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Published on Monday, Apr 21, 2008
Box-Office Kings. The Forbidden Kingdom, the first collaboration between action-movie legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li, topped the weekend box office with an estimated $20.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
In second place was another new film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The comedy, starring and written by How I Met Your Mother's Jason Segel, took in about $17.3 million.
Last weekend's champ, Prom Night, slipped to third place, followed by another newcomer, 88 Minutes with Al Pacino, and Nim's Island.
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So How Did That Happen? Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily says Forbidden Kingdom's success indicated that ''moviegoers were in a kick-butt mood.''
The PG-13 rating may also have made a difference, and a major studio executive told Finke that the movie managed to appeal to martial-arts fans while also reaching out to the family audience and admirers of fantasy fare like The Chronicles of Narnia. But the R-rated Sarah Marshall hardly did badly, and both movies are on track to profits.
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Splashdown. An Aston Martin set for use in Quantum of Solace, the incomprehensibly titled new James Bond movie, went into an Italian lake — but cameras weren't rolling.
A stunt driver was delivering the sports car to the set of Quantum of Solace when he drove off a narrow bend in heavy rain, producers told the London Telegraph. (In U.S. money, the car is worth about $240,000.)
The driver was rescued with only minor bruises. The car was fished out of the lake. Don't know how damaged it was. Several reports said it was the only Aston Martin available for the movie.
I can't help thinking that the driver was going just a little bit too fast — that he was having his own Bond moment. Fancy car. Exotic location. He could easily imagine himself in a tux, on his way to find a young lovely and save the world.
As for the new film, it has Daniel Craig playing Bond again and — in globe-hopping Bond fashion — has shot scenes in England, Panama, Chile and Mexico, with a trip to Spain planned as well.
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More HIMYM. Since I mentioned How I Met Your Mother, I should also note that tonight's telecast on CBS includes another music video from Robin Sparkles.
Fans of the show know that Robin Sparkles was the performing name of the show's character Robin, played by Cobie Smulders. Her past included the music video Let's Go the Mall, a peppy collection of video cliches that will bring back memories of the Tiffany video of I Think We're Alone Now.
Let's Go to the Mall has become an Internet hit — it's on YouTube, as are various fan homages to it — and tonight brings another video that, based on early clips, is as nuttily endearing as Mall. The name of the new video: Sandcastles in the Sand. The video includes James Van Der Beek (who is also in the episode itself), Alan Thicke and — oh, nostalgia — Tiffany.
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Less Gossip. If you're planning to watch the new episodes of Gossip Girl that begin tonight on The CW, you'd better either be in front of your TV set or running a recorder. The CW will not make the remaining episodes available for free online.
''The move is designed to boost ratings for the program, which has developed a loyal online following but has failed to attract a sizable TV audience,'' says the Los Angeles Times. ''The show's average of 2.5 million viewers has not been enough to lift CW out of the ratings cellar or staunch its financial losses.''
It's an interesting change in strategy, since online availability of TV shows has made it much easier to watch programs when you're not around for their telecasts or forget to set the DVR. Even though I record — a lot — I've found myself using, and pointing others to, episodes and highlights that have been put on network Web sites.
Still, said the Times, ''Some TV executives have questioned whether they are cannibalizing their audience, and revenue, by making popular programs ubiquitous on the Internet.''
The CW will replay Monday episodes of Gossip Girl on the following Sunday, the Times added. And they will be offered for download on iTunes — but viewers will have to pay for those.
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Avon Lake Calling. Brett Kirwan, 25, a naval officer from Avon Lake, will appear on tonight's telecast of Jeopardy!
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Akron Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or mailto: rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Box-Office Kings. The Forbidden Kingdom, the first collaboration between action-movie legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li, topped the weekend box office with an estimated $20.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
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