1. "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" ($72.7 million)
2. "The Blind Side" ($10.9 million)
3. "2012" ($8.1 million)
4. "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" ($3.6 million)
5. "Planet 51" ($3.2 million)
You don't have to be a mind-reading vampire with diamond-encrusted flesh to know who this weekend's box office champion will be. With "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" in over 4,000 theaters nationwide, there was virtually no chance that the continued romance of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan would fall anywhere short of first place — but perhaps no one could have predicted just how far ahead of the competition "New Moon" would end up. Read more...
1. "2012" ($65 million)
2. "A Christmas Carol" ($22.3 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($6.2 million)
4. "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire" ($6.1 million)
5. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" ($5.1 million)
The world may have ended in "2012," but Roland Emmerich's disaster epic is just getting started at the box office. The John Cusack-starring film finished its opening weekend in theaters in first place with a walloping $65 million domestic intake. But moviegoers beyond American borders came out in full force for the end-of-days flick, giving "2012" a massive $225 million total worldwide. Read more...
1. "2012" ($23.5 million)
2. "A Christmas Carol" ($5.6 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($1.95 million)
4. "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire" ($1.94 million)
5. "The Fourth Kind" ($1.8 million)
Moviegoers braved Armageddon on Friday night by confronting "2012," the Roland Emmerich-directed disaster epic. The film boasts some considerable star power such as John Cusack, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet, but "2012's" major draw has nothing to do with the acting and everything to do with the action of a world-ending calamity. Despite its subject matter, however, "2012" was anything but a disaster as shown by its whopping $23.5 million intake on Friday evening, with a likely weekend total of over $60 million. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: Claireece Jones is one of life's write-offs: an illiterate, junk-food-fat Harlem teenager living on welfare with her viciously abusive mother and, from time to time, her father, who drops by to rape her. She already has one child as a result of his assaults — a little girl with Down's Syndrome — and is currently pregnant with another. Claireece's future seems anything but uncertain. Somehow, though, she's managed not to write herself off.
"Precious" is one of those rare movies that come winging in from nowhere and knock you out. Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character (Claireece goes by the name "Precious"), is an untrained actress — a Bronx college student whose only performing background is in school stage plays. But she has great instincts, and watching her draw out flickers of hope through the mask of sullen indifference that Precious presents to the world is thrilling to watch.
Continue reading 'Precious': Hell Up In Harlem, By Kurt Loder
FROM MTV.COM: With an impressive box-office opening this past weekend, "Precious" proved to be worth all the critical acclaim and excitement brewing around it. The film features standout performances by pop star Mariah Carey, comedian Mo'nique and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title role. Sidibe credits director Lee Daniels for allowing the women to explore their characters.
"It was really, really cool. A lot of things that we said wasn't in the script, and so, like, we had free range," Sidibe said during her appearance on CBS' "Early Show" on Monday. "Mr. Daniels made sure we knew what the scene was about and that we can do whatever we felt like, and so it was really cool. And [Carey] was on her toes and I was on my toes, and it was almost like a fight, like a battle, because we are not friends really in this film at all. It was really cool."
Continue reading 'Precious' Star Gabourey Sidibe Describes 'Battle' With Mariah Carey
FROM MTV.COM: This past weekend, moviegoers across the nation had their choice of over 3,600 theaters at which they could catch "A Christmas Carol," the 3-D motion-capture odyssey starring Jim Carrey. At the same time, the indie drama "Precious" screened in just 18 places during its opening weekend. "Christmas Carol" raked in the big bucks — $31 million in total — but "Precious" was arguably the bigger box-office story.
The film raked in $1.8 million dollars, for a per-screen-average of $100,000 — the highest in three years and the 11th best of all time — greatly increasing the chances that it will become the darling of the upcoming awards season.
Continue reading 'Precious' Becomes Serious Awards Contender After Impressive Open
Before we delve into this week's releases, I want to take a second to give "Precious" a shout. Opening on just 18 screens, the Sundance favorite and Oscar buzzer still managed to take in just shy of $2 million. It's not a movie I intend to see again anytime soon, but it's a compelling work of fiction. And even if it wasn't, I'm a person who is impressed by cold, hard facts. And the big fact here is that "Precious" enjoyed a monster opening weekend as a limited release.
Moving on, this week's star is director Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic disaster flick, "2012." John Cusack and his pals fly around the world, bearing witness to scenes of mass destruction as humanity crumbles all around. Sounds super-uplifting, doesn't it? I'm guessing that this will be the big weekend winner; it's definitely on my "must see" list. Read more...
1. "A Christmas Carol" ($31 million)
2. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" ($14 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($13.3 million)
2. "The Fourth Kind" ($12.5 million)
5. "Paranormal Activity" ($8.6 million)
Did Ebenezer Scrooge learn his lesson at the box office this weekend? It's difficult to say, as the Jim Carrey-starring "A Christmas Carol" certainly took the top prize with a $31 million weekend, though the result is considered relatively disappointing given the film's potential draw to family crowds and its hefty budget of $200 million. The odds of the holiday movie recouping that number anytime soon are rather small, though we've certainly seen stranger box office occurrences lately. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: Claireece Jones is one of life's write-offs: an illiterate, junk-food-fat Harlem teenager living on welfare with her viciously abusive mother and, from time to time, her father, who drops by to rape her. She already has one child as a result of his assaults — a little girl with Down's Syndrome — and is currently pregnant with another. Claireece's future seems anything but uncertain. Somehow, though, she's managed not to write herself off.
"Precious" is one of those rare movies that come winging in from nowhere and knock you out. Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character (Claireece goes by the name "Precious"), is an untrained actress — a Bronx college student whose only performing background is in school stage plays. But she has great instincts, and watching her draw out flickers of hope through the mask of sullen indifference that Precious presents to the world is thrilling to watch.
Continue reading 'Precious': Hell Up In Harlem, By Kurt Loder
This weekend, audiences will get their first shot at checking out shoe-in Oscar contender "Precious," director Lee Daniels' adaptation of the book "Push: A Novel," by Sapphire. I checked it out at Sundance in January. To say that I "loved it" isn't quite accurate; it's a challenging film, with lots of craft behind a wholly depressing and frequently horrifying story. It deserves the accolades it's getting, but it's not the kind of movie you really fall in love with.
That said, there are some stellar performances. I thought the real standout was Mo'Nique, who plays the abusive mother of the protagonist, teenage pregnant girl Precious (Gabourey Sidibe). Sidibe has also been getting plenty of praise (the word "Oscar" keeps popping up in reference to her), as has pop icon Mariah Carey, who plays a small but vital role as a social worker. MTV reporter Akshay Bhansali recently caught up with Sapphire and Paula Patton (she plays a teacher at a progressive school in the film), and they were more than happy to talk about Carey's and Sidibe's contributions. Read more...
