Archive for November 22nd, 1999

Dogma’s Weekend Box Office (Week 2)…

November 22nd @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Steve Rhodes, Jay Gunn, Allan, & Jess

  • Well, here’s the top 10 flicks at the box office for this past weekend. As you can see, Dogma took in a respectable 4.1 million amongst a crowd of big moneymakers this weekend. Though it was 5th place, if ya check the per-screen averages, it did quite well yet again. The flick is now officially the highest grossing View Askew film (so far!), and looks to also be a nice money-maker for Lions Gate, so congrats all around. Here’s the top 10 (With thanks to Yahoo, Dark Horizons, and GunnLace.Com):

    North American Top Box Office Estimates November 19 – 21 weekend

    Rank Title Dist. Weekend
    Gross    		 Cumulative
    Gross    		 Release
    Weeks    		 Number of
    Theaters
    1 The World Is Not Enough MGM/UA $37,200,000 $37,200,000 1 3163
    2 Sleepy Hollow PARA $30,500,000 $30,500,000 1 3064
    3 Pokemon: The First Movie WB $13,300,000 $68,200,000 2 3043
    4 The Bone Collector UNIV $6,500,000 $45,100,000 3 2623
    5 Dogma LIONS $4,100,000 $15,800,000 2 1283
    6 Anywhere But Here FOX $3,300,000 $10,200,000 2 1681
    7 The Insider BV $2,900,000 $18,400,000 3 1844
    8 The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc SONY $2,500,000 $10,800,000 2 2147
    9 The Bachelor NL $2,450,000 $17,900,000 3 2337
    10 Being John Malkovich USA $1,900,000 $8,800,000 4 590

    Lions Gate pres. Tom also added:

      “Obviously, everybody got shellacked this weekend. We don’t get to play against two $30 million openings all the time,” Lions Gate Co-President Tom Ortenberg said Sunday morning. “We’re still well positioned for Thanksgiving. We’re still the No. 1 comedy in America, which I think is important heading into a big holiday like Thanksgiving. It’s still the only comedy in the Top Five.

      “The film is playing best to younger audiences, both males and females, probably 18 to 34. They like the comedy. They like the hipness. Even though the film, itself, would seem to play a little more male than female, females are still strongly being attracted by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. We think we’re still very well positioned for a great five-day Thanksgiving weekend. The film will play itself out through December.”

    And the report:

      Taking the fifth spot this weekend is director Kevin Smith’s religious satire “Dogma”. The film did suffer a larger than expected 52% decline but it still ended up passing the $12 million haul of Smith’s last film “Chasing Amy” to become the biggest hit in the director’s career. “Dogma” has so far earned close to $16 million and should top out in the area of $25 million giving distributor Lions Gate a profitable hit. Smith will next helm a sequel to his breakout film “Clerks”.

    • Filed in: News

    “Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin'”!

    November 22nd @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

    • Unless you live under a rock, you’re probably now aware that the big announcement at the end of Dogma’s credits was that “Jay & Silent Bob Will Return In Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin’”! We wanted to wait a couple of weeks to report on this news to give you all the chance to see the announcement first-hand for yourselves, so we hope that most of you have. For those of you that we ruined the surprise for by posting this…Well, we’re sorry. Anyway, we don’t know much about this project yet, but here’s a few tidbits just to get the ball rolling:
    • Kevin first announced the project at Vulgarthon close to 2 years ago, stating “Our next film is going to be a Clerks sequel.” At that time we weren’t sure if this meant a tried-and-true Clerks 2, or just a film that referenced Clerks as well as the other VA flicks (the “ultimate jersey flick”, as it had been called). Upon chatting with Brian O’Halloran, we learned a few of the ideas that they were throwing around for the project.
    • With the cast fully re-assembled for the Clerks Animated Series, expect all the stars of the original “Clerks” to return.
    • No date has been announced regarding the start of production on the film. We assume that Kevin and crew will at least take a break through the holidays, and more than likely focus all attention on the Clerks Animated Series, then use the publicity from that show (as well as the ratings) to determine the best course of action for the development of Clerks 2.
    • Once production on Clerks 2 starts, however, expect a quicker turnaround time than Dogma. We’d guess that, if the gang shoots the flick sometime in 2000, it won’t take long for it to hit theaters afterwards.
    • We’re ASSUMING that the film will be produced completely in New Jersey, and at least BEGIN at the original Quick Stop & RST Video location.
    • Will Clerks 2 be in Black & White? We’re guessing no. Kevin has stated that the decision to go B&W with Clerks wasn’t artistic, but rather a budget constraint. With that behind him, we’re fairly sure that most, if not all of Clerks 2, will be in color.
    • The subtitle of the flick, which some seem to love, and some seem to hate…Will that be the final title? We’re not sure. But we’ll keep ya posted.

    Other than that, we don’t know much. You can bet that we’ll be covering the production of this one from start to finish though, even closer than Dogma. When it happens, you’ll read it here first. In addition to general news on the production, we hope to go behind the scenes even more on this one, with some on-set reports and more inside information than you can shake a stick at (if Miramax doesn’t chase us away, of course…heheh). Anyway, sit tight. It’s bound to be a fun ride.

    Filed in: News

    News Askew Presents: The DOGMA DRINKING GAME!

    November 22nd @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

    Click For The Game!

    • Well, folks, here it is. Our first NEW game since the start of this site. Many of you may not realize this, but when this website (then called “Drinks Askew”) first came along it was actually designed to JUST house the drinking games for the Jersey Trilogy that we’d created, and that was it. Little did we know what we’d gotten ourselves into! Heh Heh.

    Those three games are still online as a part of our much larger News Askew mega-site now, and in addition to those (yes, the original Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy drinking games pages are still there!) we’ve got Dogma RC, Files Askew, Comics Askew, the Summaries, tons of trip summaries, an extensive news archive, and lots more. Whew.

    So, we decided that we had a lot to live up to when we created the Dogma drinking game. Lots of questions were asked, and we ran the flick through our heads many times. Keep in mind, by the way, this game is totally untested, since we haven’t got a copy of the flick ourselves (and our local theater owners frown upon carrying cases of cold beer in, go figure). So, as always, PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK. As soon as we get a copy at home, we’ll run through the game ourselves, test it out, and give you an idea of the average amount of drinks consumed, as we’ve always done in the past. At that point the game may receive some tweaking to make it more enjoyable.

    Again, we realize the rules of the game don’t even scratch the surface of all that happens, after all, this is the longest and most ambitious View Askew production to date. We hope that you have a good time when you eventually get the chance to give it a try and, as always, drink responsibly. Enjoy the Dogma Drinking Game!

    Filed in: News

    Commentary…

    November 22nd @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

    • Ah yes, there’s nothing like a Monday when ya know that you’ve only got a 3-day work week ahead of you. With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, there’s an extra long weekend on the horizon. Most people use it to Christmas shop, on the infamous “Black Friday” for starters (I went out last year, it was fun watching the general idiocy of people). This year, it’ll probably be used to spend some time with the family, as well as just relax. That reminds me, now that things are slowing down again, we can get caught up on some old business. Many of you are asking how the house is going. I’m settled in fairly well (sans curtains), and with my new couches FINALLY arriving this week, will finally post the pics of the new place online for those of you that want to see. Chris’s apartment is even further along than my house, of course, he’s got a few less rooms to worry about!

    On the news front, we’ve got Dogma’s final tallies for this past weekend. It was a record-setting one for the 2 HUGE openings, but Dogma still fared quite well given the cirumstances, we’d say. The flick just came out at a very busy time of the year. A few reviews managed to straggle their way in through our door today, and they’re now on RC, thanks to Hoser & Lee Man.

    Now, the big news. I mentioned we’ve been catching up on some business. And we have. We’re proud to today unveil the new official (or as official as it’s gonna get, anyway) DOGMA DRINKING GAME! Read below for the full details. In addition to that, we’ve also added the Dogma font to Files Askew. You want more? Sure! Now that you’ve all had the chance to see Dogma stateside, we’re giving you our first official report on that exciting new project announced at the end of Dogma’s credits.

    It’s nice to be back to more reasonable news days, so expect our Fall cleanup to continue on with some new features, enhancements, and more — We’re gonna bring News Askew into the new millennium with a BANG, folks, and make it better than ever before!

    Alright, let’s do this:

    Filed in: News