Disney Dismisses Bruckheimer's 'Killing Rommel'

While it's not exactly a reason to sound the fire alarm, Jerry Bruckheimer's adaptation of Killing Rommel has been officially dumped by Disney, according to Beyond Hollywood.

The one reason you might think Disney is reticent is the $200 million it spent on making Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, pushing it back a year, and then watching it completely stiff in the US. Internationally, it's fared better, but it is probably the big bomb of the summer season so far. That or Robin Hood, depending on marketing expenses and distribution costs. But apparently, that has nothing to do with it. Bruck has made films at Disney for ages and not all of them have been massive. Plus, he's still got The Sorcerer's Apprentice this summer (and I don't see the studio shrinking its efforts on that one) and next year's Pirates appendage, so it's not a case of Disney, in effect, canceling Bruckheimer's carte blanche.

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Box Office - Clint Earns $30 Million with 'Torino'

Clint Eastwood has been a major box office player for years. Dirty Harry kicked off three straight movies in that franchise that were in the top ten of their given years in the 1970s. Every Which Way But Loose, his 1978 brawling comedy, was the fourth biggest hit of that year. Unforgiven and In the Line of Fire did great business,and even Space Cowboys made $90 million.

And at 78, Eastwood has his biggest debut ever, as well as the biggest wide release debut for a leading actor in his 70s. Gran Torino, which had been in limited release for a couple of weeks, put a stranglehold on its competition this weekend, outgrossing Bride Wars and The Unborn by nearly ten million dollars each. Eastwood's latest earned $29 million this weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, a phenomenal number when you consider all the factors. There's nobody else in the movie anyone's paying to see and there are a number of other choices for audiences - other Oscar favorites in theaters, the NFL playoffs - so the fact that we're sitting here talking about Eastwood really proves his remarkable clout with moviegoers.

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'Valkyrie' Faces Lawsuit Over Nazi Prop

Valkyrie faced its fair share of obstacles before and during its production. There was the injured extras in the summer of 2007 and German government officials not wanting Tom Cruise to shoot a movie there because of his beliefs in Scientology.

Now there's a new issue hurdle for Valkyrie and its producers, and this time it's a bizarre copyright issue. Back in 2007, ad executive and art collector Robert Pritikin bought the infamous world globe used by Adolf Hitler in World War II. Part of the reason Pritikin spent $100,000 on the globe was to prevent its likeness from being used by neo-Nazi groups as propaganda. The globe shows up multiple times in Valkyrie, and the film never received permission to use its likeness.

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Box Office - 'Marley' Hits $100 Million, Wins Again

I'll be curious to see what happens next for the top four movies of the week. For the second straight week, Marley & Me won the box office, with Bedtime Stories, Benjamin Button, and Valkyrie filling out the rest of the top four. With no new competition this week, the films were able to put up pretty strong numbers, with Marley & Me topping $100 million in ten day and earning another $24 million over the New Year's weekend, according to Box Office Mojo.

In fact, all four of last week's new releases are primed to make $100 million, as Valkyrie has already made $60 million and will be close to $75 or $80 million in another week to ten days. But I'm curious because there is competition coming; there are 14 wide releases hitting theaters within the next three weeks. It's not so much the quality of the competition - it is early January, after all - but the sheer numbers of movies that could make a movie like Bedtime Stories fade sooner than it normally would. We'll have expansions by several Oscar movies, including Gran Torino, The Reader, and the re-released Dark Knight, as well as horror movies The Unborn and My Bloody Valentine that are being aggressively promoted. Speaking of Oscar movies, they constituted nine of the top ten finishers this weekend on a per-screen basis. Defiance led the way with a whopping $60,000 per screen, about ten times as much as Marley. Gran Torino looks like it's on its way to being a huge hit; the Clint Eastwood film has made just under $10 million in four weeks...in a total of 84 theaters.

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Box Office - Second Verse, Same as the First

There are no new nationwide releases this weekend in theaters, meaning we're probably going to see a repeat of last week's top movies at the box office. Marley & Me has continued to do surprising business and will be over the $100 million by the end of the first weekend of 2009.

In fact, if we step back a little bit, everything in the top five is a little surprising. In addition to Marley, you've got Benjamin Button, which came out of the gates with a $39 million weekend and will probably be over $80 million by next Monday. That's good news for everyone involved, because three-hour David Fincher movies don't sound like box office gold. It still has a long way to go to make money, but as the only film like it at all on the schedule for months and months, the Golden Globes and the Oscar nominations will help create more buzz for it, keeping ticket sales afloat well into February. Bedtime Stories was the movie most prognosticators had winning the Christmas weekend: It's a family flick, it's got Adam Sandler. But it opened in third place over the four-day holiday, and though it's beating Button on the weekdays so far this week, it probably won't overtake the film this weekend, simply because it's an opening weekend kind of curiosity. People still want to see Button and will find ways to do it.

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