Identity Thief was a movie hardly anyone liked starring an actress critic Rex Reed referred to variously as “tractor sized” and “a hippo,” but just like the mighty hippo of the thundering Zambezi, Identity Thief grossed almost $37 million at the box office this weekend. Does that simile work? Whatever, I’ll check it later.

At 3,141 locations, Identity Thief earned an estimated $36.6 million this weekend. That’s one of the best openings ever for an original R-rated comedy, and it’s director Seth Gordon’s top start ahead of Four Christmases ($31.1 million) and Horrible Bosses ($28.3 million). It’s also way up from Melissa McCarthy’s Bridesmaids ($26.2 million); all three of the aforementioned titles wound up closing with at least $117 million, which suggests a $100 million finish is within reach for Identity Thief.
The Top 12 wound up earning an estimated $89.6 million this weekend, which is off a whopping 48 percent from last year when The Vow and Safe House both opened to over $40 million.
Universal is projecting that Winter Storm Nemo knocked around 10 percent off the weekend, which lines up with what competitive studios are estimating as well. This suggests that, without the storm, Identity Thief could have debuted north of $40 million.
Universal is reporting that the audience was 58 percent female (meaning McCarthy’s fans showed up alongside date-night audiences) and 57 percent were 30 years of age or older. The movie received a middling “B” CinemaScore, which isn’t surprising given the movie’s atrocious 24 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. [BoxOfficeMojo]

$37 million on a down weekend with terrible reviews and bad word of mouth is nothing short of incredible. If studios weren’t trying to stick Melissa McCarthy in everything before, they sure as hell will be now. At some point, she and Rebel Wilson may have to fight. I’m okay with that, but it’d be nice if she picked better projects than a buddy-cop movie with Sandra Bullock with jokes broader than a Mexican soap opera. I didn’t see Identity Thief, if only because it involved someone getting hit in the face with something in the trailer, which hasn’t boded well for comedy since The Three Stooges. No thanks. If I wanted to watch someone get hit in the face in a trailer, I’d hang out with your mom.

Read the rest of this entry »

Melissa with something that she’d like Rex Reed to sit on.

Rex Reed is a 74-year old film critic who once famously wrote the following sentence about South Korean people in his review for the film Old Boy:

“What else can you expect from a nation weaned on kimchi, a mixture of raw garlic and cabbage buried underground until it rots, dug up from the grave and then served in earthenware pots sold at the Seoul airport as souvenirs?”

He also started the rumor that Marisa Tomei only won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1992 because Jack Palance was wasted when he presented the award. So basically, Reed is a cranky, cantankerous assh*le, and he wants to remind us of that with his new review of Identity Thief in the New York Observer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since the last episode of Arrested Development aired in 2006, we’ve heard rumors galore about a movie based on the hilarious poorly marketed Fox series. The speculation became increasingly frustrating over the last two years, as some cast members claimed it was happening while others (*cough* Michael Cera *cough*) reportedly wanted nothing to do with reviving the Bluth family.

Then in October, our nerd boners became fully engorged when the show’s creator, Mitch Hurwitz, told people at the New Yorker Festival that there would be another season of 10 episodes, finally culminating in the Arrested Development film. And we believed him because he was sitting with the entire cast when he said it.

But because we’ve grown weary of these rumors and letdowns, we need constant reassurance. Thankfully, writer Dean Lorey understands that and updated his blog accordingly over the weekend.

We’re really doing this thing. Mitch Hurwitz, Jim Vallely and I are off writing the new season of ARRESTED to premiere on Netflix in 2013. The original cast is back. There are offices and parking spaces. We’re shooting this year. I wish I could give more specifics but, for the moment, even the schedule is being kept under wraps. But it’s happening and it’s great to be back with my pals from the show.

This is the main reason why I didn’t cancel my Netflix account when all that new billing nonsense went down last year. Oh I wanted to raise a hell storm to voice my disapproval, but then I thought that maybe it was all a trick, and as soon as I went to close the mailbox on my last DVD return, J. Walter Weatherman would reach his arm in and it would be sliced off.

And only then would I learn that’s why you don’t cancel a DVD mailing subscription service.

Horrible Bosses was a film about three guys who have horrible bosses (such as Charlie Day’s boss, Jennifer Aniston, who keeps sexually harassing him), so they cook up a plan to kill them and ask a black guy (Jamie Foxx) how to do it. Obviously there’s so much rich mythology here that it needed a second film in order to be fully explored.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the screenwriters behind New Line’s surprise workplace comedy hit [$35 mil budget; $210 mil worldwide gross] Horrible Bosses, have closed a deal to pen a sequel. It is expected that Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis will be back to star in the movie, and the studio is in early talks with helmer Seth Gordon to return to the director’s chair. [THR]

What’s the plot of this one, they have new bosses that are also horrible? Horribler Bosses?  Electric Bossaloo? Hey, maybe you guys are just terrible employees, ever thought of that? Charlie Day makes me laugh almost every time he opens his mouth, but this is pushing it. Where’s Day Man, or Little Green Ghouls: The Movie? “Horrible Bosses” doesn’t even sound like a real movie title, it sounds like the poorly-translated-into-Chinese version of a movie title.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the New Yorker’s Twitter account announced that the cast of Arrested Development would be reuniting for 9 to 10 new episodes followed by a movie, I thought it was either the movie blogging equivalent of “MAN LANDS ON MOON” or the most epic troll job in New Yorker history†. After all the times they’ve already convinced us to kick the football, I’m still not sure I believe it, but all signs point to it being real. The short version is that they’re planning nine to ten “where are they now”-style episodes, with Showtime and Netflix negotiating to air them next fall, as a precursor to a film (which still doesn’t have studio backing, as of yet).

Here’s the long version, from Entertainment Weekly:

EW has confirmed that the producers of Arrested Development is in talks [sic] with Showtime and Netflix about airing a limited number of original episodes that will update fans on the Bluth clan.

Hurwitz told attendees at the New Yorker Festival Sunday in New York that he wanted to shoot nine to 10 episodes that would air next fall and catch audiences up on the characters’ lives since the series ended in 2006 on Fox. The episodes would be produced by 20th Century Fox TV, which was responsible for the original single camera series.

Hurwitz’ hope is that the limited series would serve as a walk-up to his long-gestating movie. “I have been working on the screenplay for a long time and found that as time went by there was so much more to the story,” he said at the festival, which was also attended by Development stars Bateman, De Rossi, and Cera, as well as David Cross, Will Arnett, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Alia Shawkat. Ron Howard, one of the comedy’s producers, even participated via speakerphone. “In fact, where everyone’s been for five years became a big part of the story. So, in working on the screenplay I found that even if I just gave five minutes per character to that backstory, we were halfway through the movie before the characters got together. And that kinda gave birth to this thing we’ve not been pursuing for a while and we’re kinda going public with it a little bit. We’re trying to do kind of limited run series into the movie.”

Read the rest of this entry »