Top 5 Highest Paid Actors/Actresses in Hollywood 2014

Amazing Spider-Man 2 swings to the top of UK box office

Superhero sequel posts biggest opening at the UK box office of the year so far, £1m ahead of The Lego Movie's bow

The winner

Whichever way you look at it, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has just posted the biggest opening of 2014. Including previews from Wednesday and Thursday last week, the superhero sequel has earned five-day takings of £9.01m, which is ahead of The Lego Movie's previews-inclusive opening tally of £8.05m. Strip out the previews, andThe Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes in at £6.13m, which compares with Lego's £5.9m over the Friday-to-Sunday period.

Back in July 2012, the first Amazing Spider-Man film opened with £11.09m, including three days' worth of previews, totalling £4.36m. That six-day figure is very similar to the sequel's tally over the same period, also including Easter Monday. The first Amazing Spider-Man rapidly faced stiff competition from the likes of The Dark Knight Rises, and ended up with £26m here. With significantly less blockbuster competition in the offing, Sony will be hoping that Amazing Spider-Man 2 will show sturdier legs, pushing up towards £30m. On the other hand, most kids are now back at school, which will limit the film midweek to primarily adult audiences.The official weekend box-office chart does not include takings for Easter Monday. However, distributor Sony reports these as £1.72m, taking Spidey's total to £10.73m for the six days.

Among existing films in the market, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had the strongest impact on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which falls a hefty 53% from the previous weekend. But its gross of £16.75m so far is well ahead of the £9.48m achieved here by the first Captain America.

The runner-up

Moving up a place to second position, Rio 2 declined a relatively slim 27% from the previous weekend, and has added a nifty £3.03m over the past seven days. Weekend takings only contributed £1.13m of that total, meaning that the film performed particularly impressively on weekdays last week, in the run-up to Good Friday. School holidays and animation make happy bedfellows for UK cinemas. The original Rio film stood at £8.02m after three weeks of play, compared with £9.79m for Rio 2currently, a disparity that should give distributor Fox encouragement.

The alternatives

Several titles were positioned as counter-programming to Amazing Spidey, with mixed results. The Love Punch certainly offered an alternative to the teen characters foregrounded in the Marvel actioner, via lead actors aged 55 (Emma Thompson) and 60 (Pierce Brosnan). The European romantic caper rung up an OK £613,000 from UK cinemas, although with an aggressive rollout on 371 screens, the number translates to a lacklustre site average of £1,653.

Nurtured at a more selective 118 cinemas, Locke relied almost entirely on the star power of Tom Hardy, the only actor who appears on the screen. A debut of £251,000 and a decent screen average of £2,128 resulted. Distributor Lionsgate will be happy that its gross held steady across the weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun: £80,000, £82,000, £81,000), while the market overall dipped (Fri-Sat-Sun: £4.8m, £4.3m, £4.0m). Including Easter Monday, Locke is up to £316,000. Relevant comparisons are hard to identify, but the last film largely resting on Hardy's shoulders was 2011's Warrior, which kicked off with £808,000 from 383 screens, including £186,000 in previews. Before that, Bronson debuted in 2009 with £258,000 from 85 venues.

The big fallers

The arrival of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 saw hefty falls for a fair few titles, but not many matched the plummets of 67% for Hammer's The Quiet Ones and 69% for action sequel The Raid 2. Genre cinema is traditionally front-loaded, with receptive audiences keen to be the first to see, before attention quickly moves on. The original Raid also fell hard on its second weekend, by 70%.

The art-house battle

Seven weeks after the arrival of The Grand Budapest Hotel, the art-house sector has yet to deliver another clear winner. John Michael McDonagh's Calvary posted a strong second session, with a decline from the previous weekend of just 30%, and £1.39m so far, but this figure is boosted by big numbers in Ireland, which are always included in reports of UK box-office.

Thanks to an expanded screen count (from 28 to 42), Ritesh Batra crowdpleaser The Lunchbox saw its box-office rise by 18% in its second session, and has now grossed £229,000, putting it on course to be one of the bigger art-house foreign language films of the year. Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel is still hanging on at number 12 in the chart, and has now pushed through into eight figures with £10.29m.

New arrival We Are the Best!, from Lukas Moodysson, disappointed relative to its mostly adulatory reviews, with £42,000 from 40 cinemas. That's about level with the debut takings of Lilya 4-Ever (£39,000), but the earlier film managed that tally from only 13 cinemas. Moodysson's best opening remains his crowdpleasing Together (£70,000 from 16 screens), and it was hoped that We Are the Best! would place him back on that commercial trajectory. Including Easter Monday, We Are the Best! stands at £53,000. 

Bums on seats

Admissions figures – the number of tickets sold – have been announced for March, and are 5% down on March 2013. Admissions for the first quarter (January-March) are also 5% down on a year ago. Easter fell late this year, delaying the release of big titles such as Captain America 2, Rio 2 and Noah, so admissions figures should bounce back in April. Whether they can close the gap of 2.05 million – the disparity between 2014 and 2013 after the first quarter – remains to be seen.

The future

Thanks to the arrival of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, UK box office bounced back from the doldrums, rising 61% from the previous weekend, and 85% from the equivalent session a year ago, when Gerard Butler's Olympus Has Fallen knocked Tom Cruises's Oblivion off the top spot. For the immediate future, the picture looks less rosy, since there are no more slam-dunk blockbusters coming for a while. This week sees the arrival of Cameron Diaz comedy The Other Woman, plus Johnny Depp in Transcendence (which played paid previews over the Easter weekend) and Mia Wasikowska in Tracks, the true tale of one woman's solo trek across the Australian outback. None are likely to prove too troubling to Amazing Spider-Man.

Top 10 films April 18-20

1. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, £9,011,114 from 548 sites (New)

3. Rio 2, £1,132,641 from 550 sites. Total: £9,790,565

3. Noah, £920,803 from 476 sites. Total: £7,839,969

4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, £831,901 from 460 sites. Total: £16,748,625

5. The Love Punch, £613,424 from 371 sites (New)

6. Divergent, £500,206 from 412 sites. Total: £5,445,854

7. Calvary, £394,095 from 165 sites. Total: £1,394,543

8. Muppets Most Wanted, £366,312 from 500 sites. Total: £6,159,978

9. Locke, £251,063 from 118 sites (New)

10. 2 States, £208,578 from 63 sites (New)

Source: The Guardian

The Evolution of Film in 3 Minutes

The following montage chronicles the evolution of film from its conception in 1878 by Edward J. Muybridge to the Lumiere brothers in 1895. Georges Melies a trip to the moon in 1902 was a total game changer and from there we go to the first theatrical releases starting in 1920-2014 ... this portion of the montage is chronological.

Pitt says big movie salaries 'have died'

Actor reckons that studios don't have the money to pay the vast wages seen in the past
Brad Pitt has said that the days of astronomical salaries for Hollywood actors are over.

The A-list actor, who is reported to have made $25 million (£16 million) last year according to Forbes, reckons that such wage packets are a thing of the past.

“Yeah, that thing died,” he told Radio 1's Newsbeat when asked if actors could still take home $10 million (£6.2 million) for a single film role.

“That arithmetic doesn't really work right now... that deal's not flying these days. You take the roles for the roles, and you've just got to balance economics like everyone does.”

He adds that while the economic downturn has affected film studios adversely, it means it's now giving opportunities to lesser known talent.

“A lot of the studios have been challenged because of the economic downturn as well so they've been betting on bigger, more tent pole kinds of things.

“At the same time that opens up a vacuum for really interesting new film makers to come in.”

The idea of the 'tent-pole' projects run by the major studios is that they then bankroll the smaller projects.

Source: yahoo movies

Stars: Richard Dyer

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Little White Lies Magazine: 'Drive' Issue 37

Open publication - Free publishing

LWLies is a bi-monthly, independent movie magazine that features cutting edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of cinema.

Michael Caine on reluctant vigilante 'Harry Brown'

Read an interview with 'Harry Brown' director Daniel Barber here @ indielondon.co.uk

Forbes most bankable stars of 2011 revealed

The annual Forbes list of the top-ten most bankable stars in Hollywood has been revealed, with Kristen Stewart the best bet when it comes to getting a return on your investment.

The list looks at how much money stars made over their last three commercially released films - and compares this to how much they were paid to appear in the movies.

Stewart tops the list as her smaller films haven't been on wide release, so her returns are based on the hugely-popular 'Twilight' series. For every £1 Stewart is paid, her films earn an average £55.83.

Her co-star, Robert Pattinson, pulls in £15 less per £1 invested in him, but still sits at number three on the list.

Fourth is Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. It remains to be seen how the trio fare now that their respective career-making franchises are either over or drawing to a close.

The big surprise on the list is the name at number 2. 'The Dark Knight Rises' star Anne Hathaway scores highly - mainly due to 'Alice in Wonderland' - whereas her co-star in that film (and arguably the main attraction for most audiences), Johnny Depp scrapes in at number 10.

Last month it was revealed that Drew Barrymore and Eddie Murphy were the stars who cost the most per dollar-invested. So the message is clear: if you want to make a profit, find yourself a teen-friendly franchise and cast relative unknowns in the main roles.

The full list of the most-bankable stars is:

1. Kristen Stewart (£55.83 return for every £1 spent)

2. Anne Hathaway (£45.67 return for every £1 spent)

3. Robert Pattinson (£39.43 return for every £1 spent)

4. Daniel Radcliffe (£34.24 return for every £1 spent)

5. Shia LaBeouf (£29.40 return for every £1 spent)

6. Robert Downey Jr. (£18.74 return for every £1 spent)

7. Matt Damon (£15.83 return for every £1 spent)

8. Cate Blanchett (£15.17 return for every £1 spent)

9. Meryl Streep (£13.54 return for every £1 spent)

10. Johnny Depp (£12.48 return for every £1 spent)

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars

A list of the most overpaid actors in hollywood has been compiled by Forbes.com.

Forbes used data gathered for their annual Celebrity 100 list to calculate each star’s estimated earnings on each film (including up-front pay and any earnings from the movie’s box-office receipts and first year sales of DVDs). They then looked at each movie’s estimated budget (not including marketing costs, which are susceptible to accounting chicanery) and box-office and DVD earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.

Forbes added up each star’s compensation on his or her last three films and the operating income on those films, and divided total operating income by the star’s total compensation to come up with a return-on-investment number. The final number represents an average of how much a studio earns for every dollar paid.

No. 1 Drew Barrymore

For every $1 Barrymore is paid, her films return an average 40 cents.

See the full ist here.

How did Samuel L Jackson become the highest-grossing film star of all time?

Jackson's movies, ranging from Pulp Fiction to Snakes on a Plane, have grossed $7.4bn in total. So does it pay to be cool?

Who do you think is the highest-grossing movie star of all time? Tom Cruise? Arnold Schwarzenegger? John Wayne, perhaps? A woman? You couldn't be any more wrong. In fact, the Guinness Book of Records has just declared that it's actually Samuel L Jackson. In total, his films have grossed $7.4bn (£4.6bn), putting him way above any of his co-workers, living or dead.

But how has he managed this remarkable feat? Was it luck? Good choices? The strength of his ability? Let's find out how to become the highest-grossing movie star in history, the Samuel L Jackson way ...

Step one: Never stop making films

Since playing the part of Stan in 1972's Together for Days, Samuel L Jackson has featured in over 100 movies. The man is a machine. Not including videos and TV movies and videogames, Jackson still finds the time to appear in movie after movie after movie. In 2008, for example, you could have seen him in The Spirit, Soul Men, Lakeview Terrace, Iron Man, Gospel Hill and Jumper. Admittedly several of his films now are as Nick Fury, where he only has to put on an eyepatch and tut at Robert Downey Jr for a day or so, but even before that he had a work ethic that would exhaust his contemporaries.

Step two: Find a franchise and dig your heels in

Samuel L Jackson has never been shy about his desire to see out his dotage in a nice comfortable franchise, but happily several of his attempts have ended in failure. He famously wanted his character to survive the end of Snakes on a Plane so that he could ride the wave of endless Snakes on a Plane sequels like some kind of conquering hero, but the film tanked and he never got his wish. The same goes for his horrible update of Shaft. But the tactic has paid off a couple of times. Wearing a dressing gown and spending the majority of three interminable Star Wars prequels discussing intergalactic taxation added $2.4bn to his grosses, while Nick Fury accounts for over a billion more.

Step three: No part is too small if the film is big enough

There's talk of a Nick Fury film being made in coming years but, to be fair, Samuel L Jackson doesn't really add a lot to his Marvel films at the moment. All he does is show up, sometimes not even until the end credits have finished, and mutter something about a team he's putting together. Similarly, Mace Windu wasn't an essential component in Star Wars, his character in Jurassic Park came and went without many people even noticing that it was him and, career maker or not, Jackson's time on Pulp Fiction was mainly spent either talking about hamburgers or screaming biblical tracts at men with silly haircuts.

Step four: Kick back and relax every now and then

But Samuel L Jackson can't spend his entire career turning up, pulling one face and watching $288m get added on to his all-time gross, like he did in Coming to America. Sometimes you have to ignore the money and follow your soul. Sure, maybe films like Unthinkable or Country of My Skull or Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey weren't as popular as Jurassic Park and Star Wars and Iron Man, but they still count towards his combined total grosses. In their own way, they still count.

Step five: Everybody loves a badass

Did Mace Windu need to be a fearsome African American from Washington DC? No, he didn't, but George Lucas just thought it'd be cool. Was it essential that he narrated Inglourious Basterds over anyone else? No, but it was cool. Technically, shouldn't Nick Fury have been played by David Hasselhoff? Perhaps, but Samuel L Jackson is cooler. Basically, the moral of the story is this: be cool enough and huge films will trip over themselves to give you tiny parts. And that's apparently how you break records.

Taken from: The Guardian filmblog: 28/10/11