Gone Baby Gone

Weekend Box Office – THE TOWN Takes In $28.3 Million

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: September 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am

Everything went according to plan for the movie The Town after its somewhat surprising first place finish on Friday. That means that the R-rated drama is America’s new number one movie; taking in an estimated $23.8 million from 2,861 locations.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	The Town	$23,800,000	$23.8
2	Easy A	$18,200,000	$18.2
3	Devil	$12,500,000	$12.5
4	Resident Evil 3D	$5,840,000	$43.9
5	Alpha & Omega	$9,200,000	$9.2
6	Takers	$3,000,000	$52.3
7	The American	$2,756,000	$32.8
8	Inception	$2,015,000	$285.1
9	The Other Guys	$2,000,000	$115.4
10	Machete	$1,700,000	$24.3

TIFF 2010 Video Blog: Ben Affleck’s THE TOWN

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: September 9th, 2010 at 9:11 pm

Earlier today I watched director Ben Affleck’s The Town at the Toronto International Film Festival.  As a huge fan of his debut movie, Gone Baby Gone, I had high hopes for his second feature about a group of bank robbers in Charlestown (a suburb of Boston) and the Federal agents after them.  Thankfully, not only did Affleck deliver a great movie, he cemented his status as a real director that deserves your attention.

One of the many things that impressed me about his second feature is the way he built on what worked in his debut.  I think we can all agree the performances in Gone Baby Gone were great, and now in The Town, he not only got the entire cast (Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper) to deliver realistic and believable performances while also directing himself on screen, he shot a few hefty action sequences which will impress you by their size and scope.  While I’m not always the biggest fan of Affleck in front of the camera, I think he’s a great director and someone that I hope makes a lot more movies.

Anyway, for more on what I thought, hit the jump for a video blog I recorded with Peter from Slashfilm a few minutes after we got out of the theater.

Dennis Lehane Exclusive Interview – The Great Crime-Novelist Talks SHUTTER ISLAND, ANIMAL RESCUE, THE GIVEN DAY, More!

by Ti Alan Chase    Posted: May 28th, 2010 at 8:53 am

With Martin Scorsese’s adaption of his novel Shutter Island being released on DVD and Blu-ray next week, I had the chance to interview author Dennis Lehane by phone yesterday.  Lehane is the best-selling author of 10 novels, including Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River.  He was also a staff writer on David Simon’s The Wire from seasons 3 to 5 and is currently working on adapting his short story Animal Rescue for Fox 2000.

Since Lehane’s direct involvement in bringing Shutter Island to the big screen was fairly limited, we spent a lot of time talking about other subjects, including:

• How THR erroneously reported last week that he was writing a script with Paul Tamasy (Air Bud)
• Why he doesn’t ever want to adapt his own novels for the screen
• His golden rule for dealing with Hollywood
• Which novel made him decide to become a writer
• Why he prefers TV to movies and what his favorite shows are
• Why we’ll never see the movie he wrote and directed in the 90s

All this and more after the jump!

Author Dennis Lehane Gets into the Screenplay Game by Adapting His Short Story ANIMAL RESCUE

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:36 pm

Dennis Lehane has previously provided the source material for the critically acclaimed Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone as well as the upcoming Shutter Island and The Given Day.  Now Variety reports that he’s finally going to adapt one of his own stories because other writers shouldn’t have all the fun.  Lehane will adapt his short story Animal Rescue for Fox 2000 through Peter Chernin’s production company, Chernin Entertainment.  The story, via Variety, “revolves around a killing that results from a lost and contested pit bull. The story appeared in the Akashic Books anthology Boston Noir, which Lehane also edited.”

Lehane has been approached in the past to adapt his own work, but this is the first time he’s done it and it will also be his first feature film.  His only previous work for the screen were for three episodes of The Wire, so I don’t think there’s much to worry about as far as his screenwriting talent is concerned.

Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall Join Ben Affleck’s THE TOWN

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: July 27th, 2009 at 8:25 pm

Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall have been added to the cast of director Ben Affleck’s “The Town”.  The drama – from Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures – will star Affleck as a notorious bank robber from… you guessed it! Boston.  Hit the jump to find out what Don Draper will be up to when he hits “The Town”…

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