Buried in a Variety story on stuff still see the light of DVD (African Queen, for instance) is the news that Warner’s has finally, after decades of work, secured the legitimate rights to the 100-plus Max Fleischer theatrical Popeye cartoons of the ’30s and ’40s. The rights for these were so tied up that they never even saw a video tape release in all the years that format has been around.
Personally, I put these cartoons against the best of Warner’s own, which means that they are some of the very finest cartoons ever made. If you haven’t seen these black and white gems, you are in for a treat. And now that studios seem to be getting (at least somewhat) past the hurdles of political correctness—Charlie Chan movies have been released to disc, without resulting in the reopening of the Japanese relocation camps of WWII—we can for the first time really hope to get a gorgeous, complete set of these marvelous cartoons. I’m thrilled. The first disc should hit the market sometime this year.
The news about the Popeye cartoons lowered this tidbit to merely ‘neat’ status, but it is pretty neat. The first ‘season’ of the fun ’70s detective show Banacek is due out in May, as the first of a series of shows to be released under a “TV Guide” imprint. Two discs, close to ten hours. Depending on whether they include the pilot or not, there should be either nine or ten episodes. I’d guess nine, based on the just under ten hour running time.
Banacek was one of the rotating skeins that comprised the NBC Mystery Movie, making it the brethren of more successful shows like Columbo, McMillen and Wife and McCloud. Thomas Banacek was played by George Peppard, and was an urbane insurance investigator who solved elaborate, seeming impossible thefts. The show ran two seasons, and was picked up for a third, but Peppard quit, since his ex-wife would have that year grabbed a higher percentage of his pay for the show.
In my brief remarks on the upcoming Grindhouse, I opined: “Here’s the thing; if the film takes off, you don’t even have to necessarily come up with concepts for another double bill, but can merely flesh out the pre-existing trailers. ” Sure enough, co-director Robert Rodriguez has reportedly pretty much stated that there will be a DTV movie based on a character apparently seen in one of the trailers, with cult actor Danny Trejo playing a blade-wielding bad ass named Machete. That’s just good stuff, right there.
Speaking of cult movie faves, sadly Andy Sidaris has died. Sidaris made a fortune as the director of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, before retiring to Hawaii to make a hopelessly hokey series of camp spy movies featuring naked Playboy and Penthouse models, endless car chases, weird gadgets and weapons, and a constant parade of shit blowing up big time. Perhaps his ‘best’ movie is Hard Ticket to Hawaii, as it also featured a hilarious killer snake with all the other stuff. RIP, sir.
As surely everyone knows by now, the rather spiffy 300 made a boatload of cash this weekend. On a comparatively mild 3100 screens, the film grosses an estimated $70 million, far surpassing industry expectations. (I wasn’t that surprised, though. The mediocre Ghost Rider made over $50 million its first weekend, and even the horrible looking Wild Hogs made nearly $40 million.) That came out to a fantastical $22,567 per screen. Meanwhile, the film reaped a nearly insane $54,839 per screen average on the 62 IMAX screen its played on, accounting for $3.4 million of the total gross.
Made for a thrifty $65 million (about a third of what Superman Returns cost), and with action films tending to reap more money overseas than they do there, things are looking very good for those associated with this movie. The director is next mounting Alan Moore’s seminal comic book series The Watchmen. 300 proves he has the chops, but squeezing that dense, 12 issue work into a single movie seems a Herculean task. Good luck to him.
Wild Hogs, meanwhile, shed a light 29% of its opening week tally, drawing another $28 m. Sadly, the very well reviewed Korean giant monster movie The Host did not fare as well, gobbling up a mere $4,507 at each of its 71 screens nationwide, for an anemic $320,000 total.
