Mendelson makes interesting statistical comparisons.  But I find some of his arguments less than convincing.  I seriously doubt MMoE was advanced from May 2020 in order to get it to Disney+ faster.  There is already an abundance of material for Disney+.  But I could imagine that Eternals' release in November 2020 might have played a role since a 6-month gap between them would mean an overlap in their campaigns with both prominently featuring Angelina in fantasy roles.  Disney has a lot more riding on Eternals which anchors phase 4 of the MCU and their first priority would be to protect it.  When they announced the change in MMoE's release date in early March this year Angelina would have already been signed for Eternals.  Her involvement was leaked in late March.

If they had gotten a truly competent director, the change in release date may not have mattered.  As it is, Disney could have tweaked MMoE into a better film, crafted a more effective promotional campaign, and MMoE could have benefited from a summer release.  The difference would be the gap between MMoE's eventual haul and M's $758M.  

We'll have to wait til Frozen 2 is released to judge how well MMoE held.  Its week to week hold has been good so far, down 32% (domestic) from the previous weekend, down 38% for the week --  a reflection of good word of mouth and its audience score.  Mendelson points put that MMoE has already done better than Alice TTLG, Dumbo and Mary Poppins Returns.  All had much lower audience scores of 48%, 50% and 66% respectively.


Forbes

Scott Mendelson

In a random Tuesday box office update, Walt Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer, earned $1.74 million yesterday, falling just 20% from last Tuesday and jumping an absurd 106% from Monday. I don’t know if that’s a record (non-holiday) Monday-to-Tuesday jump, but it’s almost certainly among the very biggest. The Angelina Jolie flick has now earned $87.824 million as it remains on track for a $115 million domestic total. That’s a sharp comedown from Maleficent’s $242 million domestic cume in the summer of 2014, especially as this sequel cost about the same ($180 million) as its predecessor. It has earned just 22% of its global total in North America. As such, Mistress of Evil should cross $315 million overseas and $400 million worldwide today.

Alice Through the Looking Glass ($299 million in 2016),  
Dumbo ($350 million in 2019) and  
Mary Poppins Returns ($349.5 million in 2018).

Oz: The Great and Powerful ($492 million in 2013) and
Cinderella ($542 million in 2015).

Rio 2 ($131 million/$500 million worldwide in 2014)),  
Ready Player One ($137 million/$587 million in 2018),  
Transformers: The Last Knight ($130 million/$605 million in 2017) and  
Life of Pi ($125 million/$609 million in 2012)

Fate of the Furious earned $226 million in North America in 2017, which is the lowest domestic total for any Hollywood flick that earn on to earn even $900 million worldwide, let alone its eventual $1.236 billion global cume.  
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw earned $758 million despite “just” $173 million domestic, the third-lowest domestic total for a live-action $700 million-plus Hollywood release after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($172 million out of $794 million in 2017) and
2012 ($166 million/$769 million in 2009).

The Last Samurai ($111 million domestic and $457 million worldwide in 2003),  
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($104 million/$415 million in 2010),
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($102 million/$403 million in 2008),  
Pacific Rim ($101 million/$411 million in 2013) and  
Troy ($133 million/$497 million in 2004). And it should be noted that there has yet to be a fourth Mummy or Narnia flick while Pacific Rim: Uprising earned just $290 million worldwide in 2018.

Even if Mistress of Evil, which I will argue was a better movie than its predecessor, won’t be a blow-out hit, just breaking even is a qualified win for this one. That’s both because it was (arguably) dropped into theaters this year instead of May 2020 in order to get it onto Disney+ faster and because it shows that the live-action Disney fairy tales can potentially justify sequels, especially if they can keep the budgets in check. Moreover, even if they lose a few bucks spending too much on Maleficent 2, they still have a mega-budget theatrical offering to tout as a “big deal” when that movie arrives on Disney+. And, yes, folks spending money on Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is folks not spending money on non-Disney movies.

If the goal is market share, then even a box office disaster like the (as of now) $145 million-grossing Terminator: Dark Fate (which Fox/Disney is distributing outside of North America and China) helps the Mouse House. Between October 17 and December 25, Disney had/will have the second-biggest global grosser of the fall (between Joker and It Chapter Two), the two biggest global live-action flicks of the Thanksgiving season (Terminator: Dark Fate and Fox’s Ford v Ferrari, unless Doctor Sleep pulls a Conjuring for Warner Bros.), the biggest toon of Thanksgiving (Frozen II) and Christmas (Spies in Disguise) and presumably the biggest movie of the post-summer calendar (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). At least for the end of 2019, Disney’s acquisition of Fox will allow it to totally control market share.
Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.


Still talking about cameras and still not mentioning it's star.

View this post on Instagram

I enjoy shooting with multiple cameras - and on big shows like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, they let you. I tend to design the shots with the “A” camera, then line up the other angles. It demands a lot from the camera crew which in this case was led by the brilliant DP, Henry Braham. The extra coverage this way of shooting produces has helped me out in editing numerous times. It is truly a privilege for a filmmaker to be able to work like this @disneymaleficent Now playing #maleficent (📸 also, the BTS shots I’ve been posting lately are all taken by our amazing set photographer, Jaap Buitendijk!) 🖤

A post shared by Joachim Rønning (@joachimronning) on Nov 4, 2019 at 9:09am PST

.@VickiCartagena talks w/ @DJ_Sixsmith about #21Bridges w/ @chadwickboseman and working w/ @angelinajolie.

Read more: https://t.co/7edj59Q2gr pic.twitter.com/kmPh8iJOZs

— CBS Local (@cbslocal) November 6, 2019

Noyce

Jeff Wells is best buddies with Phillip Noyce and was the enthusiastic de facto head of the unofficial Salt Fan Club at the time the film was released.   It's interesting that Noyce now tells him directing the film was like "working in a washing machine" as he had to deal with political as well as creative elements.  Salt was banned in China presumably because it depicts North Korean officers torturing Evelyn Salt in the opening scene.  China has long been North Korea's patron.  The filmmakers were never told specifically why the film was banned but they were informed no amount of editing would get the Chinese censors to change their minds.  Given Angelina's popularity in the country,  Salt lost a good chunk of revenues that would almost certainly have placed it well over $300M worldwide.

There was also the matter of a pivotal scene (spoiler: the death of Evelyn Salt's husband) which had to be changed from a slow drowning to a quick bullet to the heart because drowning meant an automatic R rating.

Outside of Wells, Noyce's new effort, Mary and Martha has not been getting great reviews.

-- Fussy



Hollywood Elsewhere
Jeff Wells

Noyce’s Sad, Soulful Downshift

I spoke last Sunday with Mary and Martha director Phillip Noyce. We went on for a half-hour — here’s the mp3. The nominal subject of Mary and Martha is the ravages of malaria, so tomorrow is an especially fitting day to catch it. But the film is really about much more, and not just in terms of content. It’s a personal film for Noyce as well as a spiritual retreat of sorts.

Mary and Martha director Phillip Noyce. 

Noyce’s motive in directing a politically-tinged HBO character drama, he says, was to downshift from his experience as the director of Salt, a hugely successful Angelina Jolie action thriller that required dealing with as many political elements as creative ones. Noyce equates the experience to working in a “washing machine.”

Mary and Martha is about two moms (Hilary Swank, Brenda Blethyn) “coping with the malaria-caused deaths of their sons in Africa, and about the social and political activism these tragedies bring about,” I wrote three days ago. “But it’s clean and direct and earnest as far as the story allows it to go, which is farther than you might expect,”night, and it hit me all over again (and in a sense a bit more this time) how well made it is, how carefully finessed, how exactly right it all feels.

Noyce is primarily known for directing big expensive action thrillers and potboilers (Salt, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, Dead Calm) as well as somewhat smaller-scaled humanistic dramas (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Catch A Fire, The Quiet American) — this is obviously one of the latter.
“The material might be a little on-the-nose, but Noyce knows exactly what he’s doing, and there’s just this sense of convergence — a team of clearly talented people have been told to contribute in just the right way. It’s so well acted by not only Swank and Blethyn but every last costar and bit player (Frank Grillo, James Woods, Lux Honey-Jardine, Sam Claflin, Sean O’Bryan, Ian Redford) and written with such clarity and finesse that it moves along and just sinks right in without a hint of huffing or puffing…it just happens.”

Noyce’s next project is a kind of futuristic Hunger Games-meets-Phillip K. Dick film with Jeff Bridges and yet-to-be-cast costar. It will shoot in South Africa. The Weinstein Co. is producing.

In Features: China props up Pyongyang over US fears aje.me/17YNVPz
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 25, 2013

bits

Not bad for the UK

An avg of 2.1m watched the network premiere of Salt, starring Angelina Jolie last night on Channel 4 #TVRatings
— Channel 4 Sales (@Channel4Sales) March 18, 2013

Oh how I miss doing movies, The Good Shepard with Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon 😊 instagr.am/p/XA8Z3XLWvk/
— Rick Ross (@corrinistupiddd) March 18, 2013

Thoughts

Salt +

Its understandable why Sony would want to keep hoping for a Salt sequel even though Angelina's crowded plate keeps pushing their timetable back.

Angelina's Evelyn Salt is the first serious challenger to James Bond since Matt Damon's Jason Bourne, and this despite the fact that unlike both, it's an original character and not supported by a bestselling book.  Salt was a worldwide hit, earning almost $300M at the box office and doing even better post-theatrical. 

To appreciate what Sony and Angelina accomplished and the difficulty of successfully launching a spy-action franchise (or any franchise for that matter), we need only look at other recent attempts:

Knight & Day (2010) - $76M Dom,  $175M Intl., $261M WW, $117M cost
Bourne Legacy (2012) - $113M Dom, $162M Intl, $276M WW,  $125M cost

Jack Reacher (2012) is Tom Cruise's latest franchise hopeful but Reacher isn't a spy and so technically the film isn't a spy action thriller even though the beats are very similar.  The film's domestic box office results are in line with his Knight & Day but it was made for half the price -  $79M Dom, $124M* Intl, $203M* WW, $60M cost.

(*A side note: Reacher has just been open for 3 weeks in Japan where Cruise has a large fan base.  It has so far grossed $9M from Feb 3 to 17.  In contrast,  Knight & Day grossed $19M in the country from Oct 9 - 24.  The $10M drop is another worrisome sign for Cruise.)

Other recent, big budget franchise hopefuls:

The A Team (2010) - $77M Dom, $100M Intl, $177M WW, $110M cost
G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra (2009) - $150M Dom, $152M Intl., $302M WW, $175M cost
John Carter - $73M Dom, $209M Intl, $282M WW, $250M cost

Compare all the above results to Salt : $118M Dom, $175M Intl,  $293M WW, cost $110M, and the reason for Sony's tenacity and determination becomes apparent.

Angelina saw Salt as an opportunity to get back in shape after her last pregnancy.  She had script approval but otherwise didn't have much say in the way the project came together since Phillip Noyce was already attached and Kurt Wimmer penned the original Edwin A. Salt script.  But to get her back now, every aspect of Salt 2's production will have to be to her satisfaction.

Just as she did on Maleficent, she is expected to be very involved with choosing the cast and crew and will likely officially assume a producer's role.  Her motivations may stem in part from disappointment in recent projects where the filmmakers let her down -- most notably The Tourist -- and in part because she saw how Brad's hands-on approach has yielded stellar results.  Another part may be the result of her expanded knowledge after her experience with Blood & Honey. 

Since Sony is also behind Cleopatra in what has become a shared passion project for Angelina, Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin, they can continuously work with her to get Salt 2 fitted into her schedule. They'll need to work very hard at it because now that Angelina has an active alternative career as a director, bigger chunks of her time can be taken up by a single project.

If Cleopatra starts filming late this year, it should wrap by early next year and Angelina can proceed directly to Unbroken which will likely keep her busy until well into 2015.  And I am sure Brad will also have a film or two squeezed in there. 

Unless Cleopatra &/or Unbroken are delayed, I don't see Salt 2 going into production until 2015 for a 2016 release.  That's a very long gap given that Salt was released 2010.  I enjoyed Salt very much even though I felt they sacrificed much of the story in order to have non-stop action.   I hope that it won't become a victim of Angelina's crowded schedule.  It has tremendous potential and is already on the verge of becoming a successful franchise.  With Angelina firmly involved in its development, I am sure Salt 2 will be a strong, character-driven thriller that can improve considerably on Salt's worldwide grosses.  But that's IF she ever gets around to making it.  As time goes by, its becoming a bigger IF. 

-- Fussy

Sony

From Deadline

Sony Pictures Releasing International Posts Biggest Year: Studio On Way To First $4B

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Sunday November 4, 2012 @ 11:34am PST

Sony Pictures Releasing International is at $2.16 billion through today. It’s thanks in part to the fast success of the 23rd James Bond film Skyfall and Resident Evil: Retribution, the recent Hotel Transylvania and the summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man as well as The Vow, 21 Jump Street, and Men In Black 3. That passes SPRI’s previous best year of 2009 and $2.14B. Worldwide, the studio is at $3.6B moving towards its first ever $4B year. Presently, Sony Pictures is #1 in market share.




 ==========



There has been so much speculation about the state of affairs at Sony Pictures that Doug Belgrad, president of Sony-owned Columbia Pictures and Kazuo Hirai, who took over from Howard Stringer as head of the parent company Sony Corp., both spoke to the press to debunk rumors that it was out of cash or would be sold.

According to Belgrad, Sony intends to continue to focus on films with "global blockbuster potential" while at the same "keep playing in the field of commercial movies for adults by being a little more creative about how we finance them."  That may help explain why they shifted David Fincher out of Cleopatra.  As The Playlist earlier noted, Fincher is not a four quadrant director and his films aren't blockbusters.  Amy Pascal acknowledged that Cleopatra  won't be cheap and likened it to Gone with the Wind.  To recoup that kind of investment they need to have a crowd-pleasing, sweeping film.  It needs to be grand and have epic scale -- elements that Fincher seemed to eschew when he talked about subverting audience expectations for Cleopatra.  Fincher and Angelina have both repeatedly stated their desire to work together and it may yet happen in a Sony production, but it will likely be one that can more fully utilize Fincher's talents. 

Scott Rudin said many directors were interested in Cleopatra but there's only a handful they'd be interested in talking to.  In truth, there can't be more than a handful of directors who have the talent and skill to successfully lead a big, smart, successful epic and who would meet with Angelina's approval  --  although they're looking in the right direction with Ang Lee.

Like I've noted before, Angelina may be Sony's most valuable franchise star left after the string of Sandler misfires and Will Smith's underperforming MIB3.  Salt 2 is an almost guaranteed $300M gross for the studio and an attractive inducement for potential investors as the studio seeks financing deals.  In fact, Aramid Entertainment Fund, an  investor in the Beverly Slate fund led by Relativity Media that backed part of Sony's slate sued when a restructuring of their deal left them, among other things, no longer able to participate in the "potentially lucrative" sequels to Salt as well as Grown Ups and Paul Bart Mall Cop.  (page 29, line 16 - 17 of the complaint)

From LA Times

Sony Pictures cutting back on production

Sony Pictures, which considered "Men in Black 3" a mild financial disappointment, is cutting back on the number of movies it makes. (Saeed Adyani / Sony Pictures)

By Ben Fritz

October 30, 2012, 2:07 p.m.

Adam Sandler has made 15 of his last 18 movies with the backing of Sony Pictures. The studio has maintained a production deal with the comedy star since 2002 and stuck with him through hits like “50 First Dates” and “Grown Ups” and flops like “Spanglish” and “Jack and Jill.”

That’s why many were surprised recently to learn that Sandler is making his upcoming comedic western “Ridiculous 6” with Paramount Pictures.

In gossip-fueled Hollywood, where schadenfreude is more popular than the Super Bowl, the news became fuel for an increasingly common refrain heard from agents, producers and executives at rival studios: “Sony is out of money.”

PHOTOS: Celebrities by the Times

In reality, the studio is still spending, having recently bought several high-profile scripts and preparing to start production soon on a big-budget sequel to “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

But there is some fire beneath the smoke above Sony’s Culver City lot.

The studio long known as one of Hollywood’s most deep-pocketed is cutting back on the number of movies it makes. The result is that films it might have made in the past, like “Ridiculous 6,” are falling by the wayside.

It’s the latest sign that amid falling DVD sales and rapidly evolving international and digital markets, no studio has a safe harbor.

“We’re making what I would call adjustments, but not radical changes,” said Doug Belgrad, president of Sony’s largest film label, Columbia Pictures.

The “adjustments” come as Sony Pictures’ leadership, including Belgrad, Chairman Michael Lynton and Co-Chairman Amy Pascal, have one overarching goal in mind: to grow the profits they send to troubled parent company Sony Corp. In the company’s last fiscal year, which ended March 31, Sony Pictures generated $416 million of operating income, down 12% from the prior year.

PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments

That’s a difficult task in the current economic environment and virtually impossible without a more disciplined – some might say ruthless – approach to moviemaking.

While Sony’s slate for 2013 is already set, the studio is planning to make two fewer movies per year starting in 2014. That means it will typically put out between 18 and 20, rather than 20 to 22.

Sony has long made the second-highest number of movies per year among Hollywood studios, behind Warner Bros. It will now be closer to smaller competitors such as 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures.

Fewer releases will likely mean less spent on producing and marketing. The studio will also cut its development spending, Belgrad said, by close to 10% and seek to buy more completed scripts, rather than spending millions to rewrite projects it buys at early stages.

Though it still plans to bet big on movies with global blockbuster potential like the second “Amazing Spider-Man” and next year’s “White House Down” from “2012” director Roland Emmerich, Sony is not willing to invest as much as it did in the past on movies aimed at more sophisticated audiences.

“We want to keep playing in the field of commercial movies for adults by being a little more creative about how we finance them,” Belgrad explained.

Sony executives recently told Oscar winner George Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov that they couldn’t fully finance their World War II thriller “Monuments Men” at a planned budget of between $70 million and $80 million. 20th Century Fox has agreed to pay for half the movie and split the potential profits or losses.

At the American Film Market in Santa Monica this week, Sony is looking to sell rights in some foreign markets to an upcoming movie about zombies and vampires fighting alien invaders titled “Kitchen Sink.” Such a step is rare among major studios, which maintain worldwide distribution operations so that they can capture revenue everywhere a film can be seen.

In order to maintain profitability, Sony is also looking to put off marketing costs for movies released late in its fiscal year for which profits couldn’t be recognized until months later. That’s one reason it delayed the science-fiction film “Elysium,” from “District 9” director Neil Blomkamp, from March to August.

The changes come as Sony is on track to beat its yearly box-office record with about $4 billion in worldwide receipts. But given the amount it has spent on some of its pictures, ultimate results have been mixed.
The “Spider-Man” reboot and animated comedy “Hotel Transylvania” were hits, but “Total Recall” and Sandler’s “That’s My Boy” were big flops. Despite its $624 million worldwide gross, the costly “Men in Black 3” was a financial disappointment.

Studios including Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Studios have already cut back on their slates while others like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are shadows of their former selves. For the agents, producers, actors and filmmakers who make a living off of studios’ spending, Sony’s pullback is yet another blow.

“We have had a tremendous run of success,” Belgrad said, “and I don’t think we felt our ability to make the number of pictures we’ve been making was constrained until we had a tougher time recently.”




From Variety

Posted: Tue., Oct. 30, 2012, 6:30pm PT

Sony boss: 'No truth' to studio sale talk

CEO Kazuo Hirai denies rumors that H'wood assets are on block

By Rachel Abrams

Our studio is not for sale -- that's the message sent Tuesday by Sony Corp. topper Kazuo Hirai, who took the unusual step of issuing a statement denying the persistent rumors that the Sony Pictures Entertainment operations are on the block. Hirai's remarks mark the company's first official attempt to quash the rumblings that have dogged Sony in recent months.

"There is absolutely no truth to rumors that Sony's entertainment businesses are for sale," Hirai said. "As I said at our strategy meeting in April, Sony is comprised of electronics, entertainment and financial services businesses, and our entertainment companies have a stable business foundation and are poised for future growth. There is no reason to sell these industry-leading businesses and no consideration is being given to the idea."

Sale rumors have grown louder over the last few months as Sony Corp. has suffered from weak financial results, in part related to the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last year.

Sony has cut back on pic production and plans to slightly reduce its development slate. It has no new pics going into production during the next two months.

But while a dearth of production is unusual for a major, it's not a definite indicator of liquidity issues, as production budgets are often cyclical and tied to issues other than cash at hand.

Knowledgeable financial observers also point out it would be unusual for Sony to sell the studio at a time of decreased activity.

Sony has been aggressively seeking outside financing since its co-financing arrangement with investor Elliott Management ended this year. The studio has pacted with fund Hemisphere on a small group of titles, but the studio has not yet found a backer on the scale of what it once had.

Contact Rachel Abrams at Rachel.Abrams@variety.com


Chart from blu-ray.com

Salt Blu-Ray & DVD Sales (Approximate)

From BoxOfficeJunkie
Posted by Grady Smith


Blu-Ray Sales as of March 17, 2011

Salt – 1,109,329 total Blu-Ray units

Week 1: 370,000 copies
Week 2: 250,468
Week 3: 165,538
Week 4: 95,920
Week 5: 91,525
Week 6: 25,408
Week 7: 17,402
Week 8: 15,000 (approx.)
Week 9: 47,136
Week 10: 30,932



From The Numbers

DVD Sales

Salt

Released on DVD:	December 21, 2010
DVD Units Sold:	2,010,233
Consumer Spending:	$31,177,885

New Bourne

Both Bond & Bourne look sharp and very gritty.   Salt 2 has two years to find its own unique style and story. 





Angelina's Nightline interview with Cynthia McFadden for Salt

Then & Now

She was obviously a few pounds lighter during the SAG Awards in late January compared to the way she looked Summer 2010 at the Salt Premiere in Moscow,  The difference was readily apparent since the gowns are very similar.  As someone whose appetite suffers during periods of emotional stress, the weight loss was not a surprise.  This was before B&H's premiere in Bosnia and she was fretting over the film's reception.  She seemed to have regained some weight at the Oscars and she has time before she starts work on Maleficent to get back to normal.

The question is: was it a mistake for her to choose the Bosnian war for her first film given the visible toll the whole undertaking had on her?

In retrospect, she probably would have been better off with the Afghan - females in the military story she was also working on instead of B&H.   It would certainly have been a lot less stressful.  It was hardly a secret that partisan feelings are still running high in the Balkans so the attacks against the film from both sides were to be expected.  Many movie writers commented that she could not have picked a more difficult subject for her directorial debut and they are right on every conceivable level. 

B&H was a very good, strong film but how much of her goals were really accomplished?  She wanted the world to be aware of what lack of intervention does to society but with less than $1M in worldwide revenues, not enough people heard her message.  The massive promotional effort she did for the film at least brought some attention to the region, but while people were interested in her, they remained disinterested in Bosnia.   The severity of Serbian attacks against her and B&H even before the film's release dashed any hope that the film could help encourage dialogue in the region.  If anything, it showed that reconciliation was still a distant goal as distrust runs deep and partisan feelings were easily inflamed.

The film succeeded best in enabling a collective cathartic exercise for the Bosnian Muslims -- but that was never a primary goal.   Even with her tireless efforts praising the talents of her Bosnian actors, it is unlikely that any of them would ever be offered more than bit, character parts in Hollywood. 

What the film did unquestionably accomplish is show the world that she has genuine promise behind the camera.   It is ironic that while her focus was on the message, it was more successful as an artistic exercise.  (And if she had just made key points of the story more obvious, the brilliance of the work would have been better appreciated.)

So was it worth it?  This will likely be a write-off financially for her and GK Films unless ancillary sales turn out to be robust.  The bigger cost to her may come from having been put through an emotional wringer as she dealt with the extremely volatile nature of Balkan passions -- which included fielding death threats from Serbian partisans.

But she has also gained a tremendous amount of respect as much for her dedication and fearlessness in championing a neglected cause as for her talent.  No one questioned when Billy Crystal introduced her as a  "brilliant writer, director and producer" at the Oscars.   It could also be argued that facing and surmounting all the challenges she faced in this undertaking probably played a big part in reviving her passion for films.

The experience will undoubtedly influence her future work especially as she chooses and evaluates her projects.  We may have already seen some evidence of it in her refusal to sign off on Kurt Wimmer's Salt 2 script.  Despite the personal accolades she has received, Angelina has yet to star in an Oscar-nominated film and it is good to see that she is becoming more careful and demanding of the quality of her projects.

So the answer is a qualified yes, despite the heavy toll it took on her, it looks like it was worthwhile.  

Now, if only she can find a way to keep from losing weight during periods of stress...

QUOTE from:

Star Words ... Clive James

ANGELINA Jolie flashed a leg, thus reminding all the overdressed women present that part of the point about wearing fine clothes is that somebody else might get excited at the prospect of taking them off. SOURCE: Coventry Telegraph

Filming action

Video: Dissection of Action in ‘The Dark Knight’and 'Salt'

Published by Jeff Leins on September 14, 2011

In a detailed, 20-minute video, Chicago Sun-Times blogger Jim Emerson dissects the convoy chase scene in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The evaluation is heavy on film theory and his explanations of editing technique, but those who are curious enough about film theory (or TDK) may appreciate what others might easily consider nitpicking.

Emerson makes a case for absolute action sequence coherence, arguing that these “lapses in visual logic” are part of The Dark Knight’s shortcomings. But you could easily argue that your mind makes sense of what is happening, regardless of shifts in perspective or trajectory, just like you’re able to read and understand a word that is misspelled.

Ultimately, I doubt your enjoyment of Nolan’s second Batman film will be reversed, but that’s not the point. It’s about looking under the hood, so to speak, of a beloved action sequence and examining the shots and cuts from a different point of view, in this case that of an editor.

In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

If you’re fascinated by Emerson’s film theory, there is a part II titled “A Dash of Salt” that takes a closer look at the action in the Angelina Jolie thriller. I also recommend Film Critic Hulk’s explanation of action scenes (particularly Raiders of the Lost Ark) with special guest Thomas Townsend, cinematographer on Attack the Block. Despite Hulk’s usage of all caps (you get used to it), the analysis reiterates some of the things I regularly belabor in my reviews, which is that action needs cause and effect, an emotional pay-off, and well-established stakes to tell mini stories, not CGI robots that whirl and clash without rhyme or reason. Finally, I definitely recommend Matthias Stork’s Chaos Cinema, a video essay on the slapdash state of modern action. As a cinephile, I love this stuff.

In the Cut, Part II: A Dash of Salt (HD) from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

Nepales: Salt in Cancun, Stuntman Vic Armstrong

 

Angelina Jolie: ‘I do like spiders… I have eaten some in my days in Cambodia’

Hollywood Bulletin

By JANET SUSAN NEPALES

July 25, 2010, 12:54pm

Angelina Jolie in Cancun, Mexico. (Photo by Janet R. Nepales)

LOS ANGELES – If there’s one actress who is not afraid to try anything… even in food, it would be Angelina Jolie.
We recently interviewed the award-winning actress in Cancun, Mexico for her action-packed movie, “Salt,” where she portrays Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who is being hunted by her peers. We asked her about her unusual acting partner in this movie – an eight-legged spider.
“I did not get to keep it,” she said. “But I do like spiders, bugs, and all that. I am not squeamish. I have eaten some in my days in Cambodia so I don’t have a problem (laughing). But I didn’t eat this one (laughter).”
No doubt one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, the 35-year-old actress looked divine in the dresses that she wore in Cancun – from a gorgeous body-hugging white tube mini dress for the photo call, to a midnight blue silk Gerard Darel mini dress for the press conference, to a belted tube gray pantsuit for dinner.
In Cancun with some of her children – Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh – Angelina admitted that she partly did the Phillip Noyce-helmed movie for her daughters.
“It feels empowering to women to do it,” she disclosed of her female James Bond-like character. “It feels empowering to feel like you’re capable of saving someone or saving yourself and being physically and mentally strong. My daughters are growing up watching the Bond movies. It would have been nice for me to have a Salt when I was a little girl. So in many ways, I’m looking forward to them having this. It’s equally as good a film for boys to see.”
She added, “I have had the good fortune of being able to play many strong heroines. Those roles have been great. There are great women in history that are yet to be played – great heroic women.
There are great women stories but there are also great simple stories about motherhood and great heroic women who are mothers and not in some big action movie.”
“We met women who are in the CIA,” she continued. “We met tough, extraordinary women who look soft and sweet like someone’s mom and they are tougher than any of us in this room. They are extraordinarily strong women and there are women in the army right now and across the world fighting wars. There’s no question in me about a woman’s ability but it hasn’t been really on film in this way which was certainly an exciting challenge.”
She said that one of the reasons she did the movie was because “it is a personal human journey. It’s about a person with a certain history, has had a certain life, certain things taken away from her, certain things done to her. And it answers questions like do we make the choice to be as we’ve been raised to be? Do we become better because we take control of our own lives?”
Originally written for Tom Cruise until he backed out, the action-thriller’s lead character was changed from Edwin Salt to an Evelyn Salt. We asked Angelina if she had been looking for her Bond or Bourne.
“I had joked about it with Amy Pascal (Sony Pictures’ head honcho) who produced the film and because we talked about the Bond movies,” Angelina replied. “She called me when they were doing Daniel Craig’s Bond movie. I made a joke that I wanted to play Bond (laughing) and then about almost two years later, she called and said I think I have found it. But in fact it is very different from Bond and very different from Bourne. We took good elements from both of them and we found something very new, which is what we had to do. In the fighting styles, we wanted to focus on not just doing the girl version of the male fights but actually finding her way of fighting that was unique on its own, male or female.”
Phillip and Angelina, who worked together in “The Bone Collector” 11 years ago, talked about how it was working with each other then and now.
Phillip pointed out, “The big difference was that whereas previously, I had to finish all my sentences.
This time, we were down to a couple of words or a nod and the communication was there. Something happened in the 11 years in between, I guess. So it was really easy. It was like picking up an old friendship again.”
As for Angelina, she said, “Yes, I felt the same. I have always thought that Phillip is one of those rare directors who can do films with extraordinary content like ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’ and has a great track record for very smart action films. So when this film came across, I had a wonderful experience. He really helped me through that it was such an easy choice. It was very easy working with him. We have a secret communication. We got a lot more kids now between us.”
“The interesting thing for me was that if I taught her anything 11 years ago, now it was the other way around,” Phillip added. “She was now in many ways the teacher. That’s what you get as a director from people who you work with. You’re always learning. That’s the wonderful thing about it.”
• • •
Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is in the movie as Peabody, a CIA agent mentored by Evelyn Salt, disclosed, “I was playing a counter intelligence officer so I had to learn about being an agent in the field and an agent in counter intelligence. I had to learn how they relate to each other, what they think of each other and whether their relationship is civil or just professional, fraught or difficult like what the Internal Affairs say.”
We asked him if he had good intuition just like his character in the movie.
“I don’t know how good my intuition is,” he said. “I’m somebody who bases a lot of my decisions on instinct, on gut feeling and I’m reacting to that. That’s an important part of being an actor when choosing your roles, scripts and directors.”
• • •

 

 

"I'm the real Indiana (when I'm not busy being James Bond or Superman)"

Legendary stuntman Vic Armstrong reveals the secrets behind those amazing heroics
By Vic Armstrong
Last updated at 10:01 PM on 7th May 2011
Dangling over an icy precipice, dodging hungry sharks or leaping off a bridge is just another day at the office for Vic Armstrong. For 45 years, he has put his life on the line as a stuntman, bringing us some of the most spine-tingling moments in film history.
He's taught, guided - and stood in for - Hollywood stars including Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and Christopher Reeve.
Vic's death-defying work has earned him an Oscar and a Bafta lifetime achievement award. Now, in an exhilarating new book, he tells how an English boy who was good at riding horses ended up as a Hollywood hero...

Off to a galloping start with Sophia Loren

My ticket into the adrenaline-fuelled world of blockbuster films was the fact that I could ride. Horses had always been part of our family life in Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire - my father Robert was farrier to the British Olympic team and later bought and sold horses - and I was riding before I could even walk.
In 1966, when I was 20, I got a call from the chief stuntman on Arabesque which was being filmed nearby. He explained that the horses they had hired for the film were useless old nags that couldn't jump over their own shadow, so he wanted to borrow one of our horses. He then offered me a job as a stunt double - that was how I had landed my first film, at £20 a day.
The stars were Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren and I had to hold the horses while they did their close-ups. Peck was in the saddle with Sophia holding on behind, which made the horse buck.
Sophia looked at me: 'Veek, Veek, why is the horse bucking?' she asked. I don't think I can repeat what I replied, but luckily she laughed.

Angelina's Jolie brave

Angelina Jolie starred in the 2010 movie Salt, about a CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy. (Vic was 2nd Unit Director for Salt.) She was happy to learn Muay Thai for the film, even though it's a martial art where you use your knees, head, elbows - just about everything.
In one scene, Angelina has to crawl along the window ledge of a tall apartment block. She did it - and proved she's got nerves of steel.
She said: 'When Vic says, "Go out that window," and you're 30 floors up, you think, "Yes, sir." And you step out on the ledge. When you've made it back and completed a good stunt, he smiles at you and you feel on top of the world.'

Salt interview for German TV

Sunday, February 20, 2011

“DEEP VOTE” ON “I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS,” “SALT,” AND “UNSTOPPABLE”

“Deep Vote,” an Oscar winning screenwriter and a member of the Academy, will write this column — exclusively for ScottFeinberg.com — every week until the Academy Awards in order to help to peel back the curtain on the Oscar voting process. (His identity must be protected in order to spare him from repercussions for disclosing the aforementioned information.)

“Salt” is another in the tiresome line of terror-adventure thrillers in which a long-gestating Russian plan to infiltrate the inner-core of the CIA via hypnotism of young children is activated. This time, the plot is spearheaded by none other than the magnificent Angelina Jolie, who as a conscious adult agent wishes to defect, and so is pursued by both sides, making incredible escapes (which presumably she has been trained for) as the nation watches on TV and the president cowers in his bunker (where, of course, there are enemies waiting to kill him).

(The convention here is that thousands of extras perish as trucks collide and power systems explode, but the hero or heroine survives unscathed.)

Salt was nominated for best sound mixing, but I found myself wondering what combination of stunt doubling, digital effects and film editing made. Jolie’s stunts look so endlessly difficult and seamlessly perfect. There are sequences where she rolls off a bridge under fire, lands on a passing truck, jumps from the roof of one vehicle to another as she is pursued by an armada of police cars from which weapons fire, then changes direction, dismounts on a crowded city street, quickly pummels five men who would stop her, and escapes by subway, dismounting between stations. This goes on throughout. Surely it is as deserving of technical prizes as men flying in iron suits propelled by rockets in their shoes?

Jolie proved to me she was a unique and excellent actress as far back as “Girl, Interrupted” (1999), and I’ve never seen her play any role badly (just as I’ve never seen a bad performance from her father, Jon Voight). Here she is excellent in the challenging (if not credible) role of the confused yet steely (and privately loving) agent. But the old question occurs to me, as it does to so many: why would someone with infinite access to money continue the hard work of doing pictures like this one?