The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. more »
Lionsgate needed it, and Lionsgate got it: The beleaguered studio's Hunger Games gamble paid off in record-shattering fashion over the weekend, milking smart social-media strategy with old-fashioned saturation marketing — not to mention an honest-to-goodness good film — on the way to $155 million in three days. $155 million. As in the third biggest opening ever. You weekend receipts are here.
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Everything went pretty much according to plan at the box office over the weekend: Scurrilous liberal plot The Lorax indoctrinated enough kids and families to reign over a second consecutive week, while Disney's super-expensive sci-fi gamble John Carter settled somewhat anemically into second place. But it's not all bad for our boy on Barsoom. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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What a weekend for Dr. Seuss's The Lorax: The environmentally tinged adaptation became the latest of the beloved author's film spinoffs to capture the top box-office perch. Meanwhile, the raunchy Project X settled in quietly behind it, earning roughly a dollar per topless scene en route to second place. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Hollywood's biggest winners this weekend weren't confined just to the Kodak Theater (or whatever they call it now). A new-release frame well-known for its particularly aromatic qualities nevertheless had its success stories, led by an elite squad of Navy SEALs and our old friend Tyler Perry. Naturally. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Well, it finally happened. The line separating America from America: The Movie found a way to arrange itself into a stick figure and walk off the scene in disgust. In Act of Valor, an elaborate branding exercise for the U.S. Navy SEALs in the form of a Hollywood action blowout, the two mingle freely and openly at last.
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By many accounts -- okay, mostly just the filmmakers' -- this week's commando pic Act of Valor marks a new kind of filmmaking on account of it's a Navy SEALS actioner starring real active duty soldiers that takes the viewer along on a near-firsthand experience of what it's like to fight terrorists and baddies. From the looks of the film's new redband featurette this means audiences will get to see what it looks and sounds like to drop dome shots left and right in the heat of battle, because nothing says "valor" better than shooting strangers in the head with automatic weapons.
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This just in: "(Beverly Hills, Calif.) January 10, 2012 – Relativity Media announced today that it will promote the Bandito Brothers’ upcoming intense action-thriller Act of Valor, which stars an elite group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a fictionalized composite of actual events, during NBC’s nationally televised coverage of Super Bowl XLVI on February 5, 2012. Four 30-second unique Act of Valor commercials, featuring exclusive content, will run throughout the program including two spots that will air during the pre-game, one spot in game during the fourth quarter and one spot in the post-game show." MUST CREDIT MOVIELINE. [Press release]
Have you heard about Act of Valor , the upcoming Navy-approved action film starring actual Navy SEALs as Navy SEALs on a covert mission that is based on actual Navy SEAL missions? The one that totally glamorizes Navy SEAL-dom and resembles, as EW points out, a feature-length Navy SEAL recruitment video? Not yet? Well, you're in luck, because now there's a trailer.
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