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Appearances > 2009 > 57th San Sebastian Festival “Inglorious Basterds” Premiere
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“Inglourious Basterds,” featuring Brad Pitt among an ensemble cast, earned $38 million at the box office this weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to domestic distributor Weinstein Co., far exceeding expectations by drawing a fairly diverse audience without alienating director Quentin Tarantino’s core fan base of men in their 20s and early 30s.

The same occurred overseas, where Universal Pictures opened the film in 22 territories, including Germany, France, Britain and Australia, to a strong $27.5 million.

It’s not the only movie this summer to open significantly stronger than pre-release polling had indicated. That list includes Warner Bros.’ June release “The Hangover” and last weekend’s “District 9″ from Sony Pictures. But “Inglourious Basterds” certainly had the most at stake — around $70 million in production spending split between Weinstein Co., which hasn’t had a major release since December’s “The Reader,” and Universal, which has had a string of box-office underperformers this summer, including “Land of the Lost” and “Funny People.”

The opening weekend numbers provided an unexpected ending to a months-long marketing campaign. Since the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May to a mixed response, speculation has run rampant in Hollywood as to whether the movie would resemble Tarantino’s 1994 breakout hit “Pulp Fiction,” which earned $108 million domestically, or his 1997 follow-up “Jackie Brown,” which grossed under $40 million.

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It was Tarantino’s best opening ever, exceeding the $25.1 million haul for 2004′s “Kill Bill — Vol. 2.” Overseas, “Inglourious Basterds” added $27.5 million in 22 countries, giving it a worldwide total of $65.1 million.

Released domestically by the Weinstein Co. and overseas by Universal, “Inglourious Basterds” features Pitt and an international ensemble in a sprawling tale of Jewish commandos and a plot to take out Nazi leaders at a movie premiere during World War II.

The film provided a much-needed hit for Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who have managed only lackluster receipts at their new outfit since departing Disney-owned Miramax four years ago.

At Miramax, the Weinsteins balanced prestige and profit with a string of Academy Awards triumphs such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “Chicago” and hits such as Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and the “Scary Movie” and “Scream” franchises.

“Tarantino helped build the house of Miramax. He’s proving right now that he’s helping to build the house of Weinstein,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com.

So far, the Weinstein Co. has been unable to reproduce that Miramax success, its lineup burdened by box-office underachievers such as last year’s “Soul Men” and 2007′s “Grindhouse,” Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s B-movie double-feature.

Harvey Weinstein said critics continually write off him and his brother, including a magazine piece in 2002 “saying we were the flavor of the ’90s but we were kind of over in the new millennium.”

Weeks later, he noted, Miramax scored 40 Oscar nominations, among them three of the five best-picture nominees, including eventual winner “Chicago.”

Weinstein said his new company has a strong lineup ahead, including next weekend’s horror sequel “Halloween II” along with “Chicago” director Rob Marshall’s musical “Nine” and the post-apocalypse saga “The Road” late in the year.

Rodriguez, Tarantino’s “Grindhouse” partner, did not fare so well with “Shorts,” his Warner Bros. family comedy that debuted at No. 6 with just $6.6 million. The movie features William H. Macy, James Spader, Leslie Mann and a cast of kids in a series of loosely linked adventures centered on a magic rock that grants wishes.

Fox Atomic’s comedy “Post Grad,” with Alexis Bledel as a college graduate who moves back home with her eccentric family after she’s unable to land her dream job, tanked with $2.8 million, coming in at No. 10.

The previous weekend’s top movie, Sony’s sci-fi thriller “District 9,” slipped to second-place with $18.9 million. With a domestic total of $73.5 million, the movie is on its way to becoming a $100 million sleeper hit.

Hollywood’s revenues were up for the third-straight weekend, a late-season surge that has helped the industry recover from a monthlong slide in receipts. Overall ticket sales were $134 million, up 27 percent compared to the same weekend last year.

The weekend put Hollywood back on track to break last summer’s revenue record of $4.2 billion, though receipts this season are up only a fraction.

Factoring in higher ticket prices this year, movie attendance is running 3 percent below last summer’s, according to Hollywood.com.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “Inglourious Basterds,” $37.6 million.

2. “District 9,” $18.9 million.

3. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” $12.5 million.

4. “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” $10 million.

5. “Julie & Julia,” $9 million.

6. “Shorts,” $6.6 million.

7. “G-Force,” $4.2 million.

8. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” $3.5 million.

9. “The Ugly Truth,” $2.9 million.

10. “Post Grad,” $2.8 million.
Source: Associated Press

“For a long time I’ve thought, ‘One of these days I hope I can write a character that would be terrific for Brad Pitt and we can have a collaboration that will be like a Babe Ruth home run.’ So as I was writing the character of the leader of the Inglourious Basterds, I was like, ‘OK, this is the one for Brad.’ But then I started getting nervous. I was like, ‘What if he doesn’t like it, what am I gonna do?’ I sent him the script and we had a meeting and, after a long night of talking a about movies and a few bottles of wine, he was ready to sign on.”

Why he hearts Brad.

“Brad is a wonderful actor, but what I also got was a terrific movie star at the zenith of his iconic status. We’ve been around about the same amount of time as far as the business is concerned — he came out with Thelma and Louise in ’91, I came out with Reservoir Dogs in ’92 – and I’ve loved watching him do his thing over the years. There were moments when I was framing him up in the view finder, that I was like, ‘God, I feel I’m experiencing what Sydney Pollack must have felt shooting Jeremiah Johnson and looking at Robert Redford. Brad has that same quality that just shines through on camera. He’s just the man right now.

Source: Parade Magazine

GALLERY LINKS:
• Appearances from 2009 – “Inglourious Basterds” – 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival Press Conference
• Appearances from 2009 – “Inglourious Basterds” – 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival Photocall

Pitt, 45, was spotted Saturday at the Hotel du Cap, having lunch on a balcony after flying in from the U.S. It is said he is staying in a chalet on the grounds of the highly exclusive hotel, just along the coast in Antibes, on the Riviera.

The star is in the South of France for his fourth Cannes Film Festival in five years. And, if Angelina Jolie, 33, joins him in the next few days as is expected, this will mark the third time they have strolled the palm-lined Croisette waterfront together in as many years.

On this visit Pitt is showcasing his movie from director Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, which premieres at the festival Wednesday. The filmmaker has described Pitt’s character in the WWII drama as “a hillbilly straight from the mountains of Tennessee.”
Source: People

Studios are cutting back on parties and all the glitz that goes with them, according to news reports. Moreover, there will be fewer people around to cover Cannes, as news organizations around the world trim costs. (Several, in fact, have tightened up by eliminating their movie reviewers.)

Nevertheless, those who attend may see a bumper crop of good and intriguing films, Variety’s Jay Weissberg told Reuters. “We’ve all been hoping Cannes would pull something out of the bag to make us feel good again. On paper, they have.”

Leah Rozen, film critic for People magazine, said there are several promising contenders for the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize, as well as a number of notable movies premiering out of competition.

“What Cannes really is, is an international festival, and you really see world cinema,” she said. “This year, there are 52 films that are going to be represented, of which 20 are in competition.”

Two of the films in competition are American: Quentin Tarantino’s World War II movie, “Inglourious Basterds,” and Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,” a tale about the 1969 music festival.

Tarantino told The New York Times that he’s been hoping to do a war movie for years.

“You’ve got to make a movie about something, and I’m a film guy, so I think in terms of genres,” he said. However, the maker of “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown” added, that doesn’t mean what he ends up with resembles what he started with: “It’s simply the spark that starts the fire.”

“Inglourious Basterds” was inspired by a 1978 Italian film that starred Bo Svenson (“Walking Tall, Part 2″) and football player-turned-actor Fred Williamson (“Black Caesar”). Tarantino’s film, which he characterized to the Times as “not a remake,” stars Brad Pitt and Mike Myers.

Cannes has been good to Tarantino; he won the Palme d’Or for “Pulp Fiction” 15 years ago. Buzz has been high on “Basterds” since Tarantino announced the project several years ago.

“Taking Woodstock,” the new film by “Brokeback Mountain” director Lee, is based on the book by Elliot Tiber, whose hotelier parents owned a musical festival permit in Bethel, New York, where Woodstock was held. The cast includes Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton and Eugene Levy as Max Yasgur, on whose farm the festival was finally held.

Other films in competition include Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” and Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces.”

But this year’s Cannes festival is attracting plenty of attention for its out-of-competition films as well. The festival is opening with “Up,” the latest animated work from Pixar.

“That sort of breaks convention to open with what is, basically, a fancy cartoon,” Rozen said.

Also at Cannes will be Heath Ledger’s last film, “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” The Oscar-winning “Dark Knight” actor died during the making of the Terry Gilliam film; Gilliam managed to complete it by doing some rewriting and casting other actors — including Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp — to play Ledger’s part.

Despite the interest in seeing Ledger, the film is still struggling to find a buyer, though Entertainment Weekly recently reported that a Los Angeles screening went over well. Cannes, which also functions as a huge film marketplace, may widen the net in attracting distributors.

But much of the fun from Cannes comes from the films that emerge from nowhere. Recent winners of the Palme d’Or include 2000′s “Dancer in the Dark,” which established singer Bjork as an actress, and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a Romanian film that ended up topping many critics’ lists in 2007.

“One thing that always surprises me is that some of the films you have the lowest expectations for turn out to be terrific, and sometimes the bigger films turn out to be disappointments,” Rozen said.
Source: CNN