Tagged: Eagle Eye

‘Chihuahua’ is #1 for 2nd Week in a Row

quarantinesmall-7876604Dogs continue to rule the box office as Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua takes the top spot for the second week in a row, earning $17,511,000, burying the competition.  The second spot went to Fox’s Quarantine, a remake of the Spanish film REC, which debuted with $14,200,000.

Surprisingly, Body of Lies, starring Russell Crow and Leonardo DiCaprio opened in third with just $13, 120,000.  A serious box office disappointment, the film received mixed to negative reviews despite the captivating perofmances.

Audiences, instead, seemed to want lighter fare as the economic woes spread from coast to coast.  The action thriller, Eagle Eye, dropped just 37.8% and brought in an additional 11, 015,000, bringing its three week total to $70,551,000, confirming Shia LaBeouf as our latest action star.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist rounds out the top five with another $6,500,000, bringing it to $20,810,000 after two weeks.

Other new releases fared less well as Universal’s The Express opened in sixth place with just $4,731,000. Fox’s City of Ember, with Bill Murray, also opened poorly with just $3.2 million.

Showing slight drop offs were Appaloosa with $3,340,000 and Nights in Rodanthe taking in $4,610,000.

Several major releases have proven disappointing to the studios including Greg Kinnear’s Flash of Genius, which has brought in just Flash of Genius after two weeks, and Miracle at St. Anna, which has only $7,427,000 after three weeks of play.

And for the record, The Dark Knight is a mere $12 million shy of the $1 billion worldwide mark and continues to play across the globe, probably crossing that threshold this month.

Science Fiction Sequel Talk

If they had their way, the folks at Amblin Entertainment would enjoy nothing more than to use that memory-scrubbing flash doohickey to make you forget all about Men in Black II.

"There’s been some conversations, just recently actually, because I don’t think we did the best possible job on the second one," producer Walter F. Parkes once told Cinema Confidential. "It would be great to pull the franchise back."

Apparently, now might be that time. A source close to Parkes tells Parade Magazine that Parkes is looking to get the gang back together for another round.

"The challenge is getting the script right and finding a time when our busy stars are available," the source says. "But everyone, including Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, wants to do another."

Those aren’t the only Men making a possible comeback. Slash Film reports that Eagle Eye co-writer Travis Wright is developing a sequel to Blade Runner. The script is being written independently without any sort of studio involvement. At this point, Blade Runner 2 is a pet project without major backing, and is likely to be shut down faster than a blade runner dispatches a replicant. Which, on second thought, isn’t necessarily that fast…

Potential Men in Black and Blade Runner sequels join the increasing list of follow-ups to long gestating franchises such as Ghostbusters and Tron, both of which announced development on new installments over the past few months.

Special thanks to Moviehole for the report.

Paramount to use Mobile Comics

Paramount Pictures is embracing the mobile content aspect of movie marketing by hiring Singapore-based Omnitoons to craft comic stories based on current films.  According to Variety, the first film will be Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, a British feature from Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham). The movie is currently in release throughout Europe but lacks a domestic release date.

The Manga-style stories will appear on enabled phones in single panel manner with each strips taking up to four screens and short stories up to 20 screens. The next release to receive this treatment will be the Shia LaBeouf actioner Eagle Eye. Mission: Impossible, not currently an active film franchise, was also mentioned in the story indicating Paramount is examining their library for appropriate series to work with.

The mobile comics are now available in MMS and J2ME formats in the U.S., Australia, Europe and India. The phone companies will likely treat these promotional comics as premium content and will charge users for downloading each installment.

"By adapting movies to the mobile comics format, we believe fans will be able to extend their entertainment experience at their own pace, with the privacy of their phone," Karen New, CEO of Omnitoons, told the trade. "Omnitoons aims to continue our pursuit of bridging the mobile and movie industries by creating even more comics based on popular film titles through innovative and cost-efficient techniques.”