Breck Eisner Directing 'Escape from New York'

I rather enjoyed The Crazies for what it was, and director Breck Eisner is being rewarded by being given the keys to Escape from New York.

Before we delve into what actor will or should play Snake Plissken, let's hit up some of the details on this deal. Heat Vision recalls that New Line was hot and bothered to get this movie made three years ago with Gerard Butler in the starring role, although the script has changed since the original announcement. Now handled by Allan Loeb (Money Never Sleeps), the screenplay "tries to mix an origin story for [Plissken] and merge it with the story of the 1981 original." Some things won't change; Plissken is contractually bound to be "a bad-ass," otherwise John Carpenter wouldn't have agreed to have the film remade. You would have to think the movie will open in 2011 since a script is locked in and a director has been hired. There's plenty of time to shoot in 2010 while there's still momentum for the project.

Click to read more ...

Box Office - Two Weekends on 'Shutter Island'

Shutter Island repeated as the box office champion, an impressive performance considering that the two new releases both went after parts of that film's audience. The total after two weekends is now $75 million, so it's almost in the black. It makes the decision to move the film from October to February a little easier to take for Paramount, but I think this could have been one of the last two Best Picture nominees instead of A Serious Man or The Blind Side had it stayed on the 2009 docket.

Shutter earned $22 million in weekend two and even though it will wither in the face of Alice in Wonderland in the next frame, it's a quality film that should continue to do pretty well for another two or three weeks. This doesn't include international dollars, and Martin Scorsese almost always does well overseas. Cop Out pulled away from The Crazies on Friday and Saturday to finish in second place, with $18.6 million. It'll be a profitable movie in the long run, but unlike Shutter Island, it probably won't keep much of an audience moving forward. I'd be really surprised if the Kevin Smith-Bruce Willis-Tracy Morgan flick kept over 50% of its audience next week.

Click to read more ...

Box Office - 'Shutter Island' On Target for a Repeat

No surprises of any kind at the box office on Friday, and I'm thankful for that, because I don't look like an idiot for the first time in a few weeks. Between the steamroller that was (and is) Avatar and some surprising debuts three weeks in a row from Dear John, Valentine's Day, and Shutter Island, there's finally some stability.

Shutter Island appears to be headed for a repeat performance at the top spot, and at almost exactly what we estimated on Thursday. After a $6.7 million Friday, the Scorsese film looks like a low-20s entry this weekend, which would put Shutter at right around $80 million after two weeks. Certainly, $100 million will follow in pretty short order - maybe another 10 days after this weekend - and then the film will set its sights on $132 million, the Scorsese record (The Departed).

Click to read more ...

Movie Review - 'The Crazies'

The Crazies Starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell Directed by Breck Eisner Rated R

Two days ago, Ogden Marsh was just a township of 1,260 people in the middle of Iowa. Nobody noticed it, and it was content to let the outside world and its four-lane highways and designer coffees roll on by. But then, Rory Hamill walked onto the baseball field with a shotgun, and there was only one thing Sheriff Dutton could do. In the 48 hours since, Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) has seen three more bodies, two the wife and son of a killer now locked up in his jail and the other a drowned military pilot out in the river. But where's his plane? And why did he crash in Ogden Marsh? The remake of George Romero's 1973 flick The Crazies is a no-frills thriller. It's not exactly a zombie movie, even though that's what the Crazies are, in a sense. It's not a horror movie even though there's plenty of blood. But no matter what category you want to put it in, this is claustrophobic, smarter than it needs to be, and a pretty fun ride. Once Dutton realizes that these incidents - Rory, the pilot, the killer in lock-up - aren't isolated cases, he tries to plead with his wife (Radha Mitchell), the town's only doctor, to get out of town. Find somewhere safe, like with her parents in Cedar Rapids. He suspects that something has contaminated the water supply, and it's only a matter of time before the entire town is effected. But he doesn't know the half of it. The lawman and the doctor brave everything together, flanking themselves with the town's low-rent deputy (Joe Anderson) and the doctor's receptionist (Danielle Panabaker), andThe Crazies soon becomes like every other movie where a small group of people are running for their lives (OK, not The Happening), at least where it matters to move the story along. We don't know all the details and neither do they, there are close calls here and there, and it's obvious that not everybody in the group is going to make it to the closing credits.

Click to read more ...

Fearless Forecast - 'Shutter' Tops Cops, Zombies

So far, there are very few positive notices for Cop Out. Rotten Tomatoes isn't everything, but it's a fairly reliable gauge, and as of this writing, Cop Out sits closer to a 10% approval rating than even a 30% approval rating. You'd want something a little bit higher.

Still, the buddy cop movie has a chance to take the top spot at the box office, because director Kevin Smith - who isn't mentioned in the marketing at all - has over 3,100 theaters to play with. That's about the only chance it has, though - attrition. It may not be enough to dethrone Shutter Island, which got generally strong reviews, even better reactions from last weekend's audience, and hit $40 million. There is a third competitor that doesn't have a strong chance at number one, but it'll turn a profit pretty quickly, and when you're The Crazies, that's the name of the game. It's in enough theaters this weekend to make a fair amount of cash - mid-teens, probably - and it didn't cost much more than that. Give it two to three weeks, and it's in the black. But let's talk about the reviews again: Very good, as a matter of fact, particularly for a horror remake. That could help it a little bit, but with only 2,400 theaters it's not likely to play spoiler.

Click to read more ...