Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

06 Mar 2010 20:57

tags

Culture: Tim Burton’s take on “Alice in Wonderland” is super-popular

  • $41 million for the 3D “Alice” on Friday alone source

01 Feb 2010 21:48

tags

Culture: “Avatar” singlehandedly brightens IMAX’s profit picture

  • $33
    million
    the amount of money IMAX lost in 2008, one of a series of rough years due to its films mostly being nature documentaries
  • $150
    million
    the amount of money “Avatar” has made on IMAX screens alone – they’re headed towards a big profit this year as a result source

24 Jan 2010 21:28

tags

Culture: One down, two to go: Avatar breaks an all-time box-office record

  • $1.29 billion in worldwide box-office so far source

24 Jan 2010 20:29

tags

Tech: Faux-awesome: The guy who makes those fake movie GUIs speaks

Why do these things never look real? “The entire point of those things is to tell a story,” according to interface designer Mark Coleran. source

17 Jan 2010 15:29

tags

Culture: Jesus Christ, “Avatar” is thisclose to topping “Titanic” worldwide

  • “Titanic was a ship. Avatar’s a rocket ship.” That’s how Chris Aronson, Fox’s senior vice-president of domestic distribution, put the success of “Avatar,” which is showing few signs of slowing down weeks after its release. It’s quite possible it could pass Titanic’s $601 million total by the beginning of February. Here are some numbers on the horse race with history:

Worldwide totals so far

  • $1.6
    billion
    already, after just five weeks of release – holy freaking crap!
  • $237
    million
    needed to topple “Titanic” and its $1.8 billion worldwide total

North American stats

  • $41.3 million the film’s weekend box office after five weeks of release
  • $491.8 million the film’s total box office – it should top $500 million Monday
  • 32
    days
    time it will take “Avatar” to reach that total – it took “Titanic” 98 source

10 Jan 2010 21:40

tags

Culture: “Avatar” once again charmed at the box office. Who hasn’t seen it?

  • $48M the size of “Avatar’s” fourth-weekend box office take, making it the first four-week movie champ since “The Dark Knight”
  • $429M the movie’s total domestic box-office take, which is within shouting distance of the $533 million take of “The Dark Knight”
  • $1.3B the movie’s world box-office take, which is just $500 million shy of “Titanic’s” $1.8 billion haul; this is gonna be huge source

03 Jan 2010 19:39

tags

Culture: Could Avatar make a Titanic-type run? Let’s compare numbers.

  • Avatar is looking good in its third weekend, dipping just 9% from last week. Not bad for a movie that had a relatively modest launch for a blockbuster. The secret to its success? The same as “Titanic” – staying power. But even if James Cameron’s latest can’t keep up, his trump card might be an even bigger deal.
  • Titanic’s track record:
  • $1.8 billion total lifetime run – in 1998 money (holy crap)
  • $200 million budget for what was expected to be a huge bomb
  • $600 million in domestic grosses – in 1998 money! Holy crap!
  • $28.6M Titanic’s first-weekend box office take – decent, not spectacular
  • $35.5M Titanic’s second-weekend take – it went up by an astonishing 23.8%
  • $36M Titanic’s biggest week, which didn’t come until week six, by the way source
  • How Avatar’s catching up:
  • $1 billion worldwide already – in just three weeks!
  • $280 million the most likely budget for “Avatar”; totals have varied as widely as $250 million and $500 million
  • $150 million has been spent on marketing the movie alone, which Fox is taking on the cost of
  • $77M Avatar’s first-weekend box office take; it was hurt by snow
  • $75M Avatar’s second-weekend take – down only 1.8%
  • $352M Avatar’s domestic gross after a $68 million third weekend source
  • The 3D wildcard:
  • $3-5 the markup the 3D adds to ticket prices source
  • Big investment Cameron’s film took years to build because of the fact that the technology had to come first, both for filming and in the theater. Cameron paid to build the technology himself along with a bunch of investors.
  • Residual effect Fortunately for Cameron, he can sell the cameras to other filmmakers. “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D” has already used it. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “The Adventures of Tintin” soon will.
  • Cash for conversions Even better for studios, the technology is relatively easy to build into older films. For $30 million, a popular hit like, say, “Titanic,” can have a brand new life in 3D. It’s like a money machine for Hollywood. source
  • Will it beat “Titanic”?
  • Before inflation, probably. After, it depends. It’s probably not likely that the movie will hold up sixteen straight weeks at No. 1 like Titanic, but it’ll have a good shot of holding on tight thanks to the fact that it’s going to be in IMAX (where it’s made $66 million already) for months. But at the very least, it’s looking like it has more staying power than “The Dark Knight,” the biggest hit of the naughts. Well, before “Avatar.”
 

31 Dec 2009 16:27

tags

Culture: Obama gets movie theater to himself to see “Avatar”

  • Talk about killer PR for James Cameron and crew. The First Family went to go see Avatar today, which has made $268 million already in box-office receipts in less than three weeks. But so as not to disrupt filmgoers surprised by the sight of the president, they got their own screen in Honolulu to watch it on. The president gets some pretty sweet treatment, guys. souce

29 Dec 2009 09:48

tags

Tech: Netflix’s online streaming a hit, but studios don’t like it much

  • 47% of Netflix users take advantage of on-demand streaming content
  • annoyed the movie studios’ take on the uber-popular product source

28 Dec 2009 21:55

tags

Culture: In 2010, expect to see lots of reheated leftovers at the box office

  • 16 of the 28 films out in 1Q ’10 were shot years ago source