Pirate Radio

Weekend Box Office – It’s a Tidal Wave of Money for 2012: Breaks $200 Million Worldwide

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: November 15th, 2009 at 11:15 am

If the world really does end on December 21, 2012, at least one guy is gonna go out happy. Director Roland Emmerich saw his latest disaster epic rake in an estimated $65 million domestically and over $160 abroad for a grand total of $220 million worldwide. That puts the film in the top ten international launches of all time. I always thought that Sony had made an odd choice by scheduling 2012 for a mid-November release. That’s the time of the year that we usually see more high-brow fare in theatres… and teenaged vampires, of course.  But it looks like the studio knew exactly what they were doing. Not only did 2012 manage to blow away all its early estimates, the tsunami of money the film is surfing this weekend brought a taste of summer blockbuster back to the box office.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	2012	$65,000,000	$65
2	A Christmas Carol	$22,300,000	$63.3
3	The Men Who Stare at Goats	$6,200,000	$23.3
4	Precious	$6,090,000	$8.1
5	This Is It	$5,100,000	$68.2
6	The Fourth Kind	$4,744,000	$20.5
7	Couples Retreat	$4,253,000	$102.1
8	Paranormal Activity	$4,200,000	$103.8
9	Law Abiding Citizen	$3,932,000	$67.3
10	The Box	$3,185,000	$13.2

Friday Box Office – Disaster Rules! 2012 Brings In Over $23 Million on Opening Day

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: November 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am

It looks like Roland Emmerich had at least one more catastrophic hit left in him. 2012, the latest paean to exploding landmarks from the director of Independence Day, brought in a whopping $23.7 million on its opening day on 3,404 screens. That’s the highest opening ever for Emmerich and it puts 2012 on track for a weekend total of over $55 million – a figure that the box office hasn’t seen since mid-July. Second place went to Disney’s A Christmas Carol, down a reasonable 38% with $5.5 million. And though estimates have The Men Who Stare at Goats barely edging out Lee Daniels’s Precious for Friday’s third place, the momentum is all on the side of the indie sensation. The drama doubled its total gross just one day after expanding into 175 theatres. Check back tomorrow for full details on these films plus news on the box office fate of new releases Pirate Radio and Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

	Title	Friday	Total
1	2012	$23,700,000	$23.7
2	A Christmas Carol	$5,500,000	$46.5
3	The Men Who Stare at Goats	$1,950,000	$19.2
4	Precious	$1,940,000	$4.7
5	The Fourth Kind	$1,800,000	$17.6

Sailing Out Across the Radio Waves – Ray’s PIRATE RADIO Review and More

by Ray Carsillo    Posted: November 12th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

It was an unusually warm day in November when I got word that there would be an advanced screening of Focus Features’ newest picture, Pirate Radio. In addition to the screening, I would get the chance to talk with Tom Sturridge, a bit of an acting newcomer who would serve as the film’s lynchpin, and the writer/director of the film, Richard Curtis.  Well, I grabbed The Who’s Greatest Hits album, aptly titled after one of their greatest singles, My Generation, jumped in my Chevy and sped away towards midtown Manhattan.

Being a bit of a Richard Curtis fan for his work as a writer on one of Britain’s most celebrated sitcoms ever, Black Adder, and for his directorial debut with Love, Actually, to say I was amped up would probably be an understatement. I had also wanted to desperately see this movie since I had heard of it because I usually enjoy time-period pieces about one of my favorite subjects, the history of TV and radio.  What I thought of the film and more after the jump:

Copyright ©2005 - 2012. All Rights Reserved. California web design