Can Blu fly past the Captain?

Rio 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will both vie for the top slot at the box office this Friday-Sunday. The former is one of the weekend’s new major releases and the follow-up to the popular Rio, an animated kids’ film about a pair of endangered macaws (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway).  When it opened in spring of 2011, Rio grossed almost $40 million. Its successor is currently tracking in the high-$30-to-low-$40-millions range, prompting many pundits to speculate it should match, possibly even better, the original. If either proves to be the case, Rio 2 will give holdover Captain America: The Winter Soldier a run for its sky-high pile of dough. Given positive critical reviews and smiling word-of-mouth, The Winter Soldier is expected to hold well. However, comic book movies often plummet their second weekend in theatres – Iron Man 3 dipped 58 percent, for example – so the title of Weekend’s Top Earner is really up for grabs.

Beginning today and with a slightly smaller platform than Rio 2, which opens in 3,948 locations, the latest sports film to star Kevin Costner, Draft Day, will screen in 2,781 theatres. The movie gives a fictionalized behind-the-scenes look at the unpublicized maneuvering that takes place in the lead-up to the NFL draft. Costner is firmly ensconced in familiar territory here, playing the American underdog everyman fighting for good amidst the corrupt milieu of an American sports industry. Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and Tin Cup are among Costner’s best-loved movies, and Draft Day looks to repeat the old-fashioned though nonetheless satisfying story arc characteristic of those films. Will audiences go for Costner’s brand of comfort? Reviews for Draft Day aren’t great, and recent sports movies haven’t opened very strong: Moneyball, which is basically the baseball version of Day, had great buzz going for it and still only managed to rake in $19.5 million over its opening weekend. Distributor Lionsgate believes Draft Day will gross in the low teens.

The last new major release to open this weekend is also the first horror offering since January’s Devil’s Due. Oculus will screen in 2,648 theatres. The flick has producer Jason Blum (the Paranormal Activity movies) behind it, and has been pretty well reviewed, though box-office expectations are modest. Returns around $11 or $12 million would be considered solid.

Finally, the specialty realm has two new offerings of its own in Joe, starring Nicolas Cage and directed by cult favorite David Gordon Green, and Cuban Fury, a salsa comedy starring Nick Frost and Rashida Jones. The latter is playing in 79 theatres while the former will start off its B.O. run in 48 locations.

‘Lego’ leaves the competition far behind

Everything is indeed awesome for the makers of The Lego Movie, whose popular animated flick earned the top spot at the domestic box office for the third consecutive weekend. Easing just 37 percent, Lego grossed $31.5 million. Its overall cume now stands at $183.2 million. Unsurprisingly, Warner Bros. has already greenlit a sequel. The Lego Movie 2 is slated to hit theatres on Memorial Day 2017.

Don’t count on a follow-up to the McG-directed 3 Days to Kill, however. The actioner starring Kevin Costner took second place with an unremarkable $12.3 million. The film’s weekend gross is a little less than that which The Family, the last collaboration between writer-producer Luc Besson and Relativity Media, earned over its opening weekend this past September. Kill’s audience was an older crowd, 80 percent over the age of 25, who collectively awarded the film a B CinemaScore grade. Expectations for the movie’s total haul are pretty low: Pundits are predicting the film will earn around $30 million overall.

However, with a budget of only $28 million, at least 3 Days to Kill isn’t as large – or should we say as volcanic? – a bomb as Pompeii. It’s true, most pundits weren’t expecting much from the poorly reviewed disaster film, but Pompeii managed to underperform nonetheless.  The movie earned $10 million this weekend, a dismal debut considering its production costs topped $100 million. Pompeii’s opening weekend figure was less than half of fellow big-budget movie and box-office failure Poseidon’s debut haul, although it is slightly better than those openings enjoyed by The Legend of Hercules ($8.9 million) and I, Frankenstein ($8.6 million), both of which films were also heavily CGI-dependent. Maybe sensory overload fatigue has finally begun to set in?

Clocking in at No. 4, RoboCop earned $9.4 million, which represents a drop of 57 percent from last weekend. So far, the reboot has grossed $43.6 million.

It may not be the critics’ cup of tea, but George Clooney’s The Monuments Men continues to satisfy a sizable portion of the movie-going public. The WWII caper took in another $8.1 million this weekend, earning it the No. 5 spot and bumping its overall cume to $58 million.

The weekend after Valentine’s Day was a tough one for those releases that opened wide on the national chocolate-and-flowers holiday. About Last Night fared the best, though it still suffered a drop of 71 percent to gross $7.4 million – its total earnings currently stand at $38.2 million. Endless Love took a hit of 68 percent and has now grossed $20.1 million. Poor, misguided Winter’s Tale dipped 71 percent; its total clocks in at a little over $11 million.

Finally, the weekend’s specialty division saw a solid limited opening for Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises. The nominee for Best Animated Feature took in $306,000 from 21 locations. It should continue to chart a successful course once it expands to 450 theatres this coming weekend.

‘Lego’ to bury ‘Pompeii’

Two major releases, disaster epic Pompeii and the latest spy thriller from writer-producer Luc Besson, 3 Days to Kill, may be opening wide today, but neither action flick is any match for a group of special toys. Once again, The Lego Movie is expected to win the weekend. Many pundits have placed their bets on Pompeii taking second place with $12 or $15 million. If those expectations bear out, it would make for an underwhelming debut, considering the CGI-laden movie had a production value of around $100 million. Studio execs are hoping Pompeii, which was financed by the German company Constantin Films, will earn most of its money overseas.

3 Days to Kill is also tracking soft, but luckily, the film directed by McG and starring Kevin Costner as an aging operative struggling to balance family time with the demands of his job, only cost $28 million to make. The movie’s father angle is similar to Besson’s successful Taken films, though no one is expecting Kill to reach the same box-office highs of those unnervingly fun Liam Neeson vehicles. Instead, 3 Days to Kill should pull in around $12 million.

The specialty division welcomes two new releases of its own this weekend: In Secret, an adaptation of Emile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin starring Elizabeth Olsen and Oscar Isaac; and The Wind Rises, the latest and last animated film from Japan’s beloved Hayao Miyazaki. In Secret hasn’t been given much of a marketing push, and reviews have been mixed to poor (right now, the movie is tracking 49 percent rotten on Rotten Tomatoes). The Wind Rises, on the other hand, has the heft of the Miyazaki name behind it, not to mention the clout of an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film. Controversy surrounding the movie’s handling of Japanese involvement in WWII may also spur viewer interest. In Secret probably won’t earn more than $1 million from its 266 locations, but expect The Wind Rises, playing in 21 theatres, to make a solid showing.

Warner Bros. remaking sacred cow 'The Bodyguard'

By Sarah Sluis

When I heard Warner Bros. was remaking The Bodyguard, the first thing I thought was "Noooo! They can't do that." The second thing I did was pull up a YouTube video of Whitney Houston singing "I Will Always Love You."

After listening to the song (as it appeared in the movie), I can concede that the movie is a bit dated. The camera circling 360 degrees around Houston and Kevin Costner as they kiss? The saxophone playing in the background of the song? The fact that Whitney Houston's latest claim of fame is admitting her crack addiction on "Oprah"? But never mind. The Bodyguard is a sentimental, feel-good movie, a modern-day take on the "love from different social classes" variety of romance. And can we talk about the fact that this movie earned over $120 million? In 1992?

But how does one remake such an iconic film and its unforgettable song? The one thing that would pique interest in a remake is star power. Warner Bros. will have to cast a charismatic songstress (perhaps with a forte in a different genre of music?) that can attract viewers interested in seeing a movie about her, not a remake of The Bodyguard. Another key draw to The Bodyguard was its "backstage" view of a celebrity. In the age of celebrity Twitter accounts, TMZ, and reality shows centered on stars, a lot has changed, and including these details would make the script stand out. Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes) is producing, and two newbie scribes with an action comedy script under their belt are rewriting. It turns out the original Bodyguard was conceived for Diana Ross and Steve McQueen, so perhaps the Costner/Houston version isn't the only way to tell this story. Is it time for the original Bodyguard to step aside? Here's the lyrical answer: If I should stay/ I would only be in your way./ So I'll go, but I know /I'll think of you every step of the way....