“New Moon” still Hold the Crown but the Real Champion is “The Blind Side”

This Thanksgiving weekend, another drama set in the box office history. Summit Entertainment's vampires-and-werewolves phenomenon "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" still in the top of box-office ranking with $42,8 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend. The sequel film saw a very big decline compared to its explosive $143 million opening. But this is not the most shocking thing to happen and just an ordinary story. The drop is remarkably similar to that of the original “Twilight”, but “New Moon” has crossed the $200 million mark on Friday, and earned a total of $230,9 so far, which already more than “Twilight” earned in its entire run last year ($192.8 million). The score making it the third fastest film to reach the $200 million mark, only behind “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “The Dark Knight”, that both did it in five days. Teenage girls who are fans of the movies and books from around the world also made "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" now grossed over $473 million worldwide.

The remarkable story of the weekend is exactly come from Sandra Bullock starring drama “The Blind Side”. After last week's surprising $34 million opening, the football drama continues to prove itself as a legitimate box office smash. A historic follow up-weekend – which is much more of a surprise than the size of New Moon's opening weekend gross, “The Blind Side” rode the Thanksgiving Bump to a three-day gross of $40.1 million, which is an increase of 18% compared to last weekend. The film also actually beat the vampire craze during Thanksgiving holiday, when it grossed $9.5 million versus New Moon's $9.2 million. The per-screen average of "Blind Side" that was $12,779 is also $2,000 more than "New Moon.” It’s now lock to be Bullock's second $100 million hit this year (after not having one since 2000's “Miss Congeniality”). Has an awesome current total of $100.2 million, the true story sport drama, which cost $29 million to make, joins huge films like “Monsters vs. Aliens” (opened to $59 million), “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl” (opened to $70 million over five days), and “The Matrix Revolutions” ($83.8 million over five days) as films that crossed the $100 million mark on their tenth day. With “The Proposal's” $163 million, this should give Bullock the two biggest hits of her career.

In third spot, the Roland Emmerich disaster flick “2012” earned $17.6 million in its third weekend of release. After plunging big last week, the film hold audiences better this week and so far it has earned $138.4 million domestically and also earned $350 million overseas,

Out of the new releases, John Travolta's "Old Dogs" comedy brought in $24 million over the five days ($16.8 million during the weekend), taking fourth place. "Ninja Assassin" stayed in the shadows and opened to $21 million for the five days ($13.3 million during the weekend) to place sixth. “The Road," playing in limited 111 theaters, took in $1,9 million for the five days ($1.5 million during the weekend) for a decent per-screen average of $19,148. In the meantime, Disney's "Princess and the Frog" grossed $1.2 million for the five days ($786,190 for the weekend) by opening in just two theaters. Finally, Zac Efron's "Me and Orson Welles" opened to $86,564 from four theaters during the five day weekend ($64,780 during the weekend).
This Thanksgiving weekend has brought in record revenues and was 15% higher than the same weekend last year, when "Twilight" and "Quantum of Solace" were competing.

Top 10 Movies for weekend of November 27-29, 2009:

Rank – Film Title – Weekend Gross – Running Total
1 – The Twilight Saga: New Moon – $42,870,031 – $230,947,696
2 – The Blind Side – $40,111,364 – $100,238,841
3 – 2012 – $17,651,729 – $138,451,427
4 – Old Dogs – $16,894,511 – $24,228,546
5 – A Christmas Carol – $15,758,273 – $104,927,816
6 – Ninja Assassin – $13,316,158 – $21,193,565
7 – Planet 51 – $10,218,641 – $28,487,409
8 – Precious – $7,081,032 – $32,433,482
9 – Fantastic Mr. Fox – $6,965,267 – $10,024,072
10 – The Road – $1,502,231 – $1,977,453

Sources: Yahoo Movie News, Box Office Prophets

Shiny “Iron Man 2” First Official Poster

Currently, Paramount Pictures has released the first official poster for their upcoming superhero sequel film "Iron Man 2". Not only revealed the titular hero in his slightly upgraded armor, it also gave the first look at War Machine, Tony Stark's best friend who wears silver armor. As a poster usually means that a trailer isn’t far off, just remember that Favreau previously hinted on his twitter account that we should be seeing a trailer for “Iron Man 2” in front of "Sherlock Holmes" this December 25th. Now, let’s take a look at the poster and click for a better view.

“Iron Man 2” takes place only "six months after Stark revealed his identity as Iron Man" at the end of the first movie. Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow will reprise their roles as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Meanwhile, War Machine and his alter ego Col James 'Rhodey' Rhodes will be portrayed by Don Cheadle after Terrence Howard, who took the role in the first film, quit the project. The forthcoming movie will additionally introduce Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Joining them in the star-studded cast ensemble are Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko / Whiplash and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

Greengrass Leaves the “Bourne 4” Project (UPDATED)

UPDATE: Paul Greengrass has now released a statement explaining why he would not return for another Jason Bourne installment.

He stated: "You won't find a more devoted supporter of the Bourne franchise than me. I will always be grateful to have been the caretaker to Jason Bourne over the course of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. I'm very proud of those films and feel they express everything I most passionately believe about the possibility of making quality movies in the mainstream. My decision to not return a third time as director is simply about feeling the call for a different challenge. There's been no disagreement with Universal Pictures. The opportunity to work with the Bourne family again is a difficult thing to pass up, but we have discussed this together and they have been incredibly understanding and supportive. I've been lucky enough to have made four films for Universal, and our relationship continues. Jason Bourne existed before me and will continue, and I hope to remain involved in some capacity as the series moves on."

Nobody know what really happen with the fourth "Bourne" movie for quite a while, did it really moving forward or not? What we’ve heard is that both Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass very excited about making another film in the success action franchise. Now, while there’s nobody see it coming, a shocking news came from The Playlist which reported that director Paul Greengrass has "quit" “Bourne 4” over issues with the Universal studio.

According to Playlist, Greengrass was not happy that the studio hired Joshua Zetumer to write what they call a "parallel" script without consulting it to him before. The "Ocean's Twelve" scribe George Nolfi was originally hired to pen the screenplay for this fourth "Bourne" film, but apparently no one liked his work.
On the other hand, the studio was getting frustrated with Greengrass' upcoming thriller "Green Zone" budget. The studio funded "Green Zone" to keep the director happy between "Bourne" films. But Greengrass quickly escalated the budget for "Zone" to $100 million and will likely bring it up to $150 million when everything is done. As a result, Universal has been forced to get involved to keep the spending under control. "Greengrass has reshot several times (gets expensive) and has been tinkering away in the editing room for months spending Universal's money and testing their patience," a source told the site.

So now that Greengrass has been left out of the loop during the hiring of a "Bourne 4" writer and has been pressured to abide by Universal's rule, he has decided to exit the fourth "Bourne" movie, citing "creative differences." To make matters worse, apparently Damon is very loyal to Greengrass. So, if the studio hires another director it’s uncertain if Damon wants to continue his role in the sequel.
They also say that Greengrass walking away is just a "typical Paul move" and that there's a chance they could work things out and he could be back on board in a few months. Obviously Universal didn't want this news to get out, but now it's out there and now it's going to be on our minds from this point forward. And if Greengrass doesn't return, who else can they get.

Tobey Maguire Revealed his Plan for “Spider-Man 4”

During one recent interview, upcoming “Brothers” actor Tobey Maguire has opened up about his decision to revisit his character in the superhero film franchise “Spider-Man” and also his plan for the fourth film. Previously, some peoples are not sure about whether or not he would return to "Spider-Man 4". But now it has officially confirmed that Maguire will reprise his role as Spidey and his alter ego Peter Parker in the next installment. He also claimed that the sequel will kick off its principal photography in February or March 2010 since it is slated to hit U.S. theaters on May 6, 2011.

"Hopefully I'll be able to evolve the character in a new direction," Maguire said in an interview with The Boston Globe. "He'll still be Peter Parker, but I hope I can move him forward a bit and take him to a place where there will be new challenges for me as an actor."

In addition, Maguire also denied buzz that he was reluctant to take part in another "Spider-Man" film, saying "It's not that I was reluctant." Maguire then explained, "For me, it's a big process to decide whether or not to do a role.... I have to want to wake up in the morning and feel like I can't wait to get to work. I've got to feel OK about leaving my kids for 12 or 13 hours a day for five months. It's a big commitment."