Flags of Our Fathers
I never heard of Nathaniel Rogers, but for me it would be such a no-brainer. The Outlaw Josey Wales, Breezy, The Gauntlet, Bronco Billy, Pale Rider, Unforgiven, Honkeytonk Man, True Crime, Million Dollar Baby, get saved. I might work out a deal, though, where Last Temptation of Christ gets saved in exchange for Firefox.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
If you ever had any reservations about Nathaniel Rogers' (from The Film Experience) total worthlessness as an analyst of film--as if his kiddie-pool depth approach wasn't enough--read this:
I know some Scorsese fans--especially the Oscarwatchers--are still bitter about two years ago, but most of them wouldn't write something that stupid, would they? (I'm kind of in line with Damien about Scorsese, although I think I like some of his movies a little bit more.)
So… Clint has two Oscars. Martin Scorsese has none. This is not as maddening a statistic as Hilary Swank versus [Insert Numerous Actresses Here], but it's still perplexing. It's yet another damning statement about taking the Oscars seriously. Obviously neither man is a slouch in the directorial department, but I would hope that were you in a burning building and faced with the terrible choice of saving the last remaining prints of only one filmography, you'd choose the one with Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, Goodfellas and Age of Innocence. Few people, outside of Academy voters, would question your decision.
I know some Scorsese fans--especially the Oscarwatchers--are still bitter about two years ago, but most of them wouldn't write something that stupid, would they? (I'm kind of in line with Damien about Scorsese, although I think I like some of his movies a little bit more.)
Two letters in the New York Daily News:
Disheartening
Flushing: I attended the 7 p.m. showing of "Flags of Our Fathers" on the opening weekend at a downtown Jamaica theater, and I was shocked to find I was the only person in the audience! Sad country. I betcha the next screening of "Saw III" is sold out.
Frank Kleniewski
Forgotten history
New Milford, N.J.: I couldn't agree more with Voicer Frank Kleniewski, who was the only person in the movie theater for a showing of "Flags of Our Fathers." I have often fantasized about taking a random survey of youngsters in school today and asking them whether they know the significance of Dec. 7. I would probably get some sort of smart remark like, "It's one day after the 6th and one day before the 8th."
Fred De Poalo
Disheartening
Flushing: I attended the 7 p.m. showing of "Flags of Our Fathers" on the opening weekend at a downtown Jamaica theater, and I was shocked to find I was the only person in the audience! Sad country. I betcha the next screening of "Saw III" is sold out.
Frank Kleniewski
Forgotten history
New Milford, N.J.: I couldn't agree more with Voicer Frank Kleniewski, who was the only person in the movie theater for a showing of "Flags of Our Fathers." I have often fantasized about taking a random survey of youngsters in school today and asking them whether they know the significance of Dec. 7. I would probably get some sort of smart remark like, "It's one day after the 6th and one day before the 8th."
Fred De Poalo
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
I feel as though indifferent to the film as I am, the film is clearly not the financial disaster it's being made out to be. Clearly. The budget is just not that high and the film is performing at a respectable level. I feel as though the film is victim of assassination, from Dreamworks who seem to be already setting their Oscar sights on 'Dreamgirls' and Warner Bros. (who don't have domestic) with 'The Departed' which on the other end of the spectrum, 'The Departed' is reaping hozzanahs for being "The Movie Everybody Likes That's Actually Making Money! GO ####ING FIG!!!", while only now in its fourth week made back the cost of its budget and will have promotional costs sewn up in another two. I'm sure that while at an admittedly underwhelming $20 mil currently 'Flags' can make it to $55 or so within another two months at the most if given the chance. It's not dipping that much.
It really didn't need to be Marty vs. Clint again, but [they're] making it. I see an Oscar platform rerelease in....miiiiiiiiiiid January.
It really didn't need to be Marty vs. Clint again, but [they're] making it. I see an Oscar platform rerelease in....miiiiiiiiiiid January.
"How's the despair?"
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I don't know where they're getting the $90 million budget; Everything I read pre-release said $55 million. Maybe the difference accounts for advertising or something.
Too bad it isn't doing well though; I saw it again and it shows Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan--apparently the premier modern war film, in the public eye--up in almost every concievable way. Expanded thoughts still coming, Sabin.
Too bad it isn't doing well though; I saw it again and it shows Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan--apparently the premier modern war film, in the public eye--up in almost every concievable way. Expanded thoughts still coming, Sabin.
From Reuters:
FLAGS" FLICK FLOPS
After a soft $US10.2 million debut last weekend, Flags of our Fathers slipped one place to No.4 with $US6.4 million, and one of the biggest percentage drops in the top 10. Paramount Pictures' $US90 million film has earned $US19.9 million after 10 days.
Flags of our Fathers sales dropped 38 per cent despite the addition of 314 theatres to take its total to 2190. By contrast, The Prestige was off 35 per cent in its second round with no change in its 2281 theatre count. The Viacom Inc.-owned studio inherited Flags with its acquisition of DreamWorks SKG, which partnered on the film with Warner Bros.
=============================
From the New York Times:
BURYING PRIVATE RYAN
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Published: October 29, 2006
WHEN Peter Bardazzi, a film professor, took his students at the Fashion Institute of Technology to see “Flags of Our Fathers” last Sunday, they were surrounded in the theater by gray- and white-haired people who seemed genuinely touched by the movie’s depiction of the marines who took Iwo Jima. But the young men and women with Mr. Bardazzi, he said, found it tough to sit through.
One, Shirlyn Wong, 23, said she had barely learned about Hiroshima growing up, let alone about the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, and World War II just didn’t seem all that relevant now. Iraq is where it’s at, she said, and the images of carnage that she’s drawn to are the videos popping up on YouTube, despite what she and her friends see as the best efforts of the government and news media to suppress them.
“As soon as you hear something on CNN about a beheading, or a sniper video, the first thing we do is check on the Internet for it,” Ms. Wong said.
It’s been a long eight years since “Saving Private Ryan.” And the underwhelming turnout for “Flags of Our Fathers” so far — it made just $10.2 million its opening weekend, a third of the gross for “Ryan” — may drive home something that Clint Eastwood, the director, and Steven Spielberg, his producer, could not have guessed when they set out to make it: the phenomenon that took hold in 1998 with Mr. Spielberg’s re-enactment of D-Day in “Ryan” and the publication of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” may be, like that “last good war” itself, a thing of the past.
Demographics have a lot to do with this. Hundreds if not thousands of World War II veterans die each week, and those living aren’t so quick to rush to theaters. Indeed, the mortality of that generation was what drove a small army of writers like Hampton Sides, author of “Ghost Soldiers” (2001), about survivors of the Bataan death march, to get going before their sources all died, said Mr. Sides’s publisher, Bill Thomas of Doubleday.
Movies will always be made about World War II, just as there will always be westerns. But the dozens of projects in development include precious few intended mainly to honor the men who fought. Two in the works are about the same all-black 761st tank battalion.
But Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author, said “Flags” had missed its moment by at least five years. “This movie doesn’t fit into the zeitgeist of our times,” he said. A decade or two ago, “writers and filmmakers were honoring World War II veterans. Those mining that field in 2006 seem to be capitalizing on them.”
The wave of interest in, gratitude for, and adulation of the nation’s World War II veterans began in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan spoke in Normandy at the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Mr. Brinkley’s mentor, the historian Stephen Ambrose, was there, as was the newsman Mr. Brokaw.
Mr. Ambrose, for whom D-Day was an obsession, had the idea to begin collecting veterans’ oral histories for the 50th anniversary; Mr. Brokaw had the idea to interview them for a book. Mr. Ambrose’s project turned into “D-Day,” published in 1994, and in it Mr. Spielberg found the material for “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998. A few months later Mr. Brokaw’s book flew off the shelves.
Much has been written about why so many Americans gobbled up those stories. Consider that in 1998, the cold war was over, the globe was shrinking, a threat on American soil was on few minds — and a trip down memory lane to a time when the nation was united in a morally unambiguous cause was an intoxicating escape from the polarization of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
There were other psychic rewards, too, for readers and film audiences of a certain age: “It was such a surprise to the boomer generation,” Mr. Brokaw said. “Their parents hadn’t talked about it, and there’d been a rejection of it in the 1960’s.” Mr. Brokaw recalled a gruff and grimy fire captain who, in the chaos of Ground Zero, thanked him for his book, saying, “I learned about my father in a way I never thought I would.”
Hollywood would return to World War II periodically with genre films like the submarine thriller “U-571,” Holocaust films like “The Pianist” and just plain critical failures like “Windtalkers” and the blockbuster “Pearl Harbor.” But the glorification had already begun to tail off when Mr. Spielberg and his “Private Ryan” star, Tom Hanks, teamed up as producers of the acclaimed HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” based on another Ambrose book.
“Flags of Our Fathers,” the story of a man’s discovery of his father’s past as one of the lionized flag-raisers of Iwo Jima, had been on the best-seller list for a year when “Band of Brothers” was first broadcast, and Mr. Spielberg quickly snatched up the rights. But Mr. Spielberg abandoned “Flags” after two years of reworking scripts, and he invited Mr. Eastwood to take over.
Though Mr. Spielberg failed to develop a screenplay he wanted to direct, Mr. Eastwood’s movie still feels like a sequel to “Ryan.” “Earn this,” Mr. Hanks says as he sacrifices his life to save Matt Damon’s Ryan; in “Flags,” the surviving marines spend much of the movie haunted by knowing that they’ll never be able to live up to the sacrifices their comrades made.
The first episode of “Band of Brothers” was shown on Sept. 9, 2001, and although the miniseries was a success, what happened two days later abruptly made war a real and scary thing, not a gauzy memory. Many critics discerned in President Bush’s post-9/11 speeches — declaring that “another great generation” had been summoned to action — a baby boomer’s struggle to live up to his father’s wartime example. But with the shift of focus to Iraq, the continued mythologizing of World War II, Mr. Brinkley said, began to be viewed in some quarters as a form of American triumphalism.
Jump-cut to 2006, with body bags filling in Iraq and an American public exhausted by the war’s toll, and it’s not so mysterious why a war movie — even a prima facie Oscar contender — should face an uphill battle.
Mark Rondeau, 45, a writer in North Adams, Mass., said he read “Flags” and loved it, and loved Mr. Eastwood’s work, but had no interest in the film, now that it reminds him of a war he’d rather not think about. “Private Ryan,” he said, came out in a “whole different era.”
“It was possible then to look back at World War II with nostalgia, and think that those were great men doing great things that Americans would never have to do again,” he said. “You’d think, well, people were shot to bits, but that was then. You could put sort of a mental distance to it. Now, if you see it happening on the sands of Iwo Jima, you know it’s happening in Iraq, at the same time, and for a lot less noble cause.”
FLAGS" FLICK FLOPS
After a soft $US10.2 million debut last weekend, Flags of our Fathers slipped one place to No.4 with $US6.4 million, and one of the biggest percentage drops in the top 10. Paramount Pictures' $US90 million film has earned $US19.9 million after 10 days.
Flags of our Fathers sales dropped 38 per cent despite the addition of 314 theatres to take its total to 2190. By contrast, The Prestige was off 35 per cent in its second round with no change in its 2281 theatre count. The Viacom Inc.-owned studio inherited Flags with its acquisition of DreamWorks SKG, which partnered on the film with Warner Bros.
=============================
From the New York Times:
BURYING PRIVATE RYAN
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Published: October 29, 2006
WHEN Peter Bardazzi, a film professor, took his students at the Fashion Institute of Technology to see “Flags of Our Fathers” last Sunday, they were surrounded in the theater by gray- and white-haired people who seemed genuinely touched by the movie’s depiction of the marines who took Iwo Jima. But the young men and women with Mr. Bardazzi, he said, found it tough to sit through.
One, Shirlyn Wong, 23, said she had barely learned about Hiroshima growing up, let alone about the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, and World War II just didn’t seem all that relevant now. Iraq is where it’s at, she said, and the images of carnage that she’s drawn to are the videos popping up on YouTube, despite what she and her friends see as the best efforts of the government and news media to suppress them.
“As soon as you hear something on CNN about a beheading, or a sniper video, the first thing we do is check on the Internet for it,” Ms. Wong said.
It’s been a long eight years since “Saving Private Ryan.” And the underwhelming turnout for “Flags of Our Fathers” so far — it made just $10.2 million its opening weekend, a third of the gross for “Ryan” — may drive home something that Clint Eastwood, the director, and Steven Spielberg, his producer, could not have guessed when they set out to make it: the phenomenon that took hold in 1998 with Mr. Spielberg’s re-enactment of D-Day in “Ryan” and the publication of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” may be, like that “last good war” itself, a thing of the past.
Demographics have a lot to do with this. Hundreds if not thousands of World War II veterans die each week, and those living aren’t so quick to rush to theaters. Indeed, the mortality of that generation was what drove a small army of writers like Hampton Sides, author of “Ghost Soldiers” (2001), about survivors of the Bataan death march, to get going before their sources all died, said Mr. Sides’s publisher, Bill Thomas of Doubleday.
Movies will always be made about World War II, just as there will always be westerns. But the dozens of projects in development include precious few intended mainly to honor the men who fought. Two in the works are about the same all-black 761st tank battalion.
But Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author, said “Flags” had missed its moment by at least five years. “This movie doesn’t fit into the zeitgeist of our times,” he said. A decade or two ago, “writers and filmmakers were honoring World War II veterans. Those mining that field in 2006 seem to be capitalizing on them.”
The wave of interest in, gratitude for, and adulation of the nation’s World War II veterans began in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan spoke in Normandy at the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Mr. Brinkley’s mentor, the historian Stephen Ambrose, was there, as was the newsman Mr. Brokaw.
Mr. Ambrose, for whom D-Day was an obsession, had the idea to begin collecting veterans’ oral histories for the 50th anniversary; Mr. Brokaw had the idea to interview them for a book. Mr. Ambrose’s project turned into “D-Day,” published in 1994, and in it Mr. Spielberg found the material for “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998. A few months later Mr. Brokaw’s book flew off the shelves.
Much has been written about why so many Americans gobbled up those stories. Consider that in 1998, the cold war was over, the globe was shrinking, a threat on American soil was on few minds — and a trip down memory lane to a time when the nation was united in a morally unambiguous cause was an intoxicating escape from the polarization of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
There were other psychic rewards, too, for readers and film audiences of a certain age: “It was such a surprise to the boomer generation,” Mr. Brokaw said. “Their parents hadn’t talked about it, and there’d been a rejection of it in the 1960’s.” Mr. Brokaw recalled a gruff and grimy fire captain who, in the chaos of Ground Zero, thanked him for his book, saying, “I learned about my father in a way I never thought I would.”
Hollywood would return to World War II periodically with genre films like the submarine thriller “U-571,” Holocaust films like “The Pianist” and just plain critical failures like “Windtalkers” and the blockbuster “Pearl Harbor.” But the glorification had already begun to tail off when Mr. Spielberg and his “Private Ryan” star, Tom Hanks, teamed up as producers of the acclaimed HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” based on another Ambrose book.
“Flags of Our Fathers,” the story of a man’s discovery of his father’s past as one of the lionized flag-raisers of Iwo Jima, had been on the best-seller list for a year when “Band of Brothers” was first broadcast, and Mr. Spielberg quickly snatched up the rights. But Mr. Spielberg abandoned “Flags” after two years of reworking scripts, and he invited Mr. Eastwood to take over.
Though Mr. Spielberg failed to develop a screenplay he wanted to direct, Mr. Eastwood’s movie still feels like a sequel to “Ryan.” “Earn this,” Mr. Hanks says as he sacrifices his life to save Matt Damon’s Ryan; in “Flags,” the surviving marines spend much of the movie haunted by knowing that they’ll never be able to live up to the sacrifices their comrades made.
The first episode of “Band of Brothers” was shown on Sept. 9, 2001, and although the miniseries was a success, what happened two days later abruptly made war a real and scary thing, not a gauzy memory. Many critics discerned in President Bush’s post-9/11 speeches — declaring that “another great generation” had been summoned to action — a baby boomer’s struggle to live up to his father’s wartime example. But with the shift of focus to Iraq, the continued mythologizing of World War II, Mr. Brinkley said, began to be viewed in some quarters as a form of American triumphalism.
Jump-cut to 2006, with body bags filling in Iraq and an American public exhausted by the war’s toll, and it’s not so mysterious why a war movie — even a prima facie Oscar contender — should face an uphill battle.
Mark Rondeau, 45, a writer in North Adams, Mass., said he read “Flags” and loved it, and loved Mr. Eastwood’s work, but had no interest in the film, now that it reminds him of a war he’d rather not think about. “Private Ryan,” he said, came out in a “whole different era.”
“It was possible then to look back at World War II with nostalgia, and think that those were great men doing great things that Americans would never have to do again,” he said. “You’d think, well, people were shot to bits, but that was then. You could put sort of a mental distance to it. Now, if you see it happening on the sands of Iwo Jima, you know it’s happening in Iraq, at the same time, and for a lot less noble cause.”
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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OscarGuy
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Holy cow...what a mischaracterization. Sure there are plenty who question Flags chances. I question its chance of a win, but I'm still certain of its nomination. Don't let the print media control the dialogue. It's all a part of the immediate need for gratification. Especially for those who felt The Departed was a stronger chance than others. We have a LOT of time left to see better results but as November gets into gear, we'll see a lot more solidifying and then by early December, we should know withing a certain amount of reasonability what the top contenders are.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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A couple of thoughts:
1. I have been stunned by the number of articles (excluding our comments, this is, after all, the ACADEMY AWARDS Discussion Board) that don't just mention, but bathe in the 'O' word. This is EXACTLY the kind of Peeve of the Season that Mister Tee addressed. It's bad enough that every pre-release article on the film mentioned how it was an Oscar frontrunner. But now, after ONE WEEKEND, good reviews, and a couple million less than anticipated, the film has suddenly had its awards-chances completely dashed? This need to call the races immediately gets on my nerves big time. A lot can happen in the next few months. Some big players might get lousy reviews. Eastwood's film might have staying power. Maybe the older voters who won't reach the film until they watch the screeners will keep the film competitive. But JEEZ-US, the way these journalists go at it, it would seem as though some kind of tragedy has struck and Clint and Co. are doomed at the Oscars. (A bit like last year's "the audiences who didn't turn out killed the phenomenally well-reviewed Cinderella Man's Oscar chances" b.s.) I mean, it's not like it TANKED. And those reviews are PRETTY GOOD.
2. And yet, despite my dislike of (or rather, indifference to) Flags of Our Fathers, I can't help but be very dismayed that the film hasn't done as well as expected at the box-office. I wonder if this is just another nail in the coffin of the mainstream adult film. I can see the execs thinking, "If they won't turn out for a WWII film by Eastwood AND Spielberg, why bother with anything for adults anymore?"
1. I have been stunned by the number of articles (excluding our comments, this is, after all, the ACADEMY AWARDS Discussion Board) that don't just mention, but bathe in the 'O' word. This is EXACTLY the kind of Peeve of the Season that Mister Tee addressed. It's bad enough that every pre-release article on the film mentioned how it was an Oscar frontrunner. But now, after ONE WEEKEND, good reviews, and a couple million less than anticipated, the film has suddenly had its awards-chances completely dashed? This need to call the races immediately gets on my nerves big time. A lot can happen in the next few months. Some big players might get lousy reviews. Eastwood's film might have staying power. Maybe the older voters who won't reach the film until they watch the screeners will keep the film competitive. But JEEZ-US, the way these journalists go at it, it would seem as though some kind of tragedy has struck and Clint and Co. are doomed at the Oscars. (A bit like last year's "the audiences who didn't turn out killed the phenomenally well-reviewed Cinderella Man's Oscar chances" b.s.) I mean, it's not like it TANKED. And those reviews are PRETTY GOOD.
2. And yet, despite my dislike of (or rather, indifference to) Flags of Our Fathers, I can't help but be very dismayed that the film hasn't done as well as expected at the box-office. I wonder if this is just another nail in the coffin of the mainstream adult film. I can see the execs thinking, "If they won't turn out for a WWII film by Eastwood AND Spielberg, why bother with anything for adults anymore?"
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I posted this yesterday, but it seems to have disappeared:
'DEPARTED' ARRIVES AS FALL'S HOTTEST MOVIE
10/24/2006
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
In deciding when to release their World War II epic Flags of Our Fathers, Paramount executives figured that, in a worst-case scenario, Clint Eastwood's film would open at No. 2 this weekend.
They didn't count on Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese's return to the mobster genre has turned The Departed into the talker of fall — becoming not only a box-office powerhouse but also changing the landscape of the Oscar race.
Though Flags of Our Fathers— with Eastwood's dual directing Oscars to boost its pedigree — is still a contender for the best-picture race, Departed's strong showing is the talk of Hollywood.
"You have to give them credit; it's pretty impressive, the word of mouth it's generating," says Jim Tharp, distribution chief for Paramount. "It's playing spectacularly."
Analysts say strong reviews and word of mouth are moving the film into top-5 lists in several categories, including best picture, acting and directing.
"Before it opened, it really wasn't being positioned as an Oscar film," says Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly. "It was described as a straight-down-the-middle thriller, which isn't always the kind of film that the academy responds to. But once people saw it, it reminded a lot of critics and fans of an old-time Scorsese film. That's when Oscar talk began to surround it."
The Departed, now in its third week, was No. 2 this weekend with $13.5 million, bumping Flags' debut into third place with $10.2 million. The Departed has done $77 million in 17 days and is on track to beat Scorsese's previous best, 2004's The Aviator, which took in $102 million domestically.
The surge presents an enviable dilemma for Warner Bros., which released the film and must decide which actors in the ensemble picture will get an Oscar push. Stars generating Academy Awards momentum include Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Alec Baldwin.
But a key question facing the studio must be how to campaign for star Leonardo DiCaprio, who also stars in Warner Bros.' upcoming drama Blood Diamond. It's due Dec. 15.
Analysts say the studio may push for DiCaprio as a best supporting actor in The Departed and best actor in Diamond so he doesn't compete against himself.
"It would be disingenuous, because he's one of the main stars" of The Departed, Karger says. "But you don't want to split your vote between movies."
Warner Bros. executives are mum on campaign strategy, though they say their jobs have become easier thanks to Departed's strength at the box office.
"Right now, our plan is hands off," says Dan Fellman, the studio's head of distribution. "The movie has taken on a life of its own with the public, and we think that's going to help it be recognized at the end of the year."
=========================
And from today's NY Times:
AFTER WEAK 'FLAGS' DEBUT, STUDIO MAY FACE COSTLY OSCAR BATTLE
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and ALLISON HOPE WEINER
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 — Clint Eastwood’s World War II movie “Flags of Our Fathers” lumbered ashore this weekend weighted with the expectations of a studio needing to win big. Looking for Oscars and a payoff on the film’s $90 million budget, Paramount, its distributor, put the film in nearly 1,900 theaters, and still plans to add hundreds more as early as this
By Monday morning, however, the studio and its partners found themselves facing a costly fight to save their showcase awards entry, as “Flags” took in just $10.2 million at the box office — a relatively tiny beachhead that did not match expectations or its mostly strong reviews. The picture had failed to excite enough older viewers who could remember, readily identify or relate to its subject, the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, to make up for its lack of appeal to younger audiences and paucity of recognizable stars.
For Paramount, which inherited the movie when it bought DreamWorks last year, the combination of a weak opening and good reviews made for a problem that has become all too familiar to major studios offering big dramas at awards time: it now will have to mount a costly Oscar campaign, but it hasn’t yet made the money to pay for it.
The fate of “Flags” in the moviegoing marketplace could also provide the clearest test yet of the DreamWorks-Paramount marriage. The movie’s marketing is being run by Terry Press of DreamWorks, overseeing a Paramount team, and its distribution is being overseen by Rob Moore, a top colonel to Brad Grey, Paramount’s chairman, relying on a staff of former DreamWorks employees. To complicate things further, Warner Brothers, which helped finance the film, holds international distribution rights, and is expected to release a companion movie depicting the battle from the Japanese point of view early next year.
Still, even as they vowed to battle into the winter for “Flags,” hoping for awards nominations to rally its box-office performance, studio executives left broad hints that they were not willing to shoulder the blame alone if their efforts were for naught. Mr. Eastwood, they noted, held contractual rights to approve both the marketing and distribution plans for his movie. “Every step of the way, we are working with Clint or being directed by Clint,” Mr. Moore said.
“Flags” seemed like a sure bet on Paramount’s schedule when the studio and DreamWorks combined forces last December: Mr. Eastwood was coming off best-picture and best-director nominations for “Mystic River” in 2004, and wins in both categories for “Million Dollar Baby” last year. Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of “Flags,” won the Oscar (along with Bobby Moresco) for the screenplay for “Crash,” named best picture this March, and also wrote “Million Dollar Baby.” And Steven Spielberg, who had originally wanted to film “Flags” as a bookend to his own “Saving Private Ryan,” had decided to take a rare producer’s credit for a movie he did not direct.
Mr. Spielberg did the same with “Memoirs of a Geisha,” another Oscar aspirant that disappointed at the box office and came up short in the awards race for Sony Pictures last year. Following a different path, “Munich,” which was directed by Mr. Spielberg, was not a major audience hit, but did end up with a best-picture nomination.
True to form, the pedigree of “Flags” produced some blurb-worthy raves: Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it “a film of awesome power”; David Ansen of Newsweek called it “tough, smart, raw and contemplative”; and Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that it said “something new and urgent about the uses of war and of the men who fight.”
But the movie posed several marketing challenges that Mr. Eastwood’s last two films did not face. Unlike Mr. Spielberg, who cast Tom Hanks in “Private Ryan,” Mr. Eastwood wanted to give a sense of the youth and ordinariness of the marines who fought at Iwo Jima, so he deliberately avoided casting major stars. Ryan Phillippe is the biggest name in “Flags,” though hardly a household one. Some critics even wrote that the movie’s characters were almost indistinguishable in the mayhem of battle.
As Mr. Moore summed up: “The biggest draw of the movie is its director, who’s not in the movie.”
Some industry insiders also questioned the timing of the film’s release in late October — a time when audiences are mainly young and mainly interested in Halloween fare like next weekend’s release of “Saw III” — rather than closer to Thanksgiving, when audiences have been conditioned to expect more adult-themed movies with awards potential.
But Mr. Moore said the timing was nearly identical to that of “Mystic River,” which opened in mid-October 2003 in a platform release of 13 theaters before expanding to 1,467 theaters a week later. Any thought of a similar platform release a week or two ago was dropped, lest “Flags” go up against Martin Scorsese’s “Departed,” Mr. Moore said. But he and other executives said the calendar ahead looked forgiving, with youth-oriented movies like the “Saw” sequel and “Borat,” and family fare like DreamWorks’ and Paramount’s own “Flushed Away” on Nov. 3.
Counting on that window of opportunity, Mr. Moore said Monday morning that Paramount, DreamWorks and Mr. Eastwood had agreed to expand by 300 screens nationwide this week. He cited the movie’s reviews, as well as exit polls of audience members that were 50 percent better than average — a sure gauge of word of mouth, he said.
Robert Lorenz, Mr. Eastwood’s longtime producer, said the opening weekend box office, while lower than some projections, was not disappointing at all. “It’s on track with what Clint’s movies have done in the past,” he said.
Executives like Mr. Moore said they were counting on the many fans of Mr. Eastwood’s dramatic and darker recent movies to show up as they always seem to — in their own good time. “They come out slower,” he said. “Therefore, we roll out slower.”
And Ms. Press, of DreamWorks, said that the film’s reviews held out hopes that, once the movie made it to December, it could wind up on the year’s-best lists and start piling up the kind of accolades that might prompt moviegoers to give it another look.
“When you have that level of respect, you have to go the distance here,” Ms. Press of DreamWorks said, referring to Mr. Eastwood. “There is no other choice for a movie like this but to go the distance.”
'DEPARTED' ARRIVES AS FALL'S HOTTEST MOVIE
10/24/2006
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
In deciding when to release their World War II epic Flags of Our Fathers, Paramount executives figured that, in a worst-case scenario, Clint Eastwood's film would open at No. 2 this weekend.
They didn't count on Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese's return to the mobster genre has turned The Departed into the talker of fall — becoming not only a box-office powerhouse but also changing the landscape of the Oscar race.
Though Flags of Our Fathers— with Eastwood's dual directing Oscars to boost its pedigree — is still a contender for the best-picture race, Departed's strong showing is the talk of Hollywood.
"You have to give them credit; it's pretty impressive, the word of mouth it's generating," says Jim Tharp, distribution chief for Paramount. "It's playing spectacularly."
Analysts say strong reviews and word of mouth are moving the film into top-5 lists in several categories, including best picture, acting and directing.
"Before it opened, it really wasn't being positioned as an Oscar film," says Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly. "It was described as a straight-down-the-middle thriller, which isn't always the kind of film that the academy responds to. But once people saw it, it reminded a lot of critics and fans of an old-time Scorsese film. That's when Oscar talk began to surround it."
The Departed, now in its third week, was No. 2 this weekend with $13.5 million, bumping Flags' debut into third place with $10.2 million. The Departed has done $77 million in 17 days and is on track to beat Scorsese's previous best, 2004's The Aviator, which took in $102 million domestically.
The surge presents an enviable dilemma for Warner Bros., which released the film and must decide which actors in the ensemble picture will get an Oscar push. Stars generating Academy Awards momentum include Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Alec Baldwin.
But a key question facing the studio must be how to campaign for star Leonardo DiCaprio, who also stars in Warner Bros.' upcoming drama Blood Diamond. It's due Dec. 15.
Analysts say the studio may push for DiCaprio as a best supporting actor in The Departed and best actor in Diamond so he doesn't compete against himself.
"It would be disingenuous, because he's one of the main stars" of The Departed, Karger says. "But you don't want to split your vote between movies."
Warner Bros. executives are mum on campaign strategy, though they say their jobs have become easier thanks to Departed's strength at the box office.
"Right now, our plan is hands off," says Dan Fellman, the studio's head of distribution. "The movie has taken on a life of its own with the public, and we think that's going to help it be recognized at the end of the year."
=========================
And from today's NY Times:
AFTER WEAK 'FLAGS' DEBUT, STUDIO MAY FACE COSTLY OSCAR BATTLE
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and ALLISON HOPE WEINER
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 — Clint Eastwood’s World War II movie “Flags of Our Fathers” lumbered ashore this weekend weighted with the expectations of a studio needing to win big. Looking for Oscars and a payoff on the film’s $90 million budget, Paramount, its distributor, put the film in nearly 1,900 theaters, and still plans to add hundreds more as early as this
By Monday morning, however, the studio and its partners found themselves facing a costly fight to save their showcase awards entry, as “Flags” took in just $10.2 million at the box office — a relatively tiny beachhead that did not match expectations or its mostly strong reviews. The picture had failed to excite enough older viewers who could remember, readily identify or relate to its subject, the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, to make up for its lack of appeal to younger audiences and paucity of recognizable stars.
For Paramount, which inherited the movie when it bought DreamWorks last year, the combination of a weak opening and good reviews made for a problem that has become all too familiar to major studios offering big dramas at awards time: it now will have to mount a costly Oscar campaign, but it hasn’t yet made the money to pay for it.
The fate of “Flags” in the moviegoing marketplace could also provide the clearest test yet of the DreamWorks-Paramount marriage. The movie’s marketing is being run by Terry Press of DreamWorks, overseeing a Paramount team, and its distribution is being overseen by Rob Moore, a top colonel to Brad Grey, Paramount’s chairman, relying on a staff of former DreamWorks employees. To complicate things further, Warner Brothers, which helped finance the film, holds international distribution rights, and is expected to release a companion movie depicting the battle from the Japanese point of view early next year.
Still, even as they vowed to battle into the winter for “Flags,” hoping for awards nominations to rally its box-office performance, studio executives left broad hints that they were not willing to shoulder the blame alone if their efforts were for naught. Mr. Eastwood, they noted, held contractual rights to approve both the marketing and distribution plans for his movie. “Every step of the way, we are working with Clint or being directed by Clint,” Mr. Moore said.
“Flags” seemed like a sure bet on Paramount’s schedule when the studio and DreamWorks combined forces last December: Mr. Eastwood was coming off best-picture and best-director nominations for “Mystic River” in 2004, and wins in both categories for “Million Dollar Baby” last year. Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of “Flags,” won the Oscar (along with Bobby Moresco) for the screenplay for “Crash,” named best picture this March, and also wrote “Million Dollar Baby.” And Steven Spielberg, who had originally wanted to film “Flags” as a bookend to his own “Saving Private Ryan,” had decided to take a rare producer’s credit for a movie he did not direct.
Mr. Spielberg did the same with “Memoirs of a Geisha,” another Oscar aspirant that disappointed at the box office and came up short in the awards race for Sony Pictures last year. Following a different path, “Munich,” which was directed by Mr. Spielberg, was not a major audience hit, but did end up with a best-picture nomination.
True to form, the pedigree of “Flags” produced some blurb-worthy raves: Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it “a film of awesome power”; David Ansen of Newsweek called it “tough, smart, raw and contemplative”; and Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that it said “something new and urgent about the uses of war and of the men who fight.”
But the movie posed several marketing challenges that Mr. Eastwood’s last two films did not face. Unlike Mr. Spielberg, who cast Tom Hanks in “Private Ryan,” Mr. Eastwood wanted to give a sense of the youth and ordinariness of the marines who fought at Iwo Jima, so he deliberately avoided casting major stars. Ryan Phillippe is the biggest name in “Flags,” though hardly a household one. Some critics even wrote that the movie’s characters were almost indistinguishable in the mayhem of battle.
As Mr. Moore summed up: “The biggest draw of the movie is its director, who’s not in the movie.”
Some industry insiders also questioned the timing of the film’s release in late October — a time when audiences are mainly young and mainly interested in Halloween fare like next weekend’s release of “Saw III” — rather than closer to Thanksgiving, when audiences have been conditioned to expect more adult-themed movies with awards potential.
But Mr. Moore said the timing was nearly identical to that of “Mystic River,” which opened in mid-October 2003 in a platform release of 13 theaters before expanding to 1,467 theaters a week later. Any thought of a similar platform release a week or two ago was dropped, lest “Flags” go up against Martin Scorsese’s “Departed,” Mr. Moore said. But he and other executives said the calendar ahead looked forgiving, with youth-oriented movies like the “Saw” sequel and “Borat,” and family fare like DreamWorks’ and Paramount’s own “Flushed Away” on Nov. 3.
Counting on that window of opportunity, Mr. Moore said Monday morning that Paramount, DreamWorks and Mr. Eastwood had agreed to expand by 300 screens nationwide this week. He cited the movie’s reviews, as well as exit polls of audience members that were 50 percent better than average — a sure gauge of word of mouth, he said.
Robert Lorenz, Mr. Eastwood’s longtime producer, said the opening weekend box office, while lower than some projections, was not disappointing at all. “It’s on track with what Clint’s movies have done in the past,” he said.
Executives like Mr. Moore said they were counting on the many fans of Mr. Eastwood’s dramatic and darker recent movies to show up as they always seem to — in their own good time. “They come out slower,” he said. “Therefore, we roll out slower.”
And Ms. Press, of DreamWorks, said that the film’s reviews held out hopes that, once the movie made it to December, it could wind up on the year’s-best lists and start piling up the kind of accolades that might prompt moviegoers to give it another look.
“When you have that level of respect, you have to go the distance here,” Ms. Press of DreamWorks said, referring to Mr. Eastwood. “There is no other choice for a movie like this but to go the distance.”
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However, Munich did not come out until the end of December, only three or four weeks before ballots were due. So, it ws still riding high on it's pre-release momentum, and people were only seeing it for the first time (in theatres or screeners) in mid-December. This, on the other hand, has the possibility of drifting away in the memory of voters by December, let alone January.OscarGuy wrote:Remember that Munich managed success despite disappointing box office returns.
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Not having seen this yet, I'm not on either side of the critical divide. But I must say I find it difficult to take Paramount's "it just what we expected" as anything but spin. The film was supposedly tracking $13-15 million; falling short like that may indicate web non-enthusiasm dampened attendance in the stretch. And comparisons to Mystic River I think fall way short. The '03 film not only achieved roughly the same numbers in far fewer theatres (and in three-year old dollars); it also had its per-screen average diluted by 1) a Wednesday opening (I'm taking this on the word of the folks at Oscar Watch, who seemed to have the numbers at hand), and 2) a previous week playing in the top markets. Per-screen is heavily inflated by NY/LA/Chicago numbers, and if they were already down the typical 20-30% from week one, we're talking about a far more substantial gap between the two films than Paramount is trying to suggest.
They say exit polls indicate strong word-of-mouth. We'll see. I don't take the online world as representative of America (otherwise, Howard Dean'd be president), but it's hard for me to believe the unimpressed reaction around the net won't come somewhat into play.
That said, I'm still very much looking forward to the film myself. But Dennis Bee's suggestion in the Peeves thread -- that overall reaction here may match A Perfect World, a good (if flawed) film that failed to connect with audiences -- could be on the money.
They say exit polls indicate strong word-of-mouth. We'll see. I don't take the online world as representative of America (otherwise, Howard Dean'd be president), but it's hard for me to believe the unimpressed reaction around the net won't come somewhat into play.
That said, I'm still very much looking forward to the film myself. But Dennis Bee's suggestion in the Peeves thread -- that overall reaction here may match A Perfect World, a good (if flawed) film that failed to connect with audiences -- could be on the money.