In the aftermath of the release of the new trailer of John Carter, set for release on March 9th, it’s been interesting to watch all the flame-throwiing on YouTube and elsewhere by those who say “It’s a ripoff of Avatar”, and those who say “Dude, Avatar was based on this.” The truth is, Edgar Rice […]
It’s probably been at least 20 years since I looked at, or even thought about, the Muppet Movies, and today I stumbled across The Great Muppet Caper on cable and decided to watch for five minutes. I was hooked, laughing more than I do at most comedies, and found myself blown away by the creativity, […]
Love this clip. 25 great famous scenes that were unscripted. You could work your whole lifetime as a film-maker and never get one of these to happen.
Analysis of Avatar-vs-Titanic box office numbers, day by day, leads to the conclusion that Avatar will surpass Titanic on February 11, 2009.
The Thursday Box Office Figures are out and James Cameron’s Avatar racked up an impressive $6,094,445, pushing it $270,000 ahead of Revenge of the Sith to claim the Number 10 All-Time Domestic Box Office Position with Gross To Date after only 21 Days of $380.5M. Titanic through 21 Days had grossed $169M, extending Avatar’s “same […]
here are times in life when the ridiculousness of what is going wrong rises to a level where you just have to shake your head and grimly hang on. This was one such a moment. I could feel the blood rushing to my head as I thought about the financial train wreck that was about to happen — but the more immediate problem of getting Lorna to the hospital provided a sort of respite. Sometimes there are things that come along which just pretty much demand your full attention — this was one.
How cool is that? This is what, for me, makes Avatar an extraordinary act of creation. Those who focus only on the storyline are really missing the point.
While there is no doubt that on the human side there’s a military force and the colonel leading this force is an American — it is also made clear at the very beginning of the movie that this is a mercenary force, not the US Army.
Someday I’m going to put out a memoir along the lines of “Dispatches from the Trenches of Indie Film Warfare”….so along the way, I’m going to make a point of doing a post about each film–what the experience was like. This is the first installment, and it might be called “How to Make […]
Avatar continued its rampage through the box office with a Tuesday gross of $7,327,233, off 9.5% from Monday — a day when quite a few schools were still not in session. This means Avatar has reached a domestic gross of $367,536,685. In the “same number of days in release comparison” to Titanic, Avatar picked […]
(AFP)
BEIJING — Science-fiction blockbuster “Avatar” grossed more than 33 million yuan (4.8 million dollars) on its opening day in China this week, setting a new record, state media reported Wednesday.
James Cameron’s ground-breaking 3-D epic surpassed Zhang Yimou’s “A Simple Noodle Story”, a remake of the Coen brothers’ “Blood Simple”, which earned 21 […]
The figures are out for yesterday, Monday, January 4 and Avatar has beaten expectations again with BOG of $8.1M. As I pointed out in my post yesterday, if Avatar had suffered the same Sunday/Monday percentage drop that Titanic did on it’s Monday after New Years (Titanic went from $8m on Sunday to $3m on Monday, […]
Box Office Mojo is reporting the weekend actuals. Brandon Gray reports: “‘Avatar’ beat its estimates again, coming in at $68.5 million domestically and $136.3 million internationally for the weekend. On the other hand, ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ and others were significantly overestimated…”
Here’s the chart of Avatar’s actuals compared to Titanic’s actuals — […]
Today is a crucial day for Avatar box office watchers. The holidays are over and the reality of a ‘regular’ Monday at the box office is about to set in. How “regular” will it be?
Well, first some perspective.
On the first Monday after the New Years Weekend, Titanic dropped 66% from $8M on Sunday, […]
Today is the last day of the holiday break, and this afternoon I’m going to see Avatar for the third time — seems a fitting way to end the holidays, since Avatar has been much on my mind throughout this period — and tomorrow it will be back to the grind, with little time available […]
EDI Nielsen is reporting this morning that Avatar will earn $68.3M on this, its third weekend in release based on studio estimates on Sunday morning. There is a possibility it might go a bit higher — indeed, every other time there has been a ‘studio estimate’ the figure has been revised upward when final […]
TV Guide today is reporting that the Vampire Diaries Premiere last night on CW
“became the most watched series premiere in network history”, with 4.8M viewers.
This is VERY good news for us because Beneath the Blue’s Paul Wesley stars in the series and such a strong premiere clearly means the show is destined […]
(In Part 1 of this post, we left off at 3am on the morning of the first day of filming of Umiyak Pati Langit, a Filipino film that was my first feature film as a producer. My 50% partner had just driven away after telling me that his money hadn’t […]
We’re now about 12 weeks out from the start of filming for MovieBank Studios‘ Way of the Dolphin and so I’m finding that my days are already starting earlier and going longer–no surprise there. Producer Susan Johnson has collected 794 resumes of crew applicants, which gives you an […]
I’m going to disagree with the critical concensus which is exceedingly hostile to this film and I’m going to say it works pretty well on its own terms. The operative phrase is “on its own terms”. You see, I think that the first measure we should apply to a film is — did it do what it set out to do? This film clearly sets out to provie a hundred minutes or so of light, imagery-rich entertainment that at best enables the audience to escape their own drudgery into a rum-filled, aqua-blue-green universe that just has to seem inviting to anyone snowed in or simply enduring the drudgery of winter. It’s got a good, engaging pair of stars; the story has enough character ‘hook’ — both in the McConaughey/Hudson romantic storyline, and the Sutherland/Dziena father/daughter B line — to make us care .
by Michael D. SellersA couple of months back I was contacted by a certain “Luciano Marzotto” of Milan, Italy, who said he represented a Russian “billionaire” who wanted to invest in film. “Marzotto” is, to Italians, a name on the level of “Rockefeller” here. He didn’t identify the Russian but said he was part of […]
Year of the Spy Book Trailer
Above is the Year of the Spy Book Trailer — for my upcoming non-fiction book about espionage upheavals on the streets of Moscow in 1985.
Below is a “trailer” showcasing the writing and video services I provide to clients.
Michael Sellers — Writing and Video Services
My eBook — Just released Dec 5, 2012
EBook You don't need a Kindle or iPad -- Download Adobe Digital Editions for Free, then read the .mobi (Kindle Format) or .epub (Nook, iPad Format) digital book on your computer. Or order the PDF which is formatted exactly like the print book.Recent Posts
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