WKD 3 Day Est. RA 41.2m, LS 23.2m, NJ 20.5, JR 17.2, FRZ 11.9

[Elessar]

Closer to Taylor Kitsch and Val Kilmer.

 

Maybe those 2 will star in the next (straight to DVD) JR movie.

 

No, they just need to star in better movies. Had Affleck starred in Shadow Agent, i don't think it would have fared any better.

[baumer]

Not to be a braggart dick but I predicted 30+ for Lone Survivor and 40+ for Ride Along, so if anyone has Patriots/49ers this weekend, you're in luck!

 

Seriously though, can people FINALLY stop underestimating movies appealing predominately to African-American audiences now? I can't wait till Think Like A Man 2 inexplicably gets predictions under 35 million, and everyone calls it a "shock" when it does 40+

 

Great calls!  For the record, I've been on the TLAM2 band wagon for a while now.  The first had me rolling in the aisles from laughing so hard.  It's also the movie that introduced me to Kevin Hart.  

[Sam]

Ride Along looks hilarious. And I am not black.

I didn't know that we have to be black to find it hilarious

[CJohn]

I didn't know that we have to be black to find it hilarious

People are always saying "Don't underestimate the black audience" blahblahblah, never talk about other people. If I were in America, I would have seen Ride Along this weekend. That is why I said it.

[Cmasterclay]

Great calls!  For the record, I've been on the TLAM2 band wagon for a while now.  The first had me rolling in the aisles from laughing so hard.  It's also the movie that introduced me to Kevin Hart.  

Yea, I've seen that you are! It's gonna be huge. First was hilarious. Kevin Hart is just getting to be massive.  He's like the male Melissa McCarthy in terms of draw, except in my personal opinion, he's way funnier.

[Dementeleus]

Wow, the difference in numbers between and Wolf and Hustle was miniscule during the week, now Hustle gets 10 noms and it has a way better Friday bump.  The Oscar bump is alive and well.

...because WOLF lost way more theaters.

[Sam]

People are always saying "Don't underestimate the black audience" blahblahblah, never talk about other people. If I were in America, I would have seen Ride Along this weekend. That is why I said it.

Yeah, gotcha. And agree. I'll be watching the movie shortly myself. Looks hilarious, so I'm anticipating a fun time at theater.

[Cmasterclay]

People are always saying "Don't underestimate the black audience" blahblahblah, never talk about other people. If I were in America, I would have seen Ride Along this weekend. That is why I said it.

I'm not saying that white people can't find it funny. I'm white, but the main reason I predicted so big is because I thought it looked fucking hilarious, and WIDELY appealing. I think movies predominately made to appeal to the black audience tend to have big crossover success. I'm saying that the Hollywood establishment and many box office analysts underpredict them, which is 100 percent true.

[baumer]

...because WOLF lost way more theaters.

 

500 is a lot, sure, but not THAT much.

[Bob Violence]

Speaking of Frank, a movie called Frank just premiered at Sundance. It features Michael Fassbender.. wearing an oversized paper mache head through the whole movie.

 

Well of course he is, he's playing

after all. And casting Fass was a stroke of genius since he's probably the only reason it'll be seen outside the UK and Ireland. Edited January 18, 2014 by Bob Violence

[CJohn]

500 is a lot, sure, but not THAT much.

It is already under 2000 theaters. That is bad.

[Ruthie]

I never bought her performance. It was like she phoned it in.

Actually, it was worse.  Phone it in assumes the actor has the chops to begin with.  Sofia didn't know a thing about acting.  Her father cast her because she was his daughter.  Oh well, apparently she's a better director than she ever will be an actor, which may not be saying much.

[CJohn]

I guess it is time to bump my Ride Along 2 thread On The Lot that is created in the Summer. Because Universal is totally moving forward with it.

[John Marston]

It was marketed pretty well after the holidays. They just had bad timing with Lone Survivor breaking out one week before.

Everything about it looked bland and generic. The posters were laughable

[CJohn]

I guess it is time to bump my Ride Along 2 thread On The Lot that is created in the Summer. Because Universal is totally moving forward with it.

It was actually on April 23 of last year, when DHD reported that Universal wanted to make a sequel for Ride Along (!!!!!).

[Shawn Robbins]

Paramount should be very happy with what Wolf is doing as is. That kind of movie wouldn't be touching $100m without Scorsese's and Leo's names plastered all over it.

Edited January 18, 2014 by ShawnMR

[Dementeleus]

That's true, HUSTLE is a much more accessible movie. In fact, there's actually very little objectionable content aside from some cursing.

[Michael Gary Scott]

Did you ever see Amour, MGS? Just asking.

yes

[Cmasterclay]

I think I saw the trailer for Jack Ryan in front of every movie I've seen for two months, including things like Her and Inside Llewyn Davis, so they've certainly saturated it well, at least where I'm from. Whether the content of that trailer was compelling is another story. 

[Ruthie]

 

Relative to my prior writings, this letter evinces an increased stridency in my commination of Mr. ShawnMR's biases. This is because nihilism is classically a hodgepodge of sermons crafted for mass appeal. The nitty-gritty of what I'm about to write is this: Some reputed—as opposed to reputable—members of ShawnMR's plunderbund quite adamantly avouch that it is ShawnMR's moral imperative to make his paroxysms a key dynamic in modern hucksterism by viscerally defining "protobasidiomycetous" through the experience of churlish gangsterism. I find it rather astonishing that anyone could profess such a thing, but then again, ShawnMR's lalochezia is downright annoying. The destruction of the Tower of Babel, be it a literal truth, an allegory, or a mere story based upon cultural archetypes, illustrates this truth plainly. ShawnMR's impolitic politics are a locomotive of emotionalism. We need to get off that train as quickly as possible; the tracks lead straight to Hell. Personally, I, not being one of the many malignant, intrusive stumblebums of this world, would much rather be on a train in which the passengers recognize that the most repugnant manifestation of anal-retentive sentiment among mingy zobs has been the way they borrow money and spend it on programs that lock people up for reading the "wrong" sorts of books or listening to the "wrong" kinds of music. If that fact hurts, get over it; it's called reality. And for another dose of reality, consider that ShawnMR will stop at nothing to subvert our country's legal system. This may sound outrageous, but if it were fiction I would have thought of something more credible. As it stands, ShawnMR has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to send the wrong message to children. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that he does not merely silence any criticism of the brainwashing and double standards that he has increasingly been practicing. He does so consciously, deliberately, willfully, and methodically.

 

ShawnMR dreams of a time when he'll be free to rub salt into our wounds. That's the way he's planned it, and that's the way it'll happen—not may happen but will happen—if we don't interfere, if we don't shatter the adage that elected national governments are not accountable to their own people. If we're to effectively carry out our responsibilities and make a future for ourselves, we will first have to ask him to rephrase his criticisms in a more reasoned way. ShawnMR feels he has not only a right, but also a duty, to leach integrity and honor from our souls. End of story. Actually, I should add that he is trying hard to convince a substantial number of slatternly tin-pot tyrants to sue people at random. He presumably believes that the "hundredth-monkey phenomenon" will spontaneously incite unsavory, nasty hoodlums to behave likewise. The reality, however, is that ShawnMR once said that his perorations are intelligent, commonsensical, and entirely consonant with the views of ordinary people. His epigones and others capable of little more than rote psittacism are now saying that too. In contrast, I say that we have much to fear from ShawnMR. Personally, I'm afraid that as soon as our backs are turned, he'll impale us on a Morton's Fork: Either we let him turn peaceful gatherings into embarrassing scandals, or he'll condition the public to accept violence as normal and desirable. Regardless of which we choose, by promoting both warlordism and zabernism, ShawnMR's conclusions are doubly cuckoo. For the benefit of any doubting Thomases I will prove that point via an explanation of how many people think of ShawnMR's self-absorbed memoirs as a joke, as something only half-serious. In fact, they're deadly serious. They're the tool by which possession-obsessed grobians will treat anyone who doesn't agree with ShawnMR to a torrent of vitriol and vilification before the year is over. A second all-too-serious item is that if one believes statements like, "Everyone and everything discriminates against ShawnMR—including the writing on the bathroom stalls—one is, in effect, supporting insecure grafters.

 

ShawnMR has never been accused of objectivity. Of course, this sounds simple, but in reality, the real issue is simple: Without freedom of conscience and freedom of inquiry there's no way we can stand together and say "no" to his naive bruta fulmina. It seems that no one else is telling you that the agenda that he is attempting to advance is one of Titoism, repression, and Pyrrhonism. So, since the burden lies with me to tell you that, I suppose I should say a few words on the subject. To begin with, not only does ShawnMR talk about you and me in terms that are not fit to be repeated, but he then commands his understrappers, "Go, and do thou likewise."

 

If we do nothing, ShawnMR will keep on twisting the history, sociology, and anthropology disseminated by our mass media and in our children's textbooks. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can stand by our principles and be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. From what I understand, we now know for certain that his lickspittles intend to hasten society's quiescence to moral pluralism and epistemological uncertainty. Still, I recommend you check out some of his teachings and draw your own conclusions on the matter.

 

If you were to try to tell ShawnMR's operatives that we must do away with the misconception that he has answers to everything, they'd close their eyes and put their hands over their ears. They are, as the psychologists say, in denial. They don't want to hear that ShawnMR's sense of humor runs the gamut from rude and crude to untrustworthy and juvenile. Well, that's a bit too general of a statement to have much meaning, I'm afraid. So let me instead explain my point as follows: I have an intense dislike of deplorable authoritarians. Fortunately, deplorable authoritarians don't normally defile the present and destroy the future. ShawnMR, in contrast, does little else, which leads me to believe that he's trapped in a vicious cycle. The more opposition to his editorials he faces, the more directionless he becomes. The more directionless he becomes, the more opposition to his editorials he faces.

 

In a vain effort to exculpate himself, ShawnMR has been proclaiming to the world that he has done no wrong. Rather, it was his satellites who have been squandering irreplaceable national treasures. I suppose the next thing he'll have us believe is that bad things "just happen" (i.e., they're not caused by ShawnMR himself).

 

To those few who disagree with some of the things I've written, I ask for your tolerance. Although brevity is the soul of wit I do need to say quite a bit more about how in order to convince us that the future of the entire world rests in his hands, ShawnMR often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. Whether or not he should rot our minds with the hallucinatory drug of Satanism ought to be a simple question, far beyond the realm of debate. However, when people see counterproductive tatterdemalions behaving like counterproductive tatterdemalions they begin to realize that there are those who are informed and educated about the evils of absolutism, and there are those who are not. ShawnMR is one of the uninformed, naturally, and that's why he maintains that "the norm" shouldn't have to worry about how the exceptions feel. This is a complete fabrication without a scintilla of truth in it. What's more, ShawnMR's cringers criticize others for being fatuous but do absolutely nothing themselves to provide a trenchant analysis of ShawnMR's homilies. Although this discrepancy indubitably indicates that ShawnMR's cringers are all sharp-tongued but soft-toothed hypocrites, ShawnMR says he'll burn our fair cities to the ground if anyone dare threaten the existence of his flock. What's scary is that "threaten" can be defined in an almost unlimited number of ways. For instance, ShawnMR might consider it threatening if one were to claim that as the adherents of Randian objectivism believe, in times of economic, social, or political crisis, small groups that irritate an incredible number of people suddenly gain a mass following. Furthermore, as the adherents of empiricism observe, like a verbal magician, ShawnMR knows how to lie without appearing to be lying, how to bury secrets in mountains of garbage-speak.

 

If I seem a bit philopolemical, it's only because I'm trying to communicate with ShawnMR on his own level. I realize that some people may have trouble reading this letter. Granted, not everyone knows what "histomorphologically" means, but it's nevertheless easy to understand that I recently heard ShawnMR tell a bunch of people that the peak of fashion is to confuse, befuddle, and neutralize public opposition. I can't adequately describe my first reaction to this notion; I simply don't know how to represent uncontrollable laughter in text.

 

ShawnMR is a pretty good liar most of the time. However, he tells so many lies, he's bound to trip himself up someday. As you know, it has been a long-standing observation of mine that ShawnMR enjoys the sense of control that comes from forcing someone else to do things the way he wants them done. Oh, you didn't know that? That's because ShawnMR has been trying to keep that fact hidden from the public so as to prevent people from realizing that teenagers who want to shock their parents sometimes maintain—with a straight face—that ShawnMR's vices are the only true virtues. Fortunately, most parents don't fall for this fraud because they know that ShawnMR focuses on feelings rather than facts. Sure, he attempts to twist and distort facts to justify his feelings, but that just goes to show that ShawnMR's "brilliant" plan is to have acrasial wiseacres give advice to acrasial pipsqueaks on how to deal with acrasial slumlords. I fail to see how this will result in any sort of non-acrasial outcome, but perhaps I'm forgetting that you don't have to say anything specifically about ShawnMR for him to start attacking you. All you have to do is dare to imply that we should present another paradigm in opposition to his vengeful prognoses.

 

Even if we accepted ShawnMR's cock-and-bull stories, so what? Does that mean that he acts in the public interest? Of course not. My goal for this letter was to extricate as many people as possible from Mr. ShawnMR's grip. Know that I have done my best while trying always to maximize our individual potential for effectiveness and success in combatting him. Let an honest history judge.

 

I KNOW, RIGHT!?