In a surprise to virtually no one, Premium Rush bombed like my toilet after bad Indian food this weekend. Just how bad was it? The $6.3 million it made over the weekend was less than $100,000 more than the anti-Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America, and you know that was a barrel of laughs. I’d as soon pay to see that as hang out with someone who did. Turns out, no one really likes bike messengers. You know what they say, those who forget the first season of The Real World are destined to repeat it. But if there was one person happy about this misfortune, it was America’s sweetheart, Nikki Finke. Which is strange, because she seems like such a pleasant lady.
Among this weekend’s crop of newly released films, Sony Pictures’ Premium Rush opened poorly with very soft grosses of $6.5M. Producer Gavin Polone just saw his Pariah Television freshman ABC Family series Jane By Design canceled and now this Pariah production tanks as well. (Guess it sucks to be Polone these days. Maybe he should make his day job writing that lame blog.) [Deadline]
(*pulls out novelty pistol*)(*pulls trigger*)(*white flag pops out*) (*black text on flag reads “ZING!”*)
Finke speaks, of course, of her old nemesis Gavin Polone, whose production company produced Premium Rush, and who also proposed a Nikki Finke blackout in his column in NY Mag’s Vulture a few weeks back:
I think Nikki Finke’s manner of writing nasty personal attacks, threatening people, and exhibiting general incivility is unacceptable, and I am asking those who read this to “unfavorite” Deadline from their browser, read it less often, and stop tipping her and her reporters when they have a story until such time as she has modified her behavior and begun to adhere to a more professional practice of journalism.Step two is to wait and see if she can rain down fire and brimstone on me for my insolence. [Vulture]
Unless Nikki Finke has the power to cast spells over her cauldron of used spanks and cat fur, I doubt you’d be able to find a causal link between Gavin Polone’s movie bombing and his feud with Nikki Finke. I’m just spitballing here, but I bet it had more to do with the movie looking like a big pile of crap. But who knows, maybe she has the power to control movie grosses. One thing’s for certain, she can definitely write haughty blogs about them.
It wasn’t much better for any of the other releases. This weekend turned out to be the worst box office weekend of the year by far, 11 percent lower than the dark days of February 3-5. Meanwhile, my weekend was great, thanks for asking. I made a quiche!