Maynard posts helpful and interesting links for movie mavens
If you want to see what’s hot today, visit the Box Office Mojo Daily Chart. It lists the daily and cumulative box office receipts of the current films, as well as the number of screens each film is playing on and the take per screen. The latter figure is of particular interest to me because sometimes I’d rather see a film in a theater that’s not crowded. The dollars per screen number tells whether this particular movie is still packing in the crowds.
I’m disinclined to read reviews prior to seeing a film, because too many reviewers give away too much and spoil the experience. But the Metacritic film page is a great place to grab a quick sense of the range of opinions.
Here’s an interesting chart of the biggest hits ever in terms of inflation-adjust gross. By that measure, Gone with the Wind is the all-time winner, followed by the original Star Wars.
Last and least, here’s the historical chart of movies that were released and immediately disappeared. A movie opens, but is it still around two weeks later? As an instant failure, Gigli sets a record, dropping by more than 97% from 2215 theaters to a mere 73. This year’s Hoot (yeah, I didn’t hear of it either) suffered a larger numeric drop, falling from 3018 screens to 818; that’s down by 2200 as opposed to Gigli’s 2142.
The snapshot of Halle Berry as Catwoman isn’t directly relevant to any of this, but it’s a nice picture anyway. Meow!
Even the eye candy of Halle Berry in tight black leather wasn’t enough to make that movie worth watching. I saw it on an airplane, so at least I didn’t have something else to do with my time, like watch paint dry…..
“Hoot” was about an evil land developer who was threatening the habitat of a group of burrowing owls. It tells the story of a trio of teenagers who engage in heroic acts of vandalism and kidnapping in order to save the birds. Though it did not do well in theatres, the producers recouped their investment by showing it in public schools all over the country.
Political_Junkie, I very much concur. Comic book geek that I am, I don’t get how some people in Hollywood can think they’ll do well with a comic book movie by ditching every premise of what it’s based on. It’s obvious that the movies in the genre that have done well don’t do that; quite the contrary, they embrace whatever mythos they’re built upon.
Best comic book movie? Batman Begins, by a long shot. Then the Spiderman movies.
Best Catwoman? Michelle Pfeiffer. An absolutely untouchable performance, IMHO.
Julie Newmar is still the best Catwoman. I’d buy her a warm saucer of milk anytime.