"First of all, I'm incredibly disappointed. We tried to do something new and obviously we didn't do it that well," Harvey told me today. "It's just a question of how is it going to hang in there. But we could split the movies in a couple of weeks. Make Tarantino's a full-length film, and Rodriguez's too. We'll be adding those 'two missing reels' that's talked about in the movie. [...]

"Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent. It was 3 hours and 12 minutes long. We originally intended to get it all in in 2 hours, 30 minutes. That would have been a better time. But the movies ran longer, the [fake] trailers ran longer, everything ran longer," Harvey told me. [...]

Weinstein admits that he thought the film would do much better than it did and sees the failure of Grindhouse's U.S. release as a rap on his reputation for movie savvy. He can't blame the directors. After all, he is closely tied to Tarantino and Rodriquez personally and professionally and, what's more, he and brother Bob made that relationship and Grindhouse a cornerstone of their fledgling company's financing. (No doubt, that's why Harvey, who has a long history of imposing his iron will on filmmakers, gave the two directors a pass when it came to Grindhouse's extreme length.) [...]

Harvey admitted to me that his attention may have been too diverted from the movie biz as a result [of his company's diversification]. "This Cannes, I'm going to change all that. I'm back to being me. We wanted to diversify immediately. Now I have to go back to being Harvey."

There is, however, good news for those unnerved by a second-guessing Weinstein, as he quickly built to a more characteristically confident stance, adding, "You know what? I don't care how much I love the guy, if Quentin turns in a Death Proof cut for the Cannes screening that's a second over 90 minutes, I will tear the extra frames out of the fucking projector with my bare hands and then strangle the projectionist, just for kicks. I'm back, baby!"

• EXCLUSIVE: Harvey Very Disappointed; May Re-Release 'Grindhouse' As 2 Pics [DHD]
• Previously: Monday Morning Box Office: Maybe Rose McGowan Needed Two Machine-Gun Legs? [Defamer]

4. Grindhouse—$11.591 million
We generally reserve the above-the-jump slot for the weekend's first place finisher, but Grindhouse's shocking—shocking!—and disappointing™ opening (really, the situation requires that double cliché to communicate its unexpected bombiness) merits the lead slot on this Monday morning. What happened? A movie that features Rose McGowan as a one-legged go-go dancer with a combination machine gun/grenade launcher prosthesis should have been good for $15 million on its own. Perhaps the buzz was hurt somewhat when word got out that Tarantino's contribution to the double-bill opens with a unbroken, twenty-minute shot of Sydney Tamiia Poitier's naked feet perched on the dashboard of a moving car, an homage to 1978 cult film Barefoot Bunny's Road Trip to the Valley of the Toe-Suckers so obscure that audiences were sure that the rest of the movie's too-clever references would alienate them.

1. Blades of Glory-$23 million
Following a second straight weekend atop the box office, exuberant DreamWorks spokesman Marvin Levy briefly lost himself in the heady glow of victory, saying, "We are gliding along nicely," but unable to refrain from stretching the figure skating conceit, continued, "We feel like a spandex-clad,—yet totally heterosexual—men's doubles partner being held gracefully aloft by Will Ferrell's big, strong arms, giddy from the anticipation of feeling his hot breath on the backs of our necks as he safely guides us back down to the ice's surface."

2. Meet the Robinsons—$17.004 million
3. Are We Done Yet?—$13 million
Onetime gangta Ice Cube is this close to voicing a wisecracking robot in Meet the Robinsons 2.

5. The Reaping—$10.080 million
The Great Burbank Fire's proximity to the Warner Bros. lot seems to have been a sign from above foretelling the box office Armageddon about to be visited upon Hilary Swank's latest offering.

• April 6-8 2007 Studio Estimates [Box Office Mojo]

Did you know that Tarantino has somewhat of a feet fetish when it comes to his films, because yours is on prominent display?

Sydney Tamiia Poitier: Yeah. I did actually. The minute I opened the script, one of the first things it says is, "Arlene's feet tapping on the dashboard, and then cut to Jungle Julia's feet walking down the hallway".

I saw that there was already a love of feet when I opened the script and I had actually heard that he has a thing for feet; so when I went in for the audition, one of the first things I did when I started playing the part was that I walked in the audition, sat down on the chair, we got ready to go and I kicked off my shoes and I put my feet up on the table, and I think that helped me get the part because I had her body language and I put the feet on display.

While the actress's bold ploy paid obvious dividends in this instance, we stress that this strategy not be used to completely replace accepted casting couch practices; those serious about earning a high-profile role in a feature film should appeal to a director, producer, or casting executive's fetishes only in conjunction with—at the very least—a competently performed blow-job. There's no point in squandering a valuable opportunity to secure a part on such a risky play.

• GRINDHOUSE: An EXCLUSIVE Interview with Sydney Tamiia Poitier [Blackfilm]
• Previously: Defamer Connections: Tarantino Seeking Sexy Feet [Defamer]

"I was watching this blaxploitation movie called 'Death Force' at the World Theater, which used to be on Hollywood Boulevard just up from Gower. I'm there watching this movie about these two gangs fighting to take over L.A. They're pulling a 'Scarface,' just killing everyone. Well, two gang members are walking down Hollywood Boulevard and a car pulls up and guns them down right in front of the theater that I'm sitting in! I was like 16, and it remains to this day one of the great moments for me."

Tarantino has pledged to one day pay tribute to the life-altering experience in a film, consisting entirely of a shot of an adolescent boy in a movie theater enjoying a gangland slaying who realizes it's been shot at the very cinema he's seated in, only to pull out to find another boy seated in an identical theater who recognizes both cinemas on the screen to be the same one he's currently patronizing, and so on and so forth for 90 solid minutes, until one final boy gets decapitated with a chainsaw by a roving gang of motorcycle-riding vampires. Working title: Blood Rattle.

[Photo: LAT]

• Tarantino's Grindhouse Fest celebrates cinematic cheese [LAT]

• Grindhouse Movie Trailer [YouTube]