Moviegoers spurn ‘Surrogates’ and ‘Fame’ but stick with ‘Meatballs’

Copied from the: LA Times

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September 27, 2009 | 11:44 am

Audiences took a look at the new movie offerings this weekend and decided to stick with what they knew.

Two major new wide releases, “Surrogates” and “Fame,” both posted weak openings and received poor reactions from those who did attend. Moviegoers gave the films an average grade of “C” and “B-,” respectively, according to market research firm CinemaScore. Audiences are typically generous graders, so those are signs of poor word-of-mouth and, most likely, short box-office runs.

“Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” meanwhile, dropped an extremely modest 19%, indicating very strong word-of-mouth and continued hunger for a family film.

After its decent but not great $30.3-million launch last week, “Cloudy” enjoyed the third-lowest second-weekend drop of any film this year, after “Taken” and “Coraline.” The studio-estimated $24.6 million in tickets it sold in the U.S. and Canada this weekend brought its total domestic gross after 10 days to $60 million. The $100-million production, the third from Sony Pictures Animation, is now on solid financial footing, aided by the $13.3 million it has earned so far from four foreign territories.

Next week, it faces a touch challenge in Disney’s re-release of the two “Toy Story” movies, however, which will steal a big chunk of its 3-D screens and likely cause a substantially larger box-office decline.

“Surrogates” cost Disney a hefty $80 million to produce, plus marketing expenses, making its $15-million opening a major flop for the studio. The 10 international territories where it opened were stronger, though far from spectacular, bringing in an additional $12.2 million in ticket sales.

Though Disney had a strong start to the summer with hits “Up” and “The Proposal,” “Surrogates” is its second disappointing release after “G-Force.” The likely money loser comes at a time when the studio is already wrestling with internal divisions that led to the ouster of former Chairman Dick Cook a week ago Friday.

The financial failure of the movie starring Bruce Willis is the latest in a string of weak openings for movies with A-list actors in lead roles this year, including “State of Play,” “Imagine That,” “Year One” and “Funny People.” Much of the outdoor and online marketing had minimized Willis’ involvement, focusing instead on the film’s sexy androids.

“Fame” wasn’t nearly as big a disappointment for MGM and its financing partner Lakeshore Entertainment given its modest $18-million production budget. Still, the struggling independent studio had been hoping for a stronger opening than the $10 million it posted, particularly given its larger financial problems.

The movie, which garnered mixed reviews and some withering comparisons to the 1980 release on which it was based, will at best eke out a modest profit.

That’s an unlikely fate for “Pandorum,” as the horror flick from Overture Films opened to a poor $4.4 million. The movie cost Constantin Film $40 million to produce, although Overture bought domestic distribution rights for just under $10 million.

Overture got better news, along with its partner Paramount Vantage, in “Capitalism: A Love Story.” The latest broadside from Michael Moore sold $240,000 worth of tickets at four theaters in Los Angeles and New York City this weekend, giving it the highest  per-theater average of any film released so far this year. Its total since opening on Wednesday is $306,856.

Now that the left-wing filmmaker’s devoted fans have shown their interest, Overture, which is handling the domestic release, will expand the film nationwide on Friday.

Also opening well in limited release was Sony Pictures Classics’ biopic “Coco Before Chanel,” which averaged a solid $35,427 at each of its five theaters.

Miramax’s “The Boys Are Back,” starring Clive Owen, averaged a much softer $8,500 at each of six theaters where it opened.

Here are the top 10 movies at the domestic box office, according to studio estimates and Hollywood.com:

Storm Leaves Dozens Dead in Philippines

Copied directly from:   New York Times (Sorry everyone I need to start writing again but I guess my authors are on vacation.)

People waded through floodwaters following heavy rains brought about by tropical storm Ketsana (locally known as Ondoy) on Sunday in Cainta, east of Manila, Philippines.

By CARLOS H. CONDE

MANILA — At least 83 people were killed and dozens of others were missing after a tropical storm swept through the northern Philippines over the weekend, with Manila experiencing its worst flooding in nearly half a century, officials said Sunday.

As of Sunday afternoon, countless citizens in the capital remained on the roofs of their houses, where they had spent the night drenched and unable to come down because of the floodwaters that had accumulated since the rain began falling Friday evening.

Thousands of families in the capital and in nearby towns and provinces moved out of their homes as early as Saturday afternoon. Many people died in a landslide in Rizal, a province adjacent to Metro Manila that was among the hardest hit. In Marikina City, a Manila suburb, several of those who did not evacuate their homes in a subdivision by the Marikina River were found dead on Sunday.

Tropical Storm Ketsana, packing winds of 85 kilometers per hour, or 53 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour, dumped 42.4 centimeters, or 16.7 inches, of rain in just 12 hours, said Nathaniel Cruz, the government’s chief weather forecaster. He said the rain that fell in those 12 hours was equivalent to the amount of rain that Manila received in the whole of September.

Officials said nearly 300,000 people were displaced by Ketsana; tens of thousands were brought to evacuation centers in schools, churches, gymnasiums and public parks. In Marikina, people pitched tents wherever they could, some on the bridge over the overflowing Marikina River.

Metro Manila is a city of more than 12 million people. It has been having trouble coping with a sewage system that is perennially choked with garbage. Many parts of the city are often flooded by the slightest downpour.

The storm “submerged up to 80 percent of the city, and covered areas that never experienced flooding before, stranding people on rooftops and bringing death and misery to rich and poor alike,” according to Greenpeace.

“It was terrifying to see the water rising, especially because there were live electrical wires around us,” said Diverson Bloso Jr., a waiter at a restaurant in Quezon City that was one of many flooded establishments. “There were trash and rats and cockroaches all around us,” Mr. Bloso said as he cleaned the restaurant’s soaked wooden tables.

King Catoy, a filmmaker, rushed to Marikina City on Sunday to find out what had happened to friends who lived there. He described what greeted him there as heartbreaking. “The ground was just muck,” he said.

As he moved deeper into the city, camera in hand, Mr. Catoy recorded scenes of devastation: streets and houses covered in muck, trees that had crashed into buildings, people washing salvaged belongings in the murky river, belongings hanging by electric posts and trees, a couple holding their five dogs — the only ones left with them after the storm.

“Marikina City always prided itself of being the most orderly, the cleanest and the most prepared city in the whole country,” Mr. Catoy said. Ketsana, he said, “showed that all that may have been just a facade, like those colored houses,” referring to the row of houses that the Marikina government built for the homeless, its facade painted in pastel colors to better hide the slum community behind it. These brightly colored houses were smeared with mud on Saturday.

Indeed, according to Greenpeace, the storm exposed, if anything, Metro Manila’s unpreparedness to deal with a storm as powerful as Ketsana. Volunteers, the group said, “saw firsthand how unprepared we are to deal with such extreme weather events. Even after the waters subsided, aid and rescue workers from government, N.G.O.’s and the private sector were still overwhelmed.”

On Sunday, the rain began pouring again late in the day, raising fear among many that their suffering might be prolonged. Worsening the concern was the government weather bureau’s announcement that another storm was approaching the Philippines.

Although the storm cut power, telephone and water supply in many areas, Internet connections were generally not affected. On Facebook and Twitter, many Filipinos called out for help and shared their grief.

The social networks proved helpful as the hotlines of the government’s disaster agencies were swamped with calls. It was also on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media networks that details of the disaster and the extent of the damage first emerged: flooded streets, cars floating like boats, houses knee-deep in water, and people — among them Cristina Reyes, a popular actress — shivering on their rooftops.

-Lili