Thompson on Hollywood

Weekend Box Office: X-Men: First Class Tops Field with Prequel-Size $56 Million

Great reviews propelled reboot X-Men: First Class to a solid if not stellar $56 million opening. Anthony D'Alessandro explains why.Fox’s X-Men: First Class easily aced its weekend course in box office math by absorbing a solid $56 million into Fox’s coffers.

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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June 5, 2011 4:10 AM
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Super Hero Glut: Will Marvel and DC Projects Get Repetitive?

There are many many comics movies in our future. How many of them will moviegoers be able to ingest? How many will turn out to be any good? Will fatigue set in, as Matthew Vaughn, the director of X-Men: First Class, predicts?

By Anne Thompson
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August 10, 2010 4:54 AM
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Directors Talk: Vaughn on Super-Hero Movies, Cameron on Avatar 2 and Oil, Murphy on Eat, Pray, Love

- Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass) tells Hero Complex that the quality control of super hero movies (which have been "mined to death") is "not what it's supposed to be." Vaughn jumped on the chance to do X-Men: First Class, because people are getting bored of the super-hero frenzy, which can't last forever. After producing, directing and co-writing Kick-Ass, a big budget superhero film is something Vaughn has always wanted to do - and an opportunity that may not be on offer again. He withdrew from the opportunity to direct the third X-Men installment (he didn't feel ready at the time), and it went to Brett Ratner. Now Vaughn says that he would have done a better job (100 times better to be exact). When X-Men: First Class comes out next summer, the box office will be crowded with protagonists in tights, like Captain America, Thor and Green Lantern - what Vaughn calls a too-crowded room.

By Sophia Savage
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August 9, 2010 5:30 AM
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Oscar Talk Summer Edition: Pre-Cannes Season Survey

In Contention's Kris Tapley, refreshed after a sojourn from his labors, and I reconvene for a summer edition of Oscar Talk. We cover the lacklustre spring season, look forward to Cannes and the summer, and dissect Iron Man 2.

By Anne Thompson
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May 8, 2010 5:13 AM
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How to Train Your Dragon Roars Past The Back-Up Plan

How to Train Your Dragon came roaring back at the weekend box office, proving that fab word-of-mouth trumps familiar old-hat formulas every time. Jennifer Lopez rom-com The Back-Up Plan came in second, and DC comics movie The Losers was a disaster, coming in fourth behind Date Night. Anthony D'Alessandro dissects the numbers.Never dis a dragon – even at the box office. Paramount-DreamWorks 3D toon How to Train Your Dragon continued to flap its legs, err wings in a murky April weekend session, earning $15 million at 3,665 theaters. Dragon slipped 23% in its fifth weekend raising its domestic cume to $178 million. Overall, weekend receipts counted an estimated $95 million, off 10-15% from a year ago. Distribs account the drop to the lack of film product in the market, particularly with Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps moving out of the month.

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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April 25, 2010 4:30 AM
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Kick-Ass Takes Number One After All

For the second weekend in a row, the top two films were in such a neck-and-neck race that the Sunday box office estimates were turned around on Monday. So this weekend, Lionsgate's Kick-Ass, while not scoring the $20-30 million weekend some were forecasting, did win the weekend b.o. derby. UPDATE: According to Box Office Mojo, Thursday night numbers are included in the total.

By Anne Thompson
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April 19, 2010 7:35 AM
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Dragon Trumps Kick-Ass

Picking up word-of-mouth as it continues to pull audiences, Paramount/DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon bested all comers at the weekend box office, kicking Kick-Ass to second place. TOH box office analyst Anthony D'Alessandro reports:

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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April 18, 2010 4:34 AM
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Kick-Ass Rides Buzz for OK Opening, Reveals Critics' Divide

Controversy sells, and Lionsgate rode a swell of debate over the R-rated superhero action comedy Kick-Ass to a robust box office lead on Friday, an estimated $7.5 million in 3,065 runs. It may or may not make the $20 million opening benchmark some predicted; Date Night could wind up number one. This is the sort of movie that is banking on a core fan following--the folks that responded enthusiastically to early footage at Comic-Con last year--but needs to widen its appeal in order to really score. Lionsgate only invested $15 million to acquire it plus some $25 million in marketing, so it should come out ahead.

By Anne Thompson
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April 17, 2010 5:04 AM
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Kick-Ass Stars Johnson, Mintz-Plasse, Moretz Talk Super Heroes

Lionsgate previewed Kick-Ass Monday night in L.A. with a cast-and-writer Q & A to follow. David Lewis was there:Hollywood got a short preview of Comic-Con madness last night at an advance screening of Lionsgate's kinetic comic book adaptation Kick-Ass at the Mann Chinese 6. Fanboys (and a few fangirls) lined up for hours beforehand, hoping to grab the good seats for the film and the lengthy, raucous Q&A moderated by the LAT's Geoff Boucher. On hand were Aaron Johnson and co-stars Clark Duke, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Chloe Grace Moretz, plus co-writer Jane Goldman and the comic's co-creator John Romita Jr.

By David Lewis
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April 6, 2010 12:45 PM
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WonderCon Sneak Peeks Inception, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Toy Story 3, Prince of Persia

This weekend, San Francisco played host to a big multi-studio fan press junket at WonderCon, a pint-sized adjunct to July's giant ComicCon in San Diego. Disney imported producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Nic Cage and Jake Gyllenhaal and screened footage from Sorcerer's Apprentice, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Toy Story 3 (which they have now tantalizingly screened in its entirety thrice, at Showest, International YouTube vloggers day and a Pixar screening for long-lead press). They also staged a viral event for Tron Legacy (see video below).