With all my pontificating about New Moon, I kind of forgot to mention that Blind Side, which I expected to make no more than $37 million, is already past the $100 million mark after its second frame.  Bullock’s hypothetical Oscar nod just became that much more plausible.

12/4

Wide

ARMORED

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Armored truck guard (Columbus Short) agrees to inside heist with his co-workers (Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich), but changes his mind when someone (Milo Ventimiglia) gets hurt.

WILL IT SUCK?
All eyes on Kontroll director Nimrod Antal, who failed to impress with his American debut, Vacancy.  Also not encouraging, the let’s-reveal-everything trailer.  A little more pressure added since Antal’s directing Predators, until you remember that Predators probably isn’t a good idea to begin with.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not much action to compete with.  $57mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Maybe if Sidney Lumet directed.

BROTHERS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Guy (Jake Gyllenhaal) comforts his recently widowed sister-in-law (Natalie Portman) like, you know, Biblically.  Then his brother (Tobey Maguire) returns from the war.  Turns out he wasn’t dead after all.  Awk-ward.

WILL IT SUCK?
Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, In America) gives great movie (Get Rich or Die Tryin’ notwithstanding).  Writing is a little more iffy.  David Benioff wrote The 25th Hour, but he also wrote Wolverine.  Maybe he’s better with drama?  Cast also includes Clifton Collins Jr. and Sam Shepherd.

Early buzz is good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Sheridan does not usually give good box office.  Though this is the biggest cast he’s had to work with thus far. $31mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Sheridan’s usually good for a few.  Look at Actor, Actress, Screenplay, maaaaaybe Director.

TRANSYLMANIA

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Eurotrip meets Transylvania 6-500.

WILL IT SUCK?
Improbably, early buzz is good.  I say improbably because this is basically the team that put together National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze and with very few exceptions anything National Lampoon presents these days is crap.  Trailer also looks like crap.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Maybe if they called it Vampire Movie.  $11mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
No.

Limited

EVERYBODY’S FINE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Dad (Robert DeNiro) takes a road trip to visit his grown kids at Christmas.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mostly positive.  Writer/director Kirk Jones helmed Nanny McPhee and wrote and directed Waking Ned Devine so you’ve got a good pedigree there.  Based on the 1990 Italian film of the same name (except, you know, in Italian) with Marcello Mastroianni in the lead role.  This version co-stars Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, and Melissa Leo.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Seems more like a wide-release kind of film.  $11mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Haven’t heard that kind of buzz.

UP IN THE AIR

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Character study of a downsizing expert (George Clooney) who spends most of his life acquiring frequent flyer miles.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is outstanding.  Looks like writer/director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking, Juno) might go 3 for 3.  Cast includes Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, Danny McBride, and Anna Kendrick, whom you might remember from such films as Twilight but should remember from such films as Rocket Science.  Seriously, go see that movie.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
A lot of product will flood the market by the time this goes wide on Christmas Day, but between now and then buzz should put butts in seats.  $50mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
I get the feeling this will be one of the sweep nods: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay (and maybe a supporting nod for Kendrick).

SERIOUS MOONLIGHT

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Woman (Meg Ryan) holds philandering husband (Timothy Hutton) hostage until burglars (led by Justin Long) complicate matters.

WILL IT SUCK?
The directorial debut of Cheryl Hines, who helms the screenplay of her late friend and Waitress co-star Adrienne Shelly.  Early buzz is good. Oh, and Kristen Bell plays the mistress.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Has to get over the no-one’s-liked-Meg-Ryan-in-anything-for-a-while impediment.  $7mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
If they didn’t remember Waitress…

Next Week: Peter Jackson’s back, and no one can seem to agree if that’s a good thing.

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I have two new reviews up on Filmcritic.com.  One is real; one is fake; but both deal with ninjas.

My Ninja Assassin review.

My Who Dat Ninja? review (third from last in the “Top 14 Fake Movies from Real Movies” post).

Twilight, the novel, was released in 2005.  The film adaptation was released in 2008 and grossed $193 million.  The sequel, New Moon, came out last weekend and grossed just shy of $141 million (almost 3/4 of Twilight’s total gross).  In doing so, it set the record for third-biggest opening weekend of all time (not to mention biggest opening day ever).  Here are the movies that beat it:

The Dark Knight: $158 million

Spider-Man 3: $151 million

Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939.  Spider-man first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962.  What it took these brands 70 and 47 years to accomplish, respectively, Twilight did in 4.

Are we getting better at branding?

Maybe.  Look at the movie that New Moon replaced at number three.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which grossed over $135 million in its opening weekend.  While the Pirates ride had existed for almost 40 years at that point, it’s unlikely that the ride led to the great turnout.  Three years from Pirates 1 to Pirates 2 if you want to count the branding as beginning with the film, not the ride.

Two of the top ten opening weekends of all time actually belong to the Shrek franchise which, while based on a book eleven years old by the time the first film came out, is more likely to credit its success to the success of the original film in the series.  Six years from the original to number three, which had the biggest opening of the franchise.

Technically, though, of the top ten biggest opens, which represent seven franchises (Batman, Spider-Man, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, Transformers, and Star Wars), Twilight is still the youngest brand represented by far.

To be honest, I have no idea how it generated so much heat so quickly.  Although two points stand out in my mind.

1. The audience is, by far, more female than for any of the other six franchises.

2. Harry Potter, another teen fantasy novel series, never had this kind of success, and doesn’t currently have even one entry in the top ten.  Its best effort in that regard, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, made around $102 million in its opening weekend, landing it at #12 overall.

Does having a mostly female audience allow you to trend more quickly?  What’s the fundamental difference between the Harry Potter franchise and the Twilight franchise?

It’s no coincidence that 9 of the top 10 opens are sequels.  So the most important branding still seems to happen with film number one.  The only non-sequel on that list, the first Spider-Man, may be the only brand that truly took decades to build to that point.

Incidentally, the biggest open for a film with no history (not based on a comic, game, toy, book, TV show, etc.) is The Incredibles, which made $70 million in its opening weekend (less than New Moon made in one day) landing it at #36 on the list.  (Oh, and two of the next three films on the list that fit that criteria – Finding Nemo and Up – are both Pixar films).

It’s not much of a shock that the big-ass opening weekend is a brand-driven enterprise, but it seems the brands are taking less time to build.

I didn’t expect New Moon to tank, but third-highest opening weekend of all time?

11/25

Wide

OLD DOGS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Robin Williams and John Travolta play daddy.

WILL IT SUCK?
Unless the phrase “From the director of Wild Hogs” does it for you, just keep on walking.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
That phrase does it for a lot of people.  $78mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Okay, not these people.

THE ROAD

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Kind of like a really slow, unfunny Zombieland.

WILL IT SUCK?
First off, if you haven’t seen director John Hilcoat’s previous film, The Proposition, get on that.  Good, right?  Anyway, this is getting equally good buzz.  Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, and Guy Pearce star.  Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy which, I’ll be honest, I never made it all the way through.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not sure why this is opening wide.  Should still do well (in indie terms).  $17mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Will probably benefit from being delayed a year to a less crowded season.

NINJA ASSASSIN

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
I wouldn’t exactly describe the title as ambiguous.

WILL IT SUCK?
Yes.  Review coming soon but, for now, think the end of Kill Bill: Vol 1, but gorier and dull.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Getting a bigger push than I expected.  Might surprise you.  $46mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
No.

Limited

ME AND ORSON WELLES

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Zac Efron gets all serious actor on us as an, um, actor who gets a role in Welles’ stage production of Julius Caesar.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed with audiences a little more in love than critics.  Everyone agrees that relative newcomer Christian McKay blows the doors off the thing as Welles, though.  From director Richard Linklater.  Clare Danes and Ben Chaplin co-star.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Up in the Air is going to be a bit of a big deal the following week as Jason Reitman’s star is arguably brighter than Linkater’s at the moment.  Still, it’s a crowd-pleaser, which helps, even in the arthouse.  $10mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
I can see McKay getting a nod if the buzz holds up.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
In a huge leap forward for race relations, America finally, finally gets its first black…Disney heroine.

WILL IT SUCK?
The return to 2D animation might be the more notable feature of this film.  To that end, Disney’s brought in some heavy hitters to direct, the same team who brought us The Little Mermaid and, my personal favorite (non-Pixar) Disney flick, Aladdin.  They also co-wrote those films and this one, although this one has, like, 50 writers, one of whom used to write for A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Roc and even as an open-minded black man I can’t help but think the thought process there was, “Hmmm. Needs more black.”

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Don’t be fooled by the limited release.  It’s only a run-up to a wide release on December 11th.  That having been said, it will have to deal with Avatar and the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel not long after.  Still, it’s Disney’s world.  $112mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Besides Best Animated Feature, look for a song or two to get nods.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE

(11/27)

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Seemingly perfect wife (Robin Wright Penn) has a shady past.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is great.  From acclaimed filmmaker Rebecca Miller (Personal Velocity, The Ballad of Jack and Rose).  Co-starring Alan Arkin, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Monica Bellucci, and Maria Bello.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Through no fault of their own, indie female ensembe dramas usually have it rough.  $2mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Penn is supposed to be fabulous.

Next Week: The return of Jim Sheridan.

I probably should have clarified that “a” and “the” don’t count.  That having been said, the number one highest-grossing film (U.S. domestic) of all time starting with the letter C is…

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronic-what-cles raked in $291,710,957, putting it a good distance from its closest competition, Cars, which grossed $244,082,982 and would be the winner if you did count articles in the title.

The next runner up is a lot less obvious.  Cast Away.  I know it wasn’t a flop, but $233,632,142?  Da-yum!

You could probably guess that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ($206,459,076) might be next up if you thought about it long enough, but nobody guessed it.

If you adjust for inflation, you might think that Citizen Kane or Casablanca might win the day.  But as it turns out, Cleopatra is the winner…by a lot. It grossed $482,377,300 in adjusted dollars.  That would actually make it the third most successful film of all time (comparing adjusted to unadjusted) right behind The Dark Knight.  It’s number 38 on the overall adjusted chart.

Another popular guess, Close Encounters, would come in at number two if you adjust for inflation ($399,032,400).

Casino Royale was a popular guess, but it *only* made $167,365,000.

What’s the highest-grossing film of all time (U.S.) starting with the letter “C”?

Had a great time at BarCamp Philly 2.  Even better than last year.  My Links as Language talk went over like gangbusters and I attended some cool sessions and met some cool people.  One speaker, Angel Pizzaro, took it upon himself to interview every speaker he could get his hands on, including yours truly.  He compiled it in this video.  I’m at about 15 minutes, 26 seconds in.

Check out this time-lapse of the session board getting filled out at the beginning of the day.  If you’ve never been to a BarCamp, what you’re seeing is everyone arriving, writing down what they want to talk about on an index card, and posting it on the wall in a particular room/time slot.  Thus the schedule for the day is created.  Still love how low-tech-fully that is handled.

2012 is gonna do even better than I predicted, and I predicted a lot.  People love them some blow-up.

11/20

Wide

PLANET 51

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
E.T. in reverse.  A human tries to find his way home from an alien world, aided by an alien kid.

WILL IT SUCK?
From one of the 50 guys who wrote the first two Shreks.  Funny cos’ the aliens in this movie kind of look like Shrek.  Comforted by the fact that this is one animated film that’s not in 3D.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Even little kids are gonna wanna go see Twilight.  $30mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
There’s not going to be that much room in the animated category.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Edward and Bella are separated, and I think there’s something with werewolves.

WILL IT SUCK?
Let me put it this way: It probably won’t be any worse than Twilight.  Same writer, and new director Chris Weitz did wonders with About a Boy, but turned Golden Compass into…well, I’m not confident in his ability to handle fantasy.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Even with 2012, this will pwn November.  $239mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Nope.  But I’ll lay down cash money that R-Patz will present.

THE BLIND SIDE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Kind of like Diff’rent Strokes if Arnold made it to the NFL and Mr. Drummond were played by Sandra Bullock.

WILL IT SUCK?
The only reason I’m giving this flick the time of day is writer/director John Lee Hancock, who gives good true-life-sports-movie (The Rookie) and doesn’t exactly suck with a pen (A Perfect World).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
So you’re going to open your movie which, at best, has a moderate female demo on the same weekend as the Twilight sequel?  Let me know how that works out for you.  $37mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
If the critical and financial reception is much better than I’m expecting, Bullock might be looking at a nod.

Limited

BROKEN EMBRACES

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Hey, Almodovar is back!  With Penelope Cruz!  And they’re doing stuff!

WILL IT SUCK?
It’s Almodovar.  It’s not going to suck.  Early buzz lands this squarely in the middle of his oeuvre.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Some pretty serious directors opening arthouse flicks this weekend and next.  But Almodovar is Almodovar.  $6mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Don’t think this will achieve Talk to Me level buzz for Almodovar or Volver level buzz for Cruz.

RED CLIFF

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
John Woo does the Wuxia epic thing.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good.  This is not so much a departure for Woo as a return.  He cut his teeth doing historical epics.  Starring Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro.

This, by the way, is the 2.5 hour version of what was two different films totaling 4 hours in China.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Broke two records in China.  Most expensive film ever and highest-grossing film ever.  Probably not going to do quite that here.  $9mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
China did not submit it.

MAMMOTH

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Gael Garcia Bernal goes on a business trip to the Phillipines while his wife (Michelle Williams), kid, and nanny (w/ relatives in the Phillipines) stay behind in New York.  Drama ensues.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed.  Writer/director Lukas Moodysson is, apparently, the most important Swedish filmmaker you’ve never heard of (as opposed to those 15 or so Swedish filmmakers you never stop hearing about).  Leads alone are enough to get my radar up.  And is it just me, or is Williams turning into a total indie bad-ass?

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The whole “you’ve never heard of” thing comes into play here.  $500,000.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME
Here, too.

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Although not a sequel to Bad Lieutenant, still pretty much the same deal.  Rogue cop (Nicolas Cage) misbehaves, this time in The Big Easy.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is very, very good.  From Werner Herzog, who has what one might call a strong resume.  Supporting cast includes Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Brad Dourif, Michael Shannon, Shawn Hatosy, Xzibit, and Vondie Curtis-Hall.  Plus, Cage appears to be in full-on nutjob mode here, and that’s always fun.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Anticipation is fairly high.  $16mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Screenplay, Actor, even Director seem like possibilities.

Next Week: Hey, if it helps Seth Green fund another season of Robot Chicken, so be it.

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Little ways back I read this article demonizing TV for creating unhealthy kids and ran into some serious causality issues.  Perhaps because I plan on letting my kid watch TV I’m predisposed to come to its defense, but there’s just some sketchy conclusion-jumping going on here.

The upshot of the article is that according to a recent study, while all sedentary behavior is bad for you, TV-watching is the worst.  It results in higher blood pressure than, say, sitting in front of a computer all day.  So the study’s authors reach the conclusion that, “TV-viewing really is the worst of all possible sedentary activities.”

But when pressed for an explanation as to why TV watching would be worse, the first theory put forth is…

“…children may be compounding their sloth by eating junk food. ‘A full bag of chips or a plate of hot dogs can disappear a lot more quickly while watching TV than they might at any other occasion,’ says Ludwig. And the types of foods that children are likely to be eating in front of the tube, like salty snacks, can push up blood pressure readings.”

So, really, sitting and staring into space can raise your blood pressure if you do it while eating Cheetos.  So isn’t the lead here that eating unhealthy foods makes you unhealthy?  By the same token, would you get the same results if those kids were eating broccoli while watching TV?

Now, you could argue that the reality is most people eat junk food while watching TV, which may be true, but that isn’t the same thing as saying TV is making them eat crappy food.  That would require another study.

That having been said, the study author points out that watching lots of commercials for unhealthy food can influence eating habits, which probably wouldn’t be hard to prove, assuming it hasn’t been proven already.  But that’s not the same thing as a blanket injunction against television itself.  First off, TiVo now means you can skip all those commercials and secondly, if the kid is sitting there watching PBS, they’re not getting pitched Cap’n Crunch every fifteen minutes.

Of course, the reality is that they’re not watching PBS, but that’s still not the same thing as an empirical TV = high blood pressure equation.

Another point has to do with watching TV too close to bedtime resulting in worse sleep patterns because of overstimulation, but that’s an issue of when kids watch TV, not whether or not kids watch TV.

I’m probably taking the argument to an unnecessary extreme because I’m generally wary of “blame technology” arguments that trace outcomes to a device rather than a behavior.  Take the Internet, for example.  Many people blame the Internet for ruining civility, causing people to be more insular and close-minded about the information they acquire,  and being a boon for confirmation bias.  In reality, all of those behaviors were there to begin with, the Internet simply revealed how badly people wanted to indulge in them.

I support the theory that just because people tend to use a technology a certain way, they don’t have to.  More to the point, it is not inherent to most technologies to be used in a certain way.  For example, the Internet allows for people to broaden their scope of information retrieval more than they have ever been able to.  Just because they choose to do the opposite is not the fault of the Internet.

TV doesn’t necessarily provide the same opportunity to be healthy as the Internet provides to be well-informed, but it certainly doesn’t require the eating of fast food (and, not for nothing, could just as effectively promote healthy eating as unhealthy).  As a diabetic who loves TV, I tend not to eat junk food while I watch (and have to try to exercise when I’m not).  When I was diagnosed, my doc didn’t say, “Well, you’ll have to cut out TV, cos’ it raises your blood pressure.”  Instead, he said, “Stop drinking Coke.”  (Actually, I figured that one out before he said it.)

Point is there is a very big difference between using a technology to enable unhealthy behavior and the technology itself being unhealthy behavior.  So the headline: “Watching TV: Even Worse for Kids Than You Think” is more than a little misleading.

I think expectations for Christmas Carol might have been a bit high.  When they’re calling a $31 million haul underwhelming, they forget that (a) mo-cap is still a little creepy and (b) Beowulf and Polar Express had similar opens (Express was actually about $10 million worse).  Flick will probably hit $90 million, and I was only expecting $113 million so the lesson here maybe is that you can cover Jim Carrey with layers of cute fuzzy green makeup and expect a blockbuster, but pockmarked CG, not so much.

Goats doing better than expected, but I still think a limited release would have served them better.  Fourth Kind somehow beating The Box, which had a bigger cast and (somewhat) known director.  Think the Paranormal Activity zeitgeist helped out there.

The big story, though, is the $100,000 per-screen for Precious, which has Roger Ebert tweeting about it being the next Slumdog.

10/13

Wide

2012

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Roland Emmerich destroys the world.  Again.

WILL IT SUCK?
Emmerich has that rare talent of being able to make movies that are entertaining-but-meh (The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, The Patriot).  Co-writing here with Harald Kloser, his writing partner for 10,000 B.C., it seems like this one will, like 10,000 B.C., be neither entertaining-nor-meh, but just suck.  And, no, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt will not be able to save it.

Early buzz is, shockingly, good.  Although, not so shockingly, it’s of the “so-bad-it’s-good” variety.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
New Moon is gonna hurt.  Other than that, clear skies ahead.  $154mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Good for some technical nods, I’m sure.

PIRATE RADIO

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
In the 60’s, when the British government bans rock and roll, a rogue bunch, led by Philip Seymour Hoffman, broadcast from the high seas.  Based on a true story.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed.  Big fan of writer/director Richard Curtis (Love Actually).  Great cast, including Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Jack Davenport, and January Jones.  Looks like a lot of fun.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Probably gonna get lost in the whole 2012/New Moon foofaraw.  $31mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
With a more unanimous critical reception (or at least the promise of a bigger box office) I might be more inclined to say yes.

Limited

THE MESSENGER

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster portray two army men whose job it is to tell families about their fallen loved ones.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is great.  The directorial debut of Oren Moverman, who also co-wrote this script, not to mention the screenplays for Jesus’ Son and I’m Not There.  Co-stars one of my favorites, Samantha Morton.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It’s not so much that Iraq War movies rarely do well so much as intimate indie dramas rarely do well.  $3mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
If Oscilliscope can afford the costly Oscar campaign, Harrelson, Foster, and Morton could all be looking at nods.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Roald Dahl, meet Wes Anderson.

WILL IT SUCK?
Although I feel that Wes Anderson has been producing diminishing returns since Royal Tenenbaums, I’m always interested in what he’s up to.  And here’s he’s joined by Life Aquatic co-writer (and Squid and the Whale auteur) Noah Baumbach.  Oh, and it’s got stop-motion animals.

Voice talent includes George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Wes himself, Brian Cox, Anjelica Huston, and Michael Gambon.

Early buzz is crap-your-pants good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Limited run leads up to a wide opening over Thanksgiving weekend.  Smart.  $68mil.

WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
It’s going to be a crowded Best Animated category.

Next Week:  The sequel everyone’s been waiting for finally arrives: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

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