Don’t beat yourself up, James. You weren’t that bad at The Oscars…Oh who am I kidding, you sucked.
If this weekend was any indication, audiences were more then happy to get their hands on some damn dirty apes. It could have been the CGI and motion-capture wizardry, or maybe moviegoers were attracted by the marketing. First the ads for Rise of the Planet of the Apes looked silly in a oh-no-not-another-Planet-of-the-Apes kind of way, but as it got closer and closer to the movie’s release the marketing changed and offered a more somber tone. Whatever was the cause to get audiences to see apes it worked. Andy Serkis and the effects team were the ultimate stars, upstaging an Oscar nominee (and worse Oscar host) in James Franco, John Lithgow who knows a thing or two working with hairy creatures (Harry and the Hendersons) and Brian Cox who operates the San Bruno primate facility in the film (the irony is that Cox once played Hannibal Lecter, so he knows what it’s like to be locked up).
With an impressive $54 million opening versus a $93 million production cost, and a 81% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, what’s next for the franchise? Strong word-of-mouth will travel far, but there are no definitely plans for a sequel. I’d be game for a sequel as long as it meant that its focus stayed with the apes and left out the human element altogether.
Taking silver this weekend was The Smurfs, which held strong as the only predominate PG family entertainment at the cineplex right now. Since it had a $35 million opening last weekend, its 41% drop in attendance doesn’t look as severe since it still finished the weekend with $21 million. As for the movie that narrowly beat it to claim the top spot, Cowboys & Aliens took a nosedive in week two, and only has $67 million after two weekends. So where do the major players of C&A go from here. Well, Daniel Craig’s got Dream House and David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo this year and will have a new James Bond adventure in time for Thanksgiving 2012. Harrison Ford looks game to be an aging Wyatt Earp in Black Hats, where he’ll be a private investigator who gets involved with a young hood named Alphonse Capone. And Jon Favreau will be tied up with the Magic Kingdom and Disney. After Cowboys & Aliens‘ demise Shane Black filling in for Iron Man 3 is looking better and better.
Every once and a while I’ll get asked a question that involves movie stars now versus then. My usual reply is that there are but a few true movie stars left in Hollywood. The rest are just famous people who get cast in a lot of things. For instance, few actresses that get cast in romantic comedies are movie stars. I have a hard time believing Johnny Depp is a movie star. For the Pirates of the Caribbean series he may be, but no one went to see him in Secret Window and we’d just as well ignore The Tourist.
So, wait, you were Derek on Silver Spoons. Consider my mind blown!
So is Ryan Reynolds a movie star? Hollywood is sure trying to make us believe that he is, having him in a headlining role in Green Lantern and this week’s The Change-Up. Its release and Friends with Benefits a few weeks ago are showing that the R-rated comedy is losing steam this summer season. Apparently May and June are the prime months to get people to laugh at crude humor. That doesn’t bold well for 30 Minutes or Less next weekend. So what went wrong? By teaming up the director of Wedding Crashers and the writers of the first Hangover, two of the highest-grossing R-rated comedies of all time, it should have been easy to print money for this thing. A lack of female appeal, maybe. Had Reynolds been shown topless with his washboard stomach I’m sure females would be slobbering at seeing those abs on the big screen. But his biggest hit to date came at the expense of being in a PG-13 comedy with some actress named Sandra Bullock who already has a built-in fanbase. As for Jason Bateman, other than Horrible Bosses his track record for success is varied. People passed on The Switch even though it had Jennifer Aniston (who is like the female version of Hugh Grant and is just pigeonholed as an actress) as well as Mike Judge’s Extract – at least it got more promotion than Idiocracy.
Captain America: The First Avenger continues to hold its ground as it tries to keep pace with the May release Thor. Next May comes The Avengers and a year later we’ll get Thor 2 and Iron Man 3. Hopefully, Marvel Comics will give Cap another go with another tale set in the 1940s. But with the studio moving forward with Dr. Strange and Luke Cage movies, and Edgar Wright is putting the finishing touches on an Ant Man script, it looks like the Star-Spangled superhero may not get a new solo adventure until 2014 or 2015.
Harry Potter will soon overtake Transformers as the biggest domestic earner of the year. That’s good, but check out its overseas earnings. Good, god, man. $791 million! That may not be Avatar or Titanic territory, but within a week it will take over Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to be the third highest-grossing overseas total ever. At the start of the summer I predicted that both Harry Potter and Transformers will be tops for the summer if not the year. And it looks like it’ll stay that way unless teenage girls and undersexed housewives go nuts for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part One) this November.
One BGC (Bacon, Gosling, and Carell Sandwich) coming up.
I’m loving that Crazy, Stupid, Love had a strong second weekend. However, it better get as much money as it can now because it will be losing viewers to The Help and One Day in the coming weeks. We’ll see how well Emma Stone’s name has traveled this summer. If you start to hear whispers at The Help in relation to the girl from Crazy, Stupid, Love being in this then you know people will start gravitating to Emma Stone more and more.
While Friends with Benefits may have better comedy than No Strings Attached it seems that Natalie Portman’s Black Swan understudy (Mila Kunis) is no match for the real thing. As for the appeal with Ashton Kutcher – you’ve got me there. Will Gluck couldn’t recapture the magic of last year’s Easy A, but Screen Gems will no doubt be pleased on how it performs on video. Horrible Bosses (aka that other comedy with Jason Bateman in the top ten) has passed $100 million this week. It did enough to keep Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Michael Bay at bay.
New at the arthouse, Oscilloscope Laboratories Bellflower had the biggest opening per-screen average, which collected $24k on two screens. The Whistleblower collected $58k on seven screens, while the five hour Mysteries Of Lisbon grossed $11.5k at two locations. No word on how many liters of urine were collected in the bathroom afterward.
Next week, audiences will have a varied selection of new releases. By “audiences” I mean teenagers and by “varied selection” I mean Final Destination 5, Glee The 3D Concert Movie and 30 Minutes or Less. And then there’s The Help, which probably won’t be able to compete with FD5 or GT3DCM, but if reviews and word-of-mouth are good, it could be a sleeper pick to end the summer blockbuster season.
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes – $54 million
2. The Smurfs – $21 million ($76 million overall)
3. Cowboys & Aliens – $15.7 million ($67 million overall)
4. Like Ryan, Like Jason – $13.5 million
5. Human Torch: The First Avenger – $13 million ($246 million worldwide)
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – $12.2 million ($1.1 billion worldwide)
7. Crazy Stupid Love (Commas and period not included) – $12.1 million ($42 mil. domestic)
8. F— Buddies – $4.7 million ($48 million overall)
9. Horrible Bosses – $4.6 million ($105 million overall)
10. Transformers: You Have Only Yourself to Blame – $3 million ($1.03 billion worldwide)
