My website is still in development. Sorry about that. Will hopefully be one more week. My current website has been light on for updates in the meantime but keep the faith… it won’t be long now.
Brisbane International Film Festival
Word is trickling through about the 2009 Brisbane International Film Festival. It will be held this year between 30 July and 9 August.
The opening night film will be An Education. As per the Internet Movie Database, it’s “A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.” It has been written directly for the screen by Nick Hornby – the author of Fever Pitch, About A Boy and High Fidelity. The film was extremely well received at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. It stars Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike and Olivia Williams. 23-year-old Mulligan will be in Brisbane for Opening Night and should be a major drawcard. Her biggest role to date was as Kitty Bennet is 2005’s Pride and Prejudice.
Also at the Festival will be Amitabh Bachchan, a legendary Indian actor and producer. He also hosted India’s version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The Festival will be officially launched in July and I’ll be sure to fill you in on more details as they come to hand.
Box Office Numbers
The U.S. summer blockbuster season is now well underway and I thought I’d provide a quick wrap of the hits and misses so far.
Star Trek has been the big hit so far and deservedly so. It’s pulled in over $209m at the box-office and is still in the top 5 after four weeks of release. A sensational effort considering the last Star Trek film made just $43m.
I know I wasn’t a big fan of it but X-Men Origins: Wolverine has also been solid with $170m over 5 weeks. I guess the leaking of the film on the internet didn’t hurt business too much. You’d have to think a sequel is in the pipeline.
On the flip side, Angels And Demons has been somewhat of a disappointment. It’s only made $105m through its first 3 weeks. The Da Vinci Code had made $171m over the same period two years ago. I wonder why people were turned off?
Terminator: Salvation has also struggled to build momentum. It debuted at number 2 last week behind Night At The Museum 2 and suffered a heavy drop off this week to notch just $90m in its first 10 days. Terminator 3 (released in 2003) made $20m more in that timeframe. I guess this series hasn’t quite gotten the “reboot” that Star Trek did.
The big hit over the weekend in the States was the Disney animated film, Up, which is also showing in 3D in certain cinemas. It’s not released in Australia until September but will be getting plenty of buzz after opening with $68m in the U.S.