Tag: Ed Helms

Love the Coopers Box Office Prediction

The Christmas season hits the box office in mid November as the holiday themed  Love the Coopers opens next Friday. With an all-star cast including John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms, Anthony Mackie, June Squibb, Amanda Seyfried, and Alan Arkin, the family affair will look to cash in with audiences looking for some Xmas cheer.

Its prospects are a bit sketchy. Trailers and TV spots for Coopers have done little to make it look like another run of the mill big ensemble experience. Its best hope is to bring in a female audience looking for a diversion from James Bond, which should still be performing like gang busters in weekend #2.

That might be enough to help it reach double digits, though I don’t believe that’s guaranteed. I could actually see this debuting in line with The Family Stone, a similarly themed comedy which opened 10 years ago. Solid word of mouth could push it to perform in subsequent weekends yet that remains to be seen.

Love the Coopers opening weekend prediction: $11.3 million

For my The 33 prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2015/11/06/the-33-box-office-prediction/

For my My All-American prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2015/11/07/my-all-american-box-office-prediction/

Vacation Movie Review

The reboot of Vacation may make you long for the days of European Vacation, which came 30 years before it. Not the original Vacation from 1983, which this pic is most inspired by. Not Christmas Vacation from 1989. This new entry doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those two franchise highlights. I’m saying this is substandard to the Griswolds overseas adventure, which was certainly nothing special and this is more on the level of 1997’s unfortunate Vegas Vacation when the series ran out of steam.

Our fifth flick concentrates on grown up Rusty (Ed Helms) and his bored wife (Christina Applegate) taking their two boys to Walley World, the famed amusement park from the original. What follows is an R rated celebration of sex jokes, poop jokes, and pedophilia jokes (yep) that does little to capture the spirit of when Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo took their brood from Chicago to California the first time around. There’s plentiful nods to the ’83 pic and even Clark and Ellen show up for a surprisingly unfunny cameo where Chevy essentially bumbles around for five minutes. Sister Audrey appears in the form of Leslie Mann, now married to weatherman hunk Chris Hemsworth (who does manage to provide a few weak laughs). Cousin Eddie is nowhere to be found (let’s assume he went to Canada).

Vacation isn’t terrible but the majority of its jokes are obvious lowbrow and tired ones mixed in with intermittent genuine laughs. The new Griswolds incarnation is uninspired and this is not a Vacation we need.

** (out of four)

Vacation Box Office Prediction

A new generation of Griswolds comes to the big screen as Vacation hits theaters this Wednesday. It’s been 32 years since Clark, Ellen, and the kids starred in the now classic original and 18 years since the last installment, the poorly received Vegas Vacation.

Our reboot finds Ed Helms as the grown up Rusty Griswold with Christina Applegate as his wife. Leslie Mann costars as sister Audrey with Chris Hemsworth and Charlie Day among the supporting cast. And as you’ve likely seen from the trailers and TV spots, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo do return once again.

The name brand and nostalgia factor alone should be enough to get this Vacation off to a pretty healthy start. There is some comedy competition in the form of Trainwreck‘s third weekend, but that shouldn’t be a huge factor. With its five-day roll out, the pic looks poised for a likely second place showing behind the weekend’s other newcomer, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. I’ll say it manages to reach mid 20s over the five day frame.

Vacation opening weekend prediction: $17.1 million (Friday to Sunday), $24.7 million (Wednesday to Sunday)

For my Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2015/07/23/mission-impossible-rogue-nation-box-office-prediction/

Todd’s 15 Most Anticipated 2015 Summer Movies: Nos. 15-11

In less than one month, the Summer 2015 Movie Season will be upon us! That means studios will be bringing out their big wannabe blockbusters with sequels, reboots, animated tales, comic book heroes, and a surprisingly robust group of potentially intriguing comedies.

Therefore, I am bringing you my personal 15 most anticipated summer movies for the year. Let me talk briefly about some pictures that didn’t quite make the cut. I left off animated fare such as Pixar’s Inside Out and Despicable Me spin-off Minions. Same goes for Pitch Perfect 2, Magic Mike XXL and the film version of HBO’s Entourage. And then there’s a film I figured would make the cut: Terminator: Genisys that marks Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to his iconic role after 12 years. Why? Quite frankly, I wasn’t crazy about the trailer. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still highly curious to watch it.

I will be breaking up my list in three installments and we begin this evening with numbers 15-11. Subsequent posts covering the top ten will arrive Friday and Saturday.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

15. Spy

Release Date: June 5

Originally, I probably wouldn’t have figured Melissa McCarthy’s new comedy would make the cut. That’s until reviews from screenings at South by Southwest came out and they indicate this is the star’s best feature so far. It doesn’t hurt that Paul Feig, director of McCarthy’s Bridesmaids and The Heat is behind the camera. Jude Law, Rose Byrne, and Jason Statham co-star.

14. Masterminds

Release Date: August 14

From the director of Napoleon Dynamite comes this heist comedy with a killer cast: Zach Galifianakis, Kristin Wiig, Owen Wilson, and Jason Sudeikis. The trailer inspires hope.

13. Vacation

Release Date: July 31

Yes, they’re rebooting the Vacation franchise with Ed Helms and Leslie Mann as grown-up Rusty and Audrey and Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo back as Clark and Ellen. Christina Applegate, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlie Day round out the cast. Here’s to hoping this is more like the original and Christmas Vacation than Vegas Vacation. No trailer has been released at press time.

12. Southpaw

Release Date: July 24

Jake Gyllenhall has been on a roll lately choosing his projects, including last year’s terrific Nightcrawler. This sports drama sees him playing a boxer with serious family issues. It also sees him heavily bulked up in a pic that could get awards attention, like 2010’s The Fighter. Antoine Fuqua directs (he made Training Day and The Equalizer) and Rachel McAdams and Forest Whitaker co-star.

11. Fantastic Four

Released Date: August 7

The first two installments of the famed Marvel comic books (the ones with Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis) were decent size hits, however critics didn’t approve. This reboot comes from Chronicle director Josh Trank with a cast that includes Miles Teller, Kate Mara, and Michael B. Jordan and it will attempt to begin the franchise anew.

And that’s all for now! Numbers 10-6 coming at you tomorrow…

The Late Night Carousel and Jon Stewart

For longtime followers of my blog, you may know that I’m endlessly fascinated by the nowadays seemingly constant shifts taking place on late night comedy TV. This evening, we were informed of yet another seismic shift in the medium.

Some context: when I was very young, there was essentially only one late night talk show in town and it belonged to The King of Late Night, Johnny Carson – who hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years. Competitors such as Joan Rivers and Alan Thicke, among others, tried and failed to take him on. Only Arsenio Hall managed some success against him in the waning years of Johnny’s run.

Of course, for many years, it was the man who followed Carson that was seen as his obvious heir apparent upon retirement: David Letterman, whose innovative Late Night show followed Tonight. When Jay Leno (one of Dave’s favorite guests) began filling in for Johnny as he began to vacation more, the paradigm shifted. It was Leno who would succeed Johnny in 1992 amid much controversy. It prompted Letterman to move to CBS the following year. For two years, Dave would reign supreme as the new King of Late Night until Leno (with an assist from Hugh Grant who appeared immediately following his shocking arrest with a prostitute) became #1 for nearly two decades.

Oh… There’s more! The Letterman departure to CBS as Leno’s competitor left a void at the 12:30 Late Night slot that’d be filled with an unknown SNL writer named Conan O’Brien. And in yet another highly controversial media frenzy some sixteen years later, Leno would reluctantly “retire” and hand Conan the Cadillac that is 11:30 on NBC. It didn’t go as planned. Jay would end up with a 10pm nightly program that failed badly. Conan’s ratings couldn’t match what Leno brought in and NBC let him go with a reported $40 million payout. He would eventually end up at TBS where he remains today and Leno would return to The Tonight Show.

Oh… There’s more! When Conan did first jump to 11:30, it once again left a hole at 12:30am and SNL vet Jimmy Fallon was named. By 2014, Leno would once again depart (for good this time) and Fallon was moved up. In the year since Jimmy has taken over, it’s gone considerably better for him than Conan. Fallon has kept The Tonight Show at #1 over Letterman and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

And of course Letterman announced his retirement that will take place in May after 33 years at Late Night and Late Show. His successor will be Stephen Colbert in September. Colbert, along with Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Rob Corddry, John Oliver and many others, owe their careers to one program and one man…

Jon Stewart. You knew I’d get there eventually, right? Of course that would be the news of the day. The man who’s hosted The Daily Show for 17 years announced he is stepping down this year as host. There is no doubt that Mr. Stewart, like Dave and Johnny before him, has forever changed American comedy and late night. It changed the way people thought about news and received it (especially among the coveted 18-49 audience demographic).

What some younger viewers might not know is The Daily Show existed before Jon Stewart. The first host was former ESPN anchor Craig Kilborn. He left to host The Late Late Show, the talk show airing after Letterman. Kilborn’s eventual departure paved the way for Craig Ferguson, who also announced he’s stepping down this year and that has set up James Corden to be the new host who will follow Letterman successor Colbert.

Most importantly, Kilborn’s Daily Show exit led to Stewart in 1999. You also may not be aware that this wasn’t Stewart’s first talk show. It was his second. His first aired on MTV and then in syndication and was canceled after two seasons. On his final show on that program, he nabbed his biggest guest: his comedy idol. A man named David Letterman.

Conan and Kimmel and Stewart were all Dave disciples, in the same way Letterman was a Johnny disciple. Yet Stewart brought something new to his iteration of “The Daily”. He turned it into must see TV very often. His political satire could shape people’s views on stories and politicians. As mentioned before, it provided his correspondents a platform to big things whether on film or the small screen.

There will be breathless speculation as to who will take over The Daily Show. Had Stewart made the announcement last year, my guess is John Oliver would be the easy choice. After all, he filled in for an extended period of weeks when Stewart took a sabbatical to make his directorial movie debut with Rosewater. Oliver did such a great job as guest host that HBO quickly snatched him for his acclaimed weekly Sunday evening program. He’s likely to stay put. So is Seth Meyers at Late Night, who succeeded Fallon.

My hunch is that Comedy Central will look to their current crop of Daily contributors which includes Jason Jones and Aasif Mandvi. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they go with their current longest tenured correspondent Samantha Bee, giving a much needed late night female face among the two Jimmy’s, Stephen’s, Seth’s, etc…

One thing is nearly certain: while Johnny Carson was not the first host of The Tonight Show and Jon Stewart was not the first Daily Show hosts, these two landmark television programs will always be linked to them, even as the Late Night carousel keeps spinning.

And here it is. Your Moment of Zen:

 

This Day in Movie History: January 24

28 years ago Today in Movie History – January 24 – Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple would rise to #1 at the box office. At the time, Spielberg was really only known for popcorn blockbusters like Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. and Purple would be classified as his first “serious” picture. Focusing on the plight of African-Americans in the U.S. during the early 20th century, Purple starred Danny Glover, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Rae Dawn Chong, and Whoopi Goldberg in her first film role. It would be a rousing box office success with a domestic tally of $98 million. Purple earned 11 Oscar nominations yet won none of them. Based originally on a novel by Alice Walker, it would later be made into a Broadway play.

As for birthdays, John Belushi would’ve turned 65 years old today. One of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live”, Belushi would make a huge splash in film as Bluto in the iconic comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House. Two years later, further success would follow with The Blues Brothers. Other film roles: Goin South, 1941, Neighbors, and Continental Divide. Dan Aykroyd wrote the role of Dr. Venkman in Ghostbusters for Belushi, but the star would die in 1982 from a drug overdose.

Ed Helms is 40 today. Known to many for his supporting role on TV’s “The Office”, Helms found box office success in The Hangover trilogy. Other notable roles include Cedar Rapids, Jeff, Who Lives At Home and We’re the Millers. Helms is currently attached to headline a reboot of the Vacation franchise.

As for Six Degrees of Separation between them:

John Belushi was in The Blues Brothers with Dan Aykroyd

Dan Aykroyd was in Trading Places with Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy was in Meet Dave with Ed Helms

And that’s today – January 24 – in Movie History!