Thompson on Hollywood

Weekend Box Office: Dolphin Tale Overtakes Moneyball in Second Inning

While it looked like Moneyball would assert its dominance over the weekend box office, another second weekender took the prize: Dolphin Tale. Again, the family movie pulled a bigger niche audience than too many competitors aimed at males and adults. Anthony D'Alessandro reports:Another flood of wide entries fragmented Fall moviegoers this weekend. Warner Bros./Alcon's heart-tugging crowd-pleaser Dolphin Tale yipped up $14.2 million in its second session, overtaking Sony's well-reviewed Moneyball, which fielded $12.5 million. Both films generated warm buzz throughout the week, especially on Rosh Hashanah last Thursday when some schools were off.

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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October 2, 2011 4:33 AM
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Toronto Wrap: Best of Fest, Oscar Boosts, Winners and Losers

The trick with the fall film festivals is to gauge expectations going in vs. what was actually achieved. Various distributors launched their fall slates, and watched with pleasure or horror at how their movies were received by audiences and critics. Oscar contenders either moved forward in the awards race, or were pushed back. Other indies hoped their films would be picked up by the right distributor in time for this year's Oscar race. Some were, some weren't. It's tough for films that have already debuted at other festivals to pick up new momentum, although the press will bank features for release. The biggest noise goes to the new players, always.

By Anne Thompson
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September 21, 2011 7:04 AM
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Comic-Con: Bill Condon Talks Twilight Breaking Dawn, Horror, Rating, Intensity

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn kicked off Comic-Con as the fans who had started lining up on Sunday finally got into the first Comic-Con panel in Hall H Thursday morning after an early breakfast and visit from the cast, including stars Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson, who signed autographs and took pictures with the twihards. As the stars gave a press conference, I sat down with director Bill Condon for a flip cam interview, below.

By Anne Thompson
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July 21, 2011 10:30 AM
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Comic-Con: Warm Bodies Writer Isaac Marion: "A General Sense of Impending Doom" in the World

Isaac Marion's novel Warm Bodies is being adapted for Summit by writer-director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) and is set to star Nicholas Holt and Theresa Palmer. Here are details on the zombie-drama. Marion speaks with the press:

By Sophia Savage
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July 21, 2011 7:01 AM
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Comic-Con Preview: The New (Amazing) Spider-Man, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Masters of the Web UPDATE

As we gird our loins for this week's San Diego schlep to Comic-Con--which is not my idea of a good time, just getting into everything is an enormous chore--the revelations are coming fast and furious. Yes, we will see Cowboys and Aliens and Captain America there, and Steven Spielberg is making his first appearance with The Adventures of Tintin--as is another veteran filmmaker, Francis Ford Coppola, with his indie horror film TWIXT. DreamWorks/Disney is promoting Fright Night, with Colin Farrell on hand. Universal is presenting a panel on Snow White and the Huntsman, which hasn't even started shooting yet, but why miss an opportunity to highlight star Kristen Stewart, who's there anyway for Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn?

By Anne Thompson
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July 14, 2011 5:13 AM
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Trailer Watch: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part 1; Bella and Edward Get Married UPDATED

The MTV Movie Awards Sunday night glorified golden couple Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart--with not just an award for "Best Kiss," but many more, for their last Twilight installment, Eclipse. Twilight scored five out of twelve awards, with Rob Pattinson beating The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg for best actor--even if I happily belong to Team Edward, that's absurd. So is Kristen Stewart beating best actress Oscar-winner Natalie Portman. Please. Here's a red carpet gallery. Full list of winners below.

By Anne Thompson
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June 5, 2011 11:36 AM
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Cannes Video: Gibson Talks Foster's The Beaver, Acting, Directing, But Not His "three-ring circus"

Mel Gibson walked the red carpet at Cannes, shunned the press conference, but sat down for his only U.S. Cannes interview with a friendly interlocutor, Variety editor Tim Gray (on video below).

By Anne Thompson
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May 19, 2011 11:30 AM
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Weekend Box Office: Thor Hammers Competition with Mighty $66 Million Opening

Marvel spent a fortune bringing audiences yet another superhero adventure: Thor delivered the goods with a mighty $66 million opening salvo. Romantic comedy Jumping the Broom outperformed Something Borrowed. Anthony D'Alessandro does the numbers:On opening day, Thor hammered out $25.7 million at 3,955 venues, besting the first days of such Marvel summer launches as 2003’s The Hulk ($24.3 million) and 2005’s Fantastic Four ($21.3 million). ($3.25 million of Thor’s Friday take was minted at 1,800 midnight showings.) By weekend's end, Thor had wrangled a three-day total of $66 million for Paramount and producer/financer Marvel; a figure that neither company has to blush about considering that’s the average bow for a Marvel superhero flick adaptation. Paramount also crowed about the picture's foreign grosses of $46 million for a total of $176 million outside North America. In eleven days the film has outperformed the final totals for the first X-Men, Fantastic Four and Hulk.

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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May 8, 2011 5:04 AM
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Tree of Life Debuts in Cannes After All: New Poster, Music

If it was ever in doubt, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (USA May 27) will in fact debut at Cannes, despite Icon UK's one-time insistence that they would open it ahead of the fest. The distributor admits that they will not be releasing the film, after wrangling with foreign sales company Summit over the deal terms. Spokesman Zak Brilliant of Icon told the Guardian: "[We] will not now be releasing Tree of Life on 4 May. There is a legal issue ongoing for the film which we hoped to resolve but were unable to do so."

By Anne Thompson
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April 27, 2011 6:00 AM
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Hot Cable Series The Killing, The Borgias, Game of Thrones Boost Breakout Stars

Post-Oscar season, there's no question that these days, the best viewing to be found is on cable. Not only are AMC's critically-hailed Danish murder mystery remake The Killing, HBO's Tolkien light fantasy series Game of Thrones (adapted from George R.R. Martin's novels by top Hollywood scribe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss), and Showtime's The Borgias (adapted by writer-director Neil Jordan) compelling, gorgeously-mounted, well-written series, but they are breaking out --and reviving--talent as well.