Box Office Highs and Lows, Uncut Films and
Jackie Chan Fumbles
August 2006 News
Late July Box-Office Stats: At the beginning of August, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has won the most gold and treasure, yanking in more than $260 million in one and a half weeks. It sailed past the record for the year X-Men: The Last Stand at $258 million and shows no sign of crashing into the reefs just yet. All other movies (if you can compare genres) were blown out of the water. Superman Returns pulled in an anemic $12 million (shame on you, Man of Steel!), while the closest two runners-up were hardly close at all: Little Man at $22 million and You, Me, and Dupree at $21 million.
In August I see only Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby having any hope of pulling in a respectable box-office haul. It won't, however, match Pirates in fame and fortune. I'm sure many gleeful pirate cries can be heard in the halls of the Disney Co. Or maybe not.
Speaking Of...: Despite the success of their new movie, The Walt Disney Co. is reducing its work force and cutting its output of films from around eighteen to less than ten a year. A press release by the PR gurus in mid-July danced around the issue without making any statement at all: "We are constantly evaluating our business to make it better and more efficient." This gem was offered by Heidi Trotta, trotting out Captain Obvious to perhaps soothe troubled waters. Of course, Disney is not alone in Hollywood today: many studios are cutting back on the quantity of films released to the box-office. Time will only tell if "quality not quantity" rules the day.
Uncut, The Way It Should Be: A court case ended in victory for a score of Hollywood directors, hopefully pulling the plug on the "sanitizing" of their films. A federal judge in Colorado in late July ordered a number of companies to stop editing out content they find "offensive" from movies before selling them to their customers. These companies (CleanFlicks, Clean Cut, and Family Flix, among others) must now turn their inventory back over to the five Hollywood studios and stop producing and renting (or selling) out the edited films within five days of the judgment, or face fines and possible court action. I find this a refreshing blow to PC. It's up to the parents and guardians to judge whether or not a film is too raunchy/violent/whatever for their kids. Lazy parents beware!
Jackie Chan, Not At All Graceful: It pains me to report that Jackie Chan (pictured above), the wonderful comedian and martial artist, disgraced himself in mid-July at a concert by Taiwanese singer-artist Jonathan Lee. While he had been invited to attend, it gave him no right to stumble drunk up on stage and try to conduct the band and demand a duel with Lee. Both gestures ended in failure and embarrassment. Hopefully he can put this behind him with a sincere apology and move on to greater things.
More Martial Arts: On a more happy note, the beautiful Angeline Jolie will be providing the voice of a martial-arts master named Tigress in the upcoming film Kung Fu Panda. Scheduled for a 2008 release, the hero named Po is voiced by Jack Black. Apparently Po is The Chosen One who can save China from namely enemies, but of course he is only a lowly civilian at the beginning of the movie (in this case, a waiter in a noodle restaurant). Sounds good, we'll see if the movie lives up to its energetically fun beginnings.
Ashley...In The Hoop: My friend Joubert was good enough to invite me to a Washington Mystics game recently (that's women's basketball). That was fun. Because I am not a sports enthusiast I must have missed half (or more) of the subtle offensive and defensive moves the players performed, but I very much enjoyed watching athletic females at play. What does this have to do with movie, you ask? Well, one of the guest stars was Ashley Judd, to support YouthAIDS day and was also supported by her sister Wynona, who played a free concert at the end of the game. Ashley made a circle around the court at half time, waving to her fans, and we noticed that she was a little more than three sheets to the wind. I guess coming out to a local b-ball game, even in DC, needs much liquid fortification. And, at the end of the game, she did a bizarre interview with the star player that was laced with sexual innuendo. Ah, these Hollywood types.
