Box Office: Cameron Diaz Still Sells Tickets
Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 7:00PM Hey kids, it's Nathaniel. Amir is busy Hot Doc'ing it up in Toronto (yet another springtime festival!) so I'm here to quickly recite the box office chart. The producers of the Christmas release Annie (previously discussed) must have breathed a huge sigh of relief at the box office receipts for The Other Woman in which Diaz and her two new frenemies (Leslie Mann & Kate Upton) plot to destroy Jaime Lannister who is sleeping with all of them on the down low. Yep, people will stay come out in droves for Cameron Diaz in comic mode. Annie will open big... it's got several marketing hooks even before you get to audience love for funny Cam.
I haven't yet seen The Other Woman yet but I hear it's quite regressive. Consider this scathing provocatively titled review at The Stranger...
The point of this movie is not sisterhood, but making sure women band together in the name of heterosexual competition. Cameron Diaz is too sexy, Leslie Mann is too frumpy, and Kate Upton is boobs, but boobs that are not good enough to keep a man goddammit. Nicki Minaj joins this horror show as the Sassy Black Secretary™ (it’s 2014, right?)...
THE TOP TEN
01 THE OTHER WOMAN $24.7 *NEW*
02 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER $16 (cum. $224.8) Review
03 HEAVEN IS FOR REAL $13.8 (cum. $51.9)
04 RIO 2 $13.6 (cum. $96.1)
05 BRICK MANSIONS $9.6 *NEW*
06 TRANSCENDENCE $4.1 (cum. $18.4)
07 THE QUIET ONES $4 *NEW*
08 BEARS $3.6 (cum. $11.1)
09 DIVERGENT $3.6 (cum. $139.4) Review
10 A HAUNTED HOUSE 2 $3.2 (cum. $14.2)
In addition to Tribeca Film Festing, I went to Estelle Parson's new play The Velocity of Autumn in the hopes of catching at least one potential Tony Best Actress nominee before the announcement. But get this: Estelle called out sick so I was stuck with an understudy! The understudy wasn't bad and I liked the play about a very old very cantankerous lady armed with molotov cocktails in her Park Slope brownstone because her children want to put her in a nursing home. And yet it's so obviously a star vehicle (there are only two characters, Tony winner Stephen Spinella plays her son) that I was missing the expert comic timing of the Oscar-winning Parsons throughout. She would have maximized the punchlines and elevated it. The understudy switcheroo hasn't happened to me in a long time though so I made my peace with the theater gods quickly 'bout it. They've been good to me for the past several years and we've all called out sick from work in our lifetimes.
But I still fear the Tony nominations on Tuesday because I've seen like nothing that will be nominated this year. I was concentrating on Off Broadway too much I guess.
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?
Reader Comments (35)
Which movie is it you hear is quite regressive ? Annie or The Other WOMAN?
Nat, can you clear something up please? Is "Annie" quite regressive or "The Other Woman?" I think you meant the latter but it wasn't clear. Or maybe its all the tornado watches and sightings clouding my mind. Its madness out here in the mid west.
I went to watch Brick Mansions with lots of sentimental feeling as this is marketed as "the last Paul Walker" movie (but weirdly though, aren't we still seeing him in the upcoming Fast & Furious movie that he half filmed?), but I ended up can't take my eyes off David Belle.
I saw Locke, which is a great reminder to never judge a movie by its trailer. The trailer gave me a completely different impression of what the movie would be like. I went in expecting to hate it and LOVED it, such an incredible movie. My second favourite film of the year after Grand Budapest Hotel.
I also saw Tracks (so beautiful, and Mia is great), and Transcendence - which was such complete and utter crap.
Me & Henry - yikes. sorry. that was poorly punctuated. The post is fixed. The Other Woman (regressive) was supposed to start a new paragraph
PJ -- yeah, he's in the next F&F movie since his brothers are completing the scenes he didn't finish (I assume in longshot or as glorified stand-ins... unless the Walker parents had triplets.)
If it had to be called Lee Daniels' The Butler because there was a silent short from the early 1900's already called The Butler why isn't it Nick Cassavetes' The Other Woman since there was a movie entitled The Other Woman staring Natalie Portman less than five years ago?
I liked The Other Woman -- not nearly as terrible as it looked. It's got some great NY real estate porn, if nothing else.
Damn it! If it happens to me with Turner next month, I swear I burn down the theatre! I hate understudies. I get them in musicals or in plays with a large ensemble, but with only two characters it's just dishonest.
I saw Le passé. I really really liked it. I'm surprised that you and Nick didn't.
Jonn -- And if I remember correctly, Nathaniel LOVED the Natalie Portman one ;)
It technically wasn't the weekend, but I did see A Haunted House 2 on Thursday. My brother wanted to go. We saw the original and laughed. I laughed at this one, too, but not as much. Both films are terrible, This one only really worked for me in the Sinister parody that pointed out some pretty big flaws in the demonic snuff films that drove the story.
I also revisited Cat People a couple times going into the weekend. I reviewed it for my weekly column at Man, I Love Films and then just kept rewatching it. Such a fan of that one. I say the two balance out.
Jonn -- well, lots of films have the same title. I think the problem with The Butler was that warner bros got their panties in a bunch or something. Normally studios don't care and don't protest. I think it must have been some weird personal vendetta behind the scenes because nobody could confuse a black and white silent short with a 2013 historical race epic.
Seeing Audra McDonald in Lady Day on Thursday night. God help me if she's sick. By all accounts she has that sixth Tony locked up.
I saw 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at the Seattle rep. Pamela Reed, who plays Leslie Knope's mom, was Martha, and she was fantastic.
I actually saw BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY on Broadway. I have a friend who has already seen in 5x so I had super high expectations, so I was slightly disappointed it didn't blew my mind. Still think O'Hara was fab.
The Cameron Diaz movie might not have done so well if it had ANY competition..
Knowing when to release a film is mighty important...
Years ago I took my mom to the revival of The Man of La Mancha when Brian Stokes Mitchell was starring in it, and ended up getting stuck with the understudy. In that case it actually turned out fine - the understudy was phenomenal.
I watched a lot of stuff this weekend. On Netflix I watched Pocahontas (thanks, Hit Me...) and Interior. Leather Bar. Not back to back, I'm not that cheeky.
In theaters, I saw Boyhood, We are the Best, and Starred Up at the IFF Boston film festival - all three were outstanding. On the evidence here (and I'm not even talking about the nude scenes - really!), Jack O'Connell is going to turn heads big time in that Jolie WWII movie.
I was going to see Dear White People tonight but couldn't make the screening in time, so I went to see Bears, the Disney Nature doc instead. It was cute, and as an added bonus, a courtly German man who sounded like Werner Herzog quietly narrated the movie for his special needs son for the entirety of the running time. It could have been really annoying, but it was actually quite charming and the German dude was an excellent storyteller. His narration was far better than John C. Reilly's!
My Aunt and Uncle loved loved loved "Bullets Over Broadway" the new musical. Laugh out loud funny, especially a double entendre song called "the Hot Dog Song".
I, OTOH, finally saw "Munich" which most definitely not was laugh out loud funny, but tense and depressing. Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence begets...
Wait 'til Cersei gets her hands on those "Other Women"!!!
I wanted to see "The Other Woman" until I heard reservations about it being transphobic. That being said -- I kind of want to champion it, if only because this seems like a smaller case of when everybody was surprised that the first "Sex and the City" movie had such great box office.
Guess what? Women want to go to movies just as much as 17-year-old boys do. And when you smartly market a movie towards women, THEY WILL BUY TICKETS TO YOUR MOVIE.
I would recommend The Other Woman! There's nothing extraordinary about the story or dialogue, but I always find relationships and the pursuit of happiness interesting, and this movie explores that. Leslie Mann is also very very good here!
There's some really touching moments and some incredibly fun and hilarious ones! It mightn't be exhilarating or ground-breaking, but if you want to go the cinemas, I'd say it's worth the watch!
Timing is all.
I'm glad Diaz has a hit again, because The Counselor flopped badly, didn't it?
Jennifer Aniston also still sells tickets. Jolie will too in Malificient very soon. (okay, she's not over 40... yet)
Reviews only matters when it comes to awards traction, but for making money, they mean nothing at all.
All i can say no matter how regressive Blanchett was right women will come out for certain female stars in the right role,its pretty obvious Cameron is the new Sandra Bullock,i am sensing a gg comedy nod for Annie,if she could just find that right dramatic role,it's very hard in h/wood after 16 years of fame to still at 40 top the box office,you have to hand it to her and she promoted the hell out of it too,she has sex tape later this summer too,so 2014 maybe cam's year/.
Boyhood at IFF Boston; what a great movie. Also very pleasant to be in a very large theater with other cinephiles and no one on their effing phones! (Or chatting, or rattling candy wrappers, or slurping...)
Also, finally got to see Book of Mormon. And heard another interview with Robert Lopez and Kristine AndersonLopez--those two are so hilarious they should get their own movie!
I did not get to a theater this weekend :-(
...but I must say that Estelle Parsons is HILARIOUS in The Velocity of Autumn.
I, too, am frightened of the Tony nominations because I haven't seen ANYTHING this season, which hasn't happened very often recently. This is what I get for leaving my job in the the theatre for something that actually pays a decent salary.
I saw The Other Woman, hoping for a sliver of joy that The First Wives Club gave me. One of the biggest cinematic mistakes of my life.
I think we should champion the 40 plus actresses and hopefully better projects get the green light that maybe tfe readers want to see u know something with Joan Allen AND Patricia clarkson as lead and maybe Jane fonda as one of their Mothers and Sigourney maybe as a sister or friend,Holly hunter in a sharp cameo,i cna dream can;t I.
Speaking of women and age in Hollywood, I saw "Searching for Debra Winger" this weekend. It was interesting, if not as great as I wanted it to be. Arquette is only a so-so interviewer. While the focus is what happens to actresses once they hit 40, I was surprised she only spoke to maybe 3 women well past that point (Jane Fonda, Terri Garr and Vanessa Redgrave). It's disappointing that she didn't, for whatever reason, also talk to Streep, Close, Mirren, etc., and ask them how they survived what's usually been a dry period in an actress' career.
But what was impressive was her determination to really speak to as many women as possible who were somewhere around 40, dining with less-obvious choices like Martha Plimpton and Ally Sheedy or cornering Frances McDormand in a bathroom. And since it was shot in 2002, it's a time capsule of what women were popular then that are mostly forgotten now. (Hi, Meg Ryan!)
Plus it's always entertaining to just see this many talented women talk about the craft and their lives.
DJDeeJay--speaking of Debra Winger, her conversation with Alec Baldwin on his now-cancelled MSNBC show, was pretty great. I'm sure you can find it in the archives somewhere.
I love Cameron Diaz, but damn does she make a lot of bad movies. But her comic instincts are usually on the money--I was shocked how she turned Bad Teacher into something that was more than just watchable. That's a showcase for some brilliant comic timing.
But Leslie Mann does nothing for me.
I think Diaz's appeal is because she appears approachable. As if you could walk up to her in the street and have fun. Renee Z is just the opposite, which is, I believe, part of why she has faded.
When you see Diaz on talk shows, which she doesn't shy from doing, its always a good interview. She comes prepared with stories to tell, which gives her control of the interview, plugs her project shamelessly.....(I can always tell if its a turkey or if it has legs by how much time she spends talking about the project as opposed to something silly in her life).....and she never seem scared. Mirren does the same, ditto Streep, Close, Douglas, Clooney, Affleck.........and it has to appear genuine. Kidman is shy, but its a real shyness and even though she is somewhat reticent to talk, its a genuine shyness that comes across so you want to take care of her. Renee is a cold fish.
If you want people to like you, spend money to see you, you have to give something back and Diaz does that in spades.
Somebody please help me process Under The Skin. I saw it last night and I can't tell if I liked it or hated it.
anne marie -- the best i can do for now is the recent podcast when we all talk about loving it and why... but i have been meaning to write something more in detail but it's difficult to write about as you can imagine .
I saw plenty this weekend. I watched Only Lovers Left Alive which I liked more than i thought i would have. I also saw Shame which I thought was excellent. how on earth did Fassbender and Mulligan not get nominated for Oscars? was it the NC-17 rating i guess? I rewatched Maria full of grace which is still as impressive as it was 10 years ago. somebody needs to find Catalina Sandeno Moreno some great roles in Hollywood. Compliance was one of the most riveting films that i have ever seen and is EXACTLY the kind of thriller that people should be talking about. I also watched one of the few Bette Davis films that i never had the chance to see The Great Lie which was good a little over the top (not that there is anything wrong with that). I also saw Sound Of My Voice which left me somewhat disappointed but Brit Marling's work was very impressive.
I watched Heaven Can Wait again and man does that one hold up...that last scene kills me. Also watched Orca, first time all the way through. Above average for the creature feature genre. Charlotte Rampling makes one glamorous oceanographer.
I saw The Missing Picture, and I have to admit-not a fan. The story was so repetitive, and the film doesn't really make you care about the subject. The "gimmick" worked, and worked well in some cases, but you could sense that even in a group of cinephiles it wasn't landing.