Feb 10th 2010Industry News
http://gawker.com/5465348/can-indie-movies-survive
Indie films have become the lost children of Hollywood in recent years. Author Edward Jay Epstein explains why Hollywood is abandoning the indie movie business in favor of merchandisable CGI spectacles like Avatar.
If you are a producer of indie movies, the great sucking sound you may be hearing is Avatar draining money from your future projects. While this brilliant Pocahantas-meets-Jurassic Park mashup may be a bonanza for Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox studio, which gets a distribution fee on every dollar it brings in from theaters, video stores, and TV, and its producer-director James Cameron, who gets a cut of the gross after it reached its Hollywood-defined $500 million cash break even point, it will further convince the heads of the major studios that their salvation lies in putting their money in “high value” movies laden with mesmerizing visual effects that can be simultaneously opened on more than 5,000 screens around the world and lend themselves to sequels, merchandise tie-ins, toy licensing, and theme parks rides. Read More »
Feb 10th 2010Box Office Results
Source: www.boxofficemojo.com
AVATAR goes down…!!
After writing about AVATAR for the past 7 straight weeks, it feels a little strange writing about another movie being in the #1 spot at the box-office this weekend. Kinda like I’m cheating on James Cameron, you know? Mind you, I don’t think Cameron is too upset about DEAR JOHN knocking his juggernaut of a movie from the top spot this weekend, especially now that AVATAR is officially the #1 highest-grossing domestic movie of all-time…and then some! Read More »
Feb 3rd 2010Industry News
The Oscars were announced earlier this morning in Los Angeles by Anne Hathaway and Academy President Tom Sherak. As expected, AVATAR got a ton of kudos with 9 total nominations but in a pleasant surprise it was tied with THE HURT LOCKER which also had 9 noms. This was the first year that 10 nominees were announced for Best Picture allowing movies like DISTRICT 9, THE BLIND SIDE and UP to make their way into the top category. UP becomes the first animated film since BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to be nominated for Best Picture. Read More »
Feb 2nd 2010Box Office Results
Source: www.boxofficemojo.com
His future’s so bright, Cameron’s
gotta wear shades…
Alright, let’s get all the AVATAR records and talk out of the way first. The film recently became the biggest grossing movie of all-time (worldwide) as it pranced past James Cameron’s previous record-holder, TITANIC, which had made $1,840,000,000 around the world. AVATAR, which is still going strong by the way, is already at $2,039,2000 and counting. That’s on the worldwide front though. In terms of domestic box-office, TITANIC still holds the top spot with $600M, but unless something cataclysmic happens in the world in the next couple of days, methinks AVATAR will surpass that figure as well, as it presently hovers around the $595M mark and is still the #1 in America today. Read More »