"Australia" another letdown for Nicole Kidman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Maybe Crocodile Dundee should have starred in "Australia."
Twentieth Century Fox appears to have given up on director Baz Luhrmann's latest period epic in North America, and is hoping that foreign sales will rescue the costly picture.
The movie has sold just $44.3 million worth of tickets at the U.S. and Canadian box office after five weekends, and is shaping up to be the latest in a line of disappointments for its star, Nicole Kidman.
The News Corp-owned studio says it hopes "Australia" will reach $50 million domestically. The project cost $130 million and movie theaters generally keep about half of the gross.
"We were hoping to do more in the U.S., but it's tough. There's a lot of competition," said Bert Livingston, Fox's senior vice-president of domestic distribution.
Adding insult to injury, "Australia" failed to get any nomination for the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards. Fox had counted on the recognition to boost its Oscar hopes and to expand the movie beyond its core audience of older women.
This past Christmas holiday weekend, one of the busiest of the year, "Australia" tumbled 10 places to No. 19 with four-day sales of $1.3 million, according to tracking firm Media By Numbers. It played in 711 theaters, down from 2,212 the weekend before. The top film was Fox's canine comedy "Marley & Me," which opened to $50.7 million.
RESPECTABLE OVERSEAS SALES
"Australia" is doing respectably overseas, with ticket sales of about $46 million from 51 countries, Fox said. The top market, naturally, is Australia with $16 million after five weekends. It opened at No. 1 in Spain, France and Germany last weekend, but at No. 3 in Britain.
Foreign sales are crucial as Luhrmann's previous films, 2001's "Moulin Rouge" and 1996's "Romeo + Juliet" each earned about two-thirds of their worldwide hauls outside of North America. By contrast, recent smashes "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" tallied slightly more domestically.
Kidman plays an icy English aristocrat who falls for a cowboy played by compatriot Hugh Jackman as they drive her herd of cattle across the Australian outback during the early days of World War Two.
Reviews were mixed, although critics generally agreed that it looked great.
Despite winning an Oscar in 2003 for "The Hours," Kidman is not a big box office draw. The 41-year-old actress has never headlined a movie that grossed more than $100 million in North America. Her recent flops include "The Invasion" and "Fur." Forbes magazine reported in September that she was Hollywood's most overpaid celebrity.
Fox was hoping "Australia" would make up for a bad summer, when it dropped such bombs as the Eddie Murphy comedy "Meet Dave" and a belated "X-Files" sequel. But the studio enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline, and a spokesman said Australian taxpayers would refund upwards of 40 percent of the film's $130 million cost through a new government subsidy.
Kidman's publicist did not return messages. Luhrmann's publicist referred inquiries to Fox. In an interview two weeks ago with the Hollywood Reporter, Luhrmann likened his movie to "old Hollywood classics" like "Gone with the Wind."
He also said "Australia" was on a similar trajectory as "Moulin Rouge," which ended up with $72 million in North America. But after five weekends in wide release, that film had banked about $60 million and was still playing in 1,271 theaters, according to inflation-adjusted data provided by Box Office Mojo.
BNL's 'HNIC' to debut on New Year's Eve
TORONTO - The Barenaked Ladies' cover of the old "Hockey Night in Canada" theme song will debut on TSN on New Year's Eve.
The bluegrass version of the song - which includes vocals - will air during the first intermission of a game between the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames at 10 p.m. ET.
The group recorded their version of the song last month, following Simple Plan's rock recording of the iconic tune in October.
Barenaked Ladies drummer Tyler Stewart says it was a thrill for him as a die-hard hockey fan to play the song.
In June, CTV acquired the rights to the song, which is officially called, "The Hockey Theme."
It was created by Vancouver-born Dolores Claman in 1968 and was heard on the CBC for decades on "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcasts.
It is now heard on TSN and RDS and will be used during CTV's hockey coverage of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Twilight Was Bigger than Dark Knight?!
Los Angeles (E! Online) – If only Wall Street had bet on Twilight. Or Hannah Montana. Or Kirk Cameron.
With a $167.3 million overall domestic take as Sunday, per Box Office Mojo, Twilight made more than four times its reported $37 million production budget—the best rate of return on any film in the 2008 Top 10, including The Dark Knight.
The Batman epic was a pretty good investment, too, very nearly tripling its gargantuan $185 million budget with a $530.8 million domestic take, Hollywood's second-biggest ever.
Still, The Dark Knight was nothing compared to these off-the-charts performers: High School Musical 3: Senior Year ($89.7 million), which grossed about eight times its $11 million budget; the Hannah Montana concert movie, which made about nine times its $7 million budget; and, Cameron's Fireproof, which cost $500,000 to produce, and made $33.1 million—or, more than 60 times its budget.
Other winners—and losers—of the box-office year that was, per stats from Box Office Mojo and The-Numbers.com:
Winners:
• Titanic. If The Dark Knight couldn't get within even $50 million of the big-boat movie, then maybe it really won't ever be sunk as Hollywood's all-time domestic box-office king.
• Robert Downey Jr. Rising from The Shaggy Dog, Downey was the only star to score two Top 20 live-action hits, Iron Man ($318.3 million) and Tropic Thunder ($110.5 million).
• Will Smith. With apologies to Downey, Smith was the only star to sell a Top 10 movie, Hancock ($227.9 million), solely with his name.
• Women. Tween and teen girls flocked to Twilight. Actresses fronted, or helped front, four Top 20 hits: Sex and the City ($152.6 million), Mamma Mia! ($143.8 million), Wanted ($134.3 million) and Four Christmases ($111.8 million).
• Paris Hilton. Her opus, The Hottie & the Nottie ($27,696), was so not the lowest-grossing movie of the year. In fact, it reigned over films starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (Death Defying Acts, $3,561), Heather Graham (Miss Conception, $1,503) and Nick Stahl (How to Rob a Bank, $711—yes, $711).
In-Betweeners:
• Hollywood. Despite The Dark Knight, overall revenue was down $86.8 million from last year, a drop of about 1 percent. Ticket sales fell even further—a dip of about about 4.25 percent, representing 59.1 million fewer admissions. But, given the nation's economic meltdown, things could have been worse, and, oddly, things got better after Wall Street's collapse in September. "I think the fact that the Industry held its own is remarkable," Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock said.
• Speed Racer. In May, this looked like the flop of the year. Then came the $130 million Australia ($44.3 million gross), and the realization by Disney that Prince Caspian ($141.6 million) wasn't The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ($291.7 million). In the end, Speed was still a bomb—$43.9 million gross; $120 million budget—but it wasn't the bomb.
• Adam Sandler. You Don't Mess with the Zohan ($100 million) didn't bomb, but it didn't clear its $90 million budget by much. Bedtime Stories, which opened on Christmas, isn't bombing, but it isn't Night at the Museum.
• Brendan Fraser. Put him in a $145 million movie, like The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, or a $60 million movie, like Journey to the Center of the Earth, and you get the same result: a so-so $100 million or so gross.
• M. Night Shyamalan. His The Happening ($64.5 million) made more than it cost, but people disliked it about as much as Lady in the Water.
Losers:
• Wallets. The average ticket price hit $7.20, the National Association of Theatre Owners reported on its blog, a new all-time high.
• Blockbusters. Of the year's 24 members of the $100 million club, four failed to match their budgets with their domestic takes alone: Quantum of Solace ($164.3 million gross; $200 million budget); The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian ($141.6 million gross; $200 million budget); The Incredible Hulk ($134.3 million gross; $150 million budget); and, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($102.3 million gross; $145 million budget).
• Prince Capsian. "That one looked like a guaranteed $200 million-plus superhit, with a real chance of surpassing $300 million," Box Office Guru's Gitesh Pandya said in an email. Instead, it might have cost the Narnia trilogy its third leg.
• The X-Files. Fox revived the franchise with a can't-lose $30 million investment only to lose when I Want to to Believe couldn't crack even $21 million.
• 10,000 B.C. ($94.8 million), The Spiderwick Chronicles ($71.2 million), Hellboy II: The Golden Army ($75.8 million) and Mike Myers' The Love Guru ($32.2 million) and every other underperformer.
Here's a look of the top-grossing films of 2008 through Sunday based on numbers compiled by Box Office Mojo:
1) The Dark Knight, $530.8 million
2) Iron Man, $318.3 million
3) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $317 million
4) Hancock, $227.9 million
5) WALL-E, $223.8 million
6) Kung Fu Panda, $215.4 million
7) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $174.9 million
8) Twilight, $167.3 million
9) Quantum of Solace, $164.3 million
1) Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, $154.5 million
(Published Dec. 29th, 2008)
'Terminator' to be preserved in US film registry
WASHINGTON – One of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most famous one-liners will be back for generations to come, now that 1984's "The Terminator" has been selected for preservation in the nation's film archive.
The low-budget film directed by James Cameron set a new standard for science-fiction and made Schwarzenegger, now California's governor, a star. The Library of Congress announced Tuesday morning that it's one of 25 films being added to the National Film Registry. The formal unveiling was scheduled for 8 a.m.
The move will guard Schwarzenegger's deadpan, "I'll be back," against deterioration, along with the sounds and images of the other culturally significant picks. Other titles being added to the registry include the groundbreaking all-black-cast film "Hallelujah" from 1929; Richard Brooks' 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"; and the 1972 film "Deliverance," based on James Dickey's novel about four businessmen on a nightmarish canoe trip in the remote Georgia wildnerness.
"The registry helps this nation understand the diversity of America's film heritage and, just as importantly, the need for its preservation," Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing his 2008 selections. "The nation has lost about half of the films produced before 1950 and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920."
As time passes, older nitrate- and acetate-based films begin to deteriorate, Billington said. The Library of Congress is working to digitize and preserve endangered film and audio files at its new Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, an approximately $250 million facility built in a bunker in the hills near Culpeper, Va.
With Tuesday's additions, the total number of films in the registry will reach 500.
The registry, established by Congress in 1989, works with film archives and movie studios that own the rights to the selected films to ensure original copies are kept safe. It also acquires a copy for preservation in its own vaults among millions of other recordings.
Curators select films based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic significance, saying their picks wouldn't necessarily overlap with those of a movie critic. And some aren't feature films at all: This year's list includes a family's home movie, "Disneyland Dream," which documented a trip to the newly opened park in Anaheim, Calif., in 1956.
"The selection of a title for the registry is not meant to duplicate the Academy Awards or anything like that," said Patrick Loughney, head of the library's audio-visual center.
The library accepted public nominations for the film registry selections online and issued a specific call for lesser-known films, including amateur and home-movie footage.
Some films were selected for their historical value, such as "Hallelujah," the tale of a cotton sharecropper made by MGM as the studio was transitioning from silent to sound films. The 1910 film "White Fawn's Devotion," the oldest film selected this year, was made by James Young Deer. He was the first documented American Indian movie director, a member of the Winnebago tribe.
Other movies inspired the nation during times of trouble, such as "Sergeant York" from 1941, which told the story of a Tennessee pacifist who captured 130 German soldiers in World War I. The film, starring Gary Cooper, was released just months before the United States entered World War II.
Fox says it will try to stop 'Watchmen'
LOS ANGELES – An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will press its case to delay the release of "Watchmen," but a rival studio says it plans to release the film as scheduled.
U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the superhero flick, casting some doubt on its March 6 release date.
Feess said Monday he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues.
Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights for the graphic novel from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner Bros. in February. Warner Bros. contended Fox isn't entitled to distribution.
Warner Bros. said in a statement released Monday afternoon that it won't move the movie's release date and still thinks it will win the case, either at trial or through an appeal.
Dick Clark, 79, is still rockin' New Year's Eve
LOS ANGELES – Four years after a stroke, Dick Clark is relishing the prospect of another New Year's Eve celebration, determined to appear for his 36th year in Times Square. And he's hardly surprised by the current state of the music industry he helped build — he predicted this, after all.
Clark, who turned 79 last month and has been in front of the cameras for 61 years, said in a recent interview by e-mail that his involvement in "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2009," diminished though it may be, is a labor of love and "not really a job."
"Obviously, I'm not able to be as actively involved as I used to be out on the street, up on a platform and interacting with the crowds in Times Square" in New York, Clark wrote. "Thank goodness my friend Ryan Seacrest is able to handle that end of the activity on the show these days.
ABC-TV's 3 1/2-hour live extravaganza will include performances by Natasha Bedingfield, Fall Out Boy, Jesse McCartney, Ne-Yo, Pussycat Dolls, Solange and Robin Thicke. Fergie hosts the Hollywood segments.
Clark woke up with right-side paralysis on Dec. 6, 2004 — "Your life changes overnight," he said. (Regis Philbin filled in for Clark on the New Year's Eve show that year.) Clark still uses a walker or wheelchair, and speaking is difficult.
"I am one of the fortunate ones who survived and have been minimally impaired, so I'm just thankful I'm still able to enjoy this once-a-year treat of bringing in the New Year."
The "American Bandstand" icon and longtime producer of the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Golden Globes has long considered them "my television kids."
He's also watched their ratings plummet in recent years.
"There was a time when they attracted a huge audience," Clark wrote. "The audiences have dropped off as the years have gone by because of increasing television competition.
"What we are seeing is more and more talent and less emphasis on people getting awards. Television's award shows have now become gigantic showcases for variety."
Clark was there at the birth of rock 'n' roll ("American Bandstand" kicked off July 9, 1956), and he's watched dramatic changes in the music industry. Not that those changes would come as much of a surprise.
"I can remember writing an article several years ago where I let my imagination run wild," Clark wrote. "I said we'd see the day when music is delivered directly to our homes, and delivered to us in some form of wireless communication.
"The fun of actually holding a record in our hands will disappear and we'll all have our own individual library of our favorite songs that we'll listen to at home, at work, in the car wherever we happen to go."
These days, Clark divides his time between his Malibu home and Burbank office. There's an hourlong therapy session each morning, then he answers mail and phone calls, attends meetings and reads.
The day ends with his devoted wife Kari.
"My wife and I may join friends for dinner at a restaurant, attend a movie or just grab a bite to eat by ourselves away from home," Clark wrote. "Occasionally, we'll attend a music concert. Recently we've seen Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Frankie Valli and Cher."