4. "Happy Feet": George Miller's first movie since the 1998 "Babe: Pig in the City" is a mo-cap take on "March of the Penguins," and it's irresistible. Also illuminates an important environmental issue — the over-fishing of the world's oceans — without getting windy about it. (Al Gore resembles a penguin in some ways, but can he dance?)
http://www.vh1.com/movies/news/articles/15...105/story.jhtmlBox Office Rallied In '06
The national theatrical box-office tally for 2006 is headed toward an estimated $9.42 billion, which would represent an increase of nearly 5 percent compared with 2005's $8.99 billion, Variety reported. The surge has a lot to do with the record-breaking performance of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which set both an opening-day and single-day record of $55.8 million when it bowed July 7. Dead Man's Chest's opening weekend of $135.6 million also supplanted Spider-Man's $114.8 million record set in 2002. It took just two days for Dead Man's Chest to pass the $100 million mark, another first, the trade paper reported.
That helped set the tone for what proved to be a much more hopeful year. At points during the summer, the year-to-date boxoffice was running as high as 6 to 7 percent above the comparable 2005 figures. In a reverse from last year, the summer film season outperformed the holiday offerings at the box office, with the biggest hit—the animated film Happy Feet—earning $165 million to date compared to 2005's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which conjured up $276.9 million following its opening in November.
Despite a few statistical upticks, however, the overall box-office picture for 2006 did not change dramatically from 2005, the trade paper reported. Although this year is on track to become the fourth best-grossing year in Hollywood history, the upturn wasn't strong enough to challenge 2004, which holds the record with $9.54 billion, or even to catch 2002 or 2003, which grossed $9.52 billion and $9.49 billion, respectively.
In addition to Dead Man's Chest, this year's select class of $200 million-plus winners includes Cars ($244.1 million), X-Men: The Last Stand ($234.4 million), The Da Vinci Code ($217.5 million) and Superman Returns ($200.1 million). In the $100-million to $200-million category, 2006 did improve slightly compared with 2005. Last year boasted 10 movies on that level, while 11 of this year's releases made the list, the trade paper reported.
Murphy Gives A Tinker's Bell
Brittany Murphy, the Happy Feet star who will voice the title character in the upcoming animated Tinker Bell, told SCI FI Wire that there was just no way she would turn down the part. The straight-to-DVD fantasy movie will explore what Disney's signature fairy is like when she's not flitting about with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.
"When they asked me to play the role of Tinker Bell, … come on!" Murphy said enthusiastically in an interview while promoting her upcoming film, the indie drama The Dead Girl. "How could I possibly say no? Disney sent me a basket. I'll never forget; I was working on a movie in London, and they sent me a basket with Tinker Bell alarm clocks and things like that and this great sketch of what she'd look like, along with all the other characters in Pixie Hollow."
Murphy's voice-over credits include a singing penguin in Happy Feet, as well as roles in the movie Good Boy and the TV series King of the Hill, in which she plays Luanne. As for Tinker Bell? "It definitely shows her life with Peter and the Lost Boys, but it shows Tink with her girlfriends and also feeling inadequate about being a tinker fairy," Murphy said. "Pots and pans, kettles; that's what a tinker was when J.M. Barrie wrote the original. It meant something different in that world than it does in today's world, and she feels very insecure about that. And the film explores that, which is sort of fantastic."
Tinker Bell will be shot as a motion-capture film, and Murphy has already caught some early glimpses of what's to come. "One of the oddest happy things I've seen in my life was seeing this face that I was raised with and this feisty personality, which is the character of Tink, who is an icon, with my voice coming out of her mouth," Murphy said. "And she looks how we all know she looks, but she has my facial expressions. That was very odd to see. All of a sudden her eyes grow to half of her face. She does little things that I do, and, really, it's very strange." Tinker Bell is being targeted for a direct-to-DVD release in 2007 or 2008.
