There are perhaps no harder Monday mornings than the ones of mid-to-late August, when we all know we're showing up for work weeks where nothing interesting can possibly happen. Distract yourself from the drudgery with the weekend box office numbers, then put your head down and nap until Friday afternoon:
Like a stun-gun set to "wake up" applied directly to your genitals, enjoy the jolt of the weekend box office numbers:
Monday morning! Nope, even saying it with forced enthusiasm doesn't make it seem any less painful. Take your mind off the bleakness with the weekend box office numbers:
Through the Darkness of yet another Monday morning comes the Light of hope: the weekend box office numbers:
· Harry Potter takes in a huge $190.3 million at the international box office in its opening weekend, but the haul still leaves it behind Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Still, Warner Bros. should be able to crank out a passable trade paper ad touting the result as the Best Overseas Opening Weekend of All Time* (*For Fifth Installments Of Franchises Based On Best-Selling Children's Books About A Wizard Academy) [Variety]
· Though Volkswagen executives have been underwhelmed by the results of their product placement deal with NBC Universal, they seem happy with the Touareg 2's upcoming Bourne Ultimatum cameo as The Official Getaway Vehicle of the World's Deadliest Amnesiac Spies, an identification that should help capture the attention of a market segment that has long eluded them. [THR]
· Sicko performs well after expanded release, though the Weinstein Co. would like you to compare the movie to Bowling for Columbine, not his record-setting documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, because global terrorism is an inherently sexier topic than health care reform. Seems fair to us. [Variety]
· THR breaks down the WGA/AMPTP negotiations into three easy-to-understand, likely phases: 1. "Paris peace talks"; 2. The acknowledgment of differences about difficult issues; 3. Fisticuffs, tears, and the total eradication of Hollywood life as we know it. [THR]
· Confronted with the choice of watching a new episode of Big Brother or reruns of Law & Order and Desperate Housewives, viewers make the difficult choice to spend an hour with CBS's scheming houseguests. [Variety]
On this most magical of Monday mornings, carefully remove your wizard's robe, drape it over the back of your desk chair, and begin your week of toiling for Hollywood's version of Lord Voldemort by taking a tour of the weekend's box office numbers:
· Universal Pictures extends its 21-year marriage with Imagine Entertainment, signing a five-year deal that gives the studio first-look access to the fascinating contents of superproducer Brian Grazer's mind through 2013, and which ends a rumored flirtation with those homewreckers at Paramount. [Variety]
· The AMPTP has issued a clarification about its recent "let's nuke the residuals system" musings, a proposal that the Writers Guild is expected to dismiss as merely "crazy," a downgrade from yesterday's "batshit insane." [THR]
· Onetime NBC Messiah Aaron Sorkin has signed on for a three-picture deal with DreamWorks. First up is a script for The Trial of the Chicago 7, a period political piece about the clash between protestors and police at the 1968 Democratic convention that Sorkin was able to adapt from an unaired Studio 60 sketch in which Lobster Boy and new character Pigasus the Immortal argue over who might be the better Yippee candidate for president. [Variety]
· Katherine McPhee is, by far, the hottest American Idol runner-up in Hollywood right now, landing a role in the still-untitled Anna Faris comedy about the Playboy bunny who teaches some lame sorority girls how to unleash their inner tart. In an empowering way! [THR]
We were genuinely curious to see how Paramount handled the tricky matter of composing the boast-copy for its obligatory "Hey, look at how much money we made!" spread in the trades, as Transformers' box office "record,"* while more than impressive enough to earn emperor Brad Grey's subjects a celebratory day off, does require the use of that unwieldy "non-sequel" qualifier.
It's time to accept that Hollywood's Fourth of July vacation is finally over and the rest of the summer awaits; try and put off daydreaming about your Labor Day hiatus long enough to review the weekend box office numbers:
· Casting genius or casting insanity? You make the call*: Jim Carrey will play Scrooge and all three ghosts in a 3-D/motion-capture Robert Zemeckis reimagination of A Christmas Carol for Disney. [*And we bet we know what you're going to say!] [Variety]
· Some more details about Cloverfield, the supertopsecret Paramount/JJ Abrams project introduced to the world by means of a mysterious trailer playing before Transformers. [THR]
· After making meaningless Tuesday box office history, Transformers took in $29.1 million on Wednesday to claim a record of somewhat greater import: The Biggest Fourth of July Ever. [Variety]
· The folks at Nielsen continue to measure summer TV ratings, even on nights when virtually no one is watching. [THR]
· Paramount tries to save Angelina Jolie box office failure A Mighty Heart by cutting its number of screens in half, hoping that this will somehow help the movie build word-of-mouth and extend its run in some markets. [Variety]
This Monday morning is no less painful than any other on the calendar, but at least you only have to survive 48 hours before you're rewarded with a day off. Cling to the weekend box office numbers as you try to make it through the excruciating two days that stand between you and illegal firework displays, backyard barbecues, and egregious midweek drunkenness:
· Aaron Sorkin returns to Broadway with The Farnsworth Invention, a play about the birth of television, the deliciously flawed storytelling medium he recently sought to redeem with a little-seen primetime serial about the life-or-death stakes involved in producing a weekly sketch comedy show. [Variety]
· Thomas Haden Church is in negotiations to join Sandra Bullock in All About Steve, a romantic comedy that should reinvigorate the moribund genre by focusing on the previously unseen pairing (we think?) of a lady who writes crosswords and a CNN cameraman. [THR]
· Michael Moore's Sicko sells out the single NY screen on which it debuted, bringing in $70,000 over the weekend. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, Abbreviated Mid-Level Actresses We Can't Get Excited About Edition: Heroes' Hayden Panettiere signs with WMA, while Julia Stiles hooks up with ICM. [Variety, THR]
· Cartoon Network and Hasbro are co-producing a new Transformers animated series, which will reimagine the property as a "superheroes story" with robots featuring "a lot more human qualities, allowing kids to identify with the characters" they will soon mindlessly consume in an all-new toy line. [THR]
As invigorating as an hourlong, cold Monday morning shower following two sleepless days of binge drinking, your weekend box office numbers:
· Preliminary overnight ratings reveal that The Sopranos finale delivered a big number, stealing viewers from both the Tonys and the NBA finals. [Variety]
· Spring Awakening and The Coast of Utopia clean up at the little-watched (see above!) Tonys, winning eight and seven trophies, respectively. [THR]
· Apparently, cutting out "more than half" of Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun Fat's scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End makes the movie safer for Chinese audiences, who will finally get an opportunity to see it on Tuesday. More bad news: the deletions make the movie even more difficult to follow than its unedited version. [Variety]
· Pirates 3 holds off Ocean's 13 at the international box office, pulling in another (yawn) $51.3 million. [THR]
· "Respected" outlets try to justify their contributions to the Paris Hilton clusterfuck by offering meta commentary on the ongoing "media circus" or with analysis of how the justice system treats the rich and famous. [Variety]
Temporarily put aside the existential despair of your post-Sopranos existence by self-medicating with the weekend box office numbers. It's what Dr. Melfi would want.
Disney has hopefully ended the studio dick-measuring contest over Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest's dueling claims to the record for the biggest worldwide opening (six-day) weekend, splaying its box-office inches across a two-page spread in today's Variety. While the (technically?) triumphant studio's design team was initially going to allow the huge number and curiously tiny #1 WORLDWIDE OPENING OF ALL TIME copy speak for themselves, they couldn't resist surrendering to their cruder instincts with a message taunting their rival and its humbled, slump-shouldered hero.
As you settle back into your ergonomic seats after a well-deserved long weekend, contemplating how a Tuesday morning could feel more hopeless than any Monday ever did, consider stirring some box office numbers into your coffee instead of that heaping teaspoon of rat poison. You'll thank us if you do.
The Second Horseman of the Blockbuster Sequel Apocalypse is now galloping through your local multiplex, so dive behind the candy counter and pray he harvests the souls of that bickering family of four in line behind you. Your weekened box office numbers:
