Considering the competition it was facing, it isn’t all that surprising that Transformers: Dark of the Moon won another weekend at the box office.
Falling 52% from it’s opening weekend, the third Transformers film brought in another $47 million and is actually doing quite well, and is holding onto it’s audience better than the second film did.
Horrible Bosses came in second with an estimated $28.1 million, the best opening ever for a dark comedy. Compared to other comedies this summer it fell into about the middle of the pack financially, but with a $35 million dollar budget, it needs to hit a minimum of $70 million total, and it may have a tough time getting there.
Opening in third was Kevin James’ Zookeeper with $21 million. How does this guy keep getting work, and why do people go and see it? He seems like a likable guy in interviews, but he’s just not that funny with scripted material.
Cars 2 settled somewhat with a 42 percent drop to $15.2 million for the weekend, but it is now trailing behind the first film on a day-by-day count.
Bad Teacher fell 38 percent to $9 million with a new total gross of $72.8 million off of a $20 million budget. Cheap comedies work, folks.
Larry Crowne fell 52% to $6.3 million and has about no hope of breaking even now. Perhaps the days of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts as box office draws has come to a close?
And just because it’s become like a sport now, Green Lantern was in ninth place with $3.1 million. It’s now at $109.7 million for a total domestic gross on a $200 million budget. This film is going to go down in history as an object lesson in how to blow a film that should have been a homerun.
As I’ve been telling all of you for the past few weeks, I am finally making the change from being primarily a Windows user to a Mac user. While the process has been fairly painless, there has been a hiccup here or there, and this week I hit a doozy.
On Monday the 4th, I finally moved the Windows monitor out of the primary desk position and moved the iMac over. That day being a holiday seemed to make sense as it would allow me a day to get comfortable with it before starting a full work day. The first thing I noticed is while a 27-inch monitor is great to look at, it’s a heck of a lot of real estate to transverse with a mouse. So, using a combination of the Magic Trackpad and the Microsoft mouse I planned to use, I’ve figured ut a pretty good system for getting around the screen. (Trackpad for distance and simple tasks, mouse for tasks that require accuracy.) I don’t blame the Mac OS for this issue, it’s just part of dealing with a screen of this size.
Tuesday started off well with no issues, and I was able to do all of my usual work without any issues. (Note to Adobe: Why in the world does Photoshop hide the desktop on Windows, but it doesn’t on the Mac? I constantly click out of the program by accident.) However, towards the end of the day I was on a conference call where I needed to send someone a document, and I couldn’t. The Mac was totally locked up. I sent it from another computer and started trying to figure out the issue after the call. I could get the Force Quit window to open, but I couldn’t click on anything with either the mouse or the Trackpad.
I called AppleCare and they ran me through a bunch of different things to try. We would reboot, it would work … then lockup. We tried other things with the same result. They wanted me to go to an Apple Store, but seeing as the closest is 180 miles away, that wasn’t happening. They wondered if was my third-party apps, but I told them the exact same apps run on the MacBook Air I use for work/travel, and it has never had an issue. They finally told me to reinstall the operating system, which, as a 25 year PC user, struck fear in my heart, but with the Mac OS it doesn’t mean reinstalling anything. Huzzah! I did it, the system ran, I shut down and went home for the night.
Tuesday morning I decide to come in early in case anything was wrong again. Yep, it was locking up again. Back to AppleCare I went. This guy ran me through a bunch of stuff, issues persisted and I was beginning to think I was going to switch back to my Windows machine. Finally we got it to boot without issues and we ended the call.
Now, here’s where all my computer experience comes in. I decided to reboot again, and … lockdown. Back to the phone I went.
This time I got an older sounding gentleman, and he read over the history of the case, and he goes, “What device are you using for a mouse?” I told him the Microsoft mouse and the Magic Trackpad. He told me to unplug the mouse and turn off the Trackpad. And at that point I mention that if needed, I still had the Magic Mouse laying on my desk if he wanted me to try that.
Him: “… are the other things off?”
Me: “Yes … and, whoa … the Magic Mouse is working, it’s no longer locked up.”
Him: “Pull the batteries from the Magic Mouse, plug your mouse back in and turn the Magic Trackpad on and then reboot.”
(After doing all that) Me: “It’s not locked up.”
Him: “Even though you weren’t using the Magic Mouse it was talking to the iMac and confusing it.”
After telling him everything the other two had me do, he just chuckled and said he believed in K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid). And I have to agree. I haven’t had one issue since he had me pull those batteries out.
Now, admittedly, I never told the other two about the Magic Mouse, but they also never asked me about my devices either. All told, tech support guy #3 took less than 5 minutes from start to end, and he did have the leg up of seeing what the other two had done, but my gut tells me he still would have taken only five minutes from start to end. There is certainly something to be said for age in situations like this.
Otherwise the week has gone swimmingly, although it is taking some getting used. For instance, changing where my thumb goes for Copy and Paste keyboard shortcuts is driving me batty. Command-C and Command-V are no where as physically comfortable as Control-C and Control-V on the PC. Everything else is pretty much a learning curve, but after a quarter century of working with Microsoft-powered computers, I think that is to be expected.
I know people are always looking for new ways to make revenue, but sometimes it reaches a level that just boggles the mind. And when it goes to some of these extreme levels, you have to wonder how effective it could even be. Do people really pay that much attention to advertising?
Case in point, some eagle-eyed viewer of a How I Met Your Mother rerun from 2007 spotted an ad for the new Kevin James movie Zookeeper that just came out this weekend. No, it didn’t run during the commercial slots, it was in the actual episode itself, digitally inserted there so as to just be residing in the background. The Consumerist posted comparison photos of the scene.
And now the original scene.
The original scene was taken from a DCD release of the show, and as you can see there was no book or magazine on the table behind the character.
Does this type of advertising even work? Did anyone see this rerun and immediately go, “Leaping lizards! I must now go see Zookeeper!”? I highly doubt it. Someone, somewhere, is selling advertisers a bill of goods, and I can’t believe anyone with even a modicum of sense would say, “Wow, I bet that would really work to get our product’s name out there.” I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed with the ad rep or the schmuck that fell for it.
In general I don’t find TV ads have even the remotest impact on me anymore. Even if I’m not zipping through them on my DVR, and I let them play naturally, I pay no attention to them. I know they are full of questionable claims and results that they will only live up to under the most perfect of conditions. And product placement in shows? Absolutely no impact on me. But digitally inserting magazine ads into a show in the background? How does that even begin to have any influence on anyone?
Somewhere, someone is getting a gold “Thank You” watch for coming up with this idea while another exec is getting busted down to the mailroom for buying it.
It’s episode #152 and Scattercast wants to run Hollywood.
The end of the Scattercast anniversary giveaway!
And then we move on to why I should run Hollywood … I would be awesome at it.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
8/7c NFL Kickoff Special 2011
8:30 p.m. Sunday Night Football
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
7 p.m. Football Night in America
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
10 p.m. Parenthood
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
10 p.m. Up All Night
10:30 p.m. Free Agents
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
8 p.m. The Sing-Off (two hours)
10 p.m. The Playboy Club
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
8 p.m. The Biggest Loser (two hours)
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
8 p.m. Up All Night (regular time period debut)
8:30 p.m. Free Agents (regular time period debut)
9 p.m. Harry’s Law
10 p.m. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
8 p.m. Community
8:30 p.m. Parks and Recreation
9 p.m. The Office
9:30 p.m. Whitney
10 p.m. Prime Suspect
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
9 p.m. Dateline NBC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21
8 p.m. Chuck
9 p.m. Grimm
10 p.m. Dateline NBC (regular time period debut)
Welcome if you’ve come here from hearing my advertisement on the Kevin Smith Smodcast Internet Radio (S.I.R.)! And if you aren’t visiting the site from the ad … welcome anyway!
Yes, it’s true, I took the opportunity to spend some dollars on an advertisement to do nothing but promote my site and podcast, and I feel it was money well spent on a “radio” network that I truly believe in. Feel free to call me a shameless self-promoter, I’ll wait.
… Got that out of your system? Good.
For those of you who are here for the first time, here are some helpful things for you to look around:
You can also have a look around the site and see all of the various things I write about, while the subject matter may seem random at times, the one thing you can always count on a least one post a day as I have maintained this record since March 12th, 2005.
If you have a moment, please leave a comment on this post or send me a Tweet to let me know if you came here due to the ad, and enjoy the rest of SMorning Show block!
While Transformers 3 was conquering the box office all over the world this weekend, history was being made quietly in the background. Despite the fact the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean met mixed reviews and income here in the United States, globally it has been tearing up the box office receipts. It is now the seventh biggest money maker ever, standing at $1.008 billion dollars. But the history doesn’t end there.
Disney currently holds the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh spots on the list; two of those films are from the Pirates series, and three of them star Johnny Depp.
Why do I think Mr. Depp is going to be cast in every Disney movie from now until his death?
The moral of the story is, while the American box office is still important, 76.8 percent of this film’s revenue came in from foreign markets. While pundits here have scoffed at this film, the foreign numbers alone make it worth making a fifth film in the series, and even if it had done $0 here, it would still be in the realm of being worthwhile to go again.
This is not an isolated case either. Kung-Fu Panda 2 has not done well domestically, but 70.7 percent of its worldwide total has come from foreign markets, and it now stands at $536.5 million. Once again, people have commented on its poor performance here, but globally it’s raking in a very healthy amount.
While the lion’s share of these hauls still comes from the U.S., perhaps it’s time to realize just how important the foreign markets are and pay them the respect they are due.
In a surprise to absolutely no one, Transformers: Dark of the Moon won the box office this weekend, and even set a record in the process.
Despite having its opening day moved around more times than anyone could count, the third Transformers movie won the weekend box office even with having been out a few days prior. For the three day weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), the film brought in $97.4 million. Add in the Monday numbers, it is estimated the film will have brought in $116.4 million. This puts it six percent behind the second film, but still a healthy take.
Also of no surprise, mixed reviews seem to have had no impact on the film’s performance.
Cars 2 had a bummer of a weekend, sliding 60 percent from it’s opening weekend to only ring up $26.2 million for the three days, and $32.1 million for the extended holiday. This puts it well down the list of Pixar success stories, but Cars has never been a big earner at the box office, but it does huge in merchandise.
Bad Teacher slid 54 percent to $14.5 million ($17.6 million four-day). It’s grossed $63 million thus far in 11 days, and considering its $20 million budget, it’s already a success story.
The new Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts film Larry Crowne bombed in a big way, opening at 2,973 locations, the production only brought in $13.1 million ($15.7 million four-day). It only had a $30 million budget, and with these mega-stars attached you would have thought it would have brought in larger numbers.
Rounding out the top 5 was Super 8 with $7.8/$9.5 for the three and four day totals.
Monte Carlo cane un sixth with an estimated $7.4 million ($8.8 million four-day). You mean that yet another movie about mistaken identities didn’t do well? I’m shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!
Where’s Green Lantern you ask? Oh, just sliding another 64 percent to come in seventh with $6.5/$8 million for the weekend. I’d laugh if my hopes hadn’t been so high for this disaster.
Next weekends is all comedies with Horrible Bosses and Zookeeper. The former has potential, the latter makes my brain hurt just watching the commercials.
A few years back Apple ran a promotion stating how it had never been easier to switch from a PC to a Mac. For the most part I would say this is a true statement. Unlike the old days, most of the programs you’re used to are easily found, or there is something similar you can run. Overall I am finding the experience of switching my primary computer from a PC to a Mac to be a painless and easy experience.
I’m a music junky and I have a collection of music that is far larger than any human should even contemplate having. On my PC I had my music files on an external drive, but my iTunes and podcasts ran off of my primary C drive. I was expecting some hiccups with this setup, but nothing that I couldn’t overcome. I had moved the collection between various PCs a few times, so I didn’t see why this should be that difficult as it was essentially an Apple product coming “home” if you will.
I started doing some research online and what I found was a mish-mash of haphazard ideas and workarounds. Seeing as I had paid for Apple Care, I gave them a call … for the first time ever an Apple employee gave me a less than satisfactory answer and actually suggested I call Microsoft to see if they had a tool for converting the files to the required Mac format.
Are you kidding me? You want people to switch to Mac, but you don’t have a simplified process for moving one of your flagship products? That ranks up there on the idiotic scale in my book.
So I ended up going to a bunch of forums and asking questions, and much to my surprise, nobody came up with a good answer.
While doing this research I came across an ad for a programs called CopyTrans TuneSwift. It was $15, but it promised to move your iTunes from a PC to a Mac with ease. At this point, with days of research under my belt, I figured I had nothing to lose. I made a backup of everything to another external hard drive just to be safe (which took nearly a full work day), ran the program (which took nearly a full work day) and then did the restore on the Mac … which took about 90 minutes.
End result? Everything is on the Mac and working without a hitch. Everything ended up on the main drive, which isn’t exactly what I wanted, but to be honest, at this point I just didn’t care any more: It all moved, it’s all working and I’m just happy.
Apple: Take note of this. You want people to switch to a Mac, you need to make it far, far easier to move iTunes. The process was silly, and the fact I had to spend $15 on a program to do it was just idiotic. Want an idea? Buy the rights to TuneSwift, because for whatever reason, they got the whole thing to work.
It seems like the season just ended, and already the networks are starting to put their Fall 2011 premiere dates out there. For whatever reason, NBC hasn’t stepped up yet with when their shows will debut, but the other four broadcast networks have. Get set for the week of Sept. 12th as all of the shows start kicking off then.
Monday, September 19
8:00-10:00 p.m. Dancing with the Stars
10:00-11:00 p.m. Castle
Tuesday, September 20
9:00-10:00 p.m. Dancing with the Stars the Results Show
10:00-11:00 p.m. Body of Proof
Wednesday, September 21
8:00-9:00 p.m. The Middle (special one-hour premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. Modern Family (special one-hour premiere)
10:00-11:00 p.m. Revenge
Sunday, September 25
7:00-9:00 p.m. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (special two-hour premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. Desperate Housewives
10:00-11:00 p.m. Pan Am
Wednesday, September 28
8:30-9:00 p.m. Suburgatory
9:30-10:00 p.m. Happy Endings
Thursday, September 29
10:00-11:00 p.m. Private Practice
Sunday, October 2
7:00-8:00 p.m. America’s Funniest Home Videos
Tuesday, October 11
8:00- 9:00 p.m. Last Man Standing (special one-hour premiere)
Tuesday, October 18
8:30-9:00 p.m. Man Up!
Friday, October 21
8:00-10:00 p.m. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (time period premiere)
Sunday, October 23
8:00-9:00 p.m. Once Upon a Time
Considering the competition it was facing, it isn’t all that surprising that Transformers: Dark of the Moon won another weekend at the box office.
As I’ve been telling all of you for the past few weeks, I am finally making the change from being primarily a Windows user to a 
I called 
A total of 34 this week.
It’s episode #152 and Scattercast wants to run Hollywood.
Apparently someone told 
Welcome if you’ve come here from hearing my advertisement on the 
A few years back 
