The Doldrums

From my limited POV of the movie business, I can verify this: there don't seem to be many scripts circulating at all.

Because I work for a bunch of clients, mostly production companies and some small studios, and no one has anything for me to read.

It is the holiday time, when things are usually slow; every year, December is (by far) the slowest month for me.

But still, business is deader than dead out there.

It's not a big deal, yet, because I'm heading to New York with the wife tomorrow to visit my parents for the holidays.

And hopefully when I come back late Monday, it will be to some good strike news. We can dream.

Meanwhile, my $60 notes offer is still very open. Get those scripts done and take advantage of me while you can.

Otherwise, I took a revamped first act of my new script (the one I'm co-writing) into my group one night, and they still tore it apart, though I think it helped me learn some things about it. Mostly that we still haven't quite figured out the tone yet.

Tentpole film in 2010, though.

*******

For once, my weekend estimates were pretty close. BEOWULF made $27.5 million. MR. MAGORIUM made $9.6 million.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA flopped, though, with only $1.9 million from over 800 screens. You'd think they'd know that basing a movie on a beloved book is only going to work if the movie is actually good.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN made a very solid $3 million from only 148 screens, an average of over $20,000 per screen. MARGOT AT THE WEDDING pulled in $80,000 from only 2 screens.

The new Brian DePalma film REDACTED tanked with only $25,000 from 15 screens.