[Peace-discuss] Time on The Town

[C. G. Estabrook]

  Uh, sorry... this was meant for someone else...  Did I mention that my nephew 
wrote this movie...?

On 9/19/10 9:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>  Sunday, Sep. 19, 2010
> Box Office: Affleck's The Town Gets an Easy A
> By Richard Corliss
>
> No more Ben Affleck jokes. No "Ben Afflecktion," or quacking his last name in 
> the voice of an insurance-company duck. No South Park episodes where the actor 
> falls in love with Eric Cartman's hand puppet, mistaking it for Jennifer 
> Lopez. Not today, anyway; for the tabloid fodder fave of 2004 is now a 
> star-auteur. The Town, the heist drama that Affleck directed and co-scripted 
> and took the leading role in, was a surprise winner of this weekend's North 
> American box office with $23.8 million, according to early studio estimates. 
> Affable Ben is No. 1 again.
>
> After a laggard Labor Day frame and last week's tepid, no-contest victory for 
> the fourth Resident Evil horror film, Hollywood could finally cheer the onset 
> of the fall season. Right behind The Town was the movie that prognosticators 
> had said would take the weekend: the cheeky, high-IQ teen comedy Easy A, with 
> a star-making role for critics' darling Emma Stone as a virginal high-school 
> girl who becomes notorious because her classmates think she's a slut. The 
> film, made for a mere $8 million, took in $18.2 million, and was one of five 
> Sony pictures in this weekend's top 10 (along with Resident Evil: Afterlife, 
> Takers, The Other Guys and Eat Pray Love.) In third place, earning $12.6 
> million, was Devil, the M. Night Shyamalan "presentation" of a horror film 
> about people trapped in an elevator... with Satan.
>
> This was the first weekend since mid-February that debut films took the first 
> three slots. Mind you, back then Valentine's Day, The Wolfman and Percy 
> Jackson & the Olympians earned a burly total of $119 million, more than twice 
> the $53.6 million that this weekend's trio amassed. Still, that's the highest 
> take for the top three films in five weeks, which proves that folks will go to 
> the movies, even if it's not summer, as long as they think there's something 
> new worth seeing.
>
> The studios smartly angled their quartet of new films to different segments of 
> the audience. The Town, the one R-rated action film in the bunch, lured older 
> males and upmarket audiences. Easy A appealed to teen girls; the weekend 
> audience was 67% female, 49% under 18. Devil was for the young males who 
> weren't all horrored out after Resident Evil: Afterlife. And the animated 
> feature Alpha and Omega, which finished fifth, was a wildlife film for the 
> kiddies. As it happens, the box-office returns of the four films reflected 
> their ratings — The Town, 93%, Easy A, 85%; Devil, 41%; Alpha and Omega, a 
> pathetic 15% — on the reviewer-sampling website Rotten Tomatoes. But Alpha and 
> Omega had at least one money quote: a User Reviewer on the Internet Movie 
> Database declared it "Best Wolf Movie Since Balto!"
>
> For the mass moviegoer, though, The Town was the best Boston-based crime film 
> since the 2006 The Departed, starring Affleck's old pal (and fellow 
> Oscar-winner, for the Good Will Hunting screenplay) Matt Damon. Ben the 
> director gave Ben the actor his biggest opening in a starring role since the 
> $40.3 million The Daredevil cadged back in 2003. (Last year's ensemble comedy 
> He's Just Not That into You doesn't count; if your surname begins with Aff-, 
> you will be first on most alphabetical cast lists.) The Town also earned more 
> in its first weekend than the $20.3 million that Affleck's well-regarded 
> directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, made in its entire run. The star flogged 
> his wares everywhere, from the movie's world premiere at the Venice Film 
> Festival to last weekend at the Toronto Film Festival to this past week's 
> guest spot on The Daily Show. (Two days later, The Town co-star Jon Hamm was 
> also a Jon Stewart visitor.) No question, the door-to-door salesmanship paid off.
>
> In indie action, Catfish, the documentary about a photographer lured into a 
> Facebook relationship that is not what it seemed, opened sharply with $255,000 
> on 12 screens. Never Let Me Go, the delicate science-fiction love-and-death 
> story, earned $120,830 in four N.Y., and L.A. theaters, for the weekend's 
> highest per-screen average. "This is a great start in a crowded market with a 
> Jewish holiday," Fox Searchlight's Sheila DeLoach told Peter Knegt of 
> IndieWire. DeLoach must mean that next weekend, with the High Holy Days over, 
> and observant Jews again available to see movies, the box-office take should 
> be astronomical.
>
> Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend's top-grossing pictures in North 
> American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:
>
> 1. The Town, $23.8 million, first weekend
> 2. Easy A, $18.2 million, first weekend
> 3. Devil, $12.6 million, first weekend
> 4. Resident Evil: Afterlife, $10.1 million; $44 million, second week
> 5. Alpha and Omega, $9.2 million, first weekend
> 6. Takers, $3 million; $52.3 million, fourth week
> 7. The American, $2.8 million; $32.9 million, third week
> 8. Inception, $2.015 million; $285.2 million, 10th week
> 9. The Other Guys, $2 million; $115.4 million, seventh week
> 10. Eat Pray Love, $1.7 million; $77.7 million, sixth week — tied with 
> Machete, $1.7 million; $24.3 million, third week
>
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