NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Let's call this weekend what it is: some cold proof that Judd Apatow's hot streak is over.

There are many metrics you can choose from after the underwhelming $23.4 million take this weekend of the writer/director/producer's "Funny People."




A few:

* This will likely be the eighth straight movie that Apatow produced that failed to top $100 million. ("Step Brothers" and "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," the latter of which he also wrote, just reached the mark but didn't surpass it.)

* Opening weekend has been a hallmark of Apatow in his robust years. But only two of these past eight films opened to at least $30 million -- after the three previous pictures all did.

* This month marks exactly two years since Apatow Prods. had a bona fide breakout along the lines of a "Talladega Nights" or "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" -- the Greg Mottola-directed "Superbad," which earned $121 million.

* After "Virgin" and "Knocked Up," Apatow was touted for his rare ability to bring overseas audiences to U.S. comedies. That was then, this is now. Outside of "Zohan," none of his previous seven pictures have topped $150 million internationally. "Funny People" isn't likely to change that.

Of course, it's worth bearing in mind that Apatow is in many ways a victim of his own success, and the high bar that success has set. A $60 million or $70 million comedy, as many have been (and "Funny People" may still be) is still good. It's just not Apatow good.

The line has been that Apatow should be judged first by what he directs, not necessarily what he produces -- after all, the writers, directors and actors Apatow Prods. has incubated are branching out, and it's harder to ensure consistent success when you're trying to establish something new. But "Funny People" puts a ding in that argument -- it's not likely to reach the $109 million of "Virgin" or the $149 million of "Knocked Up."

The weekend box office makes the recent news about Apatow's three-picture production deal at Universal so notable. It also makes you wonder how the studio will market/fare with the next Apatow Factory product, "Get Him to the Greek," which reunites "Forgetting Sarah Marshall's" Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller behind the camera and Jonah Hill and Russell Brand in front of it.

As for Apatow himself, what he does next as a writer-director is anyone's guess. From a commercial standpoint, it's tempting, after the dramatic ambitions of "Funny People," to say he should go more broadly comedic. Except we'd argue that the dramatic elements actually are what seem fresh in this movie (it's the Apatow-ian broad stuff/d@&k jokes that are starting to feel a little old).

Besides, the character-driven material is exactly what gave juice to his first breakout, "Virgin," which was a comedy with a strongly defined person at the center and a touch of the serious (only with the theme of chastity instead of mortality). Come to think of it "Knocked Up" -- also "long," incidentally -- had some of those elements too. So this wasn't as off-brand as some would have it.

The man who wore the Apatow crown when JA was still toiling in TV actually has had a similar trajectory. Todd Philips, working at a time before the R-rated comedy was in vogue, had two breakouts in a three-year span ("Road Trip" and "Old School"). He then endured a five-year dry spell with comedies like "School for Scoundrels" before returning in a big way this year.

For Apatow, this weekend demonstrates that the party may be over. Now he may be ready for his "Hangover."

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By: MadSkillz | On: Tue Aug 04, 09 2:38 PM

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LOS ANGELES - It's the biggest movie of the summer that practically no one has seen.

"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" opens Friday, but Paramount Pictures isn't screening the blockbuster for critics beforehand. Only a select few writers from blogs and movie Web sites have seen it for review — such as Harry Knowles, the self-professed "Head Geek" from Ain't It Cool News — and their opinions have been mostly positive.




Instead, the studio says it's intentionally aiming the movie at the heartland, at cities and audiences outside the entertainment vortexes of New York and Los Angeles. Paramount held a screening Friday for 1,000 military service members and their families at Andrews Air Force Base; it's also focusing marketing efforts in places like Kansas City, Charlotte, N.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

While appealing to a sense of patriotism nationwide, the plan also is inspired by the disparity that existed between the critical trashing "Transformers: Rise of the Fallen" received and the massive crowds it drew at the box office.

"`G.I. Joe' is a big, fun, summer event movie — one that we've seen audiences enjoy everywhere from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Phoenix, Ariz.," said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures. "After the chasm we experienced with `Transformers 2' between the response of audiences and critics, we chose to forgo opening-day print and broadcast reviews as a strategy to promote `G.I. Joe.' We want audiences to define this film."

With a reported production budget of $175 million and a cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Marlon Wayans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "G.I. Joe" follows the adventures of an elite team using high-tech spy and military equipment to take down a corrupt arms dealer. It comes from director Stephen Sommers, whose previous films include "The Mummy" and "Van Helsing."

Long before anyone saw the completed product, though, "G.I. Joe" drew mixed buzz at best for its trailer, which premiered during the Super Bowl. Now it's the final action picture of the summer — and it has a lot in common with the highest-grossing film so far this year, the "Transformers" sequel. Both are effects-laden spectacles based on Hasbro toys and both are Paramount releases from producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

"Transformers" has gone on to gross more than $388 million in the United States alone since its opening six weeks ago, despite receiving just 20 percent positive reviews on the Web site Rotten Tomatoes, a critical aggregator. The withholding of "G.I. Joe" from mainstream critics suggests that the studios believe they can succeed at the box office without them.

It's a tactic normally reserved for horror movies or other genre pictures with built-in fans who don't necessarily care about reviews — ones based on video games, for example — not summer blockbusters. Still, "G.I. Joe" has been tracking well because it represents the last big bang of the season, said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com.

"They don't need (to screen) it and there's no upside to negative reviews. The film is going to open well no matter what," Dergarabedian said. "They're being very strategic in who they show the movie to. If they can win over their core audience from these reviews, that's good for the movie."

Devin Faraci from the film Web site CHUD.com is one of the few writers who have seen it for review purposes, and not just for junket interviews. He's among the critics who've contributed to the movie's 88-percent positive rating as tabulated by Rotten Tomatoes, saying: "If I was 10 years old, `G.I. Joe' would be one of the best movies I had ever seen."

Faraci said he was in Toronto recently when he received a phone call at 8:30 a.m. Los Angeles time, asking if he could come to the Paramount lot that day for a "G.I. Joe" screening. He flew back, got off the plane and headed right over.

"It's silly. It's a film that plays on its own terms," he said. "I don't think reviews will kill it but I think it'll get a more positive response than they expect. It's a big, silly, pulpy, cartoony action film and it makes no apologies for being that way."

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By: MadSkillz | On: Tue Aug 04, 09 2:15 PM

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Kirsten Dunst will return as Mary Jane Watson, "Spider-Man 4" producer Todd Black told the New York Post.

The star will rejoin director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker's love interest in the latest installment in the popular superhero franchise, which is slated for May 6, 2011.



However, don't expect wedding bells for Mary Jane and Peter - Black told the newspaper that he was unaware of such a subplot. At the close of "Spider-Man 3," the two had an emotional - but ambiguous - reunion after the film's events drove the lovers apart.

Additionally, Black hinted at the film's villain, shooting down online rumors that pegged comic book character Morbius the Living Vampire as the latest member of Spidey's rogue gallery.

Instead, the producer told the Post that the villain had a significant connection to the Big Apple.

"We're just coming up with who the villain is now," he said. "We'll be shooting in New York again. Trust me, people will appreciate who we pick, because it'll be a big part of New York."

In past films, Spider-Man has faced off with the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Venom and Sandman, leaving a number of famous villains who could make their silver screen debut in "Spider-Man 4."

Among the popular options are Kraven the Hunter, Chameleon, the Hobgoblin, Mysterio, Venom offspring Carnage and the Lizard, whose human alter-ego, Dr. Curt Connors, had a role in the previous two movies.

Another potential foe could be New York crime boss the Kingpin - however, the character appeared in 20th Century Fox's "Daredevil" and would likely require a rights acquisition by Sony Pictures.

But the crime lord would give the film a New York connection - and would also be Access Hollywood film critic Scott Mantz's top choice.

"The Kingpin is grounded in reality, and that's the appeal of Spider-Man," Mantz said, adding another suggestion to the mix - femme fatale the Black Cat. "I'd like to see the Kingpin and the Black Cat, to stir the pot with Peter's relationship with Mary Jane."

(Yahoo Movies): Source

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By: WeAreMovieCrazy | On: Tue Jun 09, 09 11:19 PM

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Bigger-breasted chickens fattened artificially. New strains of deadly E. coli bacteria. A food supply controlled by a handful of corporations.

The documentary "Food, Inc." opens in the United States on Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the U.S. food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health, the environment, and worker and animal rights.

Big corporations such as biotech food producer Monsanto Co., U.S. meat companies Tyson Food Inc. and Smithfield Foods, and poultry producer Perdue Farms all declined to be interviewed for the film.

But the industry has not stood silent. Trade associations across the $142-billion-a-year U.S. meat industry have banded together to counter the claims. Led by the American Meat Institute, they have created a number of websites, including one called SafeFoodInc.com .

"Each sector of the industry that's named is doing its part to counter a lot of the misinformation in the movie," said Lisa Katic, a dietitian and consultant with an unnamed coalition of trade associations representing the food industry.

Their campaign promotes the U.S. food supply as safe, abundant and affordable, whereas the film asserts that images of animals grazing on grassy farms emblazoned on U.S. food product labels are misleading.

"Food, Inc." explores the argument that food comes not from friendly farms but from industrial factories that put profit ahead of human health.

"The film pulls back the curtain on the way food is produced," said Michael Pollan, who appears in the film and is the best-selling author of several books including "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

"Products with farm labels attached -- this stuff comes from factories now," he said.

But an industry spokesman said 98 percent of U.S. farms were family owned and operated and they accounted for 82 percent of farm production.

Mace Thornton of the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest farm group, said the industry was interested in the well-being of farm animals.

"If a farmer or rancher is not the kind of person to take care of their animals, they're not going to be in business long," he said.

A PEEK INSIDE

The film shows footage inside cattle, pork and chicken production plants, some secretly recorded by immigrant workers under cramped conditions for both workers and the animals.

Maryland farmer Carole Morison let cameras in to show chickens collapsing and dying before they are put on the market because, she said, of fast weight gain caused in part by antibiotics in the feed. Morison said she lost her contract with Perdue.

The film says U.S. food corporations now widely use industrial techniques linked to growing problems like obesity, diabetes, salmonella, toxic strains of common E. coli bacteria and environmental pollution.

"Confined animal agriculture is so unsustainable in so many ways. It depends on using antibiotics in the feed that lead to antibiotic-resistant diseases. It produces more pollution than any other industry," Pollan said.

"It costs treasury, costs the public health system," he said. "The film vividly shows it costs the people who do the work and of course it is brutal to the animal."

Barbara Kowalcyk, whose 2-year-old son Kevin died from an infection of E. coli, appears in the film trying to persuade Congress to pass "Kevin's law," which would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to shut down plants that produce contaminated meats. It has not passed.

Consumers can effect change, the film says, pointing to Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg, who now offers his line of organic products at giant chain Wal-Mart due to demand.

"You vote for what you eat by what you buy at the supermarket," Pollan said.

(Yahoo Movies): Source

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By: WeAreMovieCrazy | On: Tue Jun 09, 09 5:02 PM

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