According to Studio Weekend Estimates for the 4-Day Christmas Weekend, Fox's Marley and Me brought in nearly $52 million. After the success of The Day the Earth Stood Still earlier this month, Fox is finally breaking the box office slump that has lasted practically the entire year thanks to duds such as Meet Dave and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Gossip magazines will be all over the fact that Marley and Me star Jennifer Aniston was able to top her former beau Brad Pitt at the box office.
Read moreThis week, Fandango released a survey which revealed what blockbusters audiences are looking forward to the most. 2008 was an excellent year for online movie ticket sales. Strong advance ticketing for such films as The Dark Knight and Twilight gave an early indication of how well those films would perform during their opening frames. It comes as no surprise that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ranks in the top 5 on both lists. The same can be said for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which, with its May 1 release date, will be the first major release of the summer season.
Read moreWarner Brothers says it is not changing the scheduled March 20th release date for Watchmen, but that’s just negotiating. A federal court says that Warners doesn’t have the right to distribute the movie because that right was granted 20 years ago to Twentieth Century Fox. Now Warners and Fox are spending the Christmas weekend at the negotiating table and Warners has a $100 million gun to its head. After Warners spent the estimated $100 million to make the Watchmen movie, Fox went to court and said its original contract gave Fox the right to distribute any film developed from the Watchmen graphic novel.
Read moreYou may not know who Michael Shannon is yet. Don't worry, that will soon change. Over the last few weeks Shannon has been gaining critical acclaim for his chilling supporting turn in Revolutionary Road, a period drama in which his portrayal of a mental patient with a clear pulse on reality practically steals the movie. This is no small feat considering the fact that the film is directed by Sam Mendes and the two leads are Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. All of his scenes in Road are with the Titanic lovers and a lot of his questions from the press seem to gravitate to them as a result.
Read moreAt this point in the season, actress Viola Davis is the frontrunner to take home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her brief and commanding performance in Doubt. Sharing the bulk of her screen time with Meryl Streep, Davis plays a working class mother coming to grips with the possibility of her son being molested at a Catholic school. When the subject of a certain golden statue comes up, she jokingly alludes to the hard part being over. “I have to say when I envision winning an Oscar, I envision getting up there and the first words out of my mouth are ‘it’s all downhill from here,’” Davis told B OXOFFICE.
Read moreOur own Amy Nicholson, B OXOFFICE Magazine's Editor and Film Critic extraordinare, offers up her Ten Best Films of 2008 list: Synecdoche, New York In Bruges Shotgun Stories Standard Operating Procedure
Read moreMan on Wire director James Marsh is afraid of heights. That's ironic, considering that Wire focuses on tightrope walker Philippe Petit's successful quest to perform his death-defying art across the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in 1974. The film, which is now available on DVD, is winning enormous amounts of critical praise. Interestingly enough, Petit didn't even like the film at first. "To be quite blunt, I think he was a bit horrified when he first saw it. He wasn't expecting it to be the way it was," Marsh told B OXOFFICE.
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