Box Office: Green Seeking Green

It takes money to make money. But in some cases, green seeking green cannot ever find enough of it. Warner Bros and DC bet big on Green Lantern shelling out $200 million for production and another $125 million in advertising to build awareness but the $53 million opening is not going to convince anyone to greenlight (haha) a sequel. Unless the Lantern Corps has legs. Three fantastical f/x movies opening soon Transformers, Harry Potter and Captain America are probably feeling like huge Yellow villains to Hal Jordan at this point. Maybe he shouldn't have played it so smug and arrogant?

HIS CONSTRUCTS ARE WEAK!

U.S. Box-Office (Actuals)
figures via box office mojo

01 GREEN LANTERN new $53.1 [review]
02 SUPER 8 $21.4 [thoughts] (cum. $73)
03 MR POPPER'S PENGUINS new  $18.4
04 X-MEN FIRST CLASS $11.9 (cum. $120.3) [review, top ten X-moments]
05 THE HANGOVER PT II $10 (cum. $233.1)
06 KUNG FU PANDA 2 $9 (cum. $143.6)
07 BRIDESMAIDS $7 (cum. $136.4) ♥
08 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES $6.6 (cum. $220.7) [review]
09 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS $4.8 (cum. $21.4) [podcast]
10 JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER $2.1 (cum. $11)

11 THE TREE OF LIFE $1.1 (cum. $3.9) [My thoughts and "Overheard"]
12 THOR $1.1 (cum. $176.1) [review]

In other box office news: Midnight in Paris (just discussed) will become Woody Allen's highest grosser since the 1980s this week. Bridesmaids continues to have miniscule drops each week and I suspect it'll have the longest top ten run this entire summer. And aside from the documentary smash Fahrenheit 9/11,  The Tree of Life is the biggest grossing Palme D'Or winner from the past several years.

What did you see over the weekend? Did you love it?

Box Office: Elle Fanning Ascends and 8 More Notes on "Super 8"

It was a debutante ball or a "Sweet 13", if you will, for Elle Fanning at the Box Office this weekend. J.J. Abrams Super 8, an attempt to recapture Spielbergian 80s sci-fi glory, opened larger than expected, and Elle's star continues to rise. Are you newly won over?

"SuperElle" © Nathaniel R
A HUGE week in the Fanning household this has been, eh? Dakota graduated from high school, became the new face of "Oh Lola" and younger sister Elle starred in a #1 hit, following in big sister's footsteps still (Dakota's already done the #1 weekends with Twilight: New Moon and War of the Worlds... which Super 8 bears more than a little resemblance too with its sinister alien antics, great build up and then strangely lame final act. "Uh, we have to wrap this up now so... THIS"

I meant to write a proper review - sorries! -- but instead you get list/notes. MINOR SPOILERS

• first 45 minutes pretty wonderful, fun period work, enjoyable inside-moviemaking jokes for nerds.
• Elle Fanning's "acting" scene in the movie within the movie (an amateur zombie film) before the cargo crash is awesome. The extra, out of focus in the background, totally forgetting his business to stare at her ? Hilarious/perfect.
• That EPIC cargo crash is the first sign of trouble. The explosions and destructions go on and on and on and on (overkill!) and not one of the kids gets a scratch despite running through fireballs and 10 ton debris falling all around them. It looks like a war zone thereafter but their car is also indestructable.
• All the "what's going on?" withholding is wonderful...until it's not. At some point the audience is supposed to catch up to the story.
• I used to think J.J. Abrams "lens flare" issues were cute and I didn't understand why they bugged people but MY GOD. Stop with the electric blue horizontal lines ruining so many otherwise pleasant images.
• The scene where the sheriff tells his deputy to go home and hug his son. Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) can convey so much with so little. He's one of those actors who understands the less is more truism. The deputy knows that this is good advice, but he also knows he's not going to do it.
• Elle Fanning is positioned to receive the most praise (this happens to obsessed over "love object/muse" roles) and she's quite good in it but the real find here is 15 year old Joel Courtney in the lead role: Such an expressive face, so natural on camera, entirely absent any child-actor showboating tricks and gimmicks.
• An extended race sequence with massive explosions and tanks and destructive nonsense near the end is entirely useless to the narrative and a sign that the movie is in trouble.
• The overt sentiment works well when it's calm and focused in the first half but starts to feel like an uncomfortable skin graft toward the finale.
• As in War of the Worlds, it just falls apart at the end, as the heroes essentially do too little that's heroic other than survive and the storyline just kind of resolves itself lazily. The end.
• But bonus points for including the amateur zombie movie over the end credits!

Oops. That was way more than 8 notes.
Grade? I'm still mulling that over. It's very uneven.

U.S. Box-Office (Estimates)

01 SUPER 8 new $37
02 X-MEN FIRST CLASS $25 [review] (cumulative $98.8)
03 THE HANGOVER PT. 2  $18.5 (cumulative $216.5)
04 KUNG FU PANDA 2 $16.6 (cumulative $126.9)
05 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES $10.8 (cumulative $208.7) [review]
06 BRIDESMAIDS $10.1 (cumulative $123.9) ♥
07 JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER new $6.2 
08 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS $6.1 (cumulative $14.2) ♥
09 THOR $2.3 (cumulative $173) [review]
10 FAST FIVE $1.7 (cumulative $205)

What did you see over the weekend?
And if you caught it, how did you feel about Super 8?

Box Office: Mutant Powers Revealed!

It's "Mutant Week" -- I'm into weekly themes this summer (any requests?) so deal with it! --  so this post will be illustrated by the previously unrevealed superpowers of famous people.

Like...

The Box Office (Actuals)
Class was in session for select homosuperiors and their homosapien fans this weekend in Westchester New York as Charles Xavier finally opened his School For Gifted Youngsters. But what people were talking about as they left the theater was Michael Fassbender as Magneto. And/or his chemistry with James McAvoy which is quite something. We'll call them "Double Thespian" Their mutant power --wonder twins activate --  is to make you believe that the movie you're watching is twice as good as it actually is!

We're feeling a bit stingy about having to share Fassy with the world now but happy for his success. It will all be worth it if this means he can make as many Fish Tanks and Hungers and Jane Eyres as he wants to, and maybe a few more people will show up to them, now.

01 X-MEN FIRST CLASS new $55.1 [review]
02 THE HANGOVER PT. 2  $31.3 (cumulative $185.8)
03 KUNG FU PANDA 2 $23.8 (cumulative $100)
04 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES $17.9 (cumulative $190.2) [review]
05 BRIDESMAIDS $12 (cumulative $107.1)
06 THOR $4.2 (cumulative $169.1) [review]
07 FAST FIVE  $3.1 (cumulative $201.9)
08 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS $2.7 (cumulative $6.7)

other new(ish) stuff
13 TREE OF LIFE $618,000 (on 20 screens cumulative $1.2 million)
27 BEGINNERS $135,000 (on 5 screens) [review]
-- SUBMARINE $41,800 (on 4 screens)
-- BEAUTIFUL BOY $16,100 (on 4 screens)

The Talking Points: Woody Allen and Terrence Malick continue to have high per screen averages courtesy of their devoted fanbases and the critically-driven curiousity factor; Bridesmaids, which just crossed the magic $100 million mark, continues to hold steady, while the movies around it plummet 50% or more in attendance each week; Fast Five will lose its #1 movie of '11 bragging rights this week when Pirates surpasses it; Thor recently surpassed the original X-Men (2000) in grosses but it's no longer mighty (losing theaters now) which might leave it stranded ignobly on the Marvel superhero charts as "less" popular than a movie almost everyone hates (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

What did YOU see over the weekend? Which mutant powers do you think the movie stars currently in theaters have?



Box Office: The Tree of Hungover Pandas in Paris

I know I said I was taking today off but I ended up drawing instead. I am not a summer person. (I am the opposite of bears, my form of hibernation involving air conditioning in summertime and avoiding bright light.) But moving on to more pressing movie matters...

Memorial Day Weekend at the Box Office proves that it's a repetitive world with tons of franchise action (Bridesmaids 2 already has a greenlight, right? If not, it can't be far off.) It all blends together for me.

Pandas are total lightweights.

The Box Office (4 Day Weekend Actuals!)

01 THE HANGOVER PART II new $103.4
02 KUNG FU PANDA 2 new  $60.8
03 PIRATES 4 $50 (cumulative 163.6)
04 BRIDESMAIDS 1 $20.7 (cumulative $89.3)
05 AVENGERS PREQUEL #2  $12 (cumulative $162.4)
06 THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, 5TH EDITION $7.8 (cumulative $197.3)
        and leaving the world o' franchises behind...
07 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS $2.5 (cumulative $3.4)
08 RIO $2.4 (cumulative $135.4)
09 JUMPING THE BROOM $2.3 (cumulative $34.6)
10 SOMETHING BORROWED $2.2 (cumulative $35.1)

The success stories of the week -- honestly everyone and their dog monkey knew that the Hangover and Panda sequels would sell tickets -- were in limited release: Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life had, by a significant margin, fuller houses than any other films.

If Woody's annual offering continues to generate this kind of interest he may be looking at a Match Point / Vicky Cristina Barcelona level success. Both of those films had real legs at the box office topping out at about $23 million domestically and nearing $100 million globally and both went on to a bit of Oscar play. For those who are curious about how he has such free reign despite never having "hits" in the traditional sense, it comes down to low budgets and a global fanbase which has been far more loyal to him than American audiences. Nearly all of his movies are much more successful overseas which is definitely not the norm... for American comedies especially.

Though it's sort of off topic, I still maintain that had Dreamworks done a better job with Match Point's release -- it was a sleeper waiting to happen but they held back and held back losing all of its Critics/Cannes/"Comeback!" steam before that lame weekend-after-Christmas Oscar glut strategy -- it would have been even bigger. Midnight hasn't even gone wide yet so things are looking very good IF they keep expanding. As for The Tree of Life... the latest augmentation of the Malick Mystique could have conceivably landed in the top ten had it been less timid about revealing itself; the theaters were packed but they numbered only four.

Oscar Predictions Updates Coming Wednesday. (Working on them now.) My reflections on The Tree of Life coming later. I'm mystified that so many web critics can write huge pieces on complicated movies without time to reflect or edit their words mere moments after they see them... but that's the way film criticism is going. It's an instantaneous world. Alas. (I know I need to speed up, shut up!)

What did you see this holiday weekend?
If it wasn't a holiday for you, did you still have time for a movie or three?

Box Office: Pirates, Having No Challengers, Steals All The Booty

No new movies dared challenge the fourth adventure of Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow so it easily outpaced older films and took home most of the gold. But given that the series has been an overperformer and that even cheating with those stupidly inflated 3D ticket prices, it was well underneath the grosses of the second and third outings. In even better news, Bridesmaids avoided the typical 50% second week drop, just as we predicted dipping less than 20%. That signals a long and lucrative run, powered by word of mouth, provided it can hold on to screens. That's always the trick in the summer.

The Box Office (Actuals)

01 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES new $90.1 [review]
02 BRIDESMAIDS $20.8 (cumulative $59.3)
03 THOR $15.4 (cumulative $145.3) [review]
04 FAST FIVE $10.5 (cumulative $186.1)
05 PRIEST $4.7 (cumulative $23.8)
06 RIO $4.6 (cumulative $131.6)
07 JUMPING THE BROOM $3.7 (cumulative $31.3)
08 SOMETHING BORROWED $3.5 (cumulative $31.5)
09 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS $2.1 (cumulative $52.4) [review]
10 TYLER PERRY MADEA'S BIG HAPPY FAMILY $.9 (cumulative $51.7)

What About Woody?
Despite being on only 6 screens, Woody Allen's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS took in a huge half a million. It would have easily hit the top ten had it opened wider. Half a million on half a dozen screens is a big deal for a Woody Allen film opening that small, his best ever actually, even topping the relatively robust tiny opening for Match Point (2005). Was it Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson? Was it the warm Cannes buzz? We've long believed that if more films opened while the media was talking about them it might help generate audience interest. But year after year auteur films lose all the momentum of their festival bows while they wait it out for six months-two years-never for a theatrical window.

What did you see this weekend? My weekend was an absurd bust. [Pity Party Alert!] I went to a birthday party out of town an entire day early and then, depressed at my costly flub, I went to the movies and was somehow two dollars short for a ticket and had forgotten my bank card. I sincerely hope your weekend was not as pathetic.