Will Smith’s second highest grossing opening 3 day weekend of all time (the highest being I Am Legend just half a year ago) made $66 million and a stunning $107 million over the July 4th five day weekend, the actor’s first return to the tentpole where he had previously enjoyed great success with the Men in Black series and of course Independence Day in 1996.

As we thought, the biggest movie star on the planet is now still very much a brand name himself. People weren’t necessarily spending their money to see Hancock but an entertaining two hours in the company of one Will Smith. And if anyone doubts Smith’s status as a movie star, you should probably bare in mind that this is his 8th consecutive movie in a row to gross over $100 million, a great feat considering both The Pursuit of Happyness and Hitch were tough sells.

Hancock, made on a production budget of $150 million, has already surpassed that figure in worldwide takings of $185 million - though I still think it’s future as a franchise is not secured. Smith hasn’t been as praising of the character or the film itself as he was for I Am Legend during the press rounds and fan reaction has been mixed to say the least.

With the critics, the movie is Smith’s worst in a very long time and speaking just last week the actor claims to have schedueled a five month period off work while he takes a much earned rest. His next movie is a reunion with director Gabrielle Muccino (Pursuit of Happyness) for the drama Seven Pounds which could also be a tough sell but no-one is doubting it will be a big hit. Where Smith goes from there is anyone’s guess… is he content with blockbusters or will be looking for something more?

Clearly the vast number of Summer blockbusters has hurt both the box office of Wanted and Wall-E. Both movies dropped significantly over a weekend they were expected to prosper but the good news for Pixar is that their latest effort is still a substantial $19 million ahead of Ratatouille. Equally as pleased should be Universal with Wanted as this week it surpassed it’s production budget domestically with $90 million.

Elsewhere:

Get Smart up to $98 million after three weeks from a budget of $80 million.

Kung Fu Panda nears $300 million worldwide from a $130 million budget, a huge hit.

The Incredible Hulk is struggling to make it’s $150 million domestic budget with only $125 million made in the States.

And finally:

Kim Kittredge: An American Girl - the Abigail Breslin star vehicle probably won’t become a successful kids franchise having suffered a disastrous opening of $6 million after five days release despite a near 1,900 theatre release.

Next week:

Guillermo del Toro’s last movie till he sets off on a trek to Middle-Earth for four years with his Hellboy sequel, which has been pretty smartly promoted so far and will be hoping to double it’s domestic total of $60 million from 2004. This year’s sequel was made for $66 million.

Though it does have stiff competition. Brendan Fraser will be testing out if he has “still got it” as a blockbuster icon with the awful looking CGI remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth which I don’t think anyone quite knows how well that will perform.

The always popular with the brainless crowd, Eddie Murphy is back with Meet Dave. Depressingly, Norbit’s final total of $95 million makes this a possible contender for a big opening.

And if you get a chance, look out for the limited release of August with Josh Hartnett. The actor has been making some smart career choices of late and though I wasn’t ALL that impressed with the trailer, I could relate to many of it’s themes and I think you could too.

source - coming soon

Thanks for visiting us at Obsessed With Film, we update several times a day, so if you haven't done so yet you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also sign up to receive updates via e-mail.

Neither Matt (describing the movie as a huge missed opportunity) or Ray (hated the second half of the movie) had many kind words for the Will Smith driven Hancock. But millions of you have still flocked to the Box Office this weekend following the world-wide release of Hancock.

The movie drew $17 million on it’s Wednesday opener with a further $16 million predicted to have been taken on Thursday. The long holiday weekend in the United States will no doubt help the movie move over the $100 million mark for the Tuesday (early preview screenings) to Sunday period.

If you haven’t seen it yet but plan to, then wait until you come back to give it a vote.

 Loading ...

Previously, we asked you what you thought of The Incredible Hulk. It came back with a 46% awesome vote, 30% thought it was good but 20% of you weren’t even bothering to see it. Only 6% thought it was terrible.

I watched Unbreakable the other day, that forgotten gem from M. Night Shyamalan which actually preceded many of the comic book blockbusters that are now common place every summer. You may remember it came before the big screen versions of Spider-Man, the new Batman series and now Iron Man. As Bruce Willis slowly began to learn of his calling in life, I wondered that if the movie had opened today as M.Night’s second film, whether it would have been regarded with as much disdain?

I don’t think it would be. With audiences now fully aware of how these comic book movies are suppose to go, I think the refreshing and psychological deconstruction of the superhero mythos that was Unbreakable would be a MASSIVE hit in 2008 but the world sadly wasn’t quite ready for it then. We were still trying to get over the disappointment of Batman & Robin and the movie that would change the fortune of the genre; X-Men, had only just been unleashed upon us.

In 2008 though, people were ready for Hancock. After all, the genre has moved on so far that Watchmen is out in less than 12 months time, the ultimate deconstruction of comic book superhero’s and an adaptation that could only be made after several individual films and franchises.

So bring us the “made for screen character” Hancock (Will Smith), a guy who just totally doesn’t give a shit about being our savior and not like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark who can sometimes be an asshole, this guy’s a real asshole (just like Marty McFly in BACK TO THE FUTURE… don’t call him that!). He will fly through road signs with a whisky bottle in his hand, cause an unnecessary traffic collision that injures several people if only to save one guy in the most destructive manner possible and for a while we certainly get and enjoy that.

Unbelievably the producers didn’t promote the film with the tagline “Great power and no responsibility” or something along those lines because that’s exactly what is being projected here. He is a drunk who looks more like a Super Tramp than a Superhero and sure he will save people now and again but he’s hardly the guy you want coming to your rescue if your about to be hit over by a train. Though conveniently, he will evidently save you.

It’s a provocative idea for a movie and one that I honestly thought couldn’t fail. When it went by the name of Tonight, He Comes and we heard about a love triangle and subsequent affair with the wife of a husband he saved, a hero who was mostly good but suffered from being under-appreciated and had an alcoholism problem which eventually led him to rape the one he loves - I thought they were really onto something here.

A superhero movie with a brain, that took the idea of the hero and puts it in the context of real emotions. A hero who could do anything he wanted in the world but when the woman he loved eventually turned him down, it sent him ape shit.

But they didn’t go that direction and instead the producers saw the name SMITH and SUMMER TENTPOLE and have delivered just that with the hope of making $250 million. It’s the most despicable and lazy execution of a terrific plot I’ve seen in a Summer blockbuster for years. There are so many directions they could have taken this tale which could have made something truly memorable but instead it’s a pointless and confused superhero flick which much like every other Peter Berg directed movie (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) is shot extremely well in places but gets bogged down in a constant change of directing style, bad characterisation, uneven acts and the use of the same tiresome and really mundane locations over and over again.

I gave him a pass for The Kingdom because the last act of that movie was so God damn intense and extremely well shot (if rather insulting to our intelligence) but he ain’t getting one here. Hancock is just too much of a mis-fire.

Hancock clearly suffers from the several writers and producers who have worked on the film during it’s long time in development. There’s little structure or narrative coherence, it loses steam at the mid-way point when as you’ve no likely heard, there’s a big twist and reveal in one of the characters. It can never recover from this point and there was a slight hint of a big groan when it occurred in the sold out screening I attended.

Then there’s Will Smith who actually is an odd fit for this character and he doesn’t look as comfortable in this role as he does as the ordinary man in peril like in I Am Legend, The Pursuit of Happyness and I, Robot but he’s a likeable enough actor that you keep watching though that’s kind of the problem because you can’t take him so seriously as a bad guy. We are so use to seeing a good Will Smith, he clearly suffers from the fact that we don’t wanna see him as an asshole… hence the black comedy route of the film.

This is easily his weakest vehicle since Bad Boys II and ends a nice little string of good movies he was riding on. Charlize Theron is damn near unwatchable in this movie and although with great effort does his best with a good hearted P.R. manager… he gets forgotten about towards the end.

So what are we left with? A MASSIVE, GIGANTIC sized missed opportunity and a screenplay that suffered from too many cooks and too many different ideas, some of them very good but hardly any of them used in the right context. I can’t see Hancock becoming a franchise, even if it makes a ton of money over the next month, I really don’t see anywhere else it can go.

Every fan of comic books and movies has probably wondered what it might be like if a superhero was really just a regular guy in the real world. It’s easy to imagine the isolation one would feel as the example of their kind; the power they easily wield shields them normal human contact and interaction.

Such is the promise of HANCOCK, and the first half of the film flies so close to capturing such an atmosphere that the disastrous second half becomes unforgivable.

Perennial Fourth of July wonderboy WILL SMITH stars as Hancock, a drunken, rude, and indestructible man prone to sleeping off hangovers on park benches in between saving the world. He doesn’t much care for his enviable position as savior, and the general public doesn’t particularly enjoy Hancock’s destructive saving techniques. One of these rescues involves a charming public relations manager named Ray (JASON BATEMAN), who wants to return the favor by helping Hancock to rehabilitate his public image. Hancock isn’t thrilled by the proposal, and neither is Ray’s curiously angry wife Mary (CHARLIE THERON).

It’s easy to see why the first half of this screenplay became such a hit as it made the rounds in Hollywood years ago. Satirical and loaded with attitude, the script crackles with sharp dialogue and fun ideas. However, the storyline hits a massive brick wall about halfway through with a highly-touted twist that is just as bad as everyone has been saying. And then, saddled with this improbably ridiculous set-up, the film has nowhere to go and nothing to pit against an indestructible hero.

To try and ramp up the action, the screenwriters - all of whom need to really meditate on their crimes here - decide to create an action sequence out of nowhere that involves several tornadoes descending on the city for no apparent reason. Basic narrative threads established by the writers to justify the twist are then ignored at various points, creating plot holes the size of Hancock’s ego.

Even worse than the disjointed screenplay is the misguided direction of PETER BERG. What type of film did Berg think he was directing here? HEAT 2? BOURNE’S FURTHER ULTIMATUM?

Berg unwisely chooses to emulate gritty crime drama photography and constantly employ Shaky-Cam for this superhero popcorn flick. Again and again we have shock-zooms onto racing cars, although someone will need to explain the constant panning and zooming during a business meeting scene early in the film. I get it; Berg is trying to whip up a sense of urgency. However, superhero films need a certain larger-then-life quality, a capturing of wonder and awe; waving a camera around at people does nothing but disorient. The film is shot more like an episode of E.R., rather then a big-budget special effects extravaganza.

Speaking of special effects, there are many, many shots here that do not work in any way. For instance, it’s amazing to me that, thirty years and a computer revolution later, they still have no way to convincingly portray a man flying. In fact, the SUPERMAN effects from 1978 are more believable than seeing a rubbery Will Smith avatar fling around like a rag doll. Beyond that, almost nothing here looks remotely real, which destroys any semblance of reality that Berg was trying to capture with his over-used Shaky-Cam techniques.

The performances are generally pretty good, with all three leads flailing valiantly against the self-destructing script. Smith gives 100% in everything he does, and here he plays against type as an unlikeable anti-hero. Theron is completely wasted in a ludicrous role that she will regret for a very long time. But it is Bateman who provides this film with any meaningful heart, playing a genuinely nice man caught in an unenviable position.

The fact that this film had some true talent behind it leaves the end result a mystifying mess. How could so many people not see the inherent problems of this script and approach? Ultimately, HANCOCK suffers defeat at the hands of two powerful villains - the screenplay and the direction - and that is a battle too great for even the most indestructible hero.

You kept telling me this would happen didn’t you? You guys kept warning me that my anticipation and praising of this great concept and cast was only going to ever lead to one conclusion when the so-so trailers, the rumors of script changes and a whole brand new ending was shot.

You kept telling me the writing was on the wall for Hancock.

It opens worldwide tomorrow but the movie has taken a pounding from the critics this weekend. It currently has a score of 30% rotten from 63 reviews counted on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, meaning 44 negative reviews and 19 positive. Even the geeks can’t get excited over this one and those who are, are disappointed that the concept wasn’t explored as fully as it could have been.

Is this to be the next Daredevil? The banker comic book movie that should have been so easy to execute but has been made by a creative team who truly bottled and got scared of making the movie that was originally sought out. This is what the critics are saying…

Roger Ebert gave it a decent enough review but it seems to be more out of his applauding a movie trying to do something different in the genre go even if it doesn’t quite accomplish its goals. He praises the performance of Will Smith…

The movie has a lot of laughs, but Smith avoids playing Hancock as a goofball and shapes him as serious, thoughtful and depressed… “Hancock” is a lot of fun, if perhaps a little top-heavy with stuff being destroyed. Smith makes the character more subtle than he has to be, more filled with self-doubt, more willing to learn.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times echoes many of the critics by saying…

It’s a strange feeling to see the summer’s most promising premise self-destruct into something bizarre and unsatisfying, but that is the Hancock experience.

Gareth Franklin of Dark Horizons…

A clumsily executed, forgettable mess that’s too dark for kids, too dull for teens and too dumb for adults.

Emmanuel Levy really wasn’t impressed…

If Will Smith can pull off this hodgepodge of a movie, an ill-conceived poorly executed effort that tries to be all things to all people, then he really is Hollywood’s most bankable star.

Todd McCarthy and AICN’S Moriarity compare it to The Last Action Hero whilst just as unfavourably Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews compares it to My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

Rotten Tomatoes say the general consensus is (and after reading a ton of reviews, this really does seem to be a common phrase)…

Though it begins with promise, Hancock suffers from a flimsy narrative and poor execution.

Have the reviews put you off from seeing this one?

You just know over the July 4th weekend Will Smith is going to be the king of Hollywood again. Such a shame they didn’t let rip with this one.

Ah, now this is the kind of scene I was looking forward to watching in Peter Berg’s (The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights) superhero movie Hancock.

The one’s you don’t get in the usual superhero movie, the one’s where it’s a fully realised environment where we see how Hancock - who power is known to everybody in the world it seems, tries to integrate with the common man.

And look at Charlize Theron. She is just gushing over him right now, she is so hot for him. Poor Jason Bateman would never be able to compete with the raw magnetism of Will Smith.

So he doesn’t age huh?

Interesting. I wonder if he saw Citizen Kane on it’s first run or if he ran into Nestor Carbonell from Lost on his travels?

Some dark undertones at play here and a very uncomfortable shuffling social feeling to it that you just don’t get from the Batman or Iron Man movies. In it’s favour Hancock is the first superhero movie that doesn’t have years of comic book canon behind it for us to worry about how the film is dealing with major events, storylines and characters - so the sky is the limit here.

They can do what they want and it wouldn’t piss us off, leaving them with so much freedom. Now whether they used the opportunity they had correctly we won’t know for sure for another month!

source - coming soon

Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment and Warner Bros. have struck a deal to acquire the English language remake rights to the French comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks), a movie that broke box office records in France earlier this year with a $191 million domestic haul.

The movie was about a post office manager who is banished from his outpost in the South of France, to a rainy town in the North - where he eventually grows to love his new neighbours. Directed by Dany Boon, Smith who has a keen eye on foreign cinema (he hired Gabrielle Muccino to direct The Pursuit of Happyness after seeing his work) took a liking to the film though there is no word if he wants to star in the remake.

Will Smith and James Lassiter will produce with Ken Stovitz. Pathe Intl. controlled rights to the film. The remake will be titled Welcome to the Sticks say Variety…

“There are only 65 million people who live in France, and $191 million seemed to defy all logic. But when we saw the film, it’s obvious why it works,” Stovitz said. “We will probably place the character in a global corporation, and he literally gets sent to the sticks, but finds that rather than a backward place, it provides all that was missing in his life.”

Looks fun - a little like a Billy Wilder comedy, wouldn’t ya say?

The movie opens in just seven weeks time but last night Will Smith was spotted wearing that boring as hell black costume in Times Square - as Hancock when through some 11th hour reshoots.

Shooting lasted for 12 hours, with tons of extra’s present.

From the sounds of things it wasn’t as drastic as the“I Am Legend new ending” reshoots.

Hancock opens July 2nd in the U.K. and U.S.

source - /film

It will be a small and non-speaking role but it’s kind of significant I guess.

The Associated Press say that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s adopted son Connor Cruise will play a younger version of Will Smith’s character in his upcoming drama Seven Pounds.

Connor shot his part over a month ago during two consecutive days of filming and although he will mostly be shown in photographs, it’s a big moment for him as it marks his debut on film.

The movie is Smith’s reunion with The Pursuit of Happyness director Gabirelle Muccino where he plays a man who affects the lives of seven strangers in very different ways.

Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson co-star in the film due out in December (January UK).

source - coming soon

This movie is going to be HUGE when it opens in just over four months time. I don’t know if it will do I Am Legend money but come on, Will Smith playing an asshole drunk superhero is such a cool premise.

Wasn’t all that keen on the first trailer but I like Peter Berg’s directing style and I really hope the movie ventures into an adult drama style love triangle between Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron and Will Smith. And I don’t mean Spider-Man style love triangle, I mean an adult one… full of sexual drama and scenes of real hurt.

Love these photo’s except the very first one, which looks to have been cropped from an upcoming poster or something?

There’s also a new viral site online if you are so inclined.

source - coming soon, dvd forum