Women + history + religion + controversy = big box-office in Europe

Agora finally has an American distributor, and the film may have its box-office success in its native Spain to thank for that.

Directed by Alejandro Amenábar, the film, which depicts the growing clash between the female philosopher Hypatia and the "unstoppable surge of the Christians" in 4th-century Alexandria, premiered at Cannes in May, and was then shown in a slightly shorter form at the Toronto film festival in September -- but no American distributors picked it up.

They began to get interested, however, when the film opened in Spain last month and began raking in the dough; its box-office total there currently stands at about $30 million. Fox and Sony were said to be eyeing the film two weeks ago, but today it was announced that Newmarket -- the distributor behind Memento (2000), The Passion of the Christ (2004) and the upcoming Charles Darwin biopic Creation -- had sealed the deal.

Newmarket plans to release the film in "the first half of 2010."

In quasi-related news, Pope Joan also opened in Europe a few weeks ago -- specifically, in Germany -- and it topped the box-office chart there in its first week, at least.

Based on a novel about a 9th-century woman who supposedly ruled the Catholic church while disguised as a man, the film version of Pope Joan was first announced three years ago, but it went on to have a somewhat troubled production history; among other things, its original director and lead actress were replaced, and there was some debate as to whether or not John Goodman would play Pope Sergius. (In the end, he did.)

According to the IMDb, the film will be distributed in the United States by Summit Entertainment, the company behind the Twilight phenomenon, and in Canada by Seville Pictures.

You can watch trailers for the two films below:

Early medieval Celtic matters.

The Sunday Mail reports that Jeremy Irons is going to star in The End Time, a film about St. Columba, the Irish monk who brought Christianity to Scotland in the 6th century. The film will be directed by Norman Stone, whose credits include the original C.S. Lewis biopic Shadowlands (1985).

Regarding his new film's main character, Stone says: "He was not a saintly saint and this film will be more of a character study and a political thriller than a Christian epic. Columba will not wear a halo. It needs big-screen treatment and in Jeremy we have the right person to deliver the performance we are looking for."

Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter says The Secret of Kells, an animated film inspired by the 8th-century illuminated Bible known as the Book of Kells, will have a brief theatrical run in Los Angeles next month in order to qualify for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It is one of 20 films that have been submitted for the award.

The film was produced by the Irish firm Cartoon Saloon, and its subject matter is deeply Irish as well -- but as Variety noted several months ago, the work on this film spanned several countries on two or three continents:

There's a scene in "The Secret of Kells," when an eighth-century Irish monk is rummaging through his papers and throwing them in the air, which sums up the sheer international complexity of the project.

It was animated by a Polish artist working in a Hungarian studio, then cleaned up by a Mongolian who could only communicate with Irish director Tomm Moore via a translator from Transylvania.

"The Secret of Kells," co-directed by Moore and Nora Twomey, was made across five countries — Ireland, France, Belgium, Hungary and Brazil — and funded by a patchwork of co-production coin.

"I call it Franken-finance, pulling the pieces from different parts from Europe," says producer Paul Young.

The film is currently slated for an American release in March; I don't know if it will be coming to Canada as well. Co-director Moore has a blog devoted to the film here, and you can see a few trailers below, the last of which has been dubbed into French:

Why Anne Rice's Jesus movie never happened.

Remember how Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt was going to be turned into a film a few years ago? And how the producers sponsored a special section on religion and the movies in Variety magazine? And how Rice and the producers eventually parted ways?

The Boston Globe ran a devastating story on would-be producer David Kirkpatrick over the weekend that focuses primarily on his recent efforts to start a secular movie studio in Massachusetts, but also sheds some light on what happened to the Anne Rice movie way back when:

The story of the Plymouth studio project has always been a study in optimistic public predictions while, behind the scenes, major players struggled to keep the project going, and sometimes fought among themselves. Since Kirkpatrick’s initial visit to Massachusetts in 2006, he has parted bitterly with at least five collaborators - from the Fitchburg businessman who introduced him to Massachusetts officials to the Good News team to best-selling novelist Anne Rice. Rice had planned to sell Kirkpatrick the rights to her novel “Christ the Lord,’’ which Good News executives were counting on to show that the new company was a force in movie-making. But Rice angrily withdrew when he didn’t pay her.

“David, you broke my heart,’’ she wrote in a scathing e-mail, obtained by the Spotlight Team.

The major constant through the three-year project has been Kirkpatrick himself, who rose from lowly story analyst to become the top movie executive at one of Hollywood’s leading institutions. The charismatic Kirkpatrick has been the face of the Plymouth studio from the start. But he makes little mention of his career’s steep decline since he was ousted from Paramount in 1991. Even some former business partners at Good News said they didn’t know Kirkpatrick had gone through bankruptcy. As far as they knew, Kirkpatrick was still a movie mogul who had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and wanted to devote his career to creating family-friendly entertainment. . . .

Kirkpatrick recalls his bankruptcy as “a very tough and humbling experience,’’ but he believes it contained the seeds of a better life, a chance to see “what’s important and valuable.’’ In the midst of bankruptcy, Kirkpatrick began working with a group of Christian businessmen who were eager to offer an antidote to the shallow values of Hollywood. Kirkpatrick, who said he once considered the seminary, told his new collaborators that he wanted to share their vision of spiritually uplifting books, movies, and even cellphone messages. “Spiritainment’’ they called it.

On March 21, 2006, Kirkpatrick was professionally reborn. He became one of six cofounders of Good News Holdings, and he began planning his comeback from an office building on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Soon enough he was setting his sights on Plymouth.

‘Spiritainment’

This much is true: Good News Holdings did not let Christian humility get in the way of self-promotion.

In March 2007, under Kirkpatrick’s guidance, the company bought a seven-page advertisement starting on the cover of Daily Variety magazine announcing that they were on a quest to feed “audiences’ hunger for a higher vision.’’ A serene-looking Kirkpatrick promised that his company would soon begin filming “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,’’ based on the best-selling book by Anne Rice, a born-again Christian who wrote “Interview with the Vampire.’’

Never mind that Good News had no way to pay for the $263,420 advertising package - those bills still haven’t been paid. Good News had less chance of finding the $40 million Kirkpatrick estimated that it would cost to film a movie about Christ on location in Israel. But the publicity of the Kirkpatrick-Rice alliance was valuable, boosting the company’s profile as it prepared to raise funds for its own movie studio in Massachusetts.

Rice withdrew from the “Christ the Lord’’ project a few weeks after the ads ran because, she said, Kirkpatrick repeatedly rebuffed her requests for payment and did not seem to be preparing for movie production. She fired off a scorching e-mail after he began writing her letters that, she felt, were an attempt to bully her.

“As I look back on it now, the entire enterprise on your part looks like a scheme,’’ Rice wrote in an e-mail in May 2007. “Did you have some idea that you could draw me deeper and deeper into the project and then make a demand on me for funds?’’

Kirkpatrick said that the split with Rice was painful, that he eventually attempted to pay her, but too late. Rice, reached by e-mail, declined to comment. . . .

Good News Holdings had at least one other movie project in the works back then, namely an adaptation of a teen horror novel called Dudleytown. At the time, they said the film and the book would come out simultaneously, but in the end, neither project seems to have been completed. The IMDb has no listing for Dudleytown, the movie's official website is gone, and the Amazon.com page for the book says it was supposed to come out in July 2008, but instead of ordering the book, you can only "Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available."

Canadian box-office stats -- November 15

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Law Abiding Citizen -- CDN $8,580,000 -- N.AM $67,326,000 -- 12.7%
The Men Who Stare at Goats -- CDN $2,440,000 -- N.AM $23,376,000 -- 10.4%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $10,150,000 -- N.AM $102,133,000 -- 9.9%
Pirate Radio -- CDN $274,049 -- N.AM $2,869,000 -- 9.6%
Disney's A Christmas Carol -- CDN $5,950,000 -- N.AM $63,289,000 -- 9.4%
Michael Jackson's This Is It -- CDN $6,370,000 -- N.AM $68,211,000 -- 9.3%
2012 -- CDN $5,460,000 -- N.AM $65,000,000 -- 8.4%
The Box -- CDN $944,184 -- N.AM $13,206,000 -- 7.1%
The Fourth Kind -- CDN $1,180,000 -- N.AM $20,588,000 -- 5.7%
Paranormal Activity -- CDN $5,940,000 -- N.AM $103,847,000 -- 5.7%

A couple of discrepancies: Pirate Radio was #9 on the Canadian chart (it was #11 in North America as a whole), while Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire was #4 on the North American chart (it was nowhere in the Canadian Top 20).

Looking down from the heavens, at the heavens.

I finally caught up with the bonus features on the Blu-Ray editions of the last few Star Trek movies this week, and one sentence kind of jumped out at me. It comes courtesy of Michael Fincke, an astronaut who appears on the Star Trek: First Contact (1996) disc via the featurette 'Greetings from the International Space Station':

I'd really love to be in heaven someday, looking down to see my great-great-grandchildren living on Mars and going to other star systems, and using some kind of faster-than-light drive.

In the popular imagination (briefly satirized a couple months ago in The Invention of Lying), "heaven" is generally thought of as somewhere "up in the sky", past the clouds but perhaps not as far as outer space. And even after you accept the fact that the Earth is a sphere, it is still possible to think of people "looking down" at us from up there even though they couldn't possibly have the entire planet in view; like satellites, they can always move to another point in their orbit.

But of course, the universe doesn't stop at the edge of our planet's atmosphere; the world as a whole is much bigger than that. So anyone observing the activity between planets, to say nothing of different star systems, would have to be looking at us from much, much further back -- especially if they were doing so from a vantage point outside this universe altogether. And I can't help thinking that we'd look pretty small to them, from there.

I know, I know, I'm being much too literalistic here. But that's part of the fun of encountering old idioms in new contexts.

Who's the movie font now, see?

Two years ago, I linked to a video (and a now-defunct website) which put forth the notion that too many movies were using the Trajan font in their posters and credit sequences. Now, Adrian Curry at The Auteurs says a number of posters produced over the past few years have begun to rely upon the supposedly-neutral Helvetica font, instead; this trend began, he says, with the posters for Hard Candy (2005) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Canadian box-office stats -- November 8

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Law Abiding Citizen -- CDN $7,510,000 -- N.AM $60,704,335 -- 12.4%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $9,470,000 -- N.AM $95,680,555 -- 9.9%
Astro Boy -- CDN $1,490,000 -- N.AM $15,110,804 -- 9.9%
The Men Who Stare at Goats -- CDN $1,180,000 -- N.AM $12,706,654 -- 9.3%
Michael Jackson's This Is It -- CDN $5,170,000 -- N.AM $57,013,286 -- 9.1%
Disney's A Christmas Carol -- CDN $2,380,000 -- N.AM $30,051,075 -- 7.9%
Where the Wild Things Are -- CDN $4,560,000 -- N.AM $69,220,584 -- 6.6%
The Box -- CDN $483,055 -- N.AM $7,571,417 -- 6.4%
Paranormal Activity -- CDN $4,980,000 -- N.AM $97,108,475 -- 5.1%
The Fourth Kind -- CDN $577,341 -- N.AM $12,231,160 -- 4.7%

Canadian box-office stats -- November 1

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Zombieland -- CDN $8,530,000 -- N.AM $71,181,556 -- 12.0%
Law Abiding Citizen -- CDN $6,150,000 -- N.AM $51,485,280 -- 11.9%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $12,700,000 -- N.AM $118,604,078 -- 10.7%
Astro Boy -- CDN $1,120,000 -- N.AM $11,316,418 -- 9.9%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $8,580,000 -- N.AM $87,026,280 -- 9.9%
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant -- CDN $897,829 -- N.AM $10,809,975 -- 8.3%
Michael Jackson's This Is It -- CDN $2,840,000 -- N.AM $34,442,926 -- 8.2%
Saw VI -- CDN $1,730,000 -- N.AM $22,534,749 -- 7.7%
Where the Wild Things Are -- CDN $4,030,000 -- N.AM $62,650,379 -- 6.4%
Paranormal Activity -- CDN $3,460,000 -- N.AM $84,627,372 -- 4.1%

A couple of discrepancies: Zombieland and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs were #8 and #9 on the Canadian chart, respectively (they were #12 and #11 on the North American chart), while The Stepfather and Amelia were #8 and #10 on the North American chart, respectively (they were #11 and #12 in Canada).

Star Trek -- the deleted Klingon scene!

Bits of this scene were included in the trailers for last summer's Star Trek reboot, but the scene itself was ultimately cut from the film. Star Trek comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray November 17.

Canadian box-office stats -- October 25

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Zombieland -- CDN $8,020,000 -- N.AM $67,308,000 -- 11.9%
Law Abiding Citizen -- CDN $4,530,000 -- N.AM $40,318,000 -- 11.2%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $12,280,000 -- N.AM $115,204,000 -- 10.7%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $7,600,000 -- N.AM $78,213,000 -- 9.7%
Astro Boy -- CDN $676,718 -- N.AM $7,017,000 -- 9.6%
The Stepfather -- CDN $1,780,000 -- N.AM $20,352,000 -- 8.7%
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant -- CDN $512,316 -- N.AM $6,348,000 -- 8.1%
Where the Wild Things Are -- CDN $3,310,000 -- N.AM $53,960,000 -- 6.1%
Saw VI -- CDN $899,189 -- N.AM $14,800,000 -- 6.1%
Paranormal Activity -- CDN $1,730,000 -- N.AM $62,477,000 -- 2.8%

Noah's Ark cartoons -- an update

This news is about a month old now, but better late than never.

Variety reports that Rising India -- which, despite its name, is based in the United States, apparently -- is teaming up with Unified Pictures to produce and distribute their animated version of Noah's Ark, the development of which was first announced two years ago.

Rising India is contributing $40 million to the movie's overall budget, and the actual making of the movie will take place in Los Angeles and Singapore. The companies hope to have the movie ready for a theatrical release in the fall of 2011.

This is but one of several cartoons about Noah's Ark -- whether literal or quasi-allegorical -- that are in various stages of development or production right now. Other such films that I have noted here include:

1. Noah's Ark: The New Beginning -- Promenade Pictures
   
2. Rock the Boat -- Gaumont
   
3. Not the End of the World -- Illuminated Films
   
4. Aardvark Art's Ark -- Warner Brothers

At least two Noah-themed cartoons have been released overseas as well, in the last few years, though as far as I know they have not yet come to North America, except for the occasional special screening:

1. El Arca -- Patagonik Film Group
   
2. The Missing Lynx -- Kandor Graphics

And then there are the seemingly defunct projects that were once being developed by Bill Cosby and Walden Media -- to say nothing of recent and proposed live-action efforts like Sold Out!, Darren Aronofsky's Noah and Evan Almighty (2007).

Luxo Jr. is in deep, deep trouble.

First the Pixar mascot finds himself at the centre of a lawsuit over Disney's unauthorized use of the Luxo brand in its merchandising. And now this. It's a sad, sad day.

For the price of a regular movie ticket, you too can be a producer!

Three years ago, Bruce Marchiano -- who played Jesus in two Visual Bible productions in the early '90s and will apparently do so again in the animated film The Lion of Judah -- announced that he hoped to finance a new word-for-word adaptation of the Gospel of John by persuading 250,000 people to donate $100 each to the project.

Now, he's hoping for 4.5 million people to donate $10 each by March 2010, and he hopes to have the film -- which currently goes by the title Jesus ... No Greater Love -- ready for audiences by May 2011. The video below makes the pitch. Make of it what you will.

Canadian box-office stats -- October 18

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

The Invention of Lying -- CDN $1,970,000 -- N.AM $15,497,164 -- 12.7%
Zombieland -- CDN $7,100,000 -- N.AM $60,640,317 -- 11.7%
Surrogates -- CDN $3,870,000 -- N.AM $36,327,650 -- 10.7%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $11,490,000 -- N.AM $108,201,645 -- 10.6%
Law Abiding Citizen -- CDN $2,030,000 -- N.AM $21,039,502 -- 9.6%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $5,920,000 -- N.AM $62,617,735 -- 9.5%
The Stepfather -- CDN $957,737 -- N.AM $11,581,586 -- 8.3%
Toy Story + Toy Story 2 in 3D -- CDN $2,120,000 -- N.AM $28,554,678 -- 7.4%
Where the Wild Things Are -- CDN $1,670,000 -- N.AM $32,695,407 -- 5.1%
Paranormal Activity -- CDN $473,434 -- N.AM $33,171,743 -- 1.4%

Moses gets an action-movie upgrade

Variety reports that 20th Century Fox is developing a new movie about Moses. While there have been numerous cartoons and TV movies about Moses over the last few decades, this will presumably be the first major live-action version of the story produced for the big screen since Cecil B. DeMille's second version of The Ten Commandments (1956).

Like every other ancient epic being made these days, the studio plans to pattern this film after Braveheart (1995) and 300 (2006), and that could pose a challenge to the filmmakers, given that most versions of this story have focused on the divinely ordained miracles -- the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the giving of the Law -- and have never really had any hand-to-hand combat.

However, the studio plans to incorporate non-biblical traditions about Moses into the storyline -- such as his conquest of Ethiopia, as reported by Josephus, perhaps? -- and the Bible does depict Moses and the Israelites getting into skirmishes with the Amalekites and with Og the gigantic king of Bashan, etc., so there is certainly material to work with, there.

In fact, the battle with the Amalekites takes place between the crossing of the Red Sea and the receiving of the Law at Mount Sinai, and I can remember discovering this when I was a kid and being a bit disappointed that DeMille's film had skipped over that episode. So in principle, I would not only have no objection to a battle scene or two in a life-of-Moses movie, but would actually kind of welcome it. (I'm not so keen on the more genocidal aspects of the Israelites' military campaign, though, admittedly.)

The script for the new film will be written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, who recently wrote a new version of Moby Dick for Timur Bekmambetov, the director of Wanted (2008) and Night Watch (2004); they also wrote the college comedy Accepted (2006).

Hmmm... the story of Moses and teen comedy... now where have I seen these two things juxtaposed before?

Did Mel himself come up with that last line?

Either way, it's interesting, given that it was widely reported, back when The Passion of the Christ (2004) came out, that Mel Gibson himself had provided the hand of the Roman soldier for the close-up in which Jesus is about to be nailed to the cross -- and that this cameo, of sorts, had religious significance for him.



The Edge of Darkness -- Mel Gibson's first major acting gig since M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) -- opens January 29.

VIFF 2009 -- movie-going schedule

I've been so swamped with work, family matters and actual movie-going that I haven't had a chance yet to post my tentative Vancouver International Film Festival movie-going schedule -- but now that it's Thanksgiving and I'm home with a cold, I might as well get around to it. As with the schedules I posted in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, this list is highly flexible and will be revised continually as the festival proceeds. Any films that I do not end up seeing will be deleted from this list. Any articles I write shall be linked to from here. And as I blog the films that I see, I shall link to those posts from the titles listed here.

ARTICLES

'Preview: Vancouver film festival touches on spiritual, religious themes,' BC Christian News, Oct 2009 -- my monthly film column highlights Camino, Letters to Father Jacob, My Year without Sex, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam and Defamation.

SCHEDULE -- LAST UPDATED OCT 16, 12:55AM.

FILMS I SAW IN ADVANCE:

Double Take (dir. Johan Grimonprez; Belgium, 80 min.)
In Search of Beethoven (dir. Phil Grabsky; UK, 138 min.)

THU OCT 1
13:30 -- GR7 -- Bluebeard (dir. Catherine Breillat; France, 78 min.)
16:00 -- PAC -- Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (dir. Manoel de Oliveira; Portugal, 63 min.)
21:45 -- GR7 -- Antichrist (dir. Lars von Trier; Denmark, 109 min.)

FRI OCT 2
12:45 -- GR7 -- A Shine of Rainbows (dir. Vic Sarin; Canada/Ireland, 100 min.)
18:45 -- GR7 -- Excited (dir. Bruce Sweeney; Canada, 85 min.)
21:30 -- GR7 -- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (dir. Terry Gilliam; Canada/UK, 122 min.)

SAT OCT 3
18:45 -- PAC -- Empire State Building Murders (dir. William Karel; France, 73 min.)

SUN OCT 4
21:15 -- GR1 -- Zooey and Adam (dir. Sean Garrity; Canada, 83 min.)

MON OCT 5
15:00 -- GR3 -- Shameless (dir. Jan Hrebejk; Czech Republic, 88 min.)

TUE OCT 6
14:00 -- GR1 -- It's Not Anime (dir. misc.; misc., 101 min.)
16:15 -- GR7 -- It Might Get Loud (dir. Davis Guggenheim; USA, 97 min.)

WED OCT 7
11:00 -- GR7 -- The Young Victoria (dir. Jean Marc Vallée; Canada/UK, 100 min.)
13:30 -- GR7 -- Leslie, My Name Is Evil (dir. Reg Harkema; Canada, xx min.)

THU OCT 8
Busy with work and family.

FRI OCT 9
16:15 -- GR7 -- Cole (dir. Carl Bessai; 100 min.)
19:00 -- GR7 -- Amreeka (dir. Cherien Dabis; Canada/Kuwait/USA, 97 min.)
21:30 -- GR7 -- Tetro (dir. Francis Ford Coppola; USA, 127 min.)

SAT OCT 10
16:00 -- GR7 -- My Year without Sex (dir. Sarah Watt; Australia, 96 min.)
18:45 -- GR7 -- A Prophet (dir. Jacques Audiard; France, 150 min.)

SUN OCT 11
19:00 -- RID -- Letters to Father Jacob (dir. Klaus Härö; Finland, 75 min.)
21:00 -- RID -- The Eclipse (dir. Conor McPherson; Ireland, 88 min.)

MON OCT 12
Busy with work and family.

TUE OCT 13
13:30 -- GR7 -- Prom Night in Mississippi (dir. Paul Saltzman; Canada, 90 min.)
16:00 -- GR7 -- Broken Embraces (dir. Pedro Almodóvar; Spain, 127 min.)
19:00 -- GR7 -- Chloe (dir. Atom Egoyan; Canada/France, 99 min.)
21:30 -- GR7 -- The Damned United (dir. Tom Hooper; UK, 98 min.)

WED OCT 14
Busy with work and family.

THU OCT 15
19:15 -- GR1 -- I Remember (dir. André Forcier; Canada, 89 min.)
21:30 -- GR7 -- Ninja Assassin (dir. James McTeigue; USA, 99 min.)

FRI OCT 16
22:15 -- GR7 -- Queen to Play (dir. Caroline Bottaro; France, 101 min.)

Canadian box-office stats -- October 11

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day -- CDN $2,650,000 -- N.AM $2,650,000 -- 100%
The Invention of Lying -- CDN $1,500,000 -- N.AM $12,327,000 -- 12.2%
Zombieland -- CDN $5,240,000 -- N.AM $47,801,000 -- 10.9%
Surrogates -- CDN $3,390,000 -- N.AM $32,573,000 -- 10.4%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $9,990,000 -- N.AM $96,251,000 -- 10.4%
Fame -- CDN $2,070,000 -- N.AM $20,042,000 -- 10.3%
Whip It -- CDN $881,394 -- N.AM $8,766,000 -- 10.1%
Capitalism: A Love Story -- CDN $884,821 -- N.AM $9,095,000 -- 9.7%
Couples Retreat -- CDN $2,720,000 -- N.AM $35,340,000 -- 7.7%
Toy Story + Toy Story 2 in 3D -- CDN $1,610,000 -- N.AM $22,676,000 -- 7.1%

A couple of discrepancies: Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day was #10 on the Canadian chart (it wasn't on the North American chart at all, though if it were, it would be #25), while Paranormal Activity was #5 on the North American chart (it was #18 in Canada).

Canadian box-office stats -- October 4

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day -- CDN $2,260,000 -- N.AM $2,260,000 -- 100%
The Invention of Lying -- CDN $786,389 -- N.AM $7,027,472 -- 11.2%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $8,430,000 -- N.AM $81,501,320 -- 10.3%
Fame -- CDN $1,690,000 -- N.AM $16,507,188 -- 10.2%
Surrogates -- CDN $2,640,000 -- N.AM $26,284,134 -- 10.0%
Zombieland -- CDN $2,470,000 -- N.AM $24,733,155 -- 10.0%
The Informant! -- CDN $2,510,000 -- N.AM $26,469,331 -- 9.5%
Whip It -- CDN $436,480 -- N.AM $4,650,812 -- 9.4%
Capitalism: A Love Story -- CDN $443,965 -- N.AM $4,849,067 -- 9.2%
Toy Story + Toy Story 2 in 3D -- CDN $848,726 -- N.AM $12,491,789 -- 6.8%

A couple of discrepancies: Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day was #7 on the Canadian chart (it wasn't on the North American chart at all, though if it were, it would be #23), while Love Happens was #10 on the North American chart (it was #11 in Canada).

Family-friendly horror movies?

Will family-friendly horror movies take the place of slasher films and the like? Variety magazine seems to think that that is a possibility -- and at least one of the filmmakers leading the charge just happens to be a Christian.

The trade paper reports that Scott Derrickson, who has discussed his faith and filmmaking with CT Movies a couple of times, has signed on to direct a remake of the Danish grade-school thriller The Substitute for Spooky Pictures, a brand-new outfit set up by Sam Raimi and Columbia Pictures.

Derrickson has plenty of experience as a maker of horror movies for grown-ups -- among other things, he directed the R-rated Hellraiser: Inferno and the PG-13 The Exorcism of Emily Rose (which is also available on DVD in an "unrated" edition) -- but this new venture, according to Variety, is aimed at "family audiences".

The Substitute itself will concern "a terrified sixth-grade class as the students race to reveal to their parents that their new substitute teacher is an evil alien being."

Variety notes that Spooky Pictures is not the first family-oriented scary-movie brand to be created in recent months. Three weeks ago, the Disney studio announced that it had struck a deal with horror maestro Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, etc.) to create 'Disney Double Dare You', a new production label that will make "animated films full of chills and thrills for audiences of all ages".

Variety writer Marc Graser writes that the rise of these labels "signals the kind of thrillers Hollywood may soon be unspooling at the megaplex," and speculates: "Should the labels find an audience, the shift away from slasher fare and the like, often referred to as 'gore porn,' is likely."

Derrickson, for his part, has a number of other projects in development at the moment, including adaptations of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost and Dan Simmons's Hugo-winning sci-fi novel Hyperion Cantos; it remains to be seen which of these movies will get the green light first. His last film was the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring Keanu Reeves.

Canadian box-office stats -- September 27

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day -- CDN $1,320,000 -- N.AM $1,320,000 -- 100%
Inglourious Basterds -- CDN $14,310,000 -- N.AM $114,420,733 -- 12.5%
Jennifer's Body -- CDN $1,350,000 -- N.AM $12,470,373 -- 10.8%
Love Happens -- CDN $1,470,000 -- N.AM $14,708,710 -- 10.0%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $6,040,000 -- N.AM $60,474,555 -- 10.0%
9 -- CDN $2,610,000 -- N.AM $27,227,811 -- 9.6%
The Informant! -- CDN $1,920,000 -- N.AM $20,700,946 -- 9.3%
Fame -- CDN $926,192 -- N.AM $10,011,682 -- 9.3%
Surrogates -- CDN $1,330,000 -- N.AM $14,902,692 -- 8.9%
Pandorum -- CDN $295,362 -- N.AM $4,424,126 -- 6.7%

A couple of discrepancies: Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day was #3 on the Canadian chart (it wasn't on the North American chart at all, though if it were, it would be #13), while Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself was #5 on the North American chart (it was nowhere in the Canadian Top 20).

Creation gets an American distributor after all.

A few days ago, Brandon mentioned that the producers of Creation -- one of a few movies about Charles Darwin that have been produced this year in honour of Darwin's 200th birthday -- were claiming it had been difficult to find an American distributor for their film because evolutionary theory is "still a really hot potato in America."

Now, the Hollywood Reporter says an American distributor has been found for the film after all -- and it is Newmarket Films, the same distributor that handled Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ nearly six years ago. If anyone in this business would know how to handle a "really hot potato", it would seem to be them.

Newmarket is reportedly thinking of releasing the film in December. (If they really want to stir up some controversy, they could try releasing it Christmas Day.)

Meanwhile, the film opens in its native Britain tomorrow, and in conjunction with that release, the Christian outreach organization Damaris has posted some movie-related resources at their website "to help churches, schools and community groups make the most of this film."

Canadian box-office stats -- September 20

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

District 9 -- CDN $14,790,000 -- N.AM $111,622,000 -- 13.3%
Inglourious Basterds -- CDN $13,660,000 -- N.AM $109,901,000 -- 12.4%
Whiteout -- CDN $954,825 -- N.AM $8,483,000 -- 11.3%
The Final Destination -- CDN $6,540,000 -- N.AM $62,392,000 -- 10.5%
Jennifer's Body -- CDN $711,942 -- N.AM $6,800,000 -- 10.5%
All About Steve -- CDN $2,780,000 -- N.AM $26,678,000 -- 10.4%
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs -- CDN $2,860,000 -- N.AM $30,100,000 -- 9.5%
9 -- CDN $2,120,000 -- N.AM $22,794,000 -- 9.3%
The Informant! -- CDN $942,663 -- N.AM $10,545,000 -- 8.9%
Love Happens -- CDN $743,411 -- N.AM $8,456,000 -- 8.8%

A couple of discrepancies: District 9 and Whiteout were #8 and #10 on the Canadian chart, respectively (they were #13 and #11 in North America as a whole), while Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself and Sorority Row were #3 and #9 on the North American chart, respectively (they were #15 and #11 in Canada).

Canadian box-office stats -- September 13

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.

District 9 -- CDN $14,240,000 -- N.AM $108,456,233 -- 13.1%
Inglourious Basterds -- CDN $12,670,000 -- N.AM $103,903,469 -- 12.2%
The Time Traveler's Wife -- CDN $7,190,000 -- N.AM $59,035,745 -- 12.2%
Gamer -- CDN $1,670,000 -- N.AM $16,261,653 -- 10.3%
The Final Destination -- CDN $5,920,000 -- N.AM $58,280,235 -- 10.2%
Whiteout -- CDN $492,037 -- N.AM $4,915,104 -- 10.0%
All About Steve -- CDN $2,120,000 -- N.AM $21,650,628 -- 9.8%
Julie & Julia -- CDN $7,560,000 -- N.AM $85,216,398 -- 8.9%
9 -- CDN $1,270,000 -- N.AM $15,160,926 -- 8.4%
Sorority Row -- CDN $362,851 -- N.AM $5,059,802 -- 7.2%

A couple of discrepancies: The Time Traveler's Wife was #9 on the Canadian chart (it was #12 in North America as a whole), while Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself was #1 on the North American chart (it was #13 in Canada).