I originally projected $51.25M for the 4-day weekend on Friday night, amd some analysts have the new Jason Voorhies saga sailing higher basec on early rerturns (I am now projecting $47M for 4 days). The combination of Valentine’s Day and a school holiday Monday for President’s Day make predicting the movie’s long weekend haul a tricky call, but regardless, this is great news for Warner Bros, which has the domestic distribution rights, Paramount, handling international distribution, and Platinum Dunes.

Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form

Friday the Thirteenth director Marcus Nispel was always the first choice for this project. “We had success with him on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. What this required was a great look, and he always delivers that. You can get a guy who makes it look pretty, but doesn’t make his days,” Fuller told me. “Marcus always delivers on time.”

I have characterized Friday the Thirteenth as a reboot, but Fuller isn’t entirely sure. “Legally, it’s a sequel. If you have to give it a name, it’s a sequel to the first movie,” but he quickly follows with “I don’t know what it is.” Probably F13 is best described as something between a reboot and a re-imagining.

This movie was never going to be a darling with critics (28% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but there are some positive notices.

“The series reboot is much the same, but it’s easily the most effective — and scary — entrant in the franchise.”
– Adam Graham, DETROIT NEWS

“Quibbles aside, Jason Voorhies has become almost a modern-day Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster – a figurehead of horror, despite some of his regrettable screen incarnations. It’s refreshing to see a movie take him seriously again.”
– Derek Donovan, KANSAS CITY STAR

“In addition to being awesome, it all just feels kind of celebratory, even reverent, like a tribute to what teen slasher films are all about.”
– Cammila Albertson, TV GUIDE’S MOVIE GUIDE

Harry Manfredini composed the score for the original FRIDAY THE 13TH, but wasn't invited to participate in the reboot

Some hardcore fans were upset that composer Harry Manfredini, who wrote the score for 1980’s original, was not invited to be part of this reboot. “Steve Jablonski has done the score for every one of our movies.” Fuller says. In the end, “we pulled out a lot of the score and went with ambient sound,” and, for my money, it amps up the tension perfectly.

Michael Bayer will direct the reboot of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but who will play Freddy?

Platinum Dunes, comprised of Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Fuller, will next tackle a reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street, and they have settled on Samuel Bayer as director, who will be making his feature debut. “He’s done a bunch of amazing commercials and videos, and we offered him a ton of jobs, “ says Fuller. The production company had a picture in development at Universal called Fiasco Heights with Bayer attached, but when Frank Miller’s The Spirit flopped at Christmas time, the project lost steam. They began looking for another project for Bayer and along came Freddy.

Fuller says that his company’s goal for Friday the Thirteenth has always been to surpass the $80M generated by its 2003 version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It should safely get to the $80M-$90M range in the US, and the producer tells me that he expects to start thinking about a sequel as soon as Tuesday.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

In 2006, I had a minor low pressure area in my brain and conceived a P.R. campaign directed against Islamo-fascism which I posted on Nate Tabor’s “The Conservative Voice.”  The results were swift and devastating.  Like any other branch of the entertainment industry, liberalism is the default position of most comic book creators and fans.

Liberalism has a long and honorable history in comics, nowhere more apparent than in the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams which dealt with drug addiction, the trial of the Chicago Seven, corporate pollution and overpopulation. In “Death Be My Destiny,” O’Neil posited a planet called Maltus where over-population was out of control. Denny was channeling the Reverend Thomas Malthus, a nineteenth-century Brit who predicted a Paul Erlich-like doom. In “The Population Bomb” Erlich predicted: “In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

That didn’t happen.  It was a test run for today’s global warming baloney, which many libs take on faith.  Comics are jammed with corporate villains and group identity politics.

In the eighties, I worked on adaptations of Timothy Zahn’s “Star Wars” novels for Dark Horse and wrangled an invite to Skywalker Ranch to meet my Skywalker editor.  We were sitting in her office when I cheerfully offered a non-ideological observation, “You know,” I said, “I have a theory that “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” are two sides of the same coin. “Star Trek” offers a liberal vision. “Star Wars” offers a conservative…”

That was as far as I got before my editor barked, “I’m a liberal!” I didn’t mean anything by my observation beyond what I’d said, but she was so terrified of being associated in any way shape or form with conservatism that she had to nip that line of logic in the protein pool.

Part Two:

Comic fandom is a raucous free-for-all of often juvenile voices. Who else has time to hang on the web all day fantasizing about John Byrne’s sex life? After I posted my “Manifesto,” Newsarama, an excellent source of comic news, quickly smelled blood and posted the following referring to the manifesto:

“Fans of his work on ‘Nexus,’ ‘Badger,’ ‘Punisher’ and countless other titles may be wondering what Mike Baron has been up to lately. Well, you can check out his latest work over at ‘The Conservative Voice,’ where he posted an essay titled “Manifesto” earlier this week. The first line — “What if the United States launched an all-out public relations blitz to convince the world that Islamofascism must be stopped?” — gives you an idea of the flavor of the essay.

“His proposed PR plan does include comics [Newsarama now quotes from my "Manifesto"]:

Comics: The idiot bastard son of newsprint and yellow ink has become the tail that wags the cultural dog. Half the movies made today are based on comic books. The comic itself is making a comeback thanks to the graphic novel and the rise of Japanese manga. Comics are the preferred reading in most of the civilized world. They account for over half the periodicals sold in Britain and Japan. It is only in the United States where they dwindled and almost died from a combination of cultural and economic factors.

But now they’re back, and being read big time by studio executives. Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times regularly review comic books. With the advent of such works as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series they are once again a serious vehicle for ideas.

We need the kind of comics we produced during World War II, when Superman, the Justice League et al went to bat for America against the Nazis and the Japanese. One character from that era cries out for a new beginning: Captain America. Captain America should be taking the fight to Tehran. Captain America should become the unabashed champion of Western civilization and Judeo/Christian values. Considering Marvel’s diversification, world market, and the eagerness of its owners to hobnob with the beautiful people, this is unlikely.

We need a new Captain America.

Here are the responses from the Newsarama comment section:

1. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t want to give Baron any of my money anymore.

2. Okay, Baron is officially a Right-wing nut. It makes so much sense to spread hatred in the U.S. against Muslims? Wow, can’t you see the skinheads torching mosques and saying, “Well, Captain America said it was okay!”

3. After Mr. Baron links to a news segment – which starts as a 60 minutues [sic] clip but then almost seamlessly cuts to somebody trying to prove Palestinians fake their own deaths… After he calls for ridicule of a religion (”…comic books satirizing Ahmadinejad—the dude’s eyes are so close together he’s practically a Cyclops. And Nasrallah—did you ever see a more hapless looking shmuck. He looks like a chipmunk with glasses…”), which can only lead to more misunderstanding and violence… After he inadvertantly [sic] agrees that the Palestinians live under Israeli opression [sic] in this paragraph:

Above all, repeat as often as possible the message that suicide bombing is a crime against humanity, it has no justification, and the people who do it are evil. Point to the example of Tibet, under soul-crushing Chinese rule for decades, yet not a single Tibetan has resorted to violence, let alone suicide bombing.

After all this, he actually says this: “Thank God for Fox News. This is one area where civilization has a leg up.” At which point I stopped reading. Mike Baron’s understanding of the world is equivalent to that of a child. A hateful, spoiled child who does not even understand the propaganda he regurgitates.

4. That’s sad. I feel sorry for Mr. Baron. There’s a sickness running wild in America, and he’s the latest casualty. I hope someday he recovers enough equilibrium to be ashamed of that article.

The following most succinctly summed up the tone of the comments: 

’Islamofascism’–Interesting that this bullshit word took all of 2 days to seep so deeply into the public conciousness [sic].  Amero-fascism is what has got me scared.

My favorite response:

Mike Baron being conservative is a new development?  Yeah, I seem to recall his introduction to a Punisher collection from the 80s making the case that America needs a real life Punisher, someone willing to completely bypass the legal system and dispense summary justice, etc.  Mike Baron’s mother is/was a radical feminist professor at UW-Madison, from what I’ve been told.

My mother was a Professor of Business in the UW School of Business.  She also had a TV show for kids called “Bouncy Bunny,” but that’s another story.  The most radical thing about Mom was the bright red coat she wore on cold days.

Part Three:

A couple true liberals, including Mike Gold and Jackie Estrada, wrote in to defend my right to pop off. I was saddened but not surprised by the majority of responses. As I mentioned above, liberalism is a fall-back position. It needn’t be examined and explained because it is the dominant culture. It makes people feel good about themselves without effort.

Occasionally a conservative voice breaks through what Emmett Tyrell calls the kultursmog. Frank Miller, creator of “Sin City” and “300,” has always had conservative views and is in fact working on a Batman graphic novel called “Holy Terror” in which Batman defends Gotham City from Al Qaeda.

Miller’s been riding high, with film versions of his “Sin City“ and “300.”  His latest film, “The Spirit” (based on the classic comic by Will Eisner) went down in flames on its opening day with some of the worst reviews in history. A certain portion of fandom was waiting with sharpened knives. The schadenfreude on the message boards was thicker than the fog in “Sin City.”

Will this affect “Holy Terror?”  I hope not.  Frank has said “Holy Terror” is “bound to offend just about everybody.” 

Well it won’t offend conservatives, but who counts them?

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.

There were 11 consecutive under-performing titles during the Fox drought of 2008, including expensive failures like mega-bombs Meet Dave ($11.8M domestic) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe ($20.9M cume). There were also misses like The Rocker ($6.4M cume),  City of Ember ($7.8M cume) and recent disappointments like Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (about $45M in the bank as its run winds down) and the critically-reviled The Day the Earth Stood Still, which picked up another $10.29M during the Christmas-thru-Sunday frame for a domestic cume of only $63M.

Despite the success of Marley, Fox will be #6 among the so-called “Big 6” studios in market share for the year. The winning studio , Warner Bros, essentially locked up the crown in late summer as The Dark Knight piled up meteoric grosses. As I have written in the past, the WB gang seemed destined to break the all-time single year record for domestic ticket sales, and now I can report that they have officially surpassed Sony’s 2006 record of $1.71 billion.

With the respectable hold for Jim Carrey’s Yes Man ($22.38M over 4 days for a 10-day cume of $49.8M), the continued success of Four Christmases (adding $7.29M for a new cume of $111.67M) and the excellent expansion of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (with a $38K or so cume at 84 locations), I am projecting a total domestic box office take of $1.74 billion as of today.  That is a staggering number, and it wasn’t all due to the success of mega-hit The Dark Knight.

Warner Bros perfectly marketed and distributed Sex and the City after picking up the baton from New Line. They also maximized the gross for the previously 3D-geared Journey to the Center of the Earth, selling it as a solid traditional 2D experience and generating $100M. And, they turned a pedestrian holiday comedy, Four Christmases, into a $100M smash. Expect a jubilant press release from Warner Bros in the next few days.

There is great news for Paramount and David Fincher in this holiday season. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a big hit. Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, this spiritual tale starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett had only 2,988 playdates, but the screen count may be as high as 3,500 with Paramount securing multiple screens at many key locations for the 2 hour 48 minute epic. The film coaxed a magical $39.1M or so r the 4-day Christmas weekend.

Benjamin Button will do very steady business through awards season, and the spectacularly-reviewed film will likely have $70M-$80M in the bank by the end of next weekend.  It will continue to hold well through awards season with major nominations at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. I strongly believe that this movie is headed for something in the $170M domestic range and reaching $200M is not out of the question.

Only 2 of the last 11 Best Picture winners have failed to break through the $100M barrier, including last year’s Coen Brothers thriller No Country For Old Men.

BEST PICTURE WINNERS
2008 – No Country For Old Men – $74.2M
2007 – The Departed – $132.3M
2006 – Crash – $54.5M
2005 – Million Dollar Baby – $100.5M
2004 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $377M
2003 – Chicago – $170.6M
2002 – A Beautiful Mind – $170.7M
2001 – Gladiator – $187.7M
2000 – American Beauty – $130M
1999 – Shakespeare in Love – $100.3M
1998 – Titanic – $600.7M

Academy Awards voters, whether they admit it or not, love big blockbusters, and after last year’s terrible Oscar broadcast ratings, there will be a strong yet silent, push to recognize films that movie-goers all over the country have seen. Benjamin Button is now likely to fit the bill nicely. Wouldn’t an Oscar night showdown between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and mega-hit The Dark Knight make for a spectacular Academy Awards storyline (although, there’s always a chance that Danny Boyle’s gutty, little indie Slumdog Millionaire could steal the big prize from the big budget studio blockbusters).

#3 Bedtime Stories, also starring Keri Russell, Guy Pearce and the irrepressible Russell Brand from Saving Sarah Marshall, has managed $38.6M in just 4 days. It’s a fine showing, although most experts (including yours truly) thought it would be the weekend’s big winner.. The opening for Sandler is slightly under expectations and slightly below par with his recent hits, although it’s hard to compare a Christmas 4-day opening with a traditional 3-day weekend start.

Technically, the 3-day weekend opening (Friday-thru-Sunday) for Bedtime Stories was $27.6M or so. Accepting that Christmas Day took a great deal of “steam” out of the picture, that number compares favorably to July’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan ($38.53M opening – $100M cume) and 2007’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry ($34.23M opening – $120M cume). Given that Bedtime Stories skews much younger and has family appeal, it should demonstrate great “playability” could very well have $80M in the bank by the end of New Year’s weekend.

A strong 3-day weekend came on the heels of a monstrous Christmas Day as Marley & Me, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Bedtime Stories all out-grossed the previous Christmas Day opening champion Ali ($10.2M). In terms of all-time best performance on Christmas Day, opening or otherwise, the three 2008 holiday box office juggernauts finished as the #2, #6 and #10 of all time.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 CHRISTMAS DAY PERFORMANCES
1. Meet the Fockers – $19.5M
2. Marley & Me – $14.67M (estimate)
3. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $13.9M
4. National Treasure: Book of Secrets – $13.6M
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – $12.3M
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – $12M (estimate)
7. Night at the Museum – $11.7M
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – $11.5M
9. Cast Away – $10.9M
10. Bedtime Stories - $10.52M (estimate)

Tom Cruise’s Valkerie (MGM/UA) has out-performed industry expectations finishing 4th for both Christmas Day and the long weekend. The eye patch wearing Cruise seemed headed for another disaster with his Nazi epic, but it has finished the 4-day with just over $30M. You could have won some bar bets with studio execs if back in November you had wagered that this won would even crack $25M over the Christmas holiday. Holdover Yes Man (Warner Bros) rounds out the top 5 for the long holiday weekend.

The only other new wide opening is Frank Miller’s The Spirit (Lionsgate). No Sin City magic here as the movie has stumbled out of the gates with about $10.35M, and it is fading very quickly based on downright awful word-of-mouth.

Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) is officially a PTA monster. Opening on just 3 screens Friday, the Sam Mendes-directed drama grabbed over $22K per location on opening day, and it will finish the weekend with about a $64,133 PTA. Not only is that the best PTA of 2008 (topping Frost/Nixon’s number for December 5-7), it is the 29th-best 3-day PTA of all time.

It is very hard to say what the commercial prospects for this picture may be. It is brilliantly acted with perfectly modulated performances by Leo and Kate, a truly unique turn by New York stage actor Michael Shannon and certain-to-be-under-appreciated work from Oscar winner Kathy Bates. I would also like to single out Kathryn Hahn, who was brilliant in Broadway’s Tony-winning Boeing, Boeing. Something about neighbor Milly Campbell’s desperate “golly gee-ness” captures the era to perfection.

Bringing Richard Yates novel to the big screen was no small feat, and screenwriter Justin Haythe has winnowed the somewhat sprawling novel down to its most cinematic pieces. Haythe is a lock for a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the Oscars, and I would make Winslet the betting favorite for Best Actress for her work in Rev Road, but can the film break through in other categories?

DiCaprio has a strong shot at a Best Actor nod, battling with Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood for the final 2 spots (after Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke). It’s uphill for Shannon in the Best Supporting Actor category with Heath Ledger, Robert Downey Jr. and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as locks. Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel has picked up a great deal of momentum since his SAG Award nomination, he seems to have sewn up the 4th spot. That leaves one spot open for Josh Brolin from Milk, Ralph Fiennes for The Duchess, Eddie Marsan for Happy-Go-Lucky or, an extreme longshot, Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder. At the moment, I am leaning toward Brolin who will also get credit for his work in W..

Gran Torino has expanded very well to 84 locations and quite a few multiple screen situations for a PTA of just over $38K. There is clearly some commercial viability here as this love it or hate it movie goes wider in January.The big question remains. Will Oscar voters nominate Eastwood for Best Actor for his snarling, racist Walt Kowalski performance? In my estimation, his performance is the weakest of the contenders, but viewed in the context of his career, it feels like a nice culmination of his acting work.

It is surprising how softly Frost/Nixon (Universal) is playing at 205 locations. It generated a $9,473 PTA, which is disappointing. This is a great film with a tour de force performance by Frank Langella as President Richard M. Nixon. It may be that the movie-going public isn’t interested in reliving the Watergate nightmare, especially when everyone has a general mistrust of government after the Bush years. Movies can be an escape from a tough economy, government corruption and political scandal. Thus, films like Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button and Marley & Me are more attractive film destinations.

A lack of commercial success will not keep Langella out of the Best Actor category, but Ron Howard’s movie could be potentially handicapped in the Best Picture race if it doesn’t begin selling tickets at a better clip. Ben Button, Slumdog and The Dark Knight are all legitimate hits, appropriate to their scale. I am penciling in Milk (Focus) as a likely Best Picture nominee leaving one slot set aside for Frost/Nixon. Mega-hit Wall-E (Disney) could sneak in instead. Or, if The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) expands better than Howard’s political biopic – Mickey Rourke’s comeback delivered almost $28K per location over the Christmas 4-day – maybe Darren Aronofsky will find his movie among the big 5. The same goes for the aforementioned Revolutionary Road. A Best Picture nod would be a game-changer for Dreamworks/Paramount, and the slow start for Frost/Nixon may have left the door open.

FINAL 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – $51.67M, $14,849 PTA, $51.67M cume
2. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – $39.1M, $13,086 PTA, $39.1M cume
3. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – $38.6M, $10,486PTA, $38.6M cume
4. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – $30.4M, $11,214 PTA, $30.4M cume
5. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $22.38M, $6,517 PTA, $49.8M cume
6. Seven Pounds (Sony) – $18.2M, $6,599 PTA, $38.86M cume
7. Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $11.37M, $3,659 PTA, $28.07M cume
8. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.59M, $4,409 PTA, $63.4M cume
9. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – $10.35M, $4,126 PTA, $10.35M cume
10. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.29M, $2,904 PTA, $111.67M cume
11. Doubt (Miramax) – $7.1M, $5,604 PTA, $8.78M cume
12. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $5.81M, $9,417 PTA, $19.41M cume
13. Twilight (Summit) – $5.5M, $2,975 PTA, $167.06M
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $3.2M, $38,155 PTA, $4.28M cume
*Milk (Focus) – $2.32M, $7,481 PTA, $13.52M cume
*Frost/Nixon (Universal) – $1.94M, $9,473 PTA, $3.58M cume
*The Reader (Weinstein) – $847,000, $7,302 PTA, $1.23M cume
*The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $515,000, $28,611 PTA, $893,000 cume
*NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $192,400, $64,133 PTA, $192.400 cume
*NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – $132,000, $22,000 PTA, $132,000 cume
*NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – $55,144, $11,029 PTA, $55,144 cume

FINALY 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND PTA ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – 3 locations, $64,133 PTA
2. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – 84 locations, $38,155 PTA
3. The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – 18 locations, $28,611 PTA
4. NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – 6 location, $22,000 PTA
5. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – 3,480 locations, $14,849 PTA
6. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – 2,988 locations, $13,086 PTA
7. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – 2,711 locations, 11,075 PTA
8. NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – 6 locations, $11,029 PTA
9. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – 3,681 locations, $10,486 PTA
10. Frost/Nixon (Universal) – 205 locations, $9,473 PTA
11. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – 614 locations, $9,471 PTA
12. Milk (Focus) – 311 locations, $7,481 PTA
13. The Reader (Weinstein) – 116 locations, $7,302 PTA
14. Seven Pounds (Sony) – 2,758 locations – $6,599 PTA
15. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – 3,434 locations, $6,517 PTA
16. Doubt (Miramax) – 1,267 locations, $5,450 PTA
17. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – 2,402 locations – $4,409 PTA
18. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – 2,509 locations – $4,126 PTA