Lancelot Link: Shakin'!

Lancelot Link Monday! After all kinds of predictions that SAN ANDREAS would flop big time, the film was #1 over the weekend and did great business and managed to get an A minus from Cinemascore (the opening night audience poll). Here's the thing: when I went to see FURY ROAD the first time, I was way early and hanging around the cinema lobby and overheard the cinema manager asking employees which trailers the audience was responding to... and all of the kids said SAN ANDREAS. And when I saw FURY ROAD, the audience responded to the trailer. So I knew it wasn't going to be a flop... and the cinema manager probably adjusted shifts to make sure he was covered for SAN ANDREAS' opening. This makes me wonder why studios don't just make their employees watch films in cinemas like regular people so that they can know this stuff? While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...




Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...


1) Weekend Box Office Estimates:
1 San Andreas..................... $53,215,000
2 Son Of Pitches.................. $14,381,000
3 Tomorrowland.................... $13,803,000
4 Furious Road.................... $13,625,000
5 Ultron!............................. $10,920,000
6 Aloha................................ $10,000,000
7 Poultry.............................. $7,800,000
8 Mad Crowd: Far From............ $1,420,000
9 Hot Pursuit..................... $1,370,000
10 Home............................. $1,150,000


The Rock is off the hook for HERCULES! When that film came out and flopped, the studio decided it was because The Rock couldn't open a movie on his own... but that's been proven false. The real reason HERCULES flopped was because it was booooooring! All of the action in the trailer was from a *fantasy sequence*, and the rest of the film has no action and a booring script. Didn't help that untalented frat boy Ratner directed it. Since The Rock is off the hook, let's put Ratner ON it! From this point on, no studio should give him a budget over $10m, and he should have to make hits to climb his way out. Let him make something as good as THE GUEST to get out of movie jail.

2) BUSTER KEATON: FURY ROAD. (It's just one long chase scene!)

3) Visual FX on FURY ROAD.

4) Can Writers & Producers Just Get Along? (panel discussion)

5) GRACE ON MONACO Screenwriter's Live Tweet Revenge.

6) THE FORCE AWAKENS...

7) Alex Winter Interview... BILL & TED 3.

8) Low Budget Horror & Blumhouse.

9) THE DEAD LANDS Director On Having James Cameron As A Fan.

10) The Future Of Indie Films. (panel discussion)

11) Rick Baker Retires, Sells All His Stuff!

12) TRON 3 is DEAD!

And the Car Chase Of The Week:



Not a car chase. A half hour fan film PREDATOR: DARK AGES co starring my friend Jon Campling.
If 20th Century Fox had any brains at all, they's *buy* this film and then hire the cast and crew to do the 90 minute version. SAME CAST. Maybe add some star in a cameo somewhere. But keep the budget low... and then open the door for other takes on the PREDATOR franchise as make a string of them in the exact same manner. This was made with a kickstarter campaign for (kickstarter $ only) UNDER $10k.

Bill



IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Running Gags - Even a serious film can have a runner.
Dinner: BBQ Chicken, corn on the cob.
Pages: Killer head cold the past few days, but last week started very productive so that I ended up with the week's quota.
Bicycle:Short ride.

Movie: