By Jason Apuzzo. • Inception was the #1 film at the box office for the 3rd straight weekend. This is unbelievably depressing, and I’m having flashbacks now to Avatar‘s box office run from earlier this year. Salt slipped to #3, behind Dinner for Schmucks. Actually, if you go to the cineplex these days, mostly what you’re getting is Cinema for Schmucks.
Sony really should’ve courted Fox News and others of us in the alternative media – far in advance – given how strongly anti-communist Salt is, and given the rather obvious fact that the film’s star is Jon Voight’s daughter. [Does this stuff really need to be spelled out?] The film’s somewhat tepid performance – in summer tentpole terms – is now basically killing its chances for big-time success, along with the potential of a franchise. What a shame. [Sigh.]
• Battle: Los Angeles has some interesting new posters out, including one (see left) that riffs off the War on Terror. [Look closely and you’ll see the film’s alien in the background.] Just last week the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein and I had a kind of on-line discussion over whether the current new crop of sci-fi flicks are reflecting contemporary anxieties about war, terrorism, etc. I think this poster more or less makes the point, yes? It’s fascinating to me that while extraordinary movies about the actual terrorist threat like Four Lions struggle to get distribution, Hollywood apparently has no trouble sublimating the exact same anxieties into sci fi projects like this one. Don’t get me wrong … I think it’s great that they put this stuff into sci fi, because it makes these pictures more relevant to our world – but I would also appreciate it if movies about the actual terrorist threat got a chance, yes? This is something that, for example, Frank Miller has recently been saying.
• In other fantasy/sci-fi news, the new Frank Miller/Zack Snyder Xerxes may be further along than previously thought, and David Fincher talks today about his possible forthcoming adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Basically 50% of Hollywood has been attached to a 20,000 Leagues remake at some point. Also there’s also some minor news today about the forthcoming Jack Ryan reboot Moscow, starring Star Trek‘s Chris Pine.
• BREAKING: Variety says MGM has apparently also been developing its own sci-fi/alien feature, an updated big screen adaptation of The Outer Limits. Our old acquaintance Cale Boyter, who’s been a guest at the Liberty Film Festival, is overseeing this project for MGM.
• The Wall Street Journal has just figured out that foreign audiences are starting to shape what kind of projects get green-lit in Hollywood. Those of us here at LFM would like to congratulate the Journal on this fresh insight!
• The ladies of Mad Men are apparently under orders to keep their curves, and not get too thin! Isn’t this refreshing! This is ostensibly to preserve the period look of the show, but I think the emaciated look is also getting old. Jolie didn’t always look convincing in her fight scenes in Salt, for example, because she looked almost as gaunt as Michael Jackson.
• Shocker: more showbiz money still goes to Democrats, by roughly a 73%-27% margin. This isn’t just because of all the liberal messaging in films; it’s also because Republicans rarely encourage artists sympathetic to their side, particularly if those artists happen to be under the age of 80. You reap what you sow.
• Stallone’s Expendables is tracking well, and is otherwise getting plenty of hype. I wish I cared. Nothing I’ve seen about this flick looks even remotely interesting – it just looks like a bad 80’s action film rehash that would normally go straight to DVD. We’ll see. I’ll be happy if it does well … but does that mean I have to see it? [Sigh.] Stallone’s also making noises about a Rambo prequel that he might direct but not star in.
• Liam Neeson has dropped out of Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln project. It sounds like this project’s just been too long in development, basically, and there still isn’t even a script. (Tony Kushner’s writing it.) I think this film isn’t going to happen, because Spielberg’s doing his World War I flick next and then probably Indy 5.
• David Hasselhoff got roasted the other evening, and former Baywatch girls showed up to participate. That must have been fun. In related news, some former Baywatch girls are about to get their own reality TV series, just like everybody else!
• Mel Gibson is hiring! Don’t you love this? Icon Productions is looking for its next batch of interns. Really what they should be looking for are paralegals.
• Spike Lee is doing a documentary on the BP oil spill, but BP won’t talk to him. Actually I think that’s because of how bad Inside Man was.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Percy Jackson star Erica Cerra says she’d like to play Wonder Woman. I’m glad somebody wants to play that role nowadays! Erica’s already got a head start on everybody else because she doesn’t have tattoos …
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.
Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 6:16pm.
The Wall Street Journal has just figured out that foreign audiences are starting to shape what kind of projects get green-lit in Hollywood.
When will the Chinese and the Euros wake up to the fact that American film companies are subtly programming their people to be more like America? When will they catch on that the elections of rightists in France, Germany and Britain was NO ACCIDENT!!!!!!
I hear you …
Lots of comments here to make. First of all, that is totally ridiculous that the “Salt” people didn’t market this to conservatives. That said, you people have been banging this drum for weeks and lots of conservative media read your site and should have spread the word. The fact they didn’t is pretty wierd. You have to be a psycho to prefer “Inception” to “Salt” given the totally different set of values they have, and how friendly “Salt” is for the right.
Second, I agree with you 1000% about Republicans not supporting filmmakers or artists and then expecting them to pony up at election time with money. You’re right. You reap what you sow. Support artists, and then maybe they’l support you.
Third – well, I agree with everything else you guys have to say and you’re a real breath of fresh air. Keep the great work up!
Thanks so much, Classic! Keep commenting here. We appreciate it.
There’s basically no support for artists in the conservative community. Zip. Zero. Nada. They could not care less … and we all see the results.
Every trailer I saw played up the Russian spy angle, so I assumed the film leaned old school. “Salt’s” doing quite well, but I suspect no-one anticipated “Inception” being the monster it turned into. Nolan’s film has undoubtably been pulling away audience from “Salt.”
True … and a lot of it also has to do with critics carrying Christopher Nolan’s water for him. I haven’t seen a director coddled by critics to this degree in years.
I don’t understand why Fox didn’t pick up on “Salt.” That just seems like such a no-brainer. I mean…they complain about Hollywood ALL. THE. TIME. Then suddenly somthing comes around and they ignore it.
We do what we can do here, but … yes, it would help if occasionally other people would get involved. [Sigh.]
Maatkare – the trailers I saw a couple of months ago made “Salt” seem like a generic CIA thriller in which someone within the CIA is the bad guy. I had no idea the Russian Communists were the villains. I thought this was yet another anti-CIA thriller and I kind of groaned to myself and said “well that’s a film I’m not going to go see.” Maybe you’ve seen different trailers from me, but I had no idea there was any anti-Communist content in “Salt.” They really should have made that more clear in the marketing early on.