Two new movies previewed last night.
One did pretty well, the other not so much.
“Novocaine” had a painless preview with $1.75 million. Jack Quaid, son of Meg Ryan, is starting to turn into a movie star. He was great on Jimmy Kimmel last week. His appearance paid off nicely. The movie from Paramount is expertly marketed.
“Black Bag” is a 90 minute heist movie (I think) from Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett star. Focus Features sort of dumped the black bag onto the table. The result was $850,000 in previews last night. Those actors don’t come cheap, neither does the director. So this is not a good omen.
Hey! Sony Pictures Classics has finally put Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” into 14 theaters. Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Alessandro Nivola, and John Turturro are all very good in it. So far they’ve made $2.5 million in the US and $1 7mil worldwide. This is a serious film, Pedro’s first full length in English, and should have been in the Oscar mix. Find it!