Bruce Willis Edition

Welcome back to another edition. Things in the entertainment world have been really quiet since the end of Comic-Con. But there are a few things worth talking about.

First, returning to host the Oscars next year will be Ellen DeGeneres. I think that is a safe pick after the mixed reviews of Seth McFarlane from this year's show. She can be very funny and is well respected in the entertainment world. And like I said, she is safe. She will have song and dance numbers, but they most definitely won't be as offensive as McFarlane's were. Plus she has experience hosting, so that is always a plus in my book.

The other big news stories of the past few weeks are all wrapped around one person. Bruce Willis. He has certainly been on a roll of late. Most people want to clean up their name, on the other hand Mr. Willis seems quite content to sully his. First he conducted in an interview to promote Red 2 with co star Mary Louise Parker. From my understanding, a lot of press in the area gets five or ten minutes to do short interviews with the stars. This can go on for a few hours. I am sure it must not be enjoyable sometimes to be a movie star, but what he did to Magic 105.4's Jamie Edwards is inexcusable. If you haven't seen the interview, here it is. I know stars are allowed to have bad days and I have never met Bruce Willis personally, but everything I have read indicates this is what he is like in real life. Which seems to be a deplorable human being.

But wait! There's more! Bruce Willis was set to reprise his role as Church in the third installment of The Expendables movies. It has been revealed by several entertainment websites that he was to film for only four days. That's not much, right? He was offered three million dollars for four days of work. Who wouldn't jump at such an offer? The correct answer? Bruce Willis. He said that he would only work for a million dollars a day. So he wanted four million dollars for what would most likely only turn out to be around fifteen to twenty minutes of screen time. Does that seem logical to you? Me neither. So fellow Expendables actor and writer of the series Sylvester Stallone fired him publicly via Twitter. And then to replace Willis they got an actor you may have heard of. I believe his name is Harrison Ford! That's a huge upgrade if you ask me!

I admit, I like Bruce Willis. I own several of his movies on DVD including four of the Die Hard movies (I believe in completing sets of movies, but don't have to if I never admit another movie came out. I am, of course, referring to Good Day to Die Hard. Not a real thing. La la la), Armageddon, Red and Cop Out. He is an enjoyable actor. But the fact remains, over the past month, I have lost a considerable amount of respect for him as a person. Can he recover from this? Yes, of course he can. But in this case, I wouldn't hold my breath...

There is other news that came out of Comic Con 2013 that I have not addressed yet. It's the sequel to Man Of Steel 2 which will be Batman vs. Superman. No word on casting of Batman yet, but there has been some interesting rumors. Pretty much every actor regardless of age has been rumored for the role, including a fifty million dollar offer for Christian Bale who has repeatedly said he wouldn't do it. I have heard everyone from Josh Brolin to now Orlando Bloom's name has been rumored as well. Thankfully, there is no rumor I have heard that Bruce Willis would play the role!

As always a special thanks to my lovely fiancée and editor for helping me make this page readable for the fans!

The Curious Case of Silver Linings at The Box Office

I have made it very well known (or at least I think I have) that I support the movie "Silver Linings Playbook". From the minute I saw the trailer I thought it looked like an excellent movie. And as the weeks approached to the premiere I grew more excited for it. I have admitted that it is not my usual style of movie (a future blog about that will be coming) but I still knew that I wanted to see it. Both my girlfriend and I were waiting for the movie.

I mean who wouldn't be. It was written and directed by a previous Oscar nominee. The main character's parents were played by people who had previously been nominated, and in the case of his father actually won an Oscar. Plus it had young stars that are slowly reaching top acting statuses. And while we are at it, it featured Chris Tucker who hadn't been seen really since Rush Hour 3!

Nothing about this movie says blockbuster. Mental disease and dancing can't really compare to super hero movies these days when it comes to Box Office. So when Silver Linings started off slowly, no one was surprised. I know a few people that still haven't even heard of this movie to this day.

It only opened on sixteen screens its first weekend, grossing $ 443,003 (Figures according to IMDB). Its second weekend it expanded to three hundred sixty seven screens and grossed $ 4,383,669. These numbers are not stellar at all, especially when the movie cost approximately $21,000,000. The numbers slowly got better, but it still didn't gross nearly what it cost to make.

That all changed the morning of January 24th when Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane announced the nominees for the Oscars. By that point Silver Linings had been in the theaters for eight weeks, a time most movies start to climb down the charts and make their way to DVD retailers near you. But thanks to all those nominations, Silver Linings had a second life. According to Entertainment Weekly it grossed five million dollars that week. It was only the tenth highest grossing movie of that weekend, but the fact is it grossed 39 % higher than it did the weekend before.

And the numbers continue to rise. For a movie that only made $443,003 its opening weekend it sits on the verge of grossing $100 million dollars now, thanks to the nominations of Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver and director David O. Russell and the win by Jennifer Lawrence. For most people that analyze movies, that is a good mark to have. It's something only thirty movies did in all of 2012.