‘300: Rise of an Empire’ dominates weekend BO

300: Rise of an Empire debuted to strong numbers this weekend, even if it failed to match the boffo opening of 300. The sequel raked in $45.05 million from 3,470 locations (compared with the first film’s $70.9 million gross) and can largely thank 3D ticket sales for its high returns: 3D screenings accounted for 63 percent of earnings. Thirty-eight percent of the audience for Rise of an Empire was made up of women, an uptick from 300, which drew a crowd that was only 29 percent female. Viewers of both sexes awarded the movie a “B” CinemaScore grade, which isn’t great, and may portend a significant drop in sales over the coming weeks. However, it’s likely the film will continue to perform well abroad. Rise of an Empire may have fallen short of 300 here in the United States, but it out-performed its predecessor overseas. From 58 markets, Empire reaped $87.8 million. Russia led the international crowd with $9.2 million.

The weekend’s other wide release, Mr. Peabody & Sherman performed to 20^th Century Fox’s expectations, though it was still a disappointment for DreamWorks. The update on the classic cartoon grossed $32.5 million. That figure is an improvement over previous DreamWorks films Rise of the Guardians and Turbo, but it failed to match the highs of The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon, which both debuted to over $40 million. Those who did purchase tickets to the film, however, seemed to like what they saw: Audiences gave the movie an “A” CinemaScore rating. That’s a good sign so far as positive word-of-mouth goes, and could help propel the film to an eventual cume of $100 million.

The weekend’s third-place slot went to Non-Stop, which added another $15.4 million to a total that now stands at $52.1 million. The Lego Movie clocked in next with its $11 million gross, a downturn of 47 percent. That drop in sales is the hit movie’s steepest yet, and is probably thanks to competition from Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Lego’s total is currently $225 million.

In fifth place, Son of God earned $10 million, off 61 percent from last weekend. So far, the re-appropriation of The History channel’s “The Bible” mini-series has earned $41.5 million.

Finally, the weekend’s most exciting box-office news comes in the form of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This latest outing for Wes Anderson broke the record previously set by Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master for highest-grossing limited live action debut ever (maybe it’s something in the directors’ shared name?). The Grand Budapest Hotel earned $800,000 in total, which works out to a per-screen average of a little more than $200,000 (the movie opened in four theatres, two in LA and two in New York, this weekend). Budapest will expand to 1,000+ locations over the coming five weeks.

 

‘Rise of an Empire’ to dwarf ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’

Seven years ago, CGI sword-and-sandals epic 300 took the box office by surprise when it opened to a wonderful $70 million. The Zach Snyder film, which set the March record for best opening weekend, would go on to earn over $456 million worldwide. 300: Rise of an Empire isn’t exactly a sequel, per se – interestingly, it covers the same span of time as the first movie – but, with a mostly new cast and a different angle on the Greek-Spartan conflict, it’s certainly a follow-up. The question is, will it match the debut of its predecessor? Unlikely. The novelty of Snyder’s signature style has worn off (although Snyder worked on the screenplay, commercials director Noam Murro helmed Rise of an Empire), as has 300’s mix of togas and action; thanks to the popularity of the first film, we’ve seen several copycut productions and spoofs since 2007. Nonetheless, 300: Rise of an Empire is still tracking strong. According to Fandango, the movie is out-selling G.I. Joe: Retaliation in pre-sales, which bodes well for a solid opening: G.I. Joe opened to $40.5 million last March. Also, let’s not forget, Rise of an Empire is screening in 58 markets overseas. Even if it fails to match 300 domestically, it could out-perform its predecessor internationally.

Gunning for second place, DreamWorks production Mr. Peabody & Sherman also opens wide this weekend. March has historically been kind to the animation studio: The Croods opened to $43.6 million in 2013 while How to Train Your Dragon bowed to $43.7 million in 2010. Many pundits are unsure, however, how Mr. Peabody & Sherman will perform. DreamWorks' last two productions, Rise of the Guardians and Turbo, failed to meet expectations and even lost money.  Sherman has so far garnered mixed reviews, and it faces stiff competition from the still-going-strong The Lego Movie. Fandango has the film tracking stronger than Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, which opened to $34 million this past September. 20^th Century Fox, however, is only expecting $25 to $30 million in opening-weekend business.

For specialty devotees, the weekend’s big release comes in the form of Wes Anderson’s latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Great reviews and a strong cast – Ralph Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, and cameos by Anderson stalwarts Bill Murray and Owen Wilson – should propel the film to high returns. Think somewhere south of his roundly loved Moonrise Kingdom, which scored the third-best per-theatre average for a live action film when it opened in 2012, but possibly north of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou (2004), both of which opened in the low $20 millions.

Overall, the weekend’s box-office breakdown should look something like this:

1. 300: Rise of an Empire


2. Mr. Peabody & Sherman


3. Non-Stop


4. Son of God


5. The Lego Movie

‘Ride Along’ finishes first

Exceeding what were already high expectations, Ride Along not only earned the No. 1 spot at the box office this past weekend, but managed to set a new January record. The comedy grossed $41.6 million over the three-day holiday, or $48.1 million for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in total. The film’s weekend opening bests that of previous January record-holder Cloverfield, which bowed to $40.1 million in 2008. With a strong “A” CinemaScore rating, Ride Along will likely hold well over the coming weeks. An ultimate return of over $100 million isn’t out of the question.

Well-regarded Lone Survivor was the weekend’s No. 2 earner, easing just 42% to rake in $22.1 million. As of this morning, the war drama’s domestic cume stands at a great $77.2 million.

“Great” could also describe The Nut Job’s opening weekend performance. The animated comedy feature grossed a stronger-than-expected $19.4 million for the three days. While that figure is roughly on track with those predictions made on Friday (pundits did say the film would open to less than $20 million) the real surprise lay in The Nut Job’s ability to beat its direct family-friendly competition. Frozen is still doing banner business – especially when you consider the film has been screening for eight weeks now – but the musical failed to out-earn upstart Job. Still, with its $11.9 million haul, a drop-off of only 20% from the previous week, Frozen yet enjoyed a fiscally friendly weekend.

Frozen’s take places it at No. 5, with the weekend’s No. 4 slot going to the rather disappointing Jack Ryan reboot, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. The fourth attempt at adapting the Tom Clancy-penned series, Recruit earned $15.4 million. Along with its soft opening, the film’s troubles were compounded by its older-skewing audience. Eighty-five percent of Jack Ryan viewers were over the age of 25, meaning the filmmakers’ decision to cast young, 33-year-old Chris Pine in the lead role, an attempt to lure a young fan base – one that would hopefully grow with the series – failed to pay off. The franchise’s future remains murky, though one can assume executives aren’t chomping at the bit to finance a sequel.

However, those behind the Jack Ryan production can rest easy knowing they were not involved in Devil’s Due, the weekend’s bomb. The horror flick earned $8.4 million, making it the seventh film from distributor 20^th Century Fox to open below $15 million, an unenviable streak that extends back to Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.

American Hustle, on the other hand, continues its hot streak. The film saw an uptick of 19% from last weekend with its $9.9. million gross, which places it at the top of the pack, at least in terms of earning potential, of this year’s Oscar nominees. Other awards contenders August: Osage County and The Wolf of Wall Street earned $7.4 and $7.1 million, respectively, with the latter crossing the $90 million mark on Monday.

Gravity earned $1.87 from its first weekend in re-release. 12 Years a Slave benefitted as well from a second run: The harrowing Steve McQueen drama has now grossed over $40 million.

Could 'Prometheus' be this summer's biggest adult popcorn movie?

I'm not going to discount The Dark Knight Rises, but Prometheus looks like it could be this summer's best adult-oriented popcorn movie. Directed by Ridley Scott, the June 8th release is a kind of prequel to Alien, sharing some of the DNA from the series while not alluding directly to anything in Alien. As I understand it, the originality and strength of the script made those involved decide not to taint the project by giving it an Alien title, given the poor quality of some of the franchise's sequels.

In a superb bit of marketing, 20th Century Fox released a three-minute video of Guy Pearce hamming it up as overconfident businessman Peter Weyland. His character gives a TED (technology, entertainment, design) talk in 2023 (thirty years before the film itself is set). Weyland appears to rule over a Terminator-esque Skynet corporation that's creating artificial life forms. I'm a big proponent of studios using materials like this to develop awareness and knowledge without giving away more and more of the footage. After seeing The Hunger Games last night, which had no footage of the actual games in the promotional material, I can vouch for the success of this method. When you have fans who are going to obsessively pore over all the advance media released, it's nice to save them a few surprises for the actual feature.

 

The trailer for Prometheus itself is adrenaline-filled and looks like a nice mix of sci-fi, action, and horror. In the vein of Stargate or Jurassic Park, it pairs up old knowledge, via an archaeologist, with cutting-edge scientific advancements. Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) plays an archaeologist who discovers multiple civilizations share the same "map," which she and others use to explore another planet. There they discover alien life forms. Surprise surprise, they aren't so friendly and welcoming after all. Idris Elba of "The Wire," Michael Fassbender (Shame) and Oscar winner Charlize Theron add considerable talent to the cast.

The "ancient text leads to modern quest" backstory that underpins the whole project has been used dozens of times before. In fact, using an ancient, mystical object for futuristic, sci-fi purposes is an iteration itself of adventure serials that focused more on discovering and battling for special objects rather than putting them to use. If what I've seen so far is half as good as the actual movie, I'm betting that Prometheus will be the strongest film in the franchise since Alien and Aliens.

Cameron Crowe to make first film in five years, 'We Bought a Zoo'

By Sarah Sluis

Cameron Crowe is one of my favorite directors. I love his sensibility, his mix of humor and sadness combined with an eye towards reality. His (successful) movies are also immensely entertaining crowd-pleasers: Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous are included in many people's favorite film lists. But he hasn't

been on his game lately. Neither Elizabethtown nor Vanilla Sky electrified audiences or critics, so it's been over a decade since he directed a well-received movie. Let's hope this streak changes when he takes on an adaptation of the British memoir We Bought a Zoo, which is planned for a Christmas release in 2011.

The story follows a man who buys a dilapidated zoo in England. Besides the hazards and challenges of running a zoo, his wife is dying of a brain tumor, leaving behind him and their two children. The British novel was published (at least in the U.S.) by Weinstein books, so although Fox will produce the project, rights probably originated with the Weinstein Company. The release date has been planned for a year and a half from now, so production will probably start within the next six months. Crowe will now be on a search for an A-list star for the role of the zoo-buying man. On IMDB, Ben Stiller is "rumored" for the role. I could see him working in the part, though let's hope he can create a more likable character than the mope he played in Greenberg.

In its favor, the movie will draw animal-loving audiences with its menagerie of cute animals. Because of the success of Fox's Marley & Me (which also has some sad moments), the studio was reportedly excited for another animal-themed project. But figuring out how to balance the sad aspects of the movie against the comedy might be tricky. The book opens with the family finding out that the wife has a brain tumor while they are living in Southern France. It appears that the tumor recurs after the family has moved back to England and bought a zoo. Watching someone die slowly on screen, while making jokes? I loved Patch Adams but this tone will be extremely difficult to nail. From checking out reviews of the book on Amazon, it appears the book solves this problem by focusing mainly on the ins and outs of the zoo. Readers seemed to like the emotional weight of the scenes with his wife, but they didn't dominate the narrative.

I hope Crowe can come up with a great film with unforgettable dialogue and imagery--maybe for the scene when the jaguar escapes from the zoo? We need another image of John Cusack holding a boombox over his head or "Show Me the Money." Make it memorable, Cameron!