On a weekend like this one it’s easy to bury the positive news, so let’s start with the good stuff.
Three non-franchise original films, all budgeted under $50 million, saw credible results. Sony’s “No Hard Feelings” with Jennifer Lawrence, an R-rated comedy, did around 25 percent better than pre-release estimates. Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” (Focus) proved its opening platform weekend was no fluke with $9 million. And Celine Song’s “Past Lives” (A24), rolling out more slowly, is already at $3.5 million while in fewer than 300 theaters.
Add to those the continued strong performance of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony), which is back at #1 and headed to a $375 million-$400 million domestic total (double 2018’s initial entry). Pixar’s “Elemental” saw a credible hold (-38 percent) to retain the #2 position. And “The Little Mermaid,” falling only 22 percent, is at $270 million domestic, while Disney’s “Boogeyman” (its fourth top 10 title) fell only 40 percent.
Three non-franchise original films, all budgeted under $50 million, saw credible results. Sony’s “No Hard Feelings” with Jennifer Lawrence, an R-rated comedy, did around 25 percent better than pre-release estimates. Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” (Focus) proved its opening platform weekend was no fluke with $9 million. And Celine Song’s “Past Lives” (A24), rolling out more slowly, is already at $3.5 million while in fewer than 300 theaters.
Add to those the continued strong performance of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony), which is back at #1 and headed to a $375 million-$400 million domestic total (double 2018’s initial entry). Pixar’s “Elemental” saw a credible hold (-38 percent) to retain the #2 position. And “The Little Mermaid,” falling only 22 percent, is at $270 million domestic, while Disney’s “Boogeyman” (its fourth top 10 title) fell only 40 percent.
- 6/25/2023
- by Tom Brueggemann
- Indiewire
If the eponymous mid-’50s southwestern town in Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” resembles the iconic “Bad Day at Black Rock” (1955), it’s no coincidence. Oscar-winning production designer Adam Stockhausen (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) found John Sturges’ neo-Western, shot in CinemaScope on the edge of Death Valley, a valuable reference for planning the landscape for this Pirandello-like play-within-a-tv-show-within-a-movie conceit.
“Absolutely, that was an influence,” Stockhausen (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) told IndieWire. “We started right with the credits introduction with the moving train and then, of course, crossing with the little white sign. Generally, we were looking at ‘Black Rock’ for overall how the town’s [located] in the landscape. But also we’d go in and look at tiny details, too. How the tar paper was nailed to the roof of the gas station, and we ended up using it for the way we wrapped the tar paper around the motel cabins.
“Absolutely, that was an influence,” Stockhausen (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) told IndieWire. “We started right with the credits introduction with the moving train and then, of course, crossing with the little white sign. Generally, we were looking at ‘Black Rock’ for overall how the town’s [located] in the landscape. But also we’d go in and look at tiny details, too. How the tar paper was nailed to the roof of the gas station, and we ended up using it for the way we wrapped the tar paper around the motel cabins.
- 6/23/2023
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
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