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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 - 26 Comments »

Friday Estimates by Klady

The Benchwarmers, in the official

26 Comments »

26 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady”

  1. Rob says:
    April 22, 2006 at 11:42 am

    Friends With Money is a great movie – it’s a shame they took it so wide so quickly. Now it’ll be gone within a couple weeks.

  2. martin says:
    April 22, 2006 at 11:55 am

    friends with money is a clueless piece of crap, what are you smoking?

  3. martin says:
    April 22, 2006 at 12:02 pm

    too bad about Dreamz, looked like a decent flick but those are some poor opening #’s. Does this mean the American Idol audience isn’t interested in political sature?

  4. JBM... says:
    April 22, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    Not a terrible opening, buy I figured with all the Jack Bauer love, The Sentinel would take the top spot. Oh well, looks like crap anyway. Clark Johnson remind anyone of Justin Lin?

  5. jeffmcm says:
    April 22, 2006 at 1:23 pm

    Clark Johnson and Justin Lin are two different species of bad director. One is a career guy who worked his way up through the ranks, the other is a film student geek who had a flash in the pan. Johnson will probably have a long career in TV, Lin will probably never be seen again if Fast and the Furious 3 flops (but it’ll probably succeed enough to keep him around for another 5 years).

  6. chris says:
    April 22, 2006 at 2:00 pm

    I think that’s two that didn’t screen from the top five. “Sentinel,” “Scary 4″ and “Ice Age” all screened

  7. waterbucket says:
    April 22, 2006 at 5:34 pm

    Kellie Pickler says: What’s Klady?

  8. Matt says:
    April 22, 2006 at 7:58 pm

    Clark Johnson’s a perfectly serviceable director–both SWAT and The Sentinel were fine for what they were, and he’s done some fine TV directing as well as some nice acting.
    The problem with Dreamz is that rather than aiming at a small target with a sighted rifle, Weitz is aiming at a barn’s side with buckshot. Effective pellets here and there, but no clear blows.

  9. Josh Massey says:
    April 22, 2006 at 10:14 pm

    Clark Johnson is not a hack. Haven’t seen “The Sentinel” yet, but his work on “SWAT” was OK – and his work on “The Shield” borders on fantastic.

  10. Me says:
    April 22, 2006 at 10:41 pm

    Um, so what’s the big deal with studios not screening? Only people who really want to see a movie (and probably wouldn’t care what a critic said anyway) go on opening night.
    Film critics can get off their butts and go pay for a ticket (hmm… isn’t it journalistic ethics that says you shouldn’t accept free product of something you’re going to report about, anyway) Friday morning.
    Hell, they can have reviews online (which is where most people get them from nowadays) same day (certainly thumbs up/down types anyway). Or in the paper by the next day.
    Doesn’t seem to be such a bad development. Mainly it sounds like a bunch of people who had it really good complaining about not getting something served to them on a silver plate.

  11. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:
    April 23, 2006 at 1:39 am

    “I figured with all the Jack Bauer love” How many people watch 24, really? And then to wanna see a lesser version on the big screen?
    Critics seeing movies they paid for is bad because they had to give up money so they will be even more negative towards it.
    I personally don’t see the problem with not having movies screened because the ones that don’t get screened are usually awful anyway and while sometimes awful movies lead to funny reviews, I know I don’t sit down and read the reviews of every movie that’s out. I couldn’t care less about Benchwarmers and I doubt that many Rober Ebert readers do either, so why should the studio care?

  12. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:
    April 23, 2006 at 1:42 am

    On The Sentinal i meant to say lesser unaffiliated version. The 24 Movie will be different. That’s a brand.

  13. jeffmcm says:
    April 23, 2006 at 2:46 am

    I saw Silent Hill tonight and really enjoyed it. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but sense is the bane of too many genre movies. It’s also a movie that really loathes religious fundamentalists, but its director is also French, so there’s that going on too.

  14. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:
    April 23, 2006 at 4:04 am

    It is directed by Christopher Gans so not making sense was a given (i liked Brotherhood of the Wolf though)

  15. EDouglas says:
    April 23, 2006 at 4:28 am

    It’s funny.. I hated American Dreamz, too, and as I watched it, I couldn’t figure out who would like it, if I didn’t… American Idol fans wouldn’t want to see their show mocked… Mandy Moore fans probably wouldn’t have much interest in political humor (as obvious as this stuff was)… but I still thought it would bring people in cause of Grant and Quaid and at least make $5-6 million. Great assessment, David, about Universal cutting their losses. (Although to me, it looked like they were trying a similar release as About A Boy, Love Actually, Bridget Jones, etc)

  16. MattM says:
    April 23, 2006 at 7:57 am

    I’ve seen a couple of times when not screening helped generate a bizarrely positive review, often along the lines of “well, it’s not GOOD, but it’s not bad enough that it shouldn’t have screened. Hell, it’s better than .”
    That said, none of the non-screener movies of recent vintage needed reviews to push them along. I’m assuming we’ll have at least a few non-screeners over the next few weeks (Stick It, RV, and American Haunting all have “no screener” potential.)

  17. chris says:
    April 23, 2006 at 8:09 am

    Actually, “Stick It” and “RV” have both ALREADY screened, so knock those off your list

  18. Nick says:
    April 23, 2006 at 11:56 am

    As a critic, if something doesn’t screen and it’s review-worthy, I pay for a ticket and get reimbursed, so it’s not as if I’m out the money on a bad movie, just the time. (I’m in a small-metro market, too, so I would presume it’s the same thing when, say, the New York Times posts a review of “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.) IMO, look at the movies that opened without screenings: none is a major blockbuster. Hits by comparison to budget, yes, but nothing along the lines of, say, a project like “M:I3″ or “X3″ or “The Da Vinci Code.” I can understand a critic wanting to comment on what will be American moviegoers’ popular choices, but I can’t honestly believe any critic in America sincerely wept over the inability to review either “When A Stranger Calls” or “Underworld: Evolution” by opening day.

  19. David Poland says:
    April 23, 2006 at 6:15 pm

    The blockbuster that started all of this was The Day After Tomorrow, which was hidden for most, though it did screen the day before release for a bunch of people… but intentionally avoided the alt weeklies and many smaller markets. It was easily the lease screened movie of its size ever.
    For that matter, Benchwarmers is the first Columbia film not to screen. The rest were Screen Gems, which is a genre arm.

  20. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:
    April 24, 2006 at 1:01 am

    RV is a family film so it’d definitely be screens. It’s basically films that are predominantly targeted at teenagers.
    I remember Miramax made critics unhappy when they made sure to screen “Scream 3″ at around Midnight on Thursday night.

  21. Nick says:
    April 24, 2006 at 9:22 am

    Weird about “The Day After Tomorrow.” As I recall, there was a morning screening well in advance for print deadlines in St. Louis.

  22. palmtree says:
    April 24, 2006 at 9:46 am

    Actually, I thought it was “The Adventure of Pluto Nash” that started the non-screening policy. That was over a year before “Day After Tomorrow.”

  23. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:
    April 24, 2006 at 7:42 pm

    And we can be eternally thankful.

  24. Lynn says:
    April 25, 2006 at 4:29 pm

    “The Sentinel reminds us that Michael Douglas is still a star in this specific genre. The opening for the film will look a lot like the last three thriller openings for Douglas

  25. Cadavra says:
    April 25, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    Amen, sister. 24 has just been simply amazing this season. Whatever they’re feeding the writing staff, they should send a case of it to every feature-film writer in town.

  26. Me says:
    April 27, 2006 at 5:34 am

    ITA about Tv right now.
    Every time I turn around someone is saying something like, “The Sopranos is the best show on tv,” or “The Wire is the best show on tv,” or “Lost is…” or “Battlestar Gallactica is…”
    All I can say is, I’m not sure what’s the best, but it’s nice having a lot of quality and compelling storytelling to choose from (something I would have liked during the last two Oscar races).

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