Midnight Movies

You would have thought poor, smart Vera Farmiga might have learned her lesson.

In 2007’s “Joshua,” she brought home a new baby, only to have her older son — a precocious and strangely formal young boy with a gift for piano — turn into a manipulative, sadistic sociopath.

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Orphan (R) Warner Bros. (123 min.) Directed by Jaume Collet-Sera. With Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman. Now playing in New Jersey.
Stephen Whitty’s rating: Two stars

Rating note: The film contains graphic violence, sexuality, strong language and adult subject matter.

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Now, in “Orphan,” she brings home an adoptive child — a precocious and strangely formal young girl with a gift for piano — only to have her turn into a manipulative, sadistic sociopath.

You know, Vera, maybe you should give the movie motherhood thing a rest for a while.

Well, maybe next season. But for now, we’re back in “Bad Seed” territory, with Isabelle Fuhrman as the nasty little sprout (who, of course, is a sunny daisy whenever another authority figure comes near) and Peter Sarsgaard as Farmiga’s clueless hubby.

Horror movies, like every other industry, are outsourcing these days, so Jaume Collet-Sera, who last helmed the dismaying “House of Wax,” gets the directing job here. It’s not clear what, besides gratitude and economy, the Spanish director brings to the project in a visual sense. At times, “Orphan” seems like a deliberate index of scary-movie cliches.

Innocent noises become sudden, and shocking screeches dot the soundtrack. Shower curtains are whipped aside to reveal — nothing. Medicine-cabinet mirrors are shut to suddenly reflect a scare. As a filmmaking primer, it might be okay — hey guys, here’s what not to do. As a film, it’s annoying.

At least both stars play to their strengths. As Kate Coleman, Farmiga is once again sharp, inquisitive, impatient. As her husband John, Sarsgaard, as usual, seems sweet yet suggests a spoiled selfishness.

Fuhrmann, meanwhile, is extremely disturbing as the orphaned Esther — and, thanks to a surprisingly sick twist in the script, full-out freakish by the end. As a young performer, she’s a small, nasty surprise.

But more than surprises — or, more often, crude cliched shocks — what this film needs is a little more subtext. The script builds slowly, taking a while to get things moving (after an extremely distasteful delivery-room scene, which should be avoided by all expectant or hoping-to-be expectant parents). David Johnson’s screenplay complicates the characters nicely, too, by making Kate a recovering drunk (and not a very good mother) and John a former philanderer (a smoker, too, which in today’s movies is what a black hat used to be in Westerns).

With a better director, this movie could have felt less like a remake of “The Good Son” and more like a worthy, reworked sidebar to “Rosemary’s Baby.” Kate, for example, is undermined and sabotaged constantly, but, interestingly, it’s always by the women in her life. Her mother-in-law, her therapist, and, of course, her new adopted daughter continually patronize her or actively work against her (while John remains dangerously gullible). It’s not a politically correct theme — sisterhood is illusory — but it is an engaging one.

But before “Orphan” can develop, someone has to get out the claw hammer again and go around bashing in skulls while things jump out of the shadows and the music screams on the soundtrack. And what could be an interesting horror film just turns … horrible.

Source - www.nj.com

Three movies are opening in theaters this weekend, but it’s last week’s opener, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” that likely will again be No. 1 at the box office.

Nonetheless, “Half-Blood Prince” is starting to show signs that it doesn’t have the legs of the previous “Potter” film, based on ticket sales the past few days.

On its first three weekdays after a healthy $158-million five-day opening — $20 million more than predecessor “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” — the latest “Potter” film has sold $26.9 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada.

“Order of the Phoenix,” which opened at the same spot on the calendar two years ago, earned $28 million on the Monday-Wednesday after its opening. That film played on more IMAX screens, which carry higher ticket prices, but the approximately 8% increase in overall ticket prices during the past two years should balance that out.

On the other hand, exit polls were very strong, with audiences giving it an average grade of “A-,” according to CinemaScore. So there’s mixed evidence as to whether the new film will drop more than the 57% that “Order of the Phoenix” declined on its second weekend.

It’s unlikely to drop more than 60%, however, meaning “Harry” will almost certainly gross more than $30 million and be No. 1 at the box office once again, because none of this weekend’s three new pictures have breakout potential.

Disney’s mix of live-action and computer-animated guinea pigs, “G-Force,” has the best shot at No. 2 with opening-weekend ticket sales expected in the mid-$20 millions, according to industry executives with access to pre-release audience polling. That’s only a so-so start for an effects-heavy film, which tends to cost more. But given that the audience will consist primarily of families, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced picture should enjoy strong weekday grosses as well with kids out of school.
Sony’s romantic comedy “The Ugly Truth” will likely be close behind “G-Force” in the low $20 millions. That would be a solid start as it cost $38 million to produce.

The weekend’s third new movie is “The Orphan,” a horror flick that Warner Bros. is distributing and marketing for Dark Castle Entertainment, which financed the movie. The low-cost movie is expected to have a decent start in the low to midteen millions.

Source -  http://latimes.com

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Johnny Depp sent fans into a frenzy with a surprise appearance at Comic-Con in San Diego on Thursday.

“Alice In Wonderland” director Tim Burton was on stage in Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center when he reportedly said he wanted his “imaginary friend” to join him on the stage.
First Look: Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ >>
Depp then appeared and the crowd erupted with cheers and screams of joy.
The actor only stayed for a brief moment, waving at the screaming crowd at the Disney 3-D panel.

Depp’s appearance flooded Twitter with excited Tweets from inside the crowd.
“Tears wiped over Johnny Depp. Decibel level to 11. This is CRAZY fandom,” one user wrote. While another claimed, “Women are chanting ‘I love you Johnny!’ Men are chanting ‘I love you

Source - www.AccessHollywood.com

Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds has won the coveted role of “Green Lantern”. The Warner Bros. live-action film, based on the DC Comics hero, will be directed by Martin Campbell.

Reynolds, 32, who had who vied for the superhero role along with Bradley Cooper and Jared Leto, was chosen by Warners and Campbell.

The studio is still working on the picture’s budget, but production is expected to begin in January, reports Variety magazine.

Greg Berlanti wrote the script with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green, and he will also be producing with Donald DeLine. Reynolds’ representatives at UTA are working out his deal.

Any fan of old westerns would probably say that the 1976 movie, The Shootist, was John Wayne’s last film.

They’d be mistaken, according to Dave Burleson.

Burleson, who played minor parts in more than 70 westerns and was friends with Wayne, is releasing an independently produced film that contains Duke’s final unseen performance.

The film, a science-fiction western entitled Thunder Riders of the Golden West, was produced by Burleson in 1984, and includes footage that Wayne filmed before his death in 1979.

“It’s not the last movie he acted in, but it’s the last performance to be released,” said Burleson, who now resides in Barksdale, about two hours Southwest of Kerrville.

If science fiction western seems like an unusual genre, that’s because it is. Thunder Riders of the Golden West, is a movie set in modern times and tells the story of cowboy truckers who hit the trail in search of $3 million worth of gold in the middle of an atomic bomb test.

Burleson, who stunt doubled for Dean Martin in his westerns, stars in the movie, and with the exception of Wayne’s performance, the cast is rounded out mostly by friends and family.

Being the star was a change for Burleson. Born and raised in the Hill Country, Burleson moved out to New Mexico to make movies. His first movie was Last Command in 1955, in which he acted alongside Ernest Borgnine. He was more than happy to play bit parts alongside stars like Borgnine, Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Slim Pickens and others.

“They were the big stars, nobody wants to write about me and that is just fine by me,” Burleson said.

“Thunder Riders” never saw a theatrical release, but thanks to technology, Burleson is finally able to produce and distribute the film himself on DVD.

“After all these years, it’s great to finally get my film out there,” Burleson said. “But it’s really something for people to see one last John Wayne performance.”

Source - www.chron.com

“T.J. Hooker” is headed for the bigscreen as an action comedy with David Foster, Ryan Heppe and series creator Rick Husky producing. Chuck Russell (”The Scorpion King,” “The Mask”) is in talks to direct. The writing team of Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson will script the story, which focuses on the relationship between the title character and his father.

No actors have been cast yet for the feature.

The TV series, produced by Aaron Spelling, debuted in 1982 on ABC and ran for five seasons, the last on CBS. William Shatner starred as a no-nonsense patrol sergeant, with Adrian Zmed, Heather Locklear, Richard Herd and James Darren as co-stars.

Husky has long retained the feature rights to the project, according to Heppe.

“The series was the poster child for cop TV shows in the 1980s with great stunts, so we think there’s a fun movie to be made from it,” Heppe said.

Foster and Heppe are producing a remake of “Short Circuit” with Maddock and Wilson having written the first version of the script. The scribes have also teamed on “Wild Wild West” and several “Tremors” pics.

Source - www.variety.com

This fall brings ‘Eastwick,’ ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ and ‘Parenthood,’ each based on a successful film.

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” had all the makings of a hit, even without Arnold.

But after just two shortened seasons, Fox pulled the plug on the blockbuster franchise’s move to TV. Ratings had fallen to a series low by May, and it seemed the show was doomed to be unfavorably — and maybe unfairly — compared to its iconic source material.

This year, the networks are trying something more subtle. More movie reboots are on the way, but rather than plucking from mega properties, the networks have chosen less obvious films to help launch, but not overshadow, new series. In the fall, NBC will bring a drama version of the 1989 Steve Martin family movie “Parenthood” (a prior, short-lived comedic attempt aired in 1990), while ABC has slated a “Desperate Housewives” spin on “The Witches of Eastwick,” simply titled “Eastwick.”

Related
 Photos: Hits and Misses: TV’s movie rebootsABC Family on Tuesday will premiere the half-hour series “10 Things I Hate About You,” based on the 1999 teen comedy of the same name.

Though the films themselves may no longer be at the forefront of pop culture, each spinoff feels more like a homegrown project than a marketing ploy; “Parenthood” continues NBC’s tradition of extra-large-ensemble dramas (”The West Wing,” “ER” and “Heroes”), “Eastwick” adds another female-centric soap opera to ABC’s stable (” Grey’s Anatomy,” “Brothers & Sisters”), and “10 Things” has the comedic edge of ABC Family’s hit “Greek” (not coincidentally, “Greek” writer-producer Carter Covington works on both shows).

Time and distance between iterations offer advantages too. When the WB slowly grew “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” into a cult hit in 1997, few made comparisons — or even remembered — the 1992 movie that preceded it.

Name recognition, even if it summons a dim memory, is important, said Angela Bromstad, president of prime-time entertainment for NBC and Universal Media Studios. “When you’re in such a crowded space, anything that resonates is good,” she said. “To be honest, I haven’t watched the original ‘Parenthood’ in some time. It’s sitting at my desk at home — I was planning on taking it on vacation to watch again.”

That means no angry fanboys burning down NBC if the Steve Martin role is miscast. Jason Katims, who is executive producer of the series, said he likes “the fact that even if most people know the film, they won’t be demanding the series be a certain thing. Hopefully, they’ll be more open.”

The gamble is not entirely new to NBC. The network saw moderate success with Katims’ adaptation of the Peter Berg high school football drama ” Friday Night Lights.” Though the ratings-challenged show had a difficult time explaining itself to an audience — the story centers on the issues facing a small-town community in Texas more than it does on high school football — it found a critical following so devoted that NBC engineered a deal with DirecTV to keep the show on the air through 2011.

Katims thinks his new show will be a much easier sell. ” ‘Parenthood’ is simpler — it’s all there in the title,” he said. “It’s dealing with the beauty and heartache of everyday life, specifically for parents.”

As in the Ron Howard-directed film, the show will revolve around the daily dramas of a supersized adult family: four adult siblings (Peter Krause, Maura Tierney, Erika Christensen and Dax Shepard), their spouses, kids and parents (Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia). Howard will be executive producer of the series with producing partner Brian Grazer.

“Like with ‘Friday Night Lights,’ I think there’s positive attachment to ‘Parenthood,’ ” Bromstad said, recalling being a young mom herself when the film came out. “I don’t remember the specifics, but I do remember it being a rare comment on how challenging parenthood was, but also how great.”

A hard spell to cast

“Eastwick” executive producer Maggie Friedman concedes she initially found it troublesome that “The Witches of Eastwick” might be a little too memorable.

A couple of series attempts had already been made in the aftermath of George Miller’s 1987 supernatural comedy-horror movie, based on the John Updike book, which starred Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as a trio of lusty but vengeful witches and Jack Nicholson as “your average horny little devil.” Pilots were produced in 1992 and as recently as 2002, with Marcia Cross, Kelly Rutherford and Lori Loughlin playing the women as mothers with teenage sons (all three are now regulars in returning series this fall).

“It was extremely intimidating,” said Friedman, who had worked with ABC when she was a writer on “Once and Again.” Also, the idea of a remake had already stalled out twice before, but Friedman said she eventually gave in because of her “intense interest” in magic. (She had previously written a show about a witch for Warner Bros. that never got picked up.)

“What I wanted was to be evocative of the fun and sexiness and danger of the movie but also do something different and contemporary,” Friedman said. “More than magic, mine is a fantasy about female friendship.”

For the series, she abandoned the campy ’80s trappings and supernatural vagueness — in the film, the women’s powers randomly come and go — in favor of something more grounded. Each of the three new witches in sleepy seaside Eastwick, here played by Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jamie Ray Newman, is granted a gift specific to her midlife hang-up. (Price’s character, for example, is a meek, bespectacled wallflower who suddenly finds herself with the power to bend men’s wills — after she ditches the glasses and updo, of course.)

“The magic and mythology is really just gravy for us,” said Suzanne Patmore-Gibbs, ABC’s executive vice president of scripted programming. Even the devilish man, played by Paul Gross, who helps awaken the trio’s potential, may or may not be Satan this time around.

Patmore-Gibbs said: “We just wanted to hang out with these women. ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ means something to a certain age group, certainly, but you don’t have to have seen the movie or read the book to get into it.”

A recent favorite

Of the three shows, ABC Family’s “10 Things I Hate About You” might have the most baggage to shed. The original film, itself an update of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” featured Julia Stiles and the late Heath Ledger, the latter in a star-making performance as the longhaired misfit who falls for Stiles’ tough-talking high school feminist.

Their characters had to be reinvented for the show, which will follow the mismatched Stratford sisters and the students at Padua High. “It was really concerning,” said ABC Family head of programming Kate Juergens. “Heath’s role was particularly hard to cast, and we didn’t want to replicate what he’d done and do ourselves a disservice by comparison. So we went in a different direction entirely.”

Ethan Peck, the grandson of Gregory, will play the character of Patrick Verona. Juergens said that whereas Ledger had a “beautiful, sunny, playful presence,” Peck has a “dark, brooding, deeply classical romantic thing going on.”

She added that she had had her eye on the film ever since seeing a research presentation that listed “10 Things” among the Top 10 influential films among “young millenials,” ABC Family’s target audience. Once she found out parent company Disney owned the rights, she immediately began to develop the project.

Gil Junger, who directed the film and will direct several episodes of the series, said the show stands on its own because the characters from the movie do.

“I think if Disney had signed the cast of ‘10 Things’ to a two- or three-picture deal — and I’m still surprised they didn’t — there would have been a ‘10 Things 2′ and ‘10 Things 3′ and they would have been equally successful,” Junger said, “because people fell in love not with the story but with those characters.”

By Denise Martin

Source - www.latimes.com

From the folks who run the MorristownGreen.com Film Festival…

We are delighted to announce some terrific prizes for next month’s MorristownGreen.com Film Festival. Top prize is a director’s dream: Two passes to the fall season of the NY Film Critics Series in Morristown. This is like a semester course in film-making–without the final exam! For eight nights you will attend advance screenings of provocative films–and grill the actors, directors and film critics!

Festival runners-up will win gift certificates to fine local restaurants and shops, courtesy of the Morristown Partnership. Our thanks to both of these sponsors, for what is shaping up as a fun-filled night. Mark the date: Aug. 11, under the stars on the lawn of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown.

The Morristown Partnership is donating gift certificates as prizes for the second annual MG Film Fest on Aug. 11.”Making movies gives young artists a positive outlet to express themselves, in a collaborative effort,” said Mark Ehrenkranz, who runs the NY Film Critics Series with his father, Ira. “It’s like being on a sports team. It’s very powerful to work in a group to create something.”

Ira and Mark love movies the way some fathers and sons love baseball. They are involved with the MG Film Festival for the second straight year, Mark said, because it “nurtures young film-makers, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Do-it-yourself digital technology enables anyone to make movies. This has spawned a personal style of film-making that Mark compares to punk rock: “It’s like, we can learn a few chords and go in the basement and do it ourselves.”

The key for aspiring auteurs, he said, is passion. Don’t set your sights on riches.

Jamie Duffy
Ira Ehrenkranz of the NY Film Critics Series in Morristown.
“In this day and age, you can’t hang your hat on a movie career. It’s more competitive than getting into Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Four thousand films are submitted to Sundance, 10 make it, and two or three are purchased, for next to nothing,” Mark said.

“The goal is to hone your craft, tell stories, and enjoy doing it. If, along the way, you can make a career, and make money telling stories, that’s cool, too. Just do it, and enjoy it, like painting or taking pictures. From my perspective, it’s not about the success. It’s about having your dream and passion, and enjoying it.”

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ENTER YOUR VIDEO IN THIS YEAR’S MG FILM FEST!
DEADLINE: July 10, 2009.

WHAT TO SUBMIT: A disc with your video of 5 minutes or less. Include complete contact info (name, address, phone, e-mail, website), a short bio, and a brief description of how your film addresses the theme of HOPE. Any genre is okay, and strong viewpoints are fine–if they are expressed in a manner suitable for family viewing. Keep ‘em clean!

WHERE TO SEND THEM: MG Film Fest, c/o The Star-Ledger, 10 Wilmot St., Morristown, NJ 07960. We CANNOT return your discs.

THE FILM FEST: MorristownGreen.com and a panel of film buffs will select videos for the show based on originality, style, message, quality and variety. Preference will go to local artists–if you shoot in or around Morristown, live within a day’s march, have ever visited or lived or worked here, dated someone here, etc., those are pluses. Afterward, we will post as many videos as possible on MorristownGreen.com. So your video has a shot at finding an audience even if we can’t show it outdoors.

DATE OF THE FESTIVAL: Tuesday, Aug. 11 at 7 p.m., on the lawn of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown.

PRIZES: Top prize: Two passes to the fall season of the NY Film Critics Series in Morristown, where you see cutting-edge films before anyone else does, and meet leading actors, directors and movie critics. Runners-up: Gift certificates to great local restaurants and shops from the Morristown Partnership.

Source - www.nj.com

‘Revenge of the Fallen’ rakes in $387 million in global ticket sales and sets a record in the U.S. and Canada. A final gross of more than $800 million is all but certain for the live-action film.

Problems at Paramount Pictures? For the moment they feel like a distant memory.

Little more than a week after two of the studio’s top three production executives were fired, Paramount scored one of the biggest movie openings of all time with “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

Photos: Weekend box office top 10 Review: ‘Transformers: Revenge of the… Photos: Guns! Bombs! Love! The tender side of Michael Bay
‘Transformers’ scores a record breaking $60.6 million opening day
The live-action sequel based on Hasbro’s Transformer toys earned $201.2 million Wednesday through Sunday in the U.S. and Canada, according to the studio’s estimate. That’s the biggest five-day performance ever for a film that debuted on a Wednesday, and the second-biggest starting any day of the week, behind the 2008 movie “The Dark Knight.”

Grosses were nearly as impressive overseas, where “Transformers” earned $162 million in the same time frame and placed No. 1 in all 58 countries where it opened. Combined with $24 million from Britain and Japan for the previous Friday through Tuesday, the movie has made $387 million in worldwide ticket sales.

Among the film’s high-water marks was the biggest opening for an English-language movie in China, where it earned $21.9 million.

In the U.S., “Revenge of the Fallen” benefited from an expanded audience of women, thanks in part to advertising aimed at teen girls that focused on the blossoming romance between the characters played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, and ads targeting adult women that emphasized a subplot involving LaBeouf’s on-screen parents.

Audiences ignored the movie’s critical drubbing and gave it an average grade of B-plus, according to market research firm CinemaScore.

“That tells me loud and clear it delivered what audiences want out of ‘Transformers’: a big, fun escape,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount.

The only other movie to open this weekend, Warner Bros.’ tear jerker “My Sister’s Keeper,” started with a relatively soft $12 million but may hold on for a while if it gets good buzz from an audience that was 86% women.

A final worldwide gross of more than $800 million is all but certain for the “Transformers” sequel. Approximately half of that money will flow back to Paramount, with the rest going to theater owners.

A strong box-office performance is typically the springboard for other revenue streams such as DVD sales and television deals.

As a result, “Revenge of the Fallen,” which cost about $200 million to produce and $150 million to $175 million to market and distribute, will prove a big moneymaker for Paramount. It also has now cemented its position as one of the industry’s most valuable big-screen brands alongside “Harry Potter,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Spider-Man.”

In an interview Sunday, Paramount Chairman Brad Grey said he planned to make a third “Transformers” movie, as well as a follow-up to the smaller but still solid hit “Star Trek.”

“One of the mandates when I came to Paramount was to build franchises, and I think this summer we’ve accomplished what we set out to do,” said Grey, who took his job in early 2005.

Grey had a rough first few years, most notably because of the short-lived presence of DreamWorks Studios, which was acquired by Paramount later that year. Last fall the DreamWorks principals, including Steven Spielberg, left with their brand name to become independent again and subsequently signed a distribution deal with Walt Disney.

“Transformers” was developed by DreamWorks but the rights stayed with Paramount after the split. Spielberg remains an executive producer.

A third “Transformers” and second “Star Trek” will help solve a pressing problem for Paramount: a paucity of films on its future slate. Weak development was a primary reason cited for the sacking of film group President John Lesher and production President Brad Weston a week and a half ago.

Adam Goodman, who came to the studio from DreamWorks and previously shared Weston’s title, was moved into Lesher’s role.

Even if Paramount manages to make another “Transformers” or a “Star Trek” sequel in the two years that it managed to rush “Revenge of the Fallen” into theaters, the studio still has significant work to do to fill out its slate.

“We streamlined based on the economics of the business and now we’re focused on launching major tent poles and putting together a portfolio of films,” Grey said. “My eye is on 2011 and beyond.”

“Transformers” director Michael Bay set himself up for an enormous payday from the movie’s performance, thanks to a deal that gives him a cut of profits from all revenue sources after Paramount recoups its costs. Bay walked off with about $75 million thanks to a similar deal on the first “Transformers” movie, which grossed $708 million worldwide and will almost certainly make more because of the hit sequel.

Grey expressed no regrets about Bay’s gigantic paycheck.

“I feel great about the deal,” he said. “When Paramount and [parent] Viacom make a lot of money, I believe the filmmaker should do the same.”

Source - http://www.latimes.com

‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ takes in $148 million at the box office over a five-day period outside the U.S. and Canada, where it opens with $67.5 million.

America’s birthday had Hollywood looking overseas as “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” earned more in its international opening than it and “Public Enemies,” the weekend’s other new film, combined did at home.

Twentieth Century Fox’s animated feature sold a studio-estimated $148 million in tickets through Sunday in the 101 foreign countries where it launched Wednesday. Given the film’s budget of about $90 million, that’s an impressive start even before including the more modest $67.5 million it earned over five days in the U.S. and Canada.

The “Ice Age” sequel is the latest movie this summer to see significantly stronger returns internationally than domestically. “Angels & Demons,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” all fall into that category, having earned 72%, 64% and 55% of their total ticket sales so far, respectively, internationally.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” have both grossed about the same in foreign markets as domestic.

“Star Trek” is the only big-budget summer event film that has grossed significantly more in the U.S. and Canada than internationally — $250 million versus $125 million — reflecting the relative weakness of that series overseas and its lack of big stars. (”Up” and “Land of the Lost” have yet to open in most foreign markets.)

“Transformers” earned an additional $55 million on its second weekend overseas, more than the $42.5 million that it made in the U.S. and Canada. Its domestic gross, $293.5 million as of Sunday, surpassed “Up” on Friday to become the biggest film of the year. Paramount’s Michael Bay-directed robot sequel also recently blew past “Angels & Demons” to become the No. 1 movie worldwide with total ticket sales of $591.4 million.

Big foreign returns helped compensate for a relatively quiet box-office weekend at home that was depressed by July 4 occurring on what’s usually the biggest moviegoing day of the week. Studio executives said some of the difference was made up by bigger returns Friday and Sunday.

“When it’s on a Saturday, people have barbecues and fireworks and therefore moviegoing takes a back seat,” observed Paramount Pictures Vice Chairman Rob Moore. “But you tend to do very well on either side of it.”

The five-day domestic total for “Dawn of the Dinosaurs” was not particularly strong, coming in below the opening three-day gross of its predecessor “Ice Age: the Meltdown” in March 2006.

Given that 39% of theaters showing the new film did so on digital 3-D screens, where ticket prices are typically $2 to $3 higher, that’s evidence the latest release was drawing fewer people in the U.S. and Canada.

Bert Livingston, Fox’s senior vice president of domestic distribution, noted that with kids out of school, weekday grosses for “Dawn of the Dinosaurs” should be particularly high.

However, it has a clear run at the family audience only until July 15, when “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opens worldwide.

“Public Enemies,” the weekend’s other new film, had a similarly mixed start, earning $41 million from Wednesday through Sunday. Its $26.2-million gross for the three-day weekend was in line with other Michael Mann-directed pictures such as “Collateral” and “Miami Vice.” To end up a success, it will have to follow the path of the former movie, which was propelled by positive buzz and star Tom Cruise to gross $101 million, as opposed to the latter, which ultimately earned only $63.5 million at the box office.

Reviews for “Public Enemies,” which cost Universal Pictures and Relativity Media just over $100 million to produce, were generally positive. One good sign for Universal is that despite the film’s R rating and Mann’s traditional appeal to adult males, the audience tilted only slightly toward men and was evenly split between those over and under age 25. That’s in large part thanks to the appeal of star Johnny Depp.

“Having an audience composition that is so balanced signals this movie can have great legs,” said Adam Fogelson, Universal’s president of marketing and distribution, using the industry term for a long run at the box office.

Source - www.latimes.com