How to Drain Your Dragon

Dreamworks movies are usually good shit, though not to the extent of Pixar films, which (with the exception of Cars) invariably recieve positively glowing reviews. But How to Train Your Dragon is one the best reviewed films in recent memory, garnering a stunning 97% at Rotten Tomatoes. Ninety-seven. Wow, that is absurd. Combine that with a novel concept and 3-D and the stage seemed set for a pretty sizable debut. 50 million seemed like a sure bet; 60 million seemed reasonable.

And yet How to Train Your Dragon only opened to 43 million, which feels like an underperformance compared to expectations. I really would’ve thought it would do better than that. But I guess they can’t all be winners. Perhaps this is a sign of 3-D fatigue and that doesn’t bode well for Clash of the Titans coming out this week. But given the fantastic reviews and the solid 8.3 it has at IMDB, along with the fact that kids’ movies and 3-D films usually have good legs could mean a long life for these dragons. Even with that kind of weak opening, 200 million isn’t out of the question, though it could be a rocky road.

Alice in Wonderland

This is an absurdly good cosplay. It even glows! Maybe the girl beneath this suit is still single. Anyway, yeah, Alice gets knocked down to runner-up position and falls by about 49% to 17.3 million. It’s up to 293 million in total, but the way it’s dropping, I don’t think it’ll hit 350 million. But it’s still made over twice as much money as I would’ve liked to have seen it earn. But this is just the way that the box office goes, I guess. Pieces of shit break out and masterpieces get ignored. Nothing I can do.

Hot Tub Time Machine opens to pretty weak results in third place. 13.7 million is a far, far cry from The Hangover. I thought there were about all of two funny parts in the trailer, but maybe it has some raunchy humor it couldn’t show off. It’s got a decent 7.5 at IMDB, but it would need some mighty good legs to salvage itself.

Gerard Butler now has two films in the top five (he’s in How To Train Your Dragon), but one will certainly end up with a much, much larger gross. The Bounty Hunter dropped 40% to 12.4 million. Given how atrocious this looked, it’s really not doing half bad. 39 million so far is way more than I would’ve given it. It could definitely get up to 55 or 60 or so. More than Hot Tub Time Machine anyway.

Interesting. Apparently there was a bit of a fanboy rush for Diary of  a Wimpy Kid. It fell hard, 55% to be exact, to an even 10 million. So, it’s up to 36 million in total, but considering its budget was only 15 million, it’s still a definite success.

She’s Out of My League is doing a pretty decent job hanging around. Down 39% to 3.5 million, it’s up to 25.6 million. Not too shabby. Could probably make a decent profit with DVD sales.

Green Zone gets hammered again, falling 45% to 3.4 million. The total is a terrible 30.4 million against a budget over 100 million. After this and the relative softness of both The Informant! and Invictus, Matt Damon desperately needs a hit. My suggestion? A collaboration with Gerard Butler which involves nothing but ass-kicking for two hours. Instant blockbuster.

Six weekends in, Shutter Island is still holding decently. It dropped 33% this weekend down to 3.2 million. At 120 million in total so far, it’s still the second highest grossing movie of the year, though the gap between it and number one, Alice in Wonderland, is pretty sizable. I do think How to Train Your Dragon will surpass Scorsese’s latest down the road, though.

Repo Men: Down 50% to 3 million. 11.3 million total. Flop.

Our Family Wedding: 2.2 million this weekend for a 16.8 million total. Geez Forest Whitaker, way to monopolize the bottom of the top ten with shitty movies.

Friends, this is a momentous day. The three month long fellatio (that has to be some kind of world record) is about to come to an end. Yes, you guessed it, Avatar has at long last dropped from the top ten this weekend. After fourteen weeks of smashing through the record books, his latest epic has departed for The Undying Lands (I’ll give a candy bar to anyone who gets that reference. No cheating!) and I bid it farewell. With a mammoth total of 740 million, it might have enough steam left to hit 750. Simply unreal. Alice in Wonderland wont even approach half of that. Avatar is the king of 3-D and might well be for a long, long time.

Well, there it is. Kind of a disappointing weekend all around, but these things happen. I still think How to Train Your Dragon will do well in the weeks to come, even with 3-D Clash of the Titans coming next weekend. They do target two rather different audiences after all. So, what do we have coming up?

Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too: I hate Tyler Perry. A lot. I hope this movie fails miserably but it probably won’t. All his movies open to pretty much exactly the same amount because it’s the same exact people going to see them every time. And each movie is the exact same thing, but the audience doesn’t care. I’d say somewhere between 18 and 25 million, right in line with his usual fare.

The Last Song: This opens on Wednesday for reasons I don’t quite understand. Maybe it wants to capatilize on the Christian Holy Week thing they’ve got going on. But I don’t know who’s going to correlate Miley Cyrus with Jesus. But it is true that a lot of young couples will be out of school on these days, so maybe it’s a good move after all.

Clash of the Titans: If you’re not black and you’re not a girl, this is the movie to see. Mythology is under-represented these days (well, Percy Jackson wasn’t too long ago) and Liam Neeson of all people is Zeus. How the hell can you go wrong? This movie could easily suck, but I really, really hope it doesn’t. I’ll see it Friday or Saturday night, so expect a review shortly thereafter. Peace out.

Alice in Wonderland

After its absurd opening, I’m overjoyed that Alice in Wonderland isn’t enjoying particularly good legs. By no means would I call its drops bad, but given the proclivity of 3-D films to hold well, I might’ve expected better stamina. I honestly was expecting a drop somewhere in the 30 to 40% range, so to find that Alice declined 45% brings a smile to my face. 34.5 million this weekend and its total is up to 266 million. Should take a decent hit next weekend and then might stabilize a bit. There’s not a chance in hell Alice will reach 400 million, with it looking to finish somewhere in the 350-375 million at best. Clearly, Wonderland didn’t wow audiences anywhere near as much as Pandora, but even still, Alice is massive success, one that will baffle me for all the days I walk upon on this earth. No other movie releases this entire year has made in its entire run what Alice made in its opening weekend. And that deeply saddens me. Every single week, the box office reminds me why I’m a misanthropic bastard.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Found her account on DeviantArt. Damn it, she's engaged!

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Opening in second place is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, based on a book series I’ve never heard of before the movie. And considering that this a kid’s book and it’s not fantasy (which is usually the only kid’s books that can be successful: Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Bridge to Terabithia, Percy Jackson, etc.), this result is pretty solid. A 21.8 million opening from just barely over 3000 theatres is damn impressive. And plus the budget is only 15 million, so this is already well on its way to profitability. 52% at RT and a 6.2 at IMDB don’t look good for the upcoming weeks, though.

Hooray for Gerard Butler! But why the hell does he keep doing romantic comedies of all things? Well, I can’t condemn for not wanting to be typecast. Anyway, the absolutely awful-looking The Bounty Hunter opened to a decent 21 million. Given the atrociousness of the trailer and laughability of the very concept, I am floored The Bounty Hunter cracked twenty million. Even still, it’s a full six million behind the debut of Butler’s other romantic comedy, The Ugly Truth. But I always enjoy seeing Gerard Butler do well, even if he likes to star in really bad movies.

Holy shit, to think my friends and I weren’t terribly far removed from seeing Repo Men. In the event we had absolutely nothing else to do (which happens very frequently), I would concede to seeing this film, but I’m quite glad we didn’t. Though, who knows, maybe it’s actually amazing. But I doubt it. Anyway, Repo Men crashed and burned upon arrival, grossing a terrible 6.2 million. Wow, this will have trouble cracking 15 million in the long run.

After a decent opening, She’s Out of My League has a not half bad hold, slipping 39% to 6 million. It’s just shy of 20 million in total now, which is equivalent to its budget. Add in DVD sales and whatnot and this will be a nice little grosser for Paramount.

All right, this is another shining example of why I hate people. It wasn’t enough that Green Zone had a really bad debut, way below what I would’ve expected. Now, apparently, extremely bad word of mouth has spread about a solid movie. Green Zone plummeted 58% to just under 6 million. Stunning. A 25 million total so far. How the hell has this been such an incredible flop? I don’t get it.

By far the best film of the year so far and also the second highest grossing, Shutter Island comes in at 4.8 million, down 42%. This lifts its total to about 116 million, about how much Alice in Wonderland amassed in a single weekend. The only thing the box office numbers this year have shown me is that people are idiots. Watch Iron Man 2 open to like 45 million and then MacGruber explode with about 80 or something. I just don’t know anymore.

Avatar continues to hold on, though it’s finally truly running out of steam. Down 39% to an even 4 million, Avatar’s record breaking total now stands at 737 million. I think it’ll stick around the top ten for another week before finally saying farewell. It was a historic run, Mr. Cameron. I hope you’ve enjoyed me sucking your dick for the last fourteen weeks.

Our Family Wedding: Down 50%. 3.8 million weekend. 13.7 million total. Don’t care.

Remember Me plummetted 59% to 3.3 million. Just shy of 14 million all together. Care slightly more than Our Family Wedding, but not much.

So, there you have it. Alice spends what really should be its last weekend on top and can now hopefully begin its slide down the top ten and in five or six weeks, I’m hoping I won’t have to talk about it anymore because I’m sure my devoted readers will grow tired of it. I have already. I suppose I should make note of the fact that The Runaways opened in limited release this weekend. And the results are…. mediocre at best. In 244 theatres, it grossed $803,000 for a $3,291 per theatre average. That isn’t impressive at all. Maybe word of mouth can build before it goes wide in a few weeks. We’ll see. So, you ask, what’s on the agenda for next weekend?

Hot Tub Time Machine: A film that looks so dumb and has such a ridiculous premise that it might actually end up being funny. But it will probably be terrible. It definitely won’t get anywhere near The Hangover numbers, but I think it could open in the mid twenties, best case scenario, but I’m thinking more so in the upper teens.

How to Train Your Dragon: I do think the novelty of 3-D may be wearing off, so these films actually have to deliver now. Of the eight early reviews it has at RT, all of them are positive, so that bodes well. I think it should open pretty well, maybe to about 40 or so. But I’m probably way off because I haven’t even been close on anything these year so far. So, I guess that’s all. Until we meet again.

I’m done with titles that are puns or shit like that. They’re so corny and everything; I can’t take it much more. Plus, the editors at my school’s newspaper didn’t even use my title for The Men Who Stare at Goats review. So fuck it. Anyway, yeah, 2012 didn’t exactly disappoint, but it was by no means a breakout weekend.

2012

2012 opened nowhere near a 100 million, so I don’t owe anyone a candy bar. However, I’ll still be entirely willing to buy anyone on the Chez staff a candy bar at any given moment because my father put a bunch of money on my royal card that I’m not going to ever use. I told him that, but he just felt like handing me a bunch of money. So at the end of the semester, I’m just going to have a field day in the bookstore and buy a shitload of interesting books and probably a few manga while I’m at it. Anyway, moving on to what I should actually be talking about, 2012 opened to a pretty solid 65 million. Given the awful reviews and some disaster porn fatigue, this is still pretty impressive. The movie does carry a gigantic budget, probably like 200 million or so. However, it should at least approach that domestically and Roland Emmerich movies make the bulk of their money overseas, so this will be fine. It could easily surpass 500 million worldwide, so it’ll be fine in the end. This is probably going to have awful legs and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it crash more than 60%. However, Thanksgiving is in two weeks and that should help this a bit. This debut does fall below The Day After Tomorrow’s 72 million opening weekend, but 2012 does have a shot at beating TDAT’s total gross of 186 million. I ended up predicting about 70 million for this, so I was pretty accurate. Good for me.

A Christmas Carol

Well, A Christmas Carol did exactly what it needed to do this weekend and that’s have a small drop. Given the soft debut last weekend, it really needed legs to carry it to a respectable gross. And legs it does have. A slim drop of 25% brings it another 22.3 million this weekend, which raises the total up to 63.3 million. That drop is very, very good news, but the flick still has a long way to go considering the budget is 200 million. If it can drop roughly the same amount next weekend, it’ll make about 16 million, but then after that we have Thanksgiving and ACC could see it a healthy boost back up to 20 million or so. By then, it should be well over 100 million. I still really don’t think this will hit that 200 million, but in the long run, I definitely think it could challenge 2012 as both of them could end up in the 180 million range or so. That’s assuming ACC continues to hold like this. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Men Who Stare at Goats maintains third place, but drops a large for an adult comedy 51% down to 6.2 million. With a total gross now of 23 million against a 25 million budget, this will probably be fine in the long run. I guess American generally shared my sentiment toward this movie, given the drop.

In fourth we have a movie I know absolutely nothing nothing about. It’s some Oprah Winfrey sponsored movie or something and I have no clue what it’s about. It’s called Precious and made 6.1 million in just 174 theatres. Its average per theatre was $35,000, which actually destroys 2012′s $19,000 per theatre average. I know nothing about this movie. I have nothing to say.

This is It crumbles apart, falling 61% to 5.1 million. On the bright side, it passed out the Hannah Montana movie and became the highest grossing concert movie ever. 68 million so far ain’t half bad, especially considering how fucking creepy Michael Jackson is.

The Fourth Kind also falls to pieces, plummeting 61% to 4.7 million. It’s total is up 20.8 million, which isn’t bad, I guess.

Couples Retreat pulls in another 4.3 million and finally crosses the 100 million barrier. For a movie with only 12% at Rotten Tomatoes, getting over 100 million is quite an accomplishment.

Ever since Halloween passed us, Paranormal Activity hasn’t been doing so well. It dropped 50% down to 4.2 million. However, it did get over 100 million, now standing at 103.8 million. I’d give it about 112 million it the long run, which is like 7500 times its budget. That’s gotta be some kind of record.

Law Abiding Citizen spends what will likely be its last weekend in the top ten. 3.9 million this weend and LAC has raised the gross to 67.3 million. After the utter failure of Gamer, it’s good to see Gerard Butler in something that’s been doing pretty decently. I don’t know if he’ll be able to find 300 level success again, but I hope that he does.

As if its underwhelming debut last weekend wasn’t bad enough, The Box falls 58% and grosses only 3.2 million this weekend. With a total of 13.2 million, I think this can officially be called a complete failure.

Yep, so not bad. 2012 opens pretty big, but not overwhelmingly so. However, next weekend things get even more excited. Considering that 2012 is practically guaranteed a 60% drop and the fact that there is little audience overlap, New Moon is going to open absolutely fucking huge. As of now, I’m going to it could open somewhere between 90 and 100 million. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it crash well beyond 100, though. It’s a smart move on Summit’s part, putting New Moon just before Thanksgiving. It will have a mammoth second weekend drop no matter what, but Thanksgiving should really help to soften the blow. Dukemich will see the movie twice next weekend and he’s read the books, so he will more than likely do a review. I can’t make any promises, though. So, I guess that’s it. We haven’t seen anything amazing since Harry Potter (well, Paranormal Activity was amazing in a different sort of way) so I’m excited about what New Moon can do. Until we meet again.

Pretty much every year, there’s at least one Christmas movie that gets released the first weekend of November. And I just don’t get it. Literally, the very second that Halloween is over, we jump to Christmas. Well, I do get it, I guess. It’s all about money. Christmas movies generally have good legs and studios want them to have as long a ride as they possibly can, but no movie can maintain itself for two whole months. By the time Christmas actually rolls around, the movie has probably fallen out of the top ten or is at least close. I say release them on Thanksgiving weekend or the first weekend of December. You still get like four weeks to rake in the dough and then you get much bigger Christmas benefits because the picture is still relevant when the actual holiday rolls around. That’s just my opinion. I’m not a studio executive. I am but a lowly blogger. Anyway, let’s get this show on the road.

A Christmas Carol

I’m not alone in finding this motion capture animation shit really creepy. The Polar Express looked like one of the most profoundly disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Thus, I never had any intention of seeing it and I’m not particularly interested in this latest adaption of A Christmas Carol. Most predictions, mine included, pegged this in the low to mid 40s range and it fell a bit short. A Christmas Carol grossed 31 million, which is kind of weak. Consider that Elf, a movie without any 3-D or other gimmicks, opened to the same exact figure six years ago. If I do say so myself, though, Elf is both a hilarious and heartwarming movie. Plus, I love Zooey Deschanel and she made the movie even better. But where is my mind? Yeah, this is kind of disappointing. Assuming it’s well-received though, it could still do quite well. We have Thanksgiving in three weeks and A Christmas Carol could see a nice bump from that. I’d still say it’s pretty much a lock for 100 million no matter what happens because Christmas movies, even those that aren’t particularly well-liked (The Santa Clause 3) still have good legs. So even though this is under expectations, I think that it’ll do fine in the long run.

Michael Jackson’s This is It

Yep, still using that same picture. This is It does actually hold pretty decently, especially for a concert movie. It fell 40% to 14 million, lifting the grand total up to about 58 million. So it’s definitely going to beat the Hannah Montana movie by a longshot and become the highest grossing concert movie of all time. Good for him, I guess. I still don’t understand the appeal of this movie, but people are weird. As for a grand total, I could see this potentially hitting somewhere around 85 to 90 million or so, handily beating Miley Cyrus’s 65 million. Even still, it’s nowhere near some of the more outlandish predictions, but all things considered, this is a success. Plus, MJ is really big overseas, which makes no sense to me at all. Any you slice it, this will end being quite profitable.

I saw The Men Who Stare at Goats on Friday. It’s pretty much inevitable that I’ll end up going to the movies once during a weekend. I gotta say, it just plain wasn’t funny. It wasn’t even good. I’ll probably have a review up sometime this week. I just didn’t get anything from this movie. Any remotely funny parts were in the trailer and it just kind of, well, sucked. It did pretty well at the box office, though, pulling in 13.3 million. It’s rocking a 59% at RT, so I’m not seeing good legs here. Its budget was only 25 million, though, so it should still end up being profitable.

The Fourth Kind does pretty decently, finishing just behind TMWSAG. 12.5 million is pretty solid for a horror flick kind of similar to Paranormal Activity. This has a dreadful 16% at RT and will probably fall apart after this weekend. It’s nice to see Milla Jovovich in something outside the Resident Evil franchise, though. Oh yeah, I just now noticed that it finished in fourth. An interesting coincidence, no?

Paranormal Activity fell 48%, its largest drop so far by a good margin, but it’s not that surprising given the fact that Halloween is passed us now. The gross stands at 97.4 million, so it’ll obviously get past 100, which is an astonishing accomplishment. Hmmmm, 8.6 million this weekend, but it’s just hard to judge what kind of path this will follow in the weeks to come. I’d say it could finish with anywhere from 110 to 135 million. Something like that.

The Box fares by far the worst among the four openers, finishing in sixth with just 7.9 million. The Box has a 45% at RT which, while better than The Fourth Kind, still kind of sucks. The Box is based on a Twilight Zone episode from back in the day. The episode was written by Richard Matheson, the author of I Am Legend. I really do recommend the book; it’s fantastic and way better than the movie. I’m not saying the movie was bad by any means; I enjoyed it a lot, but the book was great. Anyway……

This doesn’t make sense to me. Somehow Couples Retreat fell 0.5% percent. Yeah, half a percent. It didn’t add any theatres and hasn’t had great legs thus far, so I’m baffled. Regardless, a 6.4 million dollar weekend lifts it just shy of 100 million at 96 million. It’ll inch over that milestone and for such a critically reviled movie, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Law Abiding Citizen also falls an absurdly low amount, decling 17% to 6.2 million. This movie really surpassed expectations with a solid opening weekend and then decent legs all the way through. It’s up to 60 million now and could finish with about 70 or 75 or so, which is pretty close to as much as I possibly could’ve expected from this. Good for Gerard Butler. He deserves it.

Where the Wild Things Are finally has a decent hold, slipping 28% to 4.2 million. It really is extraordinary that Law Abiding Citizen had significantly better legs than WTWTA. Anyway, its gross is now up to 60 million, which is way below expectations. It won’t even come near Bridge to Terabithia. Speaking of which, I have yet to see that movie. I loved the book as a kid; I’ll have to check it out.

Anywho, in tenth we have Astro Boy managing to stick around. 2.6 million brings its meager grand total to 15 million. Against a 65 million budget, that sucks. But like I said last weekend, Summit will be fine with New Moon coming in two short weeks.

So there you have it. Second weekend in a row we have a movie underperform. Eh, it happens. Next weekend brings us Pirate Radio, but that’s only opening in 900 theatres and not expected to make a big splash. The big story next weekend is 2012. Now, you want to talk outlandish predictions, look no further. Lots of people are prediction numbers positively through the roof for this. There are a lot of people that think it can hit a 100 million opening weekend. I think they’re absolutely out of their fucking minds. If 2012 opens to more than 100 million I will buy everyone on the Chez staff a candy bar. There is NO WAY it will open that big. It’s just absurd. Personally, I think it might have a hard time even surpassing The Day After Tomorrow. I’ll call a 75-80 million weekend with 90 being the upper limit. But 100? I just can’t see that. We’ll see what goes down next weekend. Until we meet again.

Halloween tends to reek havoc on the box office. Certain holidays can help films, but Halloween just kind of fucks over everything, sometimes with the exception of horror movies, which makes sense. It’s just not traditionally a big weekend for the box office and this weekend is no exception.

Michael Jackson’s This is It

Thriller really is significantly creepier now that he’s dead. If Michael Jackson rose from the dead as a fucking zombie, I would be freaked the fuck out. Though, who wouldn’t? Anyway, I was making my usual message board rounds this past week and couldn’t help but to continually scoff at the outright ridiculous predictions for this film. People were saying things like 80 million is a sure bet and shit like that. They must have been out of their minds. I started asking myself, “Is there even an audience for this movie?” Why wouldn’t anyone want to see this? Through dying, MJ was absolved of anything he was ever accused of and is now being treated like some sort of god in the media. It’s ludicrous. Thriller is cool and all, but that’s about it. Anyway, This is It came nowhere near its outlandish expectations this weekend, raking in a pretty weak 21 million. A far cry from some predictions. It launched on Wednesday, so it has a grand total of around 32.5 million, still not anything special. Let’s compare this to another concert film: Hannah Montana. Miss Miley Cyrus completely destroyed MJ during opening weekend. Her concert flick made about 31 million, something it took This is It an extra two days to achieve. Though, it’s entirely possible that Miley’s rabid fanbase propelled that opening weekend to unusually high numbers. Granted, it sank like a rock after that weekend and This is It could very well have much better legs than Hannah Montana. Only time will tell.

Paranormal Activity

It’s somewhat ironic that Paranormal Activity’s gross decreased for the first time in weeks on Halloween weekend. Though, it’s understandable. Even still, it’s remarkable what the film has accomplished. With another 16.5 million this weekend, PA gets its grand total up to an astonishing 84.8 million. I do expect this to take a bit of a hit next weekend seeing as we’re past Halloween and all, but even still, it’s a definite lock for 100 million, something absolutely no one saw coming. This barely got a theatrical release at all. And now look it at. It’s come a long way from playing in just twelve theatres across the country.

Law Abiding Citizen actually goes up a spot to third, pulling in 7.3 million more. First, this opened bigger than expected. Now, it’s holding much better than expected. Just weird. A gross thus far of 51 million is way beyond what I would’ve expected. It could probably ultimately work up to about 65 or 70 million or so. Pretty solid.

Another 6.1 million lifts Couples Retreat up to 86.7 million. For such a critically reviled flick, this has been doing pretty decently. I think it might just be able to inch its way to 100 million.

Saw VI plummets 61% to 5.6 million. The total is now at 22.8 million, well shy of merely the opening weekend of the last Saw flick. Can we officially declare this franchise dead now? People are obviously fucking tired of it.

Wow, people fucking hate Where the Wild Things Are. It fell 64% this weekend after a similarly large drop last weekend. 5 million more brings the total to 61.8 million, which just kind of sucks. I really thought this would at least get over 100 million. Damn.

The Stepfather: 3.4 million weekend. 24.7 million total. Why does this movie even exist?

Yep, anime will never, ever do well at the box office. Astro Boy plummeted 55% to about three million. With a gross of only about 11 million against a budget of 65 million, this is a huge loss for Summit. They’re probably not worried, though, because New Moon will make back all this money and then some.

Amelia, a surprisingly hated film, continues to suck. Hilary Swank is a really ugly woman. Just saying. Three million this weekend and the gross stands at 8.3 million. Pretty shitty.

Much like Astro Boy, Cirque du Freak gets hit hard. Falling 55% down to 2.8 million, its sum is a shitty 10.5 million. Guess vampires aren’t infallible. Then again, people these days want their vampires exceedingly good looking and sensitive and “human,” all the opposites of what vampires should really be. It annoys me, all this vampire bullshit. And, yet, I actually find myself excited to go see New Moon. I make no sense. Whatever.

Yeah, so This is It underwhelmed quite a lot, much like I predicted it would. Usually when I make a gamble with my predictions and go against the grain, I’m way off, but this one was spot on. I’m awesome, aren’t I? In stark contrast to this weekend which featured only one wide release, next weekend has four: A mildly interesting movie starring Cameron Diaz and Cyclops about getting a million dollars for killing someone random called The Box, a creepy looking alien movie starring Milla Jovovich entitled The Fourth Kind, another mildly interesting flick with a stacked cast, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and the requisite first-weekend-of-November-released-too-early-for-its-own-good Christmas movie, A Christmas Carol. That was one hell of a run on sentence. Sorry. I think A Christmas Carol should sufficiently shit all over the other three openers. I honestly think its potential is being underestimated. But that’s just me. I’m usually wrong, but if This is It has shown me anything, it’s that I can make a really good box office call every now and then.

As you can see by the title, this was a pretty crazy weekened. And I mean crazy in a good way. Nothing disappointed and all the new films this weekend did quite well.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are opens to a solid 32.5 million, easily leading the box office. This falls pretty much right in line with expectations. I loved the book and I’m happy that this did well. Depending on how well received it is, it has a pretty good shot at 100 million. I haven’t seen this yet, but I really, really want to. I loved the book and the trailer for this was downright magical. But this is just the story of the success stories this weekend.

Law-Abiding Citizen

Surprisingly opening in second place is Law-Abiding Citizen, starring Jamie Foxx and the sexiest man alive, Gerard Butler. Both of these actors have had some trouble finding success at the box office lately and this is a pleasant surprise here. Law-Abiding Citizen debuted to a solid 21.3 million, about eight million more than I had predicted. Anyway, I saw this last night and it was a solid flick. Not great, but definitely a shitload better than Gamer. Hard to tell at this point, but I’d give this a total of around 55 million or so.

Paranormal Activity

Now, ordinarily, I don’t do this, give three movies a poster, but I feel as though this one deserved it. Paranormal Activity expanded its theatre account and continues to amaze. This weekend improved on the last one’s take of 6.7 million, now pulling in an incredible 20.2 million dollars. This is just crazy. All the hype and the slow expansion of the film has made it an event picture that no one saw coming. With a total now of about 34 million and likely more expansions to come, I wouldn’t be surprised to see if this could exceed 100 million. That’s just incredible considering it took $11,000 to make. I saw this on Friday (yes, I went to the movies on both Friday and Saturday; my friends and I never have anything to do….) and it definitely is rather unsettling. Perhaps I’ll get around to a review. We’ll see.

Couples Retreat takes a sizable hit, falling 47% to about 18 million. I’m actually surprised this managed a drop under 50% considering the reviews for it. Anyway, the total’s up to 63 million now and I don’t see this hitting 100 million anymore. Oh well.

In fifth, we have The Stepfather, one of the most idiotic looking horror movies of all time and that’s saying a lot. Somehow, don’t ask me, this didn’t get destroyed by Paranormal Activity. I predicted like four or five million, yet this somehow manages 12.3 million. I’m really, really hoping for an abysmal drop next weekend. Saw VI (is that what one they’re on? I don’t even know anymore) should do this in.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs breaks through the 100 million barrier reaching 108 million with an 8.1 million weekend. Pretty damn solid for this movie, but in some way, I was expecting a little more considering the critical praise and all that. Oh well.

Zombieland kind of takes a hit, falling 47% to 7.8 million. The total’s at 60 million now and that’s good enough to make Zombieland the highest grossing zombie move of all time. I find that sad. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Zombieland was funny and all, but the fact that it’s the highest grossing zombie movie ever is kind of sad. I’d really rather the title go to a serious movie. If I had it my way, 28 Days Later would take the crown, but I’m not a god of the box office and I can’t change these things, so I’ll live with it.

The Toy Story double feature finishes in eighth with 3 million for a total of 28.6 million. This was just a great way to build anticipation for Toy Story 3. That movie is going to be fucking huge. I don’t think it’ll quite be Iron Man 2 huge, but it’ll be up there.

Surrogates: 1.9 million. Total: 36 million. Don’t give enough of a shit to say anything.

The Invention of Lying: 1.9 million. Total: 15.5 million. See above.

So, yeah, this was a huge weekend. My predictions for Paranormal Activity (Christ, that’s a mouthful of a title) and Where the Wild Things Are were pretty much spot on, but I was way off on Law-Abiding Citizen and The Stepfather. Regardless, this was a bountiful weekend. Next weekend brings us another crowded frame with Amelia, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, Saw VI, and Astro Boy. A very difficult to predict weekend, so it should be very interesting. Until we meet again.

 1. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself.

 I’m predicting this to open at number one because these Tyler Perry movies have a built audience that comes out to see every single one of his movies. When his first film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, opened to number one back in 2005, I was more shocked than I had ever been by a box office result. I had never heard of the film. Not once. I had absolutely no clue what it was. That has never happened before or since. It’s unheard of. But, yeah, I hate Tyler Perry and I don’t think he or his TV show or these movies are funny at all. Not to be racist or anything, but I really think it’s because I’m not black. I just don’t get the humor. And it annoys me when I see these movies do well. Anyway, I’m calling for this to open to about 23 million, which is right in line with his usual fare, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see this breakout and open to 30 million or even more.

2. 9

 A lot of people on the forums at Box Office Mojo are predicting pretty low numbers for 9. However, I occasionally have to be optimistic about things and I really hope that this film does well. I thought that the trailer was amazing and I really expect good things from it, but, yeah, it’s kind of a tough sell. Even though he’s not really all that involved with it, I think it’s a smart move to heavily advertise Tim Burton’s name. He has quite a nice little fanbase. 9 is opening on a Wednesday, which will absorb some of the business it could potentially do over the weekend proper, but I’m still hoping this could do well. So, I’m guessing about 17 million for 9, which is being kind of generous, but I really do want to see this do well. I’m not being very objective about this, but oh well.

3. Sorority Row. I’m going to say about seven million for this. September is traditionally one of the worst months in terms of box office and studios often dump the not good enough for the summer shit in this month. Sorority Row is a perfect example. Seven million sounds good to me.

4. Whiteout: about 6.5 to 7 million. See above.

5. Inglourious Basterds: I’m going to say about 6.5 million. Movies tend to suffer bigger drops after holiday weekends. But Basterds has been pretty well received, so I don’t think it should fall too hard. I could be wrong, though.

6. The facts that it’s coming off a holiday weekend and it’s a horror movie make me feel like The Final Destination is going to fall apart. So, I’m going with 4.6 million.

7. All About Steve hasn’t been well received at all, so I feel like it’s gonna get hit hard. Let’s go with about 4.5 million.

8. District 9 has been holding pretty decently and I don’t the holiday will affect it to much at this point, so I’ll go with 3.9 million this weekend. It’s already over 100 million and has exceeded expectations by a longshot, so I’m quite happy for it.

9. Julie and Julia: 3.7 million sounds good to me.

10. I think Gamer is going to get destroyed this weekend. I could honestly see it falling over 70% this weekend, which is massive and all, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The average prediction at BOM was about 4.6 million this weekend, but I thought that was way too conservative. There is no way this will fall under 50%. So, I’m going with a gargantuan decline all the way down to 2.7 million. I must say, though, that I’m somewhat surprised by its respectable 6.5 at IMDB. But, whatever, those are my predictions. Adios, everyone. We’ll see how I did with all this on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday or whenever the fuck I get around to it. Until we meet again.

When my friend and fellow blogger told me a few weeks ago that he was interested in the movie Gamer, I was skeptical. I didn’t give the movie a chance, fancying it a typical end of summer piece of shit that studios like to toss out at this time of year. However, I could not have been any more wrong. I can say with a great deal of certainty that Gamer is the best movie that I have ever seen. Honestly, I didn’t even go in expecting to like the movie, but now The Lord of the Rings has been bumped out of the number one spot on my all time favorites list. Gamer has the high score now.

Everything about this film was perfect. If I went through the whole thing with a fine tooth comb, I doubt I could find a single flaw. In fact, I went to go see it for a second time earlier today. I needed to see it again. If anything, it only got better. I didn’t really care that I went by myself. It was that good of a movie.

Let’s start with the acting. I so many times over completely forgot that this was even a movie. I was practically there in the movie. Gerard Butler was amazing. Can someone say Oscar Nomination? His performance was absolutely mesmerizing. He plays a convict on death row who’s fighting for his freedom and his portrayal of this dark, tortured soul brought tears to my eyes both times I watched it. Every other performance in the movie also left me awed. In particular, Michael C. Hall churned in an incredible performance as Ken Castle.

The score for the film is brilliant. It fit perfectly with every scene. Not a note seemed at all out of place. The musical choices selected also fit quite well. I quite enjoyed the cover of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics. It fit perfectly with the opening credits of the film.

Gamer touches on some astonishingly deep topics and delves into territory I never would’ve expected from this kind of film. I expected just another action movie with mindless car chases and no substance, but I could not have been more wrong. It touches on many aspects of the current gaming culture and shows just how bad things might become.

The movie features the existence of a game called “Society” which allows players to control real people. I felt that this was a great representation  of how powerful a part of our lives games will become in the future. People willing to surrender their freedoms so that they can have someone else pulling the strings. Very deep stuff right there. I don’t see how anyone could possibly criticize this movie for anything. It is now my favorite film of all time. I award it no chezes.

But seriously, that was all bullshit. Gamer is a terrible movie, one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I give it four and a half chezes. Gerard Butler is still sexy, though.

It’s Kristen not Bella.

Apparently Kristen Stewart appears naked in her upcoming movie, Welcome to the Rileys. Some Twilight fans are outraged that Stewart would take this role because she plays Bella Swan in the Twilight series. Hmmm… so she should never take another role in a movie for as long as she lives because she plays Bella Swan. Does the character Bella Swan seem like the kind of person that would be a stripper? No. That’s why we have actors and actresses. They can play more than one role in their lives.  

It’s Kiefer not Jack.

My favorite show on TV is 24. The main character is Jack Bauer played by Kiefer Sutherland. I’ve also seen him in other movies like Phonebooth, The Sentinel, and A Few Good Men. Should he have not taken those roles and only prepared to play his only true character Jack Bauer? No.

It’s Hugh not Greg.

I also watch House which as not as good as it used to be but I’ll still watch it. The main character is Greg House played by Hugh Laurie. I also saw him play an Internal Affairs Agent in Street Kings. The first time he appears in the movie he’s even in a hospital. However, as I watched the film I didn’t say it’s Greg House and then not be able to appreciate the movie because he doesn’t play House.

It’s Gerard not Leonidas.

Gerard Butler is not King Leonidas. He’s Gerard Butler. He can do other things.

It’s Daniel not Harry.

Daniel Radcliffe (I admit this would be a difficult one to get away from) is not just Harry Potter. When Harry Potter is over he’ll branch out and become more of an adult actor. Why? Because he can, he wants to, he wants money, he loves acting. Just pick one.  

It’s Mike not Austin  Powers.

During Inglourious Basterds, Mike Myers had a short cameo. I don’t even remember what was said during that scene because the people in the theatre just laughed through the entire scene. Why? The audience laughed because Mike Myers the comedic actor was in it. I think the scene was meant to be humorous but for that moment during the movie the audience took me out of the film. Every time Myers talked people just laughed. I’m not bashing the movie though. I thought it was awesome.

I know it could be difficult at times to not associate an actor with a character. I still have trouble with Mila Kunis. I pretty much think of her as Meg. That voice just kills me. However, don’t go as far as saying that you’re disappointed that he or she took a role because it’s not like the character he or she played in a previous movie. 

They’re all actors and actresses and like the tip calculator in Seinfeld they can do other things!!

I went into Gamer thinking that it would be a horrible but entertaining movie. I thought Gerald Butler would be the modernized King Leonidas. I thought the idea of having real people in a shooting game was great. I play Call of Duty: World at War all the time so I wanted to see the real life Call of Duty. Well, let’s start with the good.

Gerard Butler is awesome. He’s everything you would expect from Gerard Butler. He will shoot you, stab you, or rip you apart with his bare hands. Of course, he’s controlled by a 17-year-old kid but still Butler is badass. The kid, Simon(Logan Lerman), who controlled Kable (Butler) was a rich kid who had a lot of time on his hands. He’s really good at Slayers(the video game that Butler is inserted into). He’s really good and he knows it. Lerman is great as Simon. He plays the part pefectly. Finally, the special effects in the Slayers scenes were excellent. The camera work was fast-paced which was necessary to capture the atmosphere of the gaming world. Now to the bad.

Gamer received a rating of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s worse than Transformers. It was just weird. The movie portrays human beings as heartless and immoral except for a select few (The Humanz). Kable and other characters have something(I think it’s like nanytes or something…wait that’s I Robot…anyway it starts with an N) inserted into their brains that allow them to be controlled by the player. I’m sorry as an audience you have to tell us more than that. The movie obviously takes place in the future but we aren’t told how far into the future. In the beginning of the movie I think it said “Some time in the future.” They couldn’t even pick a year in which this kind of technology could exist. Besides the main characters the acting was horrible. There were at least five scenes that begged for you to ask the questions what is going on and why is this in the film? Also, the only character you can connect with is Kable. Because of no character development we don’t know Kable’s origins. Furthermore, where’s the federal government during all this? It’s just said that they approved the program.

Gamer dived into uncharted territory but it went too far out there. The movie’s about an hour and a half long so if you have the time to see it…DON”T.