Secretariat

“Keep the Budgets Low and the Quality High”: The Hollywood Economy for Adult-Oriented Dramas

by Jayson Crittenden    Posted: October 18th, 2010 at 9:47 pm

The Town, The Social Network, and Secretariat are not only performing well at the box office and touted as potential Best Picture nominees, but they also have Hollywood brass taking notice:  You don’t have to spend upwards of $100 million to make a great dramatic film anymore.  In fact, spending less is proving to be more beneficial to all those involved.  According to the LA Times these three movies mentioned above

“… have in common something beyond the fact that they are dramas driven by strong story lines, not by A-list actors.  They are examples of the new Hollywood Economics: If you want to make a drama, whether it’s a biopic or a crime thriller, your budget ceiling, with rare exception, is going to be 40 million.”

Hit the jump to learn more about recent dramatic film hits and misses, and what highly anticipated upcoming film is adhering to this new budget cap.  After you’ve digested all the facts and figures, let us know your thoughts on this economic epiphany.

Weekend Box Office – JACKASS 3D Sets Records with $50 Million Debut; RED Strong with $22.5 Million

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: October 17th, 2010 at 9:29 am

On Friday we told you that Jackass 3D had secured fall’s single-day debut record with over $21 million and that the sequel seemed destined to become one of the season’s all-time weekend champs with a projection of over $40 million. Turns out that the Jackass boys were destined for bigger things. With an estimated $50 million from 3,081 locations, the third installment in the franchise now holds both the October and the all-time fall weekend record – eclipsing Scary Movie 3’s $48.1 million set in 2003.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Jackass 3D	$50,000,000	$50
2	Red	$22,500,000	$22.5
3	The Social Network	$11,000,000	$63.1
4	Secretariat	$9,500,000	$27.5
5	Life as We Know It	$9,200,000	$28.8
6	Legend of the Guardians	$4,325,000	$46
7	The Town	$4,040,000	$80.5
8	My Soul to Take	$3,160,000	$11.9
9	Easy A	$2,650,000	$52.3
10	Wall Street 2	$$2,350,000	$47.8

Weekend Box Office – THE SOCIAL NETWORK Stays On Top; LIFE AS WE KNOW IT Second; SECRETARIAT Third

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: October 10th, 2010 at 9:13 am

With some of the lowest totals I’ve seen since, um, Labor Day; Columbus Day 2010 got off to a weak start at the box office. Sure, The Social Network made a good showing in its second week, falling just 31% to push Life as We Know It into second place – but those two films combined could not match last year’s single debut Couple’s Retreat. Meanwhile Disney’s Secretariat stumbled badly, coming in a distant third in a race they hoped to win.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	The Social Network	$15,500,000	$46
2	Life as We Know It	$14,600,000	$14.6
3	Secretariat	$12,600,000	$12.6
4	Legends	$7,015,000	$39.4
5	My Soul to Take 3D	$6,900,000	$6.9
6	The Town	$6,350,000	$73.7
7	Wall Street 2	$4,625,000	$43.6
8	Easy A	$4,200,000	$48.1
9	Case 39	$2,630,000	$9.6
10	You Again	$2,470,000	$20.7

Friday Box Office – LIFE AS WE KNOW IT Number One with $5.2 Million; THE SOCIAL NETWORK Still in the Running as SECRETARIAT Limps

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: October 9th, 2010 at 9:05 am

As fall movies go, this weekend’s crop of new pictures was never the most interesting. Disney’s Secretariat, Warner Brothers’ Life as We Know It and the 3D horror release My Soul to Take all made modest starts on Friday; and with three days to go in this four-day Columbus Day Weekend it looks like the most fascinating aspect of the box office may be how close a race it will be between our top three contenders. That, of course, includes last weekend’s number one movie The Social Network, which placed second on Friday with an estimated $4.9 million. The natural front-runner for weekend winner, Secretariat, left the gate with $4 million – a fairly big disappointment for a heart-warming sports movie from Disney. That leaves the Katherine Heigl/Josh Duhamel baby dramedy Life as We Know It as Friday’s number one film with $5.2 million from 3,150 locations. With the horse movie running under and My Soul to Take not even on the same track, the weekend looks like a two-way race between the Facebook movie and the remake of Three Men and a Baby – neither of which is expected to make much more than $15 million by Sunday.

	Title	Friday	Total
1	Life as We Know It	$5,200,000	$5.2
2	The Social Network	$4,900,000	$35.4
3	Secretariat	$4,000,000	$4
4	My Soul to Take	$2,700,000	$2.5
5	The Town	$1,800,000	$69.2

Interview Round-Up: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATLHY HALLOWS, THE THING, LET ME IN, SECRETARIAT, NOWHERE BOY, and More

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: October 7th, 2010 at 12:09 pm

We’re always running tons of interviews here at Collider, but this past week has been especially crazy.  When you pair all the interviews Steve did during his visit to the sets of The Thing and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coupled with the number of interviews we run on a daily basis, there’s probably some stuff you may have missed.  With this in mind, we’ve created a handy catch-all recap article that contains links to every interview we’ve posted over the last week.  Here’s some of them, but hit the jump for the rest:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows On Set Interviews

• Director David Yates
• Daniel Radcliffe
• Rupert Grint
• Warwick Davis

The Thing On Set Interviews

• Director Matthijs van Heijningen
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead
• Joel Edgerton
• Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Diane Lane, John Malkovich and Randall Wallace Interview SECRETARIAT

by Christina Radish    Posted: October 1st, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Based on the remarkable true story, Secretariat chronicles the spectacular journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner. When housewife and mother Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) agrees to take over her ailing father’s Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing experience, her life’s course changed in a way that she never could have imagined. With the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), Penny managed to navigate the male-dominated business and succeed against all odds with what may be the greatest racehorse of all time.

In a press conference at the film’s press day, held at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, Calif., co-stars Diane Lane and John Malkovich, along with director Randall Wallace, talked about bringing this incredible story to life and engaging the audience in a way that will have them cheering. Check out what they had to say after the jump.

New High-Res Poster for SECRETARIAT

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: August 31st, 2010 at 11:55 am

Walt Disney Pictures has released a new poster for Secretariat, based on “the impossible true story” of the horse that in 1973 became the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years.  Diane Lane (Nights in Rodanthe) and John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich) star in the inspirational tale, written by Mike Rich (Radio) and directed by Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers).  Check out the poster in high resolution after the jump.

New Posters for THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE and SECRETARIAT

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: June 9th, 2010 at 10:27 pm

Walt Disney has released new character posters for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the first poster for Secretariat.  Check them all out after the jump.

SECRETARIAT Trailer Starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: April 28th, 2010 at 9:05 pm

The trailer for the uplifting horse-racing drama Secretariat has gone online.  It’s an uplifting sports film/biopic based on a suburban housewife (played by Diane Lane) who ushered the horse Secretariat to the Triple Crown.  As the trailer tells us, it’s based on an “impossible true story.”  Just like Miracle.  And Invincible.  And The Rookie, which are all from the same producer as Secretariat.  I’m still not sure what “impossible true story,” means.  The trailer makes it look like the film is trying to follow the awards success of 2003′s Seabiscuit.  With these two dramatic/uplifting horse-racing dramas, I’m sure we’ll be asking the question of who would win in a race between the two steeds.  The answer: I don’t know. I don’t follow horse-racing.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and the official synopsis.  You can also click here to see three high-resolution images from the film that were released yesterday.  Secretariat hits theaters on October 8th.

3 High Resolution Images from Disney’s SECRETARIAT Starring Diane Lane, John Malkovich and Scott Glenn

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: April 28th, 2010 at 11:53 am

Walt Disney has released three high resolution images from their upcoming horse racing “drama” Secretariat.  Since anyone who follows horse racing or watches ESPN knows the story of Secretariat (spoiler alert: he was the last Triple Crown winner back in 1973), I don’t know how this is a drama as it looks like a made for TV movie with great actors and a higher budget.  But Disney knows how to sell ice to Eskimos, so I’m sure by October I’ll want to check it out.  Hit the jump for the images and the info on the movie:

Disney is the Master of ANT-MAN’s Domain Name

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: March 3rd, 2010 at 2:29 pm

Today, we’ve learned from StitchKingdom [via /Film] that Disney has recently purchased a collection of domain names that may hint at what project they have moving into development.  The biggest one is for ant-man-themovie.com, which gives some indication that Marvel may be interested in making a movie based on the Marvel superhero, Ant-Man.  As you may or may not remember, Disney purchased Marvel Studios last year and Ant-Man is one of the many characters at their disposal.  Throw in Stan Lee’s comment on Twitter last month: “To make up for my previous grievous error, here’s a little item that may have escaped you. Marvel is prepping a movie starring– Ant Man!” and now you’re cooking with gas.

But before you start roasting up your casting speculation, etc, understand that a domain name purchase isn’t a greenlight or an indication that a movie is getting made.  It’s a precaution so that if Disney/Marvel decides to go ahead with an Ant-Man movie, they don’t have to wrangle with a squatter (a person who buys up potentially-popular domain names and then ransoms them to big buyers).

Hit the jump to check out the other domain names Disney registered as well as writer-director Edgar Wright’s current status regarding Ant-Man.

John Malkovich, Dylan Walsh and Scott Glenn Join Diane Lane in the Saddle for SECRETARIAT

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: September 21st, 2009 at 10:55 pm

John Malkovich, Dylan Walsh and Scott Glenn have joined Diane Lane in the Disney production of “Secretariat”, the movie based on the horse with the most prized semen in history.  Details after the jump.

Diane Lane To Ride SECRETARIAT

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 10th, 2009 at 9:39 pm

While 2003′s “Seabiscuit” will never go down as one of the most memorable films of all-time, you can’t call it a flop.  It rode to a gross of $120 million domestic and was nominated for seven Academy Awards.  But there are so many more famous horses!  And not just fictional horses like Mr. Ed or My Little Pony.  If you care about equines, Hollywood has been neglecting you!

Disney is trying to fix that problem by brining the lovely and talented Diane Lane on board to star in “Secretariat”.  While the horse’s story of becoming the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years is noteworthy, according to Variety, the real dramatic narrative belongs to Secretariat’s owner, Penny Chenery.

This is a story that sounds much better than “Seabiscuit Saved America”: Chenery was a mother and housewife who knew little about horse racing when she took over her ailing father’s farm in Virginia.  Around the time that Secretariat established himself as a horse with serious potential, she was pressured to sell him and everything else after her father died and she was hit with a large inheritance tax, or as we must now call it due to douchebag Frank Luntz, the “Death” tax.

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