Bombs Away: 10 2011 box office duds

Summer is the season of box office hits, but here (with credit to The Hollywood Reporter for the numbers) is a look at 10 movies that didn't come close to qualifying for that title.

Mars Needs Moms
Wow. How could so few people turn out for a movie based on a book by Bloom County creator Berkeley Breathed? Robert Zemeckis' movie isn't just the biggest bomb of this year, but after pulling in about $39 million worldwide and costing at least $150 million to make, it's easily one of the biggest box office disasters of all time, and thankfully will hopefully keep Zemeckis from laying his remake hands on the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."


Your Highness
I pretty thoroughly enjoy a well-made raunchy comedy ("Bad Teacher," still in theaters, is a good example), but "Your Highness" certainly wasn't one of them. The stoner comedy that cost about $50 million to produce created very little buzz at all, taking in only $21.6 million domestically and a mere $3 million overseas.

Arthur
Only you can stop the '80s remake machine, and moviegoers certainly did their part with this dud starring Russell Brand, who I usually like quite a bit. The "comedy" took in $33 domestically and another $12.7 million overseas, giving it at least a slightly larger haul than its production budget of about $40 million.

Prom
Was there really a Disney movie this year that only took in $10 million at the domestic box office? If you didn't know it was something called "Prom," you're clearly far from alone. In relative terms, I suppose it's hard to really call this one a "bomb," since it only cost $8 million to make, but I guess in this case you get what you pay for.

Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
The folks behind this potential kids movie tentpole were clearly hoping Judy Moody would follow this one up with perhaps a Not Forlorn Fall and then maybe a Not Woeful Winter (as some kids must know, the actual titles of these are probably much more clever than mine), but with the $20 million movie only taking in $13.4 million so far, Judy's movie calendar may have already run out.

Green Lantern
Have we finally reached the breaking point with super hero overload? There will be another test coming July 22 when "Captain America: The First Avenger" hits theaters, but with "Green Lantern," all signs point to yes, with the movie costing at least $200 million to produce and expected to rake in no more than $260 million or so worldwide. Not a disaster, though, and in fact, there's already plans for a sequel, so what do I know?

Priest
Finally, a vampire movie that no one wanted to see. The action movie starring Paul Bettany as a holy man who hunts down bloodsuckers cost about $60 million to produce, and took in a mere $29.1 million domestically, but caught up a bit overseas by taking in another $46 million.


Sucker Punch
Along with being a box office bomb, Zack Snyder's truly bizarre fantasy-revenge mess holds the double distinction of being both one of the movies I was most looking forward to for this year and also the single worst one I've seen so far in 2011, by a pretty wide margin. The flick, which cost about $82 million, took in just $36.3 million domestic and $53.4 million overseas, and to add insult to injury, didn't even open at No. 1, losing out to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules" (and having seen them both, I can confirm that the Wimpy Kid turned in a much better movie.)

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
The original "Hoodwinked!" was the very definition of a sleeper, taking in more than $100 million worldwide with little fanfare, but this sequel turned out to be pretty much the complete opposite, with a production budget of about $30 million and a domestic box office take of just $10 million or so, supplemented by a scant $3.6 million overseas.

The Beaver
No, this movie about a crazy Mel Gibson wasn't a documentary, and nor was it seen by just about anyone in the world. Costing $20 million to make, it made no box office impression at all, taking in less than $1 million domestic before disappearing. I'm no economics master, but I'm pretty sure that adds up to a disaster.

And I'll leave you with simply a brief preview of tonight's sure-to-be very funny episode of "Louie." Packaged with the extremely funny "Wilfred," FX has a great pair of comedies at a time when there is very little else on, so give them a chance if you haven't yet. Peace out.

A Friday report with "Wargames" madness, Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin

Something that perfect really shouldn't need any words from me, but just in case you somehow can't tell, that's Martin Freeman in his Bilbo Baggins costume for Peter Jackson's upcoming movie of "The Hobbit," making it pretty much pure bliss. 'Nuff said.

And in other movie news this morning, I've really lost all my zeal to complain about the need to remake every single thing that came out of the '80s, especially since it's so clear there's nothing I or anyone else can do to stop them.

When they keep claiming the careers of promising directors, however, it just keeps getting more and more distressing. First this week came the inexplicably bad/tame first trailer for "Hustle & Flow" director Craig Brewer's take on "Footloose," and now comes word that the '80s remake machine has claimed another victim in Seth Gordon.

Gordon, who made the sensational documentary "King of Kong" and in a few weeks will have "Horrible Bosses" starring Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day in theaters, has now signed on to direct a remake of "WarGames."

Think about that for a second. While "WarGames" was a perfectly fun little flick, was there an '80s movie that was more specifically of its time? I really can't see how you would recreate that ridiculously entertaining scenario in this even more threatening world, and there's another attempt to resurrect something similar that should serve as a cautionary tale, "Red Dawn."

Making a remake of that even sillier '80s minor treasure wouldn't really seem on the surface to be too difficult, but for the filmmakers it's turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. After all major filming for the movie starring Thor's Chris Hemsworth had been completed, whatever studio is behind this madness decided that China could no longer be the big bad because its potential audience is too large, so they had to make a last-minute change to North Korea, where for all I know they don't get many Hollywood movies at all.

And I tell you all that to simply say this: The "Red Dawn" remake still has no release date and may well just disappear straight to DVD, as hopefully this "WarGames" chicanery will too, if it happens at all.

OK, after that diatribe, there's two other bits of news out there that caught my eye this morning, starting with an "X-Men: First Class"-related casting shift for Danny Boyle's next movie.

"Trance," which the director will unfortunately most likely not make until after he directs the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, sounds like its right in the vein of his earlier work such as "Shallow Grave" (still my favorite Boyle flick) and "Trainspotting."

The flick is about an employee at an arthouse who teams with a group of criminals to steal a valuable piece. Though the heist succeeds, a blow to the head gives him amnesia and he is unable to remember where the art is hidden. Suspecting foul play, his co-conspirators hire a hypnotist to try and pull the secret from his mind.

Sounds like nothing but potentially great to me, and though Michael Fassbender was originally set to play the lead, it has now apparently been passed on to James McAvoy. Not really trading up or down there, but a lateral move, I'd say, so stay tuned for more on this project as soon as I can find it.

And finally today, it seems that when HBO gets is hands on talented directors/writers, it really doesn't want to let them go.

Aaron Sorkin already has a series going to pilot on the network this fall, "More as the Story Develops," which sounds eerily like "Sports Night" simply redone with a cable news show instead of a cable sports show (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that.)

And now comes word that he's teaming up with "The Office" star John Kraskinski, who will produce and probably star, for a mini-series of eight episodes or so that springs from the book "Life at the Marmont" by Raymond R. Sarlot.

Given the Sunset Strip hotel's juicy history, it should give Sorkin plenty to work with. It's where the corpse of John Belushi was discovered in 1982, and among the personalities who lave lodged there since the 1930s are Hunter S. Thompson, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn, Judy Garland and Lindsay Lohan.

Sounds like a whole lot of fun to me, and the casting alone should be a hoot. And if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to do some swimming before I take a chance on Jake Kasdan's "Bad Teacher," which I'm hoping against hope will deliver some pretty solid laughs. Peace out.

HBO books a "Game Change," and finds its Sarah Palin

Back in 2008, it certainly didn't seem at the time to on paper be exactly the winning formula for a top-shelf political movie. A script from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Gilmore Girls" regular Danny Strong, directed by Jay Roach, purveyor of the broadest kind of big-screen comedies?

Anyone who's seen "Recount," their HBO movie about the rather memorable 2000 U.S. presidential election, however, knows (or at least I do) that it was a surprisingly smart, funny and very entertaining political flick, with Laura Dern's sublime performance as Katherine Harris as the very sweet cherry on top.

Now, the two of them are teaming up again for a political flick with even better source material, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's tome about the 2008 presidential election, "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," and wisely simply shortened the title to "Game Change." And they've lined up an intriguing choice to play the most colorful character, Sarah Palin.

Julianne Moore (not Tina Fey) will play the never-boring former candidate for vice president, and assuming she can avoid the battle with bad accents she played out on "30 Rock," she should be great in this. No word yet on the rest of the cast or exactly when this will hit TV, but since this intrigues me, I'm almost certain to pass it on when I find it.

I read a pretty good deal of political books, and can attest that "Game Change" is one of the very best in the genre, so definitely bring this on!

And all I have after that today is the first trailer I know of for "Bad Teacher" the upcoming comedy starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel and, thankfully, Phyllis from "The Office," too. Frankly, it doesn't look all that promising, but since it comes from director Jake Kasdan ("The TV Set," "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and, way back in the day, "Freaks and Geeks," too), I'm holding out hope it will be a whole lot funnier than I'm expecting when it drops June 24. Enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.