LIEV SCHREIBER TO STAR IN SHOWTIME DRAMA PILOT ‘RAY DONOVAN‘

Talk about an underused, under-appreciated actor.

Hollywood just doesn’t like MEN.

‘BREAKING DAWN’ PASSES $500 MILLION MARK WORLDWIDE

I’ve only seen two or three of these movies, and admittedly they aren’t very good, and when compared to the hyper-edited junk rolling out, the pacing is positively poky.

What’s attracting young people to this franchise, in my opinion, is the old-fashioned romance. I get that it’s juiced up with glowing vampires and shirtless werewolves, but at the heart of this story are some very old-fashioned notions of romance, love, sex, and marriage.

Will Hollywood nihilists take notice?

With the box office in the shape it’s in and DVD sales cratering, something’s gotta give. Hollywood’s counting on China opening their doors to save them from having to do the hard work of telling better stories, so we’ll see.

DAVID AYER TO SCRIPT UPDATED ‘SCARFACE’

You’ve got to be kidding me.

1. Pacino’s version is lightning in a bottle.

2. In the era of home video, Pacino’s version doesn’t feel like it’s dated or in need of an update.

3. You need a larger-than-life actor to pull this off, a Pacino or Paul Muni. Who under the age of 45 could fill this role and not look ridiculous today?

ONLINE VIDEO WATCHING SETS NEW RECORD

Seismic:

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In my Final Weekend Tracking column posted on Wednesday, I predicted that X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) would reach $92M on opening weekend, despite soft reviews (now only 38% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). My first fearless forecast of the 2009 summer blockbuster season appears to be close to dead-on (missed by only 5%).

Star-turned-producer Hugh Jackman has scored his second-biggest opening ever and, easily, his biggest as a solo star. Wolverine has mauled the competition with a massive $34.75M opening day (including $5M or so in Thursday midnight sales). That could translate to a 3-day of $86.8M, getting Hollywood’s most lucrative season off to a spectacular start.

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The great thing about a sequel is that it has a built-in audience. The problem with sequels is that, as the numbers after the title go up, so does the production budget. Very hard to know for sure, but sources have told me that the production budget for X-Men was in the $75M range. X-2: X-Men United may have had a budget of about $110M, while the cost of X-Men: The Last Stand was, in all likelihood, as much as $210M. Why doesn’t it make sense to just churn out X-Men 4?

Look at these numbers.

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Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average of $14,888. Pre-opening industry tracking pointed to a clear win for Bedtime Stories (Disney), but it was the lovable lab who finished on top.

As an aside, all of us who read John Grogan’s extraordinarily well-written novel should have seen this coming. The book is a joy, and anyone who has a dog, or has ever had a dog, could easily identify with the struggles and pleasures of having a 4-legged member of the family.

The success of Marley slightly mitigates a disastrous year for Fox. Its year started out well enough riding the huge success of 2007 release Alvin & the Chipmunks into January ($70M of Alvin’s gross landed in this calendar year). The January 18 release of chick-flick 27 Dresses scored for Katherine Heigl ($76.8M in the US), then Jumper was a good solid February hit, topping $80M, followed by the wildly successful Horton Hears a Who ($154.5M domestic). Little did Fox know that when the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas played solidly to the tune of $80.2M domestic starting in May, it would be its last legit hit until Christmas’ Marley & Me. This is a huge, redemptive win for Fox, and its sentimental tear-jerker of a dog movie could near $100M domestic by Sunday.

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