Is 'Transporter' Gay?

A-ha!

I've maintained for years that the oil wrestling scene in the first Transporter movie was a little too homoerotic for its testosterone-fueled surroundings, but that may have been the idea all along.

Back in 2005, Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier told Chris Lee of The Los Angeles Times, "If you watch the movie and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun," Leterrier said. "It's so great -- the first gay action movie hero!” “Action fans in general are pretty homophobic," argued the director. "You see these tough guys who say, ' The Transporter, that's such a great movie!’ If they only knew they're really cheering for a new kind of action hero.”It makes no substantive difference to me whether Frank Martin, played by the stone-faced Jason Statham, is gay or not; I didn't like the movies anyway. But would it bother fans of the series? If there's truth in his generalization about action fans being homophobic, perhaps it would. I know this from my few rants about the series in the past: Transporter and Statham fans tend to be pretty touchy on any subject related to Frank Martin.

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Box Office - 46 Million 'Christmases'

Keep in mind that these are five-day totals we're talking about, but Four Christmases still did better than expected, which based on the reviews of the movie means people were just in the mood to laugh at a loud heavyset guy over Thanksgiving. In some families, that's a holiday tradition. But the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon flick made $46.7 million from Wednesday to Sunday, and was the clear winner over the five-day weekend, besting projections for the holiday comedy by almost $10 million, or even more in some cases.That doesn't necessarily mean the bloom is off the rose for Twilight. The $37 million movie made more than that in its second "weekend," good enough for second place, and a sign that this was not just an opening night phenomenon. And I promise that's the last time I'll use that word in conjunction with the vampire movie, which has now grossed a cool $120 million in ten days.Both Australia and Transporter 3 failed to scare up much business. They made far less than Four Christmases combined, at $20 million and $18.5 million respectively, and here's another example of being cognizant of the time frame: $18.5 million over five days is under $4 million a day, including a Friday and Saturday. So, Transporter is not a hit. The news is worse for Australia, which cost well over a hundred million bucks and won't make that back here in the United States. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Milk, as we discussed yesterday, have slid into the lower rungs of the top ten, a great achievement considering the number of theaters in which they're playing.The Top Five (Wednesday - Sunday): 1 - Four Christmases ($46.7 million)
2 - Twilight ($39.5 million)
3 - Bolt ($36 million)
4 - Quantum of Solace ($28.1 million)
5 - Australia ($20 million)

Box Office - 'Four Christmases' Heads Toward Weekend Number One

Thanksgiving has been profitable for Christmases. The new comedy Four Christmases, starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, has done tremendous business since its release on Wednesday, earning $28 million over the three-day period beginning Wednesday, with a cool $13 million of that coming on Friday, according to Box Office Mojo. It seems likely that the holiday-friendly movie will hit $40 million or more over the extended weekend.

Barring some kind of huge reversal, Twilight will finish the weekend in second place. Though it has clearly been the weekend's second biggest hit, it has lagged behind Christmases on Thursday and Friday, and now trails is new competition by about four million dollars for the weekend prize. It's possible that Twilight can explode again on Saturday, but Christmases doesn't appear to be losing steam the way its negative reviews would generally indicate.The rest of the top five features Bolt, Quantum of Solace, and Madagascar, which is bad news for two other new releases. Australia, the sweeping, three-hour epic by Baz Luhrmann will be hard pressed to make $20 million in its five-day debut, a terrible sign for a movie that cost around $150 million. The reviews haven't been stellar, not good enough to support a big Oscar push, so Fox will probably back off of this film in the next couple of weeks; there's no sense throwing good money after bad.As for Transporter 3, I'm a little surprised that it's a stiff. Of course, history tells me that the series has not been overwhelmingly successful and that Jason Statham's last film, Death Race, was also a bit of a box office loser, but we're again looking at maybe a $20 million debut over five days, after $11 million in the first three.

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Fearless Forecast - Reese and Vince vs. The Vampires

As we always do on holiday weekends, we give you the full four- or five-day estimate rather than one that covers Friday - Sunday and then another one for the grand total. It's too many numbers. So, we've got five days this week and really six movies that will make a significant amount of money over that time.Before we get to the new releases, let us remind you of the movies already in theaters; Twilight, Bolt, and Quantum of Solace should all perform well over the holiday for a number of reasons. Twilight is still going to make a lot more money, and a great time to start is when kids want to get away from their families over the drawn-out weekend. They'll have a full day Friday to check it out with their friends, and I think that should be a peak time for the vampire flick.Bolt will make money because it's the best family movie out there right now. Last week, it was overwhelmed by Twilight but still managed to do almost $30 million. Over the next five days, it should come close to matching that total again. It's not the runaway hit Disney hoped for, but they've had a great fall already with High School Musical and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, so nobody's crying for them.Quantum of Solace can do pretty well because it's the sort of movie grown-ups can and will see with their dads. That group of dads is not the opening weekend crowd and they may have known they were going to see the hero of their youth once the holiday rolled around and family was coming into town. For a third weekend, Quantum of Solace will be very competitive.That leaves the major new releases, and there are three of those - Four Christmases, Transporter 3, and Australia. I hate to break it to Baz Luhrmann fans, but Australia has a huge fight ahead of it. This weekend represents its best shot, and if it doesn't get great word of mouth, it won't play well through the fall and winter. It's three hours long (or so), people are split on Nicole Kidman, and there's a more digestible love story (Twilight) already in theaters. The reviews haven't been great, either, so even though it will do fine this weekend, it needs word of mouth to build over the next few weeks.Jason Statham is back behind the wheel in Transporter 3. I'm hesitant to say this will make $20 million over the five day stretch, simply because this character is no match for Bond. On the plus side for Transporter, Bond has already done a lot of business with the action movie crowd. Like Australia, though, I don't think there's a lot of wind in these sails. I'd be surprised if it gets past $60 million in total U.S. revenue by the end of its run.So that leaves Four Christmases, a new comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. This will either be the weekend's big movie or the big goat. All the tracking has it doing mid-30's over the break, but the reviews are gawdawful and with the way Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and Will Ferrell have experienced big failures in the past year (Heartbreak Kid, Drillbit Taylor, Semi-Pro), there's no guarantee that Vince can still make a bad comedy play well. And Reese Witherspoon has scored one hit in five years, Walk the Line. We'll give it the weekend, anyway, but it won't be by much, and it may well lose to Twilight. The Top Five: 1 - Four Christmases ($35 million)
2 - Twilight ($32 million)
3 - Bolt ($30 million)
4 - Quantum of Solace ($23 million)
5- Transporter 3 ($22 million)

More 'Transporter 3' Video

Even a cursory glance at our coverage of Transporter 3 here at The Big Picture reveals plenty of ambivalence. There are several reasons: 1) Part threes aren't generally very good, especially when the series up to that point hasn't been entirely memorable 2) Jason Statham plays Frank God Damn Martin as often as possible, even when it's not a Transporter movie3) There doesn't appear to be a whole lot here that's newAnd honestly, I only watched the "sizzle reel" featured here because it was less than a minute long. However - dot, dot, dot - we get to see a little bit more of the villain, Johnson, played by Robert Knepper. And I have a hunch he's going to steal the movie. Now I'm partially looking forward to it just for the villain.
All this sizzle comes from MovieWebCheck out the drive fast, shirtless ass kickin' action on November 26th.