newsmakers

newsmakers

‘Super 8’ takes off on healthy launch

LOS ANGELES

Hollywood’s summer box-office streak has cooled a bit with a $37 million opening weekend for J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi tale “Super 8.”

It was a healthy but unremarkable launch in a summer season whose newcomers often open with two or three times as much money. Released by Paramount Pictures, “Super 8” largely features a cast of young newcomers, the story centering on teen filmmakers and an alien entity that escapes from a wrecked train.

“The movie was never conceived to be a blockbuster, tent-pole film opening to $60 or $70 million,” said Don Harris, head of distribution for Paramount.

“Super 8” bumped off the previous weekend’s No. 1 movie, 20th Century Fox’s comic-book prequel “X-Men: First Class,” which slipped to second-place with $25 million. “First Class” raised its domestic total to $98.9 million.

After a string of blockbuster debuts in May and early June, Hollywood’s overall revenues dipped for the first time in a month. Domestic receipts totaled $140 million, down 7.5 percent from the same weekend last year, when “The Karate Kid” led with $55.7 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

The weekend’s other new wide release, Relativity Media’s family flick “Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer,” opened weakly at No. 7 with $6.3 million. The movie follows a young girl’s wacky summer adventures.

Two sequels passed the $200 million mark domestically this weekend.

The Warner Bros. comedy “The Hangover Part II” came in at No. 3 with $18.5 million to become the year’s top-grossing domestic release at $216.6 million.

Disney’s action tale “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” was No. 5 with $10.9 million, raising its domestic haul to $208.8 million.

Bellevue Philharmonic is calling it quits

BELLEVUE, Wash.

After 43 years, including some recent rocky ones, the Bellevue Philharmonic is shutting down.

The board announced Friday that the orchestra will cease operations by the end of July. Its July 4 Concert in the Park at Symetra Bellevue Family 4th will be the orchestra’s last.

The past few years have been tough for the Bellevue Philharmonic, as it has been for many arts organizations, which have trimmed budgets, cut staff, and slashed wages. Seattle’s Intiman Theatre recently canceled its season due to money woes.

Student Academy Awards span globe

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

There was a decidedly international flavor to Saturday night’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 38th Annual Student Academy Awards, with top medalists hailing from homelands spanning the globe — from Norway to South Korea to Israel to Brazil.

“For the first time Foreign Film is not just an honorary category, as it has been for the past 31 years,” said event co-presenter, “Alias” actress Jennifer Garner. “The Student Award executive committee felt with all the quality work they were seeing each year from the schools outside America, it was about time to make to make Foreign Film a regular category.”

Garner noted that foreign students submitted 52 films from 32 different countries this year, and the winner of the new foreign prize was Norway’s Hallvar Witzo, director of “Tuba Atlantic.”

Even one of the top Hollywood-produced winners, narrative-category gold medalist “Thief,” had a foreign flair. It spun around a young Saddam Hussein, was set in Iraq and in Iraqi-Arabic with subtitles.

Other gold-medal winners included New York director Zach Hyer’s “Correspondence” in the animation category and Chicago-based Wonjung Bae’s “Vera Klement: Blunt Edge” in the documentary category.

Wire reports