The gall of some people.

The Hollywood Reporter last week published an extended interview with former Warner Bros President of Worldwide Production, and now mega-producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, about his films, his career and what the future of films will be. And in the interview, di Bonaventura said something so unbelievably dumb and nonsensical that it even led one commenter to call di Bonaventura a “knucklehead”, arguing that his comment was “bullshit”. And I can’t disagree with him at all.

Lamenting the state of movies today, di Bonaventur said: “We’ve abandoned young males largely in our business…. They’ve become less dependable because we are not making product for them. That’s a big mistake.”

Say what? Seriously?

Exactly on what plant is di Bonaventura living on? Does he think that we’re still living in the good old days of the 1960’s and 70’s, when studios were doing almost nothing but cranking out serious films for adults?

Studios are no longer making films for young males? Sorry, but I thought that damn near everything being made by Hollywood is targeted almost primarily at young males. And this is coming from the guy who produced all the “G.I Joe” and “Transformers” movies, with another two in development, and has a whole slate of films currently shooting, or in developments, that are either based on toys, or are potential tentpole movies that will attract nothing but young males.

But yet, according to him, Hollywood is not making film for young males. Yeah right.




Which is why I suppose “The Magnificent Seven” (M7) – the remake of the classic 1960 John Sturges film (which itself was a remake of Akira Kurosawa 1955 classic “The Seven Samurai”) – was so highly anticipated by moviegoers. It looked like a blessed relief against all the summer films this year – most of them not very good at all. And M7 was a film aimed towards older audiences, for adults looking for something else to see, instead of for their kids. And on top of that, it’s a western! A genre that was a staple of Hollywood from the 1930’s to the late 60’s, but had fallen out of favor in the past few decades. How old fashioned can you get?

So how did it do? Not bad, and pretty much on par for a western. M7 opened at No. 1, with $35 million, which is typical for a western film, and promises to continue to do very well. The last major studio western was the Coen brothers’ 2010 remake of “True Grit”, and that film opened with $36 million, and went on to make $171 million domestically. No reason why M7 can’t do that as well, and maybe do even better, considering Denzel Washington’s star power, especially if the film gets good word of mouth. Add to that the huge b.o. potential overseas, where westerns are especially popular in France, Germany, Italy and Australia, and you have the chance of the film being a very successful one.

But perhaps the more interesting case is Disney’s “Queen by Katwe”, with Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo, and directed by Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding”, “The Namesake”, “Vanity Fair”). The film, based on the true story about a Ugandan chess prodigy, has everything going for it. It’s an inspirational underdog-rises-to-the-challenge, family friendly film, with a PG rating to boot, and some excellent reviews as well. But the film has a marketing challenge. It’s set on the African continent, is about Africans, and not white people in Africa, and it avoids the usual images you see of Africa in Western movies and other media. By that, I mean, no starvation, genocide, or child solders. And most importantly, no white savoir. It’s a film about black people encouraging and helping out other black people. How radical is that?

The film opened in a limited numbers of theaters, on 52 screens, and grossed $305,000, or over $5800 per screen. That gave it the second highest per screen average of any major studio film, after M7. The movie opens on another 1500 screens this Friday, and should do well, although it could face some stiff competition for family audiences from Tim Burton’s “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” However, “Katwe” was made for a fraction of what it cost Burton’s film to make, so it still has the advantage in terms of profitability.

The Warners film “Storks” did not do particularly well for an animated film, coming in second, with $21.8 million. But another WB film currently in release, “Sully”, is still holding on very well, adding another 430 screens, and grossing $92 million so far, in total.

Meanwhile the studio’s “Suicide Squad” has proven to disprove all the naysayers (including me, I admit) by making over $318 million domestically so far, and over $731 million worldwide to date. Who would have guessed? What gives?

The top 12 movies at the box office this weekend follow below:



1) The Magnificent Seven Sony $35,000,000
2) Storks WB $21,805,000
3) Sully WB $13,830,000 Total: $92,393,447
4) Bridget Jones’s Baby Uni. $4,520,000 Total:$16,457,675
5) Snowden ORF $4,144,989 -Total: $15,139,215
6) Blair Witch LGF $3,950,000 Total: $16,128,695
7) Don’t Breathe SGem $3,800,000 Total: $81,110,808
8) Suicide Squad WB $3,110,000 Total: $318,133,343
9) When the Bough Breaks SGem $2,500,000 Total: $26,613,349
10) Kubo and the Two Strings Focus $1,103,000 Total: $45,954,573
11) Hell or High Water LGF $1,100,000 Total: $24,840,427
12) Bad Moms STX $1,007,000 Total:$111,679,552