“Museum” tops “Terminator”
The Ben Stiller-starring “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian topped the box office this weekend with an estimated $53.5 million. Terminator Salvation rang in $43 million in its opening frame, and Star Trek stayed strong at No. 3 with $22 million. “Salvation” opened very similar to its predecessor, “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” but given ticket prices six years ago, did so by selling fewer tickets.
Here are the estimates from Box Office Mojo.
WEEKEND TOP 5 STUDIO ESTIMATES, MAY 22-24, 2009
Rank. Movie Title (Distributor)
Weekend Gross | Theaters | Total Gross | Week #
1. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Fox)
$53.5 million | 4,096 | $53.5 million | 1
2. Terminator Salvation (Warner Bros.)
$43.0 million | 3,530 | $56.4 million | 1
3. Star Trek (Paramount)
$22.0 million | 4,053 | $183.6 million | 3
4. Angels & Demons (Sony / Columbia)
$21.4 million | 3,527 | $81.5 million | 2
5. Dance Flick (Paramount)
$11.1 million | 2,450 | $11.1 million | 1
Source: Box Office Mojo
(www.boxofficemojo.com)
Twinprov is back with Terminator rap
With Terminator Salvation in theaters, comedy duo Twinprov — aka Clint and Buck Vrazel — returned to the NewsOK studios to share their take on Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Bale and more face the satirical wit of Twinprov in this video, introduced by BAM.
Producer Van Ling explores new format on Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray
With Terminator Salvation hitting theaters this week, it’s a good time to look back at previous “Terminator” films. Van Ling, producer of the Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray talked to The Oklahoman about The Terminator, the Blu-ray, and the challenges of creating this edition.
Ling was James Cameron’s researcher and creative/technical liaison on “The Abyss.” Ling was also involved with the design and creation of the visual effects on films such as “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” while serving as Head of Production for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, so it’s particularly appropriate that he revisited that film as the producer of the Blu-ray.
For more from the interview with Van Ling, see next Tuesday’s LIFE section of The Oklahoman, where he discusses the ethics of using modern visual effects to change classic films of the past.
Matt Price: You’ve been associated with the Terminator previously – what’s the most exciting about your involvement with the new Blu-ray?
Van Ling
Van Ling: For me, it’s the opportunity to explore the capabilities of the new format and creating new ways of presenting information. Blu-ray as a format has some very interesting things it can do in terms of interactivity and what you can link to the film and how you can access it. Interestingly, some of the things we’ve done for the new T2 Skynet Edition are things that I had wanted to do with T2 even as far back as the early 90s with CD-ROM format but never got a chance to try …like presenting the film in a way where you can call up the storyboards or the script or production information and video segments while the movie is playing. And now we can do it with much better picture and sound quality.
MP: What kind of archival materials did you have access to in deciding what would be included on the Blu-ray Terminator 2 disc?
VL: We’ve had a wealth of production information that was interesting to fans and film students alike that we’ve amassed over the past 16 years for laserdisc and DVD, and it was a challenge to figure out how we
Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2
might be able to organize that material for a new audience on Blu-ray. Since I had been intimately involved in the creation of nearly all of that archival material, I had a pretty good idea of what we had and what we could do …the challenge was the timeframe and resources we had. There were so many text files and storyboards and still photo galleries and film elements and video material ranging from VHS tapes to Digital Betacams that we had to sort through.
MP: Also, given your experience with the film — why have the Terminator characters and films been so enduring?
VL: Jim Cameron’s original Terminator mythology is this dynamic intersection of the dark side of technology and the power and resourcefulness of individuals as the hope of humanity. In this age of ever “smarter” and ubiquitous technology -even our refrigerators are computer-controlled-we are living in this networked world where technology can be so scary, controlling and dehumanizing, yet we still believe that humanity is the key…the key to humanizing our technology so that it can work for us, rather than against us. That idea appeals and resonates with a lot of people.
MP: What are the key elements to producing a great DVD or Blu-ray?
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2
VL: To me, it’s about creating something that can benefit from being interactive with the film in some way, to be tied in to the main feature presentation even as you can access other things, be they on the disc itself or through BD-Live. It really needs to tie back to the film, so you have a context in which you’re learning stuff…be it about how the film was made or the creative process of the story or the real-world research that informs the filmmaker’s vision. If you have that and can organize it well, it can be a revelation and be much more than a lot of marketing featurettes tagged to a movie. For me with T2, it was kind of about creating a “film school on a disc”.
MP: What were some of the challenges in producing the new edition of the Terminator 2 Blu-ray?
VL: We had a short amount of time (maybe three months) to put it all together in order to get it out in time for the release of Terminator: Salvation, which was the logical time to release the new T2 Blu-ray. We had a very finite set of resources and a collaboration between Lionsgate, the film’s domestic licensee, and
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2
Studio Canal, who owns the film and controls all of the international territories for distribution; this meant a lot of back and forth and timezone lags that we normally would not have had. And we had sixteen years’ worth of special features that we needed to cull through and figure out how best to present that material using the capabilities of Blu-ray. For me, that meant building picture-in-picture segments, audio slideshows, trivia data, graphics, menus, and a ridiculous number of intricate timecode lists to tie it all together to the film. The programming and authoring were a very complex challenge, so hats off to the folks at Blink Digital Studios in California and at Sofatronic in Germany for doing an amazing job.
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- Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2
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- Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2
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- Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2
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- Edward Furlong in Terminator 2
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- Van Ling
Terminator Salvation’s Christian Bale talks Bartlesville
Want to find out why Christian Bale made a stop in Bartlesville, Oklahoma last summer? Check out George Lang’s Staticblog for a vague answer from the star from the recent Terminator Salvation press junket. Look for more from the man who would be Batman AND John Connor in Friday’s Weekend LOOK.
– Matt Price
How will Star Trek fare against Terminator Salvation?
Last week, “Star Trek” nearly held off “Angels & Demons” at the box office. This week, there’s an even tougher task for “Star Trek,” which so far has the best chance at “Iron Man”-type stamina this summer.
The latest ticketing data from MovieTickets.com on “Terminator Salvation,” which releases Thursday night, indicates “Terminator Salvation” is slightly out in front of “Star Trek.”
As of 12 p.m. ET today on MovieTickets.com, “Terminator Salvation” accounts for 28 percent of all ticket sales with “Star Trek” close behind at 25 percent, followed by “Angels & Demons” at 21 percent.
Is there some fan dissatisfaction with “Terminator Salvation” as a PG-13 film, compared to the previous films’ R rating? A MovieTickets.com poll indicates there may be. Seventy-nine percent of poll respondents stated a “Terminator” film should be rated R, while 21% answered PG-13. Two thousand people voted in the poll at MovieTickets.com. PG-13 movies tend to open larger than R films, because of the larger potential audience, so what effect this has on “Terminator Salvation”‘s opening weekend remains to be seen.
– Matt Price
“Dollhouse” is in, “Terminator” is out at FOX
NewsOK’s Television blog gives a rundown of the fall schedule on FOX. Biggest news for geeks is the much-rumored return of Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse.” The series, starring Eliza Dushku (pictured) will get a second season to improve on its ratings. Eliza Dushku plays Echo, one of a group of people who have their memories wiped to go on new, dangerous assignments.
It’s not an entire win for the sci-fi contingent, however, as “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” gets the axe.
Comics fans, of interest is a midseason series, “The Human Target” based on the DC comic. (The concept was tried once before as a pilot, years ago, with Rick Springfield of all people.) Here’s the info from the NewsOK Television blog:
Human Target (midseason): Based on the popular DC Comics graphic novel, this is a full-throttle action drama centered on Christopher Chance (Mark Valley, “Fringe”), a unique private contractor/security guard hired to protect. Call him what you like, because for Chance, it’s about one thing only: saving his clients’ lives.
I for one thought the Vertigo series about Christopher Chance was highly underrated; if this motivates you to seek out those graphic novels, you’ll come out ahead.
See more of Eliza Dushku in promotional photos for “Dollhouse” after the break.
– Matt Price
Staticblog talks to Anton Yelchin of Terminator: Salvation
George Lang at Staticblog gives a sneak peek into his upcoming Anton Yelchin interview, scheduled for this Friday’s Weekend Look section. Find out about Yelchin’s Terminator obsession, and his love for gelatinous killing machines, in the link. Yelchin played Chekov in “Star Trek,” so far the summer’s biggest hit, and takes on the role of Kyle Reese in “Terminator: Salvation,” co-starring with Christian Bale as John Connor.
- Matt Price
“Terminator” joins classic films registry
WASHINGTON (AP) – One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most famous one-liners will be back for generations to come, now that 1984′s “The Terminator” has been selected for preservation in the nation’s film archive.
The low-budget film directed by James Cameron set a new standard for science-fiction and made Schwarzenegger, now California’s governor, a star. The Library of Congress announced Tuesday morning that it’s one of 25 films being added to the National Film Registry. The formal unveiling was scheduled for 8 a.m.
The move will guard Schwarzenegger’s deadpan, “I’ll be back,” against deterioration, along with the sounds and images of the other culturally significant picks. Other titles being added to the registry include the groundbreaking all-black-cast film “Hallelujah” from 1929; Richard Brooks’ 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”; and the 1972 film “Deliverance,” based on James Dickey’s novel about four businessmen on a nightmarish canoe trip in the remote Georgia wildnerness.
“The registry helps this nation understand the diversity of America’s film heritage and, just as importantly, the need for its preservation,” Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing his 2008 selections. “The nation has lost about half of the films produced before 1950 and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920.”
As time passes, older nitrate- and acetate-based films begin to deteriorate, Billington said. The Library of Congress is working to digitize and preserve endangered film and audio files at its new Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, an approximately $250 million facility built in a bunker in the hills near Culpeper, Va.
With Tuesday’s additions, the total number of films in the registry will reach 500.
The registry, established by Congress in 1989, works with film archives and movie studios that own the rights to the selected films to ensure original copies are kept safe. It also acquires a copy for preservation in its own vaults among millions of other recordings.
Curators select films based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic significance, saying their picks wouldn’t necessarily overlap with those of a movie critic. And some aren’t feature films at all: This year’s list includes a family’s home movie, “Disneyland Dream,” which documented a trip to the newly opened park in Anaheim, Calif., in 1956.
“The selection of a title for the registry is not meant to duplicate the Academy Awards or anything like that,” said Patrick Loughney, head of the library’s audio-visual center.
The library accepted public nominations for the film registry selections online and issued a specific call for lesser-known films, including amateur and home-movie footage.
Some films were selected for their historical value, such as “Hallelujah,” the tale of a cotton sharecropper made by MGM as the studio was transitioning from silent to sound films. The 1910 film “White Fawn’s Devotion,” the oldest film selected this year, was made by James Young Deer. He was the first documented American Indian movie director, a member of the Winnebago tribe.
Other movies inspired the nation during times of trouble, such as “Sergeant York” from 1941, which told the story of a Tennessee pacifist who captured 130 German soldiers in World War I. The film, starring Gary Cooper, was released just months before the United States entered World War II.
Comics vodcast: Supergirl 36, DCU Holiday Special, Terminator 1, Dark Reign New Nation
New Terminator comics coming from Dark Horse
From Dark Horse:
In 1990, at the start of the boom of licensed comics, Dark Horse began publishing Terminator. Now, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the first Terminator film, Dark Horse is excited to announce the return of all new Terminator material for a whole new generation of fans!
With renewed interest in the property in both television and film, Dark Horse announced today its intent to begin creating new comics for release in conjunction with the film’s silver anniversary in 2009.
Rand Marlis, President of Creative Licensing Corporation who represents all Terminator tie-ins, said ”I’m thrilled to be once again working with Dark Horse. They are a superb comic book company and really know the Terminator world. Our prior Dark Horse comics are classics and we look forward to more quality stories and art from the Dark Horse team.”
Dark Horse president and publisher, Mike Richardson stated “We’ve had great success with the ongoing saga of Sarah and John Connor in the past, and the worldwide interest in Terminator has us eager to begin a brand new series picking up where we left off.”
The publisher went on to say that the storyline is being developed and the creative team will be announced shortly.
Dark Horse’s successful Termintor Omnibus Vol. 1 & 2 are currently available at a retail price of $24.95.
