The Giver opens Friday and the youth oriented science fiction flick poses a serious question: will audiences turn out for it and who is the intended audience? The Weinstein Company seems to have little faith in the project and its marketing campaign has been quite underwhelming. Based on a 1993 Lois Lowry novel, the pic does have some serious talent behind it. The adult stars are Oscar winners Jeff Bridges (who coproduced) and Meryl Streep, with Katie Holmes and singer Taylor Swift in supporting roles. Phillip Noyce, director of Patriot Games and Salt, is behind the camera.
Aside from its subdued marketing, other challenges face The Giver. If it’s going for the youth audience, there’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Guardians of the Galaxy to contend with. The film’s budget is a meager $30 million and yet it still may struggle to recoup that cost domestically. The Giver could struggle to reach double digits, but I’ll predict it does manage that unimpressive benchmark for what’ll likely be a fifth place opening next weekend.
On this Day in Movie History – January 7 – the Coen brothers remake of True Grit would jump into the top spot at the box office in its third weekend. Budgeted at only $38 million, the Western (based on the 1969 John Wayne original) would end up grossing a fabulous $171 million domestically. Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, Grit would earn ten Oscar nominations including Picture, Director, Actor (Bridges), and Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), but would go home empty-handed. The Coen Bros, meanwhile, continue to make pictures that tend to garner Academy attention. Their latest is Inside Llewyn Davis.
The Coens comedy classic, 1987’s Raising Arizona, was only their second feature and it stars one of today’s birthday boys, Nicolas Cage. He turns 50 years old today. Delving into Cage’s filmography would take all day… pretty sure he’s appeared in about 487 movies over the past quarter century or so. To say the least, his catalog has been varied, interesting, and wildly inconsistent. Here’s a sampling: he won an Oscar for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas and was nominated for 2002’s Adaptation. He’s starred in successful romantic comedies and dramas like Moonstruck alongside Cher, Honeymoon in Vegas, and City of Angels. He’s been a huge action star in hits like The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, and the National Treasure franchise. There’s been critical favorites and cult flicks that run the gamut from Vampire’s Kiss to Wild at Heart to Red Rock West to Lord of War. He’s worked with his Uncle Francis Ford Coppola in Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, and Peggy Sue Got Married. And he’s worked with Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead), Ridley Scott (Matchstick Men), and Oliver Stone (World Trade Center). He’s also been Ghost Rider in two moderately successful pics. And yet, there’s also been a bunch of junk: Bangkok Dangerous? Next? Season of the Witch? Snake Eyes? Drive Angry? And, of course, there’s his work in the so-bad-it’s-good remake of The Wicker Man where we all learned Cage’s aversion to “THE BEES”!!!!
Jeremy Renner is 43 today. He broke through in 2009’s The Hurt Locker, which won Best Picture and earned him a Best Actor nomination. The following year he received a Supporting Actor nod for Ben Affleck’s The Town. Since then, he’s immersed himself in successful franchises like the Mission: Impossible series, The Avengers, and as the new Jason Bourne. He can currently be seen in David O. Russell’s Oscar hopeful American Hustle.
As for Six Degrees of Separation between the birthday leading men:
Nicolas Cage in Kiss of Death with Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L Jackson was in The Avengers with Jeremy Renner
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