As we reported last September, a CGI adaptation of Dr. Seuss' classic Horton Hears A Who is in the works. Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio (The Santa Clause 2) are adapting the book, first-timers Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino are directing. Blue Sky Studios, who did Ice Age, are producing the film for 20th Century Fox Animation. Where this film really looks to shine is in the voice talent department. Jim Carrey will be tackling his second Seuss character with Horton (pictured), and Steve Carell is lending his pipes to the Mayor. Now we know Who else will be bringing Who-ville to life, and believe it or not, Robin Williams is not on the list! Comedy legend Carol Burnett will voice the Kangaroo, and the rest of the cast is pretty much a "Who's Who" of the freshest, funniest comedic actors working today. To wit:

Will Arnett (screamingly funny on Arrested Development, RIP), Amy Poehler (killer on Saturday Night Live and Mrs. Will Arnett), Seth Rogen (so great in 40 Year-Old Virgin and set to explode with this summer's Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (hilarious trying to buy the sparkly shoes in 40YOV), Dan Fogler (terrific in his Tony-winning role in Broadway's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and appearing in his possible breakout role in this summer's Balls of Fury), Isla Fisher (gorgeous fiancee of Sacha Baron Cohen and the funniest part of Wedding Crashers), Jamie Pressley (very good on My Name Is Earl but my thoughts go immediately to Skinemax staple Poison Ivy 3)... and finally - the hilarity comes to a screeching halt - Dane Cook (funny in absolutely nothing). With all that comedy goodness behind the scenes, I can't wait to see this thing. Save the date! March 14th, 2008! It'll be great! Don't be late! Damn you, Seuss!

The end of the box office "slump of '05" and an overall increase in domestic gross over last year should make some U.S. theatre owners happy. However, the studios are more likely to be smiling because of the international grosses. 2006 was a record year for exported movies from Hollywood, and this will probably result in more franchises, sequels and other mainstream fare.

These tentpoles keep Hollywood alive these days, and the studios depend on and cater to worldwide audiences rather than Americans. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that for the sake of the profit, we'll be seeing more movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Da Vinci Code, both of which performed incredibly at home and overseas despite critical pans. Quoted in Variety, Buena Vista International's Anthony Marcoly confirmed this by saying the current strategy is to produce big movies with wide appeal that will over-perform in the international markets.

Okay, so what else is new, right? Well, there are a few noteworthy things to point out, such as the rising market share for smaller distributors. Focus Features and Lionsgate had spectacular years thanks to Brokeback Mountain and Saw II and III, respectively. The former proves the international box office isn't completely epics and other big-budget entertainments. On a sad note, though, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties also did very well.

I'm making a few changes to the TFT format; comments, suggestions and ideas from regular readers are more than welcome!

*Scott's Gimme Pick!* A Fish Called Wanda (Collector's Edition) -- One of the '80s very best comedies (FINALLY) gets the full-bore special edition it deserves! John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin and the (Oscar-winning) Kevin Kline bounce through this farce that's both sunny and acidic, smart and silly, goofy and great. And this package is absolutely stocked with goodies: Cleese commentary, 30 minutes of deleted scenes, some featurettes, a trivia track... I can't wait to add this into my collection! :)

Home Alone (Family Fun Edition) -- If you're a big fan of this celebration of holiday sweetness and hardcore slapstick, this new re-issue looks to be a solid buy. In addition to a Chris Columbus / Macaulay Culkin yack-track, you'll also get a whole bunch of extra goodies -- most of which are all-new to this edition!

Ice Age: The Meltdown -- Because your kid probably doesn't own enough animated movies about animals. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary return to add some personality to the prehistoric critters, and the DVD is predictably stocked with goodies for both old and young.

An Inconvenient Truth -- Al Gore gets all ecological and scares the bejeezus out of those of us who actually consider global warming a real threat. Extras include a pair of filmmaker commentaries, a few featurettes and a box composed of entirely recycled materials.

Independence Day -- Fox was planning to release a 10th Anniversary edition of this movie until someone reminded them that there'd already been a Special Edition, a Limited Edition and a Five-Star Collection edition. And the movie still kinda stinks.

Miracle on 34th Street (Special Edition) -- The 1947 holiday classic finally hits DVD with a swanky SE that's long overdue. The stocking-load of extras include an audio commentary from actress Maureen O'Hara, the 1955 made-for-TV remake, a bunch of documentaries both new and archival ... and you can choose between the (icky) colorized version or the (glorious) original B&W transfer!

The Punisher (Extended Cut) -- Everyone keeps telling me the extended cut of Daredevil is much better than the theatrical version, and I bet the same holds true for The Punisher. Thomas Jane does some solid work in this fairly standard (yet still watchable) little revenge story. New extras (aside from 17 extra minutes wedged into the main feature) include a still-deleted scene, a look at The Punisher's comic book history and some random featurettes.

Scoop -- Yep, Woody Allen's still making movies. This is the one with Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman, I think. And if you've ever owned a Woody Allen DVD, you know what kind of extras to expect here: None. (I think.)

You, Me & Dupree -- Owen Wilson is a wacky dude who squats in the house of newlyweds Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson. Since I have yet to see the movie, I can only assume that much wackiness ensues before a valuable life lesson is learned. Extras-wise you get a pair of audio commentaries, a few featurettes, some deleted scenes and the ever-popular alternate ending.

AMC Theatres is continuing its lead in exhibitor promotions by giving out more free movies this summer. Perhaps you remember last summer when the cinema chain offered a money-back guarantee for Cinderella Man. Then last month it gave out free Akeelah and the Bee tickets to teachers. This time, the deal includes 12 different movies, is open to anyone and goes through the season.

In select cities (listed after the jump), G- and PG-rated films will be shown for free on Wednesday mornings. The films are not new, of course, but they are all popular family fare that are undeniably good deals. They include Shark Tale, Shrek, Shrek 2, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Racing Stripes, Because of Winn-Dixie, Ice Age, Dreamer, Madagascar, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, March of the Penguins, and, the movie I will go see free any time, Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. In addition, The Cartoon Network is producing the pre-show entertainment, which will include bonus cartoon shorts.

It doesn't get any better than free movies, and the only catch is that the program's sponsors will likely be showing commercials during the pre-show. Like that is any different than when we pay, right? AMC's plan is brilliant, especially if they have their concession stands open at 9am. Since the movies aren't first-run, the theatres don't have to pay a lot to the studios to show them. In fact, the program's sponsors might be paying for the titles by themselves. And as packed as any of these shows is likely to be, seeing as they're free, they should be guaranteed to sell out on any rainy wednesday morning. If they sell popcorn to a good percentage of the audience, AMC will be making a ton of money (If they would sell better popcorn, they'd get some of the money from me, as well).

Over the religious -- and apparently spoof-filled -- holiday weekend, Scary Movie 4 destroyed the box office competition, taking in $41 million, more than twice that of Ice Age: The Meltdown, its nearest competition. Despite the impressive numbers, however, that total is actually down from the opening weekend of Scary Movie 3, which means that, if the returns for each film in the series decrease at a similar rate, producers will only get worried at about installment #10 (and yes, number five is already being planned). Though it stayed strong in the second spot with $20 million earned for the weekend, Ice Age 2 was down over 40% for the second week running, and looks to be starting what may be a rapid slide down the rankings. In third place this weekend was The Benchwarmers, whose $10 million meant that it just out-earned The Wild, which made a dismal $9.6 million in its opening weekend. Rounding out the top five was Take the Lead which, though down about 45% from last weekend's earnings, still took in $6.7 million.

Notable among the also-rans was the Jennifer Aniston-starrer Friends with Money, which made $805,000 on only 42 screens (an incredible $19,166/screen), which was good enough for 15th place place for the weekend, well above a slew of films with far greater exposure. Full numbers are after the jump.

Mad Cow Disease -- which changed its name from Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) when it got famous in the late 1990's -- is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle, spread by the host consuming animal by-products infected by this protein mutation. The disease is zoonotic -- meaning it can be transmitted to humans (and vice versa) -- so this forced cannibalism resulted in the deaths of over 150 Europeans through 2004 who had consumed tainted beef. While only five BSE-infected cattle were identified in the U.S. through 2005 (due to their largely soy diet), the panic was enough to cause widespread bans on U.S. beef.
 

As part of our ever-expanding quest to bring you the most movie news most often, and with the highest possible ratio of slant to fact that we can manage, allow me to introduce our new video podcast. The idea is that it's an easy way to catch up on the previous day's movie news that you can download and watch every morning, either when you get to work or on your iPod during the commute. We're going to try to post one of these every morning, five days a week, through the end of the Tribeca Film Festival, at which point we'll evaluate the relationship between labor and demand and go from there. There's only one problem: we don't have a name. And that's where you come in: offer up your best title in the comments, and the best name we get by Friday will go on the podcast intro for good. The author of said name will also receive a credit on each podcast post, as well as a Cinematical t-shirt.

Get the podcast
[Watch] Online (please make sure you have the latest version of Quicktime for best results)
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3).
[RSS] Add the Cinematical Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator to have all of Cinematical's rich content delivered automatically.

Hosts
Karina Longworth

Editor
Randall Bennett

Music
Love as Laughter - I'm a bee

Format
6:12, 50.4 MB, MPEG4 (iPod / PSP compatible)

Program
00:00 - Steven Spielberg says he's creating a reality show
01:30 - Crash coming to the small screen
02:22 - Prison worker disciplined after showing 'Brokeback' to Inmates
03:08 - 'Ice Age Two" Frozen atop the box office
04:25 - Writers Guild releases 100 best Screenplays
05:14 - Star Wars Kid settles lawsuit out of court

 

Despite seeing its take drop about 50% from the massive first weekend (not uncommon for big animated films), Ice Age: The Meltdown nevertheless retained the top spot and, with nearly $35 million, became the first film of 2006 to go over the $100 million mark. Taking the second spot was the latest Adam Sandler-produced brainfest, The Benchwarmers, which took in $20.5 million on about 3300 screens. Phat Girlz, the other un-reviewed debut of the weekend, struggled into the ninth spot with only $3.1 million. Though the film was shown on many fewer screens than Benchwarmers, it nevertheless scored a much smaller per-screen average, which is not a good sign. The weekend's other two new films, Take the Lead and Lucky Number Slevin, both finished in the top five, with $12.8 and $7.1 million respectively. Also notable was the film in the tenth spot, Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking, which took in $2.4 million on 300 screens, averaging an impressive $8000/screen.

The full top 10 is after the jump.

Let's be perfectly fair here: I didn't hate Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. That isn't to say I loved it, either. More like I was just mostly indifferent to it, in much the way that I'm mostly indifferent to grilled cheese-and-tomato sandwiches. Admittedly, the film got off to a bit of a rocky start with me, with its opening scene of a gang of thuggish Ice Age animal children picking on and beating up on Sid the sloth, their camp counselor. Note to people in Fox script department: parents really hate it when you encourage their tykes to truss up the nearest adult and play pinata with him with a wooden baseball bat. Even my kids were appalled by that bit; my six-year-old son, eyebrows knitted in his "worried" look, whispered, "Mommy, why are those kids being so mean to Sid? That's not really very nice, right, Mommy?"

As you can probably guess from the title, the sequel to the popular Ice Age is about the global warming that caused the end of the Ice Age. You could probably get all scientific and actually prove that because Ice Age 2 had a (insert extinct mammal of your choice here) in it, there's no way the end of the Ice Age was happening by Ice Age 2, because everyone knows that (extinct mammal) was extinct well before the end of the Ice Age. I don't care. Things are warming up, the ice is melting into natural waterslide parks, and the thick fur coats are starting to feel a little out of season. Nobody's too worried, though, until a traveling salesman comes by warning of a gargantuan flood that's going to engulf the cozy valley you call home. The only way out, he says, is through the end of the valley, where a giant boat is waiting. Um...a boat? A flood? Wait, did I walk into a Veggie Tales movie by mistake?

 

I was standing in EB Games just recently, patiently waiting in the enormous holiday line with a crush of other gamers, rabid children, and clueless parents. While waiting, I observed a very hassled mother surrounded by four satellite children (by that I mean her children were constantly in orbit around her) waving games at her. As best as I can tell, each child was allowed to claim the title of his/her choice as a Christmas gift. The stack of games the dismal mother eventually found herself holding made me sick--a sorry collection of bad television and movie related "games" (and I use that term loosely here) topped of by something that looked very much to me to be called "Trollz." Yes, with a 'z' at the end. I presume this is some hot new property I am blissfully unaware of. The other four or so games I can't recall, but I do remember that every one of them was for the Gamecube, and every one of them was a bad movie tie-in. I wanted so badly to slap the pile right out of her hands like some gradeschool bully and then replace them with a copy of Skies of Arcadia. But I digress.