PeterSellers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We've got two portrayals of U.S. Presidents vying for Oscars this year: Josh Brolin as W in W. and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. I've yet to see either one, though I did see Langella in the Broadway play, which I hear the movie faithfully replicates. On the eve of W.'s release, it seemed like a good time to get a discussion going on Best Screen Presidents, real or fictional. Here's my list, which is surely missing some obvious choices -- but that's part of the fun.

1. President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) - The Contender
For the past couple of elections, pollsters have asked people which of the two presidential candidates they would rather "have a beer with." Inevitably it is pointed out that the person you would rather have a beer with is frequently not the person you would want to run the country. Jeff Bridges's President Jackson Evans, though, wins at life: he's the guy I'd want to have a beer with, and the guy I'd want running the country. Seriously, I would vote for Jackson Evans over either John McCain or Barack Obama. He's charming, and funny, and a bit of a jerk when called for, but he stands up for what's right and gives the best Rod Lurie Speech to date. My favorite movie president -- though for the record, I think The Contender is only pretty good.

Num-num... Num-num... Birdie num-num! The infamous howdy part-ten-er house guest Hrundi V. Bakshi is making his way to the big screen once again it seems. Not only that -- but someone is ready to fill Peter Sellers' shoes. The New York Post says that Sacha Baron Cohen is looking to remake Blake Edwards' cult comedy, The Party. Apparently, the Borat frontman met Edwards at a screening of the flick in Santa Monica recently, and they were talking for a long time -- presumably about a remake.

Of course, this is only a rumor at this point, but is it one that we want to become a reality? Remakes have always been a part of the biz, there's no way around that, so the question becomes whether the remake can fly years later, and whether an actor can fill in the shoes. If anyone can pull off the innocently impish Hrundi, it's Sacha. But this definitely couldn't be a direct remake, because hippies and painted elephants just wouldn't make sense these days.

I'm thinking that it would retain some of the classic lines, but add a lot of political flavour -- a la Borat. But if that's the case -- couldn't he just make a whole new movie that is just loosely based on the original? The Party is a classic because of Sellers and its '60s strangeness. Is there any reason to stick to the original material, or should they just take the general idea and run with it? Or, do you love it so much that you can't bear the thought of a remake? Discuss.

Sony Pictures announced Thursday that for the first time, they will exceed $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales this year. This isn't any kind of record, though; other studios have surpassed the $3 billion mark before (three times before, in fact), but it's still good news for Sony -- and it is only one aspect of their amazing year at the box office. Their domestic take for 2006 is expected to pass the industry record of $1.573 million, an amount and record they reached back in 2002, for any studio in a single year. Another industry record they've already broken this year is for the number of releases to open at #1. So far, this number is 12, but Sony still has two more titles (The Holiday and The Pursuit of Happyness) to release before the year ends.

For the third time in the past five years, Sony will likely finish out the year with the greatest domestic market share for box office gross. The major contributor to Sony's success in 2006 was The Da Vinci Code, which had an international gross of more than $750 million. Other titles that helped out include Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Casino Royale and, surprisingly, The Pink Panther (hey, that's two remakes that originally starred Peter Sellers!).

Overall 2006 has been a seemingly good year for the motion picture industry, especially considering all the commotion last year over the "Great 'Slump' of '05". And yet, according to Box Office Mojo the total domestic gross for all movies in 2006 is right now $500 million less than the total of 2005 -- though some reports say that this year is up 4% over last year (not a big deal since '05 was down 6% from '04). Thankfully, B.O.M. has a handy YTD comparison, so we can actually see how 2006 stands so far against the same point in years '02 thru '05, and comparatively we're experiencing maybe only the third best year in five. We still have a few weeks left until the year closes, and a lot of movies are coming out in those few weeks, so the final tally could possibly outdo 2004's or 2003's grosses, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I hope to God that some of you are old enough to remember the glory days of SNL, back when it was funny, and Steve Martin was both a wild and crazy guy and the funkiest Tut the world has ever known. If you are, you'll understand why, when I read the news this morning that Paramount is planning to make a movie about King Tut (different from Roland Emmerich's King Tut, which seems to have stalled to the point of death), my first thought was that Martin must have at least a cameo in the movie - I mean, think of the potential! The obvious inspiration here is the success of the Mummy series, and people went to see those films because they were campy fun - how can a good King Tut movie properly follow in those footsteps without Steve Martin? Sadly, however, Paramount has not yet seen the light, and Martin isn't associated with the project, which is described as "an action-adventure/romance pic, loosely based on Howard Carter's discovery of...Tut's treasures in 1922 Egypt."

Even more disappointingly, Martin is sure to appear in the movie that no one wanted but everyone saw coming: a sequel to his Pink Panther. The thing about this series is that even the originals weren't that good. Peter Sellers made them fairly tolerable, and there were rare moments of inspiration (most of them involving the above-it-all David Niven and George Sanders) but, really, even the real thing was average at best. If nothing else, then, Martin's installments will send us running back to the Sellers versions with a newfound regard for their passionate mediocrity.