The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- China tells off "Batman" star for "creating news"
- Sagging box office looks for a Christmas miracle
- Chinese box office set to break $2 billion in 2011
| China tells off "Batman" star for "creating news" Posted: 21 Dec 2011 01:16 AM PST BEIJING: China slammed Hollywood actor and Batman star Christian Bale on Wednesday for "creating news" after he was roughed up by security guards as he attempted to visit a blind legal activist whose detention has sparked a domestic and international outcry. Bale and a camera crew from CNN were last week jostled by men in plainclothes in Dongshigu village in eastern Shandong province, where activist Chen Guangcheng has been under house arrest for 15 months. Bale was in China for the premiere of his latest film, The Flowers of War by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, a lavish and at times graphic tear-jerker about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre which is China's Oscar entry for best foreign language film. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, asked if China had been embarrassed by Bale's actions given the country's hopes for the film to win an Academy award, said it was Bale who should be embarrassed. "If anyone should be embarrassed it's the relevant actor, not the Chinese side," Liu told a daily news briefing, in the country's first reaction to Bale's actions. "What I understand is that the actor was invited by the director Zhang Yimou to attend the movie premiere. He was not invited to any village in Shandong to create news or make a film," he added. "If he wants to create news, I don't think that would be welcomed by China." He did not answer a question about whether Bale's actions might affect the chances of any of his upcoming movies being screened in China. The Flowers of War has played to ecstatic audiences in China, and has raked in some 200 million yuan at the box office since being released last week. It gets a limited release in the United States this week, where it has so far garnered unenthusiastic reviews. The fate of Chen, a self-schooled advocate, has become a test of wills, pitting the Communist Party's crackdown on dissent against activists championing his cause and that of artist Ai Weiwei. Chen angered Shandong officials in 2005 by exposing a programme of forced abortions as part of China's one-child policy. He was formally released in September 2010 after four years in jail on a charge of "blocking traffic". China does not take kindly to foreign criticism of its rights record. In 2008, Icelandic singer Bjork shouted Tibet! Tibet! at a Shanghai concert after performing her song Declare Independence, angering the government and local fans alike. As a young boy, Bale starred in Empire of the Sun, a film set in World War Two about a British family in Shanghai. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Sagging box office looks for a Christmas miracle Posted: 20 Dec 2011 06:25 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After a miserable few weeks at the box office, Hollywood is counting on a flurry of big movies hitting theaters starting Tuesday to reinvigorate its business. In fact, between Tuesday and Sunday, five films will go wide, while close to half a dozen notable specialty titles will either expand or open, too. That tally doesn't even include the film picked to finish No. 1 this week, Paramount's PG-13-rated ''Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,'' which will expand wide at 5 p.m. Tuesday into about 3,400 domestic theaters after a successful $12.8 million start at 450 locations last weekend. Sony's R-rated ''The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'' opens two hours later, starting out in about 2,800 locations. Also on Tuesday, Paramount will open Steven Spielberg's PG-rated ''The Adventures of Tintin'' at about 3,000 theaters. In limited release Tuesday, Roadside Attractions opens the R-rated Glenn Close drama ''Albert Nobbs.'' Then, on Friday, Fox's PG-rated comedy ''We Bought a Zoo'' opens wide in about 3,000 theaters, while GK Films' R-rated ''In the Land of Blood and Honey'' opens at three arthouses. On Sunday, Disney opens DreamWorks' Spielberg-directed ''War Horse,'' and Summit tries some counterprogramming with its PG-13 sci-fi thriller ''The Darkest Hour.'' Among specialty fare on Sunday, Warner Bros. opens 9/11 drama ''Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'' at six locations. And the Weinstein Company plans expansions for ''The Artist'' and ''My Week With Marilyn.'' Studios had hoped that the box office would come back to life last weekend, when Warners opened ''Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows'' and Fox debuted ''Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.'' But audiences largely stayed away, and the weekend was down 14 percent compared to last year. The weekend before that - Dec. 9-11 - was the worst at the box office since September 2008. And this year's overall North American box office is about $900 million behind last year's at the same point in time. One problem with this weekend and next: Saturday night generally is the best moviegoing night of the week, but this year, both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on Saturdays, dampening expectations. The movie with the best tracking, according to the research firm NRG, is Paramount/Skydance's ''Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.'' Paramount opened the fourth installment in its action series at 425 locations - 300 of them IMAX - on Dec. 16 to build a buzz. It seems to have worked: According to NRG, 89 percent of Americans are familiar with the movie. The numbers are strongest for men - 92 percent of men younger than 25 and 95 percent of men 25 and older report familiarity with the film. More important, 56 percent of younger men and 54 percent of older ones say they have ''definite interest'' in seeing the film. The movie, which cost an estimated $145 million to make, has a very nice 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Tom Cruise stars in the movie, which Brad Bird directed. Box-office watchers figure ''M:I4'' will gross around $40 million for its six day holiday period. Sony's ''The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,'' based on Stieg Larsson's bestseller, is tracking strong across all demographics, and the studio expects it will gross around $35 million at 2,914 locations through Monday. Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara star as Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander in the movie, which has an 84 percent ranking at Rotten Tomatoes and cost about $90 million to produce. NRG says that 85 percent of Americans are familiar with the movie. Tuesday's other wide release, Paramount's ''The Adventures of Tintin,'' already has grossed nearly $240 million overseas. It is expected to take in somewhere in the high $20 million to low $30 million range over its first six days. The movie, which has a budget estimated at $130 million, is based on a comic book by Belgian artist Georges Remi, better known as ''Herge.'' In the motion-capture animated movie, which Spielberg directed and Peter Jackson produced, young adventurer Tintin and his friend Capt. Haddock search for a sunken treasure ship that was commanded by one of Haddock's ancestors. The film has an 80 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Fox comedy ''We Bought a Zoo,'' meanwhile, has sterling credentials: Cameron Crowe directed the film, which stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson and Thomas Haden Church. It is about a father who loses his wife and moves with his children to the country, where they try to renovate a struggling zoo. The movie cost an estimated $50 million to make, and box-office watchers expect it will gross $15 million-to-$18-million from Friday through Monday. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 65 percent. On Sunday, DreamWorks releases the second Spielberg movie of the weekend, the World War I movie ''War Horse.'' It's currently scheduled for 2,376 locations - a number that is likely to increase slightly by Sunday. The film, which cost an estimated $70 million to make, is about a young man who enlists in the British Army after his beloved horse is sold to the cavalry. Disney is releasing the DreamWorks movie, and expects it to gross $3 million on Sunday. The movie has a solid 75 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and is tracking strongest among men. Finally, Summit is releasing ''The Darkest Hour,'' a sci-fi movie starring Emile Hirsch and directed by Chris Gorak. The 3D movie, set in Moscow, is about five young people who find themselves stranded after a devastating alien attack. It opens in 2,299 locations, although that number could increase by Sunday. The co-production between New Regency and Summit cost an estimated $30 million to make, and has not been screened for critics. The film has fairly weak tracking: NRG says that 49 percent of men younger than 25 and 48 percent of those older than 25 are aware of it. Summit expects the movie to gross between $2.5 million to $3 million on Christmas Day, and between $4 million and $5 million on Sunday and Monday. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Chinese box office set to break $2 billion in 2011 Posted: 20 Dec 2011 06:23 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Chinese box office is on track to break the U.S. equivalent of $2 billion by the end of the year, according to a recent report from the country's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Additionally, more than 500 feature films were produced in China in 2011. Chinese releases totaled 526, compared with 456 in 2009. And China added an average of eight new screens per day this year. There are now more than 9,000 screens in China, compared with 6,200 in 2010. As of Dec. 15, total box-office earnings had totaled more than 12 billion yuan, the reports says. That figure which equates to roughly $1.89 billion U.S. dollars. The $2 billion mark is expected to be surpassed thanks to the recent openings of the Christian Bale war epic ''The Flowers of War'' and the Jet Li martial-arts film ''Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.'' Zhang Yimou's ''The Flowers of War'' has the biggest production budget ever for a film made in China: $94 million. Last year, the total box-office gross in China was $1.61 billion - an increase of more than 60 percent over the previous year's figure. That made China the third-largest global box-office market, behind only the U.S. and Japan. The Japanese box office grossed $2.26 billion in 2010. China's booming box office contrasts sharply with the U.S. results. As of Sunday, total North American ticket sells stood at $9.64 billion, which is short of the $10.58 billion mark that was set in 2010. China is also the fastest-growing country in the global IMAX business, according to a China Film Industry Report. China was expected to have 48 IMAX theaters by mid-year and 2,500 3D screens by the end of 2011. China's film-industry trends contradict the country's broader economic woes. According to Reuters, the first quarter is expected to be especially tough because of slow European and U.S. demand. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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