After the success of Taken and Gran Torino, Hollywood has been on a vigilante kick. And right now, Bryan Singer (along with studio execs all over town) has been seriously considering getting his revenge on with The Prisoners, a much-sought-after thriller script to which Mark Wahlberg is attached to star as a Boston dad who takes the law into his own hands when his young daughter is kidnapped. The screenplay, which has been compared to The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, has been buzzed about as a calling card for its unknown writer, Aaron Guzikowski, and as a rare project targeted at adult audiences but with real commercial potential. When asked whether The Prisoners will be his next movie, Singer told EW: 'I don't know yet. But I'm definitely intrigued. It's a great script. And I'd love to work with Mark.' source: EW
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‘Zombieland’ tops Box office with $25 million

October 5, 2009 | Posted by Staff in Movie News, Read| 0 comments

Sony knocked out its competition this weekend with a one-two punch as “Zombieland” took $25 million at 3,036 and 3D toon “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” dropped to the second spot in its third frame with $16.7 million at 2,977 playdates.

And Disney-Pixar’s minor gamble at mounting a limited-run Toy Story/Toy Story 2 double feature in 3-D looks to have paid off quite handsomely. Even though many theaters could only manage three screenings a day, Woody and Buzz still rounded up $12.5 million in just 1,745 theaters, snagging third place. That certainly bodes well for the public’s appetite for Toy Story 3, due next summer.

Sony added success on the foreign front to its domestic prowess.

Sony’s “The Ugly Truth” won markets including Austria, Switzerland, Taiwan and Hungary as it cumed $12.1 million in 54 markets.

Disney’s “Surrogates” added 10 territories to its roster, bringing its total to 24 with $11.4 million, while “Up” followed close behind with $10.6 million in 27 territories.

Sony’s “Meatballs” matched solid domestic earnings with a strong overseas performance of $7.1 million in 31 markets, including Brazil, Colombia and Israel. Pic’s third U.K. sesh added $1.9 million on 611 screens, bringing its territory cume to $7.9 million.

“Inglourious Basterds” launched in Italy with $3 million at 331, pushing the pic’s estimated international gross near $8.6 million in 45 territories. “Basterds” has cumed $258.5 million worldwide.

“Lying” opened date and date in the U.K. with an estimated $2.9 million at 367, topping earlier Gervais pic “Ghost Town.”

Two other comedies headlined by beloved funny people making their directorial debuts opened this weekend to less-than-gleeful returns. Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying laughed up $7.4 million in 1,707 theaters for fourth place; while that’s certainly better than the $5 million debut of 2008’s Ghost Town, Gervais’s last film as a star, it still landed short of many estimates. But at least it beat out Drew Barrymore’s roller-derby film Whip It!, which limply rolled to sixth place with $4.9 million in 1,720 theaters. (The Bruce Willis sci-fi thriller Surrogates flopped between them at fifth place with $7.3 million, a 51 percent drop for a $26.4 million two week total.)

Michael Moore, meanwhile, should be (moderately) happy: His latest documentary Capitalism: A Love Story banked $4.9 million in its expansion to almost 1,000 theaters, besting the $3.6 million semi-wide opening of 2007’s Sicko, his previous film. Still, that figure is nowhere near the $23.9 million 2004 opening of Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Ah, that free market — such a fickle mistress.

Finally, by far the best per theater debut went to the Coen brothers, who opened their well-reviewed A Serious Man in six venues for a most impressive $41,900 per theater average. And Paramount’s unconventional release strategy for the ultra-low-budget horror flick Paranormal Activity continues to look scary smart, with the film selling out midnight screenings in all 33 cities screening the spook-fest, banking a hair-raising $16,000 per screen.

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