Word: travolta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...will note that the past three winning movies were made for peanuts, with weekend grosses that were greater or nearly as much as their respective budgets; The Hangover cost $35 million to produce, The Proposal $40 million. By next weekend, the Bullock film should outearn the Denzel Washington-John Travolta thriller, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, whose budget was about $100 million. By then Bullock's film will also exceed the theatrical earnings of Duplicity, the comeback film of Julia Roberts, Bullock's main rival over the past 15 years as Hollywood's (token) star actress...
...This weekend the insider consensus was for something like a three-way tie among The Hangover, Up and the new Denzel Washington-John Travolta subway thriller The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. According to today's estimates, that's how the movies finished - one two three - but The Hangover, at $33.4 million, was a sturdy $3 million ahead of Up and more than $8 million ahead of Pelham...
...enough folks asked, "Should I see Pelham 1 2 3?" It finished somewhat below industry expectations. But a Sunday-afternoon quarterback has a few explanations. 1. While Washington and Travolta are certified stars who can get movies greenlit, they don't often make blockbusters. 2. The audience for R-rated films, necessarily limited by age, was still flocking to The Hangover. 3. Pelham is a remake of a 1974 thriller that didn't exactly acquire legendary status. 4. Though the new picture was promoted as an action thriller, it's basically two guys talking tensely on the phone - in other...
...bureaucratic bull plus a scandal that has put his career in the commode. (In the original film, Matthau rarely rose to anger; he was a weary, wily guy, just doing his job. This time it's personal.) And now, on the other end of the line, he's got Travolta, a chatty psychopath who just commandeered an IRT local and wants $10 million, cash, in an hour flat - or he'll commence killing his passenger-hostages, one a minute...
...Washington's constricted calm is a smart contrast to the manic Travolta, who's channeling his strutting killer from Face/Off (an annoying switch from Shaw's steely British mercenary). Tony Scott, who did Top Gun and the earlier Washington movies Crimson Tide, Déjà Vu and Man on Fire, directs with his trademark gusto and a surfeit of many circling camera movements. A congestion of cars, arranged as carefully as clusters of Rockettes, isn't traffic; it's just the backdrop for a spectacular crash...