Aw sookie, sookie now! “Think Like A Man” Set To Make Over $30 Million This Weekend “Think Like A Man” the new adaptation of Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, earned a muscular $9 million at the box office on Friday, reports THR. That puts the little-discussed film on track to knock “The Hunger Games” out of the top position when final numbers are tabulated on Monday. (Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke was even more bullish on “Think Like a Man,” reporting Friday grosses of $12 million.) UPDATE: Finke’s estimates were dead-on: “Think Like a Man” earned $12.2 million on Friday, which could push it over $30 million for the weekend. Directed by Tim Story, “Think Like A Man” has been tracking very well despite little mainstream press acknowledgement. Earlier this month, Vutlure reported that “Man” was the “best-testing film in Hollywood,” with screening audiences giving it almost unanimous praise and approval. The romantic comedy stars Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Taraji P. Henson, Michael Ealy and Kevin Hart, who could be “Man’s” not-so-secret weapon. Last year, the comedian’s stand-up comedy film, “Laugh at My Pain,” earned a surprising $7.7 million at the box office. For those that have seen it, what did you think? Was it as hilarious as it looks?? We’ll be in attendance tonight and we’ll check in on Monday with our thoughts. Source More On Bossip! Dirty Dog Diaries: MORE Women Come Forward Telling Royce That Her New Boo-Thang Dezmon Briscoe Been Tryna Chop Them Down Too! Single And Ready To Mingle: The 10 Best Cities To Meet New People And Get Freaky! Cheaper To Chop Her: Men (And Women) That Got Caught Trying To Pay For That Poon Ain’t That A B–?! Dirty Dogs That Faced Bad Karma For Their Dirty Dog Ways
After two and a half years running Disney , during which time the Mouse House released hits like Pirates of the Caribbean 4 , Alice in Wonderland , Toy Story 3 , The Muppets , and The Help — but also a string of disappointments topped by last month’s quarter-billion dollar bomb John Carter — studio head Rich Ross is out. “The best people need to be in the right jobs, in roles they are passionate about, doing work that leverages the full range of their abilities,” Ross said in a statement. “It’s one of the leadership lessons I’ve learned during my career, and it’s something I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to as I look at the challenges and opportunities ahead… I no longer believe the Chairman role is the right professional fit for me.” [ Deadline ]
Before IMAX became a way to boost action sequences — Tom Cruise dangling from the tallest building in the world, the Joker’s gang rappelling down from a Gotham City high-rise to rob a bank — the outsized format was primarily the domain of nature films like To the Arctic 3D , which aim to dazzle with large-scale shots of mountains and dolphins and Australia and other impressive-looking things. Forty minutes long and narrated by Meryl Streep , To the Arctic uses spoonfuls of cuteness — featuring walruses and caribou, though polar bears are its primary animal stars — to make its fairly grim environmental message go down a little easier. Directed by Greg MacGillivray, an old hand at IMAX docs, To the Arctic tries to balance out its underlying sense of global warming alarm with spectacular imagery and footage of the far north ecosystem at work. Of course, even when it comes to the most roly poly of polar bear cubs, life at the top of the world isn’t easy, and while the film discreetly leaves the majority of the process of hunting and gobbling down seals off screen, it does include some potentially troubling sequences involving the food sources the male bears turn to when desperate. Polar bears aren’t easy to film — a segment about how would-be cinematographers camouflage remote-controlled cameras in order to get closer shots of the animals shows one bear breaking a device like an enraged celebrity attacking a paparazzo. So when the filmmakers find a family of bears and are able to stick with them for several days, they end up catching a chase across the ice. It’s a mother polar bear and her two cubs who are the heart of To the Arctic , the trio traveling across the diminishing sea ice as the mother searches for food for her offspring in the lean summer months when hunting is more difficult. Survival isn’t a certainty — earlier footage shows a mother swimming for nine days and hundreds of miles in search of meat, her cub not surviving the journey. But in the case of these bears, their most dangerous enemy turns out to be males of their own species, who will eat cubs when they can’t find seals to nosh on. The mother anxiously herds her children across the ice floes, always on the lookout for other bears, though despite her caution one finds them and tries to track them down. (Parents with children and sensitive stoners planning on seeing the film can rest assured there are no scenes of violent polar bear cannibalism.) To the Arctic flutters from place to place, peering in at some Inuit hunters and researchers who dive beneath the ice, then traveling with a pair of scientists tracking caribou migrations before pausing to watch walruses loll in the sun and then jumping to a ship departing from Svalbard. The only thematic ties beyond a shared region are the environmental threats being posed by global warming, which is making it harder to polar bears and walruses to hunt and is wreaking havoc on the caribou migration patterns. The film is marked by a few jarring stylistic touches, like a score that wavers between dramatic instrumentals and Paul McCartney songs (“Mr. Bellamy,” “I’m Carrying” and “Little Willow”) and opening credits that explode into shards of ice that fly at you — narrated by Meryl Streep BOOM! Streep offers her voiceover with nary a sly twinkle, even when delivering lines about the “frisky dance of the northern lights” or urging that “we can help keep the Arctic white.” But it’s the visuals you’re here to see, and they look great on the massive screen in three dimensions, especially in helicopter shots that whirl past waterfalls cascading off of glaciers or travel over the fantastic tundra like there’s an army of orcs to be discovered just over the next bluff. 3-D and IMAX may no longer be new, but in moments like those, they can still summon a sense of awe. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Brooklyn Decker Reveals Secret Crush If you don’t know Brooklyn Decker and haven’t put her in your list of hottest Beckys then you are missing out. She’s easily one of the biggest “it” girls in the country. During her most recent photo spread with GQ, she revealed another top-knotch Becky she wants to give the business to. For instance, there’s her long, spirited defense of Gisele Bündchen for her ungracious post–Super Bowl, mama-grizzly remarks about Tom Brady’s teammates (Bündchen was caught on-camera fuming, “My husband cannot f**king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time”), which Decker wraps up by admitting her Bündchen bias: “I have a top-five list, and Gisele is my number one. So she can do no wrong in my eyes.” Hold on—what kind of list is this, exactly? “Well, everyone has a top-five list of their biggest crushes, you know?” says Decker. “Usually, it’s guys on my list, but Gisele is just so perfect in every way.” Yes, indeed. Just the thought of them together makes…nevermind. Just look at the pictures and check her credentials.
“We have relationships with a number of companies so that we can make this movie. The simple fact is that, without them, we couldn’t do it. It’s unfortunate but that’s how it is. This movie costs a lot of money to make, it costs as nearly as much again if not more to promote, so we go where we can. The great thing is that Bond is a drinker, he always has been, it’s part of who he is, rightly or wrongly, you can make your own judgment about it, having a beer is no bad thing, in the movie it just happens to be Heineken.” Somewhere in Hell, Frank Booth weeps . (Link NSFW, obvs.) [ Moviefone via NYT ]
Strap yourselves in, folks: In the wake of its billion-dollar amusement park-inspired Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Disney is bringing another classic attraction to the big screen — Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride . The Disneyland staple (a ride itself based on a film based on the children’s book The Wind in the Willows ) is heading to theaters under the direction of filmmaker Pete Candeland, who will helm the as-yet unscripted CG/live-action adventure. I don’t know about you, but I take one look at this Mr. Toad ‘s ride poster and just one spot on the release calendar jumps out. How’s about April 20 2013/14, if you get my drift? [ Deadline ]
On the last day of her twenties, Nellie McKay paused to contemplate the milestone before her — or not. Taking a deep breath that soon escaped as a halting laugh, the singer/songwriter/actress and all-around pop polymath brought to mind another benchmark that loomed in her decade past. “In P.S. I Love You ,” McKay began, citing the 2007 film in which she co-starred, “we go over to my sister, played by Hilary Swank, and we surprise her. And she’s really down and out. So I hold up a ‘Happy Birthday’ sign, and I say, ‘You’re 30!’ It’s a big laugh line — or it’s supposed to be a big laugh line. I don’t know if it landed. So that’s kind of surreal to have done that. But I don’t know if…” She trailed off. “Who knows?” McKay finally asked. ” I don’t know.” McKay’s feelings about 30 are reflected in her art, a trademark blend of genuine wonder and calculated mystique enveloping myriad styles and influences — musical, historical, cultural and otherwise. Eisenhower-era gloss? Check. Nixon-era rage? Check? Jazzy, postmodern feminist fusillades against the crises of capital punishment and environmental wreckage? Er, check ? The sweet irrepressibility of following your dreams, even if the path detours into fetching your next meal from a dumpster in Brooklyn? Check — at least for Ramona, the spunky songstress played by McKay in this week’s microindie Downtown Express . “It’s the land of plenty!”, Ramona coos with ironic relish to her new bandmate and beau Sasha (Philippe Quint), himself a Russian immigrant and subway busker whose forthcoming classical violin recital conflicts with his more rockin’ aspirations for the good life in America. The almost obsessive balance of passions and principles that has characterized McKay’s work since her 2004 breakthrough album Get Away From Me undergirds much of director David Grubin’s Express , but it’s the consequences — the privation, the insecurity, the searing frustration of it all — that stand out in McKay’s haunted screen persona. For all the creative and romantic capital that Ramona and Sasha may accrue, her eyes reflect the bitter awareness that utopia is out of reach. McKay is reticent about Ramona’s ghosts. “I have my own theory,” she said, “but I don’t want to interfere with what anyone might think while watching it. I guess I think there is something like that, but I think people should just invent it for themselves.” And McKay knows a few things about invention. The daughter of a British director and an American actress, her mythology commenced with a very public battle to release her debut as a double album (“Should have signed with Verve instead of Sony,” she sang in one typically melodic lament; Verve has since rescued her from the Sony deal’s scorched wreckage) and meandered through confused reports about her age, her upbringing, her activism and even the true meaning of her songs. What ratio of caustic social criticism to earnest romanticism was to be found in a ballad like “I Wanna Get Married,” and how were listeners to reconcile such schisms with album-length tributes to the likes of Doris Day ? That’s just for starters. More recently, McKay has explored the vicissitudes of notoriety with acclaimed tributes to Barbara Graham (the murderess put to death in California in 1955; her story inspired both the Oscar-winning film I Want to Live! and McKay’s 2011 song cycle of the same name) and the conservationist and writer Rachel Carson. The latter show, Silent Spring—It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature , is touring presently, its own heroine reflecting Ramona’s brassy vulnerability in Downtown Express — and, in turn, reflecting much of McKay’s own complex, confrontational character. But ultimately, while McKay may have mellowed out slightly since her politically aware broadsides of eight or nine years ago, she seems to acknowledge that her sprawling worldview has only gathered more focus and strength when distilled through real-life subjects. “We’re just starting the Rachel Carson [show], so I’m still finding it,” McKay said. “But to be able to tell their stories and channel them some way is a relief and a pleasure. I think those shows are far superior to solo shows.” Asked what relief and pleasure she could take from such turbulent, troubled stories, McKay didn’t flinch. “Well, Rachel’s was troubled because we live on a devastated planet,” she replied. “But I think she found a lot of joy. And actually, Barbara did, too. Barbara knew how to have a good time.” Fundamentally, McKay said she cherishes the “relief from yourself” that her acting efforts have afforded her. “I don’t want to be myself,” she told me. “I have to live with her.” Yet she does hesitate when asked about the real Nellie McKay — the one Grubin cast after seeing her perform on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera in 2006, or the one who generously tips NYC subway musicians for making her commute “a beautiful thing” (as well as “to make up for the people who don’t give anything”), or the one who self-effacingly credits vodka for the chemistry shared with her Russian co-star Quint, or the one who even wants to put “the real Nellie McKay” in any kind of perspective at all. “I think you try to find what works, and that can be very elusive,” she said. “I mean, gee…” McKay paused again. “I have…” And then followed a longer, struggling pause, relieved only by invoking yet another pseudorealist icon: “I feel like Woody Allen tearing up the driver’s license in Annie Hall .” (Did I mention McKay also used to be a stand-up comic?) Which brings us back to 30 — or “57,” as McKay cheekily replies about her milestone before going a little darker about its meaning (or lack thereof). “I don’t know that any thing means much,” she said. “I don’t see that anything leads to much. I mean, I don’t really feel that things change . They just mutate. For instance, if you look through the century, certain things have gotten better and certain things have gotten worse. I wouldn’t say overall that things have gotten better. I think you could say things have gotten worse, but I don’t think you could say that things have gotten better. Overall. You can’t say that.” Does McKay — this ivory-tickling, ukulele-slinging avatar of ’50s class, millennial angst and every fraught neurosis in between — even think she was born at the right time? Another pause. “Well,” she said, “I think maybe you do choose your parents. I know I chose the right mother. But born at the right or wrong time? Gee, I don’t know. Do you think you were born at the right time?” Maybe? Would I like to have experienced the Jazz Era? The Renaissance? Sure. Slavery? The plague? Not so much. “I guess you deal with what you get,” McKay said. Indeed. And as tough and mercurial a nut as she is to crack, Nellie McKay’s art makes her mystery worth it. On screen, on stage, on record, you deal with what you get. The payoff is worth it. Downtown Express opens Friday in New York . PREVIOUSLY: Nellie McKay Plays My Favorite Scene [Top photo of Nellie McKay: Danny Bright; bottom photo of McKay and Philippe Quint: Susan Meiselas] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Weekend box-office sluggishness got you down? Oh. Well, either way, fortune tellers around Hollywood are saying the recent Avengers buzz has further heated up an already scorching prospect: Some tracking reports have Joss Whedon’s Marvel-hero mash-up sailing beyond The Dark Knight ‘s $158 million three-day mark from 2008, though Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ‘s all-time record of $169 million seems safe, 3-D and all. Stay tuned to Movieline for more box-office previews and projections — especially your own — as The Avenegers ‘ May 4 release date draws near. [ THR ]
