Shutter Island retains the top spot while Cop Out and Crazies over-perform and Avatar breaks another record. Weekend box office in review (02/28/10).

This will be shorter than usual. First of all, there isn't all that much news to report and second of all, I spent the day at Disneyland which was far-more crowded than usual. Curse you, "Captain EO"! You marred my Sunday in three dimensions! Point being, I'm quite pooped. So... "Shutter Island" pulled a repeat at number one this weekend, dropping just 44% for a $22.6 million-second weekend and a new total of $75.5 million. Despite the mixed reviews and word of mouth, the Scorsese thriller is still the only real event movie out there for people who don't need a return trip to Pandora.

While I didn't care for "Shutter Island" one bit, I am heartened that a moody, complicated, 2.25-hour, non-sequel, R-rated thriller from Martin Scorsese is a genuine smash hit. In this day and age, it's always refreshing for an adult-driven genre picture to reach heights only usually accorded to franchises and animated films. The picture is Scorsese's fifth-biggest domestic grosser and will be number 03 by next weekend. Whether or not it can surpass the $132 million earned by "The Departed" is an open question, but it won't have any demo competition until "The Green Zone". Said 'Bourne goes to Baghdad' thriller opens March 12th (I have no idea if that's accurate, but it's sure how the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon film is being sold by Universal).

Number two and three went to the openers. Both performed a bit above expectations. Kevin Smith's "Cop-Out" nearly doubled his previous personal-best opening weekend with $18.2 million (his previous high, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", opened with $11 million back in August 2001). This also marks one of Bruce Willis's best debuts over the last decade, as his star-power has decreased since he stopped working with M. Night Shyamalan. It's his eleventh-best opening weekend, and most of the bigger openings were from the 1990s. This isn't just a case of waning star power as much as Willis choosing non-commercial ventures. No one expected "Alpha Dog" or "Lucky Number Slevin" to play like "Armageddon", so this solid opening with a purely commercial picture is a good sign.

As for Kevin Smith, this will easily surpass his biggest-grossing picture, as he's never had a picture gross over $31 million (so good on Warner for only spending $30 million on this picture). I'd argue that the whole 'Kevin Smith gets tossed of an airplane' controversy helped push the film into the public conscience, it still doesn't excuse how the media covered said event (it was treated as 'Ha ha, Kevin Smith is fat!' rather than 'Hey, Southwest Airlines ejected a passenger who clearly was not too obese to fly!'). As it is, Kevin Smith pictures are often greeted by one controversy or another (Kevin Smith vs. the Catholic Church, Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD, Kevin Smith vs. the overexposure of 'Bennifer'). It will be interesting to see how the film plays long-term. Despite terrible reviews, it still pulled in a solid 3.06x multiplier, implying theoretically positive word of mouth. It will also be interesting to see if Tracy Morgan gets more film work as a result of this opening, as the film was clearly sold on his antics as much as Bruce Willis's star-power.

Number three went to the remake of "The Crazies", which Overture opened to $16 million (at a cost of just $20 million). The surprisingly well-reviewed remake of a 1973 George Romero picture pulled in a 2.68x multiplier, which is about normal for a horror film. With this opening and "Law-Abiding Citizen", "Capitalism: A Love Story", and "Righteous Kill", Overture is quickly establishing itself as a major player. For what it's worth, my wife and I watched the original version of "The Crazies" last night, and it's a shockingly good and genuinely disturbing little picture. If the remake is any good, might I suggest you check out director Breck Eisner's previous film, the vastly underrated "Sahara"?

Anyway, fourth place went to the film that cannot be killed (until next weekend, when it will likely be killed), "Avatar". Dropping just 15%, the James Cameron epic crossed $700 million in its eleventh weekend. Aside from crossing the $706 million in domestic sales, the film's overseas takes has topped $1.84 billion, which means that "Avatar" has made more overseas that "Titanic" made worldwide. The new worldwide total for "Avatar" is a staggering $2.5 billion. Alas, this will likely be the last weekend of tiny drops, as Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" opens next weekend and will steal all of the IMAX screens and most of the 3D auditoriums.

The only limited releases were "A Prophet" ($163,773 on nine screens) and "Formosa Betrayed" ($77,326 on fifteen screens), "Art of the Steal" ($39,019 on three screens), and "The Yellow Handkerchief" ($37,296 on seven screens). Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" expanded to 43 screens and made another $789,064. It's new total is $1.04 million. While the film is not cheap ($45 million), Summit Entertainment is only on the hook for whatever they paid for North American distribution rights, so this should be a nice non-"Twilight" feather in their cap to go along with their likely Oscar glory for "The Hurt Locker" (be it just Best Director or Best Director and Best Picture).

Other than that, it was just a matter of various films crossing arbitrary marks. With $99.9 million by Sunday, "Valentine's Day" will cross $100 million by the time you read this, making it the decade's first $100 million grosser. Ironically, the first such milestone of the last decade was "Erin Brockovich", also starring Julia Roberts. "Percy Jackson and the... too tired to type out the full title for this terrible movie" and "Dear John" crossed $70 million, while "The Wolfman" sits at just $57 million (on a budget of $150 million). "Crazy Heart" crossed $25 million and "When in Rome" crossed $30 million. At $248 million, "The Blind Side" is less than $10 million from passing "Star Trek" after dropping just 14% in its fifteenth weekend.

That's about all that's fit to print this weekend. Join us next weekend for the likely-to-be huge debut of Disney's "Alice in Wonderland". While I likely won't see it until opening night (it was a choice of seeing it early by myself or waiting until Friday and letting my wife come along), I do hope it's closer to this than to this. Alas, if you've read this, you know where my instincts lie. Also opening is the Antoine Fuqua police drama, "Brooklyn's Finest" (also from Overture, natch) and the Independent Film Channel Jon Hamm thriller, "Stolen". Oh AT&T U-Verse, why do you not carry IFC On Demand?

Scott Mendelson

Still holds up...

The film is still a rock-solid, ice-cold action thriller. It's still brutally violent and meaner than hell. And yes, the second major car chase is still one of the finest ever put on film. Random trivia: Ronin, John Frankenheimer's last great theatrical, contains three actors (Sean Bean, Jonathan Pryce, Michael Lonsdale) who have played 007 villains.

Scott Mendelson

As Breck Eisner returns with The Crazies, a moment to remember Sahara.

I have not seen The Crazies, and I probably will wait for DVD since it's just the sort of thing my wife would enjoy. In fact, Blockbuster should be sending me a Blu Ray copy of the 1973 George Romero original this very day. But I'm not here to discuss a remake that I haven't seen or the original which I will probably watch this evening, but rather to once again give props to Eisner's prior film, one that I feel is arguably one of the most underrated films of the just-finished decade: Sahara.

The 2005 Clive Cussler adaptation is often considered one of the biggest financial disasters in the last several years. While the film grossed a decent $122 million worldwide, it cost around $130 million to produce and around $80 million to market. Why the producers thought it was a good idea to spend $130 million on a Matthew McConaughy vehicle is beyond me (his highest grossing worldwide hit is How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, at just $177 million), but I digress. The picture was further embroiled when author Clive Cussler sued producer Philip Anschutz and several other involved parties for not giving him script control, casting approval, and various other grievances (Cussler lost each of these lawsuits). But hidden beyond the litigation and the sky-high budget is the fact that Sahara is actually a pretty terrific adventure movie.

In a time when we complain about an over-reliance on computer-generated effects and digital stuntmen, Sahara is the real thing. It has real vehicle chases, practical stunt work, and real desert locations. When characters fight and tumble, we see real sweat, blood, and sand. The action feels real and as a result it's genuinely exciting. The set pieces are both engaging and funny (a first-act boat chase) and inventive and suspenseful (a fight set on a giant rotating solar-paneled roof). Most importantly, the film remembers to actually be a movie. There is an actual story involving an epidemic that starts in North Africa which intertwines with a quest for a lost Civil War battleship. While the film doesn't take the events incredibly seriously, it remembers that the characters do. When a major character is killed in the first act, he is mourned for a substantial period of screen-time. The characters acknowledge the devastation that grips North Africa without navel-gazing or flippant exploitation. While the events are preposterous, the actors remember to play it for real whenever possible.

And the characters are genuinely winning. Sure, some of them are 'types', but everyone is by turns entertaining, charming, ruthless, and/or amusing, whatever the situation calls for. In short, you have three fun heroes (McConaughy, Penelope Cruz, and Steve Zahn) who sell the gee-wiz sex appeal without being obnoxious, two ruthless, thoughtful, and occasionally charming villains (Lennie James and Lambert Wilson), and two seen-it-all higher-ups played with relish by beloved character actors (William H. Macy and Delroy Lindo). The plot that makes a token amount of sense and has just enough real-world politics (what seemingly only affects North Africa eventually threatens lives elsewhere) to merit your attention. All that, plus exciting action scenes that are staged the old-fashioned way. Sahara is the very definition of the kind of movie they just don't make anymore (see also - Hidalgo and The Rundown). And, alas, because it cost $130 million, we shouldn't expect to see another of its kind for awhile.

Scott Mendelson

Nightmare on Elm Street remake gets a second trailer.

To put it bluntly, this is a much better trailer than the initial teaser released in October. Granted, the picture still feels remarkably like a shot-for-shot remake, but the footage looks stylish and occasionally jolting (and the acting certainly looks superior). For the first time, we get a genuine sense of how Jackie Earle Haley walks and talks as Fred Kruger. Having said that, I do wish this had been more of a generalized reboot and less of a strict remake. I do love the one original idea teased in the first trailer, that Fred Kruger may have been an innocent man wrongly accused of molesting the children of Elm Street (perhaps caught up in the wave of 80s child sex crime-witch-hunts). But, visually, every-time I see a major shot from the original film, it just reminds me of what worked so well the first time around. I understand the trap: Make a reboot and it's just another Nightmare on Elm Street sequel (ala Friday the 13th), use the same characters but radically alter the mythology and you get Rob Zombie's Halloween. Of course, that's what you deal with when you insist on remaking incredibly popular horror franchises, as opposed to little-known cult oddities and/or bad films that could be improved. None the less, I sincerely hope this turns out closer in quality to Dawn of the Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning as opposed to Friday the 13th or The Hitcher. As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

It's about time...

As far as only including the theatrical cuts, we can expect a mega-box set sometime in 2011, in time for the tenth anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring. The only extended version that I vastly prefer is The Two Towers, which adds character detail and a more epic canvas to the most conventional film of the trilogy. Heck, the theatrical cut of The Return of the King is actually superior to the bloated extended edition (unlike the prior two films, the third picture's longer version had footage cut not for time but for quality). Regardless of which versions you prefer, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings is the finest trilogy of all-time, the best film(s) of the last decade, and a monumental achievement. Blockbuster-backlash has long ago diminished the reputation of this astounding hat-trick, but maybe revisiting the pictures on Blu Ray will remind people why they loved this trilogy in the first place.

Scott Mendelson

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Regarding Kick-Ass red-band trailers...

My take is the whole manufactured controversy over Lionsgate's red-band Kick-Ass trailers is pretty simple. At the end of the day, trailers are supposed to give you an accurate look at what kind of movie you're going to be seeing. Granted, not every trailer accomplishes this, and many are quite deceptive, but that's the general idea. At the end of the day, red-band trailers for R-rated movies are more likely to be accurate in regards to tone and content than an all-ages green-band trailer. So, one could argue, that studios make red-band trailers to best advertise the kind of movie that they are selling. And, they do take certain steps to make sure that said previews are not easily viewed by those who otherwise wouldn't be allowed to see such films. Of course kids will invariably get around these barriers, but that's the nature of childhood.

But here's the issue: Let's say that Lionsgate didn't put out these R-rated trailers, specifically for a film that could easily be advertised as a family-friendly PG-13 superhero comedy about teenagers becoming costumed vigilantes. Frankly, profanity and violence aside, the film feels aimed at ten-year old boys anyway. Which is why, slight digression, even if it's as stupid as it looks, I'll probably be less offended by it than Wanted, which presumed itself to be intelligent, quasi-feminist, adult entertainment. Anyway, we all know that even with these trailers available online, there are still going to be any number of clueless parents who take their kids to see Kick-Ass over opening weekend fully expecting a feel-good teen comedy variation on Spider-Man. It happened with South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut and it'll happen here too.

At least Lionsgate can now state with complete honesty that they have made age-appropriate marketing materials that accurately reflect the content of this specific film. It may be a bullshit excuse, but it's a truthful and relevant one. Lionsgate is taking heat for making R-rated trailers and not doing enough to restrict access to young eyeballs. But had they just marketed the picture in the most homogeneous, blandly appealing fashion possible, they'd be criticized for not creating a truthful marketing campaign. At least this way, they can be theoretically more responsible and drum up some free publicity. Kick-Ass, a film that probably no one outside the geek set has ever heard of, just got front-page attention in the The New York Times. Lionsgate had best send them a lovely basket of chocolates, flowers, and balloons.

Scott Mendelson

Guest Review - Cop Out (2010)

Friend and fellow critic R.L. Shaffer of DVD Future generously shares his review of Kevin Smith's Cop Out. It looks like he took a bullet for us.

Cop Out
2010
112 minutes
Rated R

by R.L. Shaffer

Cop Out wants to be Beverly Hills Cop in the worst way. The producers followed the formula (with a dash of Lethal Weapon). They brought on a rising black comedian as the star (Tracy Morgan). Paired him with a hard-ass detective (Bruce Willis). And gave him a mystery filled with drug lords, action, intrigue, and goofy set pieces. Director Kevin Smith (Clerks II) even brought on composer Harold Faltermeyer, who's electronic beats in Beverly Hills Cop earned him recognition in the form of several prestigious awards, not to mention a stream of steady work throughout the 80s. But Cop Out is not Beverly Hills Cop. Rather, it's Beverly Hills Cop III -- a misguided, painfully mundane, unfunny, dreary reflection of a much better film.

Originally titled A Couple of Dicks -- a title that fits the tone of the characters much better -- Cop Out is trying to be at throwback to the good old fashioned buddy cop movies of the 80s, but it's more akin to the miserable '90s buddy cop dreck that drove the genre straight down the drain and right to the bottom shelf of the your local video store (think films like Bulletproof, National Security or Blue Streak). The ideas feel washed up. The characters are cut so thin they barely make sense (and they're not particularly likable, either). And the fun feels forced -- a series of hit-and-miss sketches, most featuring the love-it or hate-it stylings of funnyman Morgan -- strewn throughout a narrative tied together entirely by sheer coincidence. In other words, Cop Out is awful. Painfully awful.

Since the picture's theatrical (and Red Band) trailers do a terrible job setting this ridiculous story up, here's a token bit about the plot. Two long-time detectives, Jimmy and Paul (Willis and Morgan), are suspended after accidentally getting their CI killed, and botching a long drawn-out case two other detectives (Adam Brody and Kevin Pollack) were working on. Since Jimmy is trying to pay for the lavish wedding of his daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg), he decides not to tell his daughter, or his ex-wife and her snooty new husband (Jason Lee). Same goes for Paul, who's already on thin ice with his wife (the sexy, but sorely underused Rashida Jones) after suspecting her of cheating on him. The next day, Jimmy and Paul get together as though nothing is wrong. They head down to a small hobby shop where Jimmy plans on selling an old baseball card. The place gets robbed and Jimmy's card is stolen. Knowing that this card is the key to paying for his daughters wedding, the two suspended cops attempt to track down the thief played by Sean William Scott (the film's best asset even if he is basically playing the same character from The Rundown).

They manage to locate him through a few illegal maneuvers, and low and behold, this thief answers to the man responsible for killing their CI, a drug lord named Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz, who apparently didn't get the memo that the film WAS NOT a plucky spoof). Poh Boy also happens to be an avid collector of baseball paraphernalia, and he's hold Jimmy's card prisoner. How quaint. Now it's up to Jimmy and Paul to stop the bad guy, save the girl (I won't even bother to go into this, it's way too convoluted for a simple summation), save Paul's marriage and get Jimmy's baseball card back.

In short, it feels like a 12-year old wrote Cop Out. The story is asinine, oddly bypassing the "origin" story formula, and heading straight for the lazy sequel. The script is filled with holes in logic and crafted around two unlikable heroes who share very little chemistry together. Just about every rule and law known to man is broken by this un-dynamic duo, too. It's shocking this script was once listed as one of Hollywood's best unproduced scripts. Makes you wonder what other garbage is floating around Tinseltown. Anchored by Smith's amateur, unfocused, and frankly, immature direction, the film feels like an imitation rather than an homage. Smith seems to have no idea how to craft his narrative into something of substance -- how to give context to his story and characters while shaping his homage. Even Faltermeyer's score is misguided, placed in scenes that don't require music.

How this typically solid filmmaker failed so miserably here is puzzling. Perhaps the absence of Smith's long-time friend and producing partner Scott Mosier is the key to this film's misguided story and execution? But I'm sure Cop Out will have it's fans. Lovers of Morgan's 30 Rock character Tracy Jordan will inevitably chew up his silly one-liners and slapstick gags, even if Morgan is stunningly overused in the film. And those drawn to low-brow, low-grade humor will find the film's potty-flavored gags an absolute gas. But if you're looking for a well written, fresh and funny throwback to classic buddy cop movies, well, look elsewhere. This isn't a throwback, it's a bad imitation -- something that belongs on the DTV market. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Grade: D

Nightmare on Elm Street remake gets a new poster.

There's an alleged review over at Ain't It Cool News, but it was quite spoiler-heavy, so I barely glanced it. However, like everything else I've heard or read, it doesn't look too promising. I saw a brief TV spot during the Olympics this evening which stated that 'this film has not yet been rated'. Considering everything I've read, I'm starting to think that Warner Bros. is trying to wiggle their way into a PG-13. Frankly, if the movie is as bad as the buzz indicates, then the tag-line 'welcome to your new nightmare' is almost like rubbing salt on an open wound. I'll take Wes Craven's New Nightmare thank you much. We'll see...

Scott Mendelson

Blu-Ray Review: Justice League Crisis on Two Earths (2010)

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
2010
75 minutes
rated PG-13
Available from Warner Home Video on DVD, Blu Ray, OnDemand, and iTunes on February 23rd.

by Scott Mendelson

Despite my decades-long interest in the DC Universe, I've never been a fan of the whole multi-verse concept. Of course, I don't like the use of alternate dimensions in general, and it's a big reason why I wasn't super crazy about the last Star Trek picture. At the end of the day, infinite parallel universes create the same problem in fiction as predestination creates as a real-life philosophy. Both remove the meaning from one's actions. With the existence of countless alternate Earths, the question becomes why should I, as a reader or a viewer, become emotionally invested in this one story about this one set of characters? After all, this said world is just one version amongst billions and is of little consequence in the broad scheme of things. What makes our version of Superman or Batman so special amongst the countless other versions of the same characters in any number of alternate timelines?

A token amount of plot - In an alternate version of Earth, the evil Crime Syndicate (evil dopplegangers of our world's Justice League) has wiped all but one of the alternate world's Justice League. Desperate for a solution to the super-powered tyranny, lone survivor Lex Luthor (Chris Noth) travels to 'our' Earth to recruit the Justice League we know and love in order to save his world. After a brief debate about the merits of inter-dimensional jurisdiction, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter decide to do what they do best and the battle is on. Batman is left behind to monitor 'our' Earth, but he too will be pulled into this epic conflict. Much like last year's Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, this newest DC Animated Universe feature is basically a clothesline for a handful of epic smack-downs between super-powered foes. In this case, we have DC heroes we know hammering alternate-world evil versions of themselves.

The film, written by Dwayne McDuffie (arguably the heir apparent to Paul Dini in the DC animated universe), was originally intended as a three-part episode of Justice League Unlimited and it shows. Batman onces again stays behind (at first) in order to let the other members shine, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman are close friends, and Flash is again the cocky, big-hearted comic relief. Alas, without the series as a prior basis, this stand-alone movie is woefully short on character development or all that much character interaction. The film's 75-minute running time is basically divided into 'three minutes of plot, ten-minute fight scene, lather-rinse-repeat'. There is a token subplot regarding the president of this alternate America being unwilling to challenge the superpowed villains, but the film is too short to truly flesh out the admittingly engaging idea. If you get off on seeing Superman pound away at an alternate-universe version of himself, then you'll get quite a kick (and a punch) out of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. However, the film lacks the rich character work and thoughtful narratives that defined the DC Animated Universe that Bruce Timm and company created back in 1992.

The film's lone saving grace is the character of Owl Man. Played with low-key menace by James Woods, this 'evil Batman' basically shares my disdain for the whole 'multi-verse' concept, for arguably the same reasons I do. The climax eventually boils down to the villainous Owl Man trying to do something, anything that has true consequence in a universe where his life is simply one version of himself amongst countless others on countless other worlds. And, without revealing too-much, the finale does contain some shockingly unheroic behavior by our true-blue Justice League-ers in the name of saving countless lives. Still, the film is far too concerned with fan-friendly smack-downs at the expense of character and plot. It's not boring and it's not the least-bit unintelligent, but it's also not very engaging beyond a surface level.

Grade: C

The Blu Ray -

Per usual, this animated feature looks and sounds fantastic. The extras are sadly not up to par with prior titles in this series. Despite a cover that boasts 'four hours of extras', the actual content is pretty slim. In fact, there is not a single feature on this disc that deals with the making of this specific DCAU animated feature. Aside from the usual digital copy and previews of prior DCAU movies, most of the content is filler. Taking up two of the four hours of bonus content are the complete pilot episodes of the 1970s Wonder Woman television show and the unaired Aquaman pilot from 2006. The infamous Aquaman would-be premiere is pretty mediocre, but it does contain prominent supporting roles for Lou Diamond Phillips and Ving Rhames. Another 90 minutes are allotted to four episodes from the fantastic second season of Justice League. The episodes are"Twilight" parts 1 and 2 and (ironically) "A Better World" parts 1 and 2. The latter two episodes are actually a far superior variation on the story being told in Crisis on Two Earths, in which the Justice League encounters a parallel universe version of the the league where they basically become murderous, draconian vigilantes following the death of the Flash. It's a rock-solid examination of the thin line beyond super-heroism and tyranny, and the effects of the episodes had longterm consequences for the remainder of the series.

The only other bonus content is a short film, a preview of the next DCAU feature and a 33-minute documentary ("DCU: The New World - From Identity Crisis Onward") that proclaims to be about the last several years of major events in the DC Comics universe. But the latter spends 80% of its time discussing the first of said events, Identity Crisis (to be a fair, a wonderful and powerful story) while barely mentioning anything that came after. The best feature on the disc is DC Showcase Presents: The Spectre. It's basically a ten-minute short film highlighting the lesser-known, but intriguing supernatural avenger of the DC Universe. It actually manages to construct a rock-solid film noir mystery into a very brief running time. More of these please... The thirteen-minute preview teases the next movie, Batman: Under the Red Hood, which is a direct adaptation of a Judd Winick arc from 2005. It was a cleverly written and exciting piece of storytelling, but it revolved around one element that... well I'm guessing if you're reading a review of a DC Comics original feature, you probably already know how said story turned out. Still, the preview makes the film version look quite good and promises a return to emphasis on character over slam-bang action.

So in the end, you have a lesser entry in the franchise, with extras that shed no illumination on the project while accidentally pointing out its weakness via inclusion of superior episodes of Justice League. If you're a fan, it's worth a rental. But it's not worth buying unless you own all of these out of habit.

Shutter Island scores massive $40 million, holdovers plummet. Weekend box office review (02/21/10)

The infamously delayed Shutter Island debuted to smashing business over its initial weekend, as the Martin Scorsese thriller debuted to $41 million. That's a personal best for both director Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese's previous best opening was the $26.8 million debut of The Departed in October 2006 (also starring Leonardo DiCaprio), while this was DiCaprio's second $30 million+ debut, following the $30 million opening of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can back in December 2002. Since both the star and director have rarely opened anything over $10 million based on their respective names alone, credit should go to the marketing and the general concept of the story. As I've often said, adult thrillers are in rare supply these days and the few that make through the pipeline have a pretty decent track record (you think Vantage Point or Law-Abiding Citizen opened to around $22 million apiece due to critical acclaim?). Mix a genuinely intriguing concept (1950's lawman trapped in a scary mental hospital), mix the pedigree involved, plus add a compelling and pervasive trailer that has been running in every theater nonstop since August, and you had the recipe for a breakout weekend. Most promisingly, the $80 million pot-boiler improved over the weekend, going from a $14.1 million Friday to a to $16.3 million Saturday. In this day and age, a 2.92x weekend multiplier is pretty solid for any opening weekend this big, even for an R-rated adult-driven thriller.

Much will be written about how Paramount's choice to move the picture from October 2009 to this weekend was a brilliant move. In hindsight it was, but it purely a hard financial call, as the studio was trying to save money during the last quarter of the year, until the DVD cash from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra came rolling in. As you recall, Paramount also delayed the wide-release of The Lovely Bones by a full month and delayed the wide-release of Up in the Air from Thanksgiving weekend until Christmas Day. Point being, Paramount was trying to save money. Ironically, this brought about a situation where Paramount had nothing to spend money on except some little cult film that was shot on a home camcorder. As I've said any number of times, the huge success of Paranormal Activity had a lot to do with the fact that Paramount didn't have anything else to market at the time, so they were able to devote themselves to propping up a would-be cult hit and turn it into a mainstream sensation. While Paramount looks like geniuses in hindsight (they now a very strong and continuous slate all the way into 2011), it was strictly a decision made out of economic necessity.

Believe it or not, Shutter Island was the only wide-release this weekend (which certainly helped boost the picture past the $25-30 million that it likely would have opened to in crowded October). The biggest limited release debut was Roman Polanksi's The Ghost Writer, which debuted to $183,009 on four screens (about $45,000 per screen). The well-reviewed Summit release expands next weekend to ten new markets. Of course, this seemingly low-key political thriller somehow cost $45 million to make, so it's going to be a long while before this one sees any real profit, barring huge business overseas. Every other limited release (The Good Guy, Defendor, Happy Tears, Blood Done Sign My Name) pretty much tanked. The rest of the news concerns holdovers, and the news was decidedly grim. When even Avatar drops 31% (great for any other movie, but a record weekend drop in its tenth weekend), you know its a bad weekend. Still, Avatar made another $16.2 million and has now grossed $687 million domestically. It will likely cross $700 million next weekend, the last weekend before it loses most of its 3D and all of its IMAX screens to the apparently much-anticipated Alice in Wonderland. It's all downhill from there.

Last weekend's champ, Valentine's Day, proved to be a one-weekend wonder, as it plummeted 70% for a $16.6 million second-weekend and an $86.9 million ten-day total. It will cross $100 million next weekend, but the once-assured $150 million mark will now be an uphill battle. The Wolfman was equally hammered, dropping 68% for a $9.8 million second-weekend and a ten-day total of just $50 million. Needless to say, the stupidly-expensive $150 million horror picture is in deep trouble. Valentine's Day fell due to the nature of its release. It was designed to cash in on a holiday that is now over. Plus, quality-wise, it was no He's Just Not That Into You, which at least tried to deal with romantic entanglements in a semi-realistic fashion. The Wolfman fell due to the insurmountable combination of terrible word of mouth and direct competition in the form of Shutter Island. Dropping 'just' 51% was Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (gosh I'm tired of typing that gigantic title). The terrible young-adult fantasy picture grossed $15.2 million in its second weekend and now has amassed $58.7 million. At this point, $100 million may not be in the cards.

In other news, The Book of Eli crossed the $90 million mark. Dear John fell another 54%, proving that the film was in fact heavily front-loaded. At $65 million in three weekends, it will barely surpass the $81 million domestic gross of The Notebook. Crazy Heart crossed the $20 million mark and will likely reach $30 million if Jeff Bridges wins the Best Actor Oscar as expected. Edge of Darkness crossed the $40 million mark, which still makes this Mel Gibson's lowest-grossing starring vehicle in seventeen years (The Man Without A Face grossed $24 million back in 1993). Up in the Air is at $80.9 million, which means it's the second-highest grossing film of all time never to make the top-five in any given weekend. IMAX: Everest grossed $87 million, which makes it the top-grossing film to never reach #5 or even 10th place in a weekend. Finally, the main causality of Paramount's date-switching, The Lovely Bones, sits with just $43.3 million. Had the film opened fresh on December 12th, 2009, it likely would have opened better and lasted longer, but it instead spent a month in three-screen limited release, where it weathered bad reviews, poor word of mouth, and the domination of Avatar.

That's it for this weekend. Join us next weekend when Kevin Smith's ode to 80s cop flicks, Cop Out, tries to avoid playing like every other Kevin Smith movie ($8-11 million opening, $25-30 million finish). Overture releases The Crazies, yet another remake of a mostly forgotten horror flick. In limited release, the big player is The Yellow Handkerchief, which stars William Hurt, Kristen Stewart, and Maria Bello. God help any junketeer who dares to ask William Hurt a question about Twilight...

Scott Mendelson

Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Shutter Island
2010
138 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Note - while I've avoided explicit plot details, I cannot guarantee that you, dear reader, will not deduce the film's secrets from the review below via context and insinuation. Thus - SPOILER WARNING.

In any good twist-and-turn thriller, there needs to be something for the audience to grasp onto other than said twists and turns. If the story and characters are merely clotheslines on which to hang periodic plot twists or a climactic reveal, the film basically descends into a waiting game. Why bother becoming emotionally invested or even paying attention to the onscreen events when anything and everything is just a series of clues or red herrings to a mystery that will be explained in the third act anyway? Shutter Island is a film that fails to exist outside of its puzzles. From the opening frame onward, you can sense that it's all about a lead up to a big reveal of some kind. Worse yet, it telegraphs its twists (big and small) so early that you immediately realize that, regardless of your theories, you really can't trust your own lying eyes.

A token amount of plot - It's 1954, and Federal Marshals Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) have been sent to a mysterious mental hospital located on a remote island in Boston, Massachusetts. It seems that a deluded child-murderer named Rachel Solando has escaped from her locked cell and Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is eager to get her back. So the investigation begins, as the hard-boiled detective interviews various colorful characters (played by various colorful character actors whom I won't reveal) in pursuit of the truth. But as Teddy and Chuck investigate deeper, they discover that this asylum for the criminally insane may have some dark secrets, and that the disappearance of Solando may be part of a bigger conspiracy. As Teddy deals with his own past traumas, the mystery behind Dr. Cawley's seemingly benevolent treatment methods are slowly revealed, and the larger story at play begins to take shape.

That's all you need. The majority of the film unfolds in a manner befitting any number of haunted house genre pictures. Teddy is forced to deal with his own personal demons, and his time in the scary old hospital conjures of terrible memories of past trauma as well as questions as to what separates him from those locked away. Fair enough, I generally relish directors like Martin Scorsese playing around in the B-movie sandbox. Goodness knows it did wonders for Spike Lee, who scored his biggest hit (and made one of his very best films) with Inside Man. But the picture is hamstrung by its very premise. You know from the very beginning that all is not what it seems. And the film is presented is such an over-the-top, melodramatic manner, and every performance and every moment seems bathed in intentional artifice, that we quickly realize that nothing can be taken at face value. If we never know when we're being lied to, it's impossible to get involved on any real visceral or emotional level.

Since the big twist is telegraphed so early on, and several minor reveals are all-but noted with a yellow highlighter, not only do we know where the story is likely heading, we quickly realize that they cannot even believe our eyes or ears for much of the picture. When you know you're being duped in one way or another in nearly every scene, it's impossible to stay involved in the narrative. Why bother to pay attention if can't even trust that the story that's being told will even matter by the time the credits role? And since every moment and every character beat is either a clue or a false lead, there is no emotional hook in which to invest in the characters and the story. We also don't care because absolutely nothing makes sense leading up to the finale. When anything can happen and nothing is what it seems, then nothing is of consequence.

While the film has solid technical credits and a fine pedigree (aside from the director and fine cast, the film is based on a book by Dennis Lehane), the film fails as entertainment because we never know what's true and what's false, so we have no choice to presume that everything is fraudulent. Like an improv comedy that feels entirely staged or action sequences that are rendered in inadequate computer-generated effects, Shutter Island is a film that fails to entertain because it refuses to give the audience a reason to believe what they're seeing.

Grade: C

Kick-Ass gets another red-band trailer.

I'm sorry, I know all the geeks love this thing. But it really looks like the lowest sort of pandering to adolescent fantasy. Maybe Lionsgate is hiding something incredibly smart and/or deconstructive behind the cheese and 'wow, it's a bunch of kids swearing and killing people' silliness, but so far this looks really stupid.

Scott Mendelson

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse trailer premiere date set for March 12th (don't pretend this isn't a major franchise).

For those who care (and there are quite a few that treat this franchise as their Batman or Star Wars), the first trailer for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse will premiere on March 12th, attached to prints for Robert Pattinson/Pierce Brosnan drama Remember Me. It was obviously a no-brainer for Summit, and Pattinson owes the studio a favor since attaching the trailer will only help this somewhat important project (it's arguably his first test of non-Twilight drawing power). Anyway, we can mock all we want, but the cast for the family-in-turmoil melodrama is pretty solid, with Emilie de Ravin, Lena Olin, and Chris Cooper joining the aforementioned duo. Anyway, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will be released in 35mm and IMAX on June 30th. And if you want to snicker and pretend that the picture isn't going to be one the heavyweights of the summer alongside Iron Man 2 and Toy Story 3, you can keep on deluding yourself.

Scott Mendelson

Brian Michael Bendis brought on as 'consult' for Spider-Man reboot.

Confirming what was long suspected, Sony and Marvel have officially hired the current king of Marvel Comics, Brian Michael Bendis, as a consultant for the upcoming Spider-Man reboot. Without explicitly stating as much, Bendis pretty much acknowledged that the new 'younger, edgier, teen-friendly' Spider-Man picture will be pretty much an adaptation of Bendis's (and artist Mark Bagley's) acclaimed Ultimate Spider-Man comic book which has run since 2000. Considering the script is already written by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), it will be interesting to see where Vanderbilt's script and Bendis's initial story-arcs end up merging. Whatever issues I have with the reboot on principle, at least Sony is bringing the right person aboard. Now how about cutting a check to Greg Weisman too. He was one of the brains behind the fantastic cartoon, Spectacular Spider-Man, which deals with the same general time-line in intelligent, character-driven fashion. Anyway, if you want a general idea of what the new movie will feel like, take a gander at the first thirteen issues of Ultimate Spider-Man or pick up the first season DVD set of The Spectacular Spider-Man. Both are top-quality Spidey stories.

Scott Mendelson

Mars Attacks! - Secret right-wing, warmongering satire?

Having watched Mars Attacks! again recently, I noticed two things. First off, while it hasn't aged incredibly well, it still works as an all-encompassing satire of the blockbuster itself. Secondly, it actually seems on the surface to be one of the most biting right-wing, pro-war comedies ever released in mainstream theaters.

I have no idea of Burton's politics or his intent beyond affectionate homage to 1950s invasion films, but the film spends its entire running time mocking the pacifists and idealists who think that the aliens are merely misunderstood. Pretty much everyone runs around in confusion as the martians commit one act of mass violence after another, refusing to out and out engage the enemy invaders until it's too late. Granted, no one in the film, including Rod Steiger's hawkish general, comes off looking terribly good, but the satirical portraits of Pierce Brosnan's 'let's try to reason with them' scientist, Anette Benning's 'we come in peace' clueless hippie, Martin Short's Dick Morris-ish press secretary (pre-GOP defection), and Paul Winfield's sycophant variation on Colin Powell (to say nothing of its treatment of the press) would make the film a favorite over at Big Hollywood if taken at face value. Either way, the movie is still pretty damn funny.

Scott Mendelson

A former Tim Burton fanatic accepts that he is now merely a casual fan.

I grew up as the biggest Tim Burton nut around. I worshiped his Batman pictures and they turned me into the Bat-fanatic I am today. For most of my life, the original Batman was my all-time favorite film. I adored Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice as much as any other like-minded film nerd. I saw Ed Wood, his career-peak, on opening night and took it personally when Mars Attacks! flopped. But, with not a little sadness, I must admit I'm not the least bit excited about Alice in Wonderland. Oh, I'll see it in IMAX 3D, and hopefully the film will be better than it looks. Part of it is the advertising campaign, which seems to be mixing inexplicable Lord of the Rings type adventure with Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter mugging like Mike Myer's The Cat in the Hat. Frankly, this is the first Tim Burton film that just doesn't look all that interesting to me. But I think that I realize that part of the problem is the realization that Tim Burton is basically going to spend the rest of his career doing 'Tim Burton's version of... (insert famous property)'. One of the most original visual artists in the business now seems content to piggyback on the genius of others.

Big Fish may have been adapted from a novel, but it at least felt original and dealt with themes outside of the whole 'outsider struggling to fit in' bit. It was jolting to see a Tim Burton movie that was actually set on planet Earth, it was refreshing to see Burton working with a cast outside of his usual talent pool, and the final ten minutes or so made me bawl like a newborn. Sweeney Todd was pretty great, but he had been wanting to make that for at least fifteen years (to be fair, it turned out much better than Scorsese's Gangs of New York). It just seems that after the scare of the twin financial flops (Ed Wood and Mars Attacks!) combined with the daggers hurled at him over Batman Returns, that Burton decided to not venture too far outside his safe zone and the safe zone of conventional Hollywood franchise pictures. I would argue that his comeback picture, Sleepy Hollow, was very much the 'ultimate Tim Burton movie' (for better or worse) and that nearly everything after that just felt like a retread in one form or another.

I've liked, if not loved, most of Burton's post-Sleepy Hollow output. I liked The Corpse Bride, as it's actually better written than The Nightmare Before Christmas. While it's still Burton's worst film, I still dig the 'f-you' ending of Planet of the Apes. I more or less enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, and I appreciated his new themes involving children truly getting to know their fathers before its too late. Sweeney Todd was a relatively faithful adaptation of a classic musical, which is all it needed to be (although the apolitical Burton stripped most of the social content regarding class-ism from the text). But Burton probably knows that there isn't all that much that he can do to surprise us at this point. We know that his films will likely deal with an outcast struggling to fit in inside a world gone mad, and perhaps with lingering father issues. Over the last 20 years, the visual style of Burton's filmography have become so consistently aped as to render his own work borderline cliche. Tim Burton has gone from Hollywood's darkest mainstream maverick to the guy who parents can trust to gently scare their kids without truly unsettling them.

On the other hand, he's married with two kids and seems reasonably content. It's tough to maintain your rep as king of the outcast geeks when you're 50-years old, one of Hollywood's few marquee directors, and have achieved a sense of domestic bliss in the bargain (personally, I can't wait for the irony of Burton's kids growing up and starting to dress 'goth'). It's hard to be an outsider in a system that has given your work such success and acceptance that it has received its own exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art. Still, a little creative downturn may be a small price to pay for personal bliss. As I mentioned when discussing Jim Carrey's Yes Man back in December 2008, a slight neutering of the trademark impulses is a fair trade for a once-tortured entertainer actually being happy. So here's to his continued happiness. Let us just hope that Tim Burton dares to step out of his personal sandbox just a few more times before he retires.

Scott Mendelson

Avatar laps the competition.

Wow.... just wow. This probably happened last week while I was busy with work and family obligations, but it bares stating none the less. If you look at the all-time worldwide box office chart, the third-highest grossing film of all time is The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with $1.1191 billion. Avatar's current worldwide take is $2.3892 billion. That means that sometime last week, Avatar doubled the worldwide take of every other respective movie ever made, save for Titanic. It has currently tripled the worldwide take of every other movie outside the top-24 grossers worldwide (when it gets to $2.39 billion, it will have tripled #25 Shrek the Third). It has quadrupled the worldwide takes of every movie not in the top-50 all-time global gross list. Let me repeat that, in the 100+ years of cinema, there are only forty-nine movies that have grossed even a quarter of what Avatar has made in just 62 days. Click on the picture to watch the relatively engaging and intelligent interview that James Cameron gave with Charlie Rose last night. It's fun watching Cameron take on criticisms of Avatar point by point and render them more or less impotent. As for his comments regarding the Oscars, it's what I've been saying all along. Cameron's no dummy, he knows that he wins more if Bigelow wins Best Director for The Hurt Locker and Avatar wins Best Picture than if Cameron picks up both prizes. Or, we can just take him at his word that he genuinely wants Bigelow to win.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
2010
118 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a checklist of everything that could have gone wrong with the Harry Potter series but didn't. The Harry Potter franchise, which was also started by Chris Columbus, was set firmly in a world of fantasy. The initial chapter had a cast filled with notable character actors and actually gave them a chance to shine. It had three relatively unknown lead actors who rose to the occasion and approached the material as if it was Shakespeare or Tolstoy. It contained no pop-culture references, no dated musical soundtrack choices, and no forced romance. It was a real movie, written and performed at an adult level that just happened to be aimed at children. Percy Jackson desperately wants to be Harry Potter in the same way Eragon wanted to be Star Wars. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a film. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is simply a condescending kiddie flick.

A token amount of plot - Percy Jackson (Logan Lerner, so much better in The Butterfly Effect and 3:10 to Yuma) is a child secretly born from his mother's brief affair with the Greek god Poseidon, King of the Sea (Kevin McKidd, so much better in Rome). Although he knows nothing of his ancestry, he is called into action when the lightning bolt of Zeus (Sean Bean) is stolen. Whisked away to a training camp for fellow demigods, Percy quickly realizes that the entire world rests on his ability to track down the stolen item and return it to Mount Olympus in due time. Can Percy and his new-found friends retrieve the stolen weapon and make peace with the Gods? Will Percy learn secrets about his ancestry and his childhood? Will you have a reason to care about any of this? Was the original story this contrived and generic? The answer to the last two questions are probably not (I have never read the series and know nothing of the books that this series is based upon).

The worst thing about the picture is how aggressively it panders to an audience that likely has no interest in the film anyway, while turning off the very young audience that it's allegedly aimed at. The film is filled with 'hip' soundtrack selections, awkward pop-culture references, and obnoxiously on-the-nose storytelling. Do ten-year olds really care whether or not Percy scores with Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), the warrior daughter of Athena? Does anyone become invested in the puppy-love romantic subplots that are so constantly shoe-horned into kids films? Alas, while Hermione Granger was a real character with a purpose and drive of her own, Annabeth exists as theoretical eye-candy and/or a prize to be won for a successful quest. Of course, while Annabeth is introduced as a bad-ass warrior (complete with the 'gee, aren't we progressive?' snark), she is of course immediately sidelined or imperiled once the real plot kicks in. Will parents really want to explain what's going on during an atrociously-staged second act sequence where Percy, Annabeth, and Percy's stereotypical 'token black guy' protector Grover (Brandon T. Jackson, so surprisingly three-dimensional in Tropic Thunder) get trapped in a Vegas casino? I've never had an issue with adult content in kids flicks, but if you're going to have a scene in a PG-rated fantasy film where our heroes basically get high and nearly engage in an orgy with countless scantily-clad women, it better be important or at least entertaining. Otherwise, parents and feminists will be offended and fans of quality cinema will be insulted.

The dialogue is filled to the brim with the sort of 'We have to hurry!' and 'The villain is escaping!' exposition that often plagues entertainment aimed at younger audiences. Why writers feel the need to have the characters point out the obvious is beyond me (scripts for Batman: The Animated Series were half as long as the average animated cartoon purely due to the absence of such dialogue). While the film theoretically takes place as a battle between the Gods, most of the film takes place squarely on planet Earth, as much of the narrative involves a road trip across America in order to find little green balls that will allow our heroes... oh, never mind. Why on Earth (or Olympus) filmmakers thought that we'd rather be stuck in a pick-up truck with three uninteresting teenagers rather than watch Sean Bean, Rosario Dawson, Steve Coogan, Pierce Brosnan, and Uma Thurman in extended scenes as the Gods and Goddess of Ancient Greece is beyond me. Of the major stars, only Pierce Brosnan (as Percy's mentor Chiron, basically Dumbledore and Hagrid rolled into one) and Catherine Keener (cast in a thankless role as Percy's mother) have anything more than one or two brief moments and only Rosario Dawson and Steve Coogan do anything with the time they have (as Medusa, Uma Thurman basically does the same shtick she did as Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin). Heck, to paraphrase Gene Siskel, I'd rather watch a documentary of those above stars sitting around eating lunch together than witness the cliched and hopelessly generic 'adventure' narrative (the climactic reveal is telegraphed worse than 24's annual game of 'pick the CTU mole').

Sadly, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is perhaps the worst-yet attempt to cash in on the young adult fantasy craze jump-started by 'the boy who lived' (to be fair, I've avoided The Seeker: The Dark is Rising). It lacks the epic grandeur and spectacular effects work of The Golden Compass and the deep-rooted family traumas of The Spiderwhick Chronicles. It lacks even the cheap amusement of Eragon and its Star Wars-stealing audacity. Heck, at least Eragon actually made use of Jeremy Irons, Robert Caryle, Djimon Hounsou, and John Malkovich (even if Malkovich never once rose from his chair until the film's final moment). As for Chris Columbus, it seems he is one of those filmmakers who is really two different people. Like Wes Craven (no way the man who made Vampire in Brooklyn, Deadly Friend, and Cursed also made Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Scream 2, and Red Eye), there are apparently two Chris Columbuses. One Chris Columbus is the man who expertly cast the Harry Potter franchise and built the foundation for the most successful fantasy series of all time. He also (for better or worse) wrote Home Alone and gave us a relatively faithful adaptation of Rent which starred nearly the entire original cast. The other Chris Columbus directed I Love You Beth Cooper, Stepmom, and Bicentennial Man. You can tell which one showed up to work.

Grade: D

Look out... it's a Mirror!

Once again, someone has way too much time on their hands.  But this is an undeniably fun little montage.  Enjoy.

Scott Mendelson

Esquire profiles "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man"

This Chris Jones piece is a devastating article, but it's absolutely a must read.  I won't deny that there is something incredibly disheartening about watching one of your professional idols, someone who represents the inarguable pinnacle of a given profession, soldering on after his body has long since betrayed him.  It's not the first time we've bared witness to such a thing, as fans of Richard Pryor and Muhammad Ali can attest.  But it's a sobering reminder that no matter what you achieve and how much you accumulate, we're all going out pretty much the same way and arguably to the same place.   

Scott Mendelson

So much for leading with your best foot forward. Summit releases inexplicably funny still grab for Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Granted, Summit is not the first studio to release god-awful production stills from a major franchise (the first static shots of the first X-Men were fear-inducing), but this is still a pretty hilarious photo, especially for what is only the second major photo released from the third Twilight picture. For those who enjoy this sort of thing, feel free to add your own caption below. Enjoy.

Scott Mendelson

Wondering about The Wolfman? Well, remember The Alamo.

I admit my dislike of the finished Wolfman film colors my perceptions regarding its delays, but this is not the first time that studios have tried to go cheap only to end up getting financially burned. If you recall, Disney refused to greenlight an R-rated, $200-million, 3-hour version of The Alamo starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ron Howard (both fresh off A Beautiful Mind). Fair enough, such a movie would have been too costly to reasonably make its money back. Instead, they wanted to go cheaper and PG-13, so they hired John Lee Hancock (fresh off The Rookie) and cast solid but unbankable names (Billy Bob Thorton, Dennis Quaid, Jason Patrick). Alas, delays caused the budget to balloon from the original $95 million price-tag to $140 million. So, instead of just demanding that Howard and company simply reduce their budget, Disney was left with a compromised (if decent) 137-minute, PG-13 picture that cost $140 million and starred absolutely no one who could open a movie. And, sure enough, The Alamo grossed just $22 million in the US and John Lee Hancock didn't work for five years until The Blind Side ('living well is the best revenge'). All of this just to save $60 million and win a commercially useless PG-13. Nice work...

Scott Mendelson

Money well spent? How exactly Universal spent an extra 14 months and $60 million on The Wolfman and why it was likely a waste of both.

There is a nice article in Time Out London concerning the cause and effect of the years of delays, expensive reshoots, and countless re-edits that proceeded the actual release of The Wolfman over the weekend. As I mentioned yesterday, the film's budget ballooned from $90 million to $150 million as a result of the various behind the scenes turmoils, yet it ended up opening with the same $31 million that it likely would have opened with back in November 2008.  

If you read between the lines in the article, it becomes clear that the costly reshoots were merely to shoot sequences that were in the original script but were cut for budgetary reasons. And the reshot ending was an ending that was discussed right from the get-go. So, for two years of hassle and $60 million in extra expense, you end up with the film as it was more-or-less originally intended and an ending that was one of those discussed right at the start. To top that off, original director Mark Romanek was replaced at least partially due to his failed requests for more time and more money. Yet as soon as Joe Johnston came aboard, the script was rewritten, which required (natch) more time and more money.

I have no idea how Romanek was to work with on set, and I'm generally a pretty big Joe Jonhston fan.  But, does anyone else see the sheer insanity of this? In all likelihood, had Universal just given Romanek a little more time and a little more money, he would have delivered a film not completely unlike the one that opened last weekend. And the studio could have had it 1.5 years ago at probably two-thirds of the cost. And that picture, opening in a relatively quiet December 2008 season, would have likely opened to the same $30 million+ weekend (remember, opening weekends are generally about marketing and not quality) and likely grossed the same $80-100 million final domestic haul. But those numbers would have looked a lot better if Universal was dealing with a $100 million version of The Wolfman and not a $150 million version. Sometimes, it just pays to go with what you got and hope for the best.
Scott Mendelson

Are Batman Begins and Iron Man the same movie?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Of course, this hugely simplifies the narratives of both pictures, but it made me laugh anyway. Besides, most comic nerds know that Iron Man was at least partially created as a Marvel Comics variation on Batman, so the similarities shouldn't be too surprising. Still, it does remind me why Batman Begins was such a favorite of mine while Iron Man left me relatively unmoved. The biggest difference is the momentum of the second act of each respective picture. Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham with a specific plan and specific goals, while Tony Stark just builds a suit and twiddles his thumbs until circumstance demands action. Plus, the two characters are polar opposites. Bruce Wayne is a morally decent man who pretends who be an obnoxious, entitled jackass. Tony Stark is an actual obnoxious, entitled jackass who tries to convince himself that he's a good man without really changing. To be fair, there are hints that Iron Man 2 will deal with this specific character flaw head-on, which will go a long way in redeeming what I've always felt was a vastly overrated male escapist fantasy. Or you could just ignore all my rantings and just enjoy the video.

Scott Mendelson

Valentine's Day (the movie) sets record over Valentine's Day (the long weekend). Weekend box office review for 02/15/10.

It wasn't terribly difficult to predict that a star-studded romantic comedy would rule over the long Valentine's Day weekend, especially one conveniently titled Valentine's Day. But the Gary Marshall mega-mush fest still impressed over the four-day weekend (Monday was of course Presidents' Day). Pulling in $56.2 million over three days and $63.1 million over four, the film scored the biggest Presidents' Day weekend in history and the second-biggest three-day opening ever for a romantic comedy (Sex and the City opened with $57 million in late May 2008). Even with the benefit of a Monday holiday, the $56.2 million picture's 3.8x multiplier for the Fri-Sun portion is still quite impressive (it pulled in $23.3 million on Valentine's Day Sunday). Even more impressive for the genre is the $35 million that the picture racked up overseas, giving the film a $98 million worldwide debut weekend. The film faces no real demographic competition (the film played to 68% females) until March 19th, when the Jennifer Aniston/Gerad Butler romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter is released. So even if next weekend sees a moderate fall-off from the massive opening, business should be steady throughout the season as the film becomes the second choice for general moviegoers. $150 million is a certainty at this point and $200 million isn't out of the question.


Second place went to the surprisingly strong would-be franchise starter, Percy Jackson and the Olypmians: The Lightning Thief. Directed by the man who started the Harry Potter franchise (Chris Columbus), this $95 million adaption of a popular young-adult fantasy series grossed $31.2 million over three days and $38.6 million over four. While it's no Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Twilight, or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the opening exceeds the $19 million three-day debut of The Spiderwick Chronicles, the $23 million debut of Eragon, and the $27 million opening of The Golden Compass (in the name of mercy, we won't bring up The Seeker: The Dark is Rising). While I questioned the marketing campaign which seemed to be hiding the all-star cast (the flick stars Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, and Joe Pantoliano), one could argue that Fox's work was done when it attached the trailer to every print of Avatar back in December. Besides, now that I've seen the film (it's pretty mediocre with a ghastly second act), I can attest that only Pierce Brosnan and Catherine Keener are in the picture for any length of time (most have fewer minutes of screentime than Julia Roberts in Valentine's Day).  Barring a complete collapse (I can only presume that the books were better, so expect a revolt from fans), this one should slide past $100 million with equally bountiful overseas business. So, unless Sony steals away lead Logan Lerman for their 3D Spider-Man reboot, this is the start of a new series for Fox (Fox would probably just recast and press ahead regardless).

Third place went the much-delayed and much-troubled horror throwback, The Wolfman. Originally scheduled to open in November of 2008, the picture has been delayed and re-edited countless times. Despite generally mediocre reviews, the picture played strong all weekend and ended up with a $31.4 million three-day gross and a $35.5 million four-day weekend. Ironically, had the film kept its original budget of $90 million, then the debut would have been a slam-dunk to long-term profitability. Alas, said delays and re-shoots sent the film's cost to $150 million, which means that the film will have to score overseas as well (it has made $57 million worldwide thus far). All things considered, Universal would have been wise to just release whatever cut of the film was delivered for the first release date. Fourth place went to Avatar, which increased 3.3% over its previous three-day weekend. With $23.6 million in three days and $28.7 million in four, the unstoppable monster of a movie has now grossed $666.3 million. More impressive is its worldwide total, which is now at $2.35 billion. If the picture can withstand the loss of its 3D screens on March 5th (a BIG question mark), then a $800 million domestic gross and a $3 billion worldwide take is not unreasonable.

Fifth place went to Dear John, which suffered from both direct demo competition and the sheer front-loaded nature of its opening weekend. In all the huff about how 'the girls of Dear John beat the boys of Avatar over Super Bowl weekend', someone forgot to mention that Avatar nearly tied Dear John last Saturday and easily out-grossed the romantic drama over Super Bowl Sunday. The Nicolas Sparks adaptation fell 47% in weekend two, grossing $16 million over three days and $18.2 million over four. Still, weep not for the weepie, as the picture as already grossed $53.9 million, which puts it in second place for Sparks adaptations in just eleven days (The Notebook grossed $81 million in summer 2004). The rest of the major releases fell as surprisingly small levels, with The Tooth Fairy dropping 8%, Edge of Darkness dropping 29% (after a 60% second-weekend plunge), The Book of Eli dropping just 23%, and The Blind Side dropping a whopping 9% (perhaps football withdrawal?). Perhaps the end of the crippling snowstorms is to blame, or just the long weekend, but the holdovers did pretty well hanging over during the holiday frame. Oh, and a film I've never heard of, Fox Searchlight's My Name is Khan, opened in 13th place with $1.94 million on 120 screens.

That's all the news that's fit to print. Next weekend sees the release of Martin Scoresese's Shutter Island (a rare movie postponed because it was allegedly too good), which means we can all stop seeing (and quoting) the trailer every time we go out to the movies. The only other noteworthy opening is the four-screen release of Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. It's supposed to be quite good, but I imagine the director has bigger (self-inflicted) problems than critical reception.

Scott Mendelson