Defamer: Walk Hard

Nicolas Cage Is A National Treasure

Seth — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:08:19 PST

On these final few hours before the sugarplum-gorging orgy that begins at dawn, we dutifully tabulate for you, like a trembling Bob Cratchit scratching figures with a quill pen into the margins of the Scrooge & Marley ledger, the weekend's box office numbers:
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets - $45.5 million
Frankly, we don't know what took infallible superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer and supermuse Nicolas Cage this long to bring us another Treasure chapter: With Secrets conquering this weekend's box office (and bringing in $10 mil more than the original), the American-history-corrupting adventure serial has now graduated to official franchise&trade status. We're eagerly anticipating all future installments, including National Treasure: Three Dollar Bill, in which Cage and his ragtag band of bookish fortune-hunters discover that the Lincoln Memorial's head spins to the left when a Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony dollar are placed in its orbital sockets, revealing a secret tunnel to J. Edgar Hoover's fabled lingerie closet.

2. I Am Legend - $34.2 million
A 56% drop-off in receipts for the last-Will-on-Earth sci-fi thriller still brings Legend's take to an impressive $137.5 mil, though it might also indicate that the premise needed a little refining. Luckily, producers have already begun making the proper adjustments for the sequel, replacing that German Shepherd (talented, but kind of one-note) with a grizzled straight-man for Smith to bounce his trademark one-liners off of, and those cheesy CGI zombies with a vast array of adorable aliens from Rick Baker's creature shop.

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks - $29 million
"It's great to be in the singing chipmunk business," Chris Aronson, Fox's senior VP of distribution, told Variety; that's a 180° change of tune from what execs were saying about the Jason Lee family film when the forecast looked less sunny, dismissively referring to it as "the untitled Richard Gere project" and "Ratatouille for retards."

4. Charlie Wilson's War - $9.6 million

5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - $9.3 million

It was neck-and-tomato-soup-hemorrhaging neck for both entries in the "sophisticated commercial choice for grownups" category, as Universal marketing head Adam Fogelson classifies his Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts Oscar-craving contender. Still, when you factor in that Sweeney played to half the screens of its competitor, a clearer winner emerges, proving a Cold War-era Tom Hanks trading Sorkinesque quips from behind a glass of Scotch to be less of a draw than watching Helena Bonham Carter get burned alive.

8. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - $4.1 million

We had a sinking feeling when our Arclight theater was three-quarters empty last night, and sure enough, the numbers justify it: With Walk Hard, Judd Apatow gets his first taste of box office disappointment—something that surely could have been avoided had the marketing better highlighted the film's frequent close-ups on a flaccid penis.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE December 21-23, 2007 [Box Office Mojo]
'Treasure' tops at box office [Variety]

For Your Consideration: Just Give Him All The Damn Awards Now

Mark — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:14:35 PST

Even if Walk Hard—the Jake Kasdan/Judd Apatow send-up of Oscar-bait musical biopics like Walk the Line, Ray and the upcoming Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds—turns out to be a letdown, we're at least being entertained by their recent For Your Consideration campaign in the trades. Following John C. Reilly/Dewey Cox's bird-flipping invitation for Academy members to recognize his bravura performance is a new ad in today's Variety, in which Cox, obviously in the throes of whatever substance was fueling a creatively fertile, experimental period in his career, even more defiantly demands the recognition of his peers.

We can't know exactly where the campaign is going, but we'll allow ourselves to hope that the next installment will continue to advance the storyline by featuring the troubled musician unconscious in a hotel bed, naked and quickly asphyxiating on a throatful of his own vomit, with the words YOU CAN CHOKE ON YOUR STUPID FUCKING AWARDS finally renouncing his misguided participation Hollywood's crass popularity contest.

[Ad via Digital Variety]

Previously: F Your Consideration: Walk Hard [Defamer]

F Your Consideration: Walk Hard

Mark — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:01:24 PST

· Is this the best For Your Consideration ad we've ever seen? Could be. Though we're still partial to one from 1993 in which Jack Nicholson was depicted defecating into Tom Cruise's Navy officer's hat to support his Best Supporting Actor candidacy in A Few Good Men.
· If the strike drags on, we wonder if call-to-action videos like this one will start featuring the home phone numbers for Les Moonves and Jeff Zucker instead of their office lines.
· Here's what you missed, signage-wise, if you didn't make it down to the Fox rally.
· Guys named O.J. Simpson should probably start avoiding Vegas.
· The strike's hidden victims: coffee shops.
· Avoid these drinking establishments unless you're looking for representation.