Steve Mason

710 ESPN's "SMOG" - Steve Mason's Blog

ARIZONA HEAD COACH MIKE STOOPES

I watched the USC/UCLA Rivalry Game from the Trojan sidelines. Frankly, it was not a pretty game. I saw 2 young quarterbacks –Kevin Prince & Matt Barkley - who were both telegraphing passes.

When a death row inmate begins his walk on “the green mile” toward the gallows or the gas chamber or the electric chair, guards yell “Dead man walking.” (At least that’s the way it happens in the movies.) That’s what Lakers fans could have hollered tonight when Lawrence Frank and his winless New Jersey Nets stepped onto the floor at Staples to face the 12-3 purple & gold. But, once news leaked that Frank was likely to be replaced by the time the Nets tipped off against Dallas on Wednesday at the IZOD Center, ownership of the New Jersey franchise did the humane thing and put him down.

The Lakers need to lock down Detroit & take care of business tonight. The Pistons are 5-5, but let’s get real. The Lakers’ opponent tonight is not very good. They are without longtime stars Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton, both sidelined with injuries, and their starting lineup includes Swedish-born Jonas Jerebko and an aging Ben Wallace. Meanwhile, LA has lost back-to-back games including Sunday's debacle against the Rockets at Staples.

WHO'S IN?

Tight end Anthony McCoy returns for the Stanford game after missing both the Oregon and Arizona St. games. He has 16 catches for 375 yards and a touchdown. He’s averaging almost 54 receiving yards per game and 23ypc. He’s a total beast – the best tight end I’ve seen since I’ve been covering USC football. It’s huge that he’ll be back today.

The $200M blockbuster 2012 (Sony), yet another end of the world special effects disaster film from Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) has opened with a dominating $25M Friday, and it is targeting a $60M 3-day. That would be better than the $50.2M start for Independence Day in the summer of 1996, but shy of 2004's The Day After Tomorrow ($68.7M). Despite a negative critical reaction, my sources tell me that the CGI blockbuster will likely surpass $150M domestic, and it could approach $500M worldwide.

COACH PETE CARROLL

Breitbart.BigHollywood.com

Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ Goes Where No ‘Trek’ Has Gone Before! $33M in 29 Hours & Almost $77M Possible by Monday!
5/09/2009 12:40am

Rebooting Bond with Daniel Craig was Bold. Christopher Nolan’s Reinvention of Batman was genius. But some thought it was overly-ambitious, even audacious, to attempt to restart the Star Trek franchise. It has begun to pay off already for Paramount Pictures, and there will dividends for years to come.

Several sources at competing studios have told me that J.J. Abrams’ all-new reboot of Star Trek (Paramount), which debuted last night at 7pm at many of its 3,849 locations, may have grossed as much as $6.5M-$7.5M. Studio honchos are “locked down tight” about actual numbers, but that is in the same ballpark as Transformers (Dreamworks/Paramount), which grabbed $8.8M in its previews starting at 8pm on Monday, July 2 during the summer of 2007. (What portion of ticket sales fall into Thursday and what percentage fall into Friday will likely be an open question even after final numbers are in.)

The all-new J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek (Paramount) will win the second weekend of the Hollywood Summer Box Office season by at least a couple of light years over Fox’s fast-fading X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but some of the astronomical numbers I’ve seen floating around in the blogosphere are very over-heated. Make no mistake, this movie will open extraordinarily well, but it’s not going to play out as a typical front-loaded blockbuster. Moviegoers need time to shake off the disappointment of the final TV series Enterprise (starring Scott Bakula and canceled after four seasons) and the disastrous 2002 final film Star Trek: Nemesis ($43.3M domestic). It will take time for a new generation of fans to discover the magic of Gene Rodenberry’s vision of the future through Abrams’ magical lens.

710 ESPN's "SMOG" - Steve Mason's Blog

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