Chinese censoring of Cloud Atlas is true truly a real problem.

The news broke yesterday that the Chinese government is censoring Cloud Atlas in advance of its Chinese theatrical exhibition.  That in itself is not a surprise, as the Chinese government has a history of censoring US films.  Usually its a case of material that is deemed insulting/inflammatory/etc. to the Chinese, such as the complete omission of Chow Yun Fat's murderous pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  Also reported is the fact that Skyfall will run in China with several edits and changes in subtitled dialogue, among other bits omitting a scene where a Chinese nationals are murdered (while Bond sits on his ass and does nothing about it) and changing dialogue involving Javier Bardem's history of being captured and tortured by the Chinese government. Ironically changing Severine from a former child sex slave to merely a member of the mob makes Bond slightly less dick-ish for setting her up for murder, but I digress.  Again, no big deal or at least nothing unusual.  Other countries have different standards of censorship and often change US films when they eventually arrive on respective shores (fun tip: click HERE and do a search for "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles").  

Sorry, Dredd 3D probably still not getting a theatrical sequel.

One of the bigger pieces of news in the film blogsphere was the relatively high sales figures for the debut of Dredd 3D in its first week of its various home viewing platforms.  A press release put out by Lionsgate states that Dredd sold 650,000 DVDs and Blu Rays in its first week as well as leading in digital purchases/downloads as well.  This is of course good news for those involved in the picture, which earned just $36 million worldwide on an alleged $50 million budget, but it doesn't mean that the franchise is now magically alive-and-well.  The news has had pretty much every movie blogger screaming that we may now get that theatrical sequel after all!  Sorry folks, it ain't gonna happen.  

Man of Steel gets its PG-13. Is the high-profile live-action PG-rated film an endangered species?

As of this morning, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has been awarded a PG-13 for "intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language."  That's not a surprise, as pretty much every major comic book film since Bryan Singer's X-Men has received said rating.  Even if the content seemed more appropriate for the more kid-friendly PG rating, such as I'd argue was the case with Fantastic Four and Thor, studios don't want the potential kiddie-flick stigma that's still somewhat attached to live-action PG-rated films.  Unless you're dealing with fantasy that's somewhat aimed at families, such as The Chronicles of Narnia or four of the eight Harry Potter films, or high-brow family adventures like Hugo or The Life of Pi), it's PG-13 or bust. Part of that is the way in which Shrek turned the PG rating into an acceptable 'for all rages' status for animated films back in 2001.  Part of that is merely the fact that getting a PG-13 doesn't seem to be making parents think twice about bringing their very young children to the likes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  

Trailer: Olympus Has Fallen looks like a terrific old-school action blast with a cast to die for.

Good lord this looks like great fun!  If this is supposed to be the "B-Level" movie about terrorists taking over the White House (proceeding the Channing Tatum/Jamie Foxx action thriller White House Down), then I can't imagine how good that Roland Emmerich action picture might be.  Antoine Fuqua is a generally solid action filmmaker and the cast (Gerald Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Dylan McDermott Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo, Cole Hauser, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, and Rick Yune) is to die for.  Yes it's mired in cliche, but tell me you didn't grin a little bit when you correctly predicted Butler gravely intoning "I'm the best hope you have!".  It's a little odd to have Ashley Judd for such a small part, unless A) she's still alive in the end or B) she wanted a paycheck to finance her probable US Senate run in 2014.  Either way, this looks like an old-school action blast from the proverbial past, a gee-wiz Die Hard/Air Force One hybrid that is hopefully high-energy, production value-rich, genre fun.  Olympus Has Fallen opens on March 22, 2013.  Come what may, it looks like we may get at least one good Die Hard movie this spring after all.  This one was barely on my radar and now it's among my top must-sees of the season.  Nice work, Film District marketing!

Scott Mendelson

Burying the lead: Disney's cancellation of The Little Mermaid 3D leaves the Mouse House light on female-targeted movies.

From a business standpoint, one could argue the logic of Disney's surprise cancellation of the planned September reissue of The Little Mermaid.  The 3D reissues, which started with The Lion King back in September 2011 peaked to an absurd degree with that blockbuster rerelease ($94 million domestic alone).  The respective grosses for Beauty and the Beast ($47 million), Finding Nemo ($41 million), and finally Monsters Inc. ($31 million) trended ever downward to the point where the flop 3D reissue of Monsters Inc. probably didn't even break even when you account for prints and merchandising.  I would argue that Disney dropped the ball by moving the Monsters Inc. reissue from January (where we have absolutely nothing for kids to see during the first six weeks or so of the year) to the already brutally crowded Christmas season where it was crowded out by the holiday releases and the still strong Wreck It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians (which should be crossing $100 million domestic in the next couple days). I would also argue that The Little Mermaid, which has the same nostalgia factor as The Lion King and has not yet been released on Blu Ray while going for around $50 on Amazon for the 2006 DVD, is a likelier contender to get parents into the theater than Monsters Inc.  

Weekend Box Office (01/20/13): Chastains's Mama and Zero Dark Thirty top while Walhberg, Crowe, and Schwarzenegger bomb.

This weekend provides a fascinating lesson at the would-be star system and the extent to which it exists in Hollywood today.  Jessica Chastain indeed reigned as the star of the top two movies of the weekend.  Mama (review), which was sold more on executive producer Guillermo Del Toro than anyone in front of the camera, debuted with a terrific $28 million over the Fri-Sun portion of the weekend, with $33 million expected by the end of the four-day Martin Luther King Day weekend (or twice its $15 million budget).  Zero Dark Thirty (everything I've written about that one thus far...) is projected to earn another $21 million by Monday, with $17 million of that coming from its Fri-Sun second weekend, a solid hold of just -28% from last weekend.  The film's ten day total is now $55 million and will be about $59 million tomorrow, or almost identical to what Black Hawk Down had after its first ten days.  It opened on *this* weekend eleven years ago, ironically grossing exactly what Mama made over the four-day holiday and dropping 40% in weekend two for a $17 million second weekend.  Even compared to the usual slate of early year (January/February) supernatural horror, Mama's debut is the strongest yet, besting the $24 million debut of Michael Keaton's White Noise back in January 2005 (that would be about $29 million today).  So does this mean that Jessica Chastain is a new movie star?  Not quite.

Skyfall has crossed $300 million domestic! A closer look sees James Bond near the top of the action-film record books.

Sony is reporting that Skyfall grossed $260,000 yesterday, which was just enough to put its domestic total over the magic $300 million mark.  Putting that in perspective, this means that Skyfall has nearly doubled the previous domestic-best gross of the 007 series, the $168 million grossing Quantum of Solace and the $167 million-grossing Casino Royale.  Now that it's theatrical run is pretty much finished (it's got $5 million left in the tank, at the absolutely most), let's look at how it did in the grand scheme of things.  Even when adjusted for inflation, the film is the third-biggest domestic earner in the series, surpassing the adjusted-$279 million gross of You Only Live Twice ($43 million in real 1967 dollars) and hanging out below only the $515 million-grossing Goldfinger ($51 million in 1964) and the $585 million-grossing Thunderball ($65 million in 1965). It's the biggest-grossing spy film of all time and the highest-grossing non-fantasy action film of all-time.  Even when playing the inflation card, it's the sixth biggest spy movie ever, behind the aforementioned 60's 007 films, Mission: Impossible II ($310 million adjusted gross/$215 million actual gross) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ($315m/$205m), and the first Mission: Impossible ($318m/$181m).  If you factor in pretty much every remotely recent non-fantastical/non superhero action franchise, it still ends up with more tickets sold than all but the likes of Beverly Hills Cop ($522m/$234m), Rambo: First Blood Part II ($329m/$150m),  Rush Hour 2 ($310m/$226m), and Beverly Hills Cop II ($305m/$153m).  

Beautiful Creatures gets a new poster, a new release date, and a new plot-heavy second trailer.

What's interesting about this second look at what is arguably the first of the new wave of 'next Twilight/Hunger Games' franchise-starters is that it sells itself as a story specifically centered on a young girl in the South who is fought over as a result of her supernatural powers and her would-be destiny.  When I wrote about the wave of female-centric young-lit adaptations a couple months ago, I was informed that this movie, or at least the book that it's based on, is actually told from the boy's point-of-view.  You wouldn't know it from this trailer.  And I would argue that it is almost noteworthy that Warner Bros. is trying to trick audiences into thinking that it's a female-pov story.  Anyway, marketing gimmicks aside, this still looks like a solid piece of supernatural hokum.  Come what may, the cast (Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum) should be more than enough to do the heavy lifting if the young kids (Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert) can't pick up the slack (not presuming they can't of course, Ehrenreich was fine in Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro).  The "big" news is that it's been moved one day up to February 14th, and it's clear that Warner Bros. wants this to be the date-movie of choice for those otherwise uninterested in yet-another Die Hard film.  Will it work?  Depending on how cheap this one was, it may not matter.  Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend is a holiday weekend where a number of big films can flourish alongside each other (witness 2010, where Valentine's Day, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and The Wolfman all opened to over $30 million).  Anyway, Beautiful Creatures opens on February 14, 2013.  As always, we'll see. If you have any thoughts on the matter, do share them below...

Scott Mendelson 

Second time's the charm part 01: When X-Men, not Batman, spawned a golden age of comic book movies.

This is one of three pieces that delve into something that has frankly puzzled me over the years.  In brief, we've seen occasions where a massively, seemingly influential blockbuster that completely failed to spawn successful imitators.  Yet some years later, another somewhat similar film would end up unleashing a wave of proverbial copycats.  What is it about the second successful at-bat that spurred the studios (and of course paying audiences) in a way the first time did not?  The first of these three pieces will deal with the comic book film in the aftermath of Batman. Remember all of those smash-hit comic book adaptations brought on by the success of Tim Burton's Batman back in June of 1989?  Oh right, there weren't any.  Yes, I will always argue that Batman changed the movie industry and basically kick-started the whole idea of shaping various non-traditional properties for big-screen adaptations (something I'll touch upon yet again in a later essay), but it did not usher in a new golden age of comic book films.  

Review: The Last Stand (2013) delivers crowd-pleasing B-movie goods in a genuinely entertaining action adventure.

The Last Stand
2013
109 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

The Last Stand (trailer) is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination.  But even in mid-January, it lays down the gauntlet for providing one of the more overtly crowd-pleasing (and thus successful) genre films to come down the pike in awhile.  The key to this film's success is simple: Director Kim Jee-Woon and writers Andrew Knauer, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and George Nolfi remember the basics to constructing this kind of meat-and-potatoes entertainment.  It's not rocket science, but you'd be shocked how often simple entertainment value gets left in the dust in the quest to construct the biggest and/or baddest genre entry out there.  The Last Stand isn't the biggest of anything.  It's a mid-budget B-movie action picture set in a small town between California and the Mexican border.  But it is filled to the gills with inventive actions sequences, colorful heroes and appropriately nasty villains.  Everyone knows exactly how seriously to take this material, never getting too reverent but also never descending into pure camp.  It also plays to Arnold Schwarzenegger's relative strengths while doing its best to work around his weaknesses (a look at his very best films).  It may not be art, but its surprisingly splendid entertainment if you're in the mood.