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Free Appraisal Guide Download

25 July 2010

No credit cards, no pop-ups, no hidden fees.

Marquee Stars appraises the box office prominence of marquee performers, directors, screenwriters and producers based on algorithmically adjusted moving averages. We also provide a free online calculator for use with our downloaded reports that anticipates the relative market strength of specific marquee package combinations in that 4 to 24-month window prior to release — when most talent-related capital decisions must be made.

Click the image below and follow the link to receive a free PDF download of our complete Marquee Appraisal Guide (allow 30 seconds for processing) or start the video tutorial above to learn more.

WORLD’s FAVORTIE FILMS

25 July 2010

The week’s top favorite films consist of bellwether movies with a Marquee Stars Satisfaction Rating of 60 - Above Average or better (giving equal weight to both aggregation popular and aggregation critical responses) as ranked by their estimated global box office weekly gross.

Favorite Mainstream Films

Favorite Niche Films

Favorite Arthouse Films

Latest Bellwether Films: 25 July 2010

Borrower Arietty, The (借りぐらしのアリエッティ) - Japanese speculative-present kid-centric animation

The Clock family are tiny people who live under the floor of a big house in the country. They make their way about by “borrowing” items from the old couple who live in the house.  They fear exposure daily.  If humans see them, they move.  One summer day, a boy named Sho arrives for a nearby disease treatment regimen.  When he spots the Clock’s 14-year-old daughter Arrietty, she solicits Sho’s help in keeping their secret existence and whereabouts.  Upshot: A Japanese anime reinterpretation of Mary Norton’s 1952 Carnegie Medal-winning children’s novel.  Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 78

Cyrus - Indiewood domestic drama comedy

Disheartened that his ex-wife (Catherine Keener) is about to remarry, a freelance film & video editor (John C. Reilly) finally meets his perfect love match (Marisa Tomei) at a party.  But her 21-year-old live-at-home aspiring-musician son (Jonah Hill) does not welcome this new intrusion into his life and deploys every underhanded and manipulative tactic he can contrive to break up his mom’s new romance. Upshot: An atypical blend of veteran studio actors with indie-spirited personalized improv humor.  Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 64

Flirting Scholar 2 (唐伯虎點秋香2之四大才子) - Chinese sword & sorcery goofball comedy

TANG DYNASTY (618-907 AD), CHINA. Always ready to stand up for what’s right, young Tang Bo Hu (Xiaoming Huang) finds himself in trouble for fighting.  His mother forbids him to use martial arts again and sends him away to study at Qingfeng Monastery.  Tang finds monastic life boring and cannot adjust to the austere accommodations.  Three fellow students - together the future ‘Four Great Scholars of Jian Nan’ - sneak him out for a short tension-breaking excursion.  During their covert adventure, Tang runs into and immediately falls in love with beautiful Qiu Xian (Jingchu Zhang).  Shortly afterward, a monk accuses Qiu of being a demonic Spider Spirit and wants her burned at the stake.  Qiu quickly makes good her escape, but falls into a ravine while on the run and loses her memory.  Madam Wah finds the girl and adopts her, giving her the name Chen Heung … thereby setting up the circumstances behind the 1993 rom-com action hit Flirting Scholar starring Stephen Chow and Li Gong.  Upshot: This zany Chinese opera-inspired banana peel comedic prequel lacks the charm and coherent story logic of the original 1993 classic.  Satisfaction rating: DISAPPOINTING - 36

Moss (이끼) - Korean crime thriller suspense

After losing his job and breaking up with his wife, a young man (Hae-il Park) travels to a remote mountain village to attend his father’s (Joon-ho Heo) funeral.  While there, he begins to suspect that the villagers are hiding something.  He confronts the retired-cop-turned-village elder (Jae-yeong Jeong) who thinks he’s delusional.  When he insists on an official death certificate, the villagers turn suddenly cold, watch him ever more closely and constantly ask when he will return to the city.  As he begins to investigate his father’s death, he soon learns that his father’s land has been transferred to the village elder.  Upshot: Korea’s Winter’s Bone.  Based on an 80-episode 2007 South Korean Internet comic, the film has been Korea’s most hotly awaited thriller of the summer.  Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 79

Ramona and Beezus - Hollywood domestic drama comedy

Although 9-year-old Ramona’s (newcomer Joey King) vivid imagination and boundless energy amuse her parents (John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan), they annoy her teenage big sister “Beezus” Beatrice (Selenz Gomez) and give rise to a mild sibling rivalry.  But when dad loses his job, Ramona’s irrepressible sense of fun and adventure helps the entire family cope with the subsequent trying times.  Upshot: Wholesome and goodhearted, the actors enliven some kid-centric charm from the classic children’s book series by Beverly Cleary. Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 64

Salt - Hollywood espionage thriller action

Accused by a defector (Daniel Olbrychski) of being a sleeper Soviet-era spy assigned to assassinate the President of Russia (Olek Krupa) on US soil, a CIA officer (Angelina Jolie) must use her covert skills in a deadly cat-and-mouse chase to elude capture by her boss (Liev Schreiber) and CIA security chief (Chiwetel Ejiofor) while seeking to rescue her husband (August Diehl) from abduction.  Upshot: Best action flick of the summer! Against the current events backdrop of a real-life nest of espionage moles sent back to mother Russia comes this tense thriller made all the more intriguing by Angelina Jolie’s sterling performance … certainly the most entertaining Jolie picture since Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 75

Latest Bellwether Films: 18 July 2010

A theatrical film must exceed a box office gross of $5.04 million ($5.0 million 2008 constant-dollars) to qualify as bellwether. The following bellwether films have been included in our database and factor into our ranking of the relative prominence of marquee stars throughout the world.

Inception - Hollywood speculative-present suspense science-fiction

On a commission from a powerful Japanese industrialist (Ken Watanabe), a cutting-edge master of the subconscious (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team of specialists (including Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) must invade the dreams of a competitor’s (Pete Postlethwaite) heir (Cillian Murphy) to plant an overwhelming hypnotic idea.  Once inconspicuously inside their subject’s dreams, the team confronts a dangerous enemy with the power to predict their every move and to render them permanently trapped in mental limbo: their team leader’s deceased wife (Marion Cotillard).  Upshot: An imaginative thriller with WOW-ified visual effects.  The story demands constant attention to traverse, but is well worth the journey.  Satisfaction rating: EXCELLENT- 91

Lone Scalpel, A (孤高のメス) - Japanese medical true-to-life drama

JAPAN, 1989.  After losing his mother at an early age to a misdiagnosis, the new Chief of Surgery (Shinichi Tsutsumi) at City Hospital dedicated himself to a medical career, even studying abroad at the University of Pittsburgh where he became familiar with organ transplantation.  Now the city mayor (Akira Emoto) has been admitted to his ER in critical condition.  To save his VIP patient, the Chief must decide whether to violate antiquated medical laws by performing Japan’s first-ever liver transplant from a brain-dead donor … knowing that he will be charged with murder should the operation fail.  Upshot: Based on the novel by Toshihiko Ohgane, MD.  Satisfaction rating: EXCELLENT - 84

Man with a Vendetta (파괴된 사나이, aka A Broken Man) - Korean crime thriller suspense

The 5-year-old daughter (So-Hyun Kim) of a devout minister (Myeong-min Kim) is kidnapped…  8 YEARS LATER…  The minister has lost his faith in God.  His wife (Joo-Mi Park) has been hospitalized owing to her exhaustive unending search for their daughter.  Then out of the blue, a mysterious psychopath calling himself “Rudolph” (Gi-joon Eom) contacts the minister and demands a ransom for his daughter.  Realizing that his daughter is still alive, the minister chooses instead to use all of his resources to rescue the girl in a breathtaking race against time.  Upshot:  Ransom, Korean-style.   Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 73

Pokémon: Phantom Ruler Zoroark (劇場版ポケットモンスター／ダイヤモンド＆パール　幻影の覇者 ゾロアーク) - Japanese magical action animation

Celebi time-travels back to Crown City from 20 years in the future to prevent Pokémon Raikou, Entei and Suicune from becoming embroiled in a battle with Satoshi, Takeshi and Hikari at the annual Pokémon Baccer World Cup that might spell disaster for the entire city. Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 74

Railways (RAILWAYS 49歳で電車の運転士になった男の物語) - Japanese business melodramatic drama

TOKYO, PRESENT DAY.  Promised a seat on the Board, a late-40s corporate executive (Kiichi Nakai) at Keiyo Electric must orchestrate the closing of a manufacturing plant run by a dear old friend (Kenichi Endo) as part of an belt-tightening plan.  Meanwhile his wife (Reiko Takashima) and university-aged daughter (Yuika Motokariya) nag him about spending too much time at his stressful job away from the family.  Soon after, upon learning that his friend has been killed in an automobile accident, he chucks his high-pressure job to fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming a streetcar engineer on the Ichibata Electric Railway.  Upshot: A superb example of Japan’s long cinematic tradition of dramatized corporate infomercials.  Satisfaction rating: EXCELLENT - 82

Shanghai (諜海風雲) - Indiewood period espionage romance suspense

Shanghai, 1941.  Four Months prior to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor.  Posing as a journalist, an American spy (John Cusack) returns to Shanghai from Berlin to investigate the murder of his best friend (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the sudden disappearance of his friend’s girlfriend (Rinko Kikuchi).  His friend had been investigating the connection between a local triad leader (Yun-Fat Chow), a Japanese intelligence officer (Ken Watanabe) and a German agent (Franka Potente).  While gradually uncovering larger secrets involving Nazi Germany, the unexpected movement of Japanese battleships and US intelligence, the American spy soon finds himself falling in love with the triad leader’s seductive wife (Li Gong) whom the Japanese suspect also may be a spy. Upshot: Casablanca in China.  Satisfaction rating: ABOVE AVERAGE - 62

Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The - Hollywood magical adventure fantasy

Having finally located master sorcerer Merlin’s biological heir-apparent after more than a millennium of looking, Merlin’s loyal disciple (Nicolas Cage) attempts to train the disbelieving college nerd (Jay Baruchel) - who’s more interested in pursuing a pretty coed (Teresa Palmer) - in the ways of magic and science.  Meanwhile, a recently-escaped rogue disciple (Alfred Molina) works furiously to free a sinister witch (Alice Krige) to take over the world.  Only the ill-prepared incompetent apprentice possesses the untapped power to oppose them.  Upshot:  Harry Potter at NYU … a fantastic CGI-laden family-appropriate flick that enchants the teenage boy of any age.  The story, however, does not add anything particularly innovative to the magical mythos already found in the wizarding world of the Harry Potter series.  Satisfaction rating: GOOD - 57