AUGUST, 3


NEW WORLD. PART I – THE REBELLION

Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi
Cast: Gerard Butler, Keira Knightley, Patrick Stewart, Josh Holloway, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Fanning. Cameos by Gary Oldman, John Daws.
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: John Daws
Producer: Tony Scott

Box Office: 74 mill.
Net Gains: 25 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
Damn! Expectations were so high about this release that it is inevitable to feel disappointed. Well, my consolation is that many CMP’s franchises have begun with discrete numbers in their first installment and then they have definitely taken off with the sequels (‘The Resurrected’ is the latest example of that), so we’ll have to wait for the next movie to see where this ‘New World’ can really take us.

INNERTURMOIL

Sci-Fi / Thriller
Cast: Damian Lewis, Michael C. Hall, Jason Bateman, Rebecca Romijn, Juliette Lewis, Michael Keaton
Director: Lodge Kerrigan
Screenwriter: Josh Collins

Box Office: 106 mill.
Net Gains: 85 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
We have ‘New World’: astronomical budget, top-notch cast, the Scott Brothers, huge marketing campaign… And then we have ‘Innerturmoil’: medium budget, B-list stars in the cast, an almost unknown director, a content marketing budget… Movie business is so complex and surprising and audiences are so unpredictable. You just never know… Maybe this is just a lesson to learn.

GUITAR HERO

Comedy / Teen
Cast: Michael Cera, Zac Efron, Emma Roberts, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez. Cameos by Beyoncé Knowles, Aerosmith
Director: Jay Roach
Screenwriter: Steve Connors

Box Office: 41 mill.
Net Gains: 45 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
It is strange to realize that this movie has made higher net gains for the Studio than great movies like ‘Rebel’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Jack Vance’, ‘Prison Letters’, ‘A Jazz Tale’ or ‘Graceland’, just to mention a few… Well, man, what can I say? This one proves that teen comedies can be profitable after the bad experience of ‘Out Partying’. And don’t forget that we end up the Season with 17 movies in a row making net gains!!!


NEW WORLD. PART I – THE REBELLION

‘With ‘New World’, CMP has completed the trio of futuristic stories planned for this Season. ‘New World’ does not have the spectacular CGI and action sequences of ‘Invasion’. It does not have neither the solid storyline of ‘Metropolis’. But it still is a perfectly manufactured production and a very entertaining action movie. Cause what do we really have here after all the hype? A very entertaining action flick. Nothing less… but nothing more neither. ‘New World’ may not be the big epic vision of the future it pretends to be. But it is a very efficient and entertaining action show with a non-stop action pace. It has it all: an action hero, chases, kidnappings, all kind of fights… It may not reach the creative level of ‘Blade Runner’ (an obvious reference for this movie) or the adventurous spirit of Star Wars (although it retakes the light sable now turned into a kind of welding torch) but, if we leave aside its huge ambitions, we have here a worthy movie for all fans of action and sci-fi.’
-Vic Carter

‘The Scott Brothers know very well their job. They know what they have to do to build up an epic classic adventure movie (Uncommon Valour), an elegant historical recreation (The Gunpowder Plot), a traditional mafia story (Gaspipe), a cartoon adaptation (He-Man: The Power Of Greyskull), a violent tough saga (Hitman) or a huge sci-fi / action show like this ‘New World’. They perfectly adapt to almost any movie genre. And, as it could be expected, they have made again a wonderful directional and production work here. They have wisely mixed the sophisticated visual environment needed in any futuristic movie, the breathtaking action sequences, the combination of CGI and stunt works and the most traditional elements of any conspiracy movie. The result is a brilliant show and an engrossing cinematic experience. The Scott Brothers’ works are not usually as deep as they pretend them to seem but they know how to hide that certain emptiness of the plots with a powerful staging perfectly adapted to the genre they are working in. And that happens again with ‘New World’, a movie where the spectacular production design and the perfectly paced narration gets to hide the lack of real novelties in the story we are being told.’
-Tim Reeve

‘John Daws is a specialist in creating big action franchises. He is the brain behind two of the most iconic CMP’s sagas, ‘Hitman’ and ‘Game Boy’. Although this first installment has not been as successful as expected, ‘New World’ will probably end up joining those two as another main CMP’s franchise. This new saga reminds me the Hitman movies – not only because of Knightley and Stewart – in some elements of the plot and the design of some action sequences. Maybe, the big difference is that ‘New World’ is too ambitious and less simple than the Hitman’s stories. Daws strives so much for building up a bigger-than-life story that he forgets that sometimes simplicity can be a much more effective tool than sophistication. His effort to put up this complex futuristic world turns into some confusing moments in the plotline. At the end, it’s the action sequences the best of the show. But this is only the beginning and I have the feeling that future sequels will consolidate ‘New World’ as the big new franchise it pretends to be.’
-Andrew Stampton

INNERTURMOIL

‘Lodge Kerrigan has made an ‘atmosphere movie’. What I mean is that he has looked more to create a disturbing, paranoid and distressing atmosphere than to tell a solid story. In fact, Kerrigan does not worry about the obvious holes in the plot and the deep inconsistencies of the screenplay. His aim is to make the audience feel and share the anguish and confusion of Lewis’ character as his life gets more and more out of control. In that sense, the movie perfectly works in terms of intrigue and interest, as long as you are not one of those movie goers that need to be told a story perfectly tied, explained and justified in all of its elements. If you don’t care about internal coherence, sit down and enjoy the show cause it is a good one.’
-Charlie Kiggs

‘It is great news that CMP has offered Lodge Kerrigan the chance to finally direct a movie with a comfortable budget and a wide release. And Kerrigan has taken the best of this chance. His independent spirit has been kept – ‘Innerturmoil’ is not the typical mainstream Hollywood’s production – and his usual visual concepts can be found in this movie. Audiences have appreciated this honest effort to make a sci-fi movie without selling the soul to the industry. ‘Innerturmoil’ becomes this way a peculiar mix between a big sci-fi production and an indie movie. That’s what makes it a movie that inspires sympathy. You can notice here that CMP is not trying to sell you the usual popcorn show but a creative and modest approach to the sci-fi genre. And, for once, audiences have detected the peculiarity of this proposal and have surprisingly decided to support it. That renews my faith in moviegoers’ intelligence.’
-Anne Roman

‘A nice rarity. ‘Innerturmoil’ is a nice rarity in both Josh Collins’ and Lodge Kerrigan’s career. I can understand why has taken so long to CMP to green light this movie. In other hands, this could have turned into an embarrassing sci-fi sub-product. But the direct and realistic directional style of Kerrigan, the simplicity of Collins’ screenplay – both avoiding easy visual or plot impacts – and the great acting work of Damian Lewis, not trying to look like a hero but just like a confused, even crazed ordinary man trapped in the strangest events, have turned this movie into an interesting rarity in movie industry. This is not an ambitious approach to alternative reality stories ala ‘Total Recall’ but a close look to a character fallen into a paranoid situation that inevitable pushes him to a final without easy concessions. A great little movie.’
-Jake Cobb

GUITAR HERO

‘Important advice: avoid this movie if you are not a Disney Channel junkie. This comedy is as silly, simple, manipulative and provokes as much reluctance as most of Disney Channel’s shows. Past week, CMP released a highly interesting movie for young audiences, ‘Hell Night’. This week, they have moved to the opposite side: ‘Guitar Hero’ is a cheap teen comedy that falls in all the worst clichés of the genre. Of course, none of the jokes work. Characters are flat. The love conflicts are even flatter. And the whole movie will make any parent worry about the cultural references their kids are growing up with.’
-Jackie O’Callaghan

‘Steve Connors has presented this movie as a parody of teen comedies. Don’t be cheated. ‘Guitar Hero’ falls in all the clichés it pretends to laugh at. I just could not find anywhere the presumed parodic spirit of the movie. ‘Guitar Hero’ is just one more brainless comedy oriented to increase the popularity of a bunch of stars – and a console game – whose talent is still to be discovered. Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are supposed to make a self-parody of their public image but they just behave exactly as you can imagine they really are. Zac Efron pretends to be a parody of the typical cool guy but you just suspect he really thinks he is the coolest guy on Earth. And Michael Cera has the arguable honor of adding another awful movie after ‘Lyin’ Wish’ to his horrendous CMP’s filmography. I just felt sorry to see an interesting young actress like Emma Roberts getting involved in something like this.’
-Roy Winslow

‘You have to be an extremely open minded adult – and not demanding at all – to get to understand why young people can enjoy a movie like this. Jay Roach – whose latest work for CMP was the interesting and funny ‘Check, Please’ – returns to the lowest level he already visited with another of his CMP’s movies, the terrible ‘Poor Little Rich Boy’. He – with the help of Steve Connors, a great writer that for some unexplainable reason finds it so funny to write from time to time deliberately awful stories – is responsible of this offense to intelligence. ‘Guitar Hero’ is simply silly. Spending more time trying to write a serious review about it is just a waste of time’.
-Chris Burgess


BEST AND WORST OF SEASON 14

It was an interesting season. Many films actually turned out with very impressive numbers and very few were major studio flops. Writers tended to yet again choose 'quality' over 'quantity' and I can be proud of that. We get enough 'remake/adaptation/sequels' in Hollywood and it's nice to see a change of scene from CMP writers.

The usual superhero films were very few this time: Only Wonder Woman and The Flash, great box office receipts and great quality for secondary heroes, though we did see comic adaptation: Asterios Polyp, sadly it flopped but we don't blame that on the quality this time. Speaking of, it's fair to mention that Jack Vance, a brilliant original idea was shunned by moviegoers, despite the film quality; same could be said about Rebel. Rebel was one of the most amazingly told stories this season and solidified Dawson Edwards' prestige in the studio. Losing him like many other great retired CMP writers would give the studio a huge blow. Richard Franzwa made Metropolis an epic 'Avatar' quality and Steve Connors reminded us that not all aliens need to be cute furry E.T-phone-home hippies.

I think it's safe to say that every writer who submitted something this season submitted something absolutely BRILLIANT. This list is the cream of the crop of this season.

THE BEST OF THE BEST OF SEASON 14

REBEL: Literally the first best film of the season, coming in on the first week and wowing everyone. This was a story that like it or not, needed to be seen. It set the bar high for the remaining films. Dawson Edwards shows he isn't playing around with important messages he needs to get across without the bias, but more of a 'this is how it is' approach.

THE ORPHANAGE: We groaned when we found out they were making an American version of this Spanish modern classic. But when we actually saw it, we realized that it wasn't all that bad. A well told story with something many horror/thrillers lack these days: Characters we actually feel for, a story full of layers.

HALLELUJAH: Wasn't necessarily a well received by critics film, but I enjoyed this thought provoking film. It's a shame gay is so looked down on as a disgrace after all these years and how the times have changed, yet somethings still haven't.

JACK VANCE: A TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY: Matt Kubrick's stylized modern Dick Tracy if you want to think of it. Very well done all around!

FICTITIOUS IMAGES: The first of quite many films which Josh Collins made this season that's worth watching(well it was his second released movie, but I want to forget Earth3K2 existed), This is full of impressive acting works and very deeply moving storyline of how memory could be manipulated.

INVASION: It's good to be reminded of evil alien invasions instead of all the hippie 'make peace not war' trend that's been going on a lot in films.

ASTERIOS POLYP: A great film that wrongfully didn't work in the box office.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON: Elle Fanning was definitely 'The Girl' in this film. She showed an impressive amount of skills in this soft-horror about the dangers of wandering off by yourself in the woods. Every bit as worth being on this list as films like Castaway.

PRISON LETTERS: This sad, thought provoking film tugged at our heartstrings and made us care about Dakota and Abigail, even as they're hitting those older-teen years and must find themselves during the most awkward of times in human life. Everyone lives in their own prison.

METROPOLIS: Epic

SUNSHINE ON LONELY STREET: Trent showed off an indie-side in this film and we totally bought it!

WONDER WOMAN THE HIKETEIA: It's a different kind of hero film, and that's how I can respect it.

HELL NIGHT: I was pleased greatly with this nostalgic 80s-kid horrorventure(horror adventure) type of film. I'm glad there's someone out there wanting to bring these things back!

NEW WORLD PART I THE REBELLION: A great sci-fi film by our old friend John Daws. New World managed to give Season 14 that well deserved final impression. It made me wonder what's to come in the next season as well as this New World series.

WORST OF SEASON 14

EARTH 3K2: can you say X-Men?

KINGDOM: THE DARK AND THE LIGHT: How does it feel to ruin another movie, Megan?

SECRET SINS: Doesn't this belong on one of those porno channels?

SAM AND TWITCH 2: 2 and a half hours we'll never get back.

ONE NIGHT STAND: Nothing but the same old cliche shoot-em-up action movies we've seen a billion times already.

GUITAR HERO: Come on! What's next, a movie about Facebook? oh wait....

SEASON 14’S FINAL REPORT
(Brackets: Same data from Season 13)

MOVIES RELEASED: 30 (30)
SEQUELS RELEASED: 7 (8)
ORIGINAL CONCEPTS: 20 (17)
ADAPTATIONS: 10 (13)

MOVIES WITH NET GAINS: 23 (24)
MOVIES WITH NET LOSSES: 7 (6)

NET GAINS TOTAL: 1095 (1869)
NET LOSS TOTAL: 83 (84.1)
FINAL BALANCE: 1012 (1784.9)

MOVIES WITH BOX OFFICE SUPERIOR TO 200 MILL.: 0 (1)

MOVIES WITH BOX OFFICE SUPERIOR TO 100 MILL.: 5 (9)
-Invasion (Brett Ratner / Steve Connors)
-The Flash: Blitz (Antoine Fuqua / Dawson Edwards)
-The Resurrected (Jonathan Demme / Chad Taylor)
-Wonder Woman. The Hiketeia (Zhang Yimou / Dawson Edwards)
-Innerturmoil (Lodge Kerrigan / Josh Collins)

TOP 1 NET GAINS:
THE RESURRECTED – 154
TOP 1 NET LOSSES
ALICE – 17

SCREENWRITER’S ACTIVITY
(Number of releases / Best Release)

-JOSH COLLINS: 6 (Innerturmoil)
-DAWSON EDWARDS: 5 (The Flash: Blitz)
-CHAD TAYLOR: 4 (The Resurrected)
-MATT KUBRICK: 4 (Hell Night)
-TRENT NIELSEN: 3 (Sunshine On Lonely Street)
-JAMES BRADLEY: 3 (Flashman’s Destiny)
-JOEY STARK: 2 (A Jazz Tale)
-STEVE CONNORS: 2 (Invasion)
-RICHARD FRANZWA: 1 (Metropolis)
-JOHN DAWS: 1 (New World. Part I – The Rebellion)

SOME CONCLUSIONS
By Harry Stark

I’ll admit it from the very first moment: it has been a Season full of disappointments and bad surprises. There have been too many movies that didn’t reach even closely the box office the Studio expected from them. The reason? No idea. As I always say, we have not changed anything in the way we manage the films’ releases at CMP. But there have been times when reaching the 200 millions was pretty frequent and now we are going through a time when it is again pretty hard to even overcome the 100 millions’ landmark.

Well, let’s look at it this way: that’s what makes the moviemaking experience funny, interesting, surprising and addictive… You just never know what’s going to happen with each release.

The good news…

Superheroes movies remain as a safe bet. Both ‘The Flash’ and ‘Wonder Woman’ have saved the Season with their wonderful box offices and net gains. I am sometimes a bit tired of superheroes movies but be sure that I will keep producing them to keep CMP financially vented.

We have said goodbye this Season to one of my favorite franchises ever, the Flashman’s adventures. But we have to welcome this Season new and extremely promising sagas: Invasion, New World, One Night Stand and the new Star Wars’ trilogy.

On the artsy side, it was a great Season. Movies like ‘Rebel’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Asterios Polyp’ or ‘Prison Letters’ have proved that CMP also has an indie side and that we also care about cinematic quality and not only profits.

And also on the good side, no matter it didn’t make profits: congratulations to my brother Joey. He made this Season his debut as movie director and he had a lot of fun directing an erotic thriller…

Oh! I almost forgot… I am particularly happy of the definitive take off that meant ‘The Resurrected’, with a wonderful box office, after the nasty surprise of the poor box office ‘The Forgotten’ made!

The bad news…

Final net gains have been pretty low. But still Season 14 wasn’t as bad in financial terms as Season 12, the one we called ‘the Artsy Season’, when we only made a final balance of 705.8 millions (we have made 1012 millions of net benefit this time).

As I said, too many box offices below expectations: ‘Earth 3k2’, ‘Kingdom: The Dark and the Light’, ‘Jack Vance’, ‘Star Wars: Holocron Initiative’, ‘Metropolis’, ‘A Jazz Tale’, ‘Graceland’ or ‘New World’ were some of the painful negative surprises of the Season.

The beginning of the Season was terrifying. Out of the 15 first releases of the Season, 7 of them flopped in box office. Fortunately, after that, we have gone through an amazing positive strike of 17 movies in a row making net gains, what in fact I think it is a CMP’s record!

In conclusion, a correct but not outstanding Season. But, hey, get ready for Season 15 because we have a wonderful selection of movies coming up!

TOP LISTS

SEASON 14

BOX OFFICE’S TOP 5

1.THE FLASH: BLITZ – 160
2.WONDER WOMAN. THE HIKETEIA – 150
3.INVASION – 147
4.THE RESURRECTED – 113
5.INNERTURMOIL – 106
NET GAINS’ TOP 5

1.THE RESURRECTED – 154
2.WONDER WOMAN. THE HIKETEIA – 139
3.THE FLASH: BLITZ – 135
4.INNERTURMOIL – 85
5.INVASION – 82

ALLTIMES

TOP 6 - BOX OFFICE

1.SILVER SABLE AND THE WILD PACK – 352
2.THE ICE PRINCESS – 316
3.THE DARK TOWER: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE – 285
4.GAMEBOY: WARLANDS – 265
5.WOODLAND CREATURES – 262
6.DEVIL TRIGGER – 248
TOP 6 - NET GAINS

1.SILVER SABLE AND THE WILD PACK – 420
2.DEVIL TRIGGER – 382
3.THE DARK TOWER: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE – 349
4.THE ICE PRINCESS – 320
5.THE FANTASTIC MANSION – 282
6.STAR WARS: NEW ORDER – 250