BOX OFFICE: Poor New Releases To Help The Help Be No. 1

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With three new 3D releases vying for position in theaters, look for The Help to leap over Rise of the Planet of the Apes this weekend. It’s a pretty soft week for new releases. Honestly, there’s no buzz for Conan the Barbarian, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, or Fright Night. The fact that the ads for Fright Night don’t even try to acknowledge that David Tennant is in it should tell you something. As for One Day, based on the bestselling novel, it’s playing on less than 1800 screens and should just make it into the top ten above another good romance currently in theaters, Crazy, Stupid, Love.

The Help is definitely a late addition to be called a summer sleeper, and its low production of $25 million (low as compared to most of tentpoles that have been staked this summer) versus $50 million earned in its first two weeks is a good sign of success. In the long run Conan will find success in the international market while Robert Rodriguez’s affinity to low production budgets may make the fourth Spy Kids adventure a minor success when it hits video later this year. As for Fright Night, the decision to have it be more like Disturbia and less like the original Fright Night of the ’80s (which most of today’s audience won’t have prior knowledge of, for the most part) was a miscalculation. Honestly, the character “McLovin” plays in the movie seems more in line with that of Terry Chandler in 1987’s The Gate – again, another horror thriller that most of today’s audience will be oblivious to.

As much as it pains to say this, Fright Night (with the exception of David Tennant as Peter Vincent, who might as well have been referred to Aldous Snow’s cousin) almost had me wondering what Edward, Bella and Jacob were up to.

Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!