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Page 2 of 9January 16, 2014
By Tatiana SiegelAs if taking its cues from the stock market, which hit record highs in 2013 and is expected to post increases in 2014, the market for new films at the Sundance Film Festival defi-nitely looks bullish. In 2013, the fest saw record-setting sales for Don Jon ($4 million, Relativity) and The Way, Way Back ($9.75 million, Fox Searchlight), but buyers aren’t likely to see a market correction this year as they make their annual trek to Park City, Utah.
“This will be a seller’s market without fail,” said Radius co-head Tom Quinn, who along with co-head Jason Janego bought five titles at last year’s festival, including 20 Feet From Stardom.
Nevertheless, most of last year’s big purchases didn’t
turn out to be gold mines — Relativity made a $25 million prints-and-advertising com-mitment to Don Jon, which ended up doing $24.5 million at the domestic box office. But buyers and sellers still are bracing for a frenzied pace as hungry distributors look to fill slots for traditional theatrical, day-and-date VOD and straight-VOD amid in-
creasing competition.There are plenty of titles
with commercial appeal like Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here, which isn’t a follow-up to his 2004 indie classic Garden State but is enough of a close rela-tive to excite interest. Like Braff did a decade ago, three prominent actors are making their feature helming debut:
Sundance Hot List: 15 Most Coveted Films
see page 3
Inside:ultron casts villain rolePAge 4
tca: cbs, the cw won’t abandon pilot seasonPAge 6
hamilton will direct oscarsPAge 7
frozen disc clings to no. 1PAge 8
movie review: ride along PAge 9
Taking you inside the world of independent fi lm.
LIVE @ THR.COM/INDIE
Eva Green stars in Sundance veteran Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard.
movie newsPage 3 of 9January 16, 2014
Mad Men’s John Slattery has directed God’s Pocket with Philip Seymour Hoff-man; indie darling William H. Macy is coming with Rudderless, starring Billy Crudup and Anton Yelchin; and Arrested Development’s David Cross has helmed the subversive comedy Hits.
“There’s always a lot of films with breakout poten-tial. But this year, it’s not as obvious which films will be the breakouts,” said ICM’s Jessica Lacy, who is handling four films, including the Bill Hader-Kristen Wiig pairing The Skeleton Twins.
Genre buyers will be scour-ing the fest’s sidebars. “This year, genre is everywhere,” said Exclusive Media’s Matt Brodlie. “The independent financiers and festival pro-grammers seem to have got-ten the message that buyers respond to comedies and genre movies. The days of Sundance full of small per-sonal dramas seem to be over.” Even traditionally dramatic subjects like abor-tion are going the come-dic route — witness Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, starring stand-up comedian Jenny Slate. “Several of the films this year will go for many millions of dollars,” said Tribeca Film’s Nick Savva. “But at this point, you’re scratching your head because you just don’t know which ones.”
CAMP X-RAY (UTA)DIRECTOR Peter SattlerSTARS Kristen Stewart,
Payman Maadi, Lane Garri-son, J.J. Soria
THE BUZZ Stewart takes
on the role of a Gitmo prison guard who strikes up an un-likely relationship with a de- tainee, a suspected terrorist played by Maadi.
COLD IN JULY (WME)DIRECTOR Jim Mickle STARS Michael C. Hall,
Don Johnson, Sam ShepardTHE BUZZ A year after
his cannibal-themed We Are What We Are caused a stir at Sundance, Mickle is back with this Texas-set thriller about a man, Hall, who kills a home intruder, then finds his life spiraling into violence.
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
(WME)DIRECTOR Justin
SimienSTARS Tyler James Wil-
liams, Tessa Thompson, Te-yonah Parris, Brandon Bell
THE BUZZ Its cast might be low-wattage, but it could be explosive as it satirically follows four black students at an Ivy League college where a riot breaks out after white students throw an African-American-themed party.
FRANK (WME)DIRECTOR Len
AbrahamsonSTARS Michael Fass-
bender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy
THE BUZZ Fassbender, the much-in-demand lead-ing man, plays an enigmatic and brilliant rock star in this comedy — and spends much of the movie wearing an over-size fake head.
INFINITELY POLAR
BEAR (ICM)DIRECTOR Maya Forbes
STARS Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolo- darsky, Ashley Aufderheide
THE BUZZ Monsters vs. Aliens writer Forbes moves behind the camera for this tale of a manic-depressive father who tries to win back his wife by becoming a re-sponsible father to his two daughters. J.J. Abrams exec-utive produced.
LAGGIES (CAA/UTA)DIRECTOR Lynn
SheltonSTARS Keira Knightley
Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Ellie Kemper, Jeff Garlin, Mark Webber
THE BUZZ Shelton fol-lows up last year’s Touchy Feely with a coming-of-age story about a 28-year-old woman (Knightley) stuck in permanent adolescence.
LOW DOWN (UTA)DIRECTOR Jeff PreissSTARS John Hawkes,
Elle Fanning, Glenn Close, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Flea
THE BUZZ With the help of one of the fest’s most eclectic casts, Preiss chronicles the life of real-life jazz pianist Joe Albany (Hawkes) from the perspec-tive of his daughter Amy (Fanning) as she watches him deal with drugs amid the backdrop of the decadent ’60s and ’70s music scene.
THE SKELETON
TWINS (ICM/UTA)DIRECTOR Craig
JohnsonSTARS Bill Hader,
Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell, Boyd Holbrook, Joanna Gleason
THE BUZZ With a pair of Saturday Night Live vets like Hader and Wiig top-lining, it would be easy to assume this is a laugh-out-loud comedy. But think again. Buzz already is build-ing about Hader’s dramatic performance as a gay man in upstate New York who re-unites with his estranged sis-ter (Wiig). Wilson provides the comic relief.
SONG ONE (CAA)DIRECTOR Kate
Barker-FroylandSTARS Anne Hathaway,
Johnny Flynn, Mary Steen-burgen, Ben Rosenfield
THE BUZZ Hathaway plays a woman who returns home to New York when an accident leaves her brother in a coma — and then finds herself a new life amid the Brooklyn music scene.
WHITE BIRD IN A
BLIZZARD (CAA)DIRECTOR Gregg ArakiSTARS Shailene Woodley,
Eva Green, Christopher Me- loni, Shiloh Fernandez, Ga-bourey Sidibe, Thomas Jane
THE BUZZ Sundance vet Araki directs an adapta-
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Elle Fanning plays the daughter of a jazz musician in Low Down.
movie newsPage 4 of 9January 16, 2014
tion of Laura Kasischke’s novel, with Woodley playing a young woman whose life is rocked by the sudden dis-appearance of her mother.
FINDING FELA
(CINETIC)DIRECTOR Alex GibneyTHE BUZZ Sundance
has spawned such crowd-pleasing music docs as Searching for Sugar Man and 20 Feet From Stardom, and for his latest, Gibney (The Armstrong Lie) hopes to keep that tradition alive with a look at Afrobeat trail-blazer Fela Anikulapo Kuti and how he used his music to fight for the rights of oppressed people in Nigeria.
NO NO: A DOCKUMEN-
TARY (CINETIC)DIRECTOR Jeffrey
RadiceTHE BUZZ Dock Ellis
pitched a no-hitter while on LSD during a 1970 game between his Pittsburgh Pi-rates and the San Diego Padres. Radice’s pic recounts that improbable feat as it captures the career of the proudly black Ellis.
LIFE ITSELF (WME)DIRECTOR Steve JamesTHE BUZZ James’ docu-
mentary about the late film critic and Sundance main-stay Roger Ebert is expected to sell before it even plays the fest. At press time, IFC, Magnolia, Oscilloscope and The Weinstein Co. all were circling, and CNN Films has picked up broadcast rights.
THE GREEN PRINCE
(Submarine)
DIRECTOR Nadav Schirman
THE BUZZ Part doc, part thriller, the film cen-ters on a Palestinian man who became one of Israel’s prized intelligence assets when he agreed to spy on his own people, a role he played for more than a decade.
THE INTERNET’S
OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ (CINETIC/ROCO)
DIRECTOR Brian Knappenberger
THE BUZZ Swartz com-mitted suicide at age 26 on Jan. 11, 2013. This film examines the life of the pro-gramming prodigy, a one-time co-owner of Reddit, who championed open Web access but found him-self facing steep fines and decades in prison for down-loading academic journals.
Click here for more cover-age from Sundance.
Captain phillips team Reuniting foR diReCtoRBy Borys KitThe team behind the critical hit Captain Phillips are re-uniting to adapt The Director, an upcoming book by David Ignatius.
Paul Green-grass is in talks to write and direct the adaptation, which will be produced by Scott Rudin. Rudin was a producer on Phillips, which Greengrass directed.
The deal comes under the aegis of Michael De Luca, also a Phillips producer who is now transitioning to his new job as production president of Columbia Pic-tures (he officially starts in February).
The cyber-thriller is set in motion when a teen walks into the American consulate in Hamburg, Germany, and claims the CIA has been hacked. The new director of the agency, on the job for less than a week, is forced to team up with the CIA’s young, in-house geek for a worldwide mole hunt filled with double-crosses.
Greengrass is eyeing Director as his next movie.
The book will be pub-lished in June.
KRetsChmann to play villain in age of ultRonBy Borys KitThomas Kretschmann, who plays Abraham van Helsing on NBC’s Dracula, has signed on for a major villain role in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Joss Whedon is writing and directing the sequel, which reunites the main cast of Marvel’s massive superhero team-up movie. The pic is also adding new actors and heroes to the fold, such as Elizabeth Olsen as the Scar-lett Witch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver.
Additionally, the main villain is a sentient artificial
being known as Ultron, who will be portrayed by James Spader.
Sources say that Kretsch-mann will play Baron Wolf- gang von Strucker, an antag- onist for both Captain Amer-ica (Chris Evans) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). In the comics, the man was a Nazi officer who becomes one of the heads of HYDRA, a terrorist organization.
Kretschmann’s credits include Peter Jackson’s King Kong and Wanted with Ange-lina Jolie. He is also one of the stars of Stalingrad, the acclaimed Russian war film set to be released on Imax domestically in February.
foRd Joins Cast of age of adaline By Pamela McClintockHarrison Ford has joined the cast of romantic drama The Age of Adaline. He’ll star oppo-site Blake Lively and Ellen Burstyn, who were previously announced.
Lionsgate, Lakeshore Entertain-ment and Sid-ney Kimmel Entertainment are teaming on the project, with Lionsgate releasing the film in the U.S. Director Lee Toland Krieger starts shooting in March.
“We are very excited to be working with Harrison Ford,” said Lakeshore pres-ident Gary Lucchesi. “He’s one of the great actors of our time, and will be perfect for the role of William in The Age of Adaline.”
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Greengrass
Kretschmann
Ford
movie newsPage 5 of 9January 16, 2014
The movie follows the miraculous life of 29-year-old Adaline, who stops aging after recovering from a near-fatal accident. Over the course of the 20th cen-tury, she embarks on an epic journey, keeping her secret, until she meets a man who forever alters her life.
J. Mills Goodloe and Sal-vador Paskowitz wrote the original screenplay, with revisions by Allison Burnett. Producers are Sidney Kim-mel, Lucchesi and Lake-shore’s Tom Rosenberg. Jim Tauber and Eric Reid will executive produce.
Ford recently starred in Ender’s Game, likewise released by Lionsgate in the U.S. The actor is repped by UTA.
film pRoduCeR. exeCutive, agent shepheRd diesBy Mike BarnesRichard Shepherd, who pro-duced the Blake Edwards classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, served as head of produc-tion at MGM and Warner Bros. and then founded the Artists Agency, has died. He was 86.
Shepherd died Tuesday night at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his wife Patricia told The Hollywood Reporter. Survi-vors also include a son, TV producer-writer Scott Shep-herd (Equalizer, Miami Vice, The Dead Zone).
During his six-decade career in the entertainment industry, Shepherd also
produced The Hanging Tree (1959), starring Gary Cooper in one of his final films and George C. Scott in his first; Sidney Lumet’s The Fugitive Kind (1960), with Marlon Brando and Joanne Wood-ward; and Richard Lester’s Robin and Marian (1976), starring Tiffany’s star Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery.
Shepherd started out as an independent film pro-ducer and, working with Martin Jurow, did Hanging Tree, Fugitive Kind, Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961) starring Fabian and then Tiffany’s, their final collaboration.
When Paramount’s head of production wanted the song “Moon River” replaced, “Marty and I both said, ‘Over our dead bodies, ’ ” Shepherd recalled in an audio commen-tary for an anniversary DVD edition of Tiffany’s.
The Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer tune, of course, won the Oscar for best song in 1962.
“It’s a very tough indus-try, and the stakes are very high,” Shepherd told The New York Times in 1977 when
he was at MGM. “You rely on your gut feeling; I think the first requisite is that you have to have a story in which there is someone the audi-ence can care about, some-body they want to root for.
“They pay ballplayers a lot of money for hitting .333; I’d pay anybody a lot of money if they could be right 33.3 percent of the time in this business.”
Shepherd later founded The Artists Agency and rep-resented a myriad of stars over the years, including Marilyn Monroe, Rex Harri-son and Richard Harris.
Born June 4, 1927, in Kansas City, Mo., Shepherd attended Stanford in the 1940s and excelled on the golf team. He was hired by MCA legend Lew Wasser-man right out of college and became an agent for the company in the Midwest.
After a stint in the U.S. Army — where he covered stories for Stars and Stripes in occupied Germany after World War II — Shepherd went back to work for MCA in New York, then turned to producing with Jurow.
In the 1960s, Shepherd returned to the agency field as one of the first partners at CMA, which quickly became the most power-ful agency in the world with a client roster that boasted Paul Newman, Barbara Streisand, Bill Cosby and others. He stayed at CMA (which eventually became ICM) for nearly a decade.
In 1970, Shepherd was named head of production at Warner Bros., where he oversaw such blockbusters as The Exorcist (1973) and
The Towering Inferno (1974). For the Robin Hood-Maid Marian romance Robin and Marian, he lured Hep-burn back to acting after a decade away.
Shepherd then took the reins at MGM in 1976, devel-oped a slate of films that included The Champ (1979), Fame (1980), Clash of the Titans (1981) and Shoot the Moon (1982).
Upon leaving MGM, he produced the erotic vam-pire tale The Hunger (1983), director Tony Scott’s first feature, starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie, and the Tom Hanks-John Candy comedy Volunteers (1985).
Shepherd then spent two decades as a partner at The Artists Agency, where he represented numerous actors and screenwriters well into his 70s.
Richard and Patricia were married for 34 years and had a son, Christopher. His former wife was Judith Goetz, who was producer-executive William Goetz’s daughter and Louis B. Mayer’s granddaughter; together, they had children Scott, Tony (the former head of casting for Spelling Prods. who now produces shows for the Disney theme park in Florida) and Victo-ria. Survivors also include his grandchildren Barrett and Hunter.
A memorial will be announced by the family. In lieu of flowers, the fam-ily requests that donations be made to the Motion and Television Picture House and Hospital in Woodland Hills.
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THR
Richard Shepherd spent two decades as a partner at The Art-ists Agency, where he repre-sented numerous actors and screenwriters well into his 70s.
tv newsPage 6 of 9January 16, 2014
By Lesley GoldbergWill CBS follow Fox’s lead and abandon pilot season? Could low-rated limited series Hostages live to see another day? Is there life left in The Carrie Diaries? And what do CBS’ top showrunners think of broadcast adopting cable networks’ shorter seasons?
These and many other questions were fair game Wednesday as CBS and The CW presented at the Tele-vision Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour. CBS’ Nina Tassler and The CW’s Mark Pedowitz also addressed questions about new series and stars including Josh Holloway, James Van Der Beek and Henry Ian Cusick.
Here’s a look at what we learned:
1. Pilot season isn’t dead at CBS — or The CW. Two days after Fox’s Kevin Reilly declared pilot season was dead, Tassler acknowledged that the process wasn’t per- fect but nonetheless works for her. “Yes, it’s harder, yes, it’s challenging, but when you have a great writer and great storytelling and they have to make decisions in a pressurized situation, they’re going to make the right and
best decisions, period,” she told reporters. Pedowitz, meanwhile, agreed that the process is both inefficient and efficient, but he will still likely order the same num-ber of pilots on the same timetable as last year.
2. More miniseries and event programming. After previewing the second season of hit Under the Dome and up- coming Halle Berry starrer Extant — both due in summer — Tassler said the network will continue to stick with limited entries despite Hos-tages’ weak showing. “We’re looking for a bigger head-line with our event program-ming,” she said. As for the fate of limited-run drama Intelligence, starring Hollo-way, Tassler said she’ll stick with the drama, though the series dropped more than 50 percent in its second week.
3. Twenty-two-episode seasons are still appealing. In an era when broadcast networks are following cable’s short-order seasons, NCIS, The Good Wife, Elementary and Person of Interest show-runners said there are still benefits in the longer, more traditional seasons. “It’s a great thing that the audience wants more of what you’re making,” Person executive producer Jonathan Nolan said during the network’s showrunners panel. “I think 22-24 episodes is calibrated to the exact number where a showrunner will have a
nervous breakdown.”4. More Veronica Mars.
Pedowitz, who worked with Veronica Mars boss Rob Thomas during his tenure at ABC Studios, didn’t wait for the ink to dry in announcing a digital spinoff of the beloved series-turned-movie. A week after being presented with the idea, Pedowitz announced the network’s comedy-themed digital hub CW Seed will run a spinoff consisting of six or eight 10-minute seg-ments. He had little to share at this stage with regard to plot or talent, and said he had little sense of the timing given how busy Thomas is with the Kickstarter movie.
5. CW’s Pedowitz is “bull- ish” on the future of nearly everything. During his half hour before the press, he ex- pressed faith in Supernatu-ral, buzzy Flash pilot, fresh-man series Reign and The Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals all moving forward to the 2014-15 season as the network continues to commit to high-concept, fantasy and serialized fare. The latter, he acknowledged, is what lures viewers to the CW. (What doesn’t: traditional proce-durals and unscripted docu-series.) By contrast, soapy programming such as Car-rie Diaries, Hart of Dixie and Beauty and the Beast will have to wait until May for word on their fate.
Click here for more cover-age from TCA.
hBo oRdeRs 13th season of Real timeBy Michael O’ConnellHBO is staying in the Bill Maher business. The talk show host, who will be joined on the cable network’s sched-ule by a new effort from John Oliver, has reupped for a 13th season of Real Time With Bill Maher, to air in 2015.
The show, which returns to the schedule on Friday, will again run for 35 episodes over the course of the year, which will coincide with the beginning of the debate cycle leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
“Bill Maher has been a treasured member of the HBO family since the late ’80s, and his irreverent wit and fearless insights make him the perfect observer for these unpredictable times,” said HBO programming chief Michael Lombardo.
Maher had his own snarky take on the renewal: “It’s a pleasure to be returning for a 13th season on HBO. It’s something you rarely see in Hollywood: an on-again, on-again relationship.”
Real Time continues to be a strong performer on Friday nights. With time-shifting, OnDemand and HBO Go views, the series most recently averaged a gross 4.1 million viewers per episode.
Maher serves as executive producer alongside Scott Carter, Sheila Griffiths, Marc Gurvitz, Brad Grey and Billy Martin. Dean E. Johnsen produces, with Paul Casey as director.
TCA: Pilot Season Still Works for CBS, CW
THR
Tassler
Pedowitz
awaRds newsPage 7 of 9January 16, 2014
By Gregg KildayHamish Hamilton, who di-rected the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010, has been tapped to helm this year’s Oscar show, which airs March 2 on ABC, pro-ducers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced Wednesday. Hamilton is also slated to direct the upcoming Super Bowl half-time show, featuring Bruno Mars.
Announcing their pro-duction team, the producers also said Kristin Gore, Amy Ozols and Jon Macks will be part of the writing team, along with the writers that host Ellen DeGeneres brings with her. Gore is a novelist and screenwriter whose credits include Futurama and Saturday Night Live and whose current projects in-clude a Showtime pilot with
director Bennett Miller, an HBO pilot with director Jay Roach and a Dreamworks movie with director Lance Accord. Ozols was formerly a writer and producer for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Macks, a longtime writer for The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, has written for 17 prior Oscar telecasts.
Production designer Derek McLane, who worked on last year’s show, for which he was nominated for an Emmy, will be returning, as will choreographer Rob Ashford, who worked on the past two Oscar shows.
Music director William Ross returns to the Oscars after working on the 79th, 83rd and 85th Academy Awards.
Costume designers Julie Weiss and Bruce Pask will return to the Oscars after working together on the 85th Academy Awards.
Talent producer Taryn
Hurd will be working on her first Oscar broadcast. She has served as talent pro-ducer on events including the Fox network’s New Year’s Eve Live, the Breeders’ Cup telecast, the 2013 Teen Choice awards and VH1 Divas Salute the Troops.
Also rejoining the pro-duction team are super-vising producer Michael Seligman, co-producer Lee Lodge and lighting designer Robert Dickinson.
gRown ups 2 leads Razzie noms with 8By Hilary LewisNeW YORK — The Razzies on Wednesday announced the nominees for the 34th annual Golden Raspberry Awards, set to be handed out the day before the Academy Awards, on March 1.
Grown Ups 2 scored a leading eight nominations, including worst movie, ensem- ble, screenplay, lead actor (Adam Sandler), supporting actor (Taylor Lautner) and director (Dennis Dugan).
After Earth, A Madea Christmas and Movie 43 each scored six nominations.
The nominees for worst film are After Earth, Grown Ups 2, The Lone Ranger, Madea Christmas and Movie 43.
The stars of several of those films are also in the running for the title of worst lead actor, including Sandler, Johnny Depp and Jaden Smith, while Tyler Perry is actually up for worst actress for his cross-dressing lead role in Madea Christmas. If Sandler wins, it would be his third worst actor prize in a row. Sylves-ter Stallone is also up for his 31st Razzie for three pics: Bullet to the Head, Escape Plan and Grudge Match.
The nominees for worst lead actress are Lindsay Lo-han for The Canyons; Selena Gomez for Getaway; Perry; Naomi Watts for Diana and Movie 43; and Halle Berry for Movie 43 and The Call.
Hamilton to Direct Oscars Broadcast
THR
Hamilton
musiC newsPage 8 of 9January 16, 2014
By Keith Caulfield, BillboardThe soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen holds for a second week at No. 1 on the Bill-board 200, while Beyonce’s self-titled album is also sta-tionary, at No. 2.
Frozen sold another 86,000 copies in the week ending Jan. 12, according to Nielsen SoundScan, down 48 percent from its 165,000 haul the pre- vious week. (That sum was bolstered by sale pricing in the iTunes Store — an assist that wasn’t provided in the most recent tracking week.)
It was initially forecast last week that Beyonce would likely return to No. 1 this week. However, Frozen bested its sales projections, selling about 5,000 to 10,000 more units than expected. The fore-cast for Beyonce was around 90,000 on Jan. 8, but was then scaled back to 80,000 by the weekend. Beyonce fin-ished the week at No. 2 with 79,000 (down 40 percent from 130,000 a week ago).
Sources credit the contin-ued success of Frozen not to a breakout radio hit or spe-cial sale pricing, but to its parent pic, which continues to do blockbuster business in theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, Frozen has earned $318 million at the U.S. and Canadian box offices through Jan. 13. It finished at No. 2 at the box office during the weekend ($15.1 million), behind the
new release Lone Survivor ($38.5 million).
With the Frozen sound-track having sold 86,000, this is the first week the top-selling album in the country sold fewer than 100,000 copies since the chart dated Sept. 28, 2013, when Keith Urban’s Fuse bowed at No. 1 with 98,000. The rule of Fro-zen this week is the smallest sum at No. 1 since J. Cole’s Born Sinner rose to No. 1 on the July 20, 2013, chart, with just 58,000 units.
It’s fairly normal to see low sales figures at the top of the chart in January, because few major new albums arrive to market and the industry is readjusting after a busy holiday shopping season.
That said, Frozen is the first theatrical film sound-track to rule at No. 1 for mul-tiple weeks since Dreamgirls spent two weeks at No. 1 in early 2007. The last animated film to spend more than one week at No. 1 was Disney’s The Lion King, which roared for 10 nonconsecutive weeks in 1994 and 1995.
So far, the multiartist Frozen soundtrack has sold 589,000 in seven weeks, while Beyonce has sold 1.5 million in five weeks.
After Frozen and Beyonce comes the first — and only — debut in the top 10 of the chart, Kid Ink’s My Own Lane at No. 3. It’s the rapper first full-length album for a major label (RCA Records) and it starts with 50,000. It also arrives at No. 1 on the Rap Albums chart.
As for the rest of the top 10: Eminem’s The Mar-shall Mathers LP 2 fell from No. 3 to No. 4 with 36,000 (down 35 percent), Lorde’s Pure Heroine held steady at No. 5 with 33,000 (down 28 percent), and One Direc- tion’s Midnight Memories re- mained at No. 6 with 24,000 (down 46 percent). Katy Perry’s Prism slipped from No. 4 to No. 7 with 23,000 (down 55 percent), Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz jumped from No. 13 to No. 8 with 20,000 (down 34 percent), and Imagine Dragons’ Night Visions rose from No. 10 to No. 9 with 17,000.
R. Kelly’s Black Panties rounds out the top 10, up one slot to No. 10, selling slightly more than 17,000. Like Frozen at No. 1, the sales sum for the No. 10 album is notably low this week. In fact, Black Panties logged the third-smallest sum ever for the week’s No. 10 album since SoundScan
started powering the chart in 1991. (Only two weeks in early 2012 registered smaller sales at No. 10, but both weeks’ sales came in at about 17,000 after rounding.)
Overall album sales in this past chart week (end-ing Jan. 12) totaled 4.3 mil-lion units, down 21 percent compared with the sum last week (5.4 million) and down 17 percent when stacked against the comparable sales week of 2013 (5.1 million). Year-to-date album sales stand at 9.7 million, down 15 percent compared with the same total at this point last year (11.4 million).
peRRy to KiCK off noRth ameRiCan touR in summeRBy Jason Lipshutz, BillboardTwo months after Katy Perry announced the initial dates of her Prismatic World Tour, the pop superstar has revealed her full North America itin-erary. Perry will kick off the run on June 22 in Raleigh, N.C., and visit 46 cities in four months.
Capital Cities, Kacey Musgraves and Tegan and Sara will serve as the open-ing act on various legs of the arena run. Over in the U.K., where the Prismatic tour will begin on May 7, Icona Pop will serve as the opener.
Perry’s North American tour will be presented by Goldenvoice, and pre-sale tickets begin for Citi card members on Tuesday.
Click here to see a full list of tour dates.
Frozen Soundtrack Maintains Lock on No. 1
THR
Frozen is the first movie sound-track to rule at No. 1 for multiple weeks since Dreamgirls in 2007.
movie ReviewPage 9 of 9January 16, 2014
Ride alongBy Justin LoweKevin Hart and Ice Cube take on a bad cop-wannabe scenario in Tim Story’s Ride Along, which turns out to be something like a comic riff on Training Day. Leaning more toward Hart’s brand of slightly raunchy humor rather than Ice Cube’s equally pop-ular family-friendly fare, the PG-13 film exhibits broad appeal, backed by a wide- ranging marketing campaign.
With an opening timed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and lacking any similar action-comedy competition, the pic could score big for Universal in major markets.
Ben Barber (Hart) is a video game-obsessed high school security guard who’s inexplicably landed in the good graces of super-cute girlfriend Angela (Tika Sump-ter). Ben plans on propos-ing just about any time, but the problem is that Angie’s brother, hardcore undercover Atlanta police officer James Payton (Ice Cube), is com-pletely paranoid about pro-tecting his younger sister’s welfare after the years they spent growing up together in foster homes.
Ben thinks he’s found the ideal solution when he’s accepted for police academy training, expecting James to welcome him into the family, but his new career opportunity makes little impression and Ben remains unable to obtain the irascible cop’s approval.
Then James hits on a scheme he thinks will defini-tively discourage Ben, saying
he’ll give the wannabe cop a chance to prove he’s really police department material by surviving a ride-along in James’ department-issued muscle car. “You’ve got one day and one day only to show me what you got,” James tells him. Ben jumps at the chance to show his worth, although he quickly begins to wonder if he’s made the best choice when he’s plunged into James’s slightly sketchy investigation of a local gun-running crime lord.
Working behind the scenes with junior officers Santiago (John Leguizamo) and Miggs (Bryan Callen), James sets Ben up for a day of embarrassing pranks typically played on rookie cops. The series of incidents proves repeatedly humiliating for Ben, but the odd thing is that he keeps turning up clues on James’ investigation of Serbian arms dealers and a developing plot to supply one of Atlanta’s most nefari-ous criminals.
Deploying a conspicuously broad brand of humor and just about every buddy-cop movie convention at its dis- posal, the screenwriting team of Greg Coolidge, Jason Mantzoukas, Phil Hay and
Matt Manfredi exploits Ben’s desperation for easy, repeti-tive gags that nonetheless elicit a fair amount of laughs, due mainly to the charisma of the principal performers.
As the weary veteran cop intent on cracking a big case and shaking off his lame sidekick, Ice Cube exudes the requisite scorn for his would-be partner, constantly setting him up and putting him down with a sneer and a chuckle. Cube’s comic timing can’t be faulted, but he doesn’t appear to muster much enthusiasm for the role, relying more on his well-worn persona than a real commitment to the performance.
The same can’t be said for Hart, who over-commits in a big way, but grabs the majority of laughs for his outrageous over-reaching and self-ridicule. If anything, it’s all a bit excessive, and intentionally so, although it’s a technique that begins to show some wear midway through the film. One of Hart’s greatest assets is his nonstop motor-mouth, and the screenwriters give him plenty of opportunities to spew utterly inane statements and commit outrageous
blunders. The running gag associating Ben’s skill at military-themed video games and his ability to identify exotic weaponry gets plenty of mileage and remains well-integrated with the main plot.
Supporting castmembers register solidly, although the talented Sumpter doesn’t have much to do other than sitting pretty until the bad guys inevitably show up. Leguizamo has a nice turn as James’ semi-psycho sub-ordinate, and Callen is suit-ably standoffish as the police department’s oft-put-upon lieutenant.
Since the film’s largely schematic subplot about Serbian gunrunners can’t manage much in the way of originality, it’s fortunate that Story knows his way around a comedy. Together with the screenwriters, he keeps the jokes and gags coming at a furious clip, most of which land nicely, thanks to the leads’ skilled timing. The rapport between Story and his Think Like a Man actor pays dividends here, as Hart ramps up his rou-tine to a near-manic level.
With Universal already planning a Ride Along 2, hopefully the holiday week-end turnout manages to fulfill the studio’s expecta-tions regarding the film’s early promise.
Opens: Friday (Universal).Production: Cubevision, Rain-forest Films.Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Tika Sumpter, Bryan Callen, Lau-rence Fishburne, Dragos Bucur.Director: Tim Story.Rated PG-13, 100 minutes. THR
Ice Cube, left, cops an attitude toward Kevin Hart in Ride Along.
