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Daily Call Sheet: Box Office Analysis, America Doesn’t Care About Sundance and ‘30 Rock’ Day 2

John Nolte — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:49:40 +0000

According to Box Office Mojo, this weekend’s box office is up 26% over last year, which is great news.

1. Underworld Awakening: $25.4m — No one’s ever accused me of being too highbrow to enjoy vampire/werewolf flicks, especially dumb ones, but this is a franchise I could never get into. All camera moves, hyper-editing, and atmosphere. This is a good opening weekend for the fourth in this franchise and for the return of star Kate Beckinsale, who took the last film off.

2. Red Tails: $19.1m – George Lucas should be very happy. If my twitter feed is any indication, people are enjoying this old-fashioned crowd-pleaser.

3. Contraband: $12.2m – After two weeks, Mark Wahlberg’s smuggling actioner has already pulled in $46 million. This is not high-concept driven, and it’s not even a very good movie (saw it last weekend). Maybe it’s time to add Wahlberg to the short-list of those who can actually open a film these days. Good for him.

4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: $10.5m – Disaster. People are going to blame the reviews, but the film stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, which means it should be critic-proof. This is Hanks’ second flop after “Larry Crowne,” and I think it’s time for Mr. Hanks to start wondering if his indefensible comments about WWII might have come home to roost.

5. Haywire: $9m — Director Stephen Soderbergh’s female-driven action film had no stars, just one helluva well-cut trailer, and did respectable business.

6. Beauty and the Beast (3D): $8.6m — This will obviously not capture the “Lion King” re-release magic. Still, after only two weeks, the 3D cut has brought in $33m, which is not chicken feed. “Beauty” just doesn’t have the same appeal as “Lion King,” which was much more of a sweeping epic that’s perfect for 3D lovers.

7. Joyful Noise: $6.1m – A musical film starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah, with a trailer that looks like a Disney Channel movie, grosses $22m in two weeks. That’s impressive.

8. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: $5.5m — $197m domestic, another $336m foreign. There will be a fifth.

9. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows: $4.8m — $178m domestic, another $261m foreign. Hard to imagine we don’t see a third.

10. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: 3.7m – Some are trying to spin a $93m domestic take and another $71m foreign into some kind of victory, but with a $90m production budget (add at least another $35m for advertising), I don’t see it. For starters, it’s not profitable (yet), and it’s based on a trilogy of thrillers that were worldwide sensations. Sure, the story is dark and R-rated, but a $165m worldwide haul is, I’m guessing, somewhere around $350m less than what everyone was expecting. Still, Sony has already committed to a sequel.

11. Iron Lady: $3.7M – Weinstein added 274 theatres and lost 32% over last week. The per screen average sits at $3,445. Not looking like a hit. Liberals probably don’t want to see a film that they’re hearing is sympathetic towards a conservative icon. Conservatives (rightfully) distrust Hollywood. And the apolitical don’t care.

12. War Horse: $3m – $72m domestic, $28m foreign, on a $66m budget. When you throw in advertising costs and the Spielberg/Oscar pedigree, this has to be a huge disappointment.

THE CIRCLE-JERK THAT IS THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Other than one outlier that’s widely considered a flop, “My Idiot Brother,” nothing that came out of Sundance last year broke $6m at the box office. Only two films broke $5m, around ten broke $1m, and another twenty or so didn’t even reach $1m.

This is just one big, self-involved, self-serving wank-fest that has nothing to do with us, the customers. And when you consider how indifferent all of America is towards all things Sundance, you have to wonder why the sycophant entertainment media would have you believe it’s some kind of Super Bowl.

Film School Rejects makes the case for the festival with “Why the Sundance Film Festival Matters,” and essentially backs up the claim with a list of films and directors that shot out of the festival. But it’s a sad cost/benefit analysis when compared to the thousands of films that have played there over the years, and I find it hard to imagine those titles and talents wouldn’t have found another way to “arrive.”

Listen, I’m not opposed to Sundance or the gajillion other copycat festivals that have been created over the last couple of decades. Hollywood can do whatever it wants. But in the end, when you look at the bottom line compared to the massive hype and the time investment that goes into that massive hype, Sundance isn’t so much a film festival as much as it’s a symptom of an industry and entertainment media wildly out of touch with their customer base. Basically, it’s a days-long elite insider party where movies get screened.

Seriously, Hollywood, have a great time. But out here in the real world, Mark Wahlberg’s “Contraband” is on pace to make more money than every film that came out of Sundance last year COMBINED.

Imagine how much better Hollywood and those who cover them would be if this much hype, attention, and energy went into pleasing the customers instead of themselves.

No one loves movies more than I do. Here’s a photo of 70% of my collection. But 99% of the films screened at Sundance never see the light of day, of the 1% that do, most of them suck (especially these days), and the only thing worse than the films themselves is all the dull, self-serving media coverage.

Wank.

Fest.

KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN FOR ‘GO FAR’

This is a film my brother Zack Arnold (whose full-time job is as an editor on “Burn Notice”), introduced our readers to last year. Over the last few years, he’s been raising money for a project he started just as the economy collapsed. You can see more here, and while I’ve contributed money to the project, I am in no way an investor who will profit from it. Brother or no, from what I’ve seen so far, he’s already done his very worthy subject justice, and then some.

THE FINAL ‘PRIME SUSPECT’ EPISODES: A FAREWELL TO A GOOD SHOW

Naturally ‘EW’ race-baiter Ken Tucker loves a show the customers don’t.

Perchance, I watched the original “Prime Suspect” starring Helen Mirren last night, the one that started it all. It is magnificent television I can’t recommend enough. One thing I realized, though, is that the show has already been remade in America, and quite successfully, as “The Closer.” Which proves race-baiter Ken Tucker wrong when he says this of NBC’s failed attempt:

The pilot, the crucial episode with which lots of people decide whether they’ll ever watch again, was well-acted, well-made, but easy to dislike for viewers who want their protagonists to be sympathetic (Bello’s Jane Timoney was aggressively gruff, to her fellow police detectives and, by extension, the audience).

Yes, well, so is Kyra Sedgwick’s character in “The Closer.”

WHAT IF THOSE MODERN BLOCKBUSTERS WERE MADE IN THE 1950S?

Every day I surf the intertubes and come across another batch of fan-made posters. The first 200 batches were cool. Next fanboy fad, please.

THE RAZZIE AWARDS MOVE TO APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

This doesn’t sound like a wise idea. In past years, Razzie winners were announced just prior to the Oscar ceremony, which made them something of a story thanks to the contrast to the self-congratulatory heat surrounding the award season. Will we pay as much attention two months later?

STEVEN TYLER’S NATIONAL ANTHEM: GREAT OR AWFUL?

Give Tyler a break. He’s 114 years old in drug years.

NBC BUMPS ‘PARKS & RECREATION’ FOR FULL HOUR OF SHOW NOBODY WATCHES

I’ll ask again: Why does a show that ranked 102 last year get all this press? Why?

Why don’t entertainment outlets hire people who watch, you know, what America watches? Better still, why don’t the networks hire people who, you know, like what America likes?

Oh, look, more coverage of a show that ranked 102 last year.

Seriously, media, step away from the coasts.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Point Break (1991) – Once you got over the depression that comes with the knowledge that “Point Break” is 21 years old, you are reaffirmed in your belief that a remake would be a terrible idea. There’s nothing about “Point Break” that feels dated, and who could possible replace the perfect casting of Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, and Gary Busey?

Moreover, this is a director’s film, and you can’t replace Kathryn Bigelow’s brilliance behind the camera. She took a dumb, overlong script and crafted lightning in a bottle. It’s absurd how watchable this is, and that’s not something you can remake.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

WATCH ‘STAR WARS’ REMADE BY FANS IN 15-SECOND SEGMENTS

GEORGE LUCAS’ MOST OBNOXIOUS MOMENTS

Don’t Buy the Media Spin About Hollywood’s Merry Christmas at the Box Office

John Nolte — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:20:22 +0000

Over and over and over we keep reading about how Hollywood’s holiday box office was some sort of silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. But once again, the context-challenged entertainment media only tells us half the story. Here’s a sampling:

Box Office Mojo:

Based on studio estimates, the four-day weekend will end up at over $201 million, or up around 10 percent from the same four-day period last year.

DHD:

Let’s party hearty with the end-of-holiday box office for end-of-year 2011. Or let’s not (and say we did.)… [S]ources tell me this final weekend will definitely be up over last year.

Los Angeles Times:

Most films sold more tickets over the New Year’s holiday than the Christmas holiday, with family films benefiting from the biggest bumps. Overall, the weekend was up 10% compared with the same period in 2010.

Cinema Blend:

Sales were up considerably from last weekend’s Christmas holiday and the new year is off to a solid start.

Except…

Between Dec. 16 and Dec. 25 of this year, the following films went into wide release:

Alvin and the Chipminks: Chipwrecked
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
Mission : Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The Adventures of Tintin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
We Bought a Zoo
War Horse
The Darkest Hour

That’s a total of eight big-budget, high profile offerings. However, in 2010, only four high-profile, big-budget films went into wide release during that same time period:

Tron Legacy
Little Fockers
True Grit
Yogi Bear

In other words, in order to get that 10% bump in sales, Hollywood had to invest in twice the amount of product.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume that after production and marketing costs, a mainstream film averages out to a cost of $100 million. If that’s the case, the industry invested $400 million more than they did last year — twice as much — to make 10% more in gross sales. That doesn’t sound like much of a success to me.

From what I can see, only The Wrap deserves credit for not buying or pushing that spin:

Conversely, distribution executives might think twice about celebrating their Christmas-week performances, given that they’re comparing their 2011 Yule haul to a 2010 holiday period that featured only two new wide releases — “Little Fockers” and “True Grit” — doing any significant business.

In fact, even though nearly twice as many movies were released in the run-up before Christmas this year, the market only grew marginally.

Ho, ho, ho …

You can’t fix a problem until you admit you have a problem. Too many in the entertainment media are too invested in the culture wars to look at the motion picture business as a business. They see a rejection of Hollywood as a rejection of their own personal values; they take it personally and therefore don’t want to believe or report it.

This is why we get spin instead of the kind of analysis that tells the real story.

Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back

John Nolte — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:52:24 +0000

Hollywood is like a child, a spoiled child you can’t help loving but desperately want to see do and be better. Hollywood can be cruel and petulant, small and bigoted, hateful and depraved. But every once in a while you see what it COULD be — the talent, the charm, and the ability to inspire and create joy. So we keep coming back to them in the hope that if and when Hollywood ever grows up, they will be what they could be — what they once were, so many years ago.

Today, our spoiled child is in trouble and with only the best of intentions I’m going to see if I can’t take the sting out of the boo-boo with the best advice I can offer.

1. Hollywood Needs Movie Stars, Not Brands

You can trace most of Hollywood’s problems back to the death of the movie star. At first, the industry was thrilled with this development. No movie star meant no big payday, no ego, and none of the baggage too many stahs carry with them. The industry also found that, at least for a while, they could get away with this. Audiences were still packing theatres to see pre-packaged brands developed from high concepts, comic books, novels, and television shows. Sequels, remakes, and prequels were still sure-fire. Who needs to pay Tom Cruise $30 million to run around with CGI’d dinosaurs when just as many people will pay to see Jeff Goldblum do the same?

This was all well and good until the “brands” ran out. Now Hollywood is down to “The Green Lantern” and board games like “Battleship.”

Movie stars, on the other hand, are the most reliable brands out there. People come to see them and if you have enough of them and if you keep developing them, the inventory is limitless. From the 1920s straight through to right around 1990, if you built it with movie stars, audiences would come. Hollywood didn’t need to rely on “brands” because they built pictures around their stars.

Today we’re down to Sandra Bullock, Will Smith, and Denzel Washington — the only three people I know who can still draw a crowd based solely on their name.

Tobey Maguire, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom — this endless parade of girls playing women and metrosexuals playing men no one outside of the 90210 zip code would recognize on a bet — are not draws. The concept might be a draw or the brand they’re bringing to life or the romantic comedy with a title based on the latest hipster-speak (“He’s Just Not That In To You”), but the actors aren’t.

Hollywood must start developing stars, and the first place to start is by studying up on what exactly constitutes a star. And by “star,” I don’t mean someone bubbled in Hollywood or the sycophant entertainment media considers a star — I mean someone THE CUSTOMERS consider a star.

We The People love Sandra, Will, and Denzel for a reason. She’s gorgeous, smart, womanly, classy and approachable, and the fellas are masculine, confident, classy, and non-neurotics who take charge. They also make films that deliver. Not all the time. But most of the time we the customers know that if they’re in it, there’s a better chance than not of bang for the buck.

What they are not and what no movie star has ever been is a child playing a grownup (the exception, of course, is comedians like Adam Sandler or Lou Costello). The Orlando Blooms will never be movie stars. Neither will the Michelle Williamses. And don’t get me started on Shia Le-what’s-his-name.

Look at your history, both recent and long past. Hollywood may have changed over the last few decades, but the people — the customers — have not. The human animal simply doesn’t evolve that quickly. Furthermore, stars shouldn’t represent who we are; we don’t want to see ourselves on the screen. Stars should represent who we want to be. Men want to be John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Women want to Ava Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck.

Masculine men.

Womanly women.

Need I mention Sandra and Denzel again?

Currently, Hollywood is spending millions upon millions to buy the rights necessary to make films based on board games. What’s next, snack foods? “Wheat Thins 2: The Crumble.”

Put those millions instead into a farm system based on the old studio system. Groom talent. Teach people with natural screen charisma to act. Most of all, teach them how to behave in public with class. And then when they’re ready, get that publicity machine humming.

This system worked perfectly for over a half-century.

There are some very smart people making movies today, but not a one is smarter than the men who built this industry from nothing and created the kind of art and artists that will live as long as humanity itself.

2. Stars Must Stop Insulting the Customers

Class. That’s what the customers are looking for in their stars, class. George Clooney could be a star and was on his way, but then he started insulting the 60-plus percent of customers who dared disagree with his obnoxious politics. Julia Roberts was the biggest star in the world until she did the same. Harrison Ford blew his image in too many ways to count, Russell Crowe can’t stop being a jerk, and Mel Gibson couldn’t control his ugly demons. Tom Hanks was universally beloved as a well-known Democrat by all of us. Not so much, though, after he called WWII a war of terror and racism.

Politically and morally, most of your customers are right-of-center. But the good news is that we don’t care how our stars vote or even if they advocate for this cause or that politician. But when you insult us and trash who we are, our faith and country — that’s crossing a line that’s awfully difficult to return from. Goodwill doesn’t just matter when it comes to the face of your industry; it is everything.

Let me ask you Hollywood leftists this: would you buy Charmin if Mr. Whipple called you an anti-American, crybaby, Marxist hippie loser? Of course not. And yet, your spokespeople do this to over 60% of your customers at least three times a week.

3. Liberal Films Are Fine, Partisan Films Must Stop

What were you thinking making films opposing a War on Terror we were still fighting and still could’ve lost?

Hollywood didn’t even do that during Vietnam.

Do you have any idea how selfish, narcissistic, and treasonous that was? Do you have any idea how your propaganda encouraged the enemy, which means that more of our troops and innocent Iraqis and Afghans died as a result?

You have blood on your hands. Making those films was an act of evil, and if you don’t think openly fighting on the side of terrorists has hurt you at the box office, you’re out of your mind.

Last number I saw, Hollywood’s approval rating is lower than George W. Bush’s when he left office, 33%. And you deserve it.

Your industry is packed with immature, ungrateful, moral illiterates, and I suggest you get them under control, because they tarnish the industry as a whole.

Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you could stop championing and defending that hellbound fugitive who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year-old girl.

The good news is that there’s nothing at all wrong with making political films. Just don’t make partisan films. All your liberal films have failed over the past 15 years because they’ve been heavy-handed and preachy. So…

Study! Learn! Hollywood has a rich history of political offerings that not only made money but also made a difference. Put your art first, your theme second, and your politics last.

4. Keep Politics Out of Children’s Movies

You loaded up “The Muppets,” “Cars 2,” and “Happy Feet 2″ with political sucker punching and left a ton of money on the table as soon as word got out.

These are our children. Hands off.

5. Stop Marketing Exclusively to Teens

“The Help” made nearly $170M because it was an outstanding film, and it made a ton of profit because the draw was the story not some overpriced star surrounded by $150 million in special effects. “The King’s Speech” made $140 million for the exact same reasons.

When you’re making movies for adults, stop with the indie, nihilistic junk no one wants to see. We don’t want to feel bad. We want to be inspired, we want to be told to aspire, we want to see what life should be like instead of what it is.

“Rachel Getting Married and Being a Dark, Selfish, Drug-Addicted Slut” is not an adult movie. It’s a lazy, artless movie for immature, slackers who believe in nothing. Fortunately for the future but unfortunately for Hollywood, there aren’t enough of those people to create box office hits.

Adults do want to go to the movies. We just want to see grownup movies.

6. Go Back To Storytelling Basics, Crack the Code of the Classics

By “classics,” I don’t just mean the four-star Oscar winners, but also films that — critical acclaim or not — have stood the test of time. There’s a reason people still watch “Casablanca” and, yes, “Road House.” There’s a reason we all have “The Wizard of Oz” and “Rambo” in our home video collections.

What makes them so popular? What makes them timeless? What makes them beloved by each generation? I’ll give you the first two answers:

1. Stars.

2. Universal themes.

7. Learn From the NFL

That National Football League does everything you used to do so well. The NFL is Hollywood just a few decades ago.

The NFL creates stars, demands and shows class, isn’t afraid of patriotism, and puts on hundreds of spectacular shows over the course of a season. The result is that their night to shine (the Super Bowl) buries Hollywood’s night to shine (the Oscars) in the ratings.

This is not an accident.

Even those of us who don’t care for the game of football (that would be me) respect the NFL greatly and feel an enormous amount of goodwill towards it.

Not everyone loves football, but we all like the NFL.

Everyone loves movies, but most everyone has contempt for Hollywood.

8. Learn How to Market Fresh Ideas

“Hugo” and “The Adventures of Tintin” going down in box office flames is inexcusable. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are two of the most important and respected directors in the history of the motion picture, and yet I have to read that both of these Christmas entries bombed because “nobody knew how to market them.”

Even more troubling is the collective shrug over this reality. I haven’t heard one person in the sycophantic entertainment media or the industry itself show a shred of concern over the fact that Hollywood was unable to market two films by two of our greatest directors because they weren’t handed pre-sold brands.

9. Stop Making Excuses for a Failing Home Video Market

Both the collapse of the home video market and the 25% decrease in what’s known as “the multiple” proves that you can only fool fewer and fewer people all of the time.

Again, the sycophantic entertainment media is doing you no favors in perpetuating the myth that piracy, Netflix, and Redbox are to blame. No one’s saying those things don’t contribute to the problem, but your main problem is that too many movies today just aren’t very good.

The multiple is down for the same reason home video sales are down: no one wants to see a bad movie more than once.

10. The Lousy Theatre Experience

Talkers, cell phones, ticket and concession prices.

You’ve got to fix this.

Right now, unless you’re the one doing the obnoxious talking, going to the theatre is a stressful and miserable experience.

Moreover, you’re charging us too much for tickets, and the theatres are absolutely gouging us for food and drink..

Presentation and follow-through is everything, and yet you let these incompetent theatre owners ruin the presentation part of a product you spent years and millions to develop and deliver.

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The other thing you can do, Hollywood, is simply continue to ignore American audiences. We’re leaving you a little by little every year now, and this year you hit a 16-year attendance low. So maybe the answer is to just keep making your money overseas and work a little harder to sell your souls to the communist Chinese.

But that’s going to leave a huge market open here in the states, and someday, someone’s going to fill that market with the movies we want to see. There’s already a cottage industry out there learning their trade and cracking that code.

It doesn’t have to come to that, though. And you know as well as I do that, with rare exceptions, if a film flops in America, it flops overseas.

We love you, Hollywood — not who you are now, but who you once were and who you could still be. But if 2011 has taught you anything, it’s that we’re not going to wait forever.

2012 may well be a better year (I hope it is), but that won’t change the fact that the trend is not your friend and that you could be doing a whole lot better.

Movie Crowds Dip to 16-Year Low

Hollywoodland — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:34:07 +0000

AP:

A solid summer lineup helped studios catch up to 2010, but ticket sales flattened again in the fall and have remained sluggish right into what was expected to be a terrific holiday season.

The result: projected domestic revenues for the year of $10.15 billion, down 4 percent from 2010’s, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Taking higher ticket prices into account, movie attendance is off even more, with an estimated 1.275 billion tickets sold, a 4.8 percent decline and the smallest movie audience since 1995, when admissions totaled 1.26 billion.

“There were a lot of high-profile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel “ Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. “The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren’t any real breakaway, wide-appeal films.” …

Hollywood is left right where it was 12 months ago, finishing the year quietly and looking ahead to a promising lineup to turn its fortunes around next year.

Even more so than 2011’s schedule once looked, the 2012 film list looks colossal. Among the highlights: the superhero tales “The Dark Knight Rises,” ”The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Avengers“; the latest in the animated franchises “Ice Age” and “Madagascar,” along with “Brave,” the new adventure from animation master Pixar; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ “Men in Black 3“; Daniel Craig’s new James Bond thriller “Skyfall”; Johnny Depp’s vampire story “Dark Shadows”; Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” a cousin to his sci-fi classic “Alien“; and Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first in a two-part prequel to his “Lord of the Rings” films.

That’s just a small sampling of 2012’s big-screen titles, which also include 3-D reissues of “Titanic,” ”Finding Nemo,” ”Beauty and the Beast” and “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”

Looking ahead, there’s good reason for optimism in Hollywood. Looking back, though, the past year spells caution.

“I’m not prepared to be Chicken Little yet, but if the films coming in 2012 can’t reverse this trend, then I think we need to reevaluate our expectations,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Full story here.

Daily Call Sheet: Does 2012’s Box Office Look Any Better than 2011?

John Nolte — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:57:32 +0000

DO 2012’s NEW RELEASES PROMISE A BOX OFFICE COMEBACK?

In the New York Times story I wrote about earlier today, there was this quote:

The good news for Hollywood is that the first quarter of 2012 looks much stronger than the same period this year, when studios had little to generate audience excitement.

Warner has two sequels — “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and “Wrath of the Titans,” while Sony has a prominent remake in “21 Jump Street.” Disney will re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3-D, followed by Fox’s 3-D re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” And Lionsgate will weigh in with its highly anticipated “The Hunger Games.”

So two re-releases, a sequel to a flop (“Journey 2″), and another remake of an ’80s television show rank as reasons for Hollywood to be optimistic?

The link in the title looks at the box office slate for the first three months of 2012. Take a look. Anything excite you?

What most struck me about those thirty or so titles was an almost complete lack of movie stars.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — Like a lot of people, the first time I saw this was when it played late at night on some independent station. This was years before the now-perennial was rediscovered and when I was in my early teens and just starting to discover the world of classic films. Like most of you, I make a point to watch it every year, usually on Christmas day, and like most of you I am gripped through every frame and moved inexpressibly by the closing scene.

And then it stays with me for days.

It’s the close-up when George Bailey realizes that what Clarence is telling him might be the truth; that he was never born. Capra fills the screen with the horror and helplessness on Stewart’s face after he sees what his mother’s become (I screencapped it above), and after that I start to fall apart.

Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?

What a wonderful thing that Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart, and Donna Reed lived to see their box office disappointment receive the credit it so richly deserves.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

WHO WROTE THE MEANEST REVIEW OF ‘EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE?‘

DIRECTOR ALAN TAYLOR CLAIMS ‘THOR 2‘

WHAT FILMS ARE COMING FROM MARVEL STUDIOS IN 2014?

THEN/NOW: THE CAST OF ‘NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION’

5 SCENES WORTH REMEMBERING FROM OTHERWISE FORGETTABLE 2011 MOVIES

10 UNFAIRLY OVERLOOKED FILMS FROM 2011

THE 15 MOST SHOCKING TV DEATHS OF 2011

11 TV SERIES THAT SHOULD’VE SURVIVED 2011

PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED PHOTOS FROM THE SET OF ‘IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE‘

‘IT’S A BUNDYFUL LIFE’ AND 21 OTHER TV VARIATIONS OF IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

NEW CINEMATIC LAW: ONLY GENIUSES CAN USE 3D

AN AGE-BY-AGE GUIDE FOR INTRODUCING YOUR KIDS TO SPIELBERG MOVIES

A LOOK AT SOME GHOST MOVIES TO SUPPLEMENT THE HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE

GEORGE TAKEI’S GREATEST AND WEIRDEST MOMENTS

A LOOK BACK AT ‘EMMET OTTER’S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS‘

COOL FAN-MADE POSTERS FOR ‘HOME ALONE‘

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF ‘WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY‘

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CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27

TCM:

12:15 PM Casablanca (1942) – An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up. Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid. BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC.

When men were men, women were women, Hollywood believed in liberty, and the main protagonist’s character arc involved the shrugging off of narcissism to fight for something bigger than one’s self — for freedom and/or country.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

Box Office Analysis: Many Christmas Casualties

John Nolte — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:56:25 +0000

1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: $26.5M — The only real bright spot, the only unqualified hit of the season. Cruise’s 4th outing with impossible missions should exceed the take of the last one. You can’t ask for more than that.

2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: $17.8M — There’s been some spin claiming Robert Downey Jr’s. sequel rebounded a bit this weekend, but that’s grading on a curve. After ten days in release, the first film was sitting at $138m. Compare that to part two, which has brought in about half that ($76m).

3. Alvin and the Chipminks: Chipwrecked: $13.3M — After ten days “Alvin 2″ was cleaning up with $133m, compared to “Chipwrecked,” which sits at $50m.

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: $13.3M — Two observations: First off, who in their right mind would want to see such a downer during the holidays? Second, it appears as though fans of the book were perfectly satisfied with the perfectly satisfying 2009 version.

5. Adventures of Tintin: $9.1M — The number that matters with this one is the $250m already made overseas. American audiences aren’t familiar with Tintin. However, you would think a better job would’ve been done to market to the U.S. But after decades of only marketing known brands, I’m not sure the studios have the brainpower to introduce new concepts and characters. Those are muscles no one’s bothered to flex in a long time. For that reason alone, a lot of money was left on the table. We’re talking Steven Spielberg for crying out loud.

6. We Bought a Zoo: $7.8M — Matt Damon is not a star AND he works overtime to alienate 60% of his potential customers.

7. New Year’s Eve: $3M – Guess we won’t be seeing “Arbor Day.”

8. Arthur Christmas: $2.7M — $44 million total take over 5 weeks for the only true holiday offering of the season. Problem is, it looked like a pretty rote story and was sold on answering question ”The Santa Clause” answered to everyone’s satisfaction 15 years ago.

9. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1: $2.1M – $270m in North America alone.

10. Hugo: $2M — $44M over five weeks and more proof that the studios have no idea how to market something that isn’t already a known brand. Unbelievable.

11. The Muppets: $2M — Worldwide take thus far, $82m. Maybe the liberal media will tell us again how controversy sells.

12. The Descendants: $1.7M — Both “Tintin” and “We Bought a Zoo” had better per screens ($2109). So there’s no doubt this is a disappointment for Fox Searchlight, who expanded to 800-plus theatres hoping word of mouth and critical acclaim would make the George Clooney family drama the breakout adult hit of the year. $32M after 4 weekends on 500-plus screens is not a good sign.

Both “War Horse” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” were released yesterday. Nikki Finke is reporting “War Horse” is doing better than expected, but she’s also reporting that adults are “flocking to” “The Descendants” and “The Artist.” With per screens of $2109 and $5132 respectively, that’s what you call spin.

Because of the holidays, every day this week is a Saturday, so anything could still happen.

New York Times: Domestic Box Office Attendance Drops 11% Over Two Years

John Nolte — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:31:23 +0000

According to the New York Times, even with upwards of 40 blockbusters released in 3D (meaning much higher ticket prices), box office revenues in North America dropped 4.5% this year. In worse news, overall attendance dropped 5.3%, which means that over the last two years attendance has dropped a whopping 11%. When you lose over 10% of your customers in just two years, something is horribly wrong. When you combine that with plummeting DVD sales, you have an existential problem.

Director Roland Emmerich at his London home

The Times blames much of the problem on the economy, but as anemic as it’s been, the economy has improved some since 2008 and 2009, while attendance and revenues have not. In other words, that’s a stupid excuse. But at least it’s a new excuse. After years of blaming Redbox and piracy, you have to give Hollywood’s media friends credit for coming up with a new way to avoid admitting the obvious: People don’t like Hollywood or their product very much.

Movies are a cyclical business and analysts say that 2010 benefited mightily from holdover sales for “Avatar,” which was released late in 2009 and became one of the most popular movies of all time. A decline of hundreds of millions of dollars is not catastrophic when weighed against the size of the industry. Over all, North American ticket revenue for 2011 is projected to be about $10.1 billion, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box-office data.

That is only a 4.5 percent falloff from 2010. But studio executives are alarmed by the downturn nonetheless, in part because the real picture is worse than the raw revenue numbers suggest.

Revenue, for instance, has been propped up by a glut of 3-D films, which cost $3 to $5 more per ticket. Studios made 40 pictures in 3-D in the last 12 months, up from 24 last year, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, a movie database. Theaters have also continued to increase prices for standard tickets; moviegoers now pay an average of $7.89 each, up 1 percent over last year.

Attendance for 2011 is expected to drop 5.3 percent, to 1.27 billion, continuing a slide. Attendance declined 6 percent in 2010.

And now you know why Hollywood kisses China’s backside.

The Hollywood left may make a lot of noise about human rights and the like, but the reason they offer to participate in Chinese propaganda, make movies about how awesome the Chinese are, refuse to insult the Chinese, and suck up to communist/socialist strong men all over the world is to open the floodgates of their markets.

Forced abortions, slavery, human rights shmooman rights — with a billion-plus paying customers just waiting to be picked up, China means not having to do the hard work of making better movies and it surely means not having to make movies that represent American values.

A win-win for the bad guys.

Hollywood Reporter: The Grinch Has Stolen Christmas

Hollywoodland — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:01:24 +0000

The Hollywood Reporter has given 2011 up to the Grinch, despite a strong opening for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, closing a stretch of weak box office performances for big budget productions.

From the article:

Hopes are dimming that Hollywood can completely close the gap in domestic box office revenues by the New Year, even though the long Christmas weekend should best last year…

With 2012 fast approaching, Hollywood is now reisgned to the fact that it probably won’t be able to close the gap in domestic box office revenues, even as international grosses surge. One veteran studio executive believes domestic revenues will come in at $10.1 billion, a 3 percent dip from 2010.

Ironically, the year finished strong, with Christmas box office receipts expected to beat 2010’s totals by 3 percent.

Still, the weak overall results for 2011 may prompt several studios to re-examine their business models and could significantly alter future production decisions.

Daily Call Sheet: New James Garner Tribute Site, The Truth About the Box Office Blues, and ‘Lost’ Ruined Everything

John Nolte — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:55:49 +0000

JAMES GARNER’S DAUGHTER OPENS TRIBUTE SITE TO HER AWESOME FATHER

The Mighty James Garner’s daughter, Gigi Garner (a successful talent manager in her own right), has opened a tribute website to her father. She seems to be updating it fairly regularly with a number of terrific family photos and excerpts from Garners’ new memoir “The Garner Files,” which I loved and reviewed here.

Please check the site out.

Anyone who’s been reading me for any amount of time (or who has seen my Twitter wallpaper), knows of my all-consuming affection for all things James Garner, most especially “The Rockford Files.” You can imagine how much this tweet meant to me.

Tell me how it gets any better than that. You can’t, because it doesn’t.

The only bad news is that if this photo on Ms. Garner’s site displays the actor’s real signature, that means I got robbed on Ebay.

Cue my well-rehearsed of-course-I-got-swindled-again Rockford face.

FINALLY: AN HONEST ASSESSMENT OF HOLLYWOOD’S BOX OFFICE BLUES

With all of Hollywood and most of their sycophant entertainment media blaming box office and DVD woes on everything but bad product, this is the rare break from that absurd narrative:

Basically, films aren’t the draw they once were. With streaming and cable and TV shows getting better and better, there’s a lot more competition now, and the longer studios ignore it and try to operate like they always have (releasing all their “smart” movies at the end of December, for instance), the more it’s going to continue to decline. Almost without exception, all the decent movies I saw this year were films that the distributors considered too niche for a broad audience and almost no one saw them, because they barely had a chance to. Meanwhile this week’s top three releases have a 2, 3, and 4 next to the titles, and all had concepts created in the 1960s or earlier. If films are going to compete long-term, they’re going to have to start giving the “niche” stuff that gets people excited about movies a chance to compete with the bland blockbusters that make money. There are only so many Dark Knights. The general public has a major ambivalence towards movies right now, and if it doesn’t get better soon it’s going to turn into a grandpa medium the way late-night TV has.

And let’s not forget Hollywood’s non-stop, 15-year assault against the 70% of their audience that isn’t liberal.

Goodwill is crucial to institutional brands and this industry has arrogantly worked overtime to squander almost all of it.

Chickens, meet the roost.

SIX MORE JAMES BOND FILMS FOR DANIEL CRAIG?

“Filming has gone very well so far and I’d love Daniel to surpass Roger’s record and do eight pictures,” Michael G. Wilson told the UK’s Sunday People. “Daniel’s been an absolute pleasure to be around because he takes the role so seriously. There’s really no one more passionate about making these films work than him – he’s a filmmaker’s dream.”

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY TRAILER ONLINE TUESDAY AT 7PM PST

Gentlemen, start your nerdgasms.

I kid because I love.

EVA GREEN EYES ‘300: BATTLE OF ARTEMISI A’

Ever since her memorable turn as Vesper in “Casino Royale,” I’ve been a fan. Unfortunately, Hollywood seems to be more interested in girls than women these days, and the ridiculously sexy and womanly Green hasn’t been in much.

Hopefully, everything will work out. Not that I’ll need another reason to see this.

NEW YORK TIMES BLAMES ‘LOST’ FOR EVERYTHING BAD ON TELEVISION

This is just silly:

A similar process is under way in the post- “Lost” television world. The first three seasons of “Lost” may have approached the imaginative charms of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, but the next three were nearly as awful as George Lucas’s catastrophic prequels. You could easily picture the stumped writers of “Lost,” helpless in the face of an ever-growing pile of unsolved mysteries, madly skimming Wikipedia entries on space-time geometries and black holes.

The show’s finale was the crowning disaster, the Scooby-Doo ending to end all Scooby-Doo endings. After hinting for years that their nonsensical mess would add up to something, not only did the producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof fail to address a tiny fraction of the trillions of mysteries they introduced, but they threw out the Lostpedia with the bath water, scrapping all of those riddles for the equivalent of Lucas’s teddy-bear victory dance: a celestial moment with the survivors, hugging and holding hands in the afterlife.

This is all ancient history — or would be, if not for the fact that the implosion of “Lost” was like a dirty bomb that made the world unsafe for serial dramas to this day.

The writer then goes on to blame “Lost” for what he sees as the sloppy execution of “Homeland” and “American Horror Story.”

First off, I caught “Lost” on DVD and while some individual episodes lacked (especially during the writers’ strike), as a whole I found the series and the finale very, very satisfying. This, I think, is the best way to watch programs that work like the old movie serials from yesteryear. Waiting a week and a full summer between chapters is a completely different experience than sitting down and devouring it like a good novel.

I haven’t seen “American Horror Story” or “Homeland” yet, but I have seen enough of Kelsey Grammer’s Starz series “Boss” and FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” (two series released after “Lost”) to argue that television’s current golden age is alive and well. The writing, acting and overall storytelling occurring on the small screen these days makes life worth living.

BROADCAST NETS DOWN, CABLE UP IN 2011

The major broadcast networks continued to see an erosion of their audiences in 2011, while cable networks saw theirs expand, according to TVbytheNumbers.com. The website said on Thursday that while ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC saw their total household audience decline 3 percent this year, the audience for ad-support cable as a whole was up 3 percent and the top ten cable networks recorded a 4-percent gain.

A+ ‘EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE’ MOVIE REVIEW

The largest issue I had with this film was figuring out how to describe the effect it had on me emotionally. It’s a crushing film that will leave many moviegoers in a heap, but I don’t look at it as an overly sad movie even though the level of sadness on display is undeniable.

‘SURVIVOR: SOUTH PACIFIC’ WINNER REVEALED

This show is still on the air?

MARSHALL FINE’S ‘DRAGON TATTOO’ REVIEW

Is Fincher’s film better than Niels Arden Oplev’s? Not really. It’s different; it’s probably as good as the Swedish version. But better? Nope, sorry – which brings us back to the issue of the movie as a commodity, rather than an artistic vision.

I’m not impugning Fincher’s intentions; I’m just saying that, as good as his film may be, it’s redundant and unnecessary.

Is it entertaining and well-made? Absolutely. For the audience that would never dream of seeing a foreign film, this movie will be the last word in “Dragon Tattoo” movie-making. And they’ll get a quality product.

‘T HR’ REVIEWS JOLIE’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT

Jolie deserves significant credit for creating such a powerfully oppressive atmosphere and staging the ghastly events so credibly, even if it is these very strengths that will make people not want to watch what’s onscreen. All the director’s decisions were taken in the interest of heightened verisimilitude, from working in the Bosnian language (an English-language version is available as well) to using as many authentic locations as possible (some in Bosnia, others in Hungary) and having cinematographer Dean Semler employ a combat-ready style.

SHERLOCK RETURNS TO THE BBC: ‘HE’S DEFINITELY DEVILISH’

Superb series. Season one is, I think, still on Netflix.

There’s so much good television these days, you can hardly keep up.

—–

LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

“A Christmas Carol” (1984) – Most people choose Alistair Sim’s 1951 version of “A Christmas Carol” as their favorite, and for good reason. But after watching the 1984 television adaptation again last night, I have to say that George C. Scott is my favorite Ebenezer Scrooge. The Academy Award-winner’s interpretation is the most human and down-to-earth, which gives an added impact to those classic lines of dialogue we all know by heart.

Scrooge’s redemption scene is especially poignant in this version, which was directed by Clive Donner, the editor of the 1951 film.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

‘THE DINGO STOLE MY BABY! — PART DEUX’

BRAD BIRD GIVES AN UPDATE ON HIS EARTHQUAKE MOVIE, 1906

RIDLEY SCOTT TALKS ‘PROMETHEUS’

FIRST PHOTO OF SYLVESTER STALLONE IN ‘BULLET TO THE HEAD”

‘HOMELAND’ SEASON 1 FINALE REVIEW

WILLIAM SHATNER IS COMING TO BROADWAY

‘DEXTER’ SEASON 6 FINALE REVIEW

PROFILE: PAM GRIER

‘IT TAKES A THIEF’: THE DVD DEBRIEF REVIEW

MAX VON SYDOW LOOKS BACK AT HIS WORK ON ‘FLASH GORDON’ AND ‘STRANGE BREW‘

RIDLEY SCOTT SAYS THERE WILL BE NO ALIENS IN PROMETHEUS

REAL-LIFE RUDY ACCUSED OF SCREWING INVESTORS OUT OF $11 MILLION

8 GREAT TV CHRISTMAS SPECIALS

NEW FOOTAGE FROM ‘THE AVENGERS’ IN GERMAN TRAILER

WHY ‘PERSON OF INTEREST’ IS A SUPERHERO SHOW DONE RIGHT

REJECTED GREEN GOBLIN MAKE-UP TESTS FOR SAM RAIMI’S ‘SPIDER-MAN‘

100 GREATEST JEWISH FILMS

TOP 100 CULT FILMS

10 GREAT PERFORMANCES IN BAD 2011 MOVIES

MEET THE NEW POP CULTURE, SAM AS THE OLD POP CULTURE

JOHN WILLIAMS: THE LAST MOVIE MAESTRO

6 AWESOME MOVIE AMUSEMENT PARK RIDES AND THEIR REAL LIFE LOCATIONS

TOP 15 JAMES BOND DEATHS

REVISITING THE ‘LETTERMAN’ EPISODE FEATURING ANDY KAUFMAN AND JERRY LAWLER

A LOOK BACK AT JOHN FRANKENHEIMER’S ‘SECONDS‘

—–

CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20

TCM:

12:30 PM EST: Age of Innocence, The (1934) – A young attorney risks his career for love of a glamorous divorcee. Dir: Philip Moeller Cast: Irene Dunne, John Boles, Lionel Atwill. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC.

This is a rare opportunity to see the first film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an aristocratic New Yorker who meets the only woman he’ll ever love after it’s too late. However, I only recommend this as a rare curiosity.

While many films produced during the same Production Code-era (like 1936’s “Dodsworth”) were able to tell stories that covered similar themes of adultery and divorce in a mature and dramatic way, 1934’s “Age of Innocence” is pretty lacking. For starters, Dunne is miscast and the overall production is stagy and surprisingly slow moving for an 81-minute film.

This is in stark contrast to Martin Scorsese’s beautifully realized 1993 adaptation that captures the longing and loss of its source material as well as any film ever could.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

NOTE: There will be no Call Sheet tomorrow. I am taking a vacation day.

Blue Christmas: Only Bright Spot at Box Office Is Tom Cruise

John Nolte — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:47:21 +0000

By this time next week, six new tentpoles will have opened wide: “Tintin,” “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “We Bought a Zoo,” “The Darkest Hour,” “War Horse,” and “Mission Impossible 4.”

It seems as though, despite good weather and plenty of titles to choose from, people just don’t feel like going to the movies. That means there will be some casualties next week — more than one, I suspect.

But then again, people did come out in droves for “MI:4.” Why that one and not the others?

1. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: $40M – The original opened with $62M and went on to gross $209M domestically. No one found it a classic, but the energetic direction combined with the chemistry between stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law certainly made for a good time. What kept people away from a highly anticipated sequel? When I think of the marketing campaign, all I remember is Holmes running in slo-mo through a forest while being shot at. Maybe the focus should’ve been on the arrival of Holmes’ arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty.

2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked: $23.5M — Fox was lucky to get two blockbusters out of what never seemed to be a very appealing franchise.

3. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: $13M — The “Dark Knight Rises” prologue was screened on only around 10% of the 425 screens that hauled in a remarkable $30k per. So don’t let Tom Cruise haters spin this into something’s it’s not. Cruise is still a star, and better still, the star of a franchise that has yet to disappoint. We’ll learn a lot more next weekend when the fourquel goes into wide release, but the only excitement I’m hearing around any upcoming new release stops here.

4. New Year’s Eve: $7.4M — We’re two weekends in and the total take is only $25M. When all is said and done, this sequel probably won’t reach a total domestic gross equal to the $56M opening weekend of its predecessor.

5. The Sitter $4.4M — Two weeks and a $17M take is a flop.

6. Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1: $4.3M — $266M in five weeks of release.

7. Young Adult: $3.6M — A paltry per screen of $3.7k on 986 screens means this re-teaming of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody is unlikely to recapture that “Juno” box office magic.

8. Hugo: $3.6M — $39M in four weeks equals toast and delivers further proof (not that we needed it) that the power of the film critic to boost box office fortunes no longer exists.

9. Arthur Christmas: $3.6M — I had expected this to chug along to respectable box office, but after four weeks and $38.5M, that’s just not going to happen.

10. The Muppets: $3.4M — Four weeks in release, great reviews, great brand, a ton of publicity and only $71M at the box office.

Hey, lefties, tell us again how controversy sells!

11. The Descendants: $3.3M — With the avalanche of new releases coming next week and a per screen of an only okay $3.8k on 880 screens, the hope that George Clooney’s family drama would be a breakout hit is fading fast.