harried parental units of a brood that includes Hilary Duff and Tom Welling, earned a jollier than anticipated $28.2 million, especially considering its lukewarm critical reaction. The PG-rated Fox release, which also features a cameo by Ashton Kutcher, averaged $8,558 per its 3,298 sites and finished in second place for the three-day weekend. It has grossed $36.4 million since Thursday.

In third place was the grim Civil War romance Cold Mountain, starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renée Zellweger and directed by Anthony Minghella. The R-rated Miramax release, already generating award nominations and desperately courting Oscar attention, earned an okay $14.5 million over the three-day weekend and $19 million since its Christmas debut. For the Friday-Sunday period, Cold Mountain averaged $6,691 per screen at 2,167 sites.

A big lump of coal came courtesy of Paycheck, the John Woo thriller starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. The sci-fi flick only managed a fifth-place debut with just $13.9 million from Friday to Sunday with a $5,033 per-screen average at 2,762 sites. The film took in another $5.3 million on Christmas.

A spokesperson for Paramount, the floundering studio that released the PG-13 movie, told Reuters that the opening had met expectations, but many in the Industry will probably see the fairly small box-office sum as marking another stumble in Affleck's career. Paycheck couldn't even beat the three-week-old Jack Nicholson-Diane Keaton romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give.

Jack and Diane's frolic averaged $5,242 at 2,709 sites (32 more than last weekend), and its receipts were up 24 percent from last weekend. Also holding its own was Julia Roberts's Mona Lisa Smile. Though dropping from second to sixth place, its suffered no fall-off at the ticket booth, averaging $4,296 at 2,677 sites.

The final wide Christmas comer was Peter Pan, a new live-action version of J.M. Barrie's classic kid. The film, which reportedly cost $100 million to produce, could have used some of Tinkerbell's pixie dust--it flew into seventh place for the weekend, hooking only $11.4 million. The PG Universal entry averaged $4,063 per its 2,813 locations.

Tom Cruise's sword-swishing Eastern epic The Last Samurai, although down from fourth to eighth place, managed to gain 8 percent despite losing 381 sites. At 2,557 locations, it averaged $3,273.

In limited release, Monster lived up to its billing. The R-rated New Market release, starring Charlize Theron in a lauded performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, had the top per-screen average of any movie: $21,039. At just four sites, the docudrama pulled in $84,156 from Friday to Sunday and has earned $100,924 since opening Wednesday.

The Company, Robert Altman's dancing romance starring Neve Campbell as a Joffrey Ballet hoofer, opened Thursday at 11 sites. Over the weekend the Sony Pictures Classic pirouetted to $96,939 from a per-screen average of $8,813, and has so far earned $141,433.

Box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations did not have any box-office data for the other limited-release newcomer, Disney's Imax prequel The Young Black Stallion.

Overall, the top 12 movies grossed a record $168.6 million between Friday and Sunday, up 8.2 percent from last year's previous mark of $155.9 million, and 26.3 percent more than last weekend, when the crowds were holiday shopping rather than crowding the multiplexes.

Final figures are due Monday; for now, here's how the top 10 films stacked up:

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, $61.2 million
2. Cheaper by the Dozen, $28.2 million
3. Cold Mountain, $14.5 million
4. Something's Gotta Give, $14.2 million
5. Paycheck, $13.9 million
6. Mona Lisa Smile, $11.5 million
7. Peter Pan, $11.4 million
8. The Last Samurai, $8.3 million
9. Bad Santa, $4.5 million
10. Elf, $4.2 million

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Rob Zombie is about to double his cinematic body count to 2000. His script for "House of 1000 Corpses 2" has been approved, and the horror auteur will start casting the production after the holidays.

The original, Zombie's directorial debut, hit theaters in April and raked in $7.1 million in its first 10 days at the box office. Unlike its predecessor, which was colored with black humor, the sequel will include less comic relief.

"It's a very different film," Zombie said. "It's much darker and more serious. It's a gritty crime movie like [the 1973 Terrence Malick film] 'Badlands.' There's nothing campy or wacky at all."

The opening scene in "Corpses 2" takes place a couple of months after the last scene in the first movie. "Everything that was alluded to in 'Corpses' has been found out in the house," Zombie said. "The house is raided by a SWAT team, and it all goes bad from there."

If the production stays on schedule, "House of 1000 Corpses 2" will be in theaters next summer. That Lions Gate green lighted a sequel for "Corpses" is a real triumph for Zombie, considering the director had a lot of problems finding a studio for the original. The first movie was created for Universal, who refused to put it out after seeing it. Then MGM picked it up but ultimately got cold feet as well.

"I knew that no matter who put it out," Zombie said, "if it made money they would want another one, because that's all they care about. If I hadn't already gone through the whole process in music, it might have freaked me out. But dealing with 'Corpses' sort of reminded me of the early days of dealing with White Zombie, especially La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, which got slaughtered. Every review was beyond horrible. But we toured forever, and somehow it just worked."

In addition to directing "House of 1000 Corpses 2," Zombie plans to start writing his next solo album early next year. Although he hasn't written any new songs, he's got a game plan. "I really want to make a much heavier, darker record," he said. "I'm not worrying about radio or television or anything. I just want to make a really scary record."

Zombie will once again co-write with Scott Humphrey, who has worked on all of his solo albums, but Zombie's backing band will probably be entirely new. "I want to get some new people in there and just experiment," he said. "But I don't have any timetable. If a bunch of songs come quick, the record will come quicker. If they don't, the record will take longer."

On top of his new movie and his next record, Zombie will continue to work on his "Spookshow International" comic-book series and collaborating with writer Steve Niles on at least three new comics. He'll also relaunch his record label, Zombie-A-Go-Go, which has been dormant for several years.

"Everything I do, I do because I feel it has value and it will work," Zombie said. "I just like to do a lot of different stuff."

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More Batman Casting Updates? Source: Latino Review Monday, December 29, 2003

Latino Review received the following unconfirmed scoop about the casting for Warner Bros.' new Batman film...

There's two villains. There's one love interest. There's a young Comm. Gordon. There's a young Harvey Dent.

The cast are Christian Bale [Batman], Michael Caine [Alfred], Judson Caspian [Viggo Mortensen], Cillian Murphy [Harvey Dent], Katie Holmes [Rachel Caspian], Chris Cooper [Gordon], Elle Fanning [Barbara], Noah Emmerich, as of 11/29/03

They apparently are still finalising the two main villain roles, but everyone from Robert De Niro to Dennis Quaid has tried out, and they should have their man-times two, in a week or two.

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The Return of the King Approaches $500M Worldwide Source: New Line Cinema Monday, December 29, 2003

New Line Cinema's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final film in Peter Jackson's critically-acclaimed trilogy, has earned $490.7 million globally in its first two weeks of release. The number one film for the second week in a row, the film grossed $50.6 million, bringing the total domestic gross to $222.3 million and making it the second fastest film to reach $200 million in the US. Internationally, "The Return of the King" has grossed $268.4 million in 38 territories, a 27% leap from the two week gross of its predecessor, "The Two Towers."

"Audiences have made a major investment in the story and characters, and Peter Jackson has delivered a very satisfying, dramatic and emotional finale to this extraordinary trilogy," said Rolf Mittweg, President and Chief Operating Officer, Worldwide Distribution and Marketing, New Line Cinema. "It's been so gratifying to see filmgoers around the world embrace 'The Return of the King.'"

Domestically, "The Return of the King" took 11 days to cross the $200 million mark -- one day less than "The Two Towers." It also posted the best Christmas Day gross of any current movie, $14 million.

Internationally, "The Return of the King" played in theaters in 38 territories, breaking records in numerous countries, including Austria, Germany and the UK. The film expanded into the United Arab Emirates and South America by Christmas Day, then in Australia and Iceland on December 26.

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Paul and Daurio are Headed for Planet Terry Source: The Hollywood Reporter Tuesday, December 30, 2003

New Line Cinema has hired the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio to adapt the comic book Planet Terry for the big screen, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The project, which New Line acquired from comic book creator Rob Liefeld in July, is based on what was to be an online comic series for Liefeld. The buddy sci-fi action comedy concerns a middle-aged family man in extraordinary circumstances.

Paul and Daurio wrote such films as "The Santa Clause 2" and "Bubble Boy."

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First Draft of the Swamp Thing Movie in? Source: Comic Book Resources Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Comic Book Resources reports that the new Swamp Thing movie looks to be heading forward...

A source working for Joel Silver (that wished to remain anonymous) emailed CBR News to report that comics scribe Len Wein has turned in a first draft script for a new "Swamp Thing" movie. According to our source, this is intended to be a true horror movie not "an unintentional comedy" like the Adrienne Barbeau-fueled original. Reportedly, Warner Brothers Pictures has the draft in hand.