J.J. Abrams made his latest monster movie, Cloverfield, on a relatively modest (by Hollywood standards) budget of $25 million and a handful of Sports Authority coupons, but the wise budgeting helped place the Bad Robot Productions film in the black in its first weekend. Setting an all-new record for January bows, Cloverfield raked in $41 million in its first weekend, nearly twice the take of the second film on the weekend list, fellow first-week debut film 27 Dresses, which made only $22 million.
The Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman buddy flick, The Bucket List, added $15 million to its take in its fourth week of release, Cloverfield nearly eclipsed that film’s total four-week take in only three days; The Bucket List has grossed $42.7 million thus far. The good news for The Bucket List is that it is holding relatively steady even after being in release for four weeks.
CityTV viewers in the great white north will benefit from a special scheduling situation this Monday night. The Canadian broadcaster will be transmitting the final two pre-strike episodes of the dramady CHUCK, about a reluctant spy, in its regular Monday night time slot. All NBC affiliates, including Canadian NBC affiliates, will still be airing the final two Chuck episodes on Thursday as planned, scheduled on either side of an all-new episode of Celebrity Apprentice.
The show’s brief return from hiatus marks a successful pre-strike run for the dramady, which typically aired on Monday nights in the fall, as a lead-in to HEROES. It is one of a handful of select shows already renewed for next season, thanks in part to the strike-shortened timeframe of the show’s run. Another freshman NBC drama from the Monday fall schedule, Journeyman, a personal favorite of HollywoodIdiocy.com, was not as fortunate; not only has the show been canceled, but the studio apparently tore up its agreement with the writer-producer of the show as part of a strike tactic.
One things for sure, owning a pair of disposable gloves might be necessary to avoid all the dust that’s going to be settling once this strike is done and over with.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel after all, folks.
Six days after the Directors Guild of America began negotiations with the Hollywood hotshots (otherwise known as AMPTP, the negotiating arm for producers), the DGA struck a deal with producers to avoid a strike of their own and may, in the process, have paved the way for labor peace between scribes and studios.
At least one Hollywood type who is a member of the WGA says he’s amazed at what the DGA negotiated out of the AMPTP, and if writers get a carbon copy deal, it would be groundbreaking. That person is ER executive producer John Wells.
“This is a genuinely landmark deal. I’ve been involved in negotiations for 20 years. This is the best deal I’ve seen that anyone’s been able to negotiate,” Wells told online sources on Friday. “The DGA took all the leverage the writers gave them and negotiated a hell of deal. I didn’t think we’d be anywhere close to this.”
Wells went on to predict the writer’s strike would be over in two weeks or less, if the WGA is willing to accept a carbon-copy deal of what the DGA agreed to. If so, maybe irate TV fans can put their rakes and pitchforks back in tool storage and return to the business of watching scripted dramas and comedies, rather than, y’know… communicating with their family members for the first time in 35 years.
