Tag: Out of the Furnace

Oscar Predictions: The Pale Blue Eye

Scott Cooper’s The Pale Blue Eye opens in select theaters this weekend prior to its January 6th Netflix bow. Set in 1830, the mystery casts Christian Bale as a detective working alongside Harry Melling’s Edgar Allan Poe. The supporting cast includes Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall.

Marking the third collaboration between Cooper and Bale after Out of the Furnace and Hostiles, this is being greeted with decidedly mixed notices. The Rotten Tomatoes score is currently 57% with some writers praising the production value while criticizing the gloomy vibe.

Netflix clearly had no real plans to mount an awards campaign for this. They probably could’ve tried for Production and/or Costume Design. It showed up nowhere in the Globe or Critics Choice mentions. The Academy is highly likely to follow suit. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

Oscar Watch: Hostiles

Today’s earlier Oscar Watch post focused on Victoria and Abdul, the Queen Victoria biopic featuring Judi Dench that’s set in the late 19th century. We are in the same time period for this next write-up, but it’s a much different genre and setting.

Scott Cooper’s Hostiles has premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and award chatter for it has been bolstered. Christian Bale headlines as an Army captain escorting a Native American chief back to his native land. The Western’s costars include Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Ben Foster, and Timothee Chalamet (who could be in the Oscar mix for another performance in Call Me by Your Name).

Cooper directed Jeff Bridges to an Oscar win in 2009 with Crazy Heart. This is his second collaboration with Bale after 2013’s Out of the Furnace and his follow-up to the 2015 Johnny Depp Whitney Bulger pic Black Mass. Any advance word of Hostiles has been low-key for a rather simple reason. It’s yet to have been picked up by a distributor so its release by 2017 was uncertain. Positive word-of-mouth emanating from Telluride should solve that problem.

That said, whichever studio that picks up Hostiles for an awards qualifying run will have a stiff challenge. The film’s success or non success among audiences could determine whether it’s seriously looked at as a contender. Time will tell, but at the least Telluride has provided it hope for Academy attention.

My Oscar Watch posts will continue…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KczRX9oOl5U

2016: The Year of Casey Affleck

Nearly a decade ago, Casey Affleck received a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It was that same year in 2007 that he starred in his brother Ben’s well-received directorial debut Gone Baby Gone and appeared for the third time in Oceans Thirteen as part of that blockbuster trilogy.

Since then, Affleck’s career has been a mix of smaller flicks like Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Out of the Furnace with supporting roles in studio fare like Tower Heist and Interstellar. He also made a strange excursion into directing with the Joaquin Phoenix “documentary” I’m Still Here.

His 2016 started rather unremarkably with two pics that came and went – The Finest Hours and Triple 9. Yet it was that same time early in the year that word came out from Sundance about Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan’s drama about grief and family. And the word was quite impressive.

At the close of 2016, Manchester stands as a serious awards contender with its star assured a nomination for Best Actor. It is likely it will come down to Affleck and Denzel Washington (Fences) for the win. The former has already picked up a number of critics prizes for his most acclaimed role thus far. He closed out the year by hosting the “Saturday Night Live” Christmas show, including a very amusing bit involving Dunkin Donuts.

The Sundance Film Festival next month will showcase Affleck’s next project – A Ghost Story alongside Rooney Mara. Who knows what that will bring, but it certainly kickstarted a supremely lauded year for Affleck this year.

Box Office Results: December 6-8

As predicted, Disney’s animated Frozen overtook The Hunger Games: Catching Fire for the top spot at the box office this weekend, but both titles earned a bit less than my estimates.

Frozen took in $31.6 million in its second weekend for #1, below my $34.8M prediction. Disney’s feature has made $134 million since its Thanksgiving opening. An eventual gross in the $250M range seems likely.

In weekend #3, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire dropped to second with an estimated $27 million, under my $32M prediction. This massive sequel has earned $336M since its debut and still looks on pace to become 2013’s highest grossing picture.

Out of the Furnace, the crime thriller with Christian Bale, flopped with only $5.3 million for third place. I gave it a bit too much credit with a $9.6M prediction. Rounding out the top five: Thor: The Dark World in fourth with $4.7 million (just under my $5.2M estimate) and Delivery Man in fifth with $3.7 million (just over my $3.5M estimate).

Be sure to check the blog later when I’ll roll out my predictions for two very different sequels – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas.

Box Office Predictions: December 6-8

The post Thanksgiving box office weekend is usually a fairly sluggish one and there’s only one new title joining the fray – the Christian Bale crime thriller Out of the Furnace. You can read my full prediction post on it here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2013/12/01/out-of-the-furnace-box-office-prediction/

Unless it majorly underwhelms (which is somewhat possible), Furnace is pretty much assured the #3 spot for its debut. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Disney’s Frozen appear destined to duke it out for the #1 slot.

Catching Fire is entering its third weekend and post Thanksgiving blockbusters typically drop below 50% in December’s first weekend. For instance, 2011 and 2012’s Twilight entries dipped 60% in their third frames over the same weekend. Catching Fire may not drop quite that far, but it should be close.

On the other hand, Disney’s Frozen opened at #2 over Turkey Day weekend with the best opening for the holiday of all time. Its chances of not falling over 50% seem better and, if that happens, Frozen would catapault to first and Fire would fall to second.

Thor: The Dark World should be fourth in its fifth weekend while Vince Vaughn’s Delivery Man and The Best Man Holiday should fight it out for the five spot. And with that, my predictions for this weekend’s top five:

1. Frozen

Predicted Gross: $34.8 million (representing a drop of 48%)

2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Predicted Gross: $32 million (representing a drop of 57%)

3. Out of the Furnance

Predicted Gross: $9.6 million

4. Thor: The Dark World

Predicted Gross: $5.2 million (representing a drop of 53%)

5. Delivery Man

Predicted Gross: $3.5 million (representing a drop of 49%)

As always, I’ll have final results on the blog this Sunday!

Out of the Furnace Box Office Prediction

Christian Bale headlines an all-star cast in the crime thriller Out of the Furnace from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper. It is the only wide release coming out during the first weekend of December where moviegoers could still be preoccupied with leftovers such as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Disney’s Frozen.

Beside the Dark Knight himself, Furnace costars Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker, and Willem Dafoe. Early reviews have mostly been positive (it currently sits at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes). There were some insiders who mentioned this pic for possible awards consideration though that talk has mostly fallen along the wayside. The marketing campaign has been fairly robust, but one has to wonder if audiences will rush out to see it.

A similar genre pic, Killing Them Softly with Brad Pitt, opened during the same weekend last year to highly disappointing results with only $6.8 million for its debut. That film also had mostly solid notices from critics. I believe Furnace will perform a bit better though it’s a legitimate question in my mind whether it reaches double digits or not. I’ll predict it doesn’t quite get there.

Out of the Furnance opening weekend prediction: $9.6 million