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Reel Suite - May 13, 2008 - Reel Suite

Reel Suite - May 13, 2008

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speedracer.jpg
Well, the consensus among us industry bean counters today is that Speed Racer has pretty much ruined the movie business.  I received frantic phone calls from every one of my counterparts in town, and quite frankly they were astonished and scared.  I half expected to look out my window and see frogs falling from the sky.  Costing an estimated $150 million, Racer sputtered to a debut of just $18.6 million, down from the $20.2 million that was projected Sunday, taking third place behind that Kutcher-Diaz movie, which I understand was penned by Downs Syndrome kids.  Warners should have seen this coming.  The movie was only tracking 6.1 out of a possible 10 among moviegoers age 12-25.  Emile Hirsch has fired UTA.  The Wachowski Brothers are reportedly each looking for a new brother.
 
Manka Bros. passed on Speed Racer two years ago, and it looks like we dodged a bullet.  But since it was one of my favorite cartoons as a child and I had read the script, I was curious to see it.  So after a light lunch at Applebees in Hemet, California, I took my elderly mom to see the movie for Mother's Day.  She wanted to see Made of Honor but I convinced her that its ineffectual quality would cause a dangerous spike in her glucose levels.  Besides, I always equate watching the Racer cartoon with my mother, who would sit me on the floor in front of our old Zenith, fire up a Doral unfiltered, then vacuum the area immediately around me, ramming the vacuum head into my bare legs.  I could never hear the dialogue from the show, so I made up my own, which I repeated endlessly at the dinner table.  Mother, a Rob Roy in hand, would drown me out by humming "My Guy" over and over, staring at the ceiling, a crooked smile painted on her face.  The slam of the front door meant stepdaddy was home, and it was time for me to hide in the hamper.  But I had my Speed Racer action figures and cars to keep me company.
 
Well, mother didn't care for the film, or the poor air circulation, or the stale popcorn.  I would occasionally look over and catch her glaring at me, nostrils flared, lips pursed.  Afterwards, she grumbled all the way into the lobby, flagged down a maintenance worker, then beat my legs with his vacuum handle.  Needless to say, it was a tension-filled ride back to mom's single-wide mobile home.
 
Paramount is looking to have a record year at the b.o., with the healthy domestic and international returns on Marvel's Iron Man, and the high profile Indiana Jones 4 looming on the horizon. 

cephalopod.jpg
Manka Bros.' summer hopeful Cephalopod is tracking well in Finland and Burma, among other international strongholds.  Among teens it scored an awareness factor of 2.3, up from 2.1 last weekend.

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1 Comments

John Perry said:

I don't what others think - but Cephalopod looks awesome!

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