mission impossible III Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Yesterday marked the final day of Tom Cruise and long-time partner Paula Wagner's deal with Paramount Pictures, and the LA Times is reporting that the new contract on offer from Paramount significantly scales back its financial commitment to the duo. Though Wagner denies that she and Cruise ever got such a massive amount from the studio, insiders put their yearly take under the old contract at about $10 million "to cover overhead, project development and other costs." And I think I speak for everyone when I say "Holy crap!" to those numbers.

Paramount's new offer, while still generous, is a far cry from $10 million/year. According to unnamed people familiar with the deal, the studio is offering Cruise and Wagner in the neighborhood of "$2 million plus a $500,000 discretionary fund each year for two years." While this is being seen as yet another sign of Hollywood's newfangled interest in financial responsibility, the fact is that Cruise's shrinking box office potential is directly linked to his recent off-putting behavior.* That said, however, when a guy is expecting to earn a rumored $80 million from Mission: Impossible III, one wonders how much the loss of $8 million/year is going to mean to him.

*Yes, MI3 is making a ton of money. According to the LA Times, however, even if the film earns an additional $200 million from DVD sales, Paramount will only break even on the film, once Cruise's percentage is taken out.

The Seventh Annual Golden Trailer Awards were held on June 1st in NYC and Mission: Impossible III was the big winner, garnering three trophies for Trailer Park, the company that produced the film's previews. In addition to winning the grand prize of Best of Show, M:I III won awards for having the best trailer for an action movie and for a summer 2006 blockbuster.

Personally, I think that the best trailer should be the one that attracts people to a movie, since that is its purpose. I admit the Mission: Impossible III trailer is pretty good, but it didn't really convince many to see it, and didn't make me think the movie would be as good as it actually is. When I think of a good trailer, I am always reminded of the ones for Blow, the cocaine biopic starring Johnny Depp. The previews were stylishly edited and featured great soundtracks, which had me in anticipation for months. Unfortunately the actual movie was surprisingly mediocre, but the trailer did a terrific job of drawing me in. 

I can't think of the best movie trailer I saw in the past year, so I guess there weren't many that were memorable -- looking at the list of other winners, I can't even remember their trailers. The last truly great preview I can remember was for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The complete list of winners after the jump.

Last week, we asked you to take any or all of five movie titles: Mission: Impossible: 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Poseidon, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mens' Chest -- and make them into Chinese movie title translations. Quite a few of you rose to the task, and we had some very creative entries. But there can be only one (winner, that is), and the winner is (drumroll, please) ...

Lee! Lee wins a shiny new Cinematical t-shirt for these winning entries:

Mission: Impossible: 3 = Jumping on couch,Jumping off building ("did the translator actually watch this film?")

X-Men: The Last Stand =Mutants in Spandex and the
Weathergirl("enhanced translation")

Poseidon = Po Sigh Done ("sounds kinda like this")

My Super Ex-Girlfriend = Wonderwoman gone blonde and with a vengence !!! ("enhanced translation" since it isnt out on dvd yet)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mens' Chest= Pirates Chasing Pirates("literal translation")

Congrats, Lee. Please email me at kim (at) cinematical (dot) com with your shirt size (M, L or XL) and color preference (black or pumpkin), and your mailing address. Thanks to all our entrants!

Though Mission: Impossible III easily topped the weekend box office with $48 million from over 4000 screens -- the fourth-widest launch ever -- the film's opening is far short of both what was expected (in the $60 million range) and what the first two installments in the series made in their debuts. Whatever the reason for the relatively low open (Are people turned off by Tom Cruise? Nikki Finke is not alone in thinking so.), studios must be a little nervous about this kind of result for the summer's first "blockbuster," particularly given that the movie was fairly well reviewed.

Though it probably won't make the people at Paramount feel any better, the weekend's two other debuts were much, much worse, particularly that of Hoot. Despite opening on over 3000 screens, the Carl Hiaasen adaptation made only $3.4 million with just over $1000/screen -- barely enough to get it into the top 10 (it ended up tied for ninth with Akeelah and the Bee). An American Haunting, meanwhile, finished third with $6.4 million. Holding onto the second slot was RV, which made $11.1 million in its second week of release. Stick it and United 93 rounded out the top five, pulling in $5.5 million and $5.2 million, respectively; in its two weeks of release, United 93 is already in the black with about $20 million against a $15 million budget. The full top 10 is after the jump.

Bits and pieces for Thursday:

• According to JoBlo, Jane Fonda visited with Larry King last night, and told him that there are some conversations taking place about a sequel to Nine to Five. While this is among the worst ideas I've ever heard -- is any movie more firmly rooted in its time? -- I have to admit that I'm a sucker for Dolly Parton (Yes, I'm the one person who saw Straight Talk in the theater. Twice.), and will accept even the lamest excuse to watch her be sassy. I would totally go.

• Remember the Jason McElwain? The autistic kid who'd spent two years as a basketball manager, so the coach let him dress for a game his senior year? And he came out raining threes to the delight of his teammates, the fans, and the entire world? Well, we mentioned shortly after the game that his family was being courted by multiple drooling studios -- and now, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner: Columbia gets to make the Jason McElwain movie.

• Curse that scientologist baby! Tom Cruise was supposed to head off today on a world-wide publicity voyage to promote Mission: Impossible III (which, let's face it, no one will even know exists if he doesn't go talk it up), but the arrival of little Suri is screwing everything up. Cruise has canceled a junket scheduled for LA today, and upcoming stops (including Paris, London, and Rome) are very much up in the air. Katie, if this movie flops, you are in such huge trouble. Couldn't you cross your legs for a few weeks, or something?

Yup, it's finally here. Katie Holmes has given birth to a baby girl. Her name is Suri (not sure what that means), and she weighs 7 pounds, 7 ounces.

More details soon ...