Good Morning, Everyone.
It’s was a good weekend to be a wolf.
Liam Neeson’s Man vs. Wolf Pack adventure “The Grey” leads the weekend box office, while the latest installment of the Vampires vs. Werewolves saga, “Underworld: Awakening,” finished second.
From BoxOfficeMojo, here’s the weekend by the numbers:
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count /Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | The Grey | ORF | $20,000,000 | – | 3,185 | – | $6,279 | $20,000,000 | – | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | Underworld Awakening | SGem | $12,500,000 | -50.6% | 3,078 | – | $4,061 | $45,126,000 | $70 | 2 |
| 3 | N | One For the Money | LGF | $11,750,000 | – | 2,737 | – | $4,293 | $11,750,000 | – | 1 |
| 4 | 2 | Red Tails | Fox | $10,400,000 | -44.6% | 2,573 | +61 | $4,042 | $33,780,000 | $58 | 2 |
| 5 | N | Man on a Ledge | Sum. | $8,300,000 | – | 2,998 | – | $2,769 | $8,300,000 | – | 1 |
| 6 | 4 | Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close | WB | $7,145,000 | -28.9% | 2,630 | – | $2,717 | $21,106,000 | – | 6 |
| 7 | 16 | The Descendants | FoxS | $6,550,000 | +176.1% | 2,001 | +1,441 | $3,273 | $58,848,000 | – | 11 |
| 8 | 3 | Contraband | Uni. | $6,500,000 | -46.0% | 2,650 | -220 | $2,453 | $56,400,000 | $25 | 3 |
| 9 | 5 | Beauty and the Beast (3D) | BV | $5,345,000 | -39.1% | 2,145 | -480 | $2,492 | $41,147,000 | – | 3 |
| 10 | 6 | Haywire | Rela. | $4,000,000 | -52.5% | 2,441 | +2 | $1,639 | $15,279,000 | $23 | 2 |
Meanwhile, the New York Times profiled the resurgent Hammer Films with a story in Sunday’s editions. I have fond memories of Christopher Lee’s Dracula scaring the crap out of me when I was kid. It’s good to know that the venerable British company will be scaring new generations of filmgoers. Hammer put out “The Woman in Black,” which opened this weekend.
Here’s the nut graf:
“The early efforts by the rebooted Hammer, including the acclaimed remake “Let Me In” and “The Resident,” have not found huge box office success. But Mr. Oakes, the chief executive and president, said that those were only “building blocks” setting up his ambitious next move, a $13 million adaptation of “The Woman in Black,” opening Friday. Like the classic Hammer movies, this ghost story, shot in Britain, is a period piece with a high-toned pedigree. (Adapted from a Susan Hill novella, it also was a long-running West End play.) In keeping with Hammer tradition, it has a star. In his first post-Harry Potter film role, Daniel Radcliffe plays a guilt-ridden father and lawyer who starts seeing ghosts while going through the estate of a recently deceased woman. “For Hammer to succeed, it has to honor its legacy,” Mr. Oakes said by Skype.
What that means is not obvious, since Hammer has a long, colorful history full of reinventions. But the upscale direction of the new Hammer is a far cry from the company’s origins. It was founded in 1934 by a group led by a music hall comic named William Hinds, whose stage name was Will Hammer. While the company dabbled in comedy and science fiction, its most sustained and successful movies were gothic costume dramas that revisited the classic Universal Pictures monsters.
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Read the full story here.
The Cineaste's Lament. 