Dejana

The latest Transformers was designed to play well in China: Still, some of the locals thought the product placement was a bit much. The movie has a good shot at making more in China than it will domestically.

Wimbledon organizers can't be worried about making sure the matches take place in a timely fashion when they have underwear checks to carry out. Priorities!

With the actual numbers, Transformers: Age of Extinction does indeed become the first $100M opener of 2014...or does it? Gitesh Pandya, who runs long-running site Box Office Guru (the weekly archives go back to mid-1996!) is one of many box office watchers calling foul: Gitesh Pandya @giteshpandya · 2h Paramount claims opening wknd on #Transformers #AgeOfExtinction was $100,038,390. Other studios tell me it was really $98M. Gitesh Pandya @giteshpandya · 2h Truth is, studios can report whatever #s they want to media. But journalists shd cut thru PR BS & find the real truth. Gitesh Pandya @giteshpandya · 2h How Paramount's #Transformers daily actuals changed from estimates: FRI +$268k, SAT +$285k, SUN -$514k. Here's an article on Yahoo. The vast majority of domestic theaters are part of a tracking system that sends real-time data to Rentrak (not totally different from Soundscan with music sales), so box office can't be completely fabricated out of thin air, otherwise no studio/star would ever have a flop movie. The theater chains would also speak up if the studio tried claiming that After Earth, for example, was this $200 million sensation, when the reality was a large amount of empty seats. However, not every theater is part of the system, and there can be a certain amount of leeway in which box office is considered domestic vs. international, like when you're dealing with the Caribbean or certain US territories. The numbers reported for the national (US) box office also include Canada, but Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands can be considered overseas...unless you need your movie to hit a certain milestone ($100M, $200M, etc.). Then those theaters can go back into the domestic column for a week or two. As long as the money isn't counted twice, the other studios will generally look the other way (because a time might come when they'll try similar accounting tricks). Another move is taking a bit of money from a film that's been in theaters for a few weeks or already and shifting it to the new release to boost its fortunes, or vice versa, when a movie has been out for months suddenly gets over a major milestone the same weekend that studio releases a new blockbuster—Disney pushes the 300-400 drive ins still around to show the new Pirates of the Caribbean as a double-feature with Tangled, which pushes the latter above $200 million in its 26th week of release. Transformers seems to be Paramount's only big release now, so they probably didn't goose the box office that way.

If the Transformers estimate holds, it will be the first $100 million opener in 2014. The franchise has a bit of history with convenient accounting (see note at end of page) to hit certain box office milestones, so it may actually stick the landing. June 27–29, 2014 Estimates: 1 (N) Transformers: Age of Extinction, $100,000,000 | 4,233 Theaters | $23,624 Avg. | $100,000,000 2 (2) 22 Jump Street, $15,400,000 | 3,426 Theaters | $4,495 Avg. | $139,837,000 3 (3) How to Train Your Dragon 2, $13,100,000 | 3,750 Theaters | $3,493 Avg. | $121,815,000 4 (1) Think Like a Man Too, $10,400,000 | 2,225 Theaters | $4,674 Avg. | $48,168,000 5 (5) Maleficent, $8,237,000 | 3,073 Theaters | $2,680 Avg. | $201,871,000 6 (4) Jersey Boys, $7,610,000 | 2,905 Theaters | $2,620 Avg. | $27,342,000 7 (6) Edge of Tomorrow, $5,210,000 | 2,535 Theaters | $2,055 Avg. | $84,155,000 8 (7) The Fault in Our Stars, $4,800,000 | 2,845 Theaters | $1,687 Avg. | $109,545,000 9 (8) X-Men: Days of Future Past, $3,300,000 | 2,014 Theaters | $1,639 Avg. | $223,393,000 10 (10) Chef, $1,654,000 | 801 Theaters | $2,065 Avg. | $19,410,000 Outside the Top 10: Obvious Child: $556,000 | 196 Theaters | $2,837 Avg. | $1,285,000 The Amazing Spider-Man 2: $320,000 | 274 Theaters | $1,168 Avg. | $200,183,000 Snowpiercer: $162,100 | 8 Theaters | $20,263 Avg. | $162,100 Begin Again: $148,000 | 5 Theaters | $29,600 Avg. | $148,000 Global Totals: FROZEN: $863M Overseas Total | $1.263B Global Total X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST: $491.2M Overseas Total | $714.5M Global Total MALEFICENT: $383.7M Overseas Total | $585.5M Global Total EDGE OF TOMORROW: $234.5M Overseas Total | $318.6M Global Total TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION: $201.3M Overseas Total | $301.3M Global Total ($90M just from China) NEIGHBORS: $95.3M Overseas Total | $242.5M Global Total HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2: $107.3M Overseas Total | $229.1M Global Total THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: $85.7M Overseas Total | $195.2M Global Total 22 JUMP STREET: $54.2M Overseas Total | $194M Global Total

Thanks for the info, but 1800? My Own Heart's Blood ends in At the pace Gabaldon writes, I suppose she's planning to live to 110.

I enjoyed the latest, though Has Gabaldon said for certain how many books in the main series are left?

In the final season, there are some episodes with the core six characters and others with the guys, Lisa and a new girl named Tori. NBC filmed the senior year episodes and had them graduate but before the season started airing, they decided to extend the season, but Tiffani Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkeley didn't sign on. TPTB invented another girl character to be part of the group without really acknowledging where Jessie and Kelly were. They showed the episodes out of order, so the cast make-up seemingly went back and forth from week to week. Wasn't expecting such creepy sex scenes in that Warren Jeffs movie. I'm always a little surprised to see Martin Landau show up in new projects. I guess it's nice that he's still working.

My guess is that the writers are going for a cross of JFK and Clinton with a dash of Obama in terms of Fitz being the "inspirational", popular figure with loads of charisma. The writing with Fitz often fails because Shonda & Co. aren't so good with writing politics, though even if they were, it's one thing to read about JFK's rampant cheating in bios years later or hear about the Lewinsky scandal on the news, well after you have examples of them being presidential first (though I suspect if The West Wing had made its president a reckless adulterer, that people wouldn't have found him so inspiring). In the Scandalverse, there are flashes of presidential behavior, but mostly Fitz pining for Liv and acting like a spoiled child. Also, the writers want Mellie to serve as both Hillary and Jackie, depending on the needs of the story, when they are pretty much opposing types. So that has an impact on the writing for Fitz and his marriage as well.

Shailene Woodley is having a good year: Divergent passes $150 million. The Fault in Our Stars crossed the $100 million mark yesterday. Ansel Elgort, too, though he's more of a supporting player in Divergent.

I never of the shoplifting incident being the thing that ruined Winona Ryder's career. In looking at her IMDb page, it seems her peak years were the late 1980s to mid-1990s and if someone is a doe-eyed ingenue, outgrowing that stage in life is a major career challenge. She was already well on the downslope long before 2001. It reminds me a bit of Meg Ryan and how the Russell Crowe affair gets blamed for completely ruining her career, when being a cutesy rom-com sweetheart approaching forty and the awful plastic surgery she went on to have, were factors, too. She tried some serious dramas well before the scandal, but the nominations didn't follow. There were other actresses close in age who were more popular, got more critical acclaim, hadn't jacked up their faces, or some combination of all three.

While it's probably incredibly easy for studio execs to be on board with Melissa McCarthy playing someone obnoxious and unglamorous, after seeing multiple SNL stints and reading some of her interviews, I've come to wonder if her tastes simply lean more to those sorts of roles. She comes from an improv background where loud/abrasive characters are often the standouts. Jenny McCarthy's her first cousin. Not that we're all exactly like our first cousins but maybe a taste for crassness runs in the family.

Honestly, Think Like A Man Too probably would've done better if it hadn't been the third Kevin Hart comedy this year (one had some of his TLAM2 co-stars as well). It opened smaller than the first one ($33.6 million). The trailers made the sequel seem like less of an ensemble, and more The Kevin Hart Show, than the first, plus the plot screamed "lazy cash grab".

June 20–22, 2014 Estimates: 1 (N) Think Like a Man Too, $30,000,000 | 2,225 Theaters | $13,483 Avg. | $30,000,000 2 (1) 22 Jump Street, $29,000,000 | 3,306 Theaters | $8,772 Avg. | $111,450,000 3 (2) How to Train Your Dragon 2, $25,300,000 | 4,268 Theaters | $5,928 Avg. | $95,177,000 4 (N) Jersey Boys, $13,515,000 | 2,905 Theaters | $4,652 Avg. | $13,515,000 5 (3) Maleficent, $13,012,000 | 3,450 Theaters | $3,772 Avg. | $185,980,000 6 (4) Edge of Tomorrow, $10,340,000 | 3,212 Theaters | $3,219 Avg. | $74,511,000 7 (5) The Fault in Our Stars, $8,600,000 | 3,340 Theaters| $2,575 Avg. | $98,728,000 8 (6) X-Men: Days of Future Past, $6,200,000 | 2,681 Theaters | $2,313 Avg. | $216,794,000 9 (10) Chef, $1,845,000 | 961 Theaters | $1,920 Avg. | $16,942,000 10 (7) Godzilla (2014), $1,820,000 | 1,365 Theaters | $1,333 Avg. | $194,915,000 Outside the Top 10: THE ROVER: $500,000 | 599 Theaters | $835 Avg. | $590,000 IDA: $254,000 | 125 Theaters | $2,032 Avg. | $2,051,000 VENUS IN FUR: $26,200 | 2 Theaters | $13,100 Avg. | $26,200 Global Totals: FROZEN: $858.4M Overseas Total | $1.259B Global Total (#1 in Japan for 15 weeks) X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST: $475.2M Overseas Total | $692M Global Total MALEFICENT: $335.6M Overseas Total | $521.5M Global Total GODZILLA: $282.4M Overseas Total | $477.3M Global Total EDGE OF TOMORROW: $218.3M Overseas Total | $292.8M Global Total NEIGHBORS: $92.3M Overseas Total | $238M Global Total THE OTHER WOMAN: $100.8M Overseas Total | $183.8M Global Total HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2: $76.3M Overseas Total | $171.4M Global Total THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: $64.6M Overseas Total | $163.3M Global Total 22 JUMP STREET: $38.2M Overseas Total | $149.6M Global Total

An article from People with reception details: And a new photo:

Not really encouraged by the news that it will be "inspired by" the Dustin Diamond tell-all. I doubt these kids were all super clean-cut but I think there was some embellishing for shock value and Dustin trying to make himself look good/the victim in everything.

First look at the cast of The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story: I hope this doesn't take the Dustin Diamond book as gospel; he seems to have an axe to grind and just really unpleasant overall. I wonder if this movie will address the Tori situation at all (Tori the character, not Tori Spelling's appearances on the show).

I recall the internet being tired of Jamie Foxx by the time he actually won the Oscar for Ray, primarily due to his annoying acceptance speeches at earlier award shows. I don't remember Joaquin Phoenix's documentary/hoax phase going over really well. I think if an actress had done that, it would ruin her as a mainstream star, but Phoenix seems to stick to the more prestige/arthouse side of filmmaking where you don't necessarily need the nice guy/All-American image in order to work. Val Kilmer and Edward Norton became notorious for being "difficult" on set. Shia LeBoeuf had it beyond made as a movie star but completely ruined the goodwill of Steven Spielberg. Alex Pettyfer got called out very publicly for rubbing people the wrong way and pricing himself out of roles. I haven't heard anything about him being a diva lately, so maybe he's learned or kept his bad attitude under wraps. Going to throw my wild prediction out there that Matthew Lewis aka Neville Longbottom will be the next James Bond, or at least in the running. He has the look and is on the jobbing actor path like several previous Bonds before they got the role. None of the other Bonds have child actor/star baggage, but since he wasn't The Hero or even The Hero's Best Friend, but a supporting player, and he grew up to look like Clive Owen, it probably wouldn't be an insurmountable issue. Even if it's someone else, when there's speculation about the next Bond, I see a lot of names thrown out there, of actors old enough to be Bond now, when they probably aren't going to get around to replacing Craig and making new JB movies with the next person until 2020 or so.

Some of the studio estimates were a little generous (by nearly $3 million in the case of 22 Jump Street). The worst estimate in terms being off from the real amount that I can recall was for Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, whose actual opening weekend of $80 million was considerably lower than the $86.1 million reported on Sunday morning for all the media outlets. If a studio can hit a nice round number or beat some sort of existing record with an...optimistic estimate, they just might go for it. They'll get all the positive PR and by the time the real numbers are out, the news cycle, more often than not, has moved on. Sometimes rival studios will call foul if an estimate seems too far off from reality and if the top movie changes from estimates to the actual numbers, that usually gets a bit of coverage. June 13–15, 2014 Final Numbers: 1. 22 Jump Street, $57,071,445 2. How to Train Your Dragon 2, $49,451,322 3. Maleficent, $18,504,997 | $163,021,529 4. Edge of Tomorrow, $16,527,215 | $57,001,698 5. The Fault in Our Stars, $14,791,933 | $80,767,200 6. X-Men: Days of Future Past, $9,816,449 | $206,256,610 7. Godzilla (2014), $3,311,185 | $191,457,194 8. A Million Ways to Die in the West, $3,246,400 | $37,107,020 9. Neighbors, $2,369,250 | $143,022,215 10. Chef, $2,187,526 | $13,987,981 11. Blended, $1,739,108 | $40,387,337 12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, $953,927 | $198,386,221 13. Million Dollar Arm, $804,423 | $33,471,302 14. Alone Yet Not Alone, $534,626 | $668,172 15. Belle, $510,282 | $8,569,624 16. Rio 2, $415,628 | $126,666,670 17. Words and Pictures, $394,064 | $1,065,352 18. Divergent, $382,468 | $149,621,275 19. Heaven is for Real, $334,518 | $89,402,432 20. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, $274,842 | $256,334,467

Emma Watson worked on five or six movies from the time she began her university studies until her graduation earlier this year. Maybe she could have done more stage work if she hadn't bothered with higher education, but it doesn't always work out for every actor, and it's not like she completely dropped off the Hollywood/celebrity radar in the interim. If she doesn't make it past the ingenue phase of her career, I doubt going to Oxford or Brown will have had much to do with it.

More about the Grumpy Cat movie:

June 13–15, 2014 Estimates: 1 (N) 22 Jump Street, $60,000,000 2 (N) How to Train Your Dragon 2, $50,000,000 3 (2) Maleficent, $19,008,000 | $163,525,000 4 (3) Edge of Tomorrow, $16,175,000 | $56,649,000 5 (1) The Fault in Our Stars, $15,725,000 | $81,700,000 6 (4) X-Men: Days of Future Past, $9,500,000 | $205,940,000 7 (6) Godzilla (2014), $3,155,000 | $191,301,000 8 (5) A Million Ways to Die in the West, $3,077,000 | $38,937,000 9 (7) Neighbors, $2,484,000 | $143,137,000 10 (9) Chef, $2,276,000 | $14,076,000 Outside the Top 10: ALONE YET NOT ALONE: $462,000 | 103 Locations | $4,485 Avg. | $596,000 THE GRAND SEDUCTION: $276,000 | 104 Locations | $2,654 Avg. | $1,284,000 THE SIGNAL: $146,000 | 120 Locations | $1,217 Avg. | $146,000 THE ROVER: $70,000 | 5 Locations | $14,000 Avg. | $70,000 Global Totals: FROZEN: $852M Overseas Total | $1.252B Global Total THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: $501.9M Overseas Total | $700.3M Global Total X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST: $457.6M Overseas Total | $663.5M Global Total RIO 2: $344.6M Overseas Total | $471.2M Global Total GODZILLA (2014): $248.3M Overseas Total | $439.6M Global Total MALEFICENT: $272.9M Overseas Total | $436.4M Global Total NOAH: $251M Overseas Total | $352.1M Global Total EDGE OF TOMORROW: $181M Overseas Total | $237.6M Global Total THE OTHER WOMAN: $97.5M Overseas Total | $180.2M Global Total THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: $39.3M Overseas Total | $121.6M Global Total 22 JUMP STREET: $20.6M Overseas Total | $80.6M Global Total HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2: $26.5M Overseas Total | $76.5M Global Total

American here, but Harry Potter is a Harry. In the first chapter of the first book, Uncle Vernon asks about him and Aunt Petunia confirms that her nephew is Harry and refers to that as a "nasty common name". "Common" because the "proper" thing to do is to name a child Henry/Margaret/John while relegating Harry/Maggie/Jack to informal/nickname status. In Aunt Petunia's mind, it would be the kind of thing that "people of the right sort" would intrinsically know, so her sister and brother-in-law naming their child Harry is just another sign to her that they're riffraff. When Prince George's birth certificate was released, it turned out that William and Kate listed their "occupations" as Prince and Princess of the United Kingdom, respectively. Of course, this show would mix up London Bridge and Tower Bridge, or not give a crap that there's a difference!

Emma Watson got good reviews for Noah, which probably made less than the studio hoped, but it still got over $100 million and its box office limitations can't really be placed on the cast. A still from an upcoming movie of hers with Ethan Hawke (Regression) surfaced this week and people are snarking on her acting seeming artificial just from a picture. I can easily picture it going either way with her, not making the leap or following a Natalie Portman trajectory and getting major awards traction for a role that perfectly suits her skill set. The Fault in Our Stars is by an author with a huge following who wrote a very popular book based on a real-life girl whose story made waves online even before her death. Shailene's reviews are stellar but I wouldn't say she's more of a factor in its success than Jennifer Lawrence was with The Hunger Games. It's a plus in Woodley's column, definitely. I think getting dumped from the rebooted Spider-Man franchise probably turned out for the best for her. For those who asked about Renée Zellweger, she has an upcoming movie in the news for a casting shuffle with upcoming film The Whole Truth: Keanu Reeves is replacing Daniel Craig, who left the project days before filming was to begin. Gugu Mbatha-Raw of Belle is also in the movie.

Lifetime's making a Grumpy Cat Christmas movie: GC is overlooked in a pet store, but a girl can communicate with her. No word on if the pet store owner is a workaholic single woman and the girl's dad is a lonely widower, but considering that it's a made-for-TV holiday movie...

All this talk of sci-fi films tanking reminds me of the debates that would flare up about Gravity on box office forums. It's a fictional story set in space about the human condition—that's the very definition of a science fiction movie! No, real sci-fi is more futuristic and speculative! And on and on. The movie was a success, of course: $274M domestically and $716.3M worldwide on a $100M budget.