Hoping to stretch the Memorial Weekend even longer, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL opened a day early – on Thursday instead of Friday – earning $25-million in 4,260 U.S theatres. The impressive number put it as the fourth biggest Thursday opener ever, after STAR WARS: EPISODE III – REVENGE OF THE SITH, THE MATRIX RELOADED, and STAR WARS: EPISODE II – ATTACK OF THE CLONES.
The film simultaneously opened worldwide, posting strong numbers in France and Belgium, where it grossed $2.2-million on Wednesday.
UPDATE (5/26/08): The fourth INDIANA JONES film made approximately $101-million from Friday through Sunday, for a total of $126-million counting tickets sales from Thursday’s early release. That puts the film just behind PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END for biggest Memorial Day opening. (For comparison purposes, one should not that PIRATES had only limited theatrical preivews on Thursday.) Paramount expects that KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL will add another $25-million on Monday, thanks to the extended weekend.
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Tag: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Cybersurfing: Indiana Jones Raids Cannes Film Fest
The Age.com.au has a report on INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, which had its premier at the Cannes film festival. Their response is not as negative as some have been, but they do seem to think the film is a bit of a disappointment:
The new film is – largely – more of the old films, but with more stars, bigger stunts and considerably more computer-generated imagery.
Led by Indy and Mary, his first love from Raiders of the Lost Ark– again played by an impressively mature (in Hollywood terms) Karen Allen – our gang of adventurers plunge down a series of massive waterfalls, fight gargantuan creepy-crawlies, find ways into Mayan tombs that have beaten generations of determined but less wily tomb-raiders, find treasure and beat off some spectacularly evil bad dudes, led by Cate Blanchett as a Soviet scientist with an accent thicker than borscht and a neat sideline in swordplay.
[…]
There were only sporadic cheers from diehards at the end of the film; it was not, as one early reviewer had said, the Indiana Jones film everyone had been dreading, but it wasn’t an ecstatic experience either, even for the movie geeks.
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Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Crystal Skull"
Legend says that a crystal skull was once stolen from a mystical lost city of gold in the Amazon jungles of Peru. It is supposedly guarded by the living dead, and it is said, that whoever returns the mystic skull to the Temple of Akator, will be given control over its powers.
Today at the Cannes film festival, the world press will get it’s first glimpse of INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. However, advance internet reviews have already spread like wildire, causing a minor sensation with their largely negative assesments. Perhaps most importantly, The New York Times deemed the bad early reviews worthy enough for a feature story.
Continue reading “Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Crystal Skull"”
Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Fantasy Film Review
The story incorporates exotic locations, lost cities, and mad ambitions, pitting power-crazed villains against well-matched rivals.”The thing to keep in mind abut this film is that it is only a movie,” says Steven Spielberg. “It takes all the license of an exotic entertainment that aims to thrill and scare and strike one with a sense of wonder.”
—from advance publicity for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981).
There is little doubt that George Lucas’s and Steven Spielberg’s first RAIDERS film in 19 years, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, is the most anticipated film of the summer.
So in advance of it’s nationwide opening on May 22, here with the help of the studio press notes, are a few thoughts about the fourth Indiana Jones film. Continue reading “Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Fantasy Film Review”
Trailer: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Here it is, the trailer for the film, due out May 22…
Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, and Karen Allen star for director Steven Spielberg. David Koepp wrote the script, from a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. The setting is South America, 1957, where Jones races through the jungles, hoping to beat Soviet agents searching for the mystical Crystal Skull.
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