Twilight News: Weitz to direct ‘New Moon’

According to Entertainment Weekly’s Hollywood Insider, Summit Entertainment is about to hire Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass) to direct the Twilight sequel, New Moon.  It was known that the studio was in hurry-up mode to get the director in Vancouver by December 15 if they wanted to keep to their schedule to start shooting in mid-March.  Well, looks like they’re on their way to start pre-production with this announcement.

For those who aren’t familiar with Chris Weitz, he’s best known for the raunchy teen-comedy American Pie and the acclaimed Hugh Grant film About a Boy.  He also tackled adapting Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, though while American Pie made the big bucks and About a Boy gave him an Oscar nomination, The Golden Compass didn’t go very well.  One way to look at Weitz’ accomplishment is that he’s very diverse and therefore experienced in almost any genre.  Unfortunately, The Golden Compass was his major dud and it was a big budget, fantasy film based on a best selling book series, His Dark Materials.

Can he bounce back and direct New Moon to glory?  Or is he just swimming in familiar water that’ll result in failure?  Only time will tell.  One thing’s for sure, he’ll be scrutinized by the Twilight faithful every step of the way.

Box Office Predictions (Dec. 12-14)

Keanu Reeves will be invading your movie theater, including IMAX, this weekend as he stars in the sci-fi remake, The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Also opening this weekend are the smaller films like Nothing Like the Holiday and Delgo.

The Day the Earth Stood Still will surely top the box office this weekend as the only major wide release.  It should appeal to anyone who likes action, sci-fi, or disaster films… and also whoever is familiar with the original and is wondering how newer technology can boost the visuals of this special effects-heavy end of the world flick.  That being said, it should gross a hefty sum… plus, everyone loves watching movies in IMAX no matter what movie it is.

Nothing Like the Holidays is trying to cash in like Four Christmases during the holiday season.  With its mediocre cast (John Leguizamo, Freddy Rodriguez, Alfred Molina, Debra Messing) don’t expect it to be the next Christmas hit.  Only being released in less than 2,000 theaters, this film might crack the Top 5, but not the Top 3.

Delgo is an animated feature about… well who cares?  No one knows about this movie, right?  I didn’t even know this movie was coming out before reading up on it.  Don’t expect anything from this film.

The Golden Globes nominations were just released and therefore, more limited releases on Oscar potentials.  This weekend, Grand Torino, Doubt, The Reader and Che are out (though the total numbers of screens for these three films combined is 31).  Unless you live in LA or NYC, you’ll probably have to wait for these films to expand.

Here are our predictions…

My Predictions:

1.  The Day the Earth Stood Still – $50 million
2.  Four Christmases – $12 million
3.  Twilight – $7 million
4.  Bolt – $6 million
5.  Nothing Like the Holidays – $6 million

Dan’s Predictions:

1.  The Day the Earth Stood Still – $45 million
2.  Four Christmases – $10 million
3.  Twilight – $8 million
4.  Bolt – $6 million
5.  Nothing Like the Holidays – $5 million

Phil’s Predictions:

1.  The Day the Earth Stood Still – $25 million
2.  Nothing Like the Holidays – $15 million
3.  Four Christmases – $8 million
4.  Twilight – $6 million
5.  Delgo – $6 million

Wild Phil has some bold predictions for this weekend, going against Dan’s and my opinion that The Day the Earth Stayed Still will be a nationwide hit and that Nothing Like the Holidays will barely make the Top 5.

Check back on Monday to see the results.