Entertainment Tonight's "Les Mis" Sneak Peak

With the summer movie season winding down, it's time to start plugging those fall/holiday releases all clamoring for your attention...and obviously some Oscar love.  Entertainment Tonight aired a segment this week about the upcoming movie musical adaptation of Les Miserables, which opens in theaters on December 14.

When the intrepid reporter from ET is not still going on about how Anne Hathaway cut her hair for her role as Fantine (it will grow back!), incorrectly calling Les Miserables the "longest running musical in Broadway history" (it's the third longest), or giving a fairly inaccurate description of the plot (and quite a big spoiler, even if you already know how it ends), there are some new shots from the film that weren't in the already amazing trailer that premiered last month. 

And apparently, there's also a Severe Thunderstorm warning out for a few counties in Minnesota.  Take cover, folks.

Just to clear up the more annoying inaccuracies about the plot:  Jean Valjean starts out as a "pardoned prisoner", but he breaks that parole and goes on the run - which is why Javert is after him.  Javert isn't "evil", he is doing his job, even if he's a total bastard about it.  Fantine is actually a factory worker who is fired for having an illegitimate daughter - which forces her sell her locket, her hair (in the original novel, her teeth as well), and ultimately becomes a prostitute.  Cosette is Fantine's daughter - Jean Valjean adopted and raised her as a deathbed promise to Fantine. 

Sheesh, Entertainment Tonight...I know quickly explaining a plot can't go into too many specifics, but would it have been so hard to get any of them right?  At least the movie still looks great.

Christian Bale Congratulates That Person

Despite now being an Oscar winner and the star of one of the most successful superhero trilogies of all time, Christian Bale must be resigned to the fact that he will always be reminded about Newsies, the Disney movie musical that failed miserably at the box office in 1992 but found new life as a cult-hit on home video.  Bale starred as Jack Kelly, the leader of a group of New York city newsboys who went on strike over an unfair newspaper price hike in 1899.  It's also the movie that had Bale singing with a painfully fake NY accent while clomping around on a pretend horse.

However, a stage version of Newsies opened on Broadway this year and has become a huge hit.  The show won two Tony Awards last month, and has been playing to sold-out houses all summer.  So inevitably, Bale was asked about Newsies on Broadway while promoting The Dark Knight Rises in this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly (which is also celebrating it's 987th Batman cover this year...at least it seems that way):

One of your past movies is now a hit Broadway musical: Newsies.  Have you seen it?

No, I havent.

Are you surprised that this early flop in your career has had the cultural life that it's had?

Of course! Yes! These things never have any sense.  I'm incredibly happy for them.  They're having the success that our movie never had.

Do you have any interest in seeing it? 

I'm not really into musicals.  But I wish them the best.  And I'm sure the person playing the character I played exceeded whatever I did, and congratulations to them.

As a Newsies fan myself - I saw the movie in theaters twice in 1992 (both times, my friends and I were the only people in the theater), and I'm seeing the Broadway version for the second time next week - I've always thought that Christian Bale has been an awfully good sport when it came to this movie and its almost fanatical adoring fanbase.  Musicals clearly aren't his thing, especially this particular musical, and he's certainly under no obligation to see the show.  Honestly, it's doing fine whether he shows up or not.  I just thought it was nice to see him congratulate the cast.

I did get a laugh out of him not knowing the name of the person playing Jack Kelly on stage.  That would be Jeremy Jordan, who received a Tony nomination for Newsies, and will be appearing on the next season of Smash on NBC.  According to the liner notes of the Newsies cast album, he was such a big fan of the original film that he'd been wanting to play Jack since he was nine years old.

But does he exceed Bale in the role?  I'll let you decide:

 Here's the new stage version:

I tend to prefer the new Broadway edition, but in fairness, the show underwent some major re-writes to fix some issues that movie had.  For instance, Jack is now an artist instead of an aspiring cowboy, so Jeremy Jordan is spared the indignity of pretending to ride a horse in his version of "Santa Fe".

Now hopefully we can get the cast of Newsies to congratulate 'that guy' after whatever blockbuster success The Dark Knight Rises has at the box office this weekend. 

Weekend Box Office: July 13-15

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Ice Age: Continental Drift - $46 million

2.  The Amazing Spider-Man - $35 million

3.  Ted - $22.1 million

4.  Brave - $10.6 million

5.  Magic Mike - $9 million

6.  Savages - $8.7 million

7.  Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection - $5.6 million

8.  Katy Perry: Part of Me - $3.7 million

9.  Moonrise Kingdom - $3.6 million

10.  Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - $3.5 million

In this calm-before-Batman weekend, Ice Age: Continental Drift took first place as expected, earning an estimated $46 million.  While that's on the low end compared to this year's other animated films so far (Brave, The Lorax, and Madagascar 3 all opened north of $60 million), it's still a solid opening for the Ice Age series and it should continue to hold up well as the kiddie counterprogramming film next weekend.  Overseas, the fourth Ice Age film has earned an excellent $339 million.

The Amazing Spider-Man drops to second place with $35 million, but overall it's actually doing very well.  It's just a 44% drop from last weekend, and it managed to cross the $200 million mark domestically.  Of course, it didn't get there nearly as quickly as the Raimi films did, but with $521 worldwide so far, it sure doesn't look like audiences have completely rejected a new Spider-Man series either. 

Ted continues its run as the sleeper hit of the summer, earning another $22.1 million.  The film has now earned $158 million domestically, and I'm hope I'm not the only one dreading the thought that we likely to see a sequel to this.  It was funny, but one movie was plenty.

Getting *that* much closer to becoming Pixar's 10th film to earn more than $200 million, Brave held its own against the new Ice Age movie to earn $10.6 million.  It should pass $200 million this week.  Woohoo!

In limited release, Beasts of the Southern Wild expanded its theater count to 81 and earned $775,000, giving it a per-screen average ($9,568) that second only to Ice Age 4 this weekend.  Not bad.

Next weekend...do we even have to say it?  The Dark Knight Rises opens in theaters.  And that pretty much speaks for itself.  Enjoy, Batfans!

Stephen Daldry to Take on "Wicked"?

It seems to be the day for Oz-centric news.  According to Deadline, director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) is in the running to direct the big-screen version of the hit Broadway musical, Wicked.  Based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked is a sort-of prequel to The Wizard of Oz about the unlikely friendship between the two witches of Oz in the years before Dorothy crash-landed in Munchkinland.

Years ago, Universal had acquired the movie rights to Maguire's original novel, but those plans changed when composer Stephen Schwartz managed to persuade producer Marc Platt to let him turn Wicked into a musical instead.  That turned out to be a very smart move:  since opening on Broadway in 2003, Wicked has been playing to sold-out houses not only in New York, but also on tour and overseas.  It won three Tony Awards, a Grammy, it's been referenced on Glee so many times it should just count as advertising, and recently there was even a mini-version of the show playing at the Universal theme park in Japan.

So we're inevitably going to be getting a movie version, which is fine, since it is a really good musical.  I somehow managed to win the lottery for $25 tickets before a matinee on Broadway back in 2004, so I got to see it in the front row with the original cast, which was pretty awesome.  The music is great, and the story is so insanely clever that I assure you that you'll never be able to watch The Wizard of Oz quite the same way ever again...in a good way.

Daldry is no stranger to musicals - he directed the stage musical versions of Billy Elliot in London and on Broadway, winning a Tony for the Broadway production (he also directed the original film, which was not a musical).  Billy Elliot, which is one of my favorite movies, turned out to be a great musical.  I saw it in London in 2008 and liked it so much that I went back and saw it again the next night.  So I think Daldry's a good choice for this, should it actually happen.  Hopefully it will.

Casting Roundup for "The Wolverine"

 

With filming set to begin in a few weeks - not to mention Comic-Con is happening this weekend and the release of The Dark Knight Rises is less than 10 days away, so everyone's geek-dial is off the charts right now - it's a good time for a ton of casting updates as to will be joining Hugh Jackman in The Wolverine.  The sequel, directed by James Mangold, will be based on the comic's popular 1982 Japanese saga by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, and it's looking like they have a pretty cool cast lined up.

Our pals at SuperHeroHype had the first exclusive, confirming that Hiroyuki Sanada will be playing the role of Shingen, a Yakuza crime boss who also happens to be the father of Wolverine's fiance, Mariko.  Sanada has previously appeared several episodes of Lost, so for those keeping score, that makes him the third Lost veteran to appear in a Wolverine spinoff film, after Dominic Monaghan and Kevin Durand, who both appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Joining him will be Hal Yamanouchi as Yashida, and newcomers Tao Okamoto as Mariko and Rila Fukushima as Yukio.

There are two more casting announcements, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:  Brian Tee will be playing Noburo Mori, the sleaze who's planning to marry Mariko, and Will Yun Lee has been cast as Kenuichio Harada, who is more famously known as (trumpets please): the Silver Samurai.  Nice.

So we've got Wolverine, Japan, samurai stuff, and a little romance...yeah, I'm ready for this one to start already.

The Wolverine is set to open in theaters on July 26, 2013.

Weekend Box Office: July 6-8

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  The Amazing Spider-Man - $65 million

2.  Ted - $32.5 million

3.  Brave - $20.1 million

4.  Savages - $16.1 million

5.  Magic Mike - $15.6 million

6.  Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection - $10.2 million

7.  Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - $7.7 million

8.  Katy Perry: Part of Me - $7.1 million

9.  Moonrise Kingdom - $4.6 million

10.  To Rome With Love - $3.5 million

As expected, The Amazing Spider-Man easily took the top spot for the holiday weekend.  Also as expected, it didn't soar quite as high as the previous Sam Raimi-era Spider-Man films, even with the benefit of 3D...which probably makes this week's box office run look better than it actually is.  Nevertheless, it did perform well.  Since opening last Tuesday to get a jump start on the July 4th holiday weekend, the new Spidey has earned $140 million domesticallly so far, with an additional $201 million from overseas markets.  So it should enjoy a decent run.  At least for now, since a certain Caped Crusader happens to be waiting in the wings.

Still enjoying a terrific box office run is Ted, which crossed the $100 million mark this weekend with $32.5 million.  People love swearing teddy bears.  Who knew?

Pixar's Brave kept the family audiences busy, earning $20.1 million.  It's likely to pass the $200 million mark before it's finished at theaters, but it will face some heavy competition when Ice Age 4 opens next weekend.

The other new releases didn't make too much noise this weekend, although with $16.1 million, Savages was the least-disasterous opening for poor Taylor Kitsch this year.  And it was a far better opening than Katy Perry's concert movie, which went almost unnoticed with just $7.1 million.

In still mostly-limited release, Moonrise Kingdom earned another $4.6 million this weekend, while Woody Allen's To Rome With Love made its top ten debut with $3.4 million.  Another limited release, Fox's Beasts of the Southern Wild, is also playing very well - earning $376,000 in just 19 theaters nationwide.

There seems to be a calm-before-the-storm vibe coming from the box office, as the rest of the summer's releases are trying to stay the hell away from The Dark Knight Rises, which opens in less than two weeks now, but next week we do have a surefire hit coming as Ice Age: Continental Drift opens in theaters. 

And as you can see, they're well aware of their proximity to Batman:

New "Rise of the Guardians" Trailer

Wow, it's like The Avengers...with fairy tale characters!  Sort of.  At least it looks good enough that it might even be worth shelling out the extra cash for the 3D version.  Heat Vision has the second trailer for Rise of the Guardians, which teams up legendary characters including Santa Claus, Jack Frost, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman against a common enemy called Pitch, who looks to bring all kinds of misery and scariness to the children our heroes take care of.

This new trailer centers on Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), who was suspiciously absent from the first trailer, and he seems to be a rather important member of the team:

This looks really cool.  I was a big fan of How to Train Your Dragon - I actually saw it in 3D, then went back the next night to see it again in IMAX/3D - so if this is anywhere as good as that movie was, I think we're in for a treat.

Rise of the Guardians opens in theaters on November 21.

Happy Anniversary, Back to the Future!

Great Scott!  We certainly can't let today go by without pointing out that Back to the Future was released 27 years ago today.  After opening on July 3, 1985, Back to the Future was the #1 movie in the US for 11 weeks, and it actually made more money on its second weekend than it did on its first.  It went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1985, and later spawned two sequels, an animated series, and a kickass theme park ride. 

I turned 11 the week before Back to the Future opened, so I got to see it on its opening weekend.  It was such a great crowd - you literally couldn't hear parts of the movie because they were either cheering or laughing.  We loved it.  I ended up with a crush on Michael J. Fox and I got a skateboard for Christmas that year.  It's still my favorite movie.

That movie theater (which is a Petco now) only had one other screen.  The other movie playing there that weekend?  The Goonies.  God, it was awesome being a little kid in the 80s.

So for old times' sake, here's a look at the delightfully 80s-cheesy original trailers for Back to the Future:

Weekend Box Office: June 29 - July 1

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Ted - $54.1 million

2.  Magic Mike - $39.1 million

3.  Brave - $34 million

4.  Tyler Perry's Medea's Witness Protection - $26.3 million

5.  Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - $11.8 million

6.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - $6 million

7.  Prometheus - $4.9 million

8.  Moonrise Kingdom - $4.8 million

9.  Snow White and the Huntsman - $4.4 million

10.  People Like Us - $4.3 million

Well, the creator of the Teddy Ruxpin doll might not be happy about it, but audiences certainly were as Ted took the top spot this weekend with $54.1 million.  That's the third-highest opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie, behind The Hangover Part II and Sex and the City.  Directed and co-written by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane, Ted benefitted not only from a built-in audience of McFarlane fans, but a brilliant marketing campaign, and the good fortune of a better release date, after GI Joe got moved to next summer.  With an "A-" Cinemascore, this one is probably going to stick around for a good part of the summer.

But this weekend was not without Channing Tatum (at this point, what weekend is?) since Magic Mike opened this weekend to the delight of women who clearly raced out to see the stripper film as quickly as possible - nearly half of the $39.1 million it earned this weekend came in on Friday.  Still, it's a great debut, especially for Tatum, as Mike becomes his third hit film of the year after 21 Jump Street and The Vow. 

Not to be left out amongst the foul-mouthed teddy bears and strippers, Tyler Perry's latest entry in the Medea franchise did all right, opening with $26.3 million.  That's not quite as big an opening as some of the previous films in the series, but the series is still going strong.

The weekend's other new release, the family drama People Like Us, couldn't hold up against any of the competition, opening in tenth place with just $4.3 million. 

As far as the kids' films:  Pixar's Brave crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, earning $34 million to bring its domestic total to $131.7 million, while Madagascar 3 continues to perform strongly, earning another $11.8 million to bring its own domestic total to $180 million.  But on the horizon is Ice Age 4, which has already earned $78 million overseas.  That opens in the US on July 13.

Next weekend, the endless speculation on whether or not the world is ready for a Spiderman reboot can be put to rest as The Amazing Spiderman finally opens in theaters.  The reboot has gotten off to a promising start overseas, where it has already earned $50 million.  Whether or not that continues here (Battleship, anyone?) remains to be seen.  Joining Spidey will be Katy Perry's 3D concert film (who greenlit that?) Katy Perry: Part of Me, and Taylor Kitch's third-time-is-the-charm crime thriller, Savages.

"Oh God, I Loved That Movie!"

As Jamie reported a little while ago, we lost Nora Ephron today, which is just a huge loss.  She had an amazing ability to make a 'chick flick' never seem like...well, a chick flick. 

Except when actually having a character describe a chick flick, as Rita Wilson did so hilariously in Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle, when she was trying (and failing) to explain the ending to 1957's An Affair to Remember without bursting into tears:

Just wanted to add a tribute as well, since I don't know anyone who can talk about a tearjerker ending without referencing this scene.  Between that, and watching Tom Hanks trying to get Rob Reiner to tell him what tiramisu is, I'll always love this movie.