The film festivals can always be counted on to deliver surprise hits at this time of year, but meanwhile Hollywood must deal with another issue: Its Barbitude hangover.
13.08.2023 - 15:43 / variety.com
Hunter Ingram Nearly four decadesago, in 1984, David Kirschner arrived early for a meeting with then-Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg carrying a broomstick, a mop and a hollowed-out Electrolux vacuum. He called ahead to request access to the conference room a half hour before the pitch meeting began to hang the trio of centuries-spanning cleaning instruments from the ceiling with fishing line. He also brought his eighth-grade biology textbook wrapped in a leathery material, hoping it looked enough like human skin, and a grocery store candle, on which he hand-drew Latin witchcraft imagery he couldn’t translate and toasted in an oven to look aged.
“This wasn’t exactly Disney stuff,” Kirschner laughs now. The night before, the kids in his neighborhood also drew the hallmarks of Halloween — a black cat, a patch of pumpkins — on bags filled with candy corn, which he placed around the conference room. “When they walked in, I wanted them to smell Halloween,” Kirschner says.
“I wanted them to smell their childhood.” That day, he pitched what would become “Hocus Pocus,” Disney’s enduring 1993 Halloween classic starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker as the fearsome-yet-kooky Sanderson sisters resurrected in the present day. The film was inspired by a bedtime story he told his daughters about a once-human black cat cursed by witches to live in all eternity as a feline. Disney bought the pitch, and Kirschner looks back on that moment with pride — especially since everything that came next wouldn’t be as easy.
It took almost 10 years to get the film into theaters, only for it to premiere to dismal reviews in the dead of summer on July 16, 1993. “It bombed,” he says. “It came out in the summer against the
.The film festivals can always be counted on to deliver surprise hits at this time of year, but meanwhile Hollywood must deal with another issue: Its Barbitude hangover.
Grab your broomsticks, we’re entering that spooky season. Now in its 25th year, Freeform has set the lineup for its 31 Nights of Halloween programming event with films including faves such as Hocus Pocus, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monsters, Inc., Cruella and The Addams Family, along with Freeform premieres of Encanto, Zombies and Zombies 2.
Good Night, Oscar, the Oscar Levant bio-play starring Sean Hayes, and El Mago Pop, the Broadway debut of Spanish illusionist Antonio Díaz, ended their limited Broadway engagements on upswings last week, with the former selling out for its best week take of $1,147,057 and the magician conjuring a big $2,717,000 to break the house record at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre with an unusually busy 13-performance week.
according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.The flick, which CNN said “moves, ironically, too slow to deliver as a big-screen attraction,” tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a teenage Gran Turismo player who became a professional race car driver. “Barbie,” which is now officially the highest-grossing movie of the year in North America, remained in second place, with $4 million in sales.She beat out “Blue Beetle,” which earned $2.6 million and landed in third place.The DC Comics film, which was in the No.
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The charm and sweetness of Casey McQuiston's novel Red, White & Royal Blue shine through in its Prime Video adaptation, directed by Matthew López.The core of the story remains intact, centring on the whirlwind romance between Alex Claremont-Diaz, played by Taylor Zakhar Perez, the First Son of the United States, and Prince Henry of Wales, played by Nicholas Galitzine. As with any adaptation, certain alterations have been made to bring the story to the screen. Let's delve into the significant changes and explore their impact on the film.
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Greta Gerwig is making history! Three weeks after its debut in theaters, Barbie has surpassed $1 billion at the box office, making Gerwig the first female director to hit this box office milestone as a solo director.In a statement, Warner Bros. said the fantasy-comedy movie has taken in $459 million from domestic theaters — counting the United States and Canada — and another $572.1 million overseas since it hit theaters, for a total of $1.0315 billion.
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