spider man Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Sony has accused the Walt Disney Company of bending the rules in announcing the box office totals for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The main issue in question is whether Pirates 3 or Spider-Man 3 brought in the most gold doubloons over its first six days of worldwide release. Sony spokesman Steve Eltzer is claiming that At World's End opened in at least two areas on the previous Tuesday, which would add a seventh day of grosses to what Disney announced as a six-day record. Disney is claiming "we had previews that generated $1.4 million. And in keeping with industry practice, we rolled it into the opening day." I, Patrick Walsh, am claiming that if these people would put as much work into their movies as they do into arguing about insanely trivial financial records, moviegoers would be a hell of a lot happier.

Sony opened Spider-Man 3 on a Tuesday in some territories overseas and announced a "six-day opening record" of $232 million. Disney announced its "six-day opening record" of $251 for Pirates. And both have been grumbling and bickering back and forth ever since. "While there may or may not be other territories that opened prior to Wednesday, we believe that as more day-and-date releases enter the market, there should be a consistent standard in international box office reporting," says Eltzer. "This issue is larger than an opening-week box office statistic." Hear hear! Way to focus on the truly important issues, boys! This is a sad day indeed. I thought Hollywood was supposed to be a world of magical entertainments and childlike wonder, and now we come to find out that these people seem to be most interested in ... money? Who knew?

I linked earlier today to an exclusive interview Sam Raimi did for Entertainment Weekly. In it, Raimi announced that he is "seriously interested" in directing the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. This news has to be thrilling to New Line, but those who might not be thrilled include the millions of fans hoping for a Spider-Man 4. New Line/MGM only has the rights to The Hobbit for a limited time, and if Raimi decides to go that route, Spider-Man 4 will either have to be pushed back or a new director will have to be found. Kirsten Dunst, for one, doesn't think she'd return without Raimi, telling EW ''It's disrespectful to the whole team, I think, to do that. And audiences aren't stupid. It'd be a big flop without me, Tobey, or Sam. That would really not be the smartest move."

I think Dunst might be overestimating her popularity there, but without Tobey Maguire and Raimi, the franchise could definitely be caught in a web of trouble. Maguire has already said he's on the fence about returning for another. The Batman franchise did alright (financially if not creatively) after Michael Keaton and Tim Burton jumped ship, but the fans might smell a rat this time around. Dunst doesn't think Sony would make the movie without the original team either, saying "(Sony Chief) Amy Pascal would never do that." Sony's President of Production Matt Talbach has a different take, saying ''Listen, we're making Spider-Man 4. Our hope, dream, and intention is to do it with Sam. But I don't have a crystal ball.'' Anyone out there have one? Maybe you can help sort this out.

This is good news, especially for those of you who toil away working on film and television production in Los Angeles. According to the L.A. Times and FilmLA, a nonprofit group that handles permits for on-location production in L.A., production is on the rise in my fair city and I couldn't be happier. This increase is a welcome change from what was happening only a few short years ago.

Back then, the local L.A. industry was hit very hard by the triple-threat of impeding strikes by the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America, as well as the unfortunate trend for producers to take production out of L.A. and up to Canada or elsewhere. These three factors served to depress further an L.A. economy that was already down and also served to put many of my friends out of work.

Some of the shows that recently shot in L.A. and are helping with the recent boom include Sam Rami's Spider-Man: 3, Michael Bay's Transformers and the unfortunately named Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Underworld helmer Len Wiseman. Plus (yes I know this is not a TV site) there are several TV shows currently shooting in L.A. and contributing to the economic upswing as well -- including the new ABC hit Ugly Betty, The Nine and Jericho, starring Skeet Ulrich of Scream fame.

Now that the trend of sending production to Canada seems to have wained slightly -- mostly due to it being less of a bargain to shoot there than it used to be -- and with no potential strikes looming on the horizon, it seems like things are looking up for the L.A. based film and TV community. Unfortunately, even with this upward trend, production is still down overall from its 1996 peak, so there's still a long way to go.