The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue. (more…)

When you watch “Gran Torino” and Clint Eastwood gives that look with one eyebrow raised as he sticks a gun in someone’s face, you know some shit’s about to go down and that this is a man who can handle himself. When you look at Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler,” you know his face is mush because he’s taken some punches in life.

Brody Jenner

I long for the days when being a man had to do with things like, my word is good, insult my wife and you get a busted nose, and my silence says more than any nonsense I could ever scream at you. But this is not the image of the masculine male Tinseltown now propagates.

The other day while surfing channels like a Troglodyte on speed waiting for the meat on the grill to ooze a little blood, I came across a show I’m convinced will be the downfall of the American male. (more…)

Mickey Rourke won the Independent Spirit Award last night in Santa Monica, possibly setting the stage for a memorable Oscar moment tonight. Randy “The Ram” Robinson, the character that Rourke plays in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) is a blazing, raw, “broken down piece of meat” of a professional wrestler, and it is a once in a lifetime performance for the not-that-long-ago has-been.

His speech is so entertaining that as I was hosting an Oscar Eve radio special on 790 KABC in Los Angeles last night, every guest that had been at the Spirits could talk about nothing else, including Best Supporting Actress nominee Taraji P. Henson from Benjamin Button, E!’s Ben Lyons, Associated Press film critic Christy Lemire, James Marsh, the writer/director of Man On Wire (favored to win Best Documentary Feature tonight) and Emmy winning actor Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad (set to return on AMC on March 8). (more…)

I am forecasting a coronation for Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) at Sunday’s Academy Awards. My final predictions call for Slumdog wins in 8 of the 9 categories it is competing in including Best Picture and Best Director: Danny Boyle. The only place I think it will fail is in the Sound Mixing category where The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) may trump it.

Slumdog Millionaire is about to win the Hollywood's Grand Prize

The “Battle Royale” of the night is Mickey Rouke from The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) vs. Sean Penn in Milk (Focus) in the Best Actor category. There have been two ties in major categories in Academy Award history. The first was in 1932 when Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde shared Best Actor with Wallace Beery for The Champ. (March had one more vote, but in that era, any finish within 3 votes was rules a tie.) Then in 1968, Katherine Hepburn for The Lion In Winter and Barbara Streisand for Funny Girl tied for Best Actress. If there was any justice, Rourke and Penn would share the award. In any other year, either of them would be a lock. Forced to make a pick, I’m going with Rourke.

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On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture. It’s hard to imagine Slumdog missing out on Hollywood’s biggest prize, having won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and just about everything in between.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

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There was not a great deal of drama surrounding this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Arts Awards, commonly known as the BAFTA Awards. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is a movie with deep roots in the UK. Director Danny Boyle was born in Manchester, England, lead actor Dev Patel is the star of the popular British television series Skins, and the movie is a gigantic hit in the British Isles with an impressive $20.6M (US dollars) in box office for Pathe, since its release there on January 6.

BAFTA Winner Mickey Rourke

The two major uncertainties entering Sunday’s ceremony were whether Kate Winslet, twice-nominated for Best Actress, would split her own vote and miss out on her second BAFTA Award and who would prevail in the Sean Penn-Mickey Rourke battle for Best Actor. Aside from that, it seemed like a Slumdog sweep, and that’s exactly how it played out.

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Liam Neeson is officially a full-fledged action star. The Irish-born actor has often played heroes, whether it was Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List, the wise Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace or determined sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in 2005’s biopic Kinsey, Neeson has always had a knack for playing the earnest-but-flawed good guy. In his new movie Taken (Fox), writer/producer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel have turned him into a Dad with the “mad skills” of a super-spy – think Mike Brady crossed with Jason Bourne.

The result is a well-reviewed (56% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) action film that will help to satisfy blockbuster-hungry audiences waiting for Warner Bros’ Watchmen (due March 6). Taken has scored big on its opening weekend. After grabbing an estimated $9.4M, the movie surged on Saturday to $11.62M (up almost 24% from opening day) and, despite today’s Super Bowl, the film could reach $24.62M according to studio estimates. That will be more than enough to win the Super Bowl 3-day, and positive word-of-mouth could get this one into the $70M-$75M range domestic.

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The chubby guy on the Segway rallied for a come-from-behind win over the Beckinsale-less Underworld sequel, but regardless, it was a 1-2 finish for Sony. When I originally predicted that Paul Blart: Mall Cop as the likely weekend winner over the MLK 4-day, some online sites questioned my pick. Even I didn’t expect an opening close to $40M, and now the Kevin James vehicle has surprised again.

The Adam Sandler-produced comedy has broadened its audience, showing real family appeal. That led to stronger Saturday and Sunday matinees for a stellar $21.5M by Monday morning. That gives the movie a 10-day cume of just shy of $65M, which is impressive considering that it was budgeted at just $26M. After success as a supporting star in movies like Hitch ($179.5M cume) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry ($120M cume), it appears that James can open a movie without the help of Will Smith and Adam Sandler. Mall Cop dipped only 32% from last Friday-thru-Sunday (and that was part of a 4-day weekend, which can often lead to a sharper drop). (more…)

Nobody is ever completely satisfied with the Academy Award nominations, but with several key snubs, Oscar voters may have ensured that the 2009 telecast hits an all-time ratings low.

Investor Warren Buffet coined the phrase “skin in the game” to describe a situation where executives use their own money to buy shares in their company. The so-called Oracle of Omaha likes companies where insiders have their own money invested because they work harder, care more and generally are more emotionally invested.

The problem with the Oscars is that voters are nominating films that relatively few people have seen. The five movies nominated for Best Picture this week – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon – have combined to gross just $186.7M. The Dark Knight passed that box office total early in its fifth day of release. (more…)

Michael Sheen has two movies in release this weekend. The classically-trained Welsh actor plays Lucien in the wildly commercial Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Sony), opening on about 3,000 screens, and he plays David Frost in Frost/Nixon (Universal), expanding to about 800 playdates.

He is a classically-trained stage actor, who has starred in heavyweight UK productions of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Amadeus and The Dresser, was somehow overlooked by both Hollywood Foreign Press and Oscar voters when he starred as Tony Blair in 2006’s The Queen. (He was outshined by Helen Mirren, who won every acting prize imaginable). This year, he is in the shadow of Frank Langella’s towering portrayal of President Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon.

As an aside, The Queen was the second in screenwriter Peter Morgan’s Tony Blair trilogy. The first film was called The Deal for British television and tells the story of the rivalry between Blair and current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (This is a great title to put in your Netflix or Blockbuster cue.) The final film will be called The Special Relationship, which will focus on the intimate friendship between the British PM and President Bill Clinton between 1997-2000. Sheen has signed on, but there is no word on who will play Clinton. Morgan says the idea for the third film began to germinate when he heard that Blair and Clinton were alone together when Vice President Al Gore conceded the 2000 election.

In the meantime, Sheen will almost certainly have the #1 movie in America this weekend with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This is the third Underworld movie, but it is a prequel set in the dark ages with Sheen as Lucien, a young werewolf, who leads a war against Bill Nighy as Viktor, the leader of the vampire race. (more…)

The final studio estimates are in, and, as I first wrote Friday night, Jim Carrey’s Yes Man (Warner Bros) is the weekend winner, although the performance of the film was softer-than-expected. When the movie started with a soft $6.7M on Friday, it was hard to tell if it was because snowstorms in several regions of the country or just a failure to connect with audiences. Saturday’s small 3% increase to $6.7M appears to suggest the latter.

Still, Yes Man is performing well enough to help Warner Bros make history in the next couple of weeks. I am projecting that the film could bank a possible $48M (conservatively) before the end of the year. Add to that a projected cume of $120M for Four Christmases by the close of business on December 31, and an anticipated $5.4M or so from the limited engagements of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (70 playdates starting Christmas Day), and Warner Bros would reach an annual domestic sales figure of $1.75 billion, surpassing Sony’s $1.71 billion take in 2006.

Meanwhile, Will Smith’s re-teaming with Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino received a 9% Saturday bump from Friday’s $5.22M, but the movie still placed second with an estimated $16M. That represents the softest opening for Will since 2000’s Ali ($14.7M). Seven Pounds is almost-certain to break his historic streak of consecutive $100M+ grossing movies, which will end at 8.

For complete analysis of how Yes Man may cinch Warner Bros’ record-breaking year and what the tough opening Seven Pounds means to Will Smith, visit my Friday Night Early Estimates column and my Final Weekend Tracking column from Thursday. For details on the monstrous opening weekend success of The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) and details on the successful expansions of Gran Torino and Doubt (Miramax), check out my Saturday update.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON REVISED EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $18.16M, $5,288 PTA, $18.16M cume
2. NEW – Seven Pounds (Sony) – $16M, $5,801 PTA, $16M cume
3. NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $10.5M, $3,385 PTA, $10.5M cume
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.15M, $2,851 PTA, $48.62M cume
5. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.74M, $2,203 PTA, $100.15M cume
6. Twilight (Summit) – $5.22M, $1,748 PTA, $158.46M cume
7. Bolt (Disney) -$4.25M, $1,434 PTA, $95M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $3.15M, $5,348 PTA, $12.13M cume
9. Australia (Fox) – $2.32M, $1,051PTA, $41.94M cume
10. Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $2.15M, $1,147 PTA, $161.3M cume
11. Milk (Focus) – $1.64M, $4,610 PTA, $10.32M cume
12. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.51M, $752 PTA, $172.33M cume
13. Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) – $1.31M, $789 PTA, $5.94M cume
14. Doubt (Miramax) – $729,000, $18,692 PTA, $1.44M cume
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $468,000, $24,632 PTA, $859,000 cume
*Frost/Nixon – $365,000, $8,902 PTA, $1.47M
*NEW – The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $209,000, $52,250 PTA, $295,000 cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

The weekend box office battle boils down to Jim Carrey vs. Will Smith. This is a match-up between the former “World’s Biggest Box Office Star” and the reigning champ, and I am giving a slight advantage to the challenger. Either Yes Man (Warner Bros) or Seven Pounds (Sony) could score the weekend-before-Christmas win, but I am predicting a victory for Carrey.

These are two of the most successful movie stars in history. Only Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy have more $100M hits on their resume than Will Smith with 12, and Carrey is only one behind at 11 blockbusters to clear the magical threshold.

MOST $100M+ HITS IN A CAREER
-including animated films & excluding cameos -
1. Tom Hanks – 15
2. Tom Cruise – 14
3. Eddie Murphy – 13
4. Will Smith – 12
4. Harrison Ford – 12
6. Jim Carrey – 11
6. Robin Williams – 11
8. Mel Gibson – 10
9. Matt Damon – 9
10. Bruce Willis – 8
10. Jack Nicholson – 8

Will Smith, however, has done something unprecedented – a feat never done by the Toms – Hanks and Cruise. Hancock was his 8th consecutive $100M+ grossing blockbuster. Hanks and Cruise both had career-best streaks of 7 films topping $100M.

2002 – Men in Black II – $52.1M opening – $190.4M cume
2003 – Bad Boys II – $46.5M opening – $138.6M cume
2004 – I, Robot – $52.1M opening – $144.8M cume
2004 – Shark Tale – $47.6M opening – $160.8M cume
2005 – Hitch – $43.1M opening – $179.4M cume
2006 – The Pursuit of Happyness – $26.5M opening – $163.5M cume
2007 – I Am Legend – $77.2M opening – $256.4M cume
2008 – Hancock – $62.6M opening – $227.9M cume

For comparison, 5 of Carrey’s past 8 films have scored at least $100M domestic, including this year’s animated Dr. Suess’ Horton Hears a Who! ($154.5M cume), but he has veered away from the purely commercial with 2001’s poorly-reviewed drama The Majestic ($27.8M cume), the Academy Award winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ($24.4M cume) in 2004 and 2007’s misguided horror release The Number 23 ($35.1M cume).

Neither picture is getting help from critics with Yes Man at 35% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and Seven Pounds registering a meager 30% Fresh as of Thursday night. Given the generally poor notices, I say Yes Man wins for 3 reasons:

1. More playdates 3,434 to 2,758
2. Tone – People are more interested in a couple of laughs than they are in a “heavy” spiritual message, even if it is generally optimistic
3. Warner Bros can do no wrong in 2008
4. Will Smith backlash

Lou Lumenick from the New York Post points out on his blog that on November 4, Will was informed by his 16-year old son that the Presidential race was over. The first-ever election of an African American to be the Leader of the Free World hadn’t reached the rarified air of the World’s Biggest Movie Star. Lumenick says he can’t imagine Paul Newman, a great movie star and philanthropist, ever being that out-of-touch with what’s important in the life of everyday people.

And there’s the brutally scathing Todd McCarthy review in Variety who rips Seven Pounds for its pretentiousness and self-importance. He reports that Smith doesn’t shy away from, “the saintlike status conferred upon his character. Indeed, he embraces it in a way so convincing that it proves disturbing as an indication of how highly this or any momentarily anointed superstar may regard himself.”

Just because media types think Will is a little “full of himself,” does not mean that the rank-and-file moviegoer will agree. In Australia, there is something called “Tall Poppy Syndrome.” As my always-credible friends at Wikipedia say, “Someone is said to be a target of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ when his or her assumption of a higher economic, social or political position is criticized as being presumptuous, attention seeking, or without merit.”

Then again, it may all be a case of sour grapes. When a star of Smith’s caliber takes a risk – and make no mistake, this is a risky, challenging film – he should be accorded some respect for his effort. Let’s face it. If Will Smith wanted to crank out generic action movies for the rest of his life, Hollywood would give him big bags of money.

I believe that, even though Seven Pounds may not win its opening weekend, its heart wrenching-yet-hopeful story will connect with enough moviegoers to make it Will’s 9th consecutive $100M-grossing movie, which would be the 13th of his career. My final prediction is for a $24.78M opening. Meanwhile, the cheerful, if-not-hilarious high-concept comedy of Yes Man could win the weekend with a possible $26.35M.

Meanwhile, the other new wide release is Universal’s animated Tale of Despereaux, receiving fair-to-middling reviews as of Thursday night (43% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). With Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa nearing the end of its run and Bolt tailing off, industry tracking points to an opening in the mid-teens for Despereaux. My final call is for about $15.19M, which could set it up for a decent little Christmas week run.

Fox’s holdover The Day the Earth Stood Still will crash-and-burn this weekend, possibly dropping by as much as 67% for a disastrous $10.11M and a 10-day cume of only $48.6M. Close-behind at #5 will be Four Christmases (Warner Bros), which may drop as little as 25% to a possible $9.75M. By Monday morning, the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon holiday comedy will pass the $100M mark.

Among the specialty releases, Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) adds 420 locations and may deliver as much as $4.64M. Danny Boyle’s modern masterpiece is riding a huge wave of acclaim including Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture – Drama and Best Director and SAG Awards nominations for Best Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor: Dev Patel. No company is better at the “science” of a platform release than Searchlight, and I am forecasting a PTA of $7,891 for this gutty little Best Picture contender.

Other award favorites expand to varying degrees. Milk (Focus) adds 28 locations and could reach $2.8M for a $7,876 PTA. Miramax’s excellent Doubt, with Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, expands to 39 playdates, and I am anticipating just over $1M for a Per Theatre Average of $27,341. Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros), which won him the National Board of Review’s Best Actor notice, but has been completely shut out of major categories at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards, adds 13 carefully chosen screens. I am calling for about $687,000 by Monday with a PTA of just over $36,000.

Oscar contenders Frost/Nixon (Universal) and The Reader (Weinstein) are holding off on expansion until Christmas Day. Powered by Frank Langella’s remarkable performance, Frost/Nixon seems headed for a $14,600 or so weekend PTA while Stephen Daldry’s meditation on Germany’s sense of guilt over the Holocaust should deliver just over $16,000 per location.

The new limited release this week is the critically-hailed Darren Aronofsky-directed Mickey Rourke vehicle The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight). The movie opened on 4 screens Wednesday churning up an $11,732 PTA on opening day alone. There is clearly more-than-a-little anticipation for this unexpected awards contender, and it may achieve just over $310,000 in just 5 days. That would mean a 3-day Per Theatre Average of almost $58,000, just shy of the year’s best weekend PTA mark set by Frost/Nixon 2 weeks ago.

FINAL WEEKEND PREDICTIONS FOR THE WEEKEND OF 12/19
1. NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $26.35M
2. NEW – Seven Pounds (Sony) – $24.78M
3. NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $15.19M
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.11M
5. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $9.75M
6. Bolt (Disney) – $5.49M
7. Twilight (Summit) – $4.78M
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $4.64M
9. Milk (Focus) – $2.8M
10. Australia (Fox) – $2.57M
11. Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $2.24M
12. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.84M
13. Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) – $1.69M
*Doubt (Miramax) – $1.06M
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $687,000
*Frost/Nixon (Universal) – $602,000
*NEW – The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $232,000
*The Reader (Weinstein) – $131,000