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Cinemetal

FRED DURST’S THE LONGSHOTS BREAKS BOX OFFICE RECORDS

 Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 4:07pm by

Apparently, some of you think I’ve been too mean to Fred Durst.

Well, some of you should feel free to find another blog to read.

ANYWAY, The Longshots, the first film Durst has directed that has actually gotten a release, debuted at number seven at the box-office in its opening weekend, opening on 2,089 screens and making a little over $4 million dollars with a per-screen average $2,606. That might sound like a lot of money, but in the film business, for a studio movie like this, aimed at families and starring a proven box-office star in the genre, it ain’t good. Not by a, um, longshot.

To give you some idea of what the numbers mean, the number two film, The House Bunny, opened on only about 700 screens more than The Longshots and made just over $15 million with a per-screen average of $5,563; Death Race, the number three film, opened on about five hundred more screens and made just over $12 million with a per-screen average of $4,855. Fuck, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the new Woody Allen movie, is playing on just 692 screens, and still had a per-screen average that was more than twice than that of Durst’s film. In other words, there were a LOT of empty movie theaters exhibiting The Longshots over the weekend.

Now, of course, money isn’t everything, and for all I know, this film was very cheaply made and will ultimately be profitable for the dudes who bankrolled it. But it’s not like Durst can take comfort in critical acclaim: it’s only 38% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that only approximately 38% of all film critics gave it a positive review.

I guess what I’m saying is: get ready for that Limp Bizkit reunion.

-AR

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  • http://metalmartyr.com MetalMartyr.Com

    Jesus, time has not been kind to that dude!

  • Jim Gilletowicz

    The wrong fucking sperm won that battle.

  • Sammy

    I don’t think you are too mean to Durst. I just think you spend too much time looking for trivial things to make fun of him with/about. Most of the pieces you have blogged about have been meh at best. Kind of “so what” material. Now, if you had a photo of him getting clocked by a little person, I’m laughing.

  • Revrant

    What proven genre star is this? I don’t see one.

  • Sammy

    @Revrant: The star is Ice Cube, who has starred in a few family friendly, pretty successful (if not total suckfest) flicks: the Are We There/Done Yet and Barbershop mini-franchises.

  • http://www.metalsucks.net Axl Rosenberg

    @ Revrant:

    Domestic grosses for previous Ice Cube family films:

    “Are We There Yet?’ – $82 million

    “Are We Done Yet?” – $49 million

    And each film was budgeted at a fraction of that.

  • d.o.g.o.b.g.y.n.

    I’m calling it right now: this film WILL “win” the Golden Raspberry next year. And like I said before, I feel sorry for Ice Cube.

  • bob fossil

    I hope Eazy E comes back from the dead and kills cube and durst!

  • http://www.metalminute.com Ray Van Horn, Jr.

    Damn, Billy Joel’s looking younger these days. Must’ve had makeup sex with a certain someone…

  • terrybeans84

    I got to give the guy some credit for at least giving it a try. Before the age jokes get old I’ve got to say that the new Limp materal will be recorded at the local senior center right after morning meds. HA!

  • Revrant

    Huh, but those movies were so rotten awful, I didn’t think they did well, I guess that is sort of surprising.

  • Devin

    If you hate Fred Durst so much why do you talk about him? Don’t give him spotlight.

  • Don’t Damn Me

    Making fun of Fred Durst for good reasons (and boy there are many) = Funny

    Trawling the internet to find trivial things to make fun of Fred Durst = Dull and not funny

    Thats where i’m at. I don’t like Durst, but finding any old reason to write about him (even picking and choosing the bad bits out of reviews to post) is old. Just about everything Rob Zombie has done in the film world has been critically panned, and he didn’t get any shit.

  • laz

    i enjoyed rob zombie’s movies for the b grade’s that they are.

  • JTL

    @ Don’t Damn Me

    I think there is a difference between Fred Durst making a family comedy and Rob Zombie making horror movies, whatever their quality level.

    I was never a Limp Bizkit fan, but what little I heard from them was not about uplifting family stories. Back when they were ruining the airwaves, did ANYONE actually consider that deep down, Durst just wanted to entertain families with wholesome stories? How many times after a show do you think that Durst came off stage, and watched Cool Runnings, My Fair Lady or Toy Story? Songs about cookies notwithstanding, Limp Bizkit was not family-oriented. Thus, his directing Longshots is out of the ordinary for him, and the reaction to him has been bad.

    On the other hand, Zombie is a big fan of horror movies, so is it a big surprise that after making a dump truck full of money, he wanted to take a shot at making his own movie? Not really.

    If you had near-unlimited funds and freedom from a regular job, what would you do? Exactly, you would do whatever the hell you wanted to. Zombie’s films, terrible as they might be, are just an example of a guy doing exactly what he wants to. How much more metal do you get than that?

  • Don’t Damn Me

    The way i see it, a bad movie is a bad movie, regardless of the motivation of the person behind the camera.

    My only point was i don’t understand the endless bashing of Durst for his film being critically panned, when Zombie did no better on his debut. In terms of Rotten Tomatoes scores, it’s the Godfather II in comparison with House of 100 Corpses and a lot of Ice Cubes other recent work.

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