Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Blood Diamond — CDN $8,797,983 — N.AM $53,967,000 — 16.3%The Queen — CDN $5,776,923 — N.AM $45,522,000 — 12.7%Catch and Release — CDN $1,461,629 — N.AM $12,011,000 — 12.2%Pan’s Labyrinth — CDN $2,610,113 — N.AM $21,696,000 — 12.0%Smokin’ Aces — CDN $2,453,355 — N.AM $24,955,000 — 9.8%Epic Movie — CDN... Read more

Curiouser and curiouser. You may recall that I posted an item here two months ago complaining about the tight cropping of most of the cartoons on More Silly Symphonies: 1929 – 1938, one of the most recent entries in the ‘Walt Disney Treasures‘ series of DVDs. At the time, I noted that The Goddess of Spring (1934) was not “windowboxed” like the other films, and I assumed this was because Disney was re-using the version they had made six years... Read more

If I linked to every story out there about Hollywood’s quest for the next big fantasy franchise, I’d never get any work done. But this piece by Jamie Portman of CanWest News Service is worth citing here, if only to fact-check a couple of statements. First, a small and rather trivial matter of box-office statistics: Prince Caspian is the second of Christian academic C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia to be filmed, and Disney is promising a movie even more spectacular... Read more

So says Mark Steyn, here and especially here, commenting on this. But wait a minute, I thought Christian was the new gay. Read more

Major American studios like Fox are threatening to withhold their movies from Canadian theatres — but now the Globe and Mail reports that Canadians aren’t going to the movies all that much nowadays anyway, at least not compared to Americans: Canadian admissions have been edging downward for close to five years. The trend was brought home most recently by Telefilm Canada‘s release of data for 2006. Overall box office last year was $831-million. While not a dramatic dip from 2005’s... Read more

In the book, Prince Caspian is 13. In the film, the actor playing him, according to the Times of London, will be turning 26 this summer, presumably while the film is still shooting. Is this a difference that makes a difference — of any sort? Discuss. (Hat tip to NarniaWeb.com.) FEB 3 UPDATE: A new post at NarniaWeb.com indicates that Susan and Caspian may flirt with each other in the film. Hmmm. Read more

You know that subplot in the brilliant Spike Jonze film Adaptation (2002; my top ten list) where Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother Donald describes a screenplay he’s working on called The Three? Last night I finally got around to watching Thr3e, the most recent Christian genre pic to be distributed by FoxFaith. I won’t say any more, to avoid spoilers. But I swear, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was kinda weird and sad that a Christian movie... Read more

Jeffrey Overstreet is taking a break from doing the CT Movies Film Forum for a couple weeks, so I’m filling in for him, and the first round-up of reviews is up today, covering the reactions of Christian critics to Epic Movie, Smokin’ Aces, Catch and Release, Blood and Chocolate, Seraphim Falls, Alpha Dog, Family Law, and a few of last week’s Academy Award nominees. Read more

In 2002, while X2: X-Men United was being filmed in Vancouver, I heard producer Ralph Winter speak at Regent College, and in the course of his presentation, he talked about some of the things that Christians had to be prepared to do if they wanted to work in the film business. For example, he said he had helped a guy make Shoot or Be Shot! (2002), starring Winter’s friend William Shatner, because the guy in question owned the rights to... Read more

It has been almost three weeks since I first passed on the news that 20th Century Fox was thinking of withholding its films from Canada because of all the rampant piracy here. Now, the Toronto Star reports that Canadian exhibitors are asking the government to prevent this by making a change to our Criminal Code: Last week, Canada’s movie theatre owners sent a letter to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson seeking an amendment to the code that would make it a... Read more