Just another handful of items here…
1. I’ve added some comments to my War of the Worlds post.
2. Elbert Ventura writes on ‘Roger Ebert’s rise to mediocrity‘ in The New Republic. FWIW, one of the major exhibits in his arsenal is Ebert’s review of the Adam Sandler version of The Longest Yard, which is an interesting conversation piece in its own right.
3. Tony Gilroy is going to write the third Bourne movie, reports FilmStew.com; he also wrote The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004; my review).
4. That box-office slump we keep hearing about? It’s affecting the rest of the world, too, reports the Los Angeles Times; and that includes Canada, reports the Canadian Press:
Movie attendance at both theatres and drive-ins – there are 54 of them – dropped 4.6 per cent in 2003-2004, halting an upward trend of more than a decade, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday. The lack of movie-goers also hit theatre company revenues and profits. Profits alone fell 15.8 per cent, the motion picture theatres survey showed.
There were nearly 118.2 million tickets sold at movie theatres during the year, nearly five per cent fewer than in 2002-2003.
The decline from 2002-2003 went along with a small increase in the average admission price, which rose to $7.45.
Alberta is the province with the most frequent moviegoers — though it’s still only 4.6 times a year — while Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, and my own British Columbia also rank above the national average of 3.8 trips to the theatres per year.
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