The Last Airbender of course! Ahead of the 83rd Academy Awards later today the The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation handed out its “best of the worst” Razzie Awards, with M. Night Shyamalan and Sex and the City 2 taking most of the gongs.

Here’s the full list of ‘winners’:

Worst Picture Winner 2010
The Last Airbender

Worst Actor Winner 2010
Ashton Kutcher (Killers and Valentine’s Day)

Worst Actress Winner 2010
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis & Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City 2)

Worst Supporting Actor Winner 2010
Jackson Rathbone (The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Worst Supporting Actress Winner 2010
Jessica Alba (The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine’s Day)

Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D (Special Category for 2010!) Winner 2010
The Last Airbender

Worst Screen Couple / Worst Screen Ensemble Winner 2010
Sex and the City 2 Cast

Worst Director Winner 2010
M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender)

Worst Screenplay Winner 2010
The Last Airbender (Written by M. Night Shyamalan)

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel (Combined Category for 2010) Winner 2010
Sex and the City 2

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Everyone in Hollywood loves a cash cow, that certain something that you always know will be there to save your bottom when nothing else works. Unfortunately for Hollywood cash cows are not easy to create and for every Lord of the Rings there’s a Golden Compass. Here we’ll take a look at 5 movies that really wanted but never could turn into future franchises.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, $200 million budget and $337 million worldwide made at the box office. This had all the makings of the next Pirates of the Caribbean, Jerry Bruckheimer, talented cast, good director, Disney and lots and lots of money thrown at it. The upsides is that it was based on a video game, but ultimately the finish product was so far from the source material that said upside becomes almost mute. So what really happened? Well first there were the various script rewrites (even during filming), then there was Disney overestimating the potential franchise value of this series and overspending on things that could have been done at half the price. Finally, while a good director, Mike Newell was just not the man for the job.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, $150 million budget and $215 million worldwide made at the box office. Yet another Jerry Bruckheimer movie failing at living up to expectations. With National Treasure‘s John Turtletaub directing and Nicholas Cage starring, many saw this doomed from the start but Disney certainly had other plans for this when they invested $150 million in it.

Robin Hood, $200 million budget and $321 million worldwide made at the box office. Ridley Scott directing and Russell Crowe starring, what could possibly go wrong, after all this is team Gladiator we are talking about. Well it did and while at first this might seem like a standalone picture, it was actually planned as a trilogy by Ridley Scott. I guess another overestimation of the franchise potential of an old hero like Mr. Hood, not to mention he has been done to death (just take a look here). Oh but wait, the Wachowskis are working on yet another adaption of Robin Hood, simply titled Hood.

The Last Airbender, $150 million budget and $319 million worldwide made at the box office. While this technically doubled its budget (sometimes considered the point where a movie breaks even), it was so bad and left such a bad taste in just about everyone’s mouth that none would touch a second movie, at least not as long as M. Night Shyamalan is behind it, not to mention it would probably make half as much money if they made it, now that people know what to expect.

The A-Team, $110 million budget and $177 million worldwide made at the box office. What the hell happened here? Did Fox overestimate the popularity of the show or do people just not give a damn about it anymore? Either way The A-Team was a failed attempt at bringing back an old (and most would say DEAD) series. On the other hand The Green Hornet (much older, deader and a lot higher on the “don’t give a damn” scale) seems to be doing just fine, so maybe it was just the damn movie sucking.

This year we have another batch of potential future cash cows that could fail just as bad if not worse then the titles above. So with that being said, I’m looking forward to lots and lots of failed franchise starts, Hollywood oh Hollywood, you have to love the way they just don’t stop believing.

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With the Oscar nominations on the verge of being announced the Razzie’s have released their nominees for what they consider to be among the worst movies and acting of 2010. As expected, The Last Airbender and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse lead with the most nominations. There are also nods for Jennifer Aniston, Jack Black, Megan Fox and Gerard Butler.

Check out all the nominations below:

WORST PICTURE
The Bounty Hunter
The Last Airbender
Sex and the City 2
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Vampires Suck

WORST ACTOR
Jack Black, Gulliver’s Travels
Gerard Butler, The Bounty Hunter
Ashton Kutcher, Killers and Valentine’s Day
Taylor Lautner, Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Valentine’s Day
Robert Pattinson, Remember Me and Twilight Saga: Eclipse

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessica Alba, The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine’s Day
Cher, Burlesque
Liza Minnelli, Sex and the City 2
Nicola Peltz, The Last Airbender
Barbra Streisand, Little Fockers

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Billy Ray Cyrus, The Spy Next Door
George Lopez, Marmaduke, The Spy Next Door andValentine’s Day
Dev Patel, The Last Airbender
Jackson Rathbone, The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Rob Schneider, Grown Ups

WORST EYE-GOUGING MIS-USE Of 3-D (Special Category for 2010)
Cats & Dogs 2: Revenge of Kitty Galore
Clash of the Titans
The Last Airbender
Nutcracker 3D
Saw 3D

WORST SCREEN COUPLE / WORST SCREEN ENSEMBLE
Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, The Bounty Hunter
Josh Brolin’s Face and Megan Fox’s Accent, Jonah Hex
The Entire Cast of The Last Airbender
The Entire Cast of Sex and The City 2
The Entire Cast of Twilight Saga: Eclipse

WORST DIRECTOR
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer Vampires Suck
Michael Patrick King, Sex and The City 2
M. Night Shyamalan, The Last Airbender
David Slade, Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables

WORST SCREENPLAY
The Last Airbender, Written by M. Night Shyamalan, based on the TV series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Konietzko
Little Fockers, Written by John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey, based on Characters Created by Greg Glenna & Mary Roth Clarke
Sex and the City 2, Written by Michael Patrick King, Based on the TV Series Created by Darren Star
Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, Based on the Novel by Stephenie Meyer
Vampires Suck, Written by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL (Combined Category for 2010)
Clash Of The Titans
The Last Airbender
Sex & The City 2
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Vampires Suck

Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock have shown that they don’t take themselves too seriously by turning up to collect their Worst Actress awards in person, so it’ll be interesting to see if any of the nominees turn up this year.

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Seeing as it’s a pretty slow news week in film, I decided to subject you to one of the many lists I like to make at the end of the year. Putting together a ‘top list’ in any genre is no easy task, but putting together a list of this year’s Most Abominable Movies has proven to be downright blackboard-chalk-screeching painful.

Here’s my problem: I try not to knowingly subject myself to sucky movies. I’m not really the type who goes out and sees every movie with no idea that the thing is going to suck the big one. No, like any reasonably intelligent person who doesn’t live under a rock, I can usually tell if something is going to please me greatly (or even a little). So yeah, I’m a film snob. And no, I don’t think it’s cool to purposely sour my taste buds by offering up the latest Katherine Heigl or Tyler Perry crap-fest.

So, admittedly I had a little trouble choosing my biggest piles of film poo. Unfortunately, I could only muster up a total of 5 films worthy of shoving that $10 ticket up my derriere. Here they are–in all their glory (and in no particular order). And please, feel free to point out how obviously off base I am. But be prepared to support your argument with evidence!

1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Despite the obvious problems with this film (Jerry Bruckheimer), I think my biggest peeve was the fact that poor Jake had to LEARN how to speak in a British accent to match the rest of the cast. He-LLO! This is freaking Persia. It’s Iran–not the freaking Union Jack! And seriously–Jake is just too pretty for Prince Dastan. Who’s going to mess with a face like that?

2. The Last Airbender
Oh boy. Glee glee glee at how craptacular this most recent Shyamalan disaster turned out. I must channel my inner Roger Ebert here and repeat: “The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.”

Yes. Coffins indeed. Noah Ringer as Aang and his two comrades wander aimlessly through the murky and bland set, speak their lines with all the commitment and fervor of an empty wooden box, and battle CGI monsters with all the bravery of white belt karate students with ballet training. And here’s a note to Asian-American actors upset that the film used Caucasians to represent: Please, be thankful you didn’t get to participate. Missing an opportunity like this is akin to missing that famed Oceanic flight 815.

3. Dinner for Schmucks
I’m fully prepared to take a lot of grief for this one. First of all, I know you’re asking, “how can a movie where Steve Carrell makes tiny dioramas out of dead mice and Paul Rudd gets to be the straight man be awful?” And second of all, I am in no way an Armond White supporter. But really, the guy sums Schmucks up wholeheartedly for me: “Actors are paid to be embarrassing, and audiences pay to get embarrassed. That’s the lesson to learn from Dinner for Schmucks, an idiot-comedy for idiots.”

4. Grown Ups
I didn’t laugh once during this entire film. No, I don’t think it’s funny that Sandler is fully aware of the fact that he’s stealing my $10 so I can watch him and his buddies pee in a pool, fart and hump things. I think movie humor sort of requires that the comedians in said movie not snicker openly at the jokes of fellow comedians in said movie as if to cue me for laughter. It also helps not to pigeon-hole each “actor” with one funny running attribute throughout the entire length of the film. Is Kevin James chubby enough to be made the butt of an endless supply of fat jokes? Yes.

I was, however, held down and forced to watch this film twice over the holiday season with the soul mate’s nephew and nieces (ages 12, 8, and 7). These three found the movie quite  hilarious and couldn’t get enough of it. So, that said, raunchy comedians making a kids film = FAIL.

5. Clash of the Titans
I saw this cluster-f*&k in 3D (first bad choice), and my dreams of Release the Kraken glory turned into Release the Craptastic disappointment. This film was one of those classic examples of hurriedly tacking on post-prod 3D in order to greedily take advantage of the current 3D-mania in theatres. Distracting and annoying instead of enhancing the story, this mess had all the key ingredients of a really bad film: sloppy and stilted dialogue, over-the-top acting, bad editing. I should have just listened to my gut and let Harry Hamlin live in infamy. Yes, this regret will haunt me forever. And, the homage to Bubo the owl was really kind of lame and seemed like it was just thrown in there haphazardly.

Do you have 5 more Most Abominable films you’ve seen this year I could add to my list?

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today released their short list of 15 films currently in contention for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for the 83rd Academy Awards. As usual, the list is a mix of critical darlings, box office failures, comic book movies, sequels and originals.

Here are the 15 films in alphabetical order:

• Alice in Wonderland
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Clash of the Titans
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• Hereafter
• Inception
• Iron Man 2
• The Last Airbender
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World
• Shutter Island
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• TRON: Legacy
• Unstoppable

Members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee will narrow the list down to seven in early January, prior to the announcement of the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, January 25, 2011.

Which select few do you think will make it through to the final 3? Last year it was a battle between Avatar, Star Trek and District 9, with Avatar obviously taking the gold.

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Paramount Home Entertainment will be giving people the opportunity to watch M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender in the comfort of their own homes, as it will be released on DVD and Blu-ray November 16th.

Despite being ripped to shreds by critics the film managed to make $280 million worldwide, however various reports have said Paramount spent a huge amount on marketing. The DVD and Blu-ray sales should push it into a profit, but I guess only Paramount will know the real numbers.

The DVD/Blu-ray Combo includes the following special features:

Disc One (Blu-ray):

• Feature Film (HD)
• Discovering The Last Airbender (nine-part documentary in HD)
  • Inspirations – Co-creators of the show and M. Night Shyamalan give insight into the inner journey the characters take
  • Spirituality – Explore the deeper spirituality that colors The Last Airbender
  • Heroes – Aang, Katara and Sokka journey together to save the world; behind-the-scenes piece provides a closer look at these characters and the actors
  • Greenland – With sub-zero shoots on glaciers and frozen rivers, travel with the filmmakers to Greenland to meet the locals and experience the magnificent landscapes captured for the powerful opening of the film
  • World – The sets, props, costumes and make-up that helped bring to life four unique nations in the film, each with a distinct look and style
  • Action – With the film’s “bending” rooted in Martial Arts, uncover Shyamalan’s process with Noah Ringer to create complex, heart-pounding action sequences
  • Effects – Closer look at the jaw-dropping cinematography and special effects that were created to blend seamlessly with ILM’s computer generated imagery
  • Music – Longtime creative collaboration between M. Night Shyamalan and composer James Newton Howard is celebrated in the film’s sweeping score
  • Finale – The journey culminates in one breathtaking moment on the ice wall
• Siege of the North (HD) – Get transported to the frozen realm of the Northern Water Tribe and the largest indoor film set ever built on the U.S. east coast
• Origins of the Avatar (HD) – Birth of the mythology from the original co-creators of the animated show, Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.  Concept art from the popular series provides further perspective into how the story would eventually reincarnate into an epic feature film
• Katara for a Day (HD) – Spend a day on the set with Nicola Peltz
• Deleted Scenes (HD)
• Outtakes (HD)
• Avatar Annotations (Picture-in-picture on select scenes) – Insights with cast and crew

Disc 2 (DVD):

• Feature Film
• Digital Copy

THE LAST AIRBENDER single disc DVD and single disc Blu-ray each include:

• Origins of the Avatar (HD on Blu-ray)
• Deleted Scenes (HD on Blu-ray)
• Outtakes (HD on Blu-ray)

The Last Airbender is now available to pre-order on: DVD | Blu-ray

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Despicable Me managed to stomp every prediction regarding its opening by over-performing beyond expectations and reaching $56.3 million when it wasn’t expected to pass $40 million. Surprises like this make things interesting at the box office.

For a movie that cost $69 million and coming from newborn animation studio Illumination Entertainment (I have a feeling we will continue to see good things coming from them in the future under Universal’s distribution deal), this is a pretty darn good score, so good that it passed previous highest grossing computer animated flick distributed by Universal Pictures, The Tale of Despereaux (with $50.8 million) in just 3 days. With Toy Story 3 still making the rounds and holding a lot of the 3D screens, makes this performance all the more impressive. So, Despicable Me 2 (bad title, I really hope it won’t be this) coming out in 2013?

Also strong was The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with $31.7 million (that I totally called) down only 51.1% from last weekend (an all time best for the series, obviously helped by the fact this one opened on a Wednesday instead of a Friday). With $239.7 million so far (including Monday numbers) in 13 days, Eclipse is neck a neck with New Moon, $237.8 million after the same amount of days. I believe now more then before that this one might pass the $300 million mark in North America. Oh, and for those wondering, Eclipse stands at $458.7 million worldwide with the movie still not out in a lot of countries.

Predators performed exactly as expected (called it again), $24.7 million and a great debut for this R-rated genre movie that I can’t wait to watch. Hopefully it will at least show decent holds at the box office, good enough to carry it past the $60 million mark before the end of its run. Also, second best opening for the series (first if we leave Alien vs Predator out).

As mentioned above, Toy Story 3 is still rolling the big bucks, this time $21 million for $339.2 million so far and if we include the $2.8 million it did on Monday, this just became Pixar’s highest grossing movie ever in North America (not adjusted for inflation, obviously) beating former champ Finding Nemo ($339.7 million). $555.1 million worldwide and it has barely scratched the surface internationally. $900 million definitely a strong possibility, $1 billion not out of the question either.

The Last Airbender, $16.6 million, $101.8 million so far (including Monday) and going down, maybe not as fast as expected but still fast enough to keep it from reaching $140-$150 million.

Grown Ups keeps making twice as much as Knight & Day ($15.8 million versus $7.7 million) on a weekend basis with Swiss precision while the Karate Kid also continues to dominate The A-Team in the battle of the 80′s ($5.3 million versus $1.7 million).

Finally Cyrus ends the top 10 with $1.2 million after expanding from 77 to 200 theaters this weekend.

Next weekend is looking even more interesting with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Inception, my money is on Inception but more on that soon.

For a more detailed look at the top 10 numbers for last weekend, go here.

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Another weekend, another batch of new movies, this time Despicable Me and Predators.

Despicable Me, the latest effort from Universal to tap into the gold mine that animated movies have become in the past decade (since computer animation took over), debuts into 3474 theaters and is looking to surpass The Tale of Despereaux ($50.8 million, Christmas 2008) as the studio’s biggest computer animated movie to date. With a 79% RottenTomato average so far, this looks like it might have something to say, and who knows, it could become this year’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I see around $30-35 million for the weekend in a tight race for first place with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse that should also finish around $30 million.

Predators, from Fox opening in 2669 theaters, is trying to be a love letter to fans of the classic 1987 Predator staring good old Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and so far based on what critics say (surprisingly 63% after 115 reviews counted on RottenTomatoes) it might just be that, the long lost sequel that we always wanted could finally be here. So I say $24 million this weekend and a good shot at making around $60-70 million in total at the North American box office. And yes, the name Predators is a homage to Aliens, the sequel to Alien.

Toy Story 3 keeps on having fantastic weekdays and is headed for around $20 million this weekend while Grown Ups will pass the $100 million mark before the end of Sunday, thus becoming the 11th movie in the career of Adam Sandler to reach that high.

Finally The Last Airbender should bring in another $16-17 million or so over the weekend for a total of probably $100 million in 11 days. Looking at the reviews and most of the fans reactions, I’m sure Paramount must be happy that none of those had a huge effect on the tickets they managed to sell so far, but it will from now on and I don’t think The Last Airbender will finish its box office run with more then $140 million, if that.

1. Despicable Me (Uni) $34 million (NEW)
2. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Sum) $31 million ($234,6M)
3. Predators (Fox) $24 million (NEW)
4. Toy Story 3 (BV) $20 million ($338.2M)
5. The Last Airbender (Par) $17 million ($100M)

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It was a good weekend at the North American box office with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse leading the pack.

Eclipse, ahem, eclipsed the others and managed a $64.8 million opening weekend. Now that might seem a little small compared to what Twilight and New Moon did ($69.6 million and $142.8 million) but the real story here is Eclipse actually opened on Wednesday and has made since (weekend included) $176.3 million in 6 days (Monday included). So if we look in perspective, it’s pretty much in line with what New Moon made ($178.8 million in 6 days).

Add to that another $100 million from the few international markets Eclipse opened in and you’ve got a very impressive $276.5 million worldwide for a movie that cost about $68 million. I expect this to finish with around the same numbers as New Moon, maybe a bit more, $300 million or so in North America and another $450-$500 million from the rest of the world for what could become the first movie in the Twilight series to reach $800 million worldwide. Keep hitting that iron while it’s hot Summit Entertainment, as long as you keep making stuff like Red, I can take all the Twilight movies you can push.

Next in line is The Last Airbender (formerly Avatar: The Last Airbender) based on the popular (actually very popular by looking at the numbers) animated series of the same name. This one, despite some of the worst reviews of the year, managed to open with $40.3 million over the weekend, but again, just like with Eclipse, the number might seem small but in reality they are bigger because this opened on Thursday to $17.5 million and went on to make $69.3 million in 5 days (Monday included). Will this drop like a rock next weekend and just barely match the $150 million budget Paramount invested in it? We’ll just have to wait a few more days.

Toy Story 3 is in third place after 3 weeks with $30.2 million (again, smaller number because the 4th of July fell on Sunday) and has made so far $301.8 million in 18 days matching Shrek 2 ($302.6 million in 18 days) as the fastest animated movie to pass $300 million (7th overall). With $150.8 million from the rest of the world so far (not having opened in most of the big markets yet) Toy Story 3 has generated $452.6 million worldwide. I can see this last entry in the series gettingt to $400 million or so in North America (and probably finish the year in first place if Harry Potter doesn’t have something good to say in 3D) and as high as $900 million and even $1 billion worldwide. First Alice in Wonderland, now this, having two movies pass 1 billion in the same year would be something Disney can only dream of.

From this point on everything is pretty standard, Grown Ups made $19 million for $77.6 million and will surely be another $100+ million Adam Sandler movie, Knight & Day did $10.4 million and $45.7 million so far while Karate Kid keeps on giving (to Sony and the Smith family) with another $8 million that adds to $151.5 million for Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan.

The A-Team, Get Him to the Greek, Shrek Forever After and Letters to Juliet (making a comeback) finish the top 10.

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We know the critics aren’t too fond of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender as it is currently the worst reviewed movie of 2010. But what about the fans? Surely those guys and girls who attended early screenings dressed up as characters from the movie found something they liked about it?

Well…not really. From Reelz Channel (via Rejects):

When a grown male suggests they should have seen The Twilight Saga: Eclipse instead you know you have failure on your hands…

…speaking of which The Vulture spoke with director M. Night Shyamalan by phone and were pretty blunt when asking him about the negative reviews his film has received:

Have you read the reviews for Last Airbender?
No, I haven’t.

Well, are you aware of the reviews?
No, actually.

Well, for the most part, critics have not been kind. Are you just ignoring them? Will you read them this weekend? Have you just not had time?
Are you saying that in general they didn’t dig it?

In general, no. Roger Ebert, who liked The Happening, did not. The first line of his review is, “The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category that I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.” How do you react to something like that?
I don’t know what to say to that stuff. I bring as much integrity to the table as humanly possible. It must be a language thing, in terms of a particular accent, a storytelling accent. I can only see it this certain way and I don’t know how to think in another language. I think these are exactly the visions that are in my head, so I don’t know how to adjust it without being me. It would be like asking a painter to change to a completely different style. I don’t know.

Fans and critics now have something to blame; his storytelling accent. Whatever that is.

M. Night also said that he has finished the first draft of the sequel and will know over the next few months whether he can take it further. I have a feeling he won’t.

Have you seen The Last Airbender yet? Is it as bad as everyone is saying, or did you find yourself enjoying it?

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