B.O.R.E.D.
Page 1 of 1

That's mate sandwich, mine!
Apparently some people are having difficulties in understanding the seagulls in Finding Nemo. The seagulls have only one word in their vocabulary: mine. However, some people are hearing through the Australian accent "mate" instead of "mine." One must be glad of how few animated films Disney have been made in Australia (just two counting Nemo) because otherwise you might have had some more problems. Imagine people thinking Ratcliffe was telling his crew to "mate, mate, mate" or the dwarfs singing about working in "a diamond mate."

When nature calls . .. then. . .well. . .see Brother Bear?
While walking through Downtown Disney the other day I saw a poster advertising Brother Bear. The tag-line read "Nature calls." Now maybe it's just my background but the first thing that came to mind when I read that was using the facilities. I'm pretty sure that was not what the advertising campaign had in mind. Then I began to think, back in the day movie posters didn't just have to have 4 or less words on them, they used to give a more detailed description of the film. For example Pinnochio used, "For anyone who has wished upon a star" which comes in at a whopping 8 words in the tag-line. More recently, Lilo and Stitch had "There's one in every family." which was 5 words and Treasure Planet had "Find your place in the universe." which was 6 words (maybe that's why it went so overbudget). Anyway, after spending way too much brain power thinking about this I decided to go through many of the films and give it the sort of catchy/clever/word play-like tag-line modern marketers would give them:

Classic movie quote of the week: "Ooooh. . .you must be Grumpy." - Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Tragic movie quote of the week: "If we die, I'll kill you!" - Teresa from Secret of Nimh 2

Box office trivia: Beauty and the Beast's total was 15 times it's first weekend. By comparison Finding Nemo will not make 5 times. Finding Nemo though, made almost 8 times what Beauty and the Beast made it's first weekend. It just goes to show how front-loaded the current box office is.

This weekend
Just in case there weren't enough films out already, in come 5 new releases. None of the newcomers have been met with strong reviews, which isn't surprising considering the time of year this is. Generally the weaker films are released during this time and at the beginning of the year.

Underworld has somewhat limited appeal as dark/gothic films don't generally do too well in the box office. It also has an "R" rating which will limit some teenagers who might otherwise see it. Even with all these factors it should be a piece of cake for Underworld to claim the top prize this weekend. I'm guessing it should do around $20.4 million, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it do better. Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a tri-quel, the third in a trilogy, so a rather sharp 47% decline to $12.5 million seems about right.

This weekend Paramount offers The Fighting Temptations, a film about a gospel choir, to the movie-going public. The studio is in need for a successful production and it looks like this film might be able to pull that off in part due to it's smaller budget. The film could pull in as much as $13.1 million.

There seems to be a rule lately that every weekend has to have some horror film release. Maybe it's bad timing but you would think the studios would have spaced out the releases a bit more. Cold Creek Manor from Disney appears to be Disney's first question mark this year for profitability. Not a very big one though, considering the budget of the film probably was not that large. With an over-saturation of horror films lately, I would be surprised to see Cold Creek Manor pull in more than $9.1 million.

Matchstick Men should enjoy good word-of-mouth to help it ease down about 35% to $8.5 million.

Secondhand Lions is a difficult film to predict. On the one hand the previews have been rather dreary and don't promise very much excitement. On the other hand you have Hayley Joel Osment, Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. It's a strange mix of genres and a somewhat off-beat premise and I don't really think the average audience is going to go for the film. Released by New line Cinema, Secondhand Lions might take in around $8.1 million.

With the added horror competition of Cold Creek Manor and the general front-loaded nature of horror films, I expect Cabin Fever to drop a harsh 54% to $4 million.

Even with the new releases Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't seem to have too much competition for it's audience. That being said it should drop a tiny 18% and pull in $3.8 million.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star might slip about 36% to $3.2 million.

The Woody Allen release Anything Else will round out the top 10 with about $2.9 million.

Top 10

Last Weekend
I think I did very well last weekend, with only Dickie Roberts preforming way above my expectations (where did those legs come from anyway?). Here's how I did:

If it was Disney film. . . Secondhand Lions would be about the Legend of the Lion King floats migration to Animal Kingdom

Discuss It