Last Spring, Forbes named Kristen Stewart Hollywood’s highest paid star, but the title of “most bankable star” is another matter altogether. Natalie Portman gives the best cash return, according to those denizens of wealth at Forbes, beating out the likes of Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Shia LaBeouf and Daniel Radcliffe.
[Related: Kristen Stewart Tops Forbes List of Highest Paid Actresses]
Portman’s films Black Swan, No Strings Attached and Your Highness were included in the formula that put the Oscar-winning actress over the top. Your Highness was, in fact, a flop, taking in only $25 million on an estimated $50 million budget, but that blemish did not derail her reign atop the list. Forbes also did not count Thor because Portman was a supporting actor in the title.
Forbes devised a calculation that includes an actors’ earnings, box office grosses and budget estimates that fixed the Black Swan star’s returns at $42.70 for every dollar she is paid.
Noted Forbes:
We looked at the last three films each actor starred in over the last three years that opened in more than 2,000 theaters, calculating the return on investment for the studios who pay his (or her) salary. We didn’t count movies where the actor was in a supporting or large ensemble role and we didn’t count animated movies. The actors who score well on this list tend to have small paydays and star in highly profitable movies.
Kristen Stewart ranked as Hollywood’s highest paid actress by Forbes last June and yet, she nevertheless placed second on the return list. Not bad considering she’s been paid $25 million for each of the last Twilight pics, but the overall franchise has brought in $3.3…
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Danny Boyle solicited the help of 007 in his Olympic spectacle last summer in London, but that doesn’t mean he is on track for a future Bond director gig. Skyfall actor Daniel Craig was a highlight of the opening of the London Olympics along none other than H.M. The Queen, raising rumors that he would take the helm of a future Bond pic.
Asked on BBC Radio 4 if he’d be into doing a full-length Bond, Boyle said, “No, I’m not very good with huge amounts of money.” Boyle told the station that the 2000 feature The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio made him averse to taking on big budget movies.
Don’t trust me with huge amounts of money anybody,” he said, according to BBC. “I did a film, The Beach, which was a proper Hollywood scale budget and it didn’t suit me. Certain people can handle that and I love watching those kinds of films, but I’m much better with a smaller amount of money and trying to make it go a long way.”
Still, Boyle oversaw the London Olympic Opening Ceremonies which reportedly cost $42.3 million, though still shy of The Beach’s reported $50 million budget. The feature made just under $40 million in the U.S. but managed to nab just over $144 million worldwide.
Boyle pulled-off what many in the U.K. never would have imagined happening when he persuaded Queen Elizabeth II to “act” along with Daniel Craig and “appearing” to jump out of a helicopter with 007.
Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won multiple Oscars in 2009 including Best Picture. His next pic is Trance, starring James McAvoy.
The latest Bond pic, Skyfall has cumed $918 million worldwide.
[Source: BBC]
They were two of the biggest movies in terms of box office this summer – and likely for all of 2012, yet the battle between The Dark Knight Rises and Marvel’s The Avengers opened a new front in the artistic sphere. TDKR made just over $1.07 billion worldwide (with a $250 million production budget), while Marvel’s The Avengers roared on with a $1.511 billion worldwide gross (and a production budget reportedly at $220 million). One cinematographer offered up his own impressions about the rival’s merits, calling it “appalling.”
Wally Pfister won an Oscar for Inception as well as three nominations for Batman Begins, The Presige and The Dark Knight. He is even embarking on his own foray into the director chair on an upcoming project next year said that his past work as a news reporter and in documentary helped him to “reduce the amount of artifice” in his work.
Though he has won recognition for his work with TDKR director Christopher Nolan on the Batman franchise, he admitted to not being much of a “super hero fan” and said his reaction was surprise when Nolan first approached him about doing Batman Begins. “I was like, really? A guy in a rubber suit?” Pfister is quoted as saying in the Herald-Tribune speaking to a film class in Sarasota, FL.
He also gave his opinions on Marvel’s The Avengers, when asked what was most important in shooting a film.
“What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story,” said Pfister. “I thought The Avengers was an appalling film. They’d shoot from some odd angle and I’d think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and…
Full Story »Movies adapted from video games are usually like video-game zombies: shambling brainless wrecks. Thanks, in part, to the vacant movie adaptation of Prince of Persia, Jake Gyllenhaal is doing theater now; the adaptation of Max Payne should have been spelled Max Pain, and the Resident Evil franchise continues to stupefy. And judging from the latest delay in the making of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Hollywood still struggles mightily with how to turn good games into good movies.
Sadly, unlike video-game zombies, these adaptations are impossible to kill. They exist in perpetuity and will be playing on Cinemax long after your corpse resembles a rotting zombie. The best you can do is ignore them, which is increasingly easy thanks to some inspired and inspiring gamers who are solving the problem the way they’ve been trained — through countless hours of play — to solve all problems. They’re taking the controls and doing it themselves. They’re winning, too. Here are four fan-made movies inspired by video games that should have the movie industry’s total attention:
1. Dead Fantasy: Give the Gamers What They Want — Action!
Video games should feature more pure action than a Terminator T-800 UFC match, so it’s weird that most game-inspired movies feature more pointless explanation than you’d find in a manual for some old-school Bond villain’s Death Laser. If someone’s going to see Street Fighter — and they really shouldn’t — they don’t need an hour of set-up explaining why people are fighting. The gamers already know the back story, and even if the filmmakers have strayed from the game to develop the plot line, the less said the better. Monty Oum, the creator of Dead Fantasy understands this principle better than most and…
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Holy Swashbucklers! Rumors are flying that Johnny Depp is considering a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean installment, and the speculation may be overheating. Some international papers including The Sun say the newly single star could make some rather unprecedented cha-ching — to the tune of £60 million (that’s about $95 million at current exchange rates). That would be some crazy treasure even the likes of, well, a pirate, could only dream of… But is the super-star actor worth the stupid money even if the rumors were only say, mostly true?
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer revealed in May that a fifth Pirates script was in the works. He told the Los Angeles Times that he could only make the pic with Depp on board. Who else could play Captain Jack Sparrow after all?
“Hopefully, if this one does well, (Depp) will want to come back and play the character again,” Bruckheimer told the L.A. Times. “But it’s going to depend on the screenplay. It always does. He’s maniacal about not wanting to disappoint his audience.” Apparently, Depp is considering another round of Pirates, according to The Wrap. The site also noted last summer Depp cashed had cashed in with the franchise at almost $350 million at the time.
OK, so Depp already owns a Bahamian island and likely could seize some more with his current Pirates war chest alone, but is he worth potentially the biggest pay out yet if he takes on a fifth installment? Here’s a breakdown of the franchise’s worldwide grosses:
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tide: $1,043,871,802 ($250 million production budget)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: $963,420,425 ($300 million production budget)
Pirates of the…
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Magic Mike has already scored just under $78 million at the box office since its release in late June and the production budget was only $7 million. Minus the marketing budget, the stripper feature has likely already packaged a hefty sum. But never mind the money, there’s plenty of skin to be had, so why not let the strip show go on? Actors flexing their hot bods is a winning formula, and Tatum teased recently that another round of Magic Mike is in the early stages.
In a Twitter interview with Glamour magazine, Tatum said this when asked about a possible Magic Mike 2: “Yes, yes and yes! We’re working on the concept now. We want to flip the script and make it bigger.” Bigger? hmmm… Tatum didn’t provide much more in the way of details including whether director Steven Soderbergh has signed on for the follow-up or if co-stars Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Joe Manganiello and the rest of the cast will be donning the thong for a second round.
He did offer up some insight in the making of the first Mike, however, saying that wearing a thong in front of people is “awkward,” adding, “I don’t know how you girls do it.” He also said in the Twitter back-and-forth that Joe Manganiello’s body was the most impressive. “He looks like he’s from Spartan blood!” said Tatum, referring to the war-waging city from Greek antiquity. He also said Manganiello and McConaughey were “a toss up” in the top stripping talent category. Tatum also shared that during McConaughey’s dance, the build-up was so intense that some women in the audience took matters into their own hands. “The women lost their minds and ripped his thong off,” he said. DVD extra anyone?
In non-related…
Full Story »The latest in a string of big budget studio movie lawsuits has been lobbed at the makers of Men in Black 3, with extra Danika Gerner claiming that she was outfitted with a costume that led to her suffering “serious bodily injuries” during filming last May. The curious part: Reports give no clues as to just how Gerner’s costume injured her, or which background character she played. More on the litigious wardrobe malfunction after the jump.
Per THR: “Gerner alleges that the costume department provided her with a costume in a ‘defective and dangerous condition’ and that the defendants were ‘negligent in failing to take suitable precautions’ for her safety.”
Gerner claims her injuries still prevent her from working, which really makes me wonder – what kind of costume could put you out for over a year? My money’s on an outfit from MIB3’s 1969-set Warhol party, teeming with go-go dancing refugees from the Austin Powers movies. Or maybe…
[THR]
Despite (nay, thanks largely to) its $12.76 budget, Steven Spielberg’s contribution to the ‘Laser Cats’ canon last night on SNL — featuring callouts to most of his major films and/or franchises — was arguably his most entertaining work since Catch Me If You Can. I liked it a lot more than War Horse, anyway. This is a man turning a creative corner!
When he rolls the TV in and rocks the VHS tape? I pretty much die. Needs more Jaws, though.
A trade report last month suggested that Disney’s March sci-fi tent pole John Carter was in serious trouble owing to Pixar vet Andrew Stanton’s relative inexperience directing live-action film, citing rumors that production reshoots and late-game rejiggering had bloated the budget from $200 million to as much as $300 million. Speaking with press Thursday, Stanton called the report “a complete and utter lie,” insisting that he stayed on time and on budget – but it’s easy to see how the Pixar way of moviemaking may have made for a bumpy transition for the filmmaker.
John Carter, adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom sci-fi/fantasy series (created in 1912), introduces a hero and world that influenced many an iconic property that followed, from Star Wars to Avatar; Stanton, a lifelong fan of the series, makes his live-action directing debut with the pic which combines live-action and CG to create an entirely new world on which its titular hero (Taylor Kitsch) finds himself a stranger in a strange land populated by eight-foot tall, four-armed aliens and fantastical creatures.
The scope and detail of John Carter’s alien world and its inhabitants is ambitious, which is both the draw and the risk. The Hollywood Reporter’s Jan. 19 report cited insiders close to the production and talent in its assessment calling the costly Disney actioner out as being plagued with various problems stemming from Stanton’s inexperience with live-action filmmaking. “Industry sources with links to the project believe it might lead to a staggering write-down,” wrote Kim Masters, portending doom for the ambitious potential trilogy-starter.
At the film’s press junket, Stanton and Co. were eager to refute the rumors. “I want to go completely on record that I literally was on budget…
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