Celebrate this Columbus Day like you would any other Monday: by drowning out the sorrows of another seemingly endless week of indentured servitude with the box office numbers:
HarveyMania! The Weinstein Co. finds a home for their book business in Little, Brown and Warner Books, partners with international distributor UIP for releases in the UK, and has a variety of exciting film projects on tap, including Untitled Rob Marshall Musical and the Denzel Washington-directed Great Debaters. Hurray for Weinsteins! [Variety]
· Eric "Dr. McSteamy" Dane gets a regular gig on Grey's Anatomy, giving his character a full season to pit his abs against those of rival Dr. McDreamy. In the end, we suspect, there will only be room at the hospital for one cutely nicknamed, hunky doctor, and Grey's producers will have to find a new exotic disease or gory, freak accident with which to dispatch the newcomer. [THR]
Foreign moviegoers prefer World Trade Center's tragic rubble to Adam Sandler's magical remote, as WTC tops Click at the international box office. [Variety]
· Showtime extends its upcoming free preview weekend by offering programs to Yahoo users, hoping to hook the broadband crowd on its lineup of pot-selling soccer moms and lipstick lesbians. [THR]
Fox Atomic's upcoming, sequeltastic slate includes 28 Days Later, The Hills Have Eyes 2, and a remake of Revenge of the Nerds. Atomic was created to produce cheap films targeted to teens, who market testing has proven "totally hate" any idea they haven't seen before. [Variety]
On this solemn day of atonement, meditate on the box office results, the numerical manifestation of God's love on Earth:
Remove your shoes and soak your feet in a tub full of the warm, soothing waters of the weekend box office numbers:
As Seth helpfully informed you on Thursday, I spent an intense weekend learning about the heretofore unexplored erotic possibilities of private aviation at the John Travolta Flight Academy, studying under the master himself. Unfortunately, a fairly comprehensive nondisclosure agreement prevents me from divulging his trade secrets, but I am allowed to say this: At first, you may question how 24 hours of stripping off your cadet's uniform (no, the hot pants aren't optional), being slathered in baby oil, and getting chased around the cabin by an instructor trying to cover your glistening body in handfuls of pink feathers is going to teach you to fly a jet. But on the second day, the genius of Captain Travolta's unconventional methods really pay off.
· After the studio dabbled in the unsexy world of distributing and marketing "mid-range indie pics," MGM head Harry Sloan is ready to restore The Lion to its rightful place as a mega-budgeted sequel factory that will pump out blockbuster product like new Terminator, Pink Panther, and Hobbitt movies. [Variety]
Spike Lee stretches his creative wings, following up his HBO documentary on the post-Katrina New Orleans with a pilot script for a drama series about post-Katrina New Orleans. [THR]
This weekend's box office take was the lowest of any weekend in three years, a slowdown that experts attribute to "shitty movies that no one wants to see. Especially that Renny Harlin one." [Variety]
Fox orders a presentation of a potential late-night talk show starring The Sopranos' Steven "Bobby Bacala" Schirripa to fill a development void left by the abrupt cancellation of its The Big Pussy Domestic Violence Hour earlier this year. [THR]
As the America's Next Top Model writers strike drags on with no end in sight, WGA members debate whether or not it's a good idea to continue to commit resources to their expensive occupation of the sidewalk outside the Top Model offices. [Variety]
Exhale a sigh of despair into your first cup of coffee of the work week, knowing that a movie you've likely never heard of topped the box office.
In a conference call explaining Tom Freston's exit from Viacom, a displeased Sumner Redstone let on that he was "like, Tom-Cruise-shitcanning pissed" that Freston let MySpace slip through their fingers and get snapped up by rival Rupert Murdoch. [Variety]
And just because repetition is fun, here's THR noting the same thing from the conference call. [THR]
Studios embrace box office mediocrity, as their collective summer tally is up six percent this year over last thanks to middle-performing, lower-budgeted films. [Variety]
· The studios urge the Guilds not to prematurely complain about the screwing they're getting while the networks "experiment" with streaming content, assuring them that once the platform becomes a viable retail option like downloading, they'll figure out a way to give them the same, unsatisfying ass-fucking they're taking on iTunes residuals. [THR]
· Realizing that even a limited corporate sponsorship of its Path to 9/11 minseries might make the network seem like tragedy-exploiting whores, ABC decides to go with a commercial-free broadcast. [Variety]
One has to wonder what crime Mike Judge perpetrated against Fox to make them bury Idiocracy so deep that not even Moviefone can tell you what it's called, much less where you could have found one of the 130 theaters where the studio was quietly hiding prints of the film. Fox's "we dare you to see this movie" strategy paid off handsomely, as Idiocracy pulled in $160,000 (and a "dismal" per-screen average of $1,231), a result they can say was predicted by a test audience comment card complaining, "Hey, this movie is calling us dumb! I don't like that very much. But can you really get a handjob at Starbucks? I gotta order one of those."
Wow, we really weren't expecting that Sumner Redstone would feed again so quickly, especially before anyone had returned to their desks following the Labor Day holiday, but you have to admit that the guy really knows how to grab the headlines. Shake off the trauma of unexpected corporate upheaval with the weekend box office numbers. —Mark
With so much to cover this morning, this is no time for tall tales about how I spent my one-day vacation. I'll say this about my absence, and no more: after five hours in a chair with a surgical laser trained on the most sensitive of areas, my "children" have been completely resurfaced. Beauty is pain. Exquisite pain. —Mark
If you're looking for someone to feel sorry for in the aftermath of Snakes on a Plane's disappointing™ opening weekend, we ask that you look past Samuel L. Jackson, whose Snakes on Two Planes sequel pay raise has been imperiled, or the bloggers who may never again find themselves flown out to fancy Hollywood premieres and handed expensive electronic tokens of appreciation for their viral hitmaking ability, and consider doling out some compassion for New Line's president of distribution, who had to face the media after a disputed $15 million first-place showing:
There's no point in sugar-coating it, so we'll just come out and say it: The box office numbers don't love you anymore.
The weekend was a bittersweet blur of cheap Tijuana tequila, twenty-five cent lapdances from a pregnant stripper, and the gentle braying of the featured performer at finest donkey show you could find while half-blind from margarita poisoning. Prevent those memories from ever completely surfacing by meditating on the box office numbers.
You already know how miserable Monday mornings are, so we'll dispense with a cute description of your fresh hell and go straight to the box office numbers:
Enjoy the box office numbers, the comforting bottle of tequila riding shotgun on your drunken, high-speed, anti-Semitic thrill ride through Malibu:
In a refreshingly bold stand against the last-place mediocrity that has plagued his network, NBC's Kevin Reilly promises this season's ratings will be "better" and that "we will not be mired in fourth week after week." Here's to the heady feeling of accomplishment derived from occasionally scrambling into third place! [Variety]
Tina Fey leaves behind the SNL Weekend Update desk to focus on her SNL-based sitcom, 30 Rock. Rachel Dratch joins in the defection, which will mercifully bring an end to the era of Debbie Downer's feline AIDS jokes. [THR]
Pirates 2 takes in another $62 million internationally, with openings in Spain, Germany, Italy, and France—all major centers of pirate interest—still to come. [Variety]
Whether you call them "geeks," "nerds," or "virgin fanboys," the 100,000 Comic-Con attendees once again proved to be voracious, enthusiastic consumers of any preview footage that studios dragged down to San Diego. [THR, Variety]
Lifetime will pay $1.2 million per episode for Grey's Anatomy reruns, hoping that skinny star Ellen Pompeo will slot in nicely with the rest of the network's anorexia-based fare. [Variety]
Enjoy the weekend box office numbers, more refreshing than an unauthorized, naked swim in a neighbor's pool to beat the current hell-on-earth heatwave.
· Warner Bros. TV and Paramount have thrown giant piles of cash at M:i:III director/Lost creator JJ Abram to lock up his Bad Robot production company for TV and film development deals, respectively. Click through to the link at the end of this sentence to hear the sound of various WB and Paramount big-shots clapping themselves on the back for their amazing, visionary ability to write enormous checks. [Variety]
· Hoping to capitalize on the success of their hit Kyra Sedgwick series The Closer, TNT is in talks with Holly Hunter to go basic-cable slumming in the TNT pilot Grace, sort of a combination between Touched by an Angel and, um, The Closer. Hey, no one ever said there's a correlation between original thought and Nielsen ratings. [THR]
· Pirates 2 takes the ten-day box office record, but fails to set the mark for the biggest second weekend record, only notching a third-place finish in that category. You may now commence vomiting in shock at this disappointing shortfall. [Variety]
· Hold that reverse peristalsis! Pirates 2 rolls up $58 million this weekend at the international box office. [THR]
CBS's Nina Tassler admits that Grey's Anatomy's move to Thursdays may "ding" CSI, is immediately called into boss Les Moonves' office to have the soles of her feet beaten with a bamboo rod for showing even the slightest sign of weakness. [Variety]
Enjoy the weekend box office numbers, the numerical representation of what Americans did immediately following their ceremonial storming of the Bastille on Friday:
