BadAtGender

1 1 American Sniper WB $5,017,038 +20% -49% 3,705 $1,354 $209,600,822 34 2 2 The Boy Next Door Uni. $1,224,160 +49% - 2,602 $470 $16,954,550 5 3 3 The Wedding Ringer SGem $973,330 +42% -43% 3,003 $324 $41,042,924 12 4 5 The Imitation Game Wein. $749,062 +54% +4% 2,025 $370 $61,686,856 61 5 4 Paddington W/Dim. $668,722 +27% -34% 3,355 $199 $41,133,302 12 6 6 Taken 3 Fox $602,255 +46% -47% 2,909 $207 $76,878,224 19 7 7 Selma Par. $504,811 +39% -44% 2,046 $247 $40,006,161 34 8 8 Mortdecai LGF $404,138 +48% - 2,648 $153 $4,878,587 5 9 10 Strange Magic BV $304,297 +37% - 3,020 $101 $6,030,270 5 10 9 Into the Woods BV $302,031 +36% -38% 2,270 $133 $122,017,342 34 11 11 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies WB $254,633 +27% -45% 1,444 $176 $250,000,941 42 12 12 Birdman FoxS $240,530 +39% +70% 833 $289 $31,350,131 103 13 14 Blackhat Uni. $206,680 +46% -46% 2,568 $80 $7,445,045 12 14 13 Unbroken Uni. $200,025 +31% -50% 1,606 $125 $112,789,500 34 15 15 The Theory of Everything Focus $167,040 +56% +53% 858 $195 $29,329,521 82 - - Wild (2014) FoxS $118,136 +48% -30% 505 $234 $34,918,040 56 - - Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb Fox $109,342 +18% -57% 1,370 $80 $108,800,335 40 - - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 LGF $74,249 +23% -48% 676 $110 $334,460,626 68 - - Spare Parts LGF $57,266 +36% -30% 424 $135 $2,714,315 12 - - Annie (2014) Sony $51,986 +3% -63% 756 $69 $84,375,015 40 - - Inherent Vice WB $39,445 +30% -68% 244 $162 $7,470,407 47 - - Big Hero 6 BV $38,394 -10% -42% 451 $85 $217,536,892 82 - - Big Eyes Wein. $34,295 +28% -50% 303 $113 $14,067,476 34 - - The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death Rela. $33,597 +16% -68% 510 $66 $25,942,151 26 - - Interstellar Par. $32,905 +28% -29% 214 $154 $186,409,262 84 - - Penguins of Madagascar Fox $23,801 +5% -31% 321 $74 $81,314,885 63 - - Exodus: Gods and Kings Fox $20,449 +29% -13% 178 $115 $64,568,919 47 - - Gone Girl Fox $11,160 +42% -37% 145 $77 $167,609,690 117 - - Nightcrawler ORF $10,678 +27% +120% 125 $85 $32,299,041 89 - - Horrible Bosses 2 WB $10,641 +16% -45% 208 $51 $54,291,684 63 - - St. Vincent Wein. $7,729 +32% -14% 94 $82 $43,932,325 110 - - Dumb and Dumber To Uni. $7,650 +11% -21% 153 $50 $86,031,690 75 - - The Book of Life (2014) Fox $4,705 +20% -30% 90 $52 $50,008,950 103 - - Black Sea Focus $4,464 +99% - 5 $893 $44,383 5 - - The Gambler Par. $3,873 +30% -86% 69 $56 $33,548,941 34 - - Top Five Par. $1,895 +241% -84% 16 $118 $25,280,012 47 - - The Boxtrolls Focus $1,727 -3% -33% 77 $22 $50,811,147 124 - - Beyond the Lights Rela. $775 +47% -64% 31 $25 $14,614,142 75

Oh, we're always going to remember Legends of Oz. It's a pretty legendary bomb.

Same.

I did another tabulation about what BH6 would have grossed had it opened over Thanksgiving. As before, this is full of a lot of assumptions: 1. The OW is the same as its actual OW ($75,643,891), but instead moved to Nov 28-Dec 4. 2. The W/Th Thanksgiving gross is the same ratio as its actual W/Thu:Thanksgiving weekend. 3. The weekly drops from that OW are the same as its actual posted weekly drops. (There might be some rounding errors below in the totals.) Okay, it hypothetically earned $21,505,747 over the W/Th for Thanksgiving, then had its $75,643,891 opening week. Running total: $97,149,638. (Frozen, as a comparison, earned $102,637,436 over that period, including the 5 limited days.) Then, as is typical, it fell hard on the next week, to $35,174,409. Then it had a third week drop to $27,652,609. Running total: $160,076,656. (Frozen held better in the second week drop, so was at $172,392,010). But then the holidays kicked it, and it saw $29,556,529 and $40,994,905. Running total: $230,628,089. (Frozen: $277,116,204) Then the holidays ended, and it crashed back to earth. $20,743,422 and $10,122,790 and $6,316,629. As of last Thursday, it would have a running total of $267,810,922, or about $50m ahead of its current total. Of course, had it actually opened over Thanksgiving, it woudn't have followed the holidays with two straight 50% weekly drops. The first big drop is expected, and possibly might have been higher, but it's likely it would have recovered some (it wouldn't have lost so many theaters) and wouldn't have lost nearly as much over the MLK week. If I stop the direct weekly drops at the post-holiday week and then plug it into my flat percentage spreadsheet, it looks like with weekly drops of 40% from there on out, it would have ended up in the low $280s. (These are assumptions built on assumptions, though.) While we can't really ever know what would have happened had Disney claimed the Thanksgiving slot for Big Hero 6, it seems likely that if they had it would have earned up to $60m more domestically. It definitely wouldn't have been a quiet $200m grosser.

Saw Kaguya today. It's fucking fantastic.

Ranking the ones I've seen: 1. Selma 2. Grand Budapest Hotel 3. Boyhood 4. Birdman Ranking my interest in the remaining ones 1. Whiplash 2. Theory of Everything 3. The Imitation Game 4. (this spot intentionally left blank)

Um... Shrek? (Not saying it was deserved, but it did win.)

But he's right. It is basically a love letter to Baby Boomers. The great parts of the film could probably be trimmed down enough that you could fit it into a half hour spot on TV... with commercial breaks. It's actually a bit funny, but almost all Hanks films fall into these Boomer archetypes. You've got Gump, which waxes poetic about how wonderful things were when Boomers were growing up. And CastAway, which says pretty definitively that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps no matter how bad the world seems. Or Saving Private Ryan, which is basically about Boomers saying how great their parents were.

I'm trying to come up with my own list of these, but I've only got 5 so far. It's probably because I don't go out of my way to see things I don't like.

What I like about this is that even if I disagree with Tele, he brings interesting points to consider. Nothing should be loved without considering the flaws, and there are no perfect films. I mean, when I die, it'll probably be after taking some great grand-niece to see the latest Disney Princess film, which I hope she loves. But I hope that she doesn't love it uncritically.

I've only ever seen one Woody Allen film: Everyone Says I Love You. I don't really remember it, either. I know I only watched it because Natalie Portman is in it.

I'll pass, thanks.

Whoa. Although from what I remember, Fistful did pale pretty significantly compared to Yojimbo.

A four year cycle for Dragon 3 is a bit surprising, but overall this looks like a much stronger release schedule. It balances out the originals with the sequels. I'm sad Mumbai Musical was dropped, but it's not especially surprising.

40% weekly drops would put AS right in the same ballpark as GotG. It looks like it will pull about 132m for the first wide week. A 40% drop would put the second week around 80m. It would need a weekend drop below 40% to do that, though, due to the holiday Monday this week.

I Have a Dream actually was delivered in 1963, before the Selma to Montgomery March. One thing I thought was stunning about this was it showed how amazing a speechwriter MLK was, even when none of his most famous speeches were done during the time period of Selma. Every single one sent chills down my spine. Beyond that, I think that deciding not to delve into what happened to King before (and after, except for the credit note), was very deliberate but also very smart. This wasn't a biopic of King's life, but a story about one event in the whole Civil Rights Movement. It might have been easier and more palatable to go over all of King's life, but in this case, they chose Selma because it has a very direct and immediate parallel to what has been going on recently in Oakland or Ferguson or elsewhere. Everything about the framing of the first day of the march was to reinforce that parallel. What happened then is still happening right now. The given reasons have changed, but the tactics really haven't. The fight is not over. And maybe, in order to understand how to win, we need to take full stock of what MLK did and who he was as a person, and not just view the highlights of his life. Including "I Have a Dream" would have undermined that entirely.

Woo. In under the wire.

How high would it have gone?

Tele has a new #1!

Something I've been thinking about recently is how Nolan seems to know perfectly how to end his movies. Most of them have an extremely memorable final shot/moment. It makes his comment about how real movies don't have post-credits scenes or whatever make a lot more sense. I remember seeing a list many, many years ago about the greatest/most memorable lines in movie history. "Plastics!" was one of them, but I really don't get it. It must have been another "before my time" moment.

Makes sense:

Hawke seems to have an uphill battle for Supporting Actor. I could see Arquette getting Supporting Actress, though. (She's not my first choice, but Carmen Ejogo wasn't nominated, so...)

From the top 100: Passion of the Christ Mockingjay Shrek the Third Twilight: Eclipse Twilight: New Moon Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 Twilight: Breaking Dawn 1 Meet the Fockers The Hangover How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Blind Side The Hangover 2 Night at the Museum Transformers: Age of Extinction Bruce Almighty Twister Shrek Forever After And once it passes $237,283,208, you can add American Sniper to that list.

Ugh. Hope I have time tomorrow to get a ballot together.