Box office report: 'Sherlock Holmes' tops ho-hum weekend with $40 mil

From ew, Hollywood’s autumn blues continued as the box office trailed 2010 for the fourth week in a row. Thanks to the surprisingly soft debuts of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, this weekend’s top dozen movies earned about 13 percent less than last year’s. Luckily, next week brings us The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, We Bought a Zoo, and the wide expansion of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. If those movies can’t lift the business out of the gutter, then Hollywood better start revising its New Year’s resolutions.

Warner Bros.’ Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, won the weekend with an estimated $40 million. That’s a steep drop from the 2009 original, which debuted to $62.3 million. It’s worth pointing out that the first movie opened on Christmas Day weekend, which helped to inflate its numbers. A Game of Shadows, on the other hand, opted for the weekend before Christmas — a much tougher frame due to the fact that many moviegoers are currently occupied with holiday preparations.

Still, most box-office prognosticators thought the $125 million sequel would at least generate $50 million this weekend. The PG-13 movie, which received middling reviews, will now have to hope it has sturdy legs throughout the holiday. One good sign is that A Game of Shadows received an “A-” grade from CinemaScore audiences, so word of mouth should be positive. As expected, the film skewed male, with men making up 59 percent of the audience. Also, as has been the case with many big movies this year, A Game of Shadows had trouble attracting younger moviegoers. Only 32 percent of its audience was under the age of 25.

Full report here

Bowl Breath

JPX and I have been discussing this so very disturbing television commercial for many years but had been unable to locate it. The ad came up again over dinner tonight and I gave it one more shot. Lo and behold I found it! It's not a twisted made up memory after all. Bowl breath - EWWWW!!! It must smell awful! You're welcome JPX.

Hell, yeah! Part 2

Finally, we get to know what Bane was saying in that 6 minute prologue!

From WWTDD, When the 7 minute prologue trailer for ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ leaked yesterday, most people immediately said two things: “damn that was bad ass!” and “I have no idea what the fuck was going on!”

Luckily someone from the studio was nice enough to email me the script pages for that scene. So now we can find out what the hell Bane is saying, learn the status of the fire, and discover why his henchmen brought along a dead guy in a body bag. Good luck getting that through customs when you land, henchmen.

Read the dialogue here

Christopher Hitchens - dead at 62

(From AP)

Christopher Hitchens, the author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes on the left and right and wrote the provocative best-seller "God is Not Great," died Thursday night after a long battle with cancer. He was 62.

Hitchens' death was announced in a statement from Conde Nast, publisher of Vanity Fair magazine. The statement says he died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer.

"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was atthe bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."

A most-engaged, prolific and public intellectual who enjoyed his drink (enough to "to kill or stun the average mule") and cigarettes, he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus and canceled a tour for his memoir "Hitch-22."

Hitchens, a frequent television commentator and a contributor to Vanity Fair, Slate and other publications, had become a popular author in 2007 thanks to "God is Not Great," a manifesto for atheists that defied a recent trend of religious works. Cancer humbled, but did not mellow him. Even after his diagnosis, his columns appeared weekly, savaging the royal family or reveling in the death of Osama bin Laden.

"I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."

Read the rest here.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence trailer

WOW!!! Watch the first 6 minutes of The Dark Knight Rises

This is the 6 minute Dark Knight Rises prologue that will play before Mission Impossible 4 in certain IMAX theaters this weekend. Why wait when you can check it out now? Sure it's a bootleg but it's AWESOME.

Watch it here before it's gone!

First Poster For Ridley Scott's Prometheus

[via cinemablend]

Iconic Paramount Logo Gets Centennial Anniversary Revamp

From slashfilm, Other than the Hollywood sign, the Paramount logo is arguably the most iconic image in the film business. Though the company was founded in 1912, a snow covered peak from the Wasatch mountain range (seen above) has been its logo since 1916, appearing in front of some of the best movies of all time such as The Godfather and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Starting this weekend with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Dark Knight Rises won’t be the only thing in front of the movie. A brand new 100 anniversary logo will be there too.

Here’s the 100 year Paramount logo which will run through 2012. In 2013, this new logo – designed by Devastudios Inc. – will part ways with the 100 and become the new symbol of Paramount.

Hell, yeah! The Expendables II teaser

Ghost Rider reboot apparently awful

From cinemablend, Here are the basics. Nic Cage returns as spirit of vengeance Johnny Blaze, who sold his soul to The Devil (Ciaran Hinds) and now goes after the darkened souls of hardened criminals. The sequel has a solid cast, adding Idris Elba and Christopher Lambert for a thriller that shifts the action to Eastern Europe. Hopes are high.

Now, the bad news. Spirit of Vengeance was one of the films screened at Harry Knowles’ annual birthday party Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Reaction wasn’t good. At all.

“GHOST RIDER 2 manages to make me look fondly back on GHOST RIDER. Unbearable,” tweeted Devin Faraci of Badass Digest.

“The script is nonsense to the point where Neveldine, who was present for a short Q&A, even as admitted so much by saying they inserted several ADR sequences to try and explain things,” Pete Hall of Movies.com wrote.

Other negative posts went after the film’s 3D. That’s not great. There’s time to tighten a few things before the film’s Feb. 17 release … but not much time. At the very least, Spirit of Vengeance will have a cool poster. Beyond that, we make no promises.