- Money keeps rolling in for “The LEGO Movie” and other
films are powerless to end its reign at the top of the box office earnings
list. With $31.5 million in its third weekend of release, the animated film has
now amassed $183.2 million domestically. It fended off not-so-tough challenged
from newcomers “3 Days to Kill” and “Pompeii,” which settled for second and
third, respectively. “3 Days to Kill” tried to hijack Liam Neeson’s genre of
movies about geezers kicking ass with Kevin Costner leading the way, but
managed a mere $12.3 million in its debut. That was just enough to best the
effects-heavy “Pompeii,” which earned $10.1 million for third place in its
debut weekend. “RoboCop” continued its underwhelming run with a fourth-place
finish, adding $9.4 million to its cumulative earnings for a two-week haul of
$43.6 million. Fifth place belonged to “The Monuments Men,” which made $8.2
million in its third weekend of release for an overall domestic total of $58.1
million. “About Last Night” used its $7.4 million weekend to snag sixth place
and has already more than tripled its miniscule $12.5 million budget with $38.1
million in domestic earnings. Kevin Hart scored the seventh spot on the
earnings list as well as “Ride Along” slotted seventh thanks to a $4.7 million
take that elevated its earnings to $123.2 million for its six weeks in
theaters. “Frozen” remained in eighth place, adding $4.4 million to its
coffers. It has hung in the top 10 for an impressive 14 weeks, accruing $384
million and counting. “Endless Love” proved that it likely will not have an
endless run in the top 10, slipping to ninth place with $4.3 million for a
two-week total of $20.1 million. “Winter's Tale” completed the top 10
with $2.2 million, giving it a bomb-tastic $11.2 million through two weeks
against the backdrop of a $60 million budget. “Lone Survivor” (No. 11) and
“That Awkward Moment” (No. 13) both lost their spots in the top 10……..
- The Guinness Book of World Records strikes again. A book
with an incredibly propensity for inspiring losers and tools to attempt inane
feats of irrelevance in the hopes of getting their name on its pages pushes
knobs around the world to compile massive balls of yarn, grow their toenails to
extreme lengths and try to make fruitcakes larger than an NFL offensive line. Over
the weekend, that passion for pointless feats met with one company’s push to
feed the homeless and the result is believed to have established a new world
record. With a push from Dallas-based company TangoTab, a business that provides deals to diners
eating out, 1,900 volunteers showed up to make as many sandwiches as possible
in a three-hour span. TangoTab announced that the attempt to break the record
was successful, but Guinness has yet to confirm the feat. For now, the record
still belongs to the losers of the British Sandwich Association, who has 607
people simultaneously making sammitches last May 14 in Manchester, England. To
bring out as many volunteers as possible, TangoTab enlisted the help of former
NFL stars LaDainian Tomlinson and Terrell Owens and former NHLer Mike Modano
and the idea of making sammitches with washed-up stars appealed to enough
helpers to put TangoTab in the headlines and in the record books, which might
have meaning….if anyone gave a damn about it. More than 100,000 sandwiches were
made from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of the company celebrating its second
anniversary. Those sandwiches will be distributed to Dallas non-profit groups that
help feed the hungry. In addition to this project/publicity grab, TangoTab’s
smartphone app also makes a small donation to a local food pantry when a user
redeems one of its dining deals……..
- For those who thought noted steroid user and all-around
surly dude Barry Bonds would never have a significant role with San Francisco Giants,
time to eat some crow. Bonds, the (PED-aided) all-time home run leader who never officially retired but hasn’t
played since 2007, will return to the team with which he hit most of his
‘roid-powered home runs as a spring training instructor. Manager Bruce Bochy
said he wants to have the 49-year-old Bonds in camp and thinks he can help the team’s
hitters alongside former Giants Jeff Kent, Robb Nen, Will Clark and J.T. Snow. "I
know he's had some things on his plate," Bochy said. "Now it looks
like he's got some time on his hands.” Some time on his hands? Try an infinite
amount of time on his hands and while he may be a bad guy and a cheater, Bonds
both knows hitting and can afford to donate some of his time to teach the art
of the swing to others. Bonds may be despised by many fans and members of the baseball
world, but he has unquestionable ability at the plate and clearly worked hard
at his craft during his career. He would enter his new role as a special
instructor as a future Hall of Famer, except for the fact that he hasn’t come
anywhere close to induction because most voters remain convinced that his
career was largely a fraud and refuse to induct the man who often is the first
name mentioned when someone thinks of the steroid era in Major League Baseball.
Bonds’ 762 career home runs, .444 career on-base percentage and a .607 slugging
percentage may mean nothing to Hall of Fame voters, but they can still have
meaning to the current Giants who can benefit from his knowledge. Plus, there
is the added bonus of bringing Bonds back together with Kent, the fellow
hothead with whom he had a long-running feud and engaged in a 2002 shoving
match in the dugout that was caught on camera. Bonds still has a 10-year
services deal with the Giants, but has made only limited public appearances
since his final season while he battles various legal issues………..
- Riot Watch!
Riot Watch! While non-world powers such as Ukraine and Thailand are attempting
to burn themselves to the ground and Africa remains a hot mess of developing
nations that seems on the verge of imploding at any moment, there are top-tier
countries with their own internal rage issues. Take France as a prime example,
as massive riots broke out over the weekend as about 20,000 people demonstrated against an
airport project near the city of Nantes on Saturday, leaving six riot police
officers injured. The conflict stemmed from authorities giving a green light to
the project, with the government arguing in favor of economic development and
enraged farmers, locals and green politicians countering that the new airport
will damage the environment and is a waste of public money during an economic
crisis. The clashes took place in the home region of French Prime Minister
Jean-Marc Ayrault and although the prime minister hasn’t commented on the
situation, one would have to assume he’s immensely proud that the residents of
his hometown are raging against the machine in such inspiring fashion. The
protest was the first of what should be many demonstrations following official
approval for the project. The festivities kicked off as police tried in vain to
evict squatters who are attempting to block the project in a very literal way. Riot
police opened fire with tear gas and protestors responded with projectiles of
all sorts while also splashing paint onto Nantes' city hall, while some
demonstrators boldly set fire to construction vehicles and vandalized the
offices of Vinci, the project's contractor. "In democracy the right to
contest and manifest against a project is legitimate, but this violence is
unacceptable and nothing can justify it," French Interior Minister Manuel
Valls said. You don’t need to justify it, Manny, because it’s going down
whether you support it or not………
- Jamming a smartphone into the hands of every human being
is a profitable pursuit and every tech company with a pulse knows it. Mozilla
isn't the first name that springs to mind when one conjures up the list of
leading smartphone makers or service providers, but the company envisions
itself in that spot nonetheless. Best known for its Firefox browser, Mozilla
also makes
Firefox OS for budget smartphones and has announced seven new devices that will
ship to emerging markets in 2014. Alcatel is building the Fire C, Fire E and
Fire S smartphones, along with a Fire 7 tablet. Huawei will manufacture the
Y300, while ZTE has two new devices in the Open II and Open C. None of those
names are exactly prominent in the smartphone world, but that’s the general
idea for a budget provider like Mozilla, which will also release the Firefox OS
Flame, a reference phone for developers to tune their HTML5 Web apps to
Mozilla’s range of devices. To further its affordable offerings, Mozilla will
also release the SC6821, a $25 smartphone with chipmaker Spreadtrum that should
ship later this year. All of this is part of the company’s expansion to 12 new
markets in South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Mozilla COO Jay
Sullivan said estimates of Firefox OS devices shipped it’s the first six months
of the expansion process was between 500,000 and 750,000, which is relatively
small given that more than a million Android devices are activated every day.
Sullivan has in the past touted the open-source nature of Mozilla’s approach
wherein many organizations are actively contributing code. It remains a small
company that relies on assistance from well beyond its employee database. That
sort of underdog mentality could play well in emerging markets, but expecting
that Mozilla will ever compete directly on a higher level with Apple, Google,
Samsung and the like is a pipe dream………
No comments:
Post a Comment