Contributed greatly by the success of Spider-Man 3, Hollywood has managed to break Summer 2004’s $4.009 billion record by bringing in an estimated $4.11 billion in domestic ticket sells.
Despite a competive summer which only brought three films to hold back-to-back weekend titles (Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Superbad), Hollywood managed to greatly increase its box office take over the last few years.
Spider-Man 3 was the top grossing film of the summer, bringing in $336.5 million from US theaters and a worldwide haul of $885.4 million. Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix round out the top five.
Spider-Man 3 has been honored with three National Movie Awards nominations including Best Family Film, Best Performance by a Male (Tobey Maguire) and Best Performance by a Female (Kirsten Dunst).
This is the first year of the awards, which are being produced by UK television network ITV. The network had tremendous success with their National Television Awards which honors the best in UK television.
Viewers can vote for their favorite films at the National Movie Awards official website. The awards will be given out on September 28th at London’s Royal Festival Hall and will be aired the following evening on ITV1.
David Koepp, screenwriter of the original Spider-Man and next summer’s Indiana Jones 4 had reportedly been approached to write the screenplay for Spider-Man 4, but when Sam Raimi announced last month that he had met with executives at Sony and they were in the process of finding a writer, questions of Koepp’s attachment to the project surfaced.
IGN has confirmed that Koepp is in fact not involved with the fourth installment of the popular franchise, citing scheduling conflicts. Koepp is currently in pre-production on the film Ghost Town starring Greg Kinnear, Ricky Gervais and T?a Leoni.
Spider-Man creator Stan Lee will be the guest on Voice of America’s Talk to America on Wednesday, August 15th. The first fifteen people to submit questions for Mr. Lee will receive an autographed comic book. Head over to VOA for more info.
Spider-Man 3, the biggest movie of the year, will hit store shelves on October 30th. In addition to being released on standard DVD, the film will also be available on Blu-Ray (Sony’s high-definition video format) as well as PSP (also Sony).
The Blu-Ray and Special Edition DVD versions will feature over six hours of bonus material including a behind-the-scenes look at the stunts for the film, outtakes, audio commentary and a video for Snow Patrol’s “Signal Fire” which was featured on the soundtrack.
Three-packs of all the films will also be available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Despite comments that suggest director Sam Raimi currently has no plans to direct Spider-Man 4, Raimi recently told Empire magazine that Sony is looking for a writer to pen the script. “I want to help contribute to the production,” said Raimi. “I don’t know if I’ll just be a producer on it, but if I can work with the writer in such a way so that directing would be right for me, I don’t know. We’ve had our first meeting on Spider-Man 4 and we’re looking for the writer.”
Announcements made earlier in the year suggested that writer David Koepp, who wrote the script for the first Spider-Man film, would be back for the fourth installment. No news yet if Koepp is still involved in any capacity or if any script has been submitted.
During a press conference at last week’s Comic-Con show in San Diego for the film 30 Days of Night, director Sam Raimi told reporters that he currently has no plans to direct any feature films, including Spider-Man 4. Not to say the fourth film in the franchise is not in the future for Raimi. The Hollywood Reporter previously announced that Sam Raimi has planned to meet with producer Laura Ziskin and that there would be a Spider-Man 4 at some time in the future. Ziskin has stated that she would like “everybody to be back.”
At an appearance at the Los Angeles Film Festival, director Sam Raimi spoke candidly about the future of the Spider-Man franchise and his role in it. “Sony Pictures is going to be making many more Spider-Man pictures,” said Raimi. “I just don’t know what [my] future holds yet.”
One major factor in his decision to helm a fourth Spider-Man would be finding the right story. “If I can’t find the right story that would work for me and that I could tell really well, I would like someone else to tell that story,” explained Raimi. ”But if it’s a great story and Sony will bring me back to the screen, I would love to.”
Whether or not Sony will offer Raimi to direct a fourth film is yet to be seen. Raimi had previously stated that he would only direct a fourth film if stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst returned as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson. “It would be really hard for me to make a movie without Tobey and Kirsten playing the two leads,” said Raimi. ”I would seriously think about James [Franco] too, but he bit the dust in this last one.” The question remains if Sony will want to pay to have their lead actors return for a fourth film or if they prefer to start fresh with a new cast and possibly new director.
“I would still hope that Sony would offer it to me [to direct] first,” Raimi explained. ”But that is not my place to say; it would be more about if Sony decided not to go with me. If not, it would be really up to them to come to a solution [for me to still be involved as a producer].”
And if Sony does decide to bring Raimi back for a fourth film, what villains would the director like to see in the film? “I would love to see Electro, Vulture, maybe the Sinister Six as a team,” he said. And what of Dylan Baker, the actor who has portrays Dr. Curt Conners, Peter Parker’s professor who eventually becomes Lizard? “I love Dylan Baker as a person, and I really like the character he is developing,” expained Raimi. “The Lizard is probably one of my favorite characters. But [Spider-Man 4] will probably have to start with the central journey of the main character to arrive at the proper villain.”
The Reno Gazette-Journal has named Spider-Man 3 the second best movie of the year (thus far) behind Zodiac. “Spider-Man 3 has as many exciting fight sequences as the previous films and even more emotional resonance,” writes Forrest Hartman.
Check out the entire list here.
Hasbro has announced they will release a 6-inch action figure of Spider-Man creator Stan Lee as part of its Marvel Legends line. “We feel it’s long overdue that Stan Lee be immortalized as an action figure, much like the dozens of marvelous characters that he has created for years and years,” said Hasbro’s vice president of marketing Eric Nyman. “And it couldn’t be more fitting than to create him as a `Marvel Legends’ figure.” The limited-edition figure, which depicts a modern day Lee in khaki pants, blue windbreaker, glasses and signature gray hair will retail for $14.99 and debut next month at Comic-Con in San Diego.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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