'Les Misérables' to Be Stuck In Everyone's Heads Forever
Today in show business news: Les Misérables is selling like hot cakes, a look at the year's highest-grossing films, and some sad news for Mockingbird Lane.
.After a mere three days of release, the big movie musical Les Misérables has grossed a whopping $40 million at the domestic box office, which is more than even The Hobbit has made since Christmas. Sure that movie has been out a bit longer, but still. We're talking about a pop opera set in 19th century France storming the box office in 2012. Quite a thing! This is big news for the Les Mis crew, and a good sign that the movie will have a long, lucrative run in theaters. Word-of-mouth will spread, and of course the die-hards will come back for repeat viewings. Because that's just what musical theater people do. The other bit of good news for Hugh Jackman and company is that the movie's highlights soundtrack has topped Billboard's Soundtracks chart in its first week, selling 43,000 copies from December 21 to December 23 alone. That's a lotta records for these Internet times, when anyone can go download things for free like the thieving pirates they are. So, everyone at Universal and Anne Hathaway's house is rejoicing. Though, this does not bode well for us. Pretty soon everyone will be humming "One Day More" or "Master of the House" and will not be able to stop, and there will be nowhere to escape it. We will all become Les Mis zombies like it's the '80s or something. It might be fun for the first few days, communal and all that, but after a couple of weeks, we'll all be wishing for the same sweet sickness that sent Fantine to heaven. [Deadline; Entertainment Weekly]
Speaking of big box office, here is a list of the 20 top-grossing movies of 2012. It's no breaking news that The Avengers is number one on the list — that movie has made more money than the GDP of Bhutan. But look at number four. Ice Age: Continental Drift? Good heavens, they're still making those things? And they're doing that well? The world is full of surprises. Also, haha, Titanic 3D is on there. It made $360 million more for the one-time world's most successful movie, and it's a good thing. James Cameron needs more money. Poor guy doesn't have enough of it. Submarine trips to the bottom of the ocean aren't cheap! [The Hollywood Reporter]
NBC has officially, once and for all, nixed plans for the Munsters update Mockingbird Lane, the much-hyped project from Bryan Fuller that starred Jerry O'Connell, Eddie Izzard, and Portia di Rossi. The project was in limbo for a long time; it got a no from NBC a few months ago, but then they aired the pilot as a Halloween special and it did OK, so some hoped it would maybe get a second chance. But, it's not. It's done, it's over, that's it. No Munsters remake, guys. I'm terribly sorry. I know how much we were all looking forward to the return of Jerry O'Connell, but this just wasn't the project. Maybe they could remake Sliders. Everyone would be into that, right? [Deadline]
In other remake cancellation news, Robert Zemeckis has decided not to do a version of Yellow Submarine, a terrible idea that he'd been toying with for a while. So that is good news! It was still in the early development stages, so nobody lost their job or anything. It just means that we'll have the old Yellow Submarine and it will stand as the only Yellow Submarine, as it should. Robert Zemeckis does not make good animated movies, so a bullet was dodged here. And now that his Flight has done so well, maybe Zemeckis will stick with live-action for a while? No more creepy motion capture computer monsters? Please? Let's hope so. [Vulture]