Brandon Peters dissects the 007 series part BONUS!: Casino Royale

With Skyfall dropping in theaters in just a few months, along with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, a close friend and fellow film nerd, Brandon Peters, has generously offered to do a comprehensive review of the entire 007 film franchise. Today is a *BONUS* entry, with Mr. Peters delving into the 1967 all-star James Bond spoof Casino Royale. I hope you enjoy what is a pretty massive feature leading up the November 9th release of Skyfall. I'll do my best to leave my two-cents out of it, give or take a few items I have up my sleeve (including a guest review from my wife as she sings the praises of her favorite 007 film, you won't believe what it is). But just because I'm stepping aside doesn't mean you should, as I can only hope for robust discussions in the comments section. Without further ado...

BONUS – A Few Words About Casino Royale (1967)

By Brandon Peters

I was originally just going to cruise on by this film when doing this retrospective.  It’s not a part of the official 007 canon.  I had only seen it once (sophomore year of college) and I didn’t like it.  However, after the positive response this series has received, I decided to return to Casino Royale (1967) for a viewing and talk a small bit about it as an appreciation bonus.  I also thought, maybe I was too young the first time I saw it.  Maybe I was in bad company that rendered it unenjoyable.  Maybe I’ll appreciate it more being in the thick of the 007 films this was to parody.

Weekend Box Office (06/24/12): Brave hits the Pixar bulls-eye while Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is (somewhat) staked.

Another year, another $60-$70 million Pixar opening weekend.  Brave (review) is their thirteenth release, as well as their thirteenth number-one debut and their eighth film to open between $60 and $70 million since 2001.  Brave, which attracted headlines due to the fact that it was Pixar's first film with a female lead (and a female director until Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews), opened with an estimated $66.7 million this weekend, putting it (for now) just above Cars 2's $66.1 million debut and a bit below Up's $68.1 million opening as the fifth-best debut in Pixar history.  Brave pulled in $24.5 million on Friday, which gives the film a 2.71x weekend multiplier, which is actually pretty low by Pixar standards.  Still, it's close enough to the 2.73x multiplier for Wall-E ($23m/$63m), the 2.68x weekend multiplier for Toy Story 3 ($41m/$110m), and the 2.64x weekend multiplier for Cars 2 ($25m/$66m) to avoid any alarm.  Movies, even most animated ones, are just a bit more front-loaded these days and Pixar films tend to play like sequels in a popular franchise than stand-alone entries. In terms of total box office, there is always the chance that Brave could play like Cars 2, which (comparatively) flamed out with just 2.8x weekend-to-total multiplier ($191 million domestic) and end up below $200 million.

2011 year-end wrap-up part II: The Overrated.

 This is the second of several year-end wrap essays detailing the year in film.  This time, we're dealing with 'overrated' films.  Here is the hardest one to write, merely because it's simply a list pointing out why ten films you all loved are actually either not-that-great or actually pretty terrible.  Most are what I would consider 'bad movies' that are being hailed elsewhere as greats, while a few are merely mediocre movies that are inexplicably being given a critical pass in most circles.  Again, if you've been reading me this year you'll probably be able to guess a few of these.  As always, these will be in alphabetical order. 

Weekend Box Office (06/26/11): Cars 2 soars, Bad Teacher sets Diaz record, Green Lantern collapses.

To the surprise of no one, a Pixar picture topped the box office in its debut weekend, making it 12/12 since 1995.  Cars 2 (or as I like to call it: "Finally, a Pixar movie that won't make you violently sob in front of your children!") weathered some surprisingly savage reviews to still debut with $66.1 million over the weekend.  The opening is the fifth biggest in the studio's history, behind the $68.1 million debut of Up (it's at $109 million worldwide thus far).  The film had a low (for animation) 2.64x weekend multiplier (it opened with $25 million on Friday), but that means little more than that it was a sequel with a certain 'want-to-see' factor.  Heck, Toy Story 3 had a 2.6x weekend multiplier last year, causing me to (needlessly) wonder if the film was going to end up front-loaded overall.  Regardless, there has never been a Pixar movie to end up with less than 3.5x its opening weekend (Wall-E: $63m opening/$223m total).  So even if the critically trashed and more-or-less kid-targeted Cars 2 somehow sinks to a 'new low' of just 3.3x this weekend's number, it still ends up with $218 million.  If it merely does the 3.77x weekend-to-final number of Toy Story 3 ($110m/$415m), Cars 2 ends up with $249 million.

Weekend Box Office (06/12/11): Super 8 opens with $35m, X-Men: First Class performs JUST like X-Men, Midnight In Paris nears $15m.

I've written about this before (here and here), but box office pundits and film bloggers generally seem to want it both ways.  They whine about the onslaught of remakes, reboots, sequels, and kid-centric animated films, yet they also DEMAND that the total weekend box office stay at a level that necessitates such a steady diet.  So when Paramount's Super 8 was tracking in the $25-30 million range over the last couple weeks, the various pundits were up in arms about how this original, star-less, $50 million period-set thriller was somehow an automatic flop because it wasn't going to open to $50 million over its first three days.  But now that it HAS opened to a relatively solid $35 million, the line is that total box office is down from this weekend last year.  Well, last year saw the release of a remake of The Karate Kid and a movie-adaptation of The A-Team, which opened with a combined take of $80 million.  Surprising quality of the Karate Kid remake aside, isn't that the kind of slate we all say we don't want?

Weekend Box Office (06/05/11): X-Men First Class pulls a Batman Begins, grosses $55 million, Bridesmaids and Kung Fu Panda 2 cross $100m, Fast Five crosses $200m.

For better or worse, X-Men: First Class performed like an X-Men picture in its debut weekend, at least in terms of staying power.  Like X-Men parts 1, 2, and 4, it had just over a 2.5x weekend multiplier (X-Men: The Last Stand had a mere 2.2x weekend multiplier).  Actually, this film film had the second-highest weekend multiplier of the series, with a rock-solid 2.62x just behind the 2.7x multiplier for X2: X-Men United back in 2003.  The 60s-set, character actor-filled, and critically acclaimed prequel/reboot opened to $55.1 million, which is almost identical to what the first X-Men opened to back in 2000.  Of course, adjusted for inflation, the original X-Men's $54 million opening is about $79 million, so obviously there were far fewer tickets sold this time around.  And that should be no surprise and no defeat.  Unlike the previous trilogy, the film is filled not with fan-favorite mutants that even the general audiences know, but more 'inside baseball' characters.  There was no Wolverine, no Cyclops, no Storm.  The tone of the marketing was low-key and emphasized setting and character over spectacle.  Fox did not advertise a thrilling action adventure with Wolverine and his pals, but rather a morose and contemplative science-fiction character drama set in the 1960s, filled with unknowns and respected actors who are not box office draws (the biggest name in the film was arguably Kevin Bacon).  This was never going to replicate the massive openings of the previous entries in the series.  

Weekend Box Office (05/30/11): Hangover 2 scores $135m, Kung Fu Panda 2 nets $66m over Thurs-Mon. Woody Allen and Terence Malick kill in limited release.

The Three Day weekend and the Four Day weekend totals.  It was close, but no cigar, as The Hangover 2 (review) made a run for the R-rated opening three-day weekend record.  As it stands, the film pulled in $85.6 million over the Friday-Sunday frame, falling just $6 million short of the $91.7 million mark set by The Matrix Reloaded back in 2003.  That film, like The Hangover 2, opened on a Thursday and also bested The Hangover 2 in terms of R-rated 4-day numbers ($118 million Thursday-to-Sunday for Hangover 2 versus $134 million Thursday-to-Sunday for Matrix Reloaded) and likely R-rated 5-day totals (The Matrix Reloaded grossed $144 million in its first five days, while The Hangover 2 ended Monday with 'just' $135 million).  Still, this is no defeat of any plausible kind for the $80 million sequel.  As it is, both films were from Warner Bros so there is little reason for the studio to not rejoice.  As it is, the film is set to take down the five-day opening weekend record for an R-rated film, which was the $125 million Wednesday-to-Sunday opening of 20th Century Fox's The Passion of the Christ back in 2004 (the Mel Gibson epic took in $83 million over the Friday-Sunday portion).  In terms of pure Fri-Sun numbers, it was the second-biggest opening of the year, coming in just $300,000 ahead of Fast Five and about $4 million behind Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  It's the 25th biggest opening weekend of all time, and easily the biggest opening weekend for a pure live-action comedy (the next closest is Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty, which made $67 million on this same weekend back in 2003).  It's also the seventh-biggest Fri-Sun gross for a film that didn't open on a Friday.  It's $117.6 million Thurs-Sun total is the 20th biggest four-day gross in history.  Its $135 million five-day total is the eighteenth-biggest ever.  It's Fri-Mon $103 million Memorial Day weekend take was the fourth-biggest on record.  So it missed the R-rated record book, but it's doing just fine.

Weekend Box Office (05/22/11): Pirates 4 grosses $90m, Bridesmaids holds strong, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris astonishes in limited bow

Just ten years ago next weekend, we saw pundits studio executives hand-wringing over the 'mere' $75 million four-day gross of Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor.  For some reason (oh, it's a three-hour period love story... it's EXACTLY like Titanic!!), studio executives were expecting a $100 million four-day total.  Nevermind that such a number had never been achieved before.  As I've written elsewhere, 2001 was the year that opening weekends went crazy, where $50 million became the new $35 million and $60 million became the new $40 million.  In the last nine years (starting in May 2002 of course), we've had 25 films with $100 million+ four-day totals and 18 films with $100 million+ three-day totals.  I bring this up because once again we are faced with a Disney blockbuster that is fighting off the assumption of failure because its opening weekend didn't approach record levels.  For the record, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opened with $90 million this weekend.  That may not be as huge as the last two sequels, but it's a fine haul for a franchise that pretty much everyone agrees is washed up.  Let this be a lesson to Disney's Chuck Viane (who actually predicted a $100 million+ weekend): it's your job to LOWER expectations, not inflate them!