FilmDrunk » THE INFORMANT

BOX OFFICE WIPE UP: IT’S POOP SEASON

Vince Mancini — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:40:45 +0000

The movies they release this time of year are so uninteresting that I decided to use this picture of a pro-Adam West demonstrator at the G20 instead of a picture of any of this week’s releases. Seriously, Surrogates? Who cares. Anyway, let’s get this mandatory post no one cares about out of the way, shall we? Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs landed on top again with a modest $24.6 million, while Surrogates and Fame kinda sorta bombed with $15 and $10 million. And thank God Fame didn’t become a phenomenon, I can’t take it with the singing and dancing anymore.

Beyond that, The Informant! held well (-33% from week one), most analysts say because of the exclamation point, and Jennifer’s Body held better than most horror films (-49%), but didn’t magically become an un-bomb. Plus it was competing against The Surrogates. Pandorum, meanwhile, was a total bomb with $4.4 million in number six, but that’s what happens when you cast Cam Gigandet. And because I’m sure you were all curious to know how the Tucker Max movie did, I’ll have to tell you about it because it didn’t make the top ten list below. It was number 23 with $369,000 on 120 screens, for a per-screen average of $3,075, which actually isn’t horrible. Reached for comment, a Tucker Max fan said, “Haha, 69!” and then date raped me. In his defense, I totally wanted it.

	Film	Weekend	Per	Total
1	*Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs*	$24,600,000 (-18.8%)	$7,887	$60,036,000
2	*Surrogates*	$15,000,000	$5,083	$15,000,000
3	*Fame*	$10,033,000	$3,241	$10,033,000
4	*The Informant!*	$6,915,000 (-33.9%)	$2,760	$20,992,000
5	*Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself*	$4,750,000 (-51.9%)	$2,241	$44,543,000
6	*Pandorum*	$4,408,000	$1,759	$4,408,000
7	*Love Happens*	$4,327,000 (-46.3%)	$2,280	$14,728,000
8	*Jennifer’s Body*	$3,500,000 (-49.0%)	$1,278	$12,306,000
9	9	$2,832,000 (-49.1%)	$1,399	$27,101,000
10	*Inglourious Basterds*	$2,722,000 (-28.7%)	$1,389	$114,460,000

[via CHUD, BoxOfficeMojo]

WKND PREVIEW: MMMMAAAATTT DAAAAAMON

Vince Mancini — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:00:02 +0000

(Ask Matt to do his hilarious Jackie Chan impression. On second thought, don’t.)

Opening this weekend:

The Informant!
I like Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh and this looks pretty good, but I refuse to see it until they stop shouting the title at me. I’m not deaf, butthole.

Jennifer’s Body
Is this the one with Megan Fox in it? I hadn’t heard. …MEGAN FOX TOPLESS BUTTSEX GOOGLE UPSKIRT PICS!!

Love Happens
Love happens, sh’t happens, Jennifer Aniston happens, paint dries, death, taxes, women be shoppin’. What were we talking about again?

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Nothing against kid movies — hell, sometimes they’re good. But this one seems… uninspired. But the critics seem to like it. My favorite was this guy, who writes, “Meatballs, steaks, spaghetti, ice cream and candy are falling from the sky. You just described my version of heaven!” Ahh, fat people. Don’t ever stop being the butt of jokes.

MATT DAMON IS A DORKY MIDWESTERNER

Vince Mancini — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:11:44 +0000

The Informant is director Steven Soderbergh’s return to plot-driven comedy after a few years of smaller films like Che and The Girlfriend Experience. I generally enjoy Soderbergh movies (Out of Sight is an underappreciated classic and I even liked Solaris), and I’d probably see this one based on the Matt Damon wallpaper alone (see above).

‘The Informant’ is about Ivy League Ph.D. Mark Whitacre (Damon), a rising star at Decatur, Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s who wound up blowing the whistle on the company’s price-fixing tactics. [WAMG]

Apparently the case had to do with Lysine price fixing and a class-action suit about high-fructose corn syrup. This is neither here nor there, but I think if you were were trying to tough-talk some bigwigs in the corn industry, saying “Oh yeah? Well I pick pieces of guys like you out of my stool,” would be a really apt insult. Haha, good one, Jay.

I also wouldn’t mind seeing Matt Damon’s character in the Informant play an intense game of beach volleyball against Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.

STEVEN SODERBERGH IS UP TO SOMETHING

Vince Mancini — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:20:00 +0000

Director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, Traffic, Ocean’s 11) is clearly up to something. The cast of his upcoming thriller The Informant includes:

The Soup host Joel McHale, Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap, Mike O’Malley from Yes, Dear (apparently it’s a show), comedians Andrew Daly, Tom Papa, and Rick Overton, and a couple others you’ve probably never heard of. Oh yeah, and Matt Damon.

Bakula and McHale will play FBI agents working with agri-business insider Mark Whitacre (Damon) to stop a price-fixing scam. The film is based on Kurt Eichenwald’s 2000 best-seller "The Informant: A True Story."

So what’s up with the weird casting?

Although the subject matter is serious, one behind-the-scenes informant said Soderbergh is looking to create a thriller with dark comedy elements. He chose comedic actors who haven’t been overexposed on film, planning to have them play their roles seriously and have a humorous tone emerge naturally. [Hollywood Reporter]

An intentionally unintentionally funny movie; very interesting. However, I can’t imagine it’ll work without the master of unintentional comedy, Nic Cage. Unless Wicker Man was intentionally funny, in which case Nic Cage is a genius; a frozen-faced savant. I’ve already cast him as the lead in my Schindler’s List miniseries, alongside Mickey Rourke, Paul Walker, Nick Nolte, Mini Me, and Olympia Dukakis.