'Leatherheads' Fumbles During Opening Weekend, Casting Doubt On Clooney's Bankability

4.05K

STV

04/07/08 12:05PM

Filed to: Defamer

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When our cultural faith is shaken to its very core by the passing of Charlton Heston and looming Short Circuit remakes, we know we can always find quiet comfort in the security of numbers. Box-office numbers, to be exact:

1. 21 - $15.1 million
The geeks-take-Vegas opus shocked observers by not only sustaining its top spot for a second consecutive week, but also by outlasting consistently sluggish reviews (thus establishing critics' rumored irrelevancy beyond a doubt and putting in motion a unilateral purge of the eight remaining full-time reviewers working in the United States).

2. Leatherheads - $13.4 million
George Clooney's latest directorial/starring effort was easily the week's most stirring disappointment, pulling in woefully less than the $20 million forecast by observers last week. Analysts point out potential stumbling blocks from a misleading marketing campaign to a football film opening on a basketball/baseball weekend, but let's face it: No film can survive an opening-weekend torpedo from the influential critical duo Reel Geezers, who "felt bad for the cameramen and everyone involved."

3. Nim's Island - $13.3 million
Before this morning we'd never even heard of this movie, the script for which a Fox executive is said to have discovered under his passenger seat while searching for his dropped Bluetooth earpiece. Was this actually released, or was this just a WGA-engineered ploy to make its newly fi-core archenemy Clooney feel worse about Leatherheads?

4. Horton Hears a Who! - $9.1 million
Plunging nearly 50 percent from its bridesmaid perch last week, Horton nevertheless sustained a Top-5 berth. Jim Carrey spent the weekend calculating the dynamics of his newfound leverage, which should be just enough to get his and Spike Jonze's Ripley's Believe it or Not adaptation pushed up to a 2017 release.

11. Stop-Loss - $2.3 million
Is Hollywood out of touch when it comes to the Iraq War? Oh, wait.

The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.

erosen STV 04/07/08 01:03PM

Nikki Finke refused to print my letter on her blog..

Dear Nikki,

I wanted to thank you so much for your informative and incredibly insightful article on George Clooney. It's surprisingly refreshing when one reads articles like yours and can actually glean relative insight into someones character. Thank You! What was so interesting to me was that I actually didn't learn anything new or particularly interesting about Mr. Clooney but in fact learned a great deal about you. I have never had the displeasure of meeting you in person, but after reading your vitriolic cruel and entirely too personal attack on Mr. Clooney, I think I have a clear idea of just what "kinda cocktail you are". You are most likely a lonely, sad, pathetic creature who lives in a small cramped apartment commonly referred to as a dungeon. You could probably stop traffic with your appearance.(I don't mean in a good way) I only can come to this conclusion because after reading this scathing and feeble attempt at so called journalism,one can only assume that you have an enormous amount of dislike, for yourself. You probably want everything that Mr. Clooney has and sadly have come to realize that you will never even come close.

I am an average woman who loves going to the movies and have never defined the term "movie star" by box office prowess. I cannot for a second tell you what Gary Cooper's movies grossed, nor Spencer Tracy or Cary Grant for that matter. What I can tell you is that all of these movie stars, including Mr. Clooney, had and have, is a special something that no one individual can define, whether it be a glance, laugh, swagger, or simple gesture, that separates us from them. Sadly, most of those men and days are gone. So today we search for a new type of movie star. Someone that has a special something, but more importantly an actor that takes risks, chooses material that doesn't fit into a particular genre, an actor who is willing to put himself out there in order to attempt to raise our consciousness even just a little, not to see how many office buildings he can single handedly blow up in 3 minutes or how many times he can personally save the world in the last act. As for your silly and cruel reference to Mr Smith, and I assure you, I have nothing but the deepest respect for Mr. Smith as an actor and person, I can only guess that your so called studio mogul's comments upon seeing the opening numbers for Mr Smith's Wild Wild West debacle were "he's no Clooney".

And dear Nikki, while you were throwing around your so called percentages, you over-looked the fact that 80% percent of the audience who went to see Leatherheads this weekend, actually bought tickets because Mr. Clooney was in the movie.

It was also abundantly clear to me that in regards to your total inaccuracies regarding the Leatherheads script and the Writers Guild that you have not read the original draft written some fourteen odd years ago. Mr. Clooney did not hold a press conference, stand on his soap box and stammer, "I mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". He disagreed with a decision and made a personal and private choice to resign. In taking away or judging Mr. Clooney's right to resign, you Ms. Finke remind us of that sadistic cruel drunk named Joe McCarthy who as you well know, destroyed countless lives by taking away their right to choose, and concocting vicious untruths. I have actually heard that you slightly resemble Mr. McCarthy in size and stature. You might want to zip down the family tree, you might be related.

You are a cruel person Ms. Finke, not to mention a boring and dreadful writer, and I feel incredibly sorry for you and I thank god that the thousands of African children that are actually alive because of Mr. Clooney's generosity will never have to read this crap. Have a better day! Ms. Rosen

MisterMuggles STV 04/07/08 12:40PM

My theory: Heterosexual ladies love the Cloon. Heterosexual ladies also love "Jim" (perhaps not Krasinski, but definitely Jim). What they don't like is covering those two men in mud and antiquated padding, and more importantly the concept of those two men duking it out over Squinty McGee.

Xylo STV 04/07/08 06:10PM

I enjoyed the film, tho it could have been more tightly edited, not to say lose scenes, but there were a lot of excess minutes here and there where not much happened. 15 to 18 minutes less would have worked.

Also, it's impossible to sell Zellweger as a sexy smart-aleck, very badly miscast here. I already have enough trouble buying her as a competent actress. She basically posed and squinted.

Benovite STV 04/07/08 04:59PM

I have a short story that I wrote in 9th grade that was unjustly maligned by my teacher.

I would like to rectify the matter by publishing it here, now, for you all to read, enjoy and love.

You will find that it is a story for the ages...

BACH WHEN I WUZX GORINW UP I KISSED ME GUPPIE AND SA