i rebet UNDER Exgf again today at 15million...its on 1.5screens (its splitting a screen with Prada) at notfabio's theatre....he says MAX it can do is 20million for the weekend....this is the one of the 3 i actually feel comfortable with "right now" as i just feel this movie could easily get lost in the shuffle. of everything out right now...M Nights movie continues to fall like stated above...i think maybe this is b/c of the negetive reviews...this is the one where the his name alone could still push it to 30million for the weekend (wsex will have a line on this one so its a very small bet right now and i will wait for their line to decide what to really do)
weekend warrior is up...here's their takes and estimates...as you will notice they are very close to the pinny lines...back tomorrow night when wsex posts...
LADY IN THE WATER (Warner Bros.)
Starring Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Bob Balaban, Freddy Rodriguez, Sarita Choudhury, Jared Harris, Bill Irwin
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable, The Village)
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Thriller
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “Time is running out for a happy ending.” (How apropos.)
Story: Building superintendent Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) notices strange happenings in the building’s swimming pool at night, and when he investigates, he discovers a beautiful young woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is there on a mission, which Cleveland takes upon himself to help her finish.
REVIEW
Two years after his “period” thriller The Village was met with critical disappointment and a lackluster box office showing, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is back with a movie that delves into the world of fantasy and fairy tale… but that may not even be the biggest story about Lady in the Water.
Instead, press and the media are focusing on the fact that Shyamalan’s latest will be released by Warner Bros. after a less-than-amicable split with Disney that has been well-documented in the forthcoming book “The Man Who Heard Voices” by Michale Bamberger. The book conveniently comes out the day before the release of his new movie. In some ways, the tell-all book has become a bigger story than his movie as Shyamalan spoke out about why the studio with whom he’s had so much success won’t be releasing his new movie Lady in the Water. It’s kind of surprising when you realize that the four movies he made with the Mouse House have grossed $400 million domestically.
Of course, it all started for real with The Sixth Sense, a script Shyamalan reportedly sold for a million dollars, casting Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment and turning it into a $293 million hit, most of its money being made based on word-of-mouth legs, before getting six Oscar nominations including two for Night himself. That was followed a year later with his poorly received superhero drama Unbreakable, and two years after that with another commercial success, the alien invasion drama Signs, starring Mel Gibson, which grossed over $200 million. Then came The Village, a period thriller with a twist that angered many people who saw it. Still, that didn’t stop Bryce Dallas Howard, star of The Village, to reunite with Shymalan to play the proverbial “lady” in the water, who hasn’t done that many movies in the two years since then, just Lars Von Trier’s controversial indie Manderlay, and Shyamalan has gone a bit less conventional when picking the male lead for his latest movie. After making movies with Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix as his leading men, Night picked Paul Giamatti, fresh off his supporting Oscar nomination for Ron Howard’s boxing drama Cinderella Man, but Giamatti had been receiving accolades long before that for his leading roles in the comic book biodrama American Splendor and Alexander Payne’s Sideways. Giamatti isn’t quite the box office draw of a Mel Gibson or a Bruce Willis, but he certainly has gained a lot of respect and fans from his last few movies.
Their supporting cast is fleshed out by Bob Balaban, a great character actor from the Christopher Guest stable, who also co-wrote and produced Robert Altman’s Oscar nominated Gosford Park, and Jeffrey Wright, who got a lot of attention last year for Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers and Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana.
Unlike Signs and The Sixth Sense and even Unbreakable in some ways, Lady in the Water is not very easily defined in terms of story or genre. It doesn’t involve ghosts or superheroes or aliens, things that mainstream audiences might immediately embrace. Instead, it’s a fairy tale with elements of horror, particularly when it comes to the wolf-like creature who keeps popping up trying to kill the title character. Warner Bros. wisely is pushing the horror elements, knowing that horror is big right now, which should help the movie stand out amongst all the comedies currently in theatres.
Shyamalan really has a lot to prove with Lady in the Water, since so many people were disappointed in The Village, but there’s no denying that Shyamalan has created a comfortable and devout fanbase with his past movies. Even the critically-butchered Village grossed over $50 million its opening weekend. To date, Shyamalan has followed each $200+ million hit with a less well received movie, so if you believe in trends, then Lady in the Water would be another hit after the dive that The Village took after opening weekend, only grossing $114 million total. It’s been two years since Shyamalan’s last movie so fans of his movies like Signs will be curious to see if Lady in the Water delivers, though the audience will generally be older and more female-oriented.
Critics probably won’t be very kind, standing in line for their chance to attack Shyamalan’s latest movie, paying close attention to Bob Balaban’s character, a nasty film critic. Many of them will be using the upcoming tell-all book as a chance to trash the filmmaker who they once praised and put on a pedestal, but the controversial book may in fact give more people reason to see the movie, to see if Disney was mistaken by passing on it.
The movie’s title isn’t great for enticing people into theatres, but many of Shyamalan’s fans will go see it regardless of anything else. Even if it doesn’t do as well opening weekend as The Village or Signs, expect it to keep bringing in the older moviegoers over the next few weeks with its only real competition being next week’s Miami Vice, and there’s a better chance that it will have better legs, much like The Sixth Sense and Signs, as it gets repeat viewings from those who want to understand it better.
Why I Should See It: If you’re a fan of M. Night Shyamalan, you’ll already be preparing yourself for his latest film experience.
Why Not: Because you still feel burned by the lame twist in The Village.
Projection: $31 to 34 million opening weekend; $110 million total
CLERKS II (Weinstein Co./MGM)
Starring Brian O'Halleron, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jennifer Schwalbach, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck (cameo), Jason Lee (cameo)
Written and directed by Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Rated R
Tagline: “No Missions, No Mutants, No Man of Steel, No Money, and No Bullshit Catchphrases.”
Story: Dante and Randal (Brian O’Halleron and Jeff Anderson) find themselves in a new job, working at a fast food joint after the Quik-E-Mart burns down, but they also find themselves facing their thirties as Dante is about to leave New Jersey to go down to Florida and marry his fiance (Jennifer Schwalbach). Can their friendship survive?
REVIEW (Coming Soon!)
Two years ago, Richard Linklater reunited Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy from his 1995 movie Before Sunrise, checking in with them nine years after they first rendezvoused in France. A year earlier, Quebec’s Denys Arcand took a similar approach with his sequel The Barbarian Invasions, revisiting the characters from his 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire; that was hugely successful in Canada, and even won a foreign language Oscar.
It’s possible that the success of these two indie films had some sort of subliminal influence on filmmaker Kevin Smith when he decided to revisit his first movie, the 1994 low-budget indie Clerks, after the rather lackluster reception to his 2004 romantic comedy Jersey Girl, which may have proved that his career had peaked.
In 1999, after finding a cult audience with his third movie Chasing Amy, Smith took on religion, releasing his most controversial movie Dogma, once again starring Smith regular Ben Affleck joined by his Good Will Hunting writing partner Matt Damon. A few years later, it was followed by Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, which Smith announced would be the fifth and final part of his Jersey trilogy (sic). It focused more on Smith and Jason Mewes’ title characters, receiving the widest release and making more money opening weekend than Smith’s previous films.
With the “View Askewniverse” movies out of the way, Smith made Jersey Girl, a more traditional PG-13 romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and his Armageddon love interest Liv Tyler. It also starred Affleck’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez as his ex-wife who dies in childbirth, and though her part was cut down, the movie got thrashed for the same Bennifer stuff that destroyed their previous comedy Gigli a few months earlier, and it was too much of a departure from the irreverent sex comedy which Smith’s males fans expected.
Now he’s back to what some will think he does best, donning Silent Bob’s trench coat and taking Dante and Randal from the world of the convenience store into a dead-end job at a fast food joint. Smith reunited the stars of the original movie, Brian O’Halleron and Jeff Anderson, who had appeared in smaller parts in Smith’s subsequent movies and provided voices for a failed ABC primetime cartoon in 2000. This time, Smith also brought on a secret weapon in self-professed comic geek Rosario Dawson, who joins the boys as their manager and Dante’s love interest. The 26-year-old New York native was last seen in the Chris Columbus adaptation of the musical Rent and Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, and Clerks II is a good intermediate on her way to more genre films like the long-delayed Killshot and the horror anthology Grind House next year. The sexy Latina first broke onto the scene in a number of Spike Lee films like He Got Game, before getting roles as the sexy girlfriend in movies like The Rock’s The Rundown and Men in Black II. She offers a lot more starpower to mix than either of the male leads, though she probably won’t be as much of a draw as Smith himself.
Right now, there are a lot of comedies in theatres, but we haven’t really had an R-rated comedy, despite the success last summer of Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. This one will mainly be appealing to Smith’s 16 to 30 year old male fans, and though most of Smith’s movies have hit a ceiling of around $30 million--Jersey Girl made slightly less--one can safely assume that in the last few years, Smith has found a lot more fans from his appearances at comic conventions, college tours, not to mention his burgeoning internet presence on sites like ViewAskew and MoviePoopShoot. He even had a prominent production diary video Podcast on Apple’s iTunes for the last few months, something that’s sure to raise awareness and interest.
This is only the second release from the new distribution deal between MGM and The Weinstein Company, and while the commercials have been all over Comedy Central, they’re giving it a rather moderate release into around 1,900 theatres, maybe because they realize that Smith’s raunchy humor will not go over well in the Red States, except for maybe Texas, where the likes of Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez have built-up their own indie movie revolution.
Although this is a big weekend with four new movies, most guys in the 18 to 30 age range will be picking this movie over others this weekend, and that group will mainly consist of Kevin Smith and genre fanboys, which may make its opening weekend slightly weighed towards opening day. Since the sequel only cost a reported $5 million, it’s likely to make back its production costs and be profitable by Sunday.
Why I Should See It: Kevin Smith returns to his roots to do what he does best.
Why Not: Smith’s raunchy humor is an acquired taste, but a lot of people might find it raunchy or gross.
Projection: $11 to 12 million opening weekend; $35 million overall.
MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND (20th Century Fox)
Starring Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, Wanda Sykes
Directed by Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Six Days Seven Nights, Evolution); Written by Don Payne (upcoming Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer)
Genre: Comedy, Superhero, Romance
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, crude humor, language and brief nudity
Tagline: “He broke her heart. She broke his everything.”
Story: Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) thinks he has found the perfect woman in Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman), who seems like a quiet but pretty woman, though he soon learns that she’s needy and possessive, oh, and she’s also the superhero G-Girl, though you wouldn’t know it from the things she does to Matt after he freaks out and breaks up with her.
Mini-Review (Coming Soon!)
The ‘80s were Ivan Reitman’s oyster, as he followed two early Bill Murray comedies, Meatballs and Stipes, with the mega-blockbuster Ghostbusters, which made over $238 million in the summer of ’84. It would become Reitman’s biggest hit, followed by two more $100 million hits, Twins and the sequel Ghostbusters, before the ‘90s hit and things went to pot with flops like Junior and Father’s Day.
It’s been over five years since Reitman’s last movie, the sci-fi comedy Evolution, a summer stiff despite a prominent marketing campaign, making one think that the great director’s run as comedy king had come to an end. Now, he’s back with a new romantic comedy set in the world of superheroics, which will hope to bring in a wide audience of both men and women thanks to its premise and its two stars, Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson.
Of course, those two stars will probably be Super Ex-Girlfriend's biggest selling point, which is why their careers are conveniently covered in our Star Spotlight, but a lot of the movie’s humor will come in the form of Rainn Wilson, best known for playing Dwight Schrute on the hit NBC sitcom “The Office.” Before that, Rainn had a memorable supporting role on HBO’s “Six Feet Under” and an even funnier cameo in the San Diego Comic-Con episode of “Entourage.” Playing a sweet love interest to counter Uma’s crazy superhero is Anna Faris, star of the Scary Movies, which have amassed over $400 million cumulatively, and she’s also played wacky roles in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and last year’s Just Friends. This is a more low-key role for her, because she’s not playing the wacky comic relief, instead playing a rather sweet love interest for Wilson. British comic Eddie Izzard makes a rare studio movie appearance playing Uma’s arch rival, Professor Bedlam, and there’s also a small role for comedienne Wanda Sykes, who provided the voice of a skunk in DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge and makes a small cameo in Kevin Smith’s Clerks II this week, too.
The big question, as always, is who will this movie appeal to? It’s a romantic comedy, which is usually the domain of women and girls, but it also features superheroes, which is normally a guy thing. Mixing the two elements could make this the perfect date movie this weekend, but that could also turn off everyone because it’s such a strange mix of ideas and genres.
At least the marketing campaign has been strong, playing off the superhero aspect by absconding the famous Superman tagline, “Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane!” The commercials and trailers also feature a lot of funny moments and lines, which could help this bring in the comedy audience that can’t get into last week’s offerings or Kevin Smith’s brand of humor. The movie really does have a lot working against it though, and Fox do have their hands full, though so far this summer, they have risen to the occasion with last minute campaigns for The Omen and Prada. With Reitman past due for a comeback, expect this to find a moderate audience opening weekend and find its legs from word-of-mouth after the fact.
Why I Should See It: Ivan Reitman’s return to comedy puts Uma Thurman back in action with a strong supporting cast that promises lots of laughs.
Why Not: (puts on sexist caveman hat) Everyone knows that superheroes are for BOYS and that GIRLS can’t be superheroes!
Projection: $14 to 16 million opening weekend; $55 million total.
MONSTER HOUSE (Sony Pictures)
Starring (voices) Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee, Catherine O'Hara, Kathleen Turner, Fred Willard, Matthew Fahey, Jon Heder, Ryan Newman, Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke
Directed by Gil Kenan (debut); Written by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab
Genre: Animated, Comedy, Thriller
Rated PG (for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language)
Tagline: “There goes the neighborhood.”
Story: Three kids learn that a creepy neighborhood house is actually alive and eating anyone that crosses its threshold and they decide to discover the house’s mysteries and put a stop to its rampage.
REVIEW (By Scott Chitwood)
All of this week’s new movies are anomalies in one way or another, but this one may be the most interesting in that it’s the first computer animated movie from Sony Pictures Imageworks studio, produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, using the same performance-capture technology Zemeckis used in The Polar Express to allow Tom Hanks to play five parts. Since kids tend to love monsters and stories about them, at least if the success of Pixar Studios’ Monsters Inc. is to be believed, it seems like a good premise for this animation technique, although darker animated movies are sometimes a bit of a risk. (More on that below.)
Like most of the recent animated movies, it has an impressive voice cast including Steve Buscemi, who played the bad guy in the aforementioned Monsters Inc., Kevin James, star of Sony’s hit comedy Hitch, Jon “Napoleon Dynamite” Heder, Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary), Nick Cannon and of course, Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard, who are contracted to be in every single animated movie made in Hollywood. But none of these talented actors are being featured in the ads or commercials, maybe because the story revolves around the kids, voiced and performed by newcomers Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke and Mitchel Musso. Even the director, Gil Kenan, is a bit of a newbie, having been discovered after winning the UCLA Spotlight Awards for his combination animated/live action short “The Lark.” It takes a real amount of confidence to impress the likes of Spielberg and Zemeckis and get them to put you behind a high profile animated movie like this one.
Although the concept of a living, people-eating house is a cool one, it also seems like it may be way too scary for very young kids, who would be the ones most likely to be taken to this. Last September, Tim Burton released the ghoulish stop-motion animated movie The Corpse Bride, his follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and though it did well in limited release, averaging $77 thousand in five theatres, when it expanded into over 3,200 theatres the following week, it ended up with what might be considered a disappointing $19.1 million. Maybe parents were squeamish to bring their kids to a movie that might be very dark or scary, and that might be a similar problem faced by Monster House if word gets around that it’s too scary for younger kids. On top of that, the animation looks even weirder than The Polar Express, which may hurt it among older animation enthusiasts, and the movie probably should have been released closer to Halloween to take advantage of that holiday.
Then again, the Spielberg and Zemeckis names hold a lot of power in Hollywood and among parents, who will remember seeing their movies when they were younger, and that will give the movie the mark of quality that they’ll hold in high standards. Another thing working in the movie’s advantage is that it’s being released simultaneously in 160 3-D theatres, a similar idea to the release of Polar Express in IMAX 3-D. While computer animation is losing a bit of its novelty, the 3-D gimmick is something that does add another dimension to the genre. The success of Robert Rodriguez’s 3-D ventures, particularly 2003’s Spy Kids 3-D (see This Weekend in Box Office History) shows that there’s a huge demand for the novelty among kids wanting to see these movies in a different way.
The movie has a good trailer and the early reviews have mostly been positive. Sony obviously feels strongly about the movie, because they’re opening it in over 3,300 theatres and they even gave it sneak previews last Saturday, which reportedly were 80% full. With positive early reviews and good word-of-mouth, expect this to do decently right out of the gate, though it may have trouble getting theatres due to the three other new movies. Regardless, it should be able to hold up well despite the intrusion of more animated fare like Warner Bros’ The Ant Bully next weekend and Paramount/Nickelodeon’s The Barnyard the following week.
Why I Should See It: Another attempt to impress using the latest in performance capture animation technology.
Why Not: The kids look really weird--maybe even weirder than any monster in the movie!--and early reports say that it may be too scary for young kids.
Projection: $22 to 25 million opening weekend: $85 million overall.
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