Lawrence & Hoult Reunited... At the Box Office

Jennifer Lawrence recently split from X-Man boyfriend Nicolas Hoult and now they're reunited ...sort of... at the box office. He's a sort of dead heartthrob with a thing for a charismatic blonde in Warm Bodies while she's a charismatic blonde with a thing for a barely living headcase in Silver Linings Playbook.

Top of the Box Office
01 WARM BODIES $19.5 *NEW*
02 HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS  $9.2 (cum. $34.4) 
03 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK  $8.1 (cum. $80.3)  Beau's Review
04 MAMA  $6.7 (cum $58.2) 
05 ZERO DARK THIRTY $5.3 (cum. $77.7)

In other movie/money news: Bullet to the Head, the only wide release going up against the zombie romcom Warm Bodies, came in at #6 which is amusing since that's how you generally kill the walking dead; The Best Picture nominees continue to make a lot of bank in the bottom half of the top dozen box office with those long legs at the box office;  A Royal Affair which is competing with Amour for Best Foreign Film just crossed the $1 million mark in US arthouses, always a significant line for subtitled pictures. Amour has reached $2.5 million, the lowest grossing Best Picture for decades... though it's still in under 100 theaters. (Expansion still in progress. Stay tuned.) Globally speaking it's still slightly behind Caché and The White Ribbon as the most successful Haneke picture. 

What did you see this weekend? Or were you all about The Superbowl?

Box Office Playbook: Jessica vs. Jennifer

As if doing battle like Best Actress Gladiators both Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence are all over the nation's theaters. They'll be horns locked for the next 5 weeks in the media, I'll bet. JLaw was joking about beating JChas to the Oscar on SNL -- too gently? -- but it was Jessica who won the box office. And twice over. The last time I remember that happening was Leonardo DiCaprio at Christmas 2002 I think (Gangs of New York and Catch Me If You Can?)  [UPDATE: Sharp-eyed TFE Reader Brian Z actually reminds us that it happened in 2011 too... also with Jessica Chastain for The Help and The Debt]

On a related side note: I just know I'm going to start calling them Jessica Lawrence and Jennifer Chastain before long; name slippage is coming!

Box Office Top Ten
01 MAMA $28.1 *NEW* Jose likes the wig
02 ZERO DARK THIRTY  $17.6 (cum. $55.9) Top Ten List  
03 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK  $11.3 (cum. $55.3)  Beau's Review
04 GANGSTER SQUAD  $9.1 (cum $32.2) 
05 BROKEN CITY $9 *NEW* 
06 A HAUNTED HOUSE  $8.3  (cum. $29.9)
07 DJANGO UNCHAINED $8.2 (cum. $138.3) More on Django
08 LES MISERABLES $7.8 (cum $130.3) Top Ten List
09 THE HOBBIT $6.4  (cum $287.3)
10 THE LAST STAND $6.3 *NEW* 

In other movie/money news: Skyfall became only the 10th movie to break the $300 million barrier in the US box office this decade (Alice in Wonderland and The Hunger Games are the only non-sequels in that list... though both are franchisey in that remake or kick-off kind of way); Two very expensive movie gambles Life of Pi and Rise of the Guardians will inch over the $100 million mark in the next few days which must be a relief even if it doesn't quite spell "big profit!"; Chasing Ice, a nominee for Best Original Song, crossed the $1 million mark which is a big deal for documentaries; Sony Pictures Classics are still being really conservative with Amour -- it's only in 36 theaters despite 5 Oscar nominations last week though they grossed nearly ½ a million this weekend; And despite nobody caring about it or talking about it whatsoever Tom Cruise's latest actioner Jack Reacher crossed the $75 million mark this weekend... Oscar season always makes it easy to forget that a huge portion of the moviegoing public never even thinks about "Oscar Season".

WEIRD, RIGHT? 

Speaking of the public -- though the specific and not the general --  what did you see this weekend?

the three most popular movie musicals since Cabaret. Les Misérables is nearing their lofty box office heights

P.S. Les Misérables only needs a few more weeks of heat -- which Oscar season will surely provide -- to pass Mamma Mia! and become the third most popular movie musical of the modern era stateside (after Grease & Chicago). Of course the atrocious Mamma Mia! has the absurd distinction of being so popular around the globe (over ½ a billion) that it's actually the most successful modern musical if you include the entire world in your overview. Usually we prefer to be international but Mamma Mia!? Blargh!

Raven Haired "Mama"

Jose here. By the time this weekend's over, Jessica Chastain will have finished taking over the world her latest movies in the first and second spots of the box office (help me out here, has this happened before?), which might not mean she's a money-making sensation (at least not yet) but will undoubtedly expose her brilliance to a broader audience. The Oscar nominated Zero Dark Thirty, whose commercial success is undoubtedly owed to the torture controversy, dropped to second place, while the horror movie Mama is set to open as number one with a figure in the mid-twenty millions

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2013/1/20/raven-haired-mama.html

The Guillermo del Toro-produced movie seems to be a good 'ole "mediocre January horror flick" but it's actually not half bad. I saw it earlier today and was shocked upon realizing I hadn't rolled my eyes a single time. The Chastainite in me wants to say the movie owes itself to her, but in reality, the direction and cinematography seem like a breath of fresh air compared to what this genre has given us lately. [More Chastain after the jump...]

Click to read more ...

Only 261 Days Until "GRAVITY" Drops

Solaris (2002)Remember that blissful time a year ago when we thought we would have Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity in theaters for 2012. It was not to be but the film finally has a release date in October 4th, 2013. There are still no official photos of this movie so enjoy this still of George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh's remake of Solaris (2002), his only previous sci-fi outing. ... unless you'd like to count Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988).

The release date is already crowded with the Vince Vaughn sperm donor comedy The Delivery Man (another sperm donor comedy... I thought we were done with those!), the 3D conversion of Revenge of the Sith, and the corporate thriller Paranoia which pairs young Liam Hensworth with Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford.

Gravity, in case you've forgotten, is an expensive 3D technological marvel (we're told) which is also an experimental dramatic two hander about a medical engineer (Sandra Bullock) and an astronaut (Clooney). The space travellers become stranded, tethered only to one another, when their shuttle is destroyed. Naturally, you need mega stars when your movie is going to cost a fortune and basically stare at the same two faces the whole time. Strangely given the synopsis it's always been reported that this is primarily the actress's show.

2013 is a big comeback year for Bullock after her, uh, big comeback year of 2009 for which she won the Oscar with the mega-hit The Blind Side. She's only made one movie in the interim (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and she wasn't its selling point. Now she has two potential blockbusters looming. The other is the comedy The Heat (79 days away) from the director of Bridesmaids which pairs her as an FBI agent with cop Melissa McCarthy for an action comedy about two women after a drug lord. Last time Bullock led a female FBI comedy, Miss Congeniality, it was so popular a sequel followed.

Gravity might be a trickier sell.

Here's the trailer.

Multiple Zeroes. Dark Thirty

With a post Oscar nominations wide expansion into movie theaters Zero Dark Thirty won a strong $24 million opening weekend. $24 million is chump change for superheroes and cartoons but it's a big deal for contemporary dramas without bankable stars. Put it another way: that's well over what The Hurt Locker earned in its entire theatrical run here in the States. The torture controversy may have soiled ZDT's Oscar winning prospects somewhat (including that surprise snub for Bigelow) but it hasn't hurt it at the box office.

The Top Five This Weekend

Chart repurposed / visually adjusted from Box Office Mojo

Gangster Squad grossed less than the cheapo laughs of A Haunted House once again confirming that the earth is doomed and also that filling your movie with stars doesn't necessarily help (which also means the earth is doomed... at least for those of us who like our movies with movie stars in them.) That said it took Brad Pitt a long time to be considered "bankable" and Ryan Gosling is inching ever upwards. This is his second best opening (after Crazy Stupid Love, which was also jam-packed with fellow stars) though he has yet to star in a $100 + million hit.

Meanwhile Django and Les Miz continue to prove that their hit status is bonafide. With only three weeks in theaters both are well over $100 million and are on their way to very healthy profits, with or without Oscar statuettes.

Fantine may be impoverished and unemployable but Anne Hathaway now has her SEVENTH $100+ million hit.

I've noticed that that really tired annual meme that Oscar hates blockbusters and that general audiences don't like "Oscar-Bait" movies has died this year thank God! That death rattle lasted forever. Your Best Picture lineup this year is more proof that that's only ever been partially true at best and is often misleading. The average gross from this year's crop is $76 million and it's going up every week. Among the nine only (arguably) Silver Linings Playbook has underperformed given it's box office friendly stars / genre but that's only because they opted to pretend it was a tough arthouse sit with that crawling release pattern. Even after the Oscar nominations its still in less than 900 theaters. 

Do you support Oscars economy each year by seeing the nominees in the theaters?