Where there’s a will there’s a way, right? And where there’s tons of extra footage, there’s probably another film that can get scraped together from the extras lying on the cutting room floor.
“Jackass 3D” not only defied most expectations last weekend, it broke records when its $50 million dollar box-office haul became the highest grossing opening weekend in the second week of October. While expected to perform well, especially with those overpriced 3D tickets — up to $18 dollars each in some theaters — the picture grossed about $20 million more than was projected (and $29 million more than its predecessor in opening week). Nobody, not even Paramount, who barely screened the film for critics, would have expected that.
So this immediately means sequel, right? “Jackass” in 4D? And if so, why wait another year of shooting and editing? ““We shot two movies’ worth of footage,” Johnny Knoxville told the LATimes. “We have so many bits that we never even turned in to Paramount because we were so swamped with ideas — funny stuff. The bits were just coming out of us left and right.”
The original plan was to release the extras online much like the studio did with “Jackass Number Two,” but with such an unexpected surprise hit, talk is turning towards another theatrical release. The wait for another “Jackass” film could be only a few months away and with footage already in the can, releasing another film will be highly cost effective as the suits can basically recycle most of the marketing tools and slap a “.5” on the posters or whatever it is they decide to do.
Surely Paramount would like to have the film in theaters for Christmas to add to their Q4 cume, but we’d guess early 2011 is likely an easier target date to hit. With a $100 million dollar total in sight, “Jackass 4” is probably on the way sometime in the future as well, though the physically punished crew insist that they have no more plans for a sequel as they are all approaching their 40s and don’t heal quite as fast anymore. However, that could change. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of skill to do what these guys do,” Jeff Tremaine, director of all three “Jackass” movies said. “As long as they’re brave enough to do it, they can go on as long as they want.” Plus, money talks. Apparently Paramount will make their “Jackass 3-D.5” decision in the next few days as to when and where it will be released.
Lets not forget that Viacom (Paramount, MTV Networks and BET) do not have a fiscal year that matches the calendar year. They changed it around in the beginning of 2010 calendar year.
Their 2010 was only 3 months long and ended the end of Sept, so Jackass 3D is a 2011 fiscal year release for them, but this would be a strong (and cheap) addition to the 2011 year.