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October 17, 2007

Things We Lost at the Box Office

Unnamed marketing mavens at Paramount are whispering in Advertising Age's ear that the miserable numbers for "The Heartbreak Kid'' are due to competition from the video game "Halo 3'' rather than, say, Paramount's lousy marketing campaign, even worse reviews and a marketplace glutted with films not clearly aimed at specific audiences. That ranks up there with "the dog ate my homework.'' (Hat Tip: Movie City News). Meanwhile, the Mountain of Dreams(works) is already sending out screeners of "Things We Lost in the Fire'' (along with a "director's cut'' of "Zodiac'') to 6,000 awards voters, though it forced most New York critics who were reviewing to attend a single evening screening. That's never a good sign for an alleged prestige picture, and sure enough, early reviews for the Halle Berry-Benicio del Toro soap opera that opens Friday are decidedly mixed. And catching up on Melrose Avenue news reported during my getaway, Chris Pine is mulling an offer to play a pre-captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' reboot of "Star Trek.'' Seems it's either that or "White Jazz,'' a detective piece directed by Joe Carnahan in which Pine would play opposite George Clooney. That would seem to be on its face a no-brainer, but given Pine's unimpressively, uh, wooden work as a consort for Lindsay Lohan ("Just My Luck'') and Anne Hathaway ("Princess Diaries: Royal Engagement''), maybe a franchise would be a better fit for his particular acting skills.

Posted by Lou Lumenick on October 17, 2007 08:55 AM

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