Rank Title Weekend Gross
1 The Dark Knight (2008) $75.6M $314M
2 Step Brothers (2008) $30M $30M
3 Mamma Mia! (2008) $17.9M $62.7M
4 The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) $10.2M $10.2M
5 Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) $9.41M $60.2M
6 Hancock (2008) $8.2M $206M
7 WALL·E (2008) $6.35M $195M
8 Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) $4.93M $65.9M
9 Space Chimps (2008) $4.38M $16M
10 Wanted (2008) $2.73M $129M
One of the best reviewed films of the year had a stunning opening this weekend with an estimated take in excess of $155 million while playing on 4,366 screens. Apparently that wasn’t enough screens because the weekend was a virtual sellout and HOLLYWOOD REPORTER published a report of tickets selling on Ebay for around $50.
There is extensive coverage of the DARK KNIGHT box office saga at DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD DAILY.
Today the AMPTP and SAG negotiators met for several hours as the two sides squared off in yet another round in a seemingly interminable contract negotiation. While most major news sources are reporting that SAG simply told the AMPTP ‘no’ to their final offer today,
The studios Thursday said that SAG officially rejected their “final offer.” The guild says they didn’t.
“The refusal of SAG’s Hollywood leadership to accept this offer is the latest in a series of actions by SAG leaders that puts labor peace at risk,” the AMPTP said in a strongly worded statement after Thursday’s talks broke off. The producers say the guild was “unreasonably” seeking more than other unions and they’re not interested in further negotiations.
SAG officially rejects final offer
Guild probably won’t strike as studios go to work
By DAVE MCNARYSAG’s still not ready to close a deal with the majors — signaling that the thesps’ contract stalemate will linger on into the late summer.
Guild on Thursday officially rejected the final offer by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers on grounds that the pact falls short in such areas as new media and DVD residuals, along with product integration and force majeure protections.
Deadline Hollywood Daily has a different take on today’s meeting:
Today, SAG made a full counter-proposal to the Big Media cartel negotiating group’s supposed “last best final” offer put on the table June 30th. I’m told SAG and the AMPTP “got closer together today” because the union worked hard to “remove some of the differences” and “made a number of moves” in the AMPTP’s direction. “SAG is now engaging the AMPTP in the process of doing the same thing,” I’m told. Specifically, SAG moved closer on some economic issues, New Media issues, and some other bargaining issues not previously addressed.
In turn, SAG told the AMPTP that it had to move closer on these issues, too….
…SAG’s national board meets on July 24th and the guild made it clear to the AMPTP that SAG “would like to have something ready between now and then that our board would be interested in unilterally recommending to the membership.”
And so it goes. SAG has a national board meeting scheduled for July 24th. That date now appears to be as close to a ‘date certain’ as we’ve seen for some resolution to this mess. SAG leaders want to have a deal to present to the board on the 24th.
The AMPTP meanwhile continues to tout the fact the the DGA, WGA and AFTRA have already settled for this deal as proof that SAG should just take the same deal. If that were so, then why were there four or even three separate negotiations. Why didn’t AMPTP just distribute the ‘deal’ to each union at the same time and say ‘take it or leave it’? The fact is that each union does have similar but also different issues that need to be negotiated. So it is reasonable that SAG has issues to resolved in a different manner than did the DGA, WGA or even AFTRA.
It’s time for the AMPTP to put production back in gear by offering some compromise that will allow the SAG leadership to take an affirmable offer to the national board on July 24th.
According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, during the WGA negotiations the AMPTP offered no less than 10 ‘last best final’ offers. If that is true, then the AMPTP should cut to the chase, respond to today’s reported compromise offer from SAG and get the deal done.
There is a terrific article by Steven Zeitchik in today’s Hollywood Reporter: Strike effect mirrors class struggle.
A few excerpts:
“A strike absolutely makes it possible to get the quality of people you normally wouldn’t have a shot at,” said Mark Gill, co-founder of the Film Department, which is prepping as many as four movies to shoot during the strike, including Bart Freundlich’s cougar comedy “The Rebound” with Catherine Zeta-Jones. “If we don’t use this window now, we’re crazy. It’s the best opportunity we’ll have for years to come.”
The result could a baby boom of sorts for independently made movies with big names, a class that likely will emerge toward year’s end and early 2009. “It’s going to be one interesting Sundance next year,” one industry insider said.
The decisions also are affecting how producers are financing movies before going into production in the first place; several said they weighed independent financing more favorably compared with specialty division financing.
SAG and the AMPTP suspended negotiations Tuesday with no deal in place. While many in Hollywood believe that the actors won’t actually walk out, the perception of a strike has become its own reality. “Even if a strike doesn’t happen, it’s going to be very hard for a studio to get a movie going right away,” Plum Pictures principal Celine Rattray said. “That means July is going to be a really fun month for a lot of indies.”
and:
The SAG waivers, which serve as guarantee completion agreements, are playing out differently than the interim agreements did during the WGA strike, in which they mainly allowed for scattered rewrites. This time, they could prove critical for companies, particularly specialty divisions and mini-majors, who will use them to shoot now and deepen thin 2009 slates. (Before granting waivers, SAG is scrutinizing productions closely to make sure no signatory companies are involved even via informal distribution deals or small amounts of financing.)
Unlike the WGA strike, which was primarily a television strike, the potential SAG walkout is hitting film in all sorts of ways. The scribe stoppage came about abruptly and, because it concerned writers, froze many projects in development. That made its impact felt more sharply on TV.
But the SAG strike is working in exactly the opposite way. Because studios have had plenty of advance warning — and because it gums up projects farther along in the production process — its impact is felt in the more long-term business of the studios.
Read the whole article here in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Here’s an interesting roundtable discussion from The Hollywood Reporter on the state of independent film.
Where is the money coming from, how do you get distribution, what is the role of the international market in the indie film world and what about film festivals?????
Stephen Galloway of The Hollywood Reporter discussed those and other matters with five experts: Newsweek film critic David Ansen; Kirk D’Amico, president and CEO of Myriad Pictures, a production and sales company; Cassian Elwes, co-head of William Morris Independent; Mark Gill, CEO of finance and production company the Film Department; and Avi Lerner, co-chairman and CEO of Nu Image/Millennium Films.
THR: Let me throw out a statement: The independent film scene is as flourishing as it has ever been. True or false?
GILL: True, with a bullet in the wrong direction. There’s more money in it, certainly, than there ever has been before. There’s more studio interest than there has been before. But there are two parts of it that are falling apart: One is that the sort of movie that’s really hoping to get into Sundance, of which there are 5,000 a year, can’t seem to find distribution or a way to get to the audience. And the other is that all the money that’s fueled a lot of this boom is about to go away.
THR: The movies that can’t get into Sundance being the ultra-low-budget movies?
GILL: The under $7 million or $8 million movies. The market for those is extremely tough. Every now and again, there’s a “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) and everybody gets excited and thinks: “I could have that too.”
Read the entire article at THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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